Posted on 03/17/2014 12:37:23 PM PDT by xzins
Robert Farley, a political science professor at the University of Kentucky, wants to ground the U.S. Air Force, for good.
In his book, Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the US Air Force, Farley argues the United States does not need an independent Air Force in order to effectively wield military air power. Farley, an assistant professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, came to his conclusion after studying the conflict between the Army and the Air Force over which military branch was primarily responsible for winning the first Gulf War.
“I slowly became more aware that these arguments between the Army and the Air Force have broken out along virtually identical lines after every conflict we’ve fought since World War II,” Farley said. “Each service, each capability, claims its own decisive role.”
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Farley argues that inter-service rivalries and different interpretations of combat effectiveness have had such a negative effect on both doctrine and weapons system acquisition over the decades that the Army and the Air Force are unprepared to cooperate with each other next time America goes to war.
“That got me thinking, why not just re-marry these organizations rather than maintain their distinction?” he said.
The U.S. Air Force, originally the Army Air Corps, was established as an independent military service in 1947. Over the next four decades, as conflicts over Army and Air Force roles and missions emerged, Congress stepped in and passed the Goldwater-Nichols DoD Reorganization Act of 1986, the most far-reaching legislation affecting the U.S. military since the National Security Act of 1947. By vesting operational command of U.S. forces with a joint commander, Goldwater-Nichols sought to mitigate much of the inter-service rivalry.
But, according to Farley, Goldwater-Nichols failed to solve the dual problems of procurement and training. By law, the services have their own budgets for acquiring weapons and recruiting and training personnel.
“The primary responsibility of an Air Force aviator still lies with the … parochial interests of the Air Force and for a soldier with [those] of the Army,” Farley said. “And that’s a position that I think inevitably creates friction during wartime, which we’ve seen even in conflicts that come after the 1986 Goldwater-Nichols reform.”
Piecemeal approaches to transferring missions and capabilities from the Air Force to the Army have been proposed before, particularly with close-air support aircraft like drones, and the A-10, which the Air Force wants to retire.
“It would seem to be a fabulous idea to take away these capabilities that the Air Force is unenthusiastic about,” Farley said. But the Air Force routinely opposes giving them up. “There’s a general Air Force lack of enthusiasm about drones unless there’s a prospect of the Army having them,” he said.
The best solution to such problems—and the proverbial “elephant in the room”—is to rejoin the Air Force with the Army, Farley said. Although not likely in the short term, Farley thinks it might eventually become a reality.
“I’m trying to reopen the question of whether the reform we did in 1947 was really the appropriate reform and whether we should return to it and rethink it,” he said.
Any military is only as strong as the leadership responsible for unleashing its power.
With Mr. Mom Jeans in charge, fighting and winning wars is no longer a priority. The implementation of social change in the ranks is the order of the day.
The painful lessons of WWII taught us that, while battles can be won on the ground, wars are won by controlling the sky.
The people who realized that we would be better off with our current military structure, came to their conclusions by a trial by fire, not an academic paper.
Putin has shown the world rather conclusively that we are not quite as secure as we thought we were. I would be hesitant to leave the lessons of the past behind. Our military struggles since WWII have more to do with political failings than military failings.
Maybe this academics next paper can be on, just what kind of Mom Jeans our pre_sent should wear...
But what would happen to all the golf courses?????
Bam bam is way ahead of Mr Farley
I think he’s referring to the SEALs.
“They managed in less than 4 years what we’ve not been able to accomplish yet in Afghanistan. “
Pure nonsense.
People have tried to do what we did in Afghanistan for a couple thousand years and haven’t managed it. We did it and then retreated.
The Army doesn’t understand air power and the Air Force doesn’t understand boots on the ground in large numbers.
The Air National Guard needs the USAF.
They already did in 1947...it's called the Department of Defense.
What is a golf course but vacated ground?
They can become reserved parking for Navy Captains
If we were to enclose every USAF golf course in electrified prison fencing and shuttled Zero from one to the next, would he even realize that he'd been incarcerated?
I'm pretty sure the Navy and the Marines could punch it full of holes in short order.
I was in Korea when they did a mock airbase attack with 32 F16s. Perhaps not the tool to take out a truck but certainly the tool to take out a base.
It was an awesome display to see while standing on top of the HQ building.
I don’t care what a political science professor at the University of Kentucky thinks.
You don’t think they’ll be lobbying to “take care” of the Navy and the Marines next, if they get a “win” with the Airforce?
It’s the classic manuever used in Desert Storm etc. “We support war but not THIS war. We support that other country’s rights - we should be fighting in that other country right now when we’re wasting time in this one. We support our soldiers and our soldiers don’t have appropriate body armor - we are just hurting them, bring them home. Only the underpriviledged end up in the military, the fair thing to do would be to bring them home.”
They always have reasons to disarm the country completely so we can become “one with the global community.” If only other community members didn’t want Allah to destroy us.
Hasn’t Obama been cutting cutting cutting? Why stop after the airforce?
The F16 Is just a great machine.
Only if it was on the coast.
Hence this is more a "problem" (if it really is one) of communication and camaraderie in objectives than it is a matter of structure.
Can we get rid of political science professors? I do not know of any war they have won!
The AF owns and operates GPS. I wonder if the learned professor likes his cell phone and ATM? Or does he only think the AF flies planes?
>>The USAF is arguably the only airforce in the world with a genuinely independent strategic warfare capability in the form of a large fleet of capable heavy bombers.
SAC ceased to exist in 1992. This is the main reason why Air Force, Inc. is not longer required as a military force. Give the ground attack stuff to the Army. Give the fighters, space stuff, and missiles to the Navy. Set up Air Mobility Command as a separate service/agency.
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