If a 767 repurposed as missile into the Pentagon HR offices didn’t get their attention- please believe me it only convinced them to HR harder or the terrorists are winning- what do you want….check notes… Alba, er Allvin to do?
OK...full disclosure here: I spent most of my career as a civilian working for the Haze-Grey Navy. I worked in major-systems contracting at Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) , including several joint programs, of which I'm guessing HARM (AGM-88A) would be the most familiar.
All the throat-clearing aside, I can't help but ask: why do we still insist on the Air Force as it currently exists? If we're looking to reorient our forces to meet current threats, perhaps we should go back and unwind the Key West Agreement?
I'm fairly confident the Army would be happy to get the tactical side of the Air Force back, and then we'd have a smaller-but-more-focused strategic side--long-range bombers, IRBMs and ICBMs, and perhaps some space-related or space-based assets to support all that.
As you might guess, the Air Force guys I worked with on HARM (and other USN-USAF joint programs) were all missileers. And they all admitted frankly that few if any of them would ever make general: one went so far as to say that if he made full bird, he'd know he was really a general, but that he wasn't granted that distinction since he was neither a flight-rated officer nor an Academy graduate--what we'd call in the Navy a "ring-knocker."
The consensus among them was that missileers and other non-flight oriented parts of the Air Force would always and forever be the red-headed stepchildren of the service.
Would it not make sense to rethink that situation and reorganize the services in a way that's more oriented toward our status as a giant quasi-island, rather than as the bastion of Europe's defense against overland attack by the (now-defunct) Warsaw Pact?
Again...not gonna pretend I don't suffer from a certain professional deformation here. But still.
Weird you worked with “missilers” on HARM. That term is usually reserved for USAF personnel that spent their careers supporting ICBMs. You might mean munitions, targeting personnel. They are a support function under an Air Wing, and yes it would be difficult for them to rise to GO. The reason the USAF is a separate force goes all the way back to Billy Mitchell in WWI. He was the first GO to organize air power in mass formations to support major land battles. Prior to this Air Power was used piece meal as a tactical weapon, like a recon mission to support an infantry maneuver. Another lesson was learned in Vietnam when USA, USN, and USAF air units were under separate C2 chains based on the service. This is widely viewed historically as a period of ineffective use of Air Power. Fast forward to today and Air Power consists of complex integrated Joint strike packages to execute a mission. The US’ success makes it look easy, but it is sophisticated and requires a lot of expertise and training from Air Power professionals. See Operation Eagle Claw (1980) as what can happen when the services are worn out and not on the same page.
Well...all I can say is, that's what they called themselves. They all wore a badge on their blouse that was a stylized missile, a high-aspect point-up triangle with a slightly notched base. Most of them also had one or more small stars to represent multiple tours.
The guy at whose retirement--he was the HARM deputy program manager, and a LTCOL--I had this conversation the first time had a lengthy and distinguished career in missiles, including (IIRC) commanding a missile wing at Grand Forks, presumably of Minuteman ICBMs. This, in fact, is what prompted me to inquire from the other USAF officers at my table what the story was.
So--with respect--I believe you are mistaken in suggesting these were mere logisticians or support personnel.
And while I appreciate your argument, it begs the question of why the Navy has its own organic air force, since--by your logic--all aviation assets should be concentrated in one big service. And I can tell you that I never heard any complaints from the Marines I worked with--including many who actually served in Vietnam--about the ineffectiveness of Naval aviation (I did not think to ask them what they thought about the Air Force's effectiveness).
The truth is, historically there has always been a tension between centralized assets and organic assets. Artillery--the original support arm--is a classic example: should individual maneuver units have their own artillery or should it be organized in what was called in Napoleonic and Civil War times a "Grand Battery"? Your argument is for the "Grand Battery" approach to aviation support, but it is not the only approach and it reflects a view that "Father knows best," that battles are best fought from a central management point.
This is not a universally-received view and it is particularly poorly-received among the actual ground operators. It is not an accident that both the Army and the Marines have their own aviation assets, much to the teeth-grinding displeasure of the Air Force.
