While it may be unfair and even inaccurate to characterize the personnel of the United States Air Force as flyboys, being flyboys is what the George Bushes and John McCain have in common and the Air Force, it would seem, is where their agenda was/is being carried out, even as that agency's role in global affairs is, so to speak, flying under the radar.
For any number of reasons, the Air Force is stepping up a public relations campaign, including the filming of commercials inside a refueling plane out of Edwards Air Force base in California, as well as reports from the ground in Afghanistan.
Very likely, although this is a grounded activity, the decision to promote golf at a base in Iraq, near the northern city of Kirkuk, may well be designed to convince the troops that not being up in the air all the time can also be fun. After all, the revelation in the recent report to Congress that the Air Force focus on watching over and keeping our nuclear arsenal in top condition has waned suggests a top down re-alignment might be in order.
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military has lost focus on its nuclear-weapons mission and has suffered a sharp decline in nuclear expertise, factors that may have contributed to a mishap last year in which a B-52 bomber unknowingly carried six nuclear warheads across the country, according to two new independent reviews.
Both studies found that levels of nuclear training and alertness at the Air Force slipped after the end of the Cold War. But one of the reports was much more critical, saying accidents far worse than the errant B-52 flight could occur without immediate changes in nuclear procedures.
"The task force and several of the senior [Defense Department] people interviewed believe that the decline in focus has been more pronounced than realized and too extreme to be acceptable," said the report compiled by an outside panel chaired by retired Air Force Gen. Larry D. Welch.
Re-organization is, typically, the first bureaucratic response to any problem:
After the Cold War, the once-vaunted Strategic Air Command, which controlled all Air Force nuclear weapons, was dismantled. The military's nuclear missiles were assigned to a division responsible for operations in space, and its nuclear bombers were moved to Air Combat Command, which also includes nonnuclear fighters and reconnaissance aircraft.
Although the internal Air Force review has not been made public, a copy of its executive summary obtained by The Times asserts that the split organization has led to fragmentation of policies and accountability, without a single commander responsible for nuclear missions.
And firming up command responsibility is also a common solution. In this case it seems to be well called for if the following is any indication of how responsive the Air Force is to the decision-makers in the Pentagon. I find it quite astounding, for example, that the Air Force is lobbying for an extra $18 billion + from Congress, over an above the $144 billion budgeted by the White House.
Air Force gives Congress $18.75 bln arms wish list
Mon Feb 11, 2008 9:49pm EST
By Andrea Shalal-Esa
WASHINGTON, Feb 11 (Reuters) - The U.S. Air Force has sent lawmakers an $18.75 billion wish list of weapons systems it says it needs but could not include in the Pentagon's fiscal 2009 budget request, including some pricey aircraft programs.
The list, for instance, includes $3.9 billion to buy 15 Boeing Co (BA.N: Quote, Profile, Research) C-17 transport planes, which would help keep the Boeing production line open beyond 2009, according to the document, which was obtained by Reuters late on Monday.
This year's list, first reported by the trade publication InsideDefense.com, is even bigger than last year's request of $17 billion, and comes close to the $20 billion that Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne says the service needs to modernize its aging fleet and buy aircraft in efficient quantities.
The list also includes $600 million for four Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N: Quote, Profile, Research) F-22 fighter jets beyond the 20 already included in the fiscal 2009 budget, plus $497 million in long-lead procurement funding to buy 24 more and maintain full rate production of the fighter jet in 2010.
The Air Force says it needs 381 of the radar-evading F-22 Raptors, but the Pentagon has capped the number at 183.
I don't know what other people would call it, but I call it insubordination. Especially when the Commander of the Air Force Material Command suggests that regardless of the Pentagon's position, the Air Force intends to get what it wants.
On another separate issue, Carlson repeated the Air Force's position that it needed 381 F-22s, although the Pentagon has agreed to only 183 because of the high cost of the high-tech fighters. Carlson said the Air Force was confident it could pay for the additional F-22s within its own budget and was drafting a plan to show how it would do that.
