This is coolbert:
From the tip as provided by Steiner and the article in The National Interest we have:
1. "Ground the Air Force" by Robert Farley.
WE DO NOT NEED AN AIR FORCE!
2. "The US Air Force For Dummies" by Adam Lowther.
A REBUTTAL!
Please understand that this is nothing new.
* From that era immediately in the aftermath of the Great War [WW1] it was thought that the U.S. Navy and the battleship could be dispensed with.
Billy Mitchell that advocate suggesting air power ALONE would suffice to defend the coastline of the continental United States.
* From that era immediately in the aftermath of the Second World War [WW2] those most senior admirals of the navy suggesting that an independent air force [created from the Army Air Corps] was not needed.
Long-range aviation as deployed from naval super-carriers able to project power in the form of nuclear munitions to any point on the planet.
* During that era of the Great Depression it being suggested by Douglas MacArthur that the U.S. Marine Corps be incorporated in the U.S. Army.
As a cost saving measure alone.
* During that era also in the aftermath of WW2 it being suggested that the U.S. Marine Corps [USMC] be dispensed with.
Marines according to President Truman nothing more than the military police of the U.S. Navy.
None of these suggestions ever coming to pass. And perhaps thankfully so.
Those U.S. Marines indeed are the military police of the navy.
Granted that is so, but the USMC much more than that.
The U.S. is fortunate to have two military services that have different approaches to modern ground warfare.
NOT necessarily antagonistic but having doctrines and theories that complement and enhance the war-making effort of the American military.
Those exercises and tests as conducted in 1921 at the behest of Billy Mitchell rigged? Mitchell and his airmen attacking targets [the German warships] that were sitting ducks, Mitchell in a deliberate manner also exceeding the prior agreed upon parameters by which the vessels could be engaged?
coolbert.
Breaking news: SecDef will drastically lower the size of the Army, while leaving the USAF relatively unscathed. So, contra Farley, it appears that the trend favors the absorption of the Army by the Air Force.
ReplyDeleteThe triumph of war in Clausewitzian space proceeds apace, since Air Forces do a better job of making the political point with combat power than does land warfare, which requires a degree of occupation and confrontation with "4th Generation" formations.