Yep, you are correct, those were definitely USAF missilers, just weird they’d be working the HARM program since my understanding is that is launched from an Air platform vs. a ground-based ICBM. In general terms, the USN, Marines, USA maintain their air assets for support to their forces. Doctrinally the USAF has a Joint Force Air Component (JFACC) commander to maintain C2 of all air assets at the highest level. This fits generally into “centralized command, decentralized execution” command philosophy. There are specialized missions of each branch, for example US Army intra-theatre airlift with their fixed wing aircraft, Marine amphibious operations, Navy fleet protection. Those missions are coordinated at the highest-level to insure mutual support and deconfliction across the Air Domain chess board.
Well, I am glad to have been able to give you a peek into a corner of the Air Force you might not have been familiar with.
I'm a bit puzzled, though, by your "air/ground" distinction. Even leaving out the tactical side, surely you are aware that ALCM was air-launched, yes? I don't know enough about the USAF acquisition management structure, but in the Navy, Tomahawk--our version of ALCM--had its own program office that reported directly to the Navy secretariat as an Echelon 2 activity. They were responsible for ALL versions of Tomahawk, without distinction as to platform or payload.
Regarding USAF doctrine...unsurprisingly it reflects USAF thinking. And with all due respect, "Navy fleet protection" is not what Naval aviation does: we put ordnance on the target. Fleet protection is a necessary side-mission, just like fighter escorts for USAF bombers.
In fact USAF participation in HARM was precisely on account of the USAF lacking an effective "Iron Hand" capability post-Vietnam, owing to what seems to have been an assumption that enemy air defenses would magically wither away before the bombers got over the target.
Suggestion: compare USAF's performance in major conflicts since WW2--Korea, Vietnam, Desert Shield/Storm, and so on--with the Army Air Corps performance in WW2 in supporting the Army's advances in Europe.
Because comparing post-War goat-ropes to each other doesn't really tell us anything useful.
The 38th and now 39th Commandant of the Marine Corps are text book cases for furtherance of the point this post has made, they were/are political animals who at one point were viewed as pretty good Marine Corps Infantry Officers, (A high bar) but along the way, the beltway chips away at their moral compass. Joint command posts, MBA’s or Masters Degrees in BS while on Officer Selection duty in a major college town. Battalion and Regiment commands, no foul ups, and onward. Then that first star, wow! Feels pretty good, then a Division Command (there are only 3, so higher bar) and then the 3rd and 4th star earned the hard way, their lips purple from ass kissing the Senators, Congressmen and lobbyists inside the beltway. Then a sharp set of consultants show up and convince them that the system of the Marine Corps Air Ground Task Force is outdated and has lost meaning. What we need is a whole cloth new idea called Force Design 2030. Marines to be stranded on “First Island Chains” with outdated missile technology to plink away at PLAN warships that will conveniently sail by the Marine Corps held islands to be shot at…Wake Island anyone. In the meantime as they reshape the Corps into irrelevance, the details of Marine Corps life are left to 3rd party vendors, chow, barracks and so forth all deteriorate, morale drops, retention is an issue. It is always, always someone else’s fault never the leadership. The consultants giggle, they knew FD2030 wouldn’t work and five years later after the 2019 CMC Guidance was issued redirecting the Corps away from the MAGTF, nothing to show for the effort. Now the Consultants see the opportunity to make some even bigger money. What you Marines need is a combined arms, highly mobile fully integrated fighting force that meets your Title X statutory mandates! Ah yes the MAGTF, but to do this, we will need senior officers like General Louis Wilson, Robert Barrow, AlGray, Carl Mundy and Charles Krulak. There are young Lt. Colonels and Colonels capable now of leading a division, they need to be promoted now. The dead wood cleared out and reinvigorated Corps with the senior leadership leading from the front. As General Wilson said in his sparse acceptance speech when becoming the Commandant in the early summer of 1975, “Marines get in step behind me, and do so smartly.” So we did. Secretary Hegseth, do as John Wayne advised his young cowboys “Slap some bacon on a biscuit and let’s go! We’re burning daylight!
Tough, but clear analysis, which I fear is not limited to USAF. An additional missing ingredient here is a clear, feasible, supportable and complete National Defense Strategy. You cannot build or sustain any force (ground, air or maritime) if do not know what you are trying to achieve. Unfortunately, the NDS and NSS documents I have looked at over the years have lacked any really clear end state for DOD and did a really poor job of prioritizing threats and resourcing.
