The SysAdmin needs loitering capacity, the Leviathan needs pure strike
Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 12:05AM 
WPR piece by David Axe.
The seminal opening bit:
The past year has been a pivotal period for one of the world's most important strategic industries. In 2009 and early 2010, the military aerospace industry marked key turning points: For the first time, the U.S. Air Force -- the world's most important aerospace customer -- bought more unmanned aircraft than manned aircraft. In the same time-span, the Air Force refused to extend production of its exclusive, world-beating F-22 fighter beyond the 187 units it has already ordered, instead opting to develop the smaller, potentially cheaper-per-unit and exportable F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.
No 9/11 and this does not happen--except maybe waaay down the road. Ditto on the Long War.
When I wrote in Esquire seven years ago that going into Iraq would force the US into assuming serious strategic ownership of that region (and the Gap in a larger sense), I had this kind of change in mind--a massive and irreversible reformatting of the structure of the force and hence how we use it.
Great piece, worth the subscription.
Reader Comments (1)
Presumably the cost per unit, the unmanned units, are cheaper relative to the manned aircraft units. So units purchased alone, wouldn't be sufficient enough to say a transformational shift in spending has happened. Did the sum of money spent shift along with that? Still, it seems like a likely conclusion to draw. I wonder too how much we are spending on training fighter pilots, and how many we are graduating, relative to the past.