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.
Merge it with the Army—For the Army Air Corp.
Relax, real life isn’t a movie where every special ops GI has to win every fistfight with his drinking buddies.
Absolutely disagree.
Yeah that’s what I was thinking g when the north Korean spies were trying to kidnap me. Gee I wonder what my tee time is?
About 60% of the POWs from the Vietnam War were AIR FORCE fighter pilots. The majority of the rest Navy fighter pilots. Don’t want to hear this BS that the Air Force has no role in today’s military. When you have competent presidents, and competent Sec of Defenses the Air Force certainly has a role. The US Air Force is the air warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces. That sorry Rumsfeld is the one that came up with the braindead decision to not use the Air Force much in the current never-ending wars in the Middle East, and to make all services look like clones of each other. Without a doubt the dumbest thing the Dept of Defense ever done was make all service wear that same desert camouflage BDU as their uniform of the day. Every time I go to an Air Force base and see all the Air Force personnel walking around looking like they work for a Red Horse squadron I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Nothing remotely resembling what the Air Force looked like for 50 years after it’s birth in 1947. I asked one young airman did he ever wear blues anymore and he looked at me like I was crazy.
Any idiot that think the AF is just “air power” is...well, an idiot.
“But what would happen to all the golf courses?????”
ROFL! Nice.
“Who were the first guys into Afghanistan.”
The AF is usually the first boots on the ground in any combat region.
No.
Yep, the Air Force lost just under 2600 men.
Getting angry and preachy isn’t a defense for the Air Force.
When I look at TACP sources, I keep seeing them accompanying Army.
“TACPs live, train, and deploy with the US Army units.
The Air Force specialists are assigned to Army combat maneuver units around the world. On a battlefield, they form a tactical air control party team that plans, requests and directs air strikes against enemy targets in close proximity to friendly forces. A TACP is generally a two-airman team, working in an Army ground unit and directing close air support firepower toward enemy targets on the ground.
I won’t even read past the title line. If anyone thinks this - it’s not even worth listening to one single word they say.
So you don’t have anything to say.
If you get rid of the idea that the Air Force has airplanes that will deliver nuclear weapons to foreign cities as one of the arms of mutual assured destruction, then what really does the Air Force do?
We know that it really questionable how valuable it is as a long-range system for delivering nukes, and that is especially true in light of cruise missiles that can deliver a package with a square meter target.
Therefore, what does air superiority DO? Answer: it establishes the conditions throughout the entire battle space, so that victory can be won through all its dimensions.
In short, it is fire support in an age of much larger battle space. Anything flying close air support is part of the ongoing battle, and anything flying protection in the air above is simply a force protection measure in the air dimension of the battle space.
To you? No. I don’t talk to idiots. They tend to take you down to their level and beat you with experience.
“If you get rid of the idea that the Air Force has airplanes that will deliver nuclear weapons to foreign cities as one of the arms of mutual assured destruction, then what really does the Air Force do?”
Anyone that makes that type of ignorant comment as to what the AF does has no sense even thinking such a thing as removing it.
This is a long standing discussion.
Why not have a submarine service separate from the Navy since they travel in the dimension under the sea?
Why not have the Air Force be the service on aircraft carrier decks? Why have a Marine Air Force separate from the Air Force?
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