This causes big problems that we have all seen, because the U.S. has worldwide interests and responsibilities that are not going to change. Service leadership should be deeply involved in informing and shaping NDS and NSS documents, especially with an eye to sustaining the force long term (I also do not think much of a lot of service civilian leadership over the years as they lack experience at the strategic levels). This again requires, as you point out clearly, real leadership and backbone over the long haul, because the political process always wants to reduce DOD spending to support “other priorities”.
Always remember that when a politician, uniformed or not, says “more lethal”, they really mean smaller and cheaper.
Ooof. I’m not sure I can disagree here except to say he’s not the only four or three star across the DoD like this.
The Fronde shall arrive from an unexpected direction flying on the wings of unmet expectations…
…’Tis predictable… now predicted..
If a 767 repurposed as missile into the Pentagon HR offices didn’t get their attention- please believe me it only convinced them to HR harder or the terrorists are winning- what do you want….check notes… Alba, er Allvin to do?
HARSH!! But fair!
OK...full disclosure here: I spent most of my career as a civilian working for the Haze-Grey Navy. I worked in major-systems contracting at Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) , including several joint programs, of which I'm guessing HARM (AGM-88A) would be the most familiar.
All the throat-clearing aside, I can't help but ask: why do we still insist on the Air Force as it currently exists? If we're looking to reorient our forces to meet current threats, perhaps we should go back and unwind the Key West Agreement?
I'm fairly confident the Army would be happy to get the tactical side of the Air Force back, and then we'd have a smaller-but-more-focused strategic side--long-range bombers, IRBMs and ICBMs, and perhaps some space-related or space-based assets to support all that.
As you might guess, the Air Force guys I worked with on HARM (and other USN-USAF joint programs) were all missileers. And they all admitted frankly that few if any of them would ever make general: one went so far as to say that if he made full bird, he'd know he was really a general, but that he wasn't granted that distinction since he was neither a flight-rated officer nor an Academy graduate--what we'd call in the Navy a "ring-knocker."
The consensus among them was that missileers and other non-flight oriented parts of the Air Force would always and forever be the red-headed stepchildren of the service.
Would it not make sense to rethink that situation and reorganize the services in a way that's more oriented toward our status as a giant quasi-island, rather than as the bastion of Europe's defense against overland attack by the (now-defunct) Warsaw Pact?
Again...not gonna pretend I don't suffer from a certain professional deformation here. But still.
Weird you worked with “missilers” on HARM. That term is usually reserved for USAF personnel that spent their careers supporting ICBMs. You might mean munitions, targeting personnel. They are a support function under an Air Wing, and yes it would be difficult for them to rise to GO. The reason the USAF is a separate force goes all the way back to Billy Mitchell in WWI. He was the first GO to organize air power in mass formations to support major land battles. Prior to this Air Power was used piece meal as a tactical weapon, like a recon mission to support an infantry maneuver. Another lesson was learned in Vietnam when USA, USN, and USAF air units were under separate C2 chains based on the service. This is widely viewed historically as a period of ineffective use of Air Power. Fast forward to today and Air Power consists of complex integrated Joint strike packages to execute a mission. The US’ success makes it look easy, but it is sophisticated and requires a lot of expertise and training from Air Power professionals. See Operation Eagle Claw (1980) as what can happen when the services are worn out and not on the same page.
Well...all I can say is, that's what they called themselves. They all wore a badge on their blouse that was a stylized missile, a high-aspect point-up triangle with a slightly notched base. Most of them also had one or more small stars to represent multiple tours.
The guy at whose retirement--he was the HARM deputy program manager, and a LTCOL--I had this conversation the first time had a lengthy and distinguished career in missiles, including (IIRC) commanding a missile wing at Grand Forks, presumably of Minuteman ICBMs. This, in fact, is what prompted me to inquire from the other USAF officers at my table what the story was.
So--with respect--I believe you are mistaken in suggesting these were mere logisticians or support personnel.
And while I appreciate your argument, it begs the question of why the Navy has its own organic air force, since--by your logic--all aviation assets should be concentrated in one big service. And I can tell you that I never heard any complaints from the Marines I worked with--including many who actually served in Vietnam--about the ineffectiveness of Naval aviation (I did not think to ask them what they thought about the Air Force's effectiveness).
