There’s been much hand-wringing in the Pentagon over the Air Force’s role in this new war. As I’ve said before, the Air Force has about a dozen secondary (and no primary) missions, and is still struggling to find its niche in the military’s new small wars and soft power movements. Writing in the Armed Forces Journal, General Richard Comer searches for the answer to the Air Force’s woes:
Right. This is the accepted doctrine in Air Force circles. If you want to fight small, you’ve got to go big. Bulk up the force so that it can dominate peer/near-peer, and *poof* through the magic of air supremacy, we’ll automatically be postured to effectively prosecute irregular wars. The problem, however, is that F-22 Raptors are not optimal IW platforms. Nor are Joint Strike Fighters, or B-1 bombers, or even older F-15s and F-16s. Slowly though, the Air Force is coming around:
I think what freaks Air Force types out about small wars talk (and equipping the force with short range slow-movers) is that they fear they’ll go back to the days of subservience to the Army (shoot here, fly here). Zoomies are a proud bunch, and they take a certain satisfaction in the fact that they’re our first line of defense against heavy hitters like Russia and China. But, as Comer pointed out, this is the new arena where all components of our Armed Forces now have to fight. Good on the Air Force for recognizing that.
