Op Ed from the NYT. Scrap the USAF

Colleges and Universities A-Z Air Force Academy - Colorado Springs
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<p>Up, Up and Out.</p>

<p>ROBERT GATES, the secretary of defense, has proposed a budget overhaul that will go a long way toward improving our national security, but more can be done to meet his long-term goal: creating the right military for the 21st century. </p>

<p>Not since Henry Stimson’s tenure from 1940 to ’45 has a defense secretary been faced to the same degree with simultaneously fighting a war and carrying out far-reaching reforms. Yet there are three major changes Mr. Gates should add to his agenda, and they deserve President Obama’s support.</p>

<p>First, the Air Force should be eliminated, and its personnel and equipment integrated into the Army, Navy and Marine Corps. Second, the archaic “up or out” military promotion system should be scrapped in favor of a plan that treats service members as real assets. Third, the United States needs a national service program for all young men and women, without any deferments, to increase the quality and size of the pool from which troops are drawn.</p>

<p>At the moment, the Army, Navy and Marine Corps are at war, but the Air Force is not. This is not the fault of the Air Force: it is simply not structured to be in the fights in Iraq and Afghanistan. While Army, Marine and Navy personnel have borne the brunt of deployments, commonly serving multiple tours, the Air Force’s operational tempo remains comparatively comfortable. In 2007, only about 5 percent of the troops in Iraq were airmen. </p>

<p>Yes, air power is a critical component of America’s arsenal. But the Army, Navy and Marines already maintain air wings within their expeditionary units. The Air Force is increasingly a redundancy in structure and spending.</p>

<p>War is no longer made up of set-piece battles between huge armies confronting each other with tanks and airplanes. As we move toward a greater emphasis on rapid-response troops, the Army has tightened its physical fitness regime and the Marine Corps has introduced a physically grueling Combat Fitness Test for all members. Yet an Air Force study last year found that more than half of airmen and women were overweight and 12 percent were obese. </p>

<p>Next, the current military personnel system is a peacetime bureaucratic construct that serves neither national security nor those who wear the uniform. Congress sets the level of manpower for each military service. Within this constraint, military planners have to decide how many riflemen, mechanics, cooks, medics, pilots and such there should be within the military’s job types, known as Military Occupational Specialties. Then the Pentagon has to decide how many people will be retained in the ranks or promoted.</p>

<p>The result is an “up or out” system that demands service members move up the ladder simply to stay in the military. Any soldier passed over for promotion twice must leave or retire. </p>

<p>Treating service members like so many widgets — in particular, the enlisted men and women who make up 85 percent of the ranks — is arbitrary and bad management. I have seen many fit, experienced officers and enlisted Marines arbitrarily forced out because there were only so many slots into which they could be promoted. </p>

<p>The military should develop a new accounting and personnel system that tracks the cost of developing its human capital and tallies each service member as an investment with a fixed value based on his education, training, experience and performance. This would reflect the departure of a valued service member as an asset lost, not a cost cut. Why are fit men and women who have served in combat, a human experience that a million dollars can’t buy, being pushed out instead of retained for 15, 20, 30 years?</p>

<p>Last, Mr. Gates should urge President Obama to confer with Congress and introduce national service at age 18 for all Americans. Under such a system, young people from all classes and backgrounds would either serve in the military or do other essential work like intelligence assessment, conservation, antipoverty projects, educational tutoring, firefighting, policing, border security, disaster relief or care for the elderly. The best qualified would be assigned to the military. </p>

<p>The 1.6 million Americans who have served in the current wars represent less than one percent of all citizens. We need to spread the risk and burden of fighting our wars. If more of our national leaders had been in uniform, or knew they might have children at risk in war, their decisions during military confrontations might be better. And this is not just about the struggle against terrorism: would New Orleans reconstruction have lagged so long if we had had a national service program in natural-disaster recovery? </p>

<p>President Obama has the political capital to make these critical changes. Given the urgency of war and money available under the economic recovery plan, now may be our best chance for decades to truly modernize America’s defenses.</p>

<p>Paul Kane is a Marine veteran of Iraq and a former fellow with the International Security Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.</p>

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<p>Mr. Kane is out of touch with the reality of the Air Force. Seriously, that “Air Force is not in the war” bit is just insulting and FALSE.</p>

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<p>I agree with raimius. The AF has been at “war” since 1991…There is a reason airframes are falling apart, they’ve been supporting operations for over 15 years!</p>

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<p>Well I guess it was my imagination that Bullet’s squadron answered Prince Harry’s call for CAS since they are not involved in Afghanistan or Iraq!</p>

<p>It also have been my imagination that the AF did ONW and OSW for almost a decade.</p>

<p>If I emailed this to SJAFB, I can guarantee you that the NYT would be inuendated with angry responses from spouses who have had to be single parents for 4 mos out of every 18 mos. More importantly I think Das’s wife and child would beg to differ (the only Strike to be lost in OIF)</p>

<p>Just so you all know he is also a reporter for WaPo.</p>

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<p>Another HUGE mistake is the “Up or out” referred to. That only applies to officers! I know many career SrA and SSgts who don’t get promoted either to not being ready for the next rank or just not being needed yet in the higher rank. They are still good technicians and most I spoke with would rather not get promoted anyway as they loved their jobs!</p>

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<p>haha what’s up with bashing the military lately?</p>

<p>first, they want to get rid of the service academies, and now the entire air force! </p>

<p>i wonder what the response would be if everyone in the AF knew that this article was printed…</p>

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<p>“At the moment, the Army, Navy and Marine Corps are at war, but the Air Force is not.”</p>

<p>wow…the things that statement alone implies is not only insulting but extremely hurtful…</p>

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<p>The Air Force started out as part of the Army. They separated for a reason.</p>

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<p>had a great discussion during the 2nd hour of physics about this article this afternoon… some good insight by our instructor and we had alot of opinions too. i like discussions about things that pertain to us</p>

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<p>“In 2007, only about 5 percent of the troops in Iraq were airmen.”</p>

<p>Didn’t the Navy had roughly the same number there, too?</p>

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<p>there needs to be a branch of the military dedicated to air operations based from the ground. the navy and marines take care of carrier-based air wings, the army and marines (i believe) are limited to chopper aviation and recon aircraft. we need a branch of the military whose role is to manage the skies and whose men have been trained to do that since basic training. it takes longer to train an army or navy airman because you have to train him to be a soldier or sailor first.</p>

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<p>Oh dear… someone needs to tell my sister and brother-in-law they’re not at war! they are Air Force nurses. BIL doing his 2nd tour in Afghanistan after also serving in Iraq. Where do these bozos come from to write this garbage? And what’s really scary is there are people who will believe anything written in the paper.</p>

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<p>IB you do realize to become a pilot in an operational squadron it takes almost 2 yrs, and that is just for UPT/FTU? The pilot is a commissioned officer, thus they were trained first to be an airmen, just like our other branches, it is not as if they walked on base and signed up for UPT without knowing how to salute!</p>

<p>The problem with the 5% issue is that it was cherry picked for his advantage…reality check, the AF can get into the badlands very very quickly from a safe place. Can you imagine what Americans would be saying if we kept our multi-million dollar ACs on a runway in Iraq?</p>

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<p>The guy is completely clueless.</p>

<p>I don’t even know where to start. As Norty will tell anyone the Air Force is “All In”. </p>

<p>Moreover, if it weren’t for Close Air Support and Air Evac, there would be a lot more dead soldiers and Marines. I’ve flow two Evac missions from Ramstien and all you have to do is ask one of those soldiers lying in the back of a C-17 on his way to Walter Reed less than three days from being wounded if we need an Air Force and you will get your answer.</p>

<p>Also, fully half the EOD’s in OIF and OEF are Airmen.</p>

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<p>First, I would like to point out the author’s lack of clarity about the subject. He states that half of airmen/woman are overweight and compares this to Marine and Army protocol without addressing the differences between the branches. The Air Force is much more technology-based than the other two branches and this is reflected in its mission and capabilities; comparing standards of physical fitness tells us nothing about how the Air Force acomplishes its job (though is perhaps a legitimate issue in terms of discipline).</p>

<p>Another critical component that the author of this op-ed missed is, broadly put, ‘the future’. Specifically, future wars and future astro-development should be seen within the context of this discussion.</p>

<p>Our wars right now might be roughly classed as police action - fighting low-grade insurgent networks in relatively remote areas from the American heartland. But just because our current battles aren’t easily suited to high technology doesn’t mean that we should de-emphasize the role of airpower in ALL of our future military engagements. Air power was decisive in the Gulf War less than 20 years ago; there’s no telling what use we might for air power in the future. Even disregarding the possibility of a catastrophic war with another major power, air power allows us to keep casualties on the ground low. The reasons the Air Force shouldn’t be broken up and integrated into the other forces are organization and preparation - we can keep our airplanes and satelites under a knowledgable and organized command, and this command will keep the force strong for longer than resource-pressed planners in the other branches might. Keeping the Air Force seperate enables us to maintain a stronger and more prepared airfleet to respond to whatever conflicts the future holds.</p>

<p>The second part of this is about space. Included in the AF’s missionis to defend American space interests - which in the short term means satelites, and in the future could mean much more. Satelites are critical to all of the forces - the Army and Navy rely on GPS systems and satelite-based communication, for example. Any major conflict in the future would likely involve these systems, and it behooves us to pay attention to developing and protecting near-earth orbital resources. The current Air Force does just that, with extraplanetary projects as one of its core misisons. Aside from this, the future seems to indicate that space will becoem ever more important. Major advances in computers, material-design, and efficiency have reduced the cost of spaceflight to the point where I we can see it becoming economical in our lifetime. While all of this is highly speculative, one thing is certain: humanity will not be constrained on Earth much longer. Future leaders will have to look to the stars, not for inspiration, but for real-world strategy and advantage. Keeping the Air Forces seperate, with the possibility to transition to or create a seperate Space force, is an important part of long-range planning.</p>