While this attitude seems fully consistent with the position the Air Force Chief of Staff, General Michael Moseley laid out in a white paper last December:
A new Air Force strategy document says the service must control not only the skies, but space and cyberspace too, or risk U.S. security and the failure of future military operations.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley laid out his service's strategy for the next two decades and the "urgent actions required to cope with today's and tomorrow's challenges" in a Dec. 29, 2007, white paper released earlier this month. "No future war will be won without air, space and cyberspace superiority," he said.
The Air Force must achieve and maintain "cross-domain dominance," Moseley said, to be able to carry out strikes at will and prevent any attacks on U.S. interests from the skies, space or the electromagnetic spectrum. Only Air Force dominance across those realms, will enable the other services -- the Army and Navy - to conduct operations ranging from humanitarian relief to full-blown war.
It would seem that his goal
The Air Force must be able to see and destroy any potential target anywhere in the world.
contains the seeds of future conflicts that we don't want. Destroying potential targets is a rather tall order, though we are, at present, destroying suspect buildings and people in Iraq, right and left, as just a partial summary from February 13, 2008 attests:
In Iraq, Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcons dropped GBU-38s onto a weapons cache in the vicinity of Baqubah. The mission was reported as successful by a JTAC.
A show of force was performed by an F-16 in Mosul in order to deter enemy activities on coalition forces responding to a situation in the area. A JTAC confirmed the mission as successful.
In Baghdad, a Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet dropped a GBU-38 onto a house-borne improvised explosive device. The mission was declared a success by a JTAC.
An RAF GR-4 Tornado conducted a show of force over a coalition forces convoy in the vicinity of Basrah to deter enemy activities against the convoy. A JTAC reported the mission a success.
In total, coalition aircraft flew 66 close-air-support missions for Operation Iraqi Freedom. These missions integrated and synchronized coalition ground forces, protected key infrastructure, provided overwatch for reconstruction activities and helped to deter and disrupt terrorist activities.
Twenty-five Air Force and Navy intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft flew missions as part of operations in Iraq. Additionally, six Air Force, Navy and RAF aircraft performed tactical reconnaissance.
Air Force C-130 Hercules aircraft and C-17 Globemaster IIIs provided intra-theater heavy airlift, helping to sustain operations throughout Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa.
Particularly impressive is what seems to be a newly discovered entity--a house-borne improvised explosive device! But one wonders how it is determined that an explosion was improvised (never mind borne by a house) rather than the result of a successful detonation of a GBU-38. One is reminded of all those civilian families that were "lit up" in their cars because somebody "thought" they might be transporting explosives rather than children.
Anyway, one still gets the sense that the Air Force not only isn't content with its current assignments (looking after nuclear warheads and the missiles to dispatch them, e.g.) but is busy casting about for new territory to conquer and dominate. At least that's what the nascent Cyber command leads one to think.
And perhaps part of the recent charm offensive is designed to elevate the status of the flyboys so they can go ahead with their ventures into cyber space--
Moseley also listed a number of technologies where potential enemies could make breakthroughs: cybernetics, nanotechnology, biotechnology, electromagnetic spectrum physics, robotics and advanced propulsion. Threats to Air Force dominance include: Generation 4-plus aircraft; sophisticated air defense systems; ballistic missiles armed with conventional warheads or weapons of mass destruction; commercially available satellite imagery, and cyberspace attacks.
The Air Force strategy paper highlighted the threat to surveillance, communications and navigation satellite constellations posed by China's destruction of an orbiting satellite by a missile early last year. Moseley said the Air Force must develop "high-altitude, high-speed, air-breathing" surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft, as backups to newly vulnerable satellites.
It's perhaps telling that setting up the cyber command seems to have been put on hold for a while:
By Jason Miller
Published on February 14, 2008
The Air Force is delaying the decision of where to locate its Cyber Command by as much as three months.
Officials had hoped to choose the location by Oct. 1, when the command is scheduled to begin working. But Maj. Gen. William Lord, the command’s provisional commander, said in a press release issued Feb. 13 that the Air Force will now make its decision by Dec. 31.
"We are currently reviewing how well the locations that have been identified to us match up to the needs of the Air Force," Lord said. "You can be assured that each location is receiving careful and thorough review, but in the end, the needs of the Air Force will carry the day."
Since Langley, Virginia is one of the locations being considered, perhaps it's still considered feasible to co-ordinate military and N.S.A. efforts.
