Defense Tech has a pair of posts up about the reconstruction of air forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Afghanistan the reconstruction is proceeding as you might expect; Soviet trained Afghan pilots are being brought back into the service to fly older models of available helicopters, with an eye towards increasing the mobility and firepower of the Afghan army. Advanced aircraft remain missing, but that's to be expected; no one believes that the Afghan army will be tasked with territorial defense, or that it will need an air superiority capability, in the near or medium term. The situation of the Iraqi Air Force is pretty similar. Recall that, in the 1980s and 1990s, Iraq had a large and technically advanced Air Force, complete with all of the latest fighter aircraft from the Soviet Union. Today, Iraq has a few Cessnas, a few helicopters, and a couple of C-130s (large transport aircraft). The purchase of advanced aircraft has been put off to the distant future. In one sense this is perfectly appropriate; the US has a large surplus of advanced aircraft, and it would be absurd to waste Iraqi resources duplicating that capability. In another sense, as I wrote a couple of months ago, the current state of the Iraqi Air Force points towards a situation of semi-permanent military dependence on the United States. On the upside, Iraq will be incapable of threatening Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, or Israel in the foreseeable future. On the downside, it will also be incapable of defending itself from any of those countries without US support. I suspect that this was thought to be a feature, not a bug, of the 2003 invasion. This is also related, I think, to the question of state-building in Iraq. The current tribal-oriented strategy will preclude, rather than support, the development of a strong centralized Iraqi state. Military capability will remain largely in the hands of sub-state actors. Without a centralized state, Iraq will never have the capacity to defend its border or its interests without the support of the United States. What we've gone and done is killed a sovereign state. I suspect that was the point, but it's good to at least be clear about it. --Robert Farley