The U.S. Air Force's Master Plan to Outgun China

The National Interest Mon, Feb 8 12:00 AM PST 

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The U.S. military is considering developing a so-called “arsenal plane” to accompany stealth fighters into combat, hauling large numbers of munitions in order to significantly boost the stealthy planes’ firepower. The arsenal-plane concept, announced by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter in a February 2 speech previewing the Pentagon’s 2017 budget proposal, could help solve one of the U.S. military’s most intractable military problems—its lack of “magazine depth” compared to more numerous Chinese forces in various Pacific war scenarios. But Carter didn’t specify what kinds of weapons the arsenal plane might carry and whether they might include air-to-air munitions, which is where America’s arguably ...