From Jacqueline Klimas, Washington Examiner: “McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, last week released a 33-page white paper titled "Restoring American Power" that called for a $640 billion base defense budget for fiscal 2018, $54 billion more than the level projected for the year by President Obama. "It's important to note just how unusual, weird even, this is procedurally. This is not a budget. This is a negotiation," said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "It's going to piss a lot of people off, including the Trump administration."”
From Mike Pietrucha, War on the Rocks: “There has been a recent flurry of press attention on OA-X, an Air Force effort to obtain off-the-shelf light attack aircraft. Sen. McCain's recent publication of Restoring American Power — which calls for the Air Force to acquire 300 light attack aircraft — will no doubt intensify interest in the idea, with many constituencies trying to define OA-X for their own benefit and profit. Appearing to emerge out of the blue, the idea has garnered some degree of instant opposition, not all of it informed.”
Stealth Bombers Flying from Aircraft Carriers?
From Robert Farley, The National Interest: “This article concentrates on five systems that died, but that might have had transformative effects if they had survived. These transformations would only rarely have changed the course of wars (countries win and lose wars for many reasons besides technology), but rather would have had ripple effects across the entire defense industrial base, altering how our military organizations approached warfighting and procurement. Not all the changes would have been for the best; sometimes programs are canceled for sound reasons.”
From Daniel Gouré, The National Interest: "Yesterday, the Senate Armed Services Committee, under the leadership of committee Chairman Senator John McCain (R-AZ), released its much anticipated defense white paper, Restoring American Power. The study makes a powerful case for a significant and sustained increase in defense spending, one which would require elimination of the Budget Control Act’s (BCA) limits on defense budgets. It provides a clear-eyed description of the growing number and quality of threats facing this country as well as an assessment of secular decline in the size and capabilities of the U.S. military."
From Joe Gould, Defense News: “In a 33-page white paper, “ Restoring American Power,” McCain says the US military cannot do what he says it must: Wage and win conventional warfare in three priority theaters — Asia, Europe, and the Middle East — with plans to counter the new threats of battlefield nuclear weapons, cyber attacks and irregular warfare.”