

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is going to the country's war colleges this week, to explain his radical remake of America's arsenal. It looks like I'll be traveling with Gates on Thursday and Friday.

At his stop today at the Air War College, Gates provided additional details on his decision to end production of the F-22 stealth jet.

He said he was absolutely committed to making sure that America's keeps up its dominance of the skies. But in asking himself "what are the things that the F-22, and only the F-22, can do," he found there were only limited answers.

*There is no doubt that the F-22 has unique capabilities that we need – the penetration and defeat of an advanced enemy air defense and fighter fleet. But, the F-22 is, in effect, a niche, silver-bullet solution required for a limited number of scenarios – to overcome advanced enemy fighters and air defense systems. *

That view is in stark contrast to how the Air Force characterizes the F-22 Raptor – as a plane that can do everything from reconnaissance to electronic attack to bombing runs.

**

The F-22s aren't only so-called "fifth generation" fighters the

U.S. is buying, of course. The Pentagon is also spending hundreds of billions on Joint Strike

Fighters, too. The combination of F-22s and JSFs means that the U.S. has a major head start on any potential dogfighting adversaries.

>Russia is probably 6 years away from Initial Operating Capability of a fifth-generation fighter and the Chinese are 10 to 12 years away. By then we will have more than 1,000 fifth-generation fighters in our inventory.

[Photo: DoD]

ALSO: