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.
Retiring the the A-10 and using an F-35 in close combat support is a dumb idea.
They tried it in 1947 with the National Security Act, and again in 1986 with Goldwater-Nichols, and it didn't work either time.
I remember once while driving two A-10s came from out of nowhere on a test run ... They lined up perfectly. If they wanted me, they had me.
Train as you fight
A guiding principle
Back in the late 50s or early 60s, an AF 4-star (wish I could remember his name) was asked if the U.S. would ever have a unified military, like Canada does. His reply was, “Yes, it will be called the U.S. Navy.”
For any organization, consider its core purpose.
Army is to occupy ground (with our people).
Air Force is to vacate ground (of any people).
Big difference.
They are so slow and ominous. Iconically identifiable.
To scrap them would be another cultural insult, not to mention a defense problem.
I think having separate services is a good idea but I also think that combining the civilian departments (Department of the Army and Department of the Air Force) into a single department might help (similar to the Dept. of the Navy covering both the Navy and the USMC). So we would be left with a Department of Defense and two subordinate departments - the Department of the Navy and the Department of the Army and Air Force. (I also think this might save money.)
The guy is plainly an idiot who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Whoever controls the high ground controls the engagement. The first thing we’ve done in every war since WWII is establish air superiority.
and have seen photos of A-10s shot all to heck but the A-10s all made it home. I love the A-10!
Except for golf courses. USAF golf courses are the best.
SO if an airliner is hi-jacked and loaded with say, a bomb and sent back into US airspace, we’re gonna....What? Retrofit an Airbus (like an episode of The A Team) and send it up? Dogfighting Dreamliners?
Good Lord, just abolish the military service with the highest intelligence standards, and have all the fighter pilots sitting around comparing their dates of rank?
NO!
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. Pretty much every other airforce in the world is basically limited to providing a striking/air-defence/logistical support package for the other two services, and could really be folded into the more senior services.
It’s true.
There’s a History Channel series and one installment is these guys.
they fly at a low altitude and slow. Getting shot up and limping back is a part of it.
They tried, during the Gulf war, to say that the A10s were there for politeness, old times sake.
The A 10 pilots would come to dinner all chatty and story swapping, the F 16 guys, not so much. Nothing against them at all, it’s just that the mission called for close air support. Lots of hovering, etc, and being able to fly after getting hit.
The photos tell the story.
Lots of trauma, though.
I've always found it fascinating that in many sci-fi/near future books there's the Navy and the Marines. Nothing else, so I thought that comment you posted is actually pretty forward thinking! I could see all operations, i.e., space, sea, air, and ground being run by one branch with the Marines to do the dirty work.
The problem is the Key West Accords, which stripped the Army of any meaningful fixed wing combat airpower.
IIRC the USAF should retain long range bombing, interdiction and air dominance and battlefield/airspace command/control. Along with most light strike (incl SEAD) recce and cargo/transport.
Dedicated CAS should go to the Army along with enough recce, tanking, light/medium cargo and CAP/Light Strike assets to support the Army’s mission.
Huh?
joint and Inter service coordination works just fine and would have won us more wars - except for our political leadership which has been wasteful, counterproductive (and less)
and on occasion (borderline or not so) treasonous
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