In related Air Force news, Gen. T. Michael Moseley, Air Force chief of staff, issued a white paper late last year detailing the service’s role for the next 20 years.
The white paper states that the Air Force’s responsibilities include cyberspace.
"Since the air, space and cyber domains are increasingly interdependent, loss of dominance in any one could lead to loss of control in all," Moseley wrote. "No modern war has been won without air superiority. No future war will be won without air, space and cyberspace superiority."
Moseley contends that adversaries are adapting their techniques to attack the United States, including using low-cost cyberwarfare, with relative impunity.
Moseley said that for the Air Force to gain and maintain superiority in all areas, the service must "refocus our organization and culture on the warfighting mission; implement advanced operational concepts to fly, fight and win in all domains; leverage game-changing technologies; and recapitalize our aging equipment."
Part of that strategy, he said, involves accelerating "the deployment of evolutionary and disruptive technologies."
I don't know, but all of this strikes me as really stretching the meaning of defense. Of course, since our troops have all been re-dubbed "warfighters," it makes sense that they might be spoiling for a fight and hedging their bets that the old flyboys will be replaced by a new one at the helm.
One thing seems clear, John McCain isn't just being nostalgic for his days in the stratosphere when it was "bombs away, hurray!" One has to wonder if the thin air somehow affects the brain. Or perhaps, living on the edge of space just makes one less careful of life on earth.
I noticed in the airpower report a mention of
In total, 42 close-air-support missions were flown as part of the ISAF and Afghan security forces, reconstruction activities and route patrols.
reconstruction activities, but I'd be willing to bet that not one bit of rubble has been picked up by the crews that dropped those bombs on Iraq. Just like on the Pacific Atoll, Kwajalein, which the flyboys are now using for target practice, none of the messes are going to be cleaned up.
Since the early 1960s, Kwajalein has been the U.S. Defense Department’s primary missile-testing facility, where most of the ballistic missiles in the U.S. arsenal, including missile defense technology, have been field-tested. But practice bombardment by Air Force bombers is a new development, according to U.S. and Marshall Islands government officials in Majuro.
"I’ve requested a formal explanation from the (Army range) command," Foreign Minister Tony deBrum said Wednesday of the new development with U.S. Air Force planes using Kwajalein for target practice. DeBrum said he asked the Army if the aerial target practice has been the subject of appropriate environmental impact assessments, and who has been notified about the tests.
On January 23, B-2 Spirit stealth bombers from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri flew 23 hours, with in flight refueling, to conduct an aerial bombardment of targets around the Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein--the first time the Air Force used Kwajalein for target practice by aircraft.
Stealth bombers are being used for target practice!
"We are showing the proficiency of the B-2 pilots and the aircraft by providing feedback of the accuracy of the weapons dropped," said Bert Jones, the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command public affairs representative, speaking about last month’s initial Air Force target practice use of Kwajalein.
"From the (Reagan Test Site) range perspective, this mission is showing that (the) Reagan Test Site is flexible enough to validate nation’s strategic weapon systems other than intercontinental ballistic missiles."
No doubt, the denizens of the Kwajalein Atoll are tickled pink to discover that they good to bomb by something other than missiles.
The January mission involved coordination among Air Force units in the U.S. and Guam, and the Army at Kwajalein.
"Joint missions like this one are incredibly important because that’s how we fight our wars," said Capt. Dan Hoadley, a flight commander for the 393rd Expeditionary Bomb Squadron (EBS) and a B-2 instructor pilot.
"It is important for us to practice the coordination it takes to execute a mission like this one in training so that things go smooth in combat," he said. The January mission involving the B-2 planes from the Missouri Air Force base fired six practice 2,000 "bombs" at targets around Kwajalein Atoll, the Air Force said.
Somewhere in all these reports it was observed that we can't win wars without air power. Which made me think. When was the last time we, or anyone else for that matter, won a war in the last sixty years? Perhaps you'd like to argue about them, or add to the list. You can tell I'm not up on the history of warfare.
Korea
VietNam
Cold War
Israel/Palestine
Panama
Bosnia
Lebanon
Afghanistan
Iraq
Perhaps the Israeli adventures shouldn't count because it only involved U.S. hardware and out flyboys were there mainly for back-up.