{"id":345,"date":"2008-06-09T18:34:04","date_gmt":"2008-06-10T01:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=345"},"modified":"2008-06-09T19:03:35","modified_gmt":"2008-06-10T02:03:35","slug":"shakeup-in-the-us-air-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=345","title":{"rendered":"Shakeup in the US Air Force"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some thoughts on Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ sacking of USAF Secretary Wynn and Chief of Staff Moseley<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The nuclear weapons SNAFUs described in the linked article were too serious to excuse, and ample reason to replace senior leadership.\u00a0 I can’t say I saw it coming, but I did wonder, back in 1992, what then-USAF Chief of Staff General Tony McPeak was thinking when he dissolved Strategic Air Command.<\/p>\n

General McPeak’s new creation, Air Combat Command, was supposed to encompass\u00a0the USAF’s “fire and steel” . . .\u00a0its fighter, attack aircraft, bomber,\u00a0ICBM, and special operations\u00a0forces . . . but it was really a fighter command, run by and for the fighter mafia<\/a>.\u00a0 Tony McPeak\u00a0was a fighter pilot.\u00a0 Every USAF chief of staff since . . . Ron Fogelman, Michael Ryan, John Jumper, Michael Moseley . . . has been a fighter pilot.\u00a0 SAC, and in fact\u00a0the entire USAF nuclear empire, was officially consigned to the back seat.\u00a0 I suppose nuclear screwups were only a matter of time.<\/p>\n

But wait a minute . . . back in the 1950s,\u00a060s, and early 70s, when SAC reigned supreme and bomber pilots ruled the USAF, we came this<\/em> close to nuking ourselves, never mind our allies, not once but several times.\u00a0 Follow this link<\/a> if you haven’t had a nightmare recently.<\/p>\n

So I could be wrong.\u00a0 Maybe\u00a0Tony McPeak\u00a0putting SAC in its place didn’t lead to the recent screwups.\u00a0 Maybe they would have happened anyway.\u00a0 But I must note that Secretary Gates’ pick<\/a> for USAF chief of staff, General Norton Schwartz, is a tactical airlift and special operations pilot, and his selection is a strong break with recent tradition.<\/p>\n

Did Gates really fire these guys over the nuclear screwups?\u00a0 I don’t think so.\u00a0 I think he fired them for relentlessly pimping additional procurement of top-dollar weapon systems like the F-22 and F-35,\u00a0for dragging their feet on supporting counterinsurgency-style warfighting and providing unmanned aerial drone support to ground forces of the US Army and Marine Corps, and for just plain not supporting joint warfighting.\u00a0 The nuclear incidents were a convenient cover.\u00a0 Check out this DefenseTech.org link<\/a> for postings detailing the\u00a0policy fights between Secretary Gates and\u00a0the soon-to-be-former USAF secretary\u00a0and chief of staff.<\/p>\n

If I’m so damn smart, what would I do?\u00a0 I’d put all nuclear forces . . . land and sea-based . . . together in one new service.\u00a0 I’d give the rest of the USAF back to the Army.\u00a0 And I’m only half joking . . .\u00a0I’d give ’em the A-10s for sure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some thoughts on Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ sacking of USAF Secretary Wynn and Chief of Staff Moseley: The nuclear weapons SNAFUs described in the linked article were too serious to excuse, and ample reason to replace senior leadership.\u00a0 I can’t say I saw it coming, but I did wonder, back in 1992, what then-USAF […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,14,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-flying","category-military","category-war"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}