Air power: Where's the Love?

* I enjoyed your August 2009 editorial. It certainly conveys the whining tone of many air power advocates. I suspect that tone will continue at even higher amplitude and pitch as the QDR progresses.

The secretary of defense is trying to rebalance the department to better deal with the continuous force employment of stability and support operations. This rebalancing must come at the expense of expeditionary operations. Expeditionary warfare capabilities are used once a decade but must be responsive and of high quality. The basic issue is balance. A careful review of the potential expeditionary warfare employment opportunities will reveal only about 30 to 35 percent of the force structure needs to be dedicated to this employment mode over the next two decades. Prior to 9/11, 95 percent of the U.S. conventional capability was so dedicated, and the Pentagon's acquisition planning reflected this bias until fiscal 2010.

In a real sense, the tac-air advocates are the victims of their own success in broadly propagating precision strike capability. These initiatives deserve the praise of a grateful nation. At this point, the Air Force will see some real programmatic blows because the extension of some programs is simply unjustified.

The F-35A program will probably be reduced from 1,600 to about 1,200 aircraft. The C-17 program will probably be ended. Given the C-5A/B legacy, this decision would seem to be less justified.

The fact that the Air Force has reluctantly but effectively embraced UAVs for reconnaissance, surveillance and attack missions means that the complexion of the tac-air culture will change substantially over the next two decades. The heart of the change is that 250 flight hours per PAA aircraft per year will no longer be necessary to maintain pilot proficiency. The force will eventually fly much less, training will become even more synthetic, and cockpits will be on the ground halfway around the world. Large-scale complex training exercises such as Red Flag will still be necessary and perhaps may grow in frequency and complexity.

The joint force aviation component will continue to provide air superiority in contested air space, persistent surveillance and precision attack throughout the battle space, and air transport within and between theaters. The love is there but the infatuation with precision strike as the major leg upon which the stool of transformation stood has passed. Dominant battle space knowledge met counterinsurgency. In this world, excess precision strike and air superiority capability has become an unaffordable luxury. But we must retain and maintain enough.

Jim O'Brasky, sent via e-mail

* Thank you for your article, "Air Power: Where's the Love?" I believe many more people need to read it and be informed of the air power issues in the Middle East. It worries me that air support is being blamed for mistakes, and it worries me more that the secretary of defense thinks it is a "vulnerability."

It seems that the government is concerned more about its own image than our soldiers' lives. Isherwood is right in saying that the adverse effects of not having air power would be evident in as little as six months, but it shouldn't have to come to that. My father is serving in Afghanistan for the next six months. I can't help but wonder what less air power will mean to him and his men. Will he be one of the lives lost to prove to our government air power is needed? Why must it come to that?

It is all well and good for many people to use the consequences of less air support in Iraq and Afghanistan to prove we do need it. However, I believe the soldiers on the ground and their families left helplessly at home would beg to differ. Who is going to stand up for them and make sure they receive the protection they need, if their own government won't?

Lauren Nichols, sent via e-mail

* In reference to Defense Watch, "Air Power: Where's the Love?" it sure looks like another war front is being micro managed in Washington again. Those powers-to-be in Washington have little to fear since they can go home at the end of a six-hour day to hot dinner and a warm bed. Those who are doing the dying are dying for nothing but to prop up a shaky government that seldom leaves the capital city.

Civilians die in war. Women and children will be used as shields because Americans will in most cases not fire into a building even if they are taking fire. Americans will be killed in far higher numbers from now on since Americans will not be able to call in air strikes.

Richard Cornell

Des Plaines, IL

* I retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel in 1988. I am a World War I history buff and follow the Air Force performance in the war on terrorism as well as the F-22 debate.

The Air Force doesn't deserve any love because its entrenched tighter pilot Mafia just doesn't get it. The reason that UAVs are preferred is their prolonged loiter at low altitudes provides real-time intel, as well as real time strike. Putting Hellfire missiles on a UAV was brilliant. The Air Force won't loiter at low altitudes. God forbid, they might get shot at, so UAVs do it for them.

The Air Force is viewed by the Army and Marines as archers were by knights in the 15th Century, which is to say fighting out of harm's way isn't manly and doesn't give you a seat at the table for real war-fighters.

The Air Force continues to marginalize itself by advocating and employing weapons ill-suited for the ongoing war, i.e. fighter jets.

I calculated that diverting the money from 20 F-22s can pay for a large fleet of small war-on-terrorism focused airplanes that can make a difference and dramatically reduce the "adverse effects" of air power, lower the Air Force footprint, reduce the log tail, and bring other unforeseen benefits. And with enlisted piloting, no need for air conditioning, officer's clubs and golf courses.

My traditional Air Force is first and foremost air superiority; second, strategic bombing; third, ICBMs; fourth, strategic airlift and aerial refueling; fifth, space operations. Everything else--AFSOC and close-air support--goes to the Army.

Greg W. Moyle, sent via e-mail