Douglas A. Birkey


Recent stories by Douglas A. Birkey

It’s Time to Re-Adopt Peace Through Strength 

At the dawn of the Cold War, a simple phrase defined America’s national security strategy: “Peace through strength.” Today, 75 years later, the world faces similarly severe challenges, but this time the United States is struggling to adopt and actualize a similarly decisive policy. 

Air Force, Space Force Budgets Fall Far Short of Need 

China, Russia, Iran and others pose a dire threat to our nation. Yet the fiscal 2025 budget submitted to Congress is woefully inadequate to confront those challenges—especially for the Department of the Air Force, writes Douglas A. Birkey

Now Is Not the Time to Go Weak on the F-35

“The year 2024 will stand as a transformative year for modernizing the U.S. Air Force’s fighter force. Bottom line: the service needs to reset fast. That is why it was welcome news when Lockheed Martin recently announced the Tech Refresh 3/Block 4 variant of its ...

The Space Based Environmental Monitoring Modernization Imperative: Weather Counts

Military missions in the air, on land, and at sea demand robust, timely weather information. On-orbit space-based environmental monitoring (SBEM) systems are a critical source of this data, but years of underfunding, delayed, curtailed, and canceled modernization programs have left the SBEM enterprise in a ...

Accelerating Fifth-Gen Airpower 

Beginning with the fiscal 2024 budget, every dollar for F-35 will fund TR-3-equipped Block 4 jets. The need for those jets could hardly be greater.

Teaming Up to Fight in Space

Space is without a doubt a contested domain, and the US military and the intelligence community are teaming up to face the challenge.

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