The truth is, historically there has always been a tension between centralized assets and organic assets. Artillery--the original support arm--is a classic example: should individual maneuver units have their own artillery or should it be organized in what was called in Napoleonic and Civil War times a "Grand Battery"? Your argument is for the "Grand Battery" approach to aviation support, but it is not the only approach and it reflects a view that "Father knows best," that battles are best fought from a central management point.
This is not a universally-received view and it is particularly poorly-received among the actual ground operators. It is not an accident that both the Army and the Marines have their own aviation assets, much to the teeth-grinding displeasure of the Air Force.
Yep, you are correct, those were definitely USAF missilers, just weird they’d be working the HARM program since my understanding is that is launched from an Air platform vs. a ground-based ICBM. In general terms, the USN, Marines, USA maintain their air assets for support to their forces. Doctrinally the USAF has a Joint Force Air Component (JFACC) commander to maintain C2 of all air assets at the highest level. This fits generally into “centralized command, decentralized execution” command philosophy. There are specialized missions of each branch, for example US Army intra-theatre airlift with their fixed wing aircraft, Marine amphibious operations, Navy fleet protection. Those missions are coordinated at the highest-level to insure mutual support and deconfliction across the Air Domain chess board.
Well, I am glad to have been able to give you a peek into a corner of the Air Force you might not have been familiar with.
I'm a bit puzzled, though, by your "air/ground" distinction. Even leaving out the tactical side, surely you are aware that ALCM was air-launched, yes? I don't know enough about the USAF acquisition management structure, but in the Navy, Tomahawk--our version of ALCM--had its own program office that reported directly to the Navy secretariat as an Echelon 2 activity. They were responsible for ALL versions of Tomahawk, without distinction as to platform or payload.
Regarding USAF doctrine...unsurprisingly it reflects USAF thinking. And with all due respect, "Navy fleet protection" is not what Naval aviation does: we put ordnance on the target. Fleet protection is a necessary side-mission, just like fighter escorts for USAF bombers.
In fact USAF participation in HARM was precisely on account of the USAF lacking an effective "Iron Hand" capability post-Vietnam, owing to what seems to have been an assumption that enemy air defenses would magically wither away before the bombers got over the target.
Suggestion: compare USAF's performance in major conflicts since WW2--Korea, Vietnam, Desert Shield/Storm, and so on--with the Army Air Corps performance in WW2 in supporting the Army's advances in Europe.
Because comparing post-War goat-ropes to each other doesn't really tell us anything useful.
The 38th and now 39th Commandant of the Marine Corps are text book cases for furtherance of the point this post has made, they were/are political animals who at one point were viewed as pretty good Marine Corps Infantry Officers, (A high bar) but along the way, the beltway chips away at their moral compass. Joint command posts, MBA’s or Masters Degrees in BS while on Officer Selection duty in a major college town. Battalion and Regiment commands, no foul ups, and onward. Then that first star, wow! Feels pretty good, then a Division Command (there are only 3, so higher bar) and then the 3rd and 4th star earned the hard way, their lips purple from ass kissing the Senators, Congressmen and lobbyists inside the beltway. Then a sharp set of consultants show up and convince them that the system of the Marine Corps Air Ground Task Force is outdated and has lost meaning. What we need is a whole cloth new idea called Force Design 2030. Marines to be stranded on “First Island Chains” with outdated missile technology to plink away at PLAN warships that will conveniently sail by the Marine Corps held islands to be shot at…Wake Island anyone. In the meantime as they reshape the Corps into irrelevance, the details of Marine Corps life are left to 3rd party vendors, chow, barracks and so forth all deteriorate, morale drops, retention is an issue. It is always, always someone else’s fault never the leadership. The consultants giggle, they knew FD2030 wouldn’t work and five years later after the 2019 CMC Guidance was issued redirecting the Corps away from the MAGTF, nothing to show for the effort. Now the Consultants see the opportunity to make some even bigger money. What you Marines need is a combined arms, highly mobile fully integrated fighting force that meets your Title X statutory mandates! Ah yes the MAGTF, but to do this, we will need senior officers like General Louis Wilson, Robert Barrow, AlGray, Carl Mundy and Charles Krulak. There are young Lt. Colonels and Colonels capable now of leading a division, they need to be promoted now. The dead wood cleared out and reinvigorated Corps with the senior leadership leading from the front. As General Wilson said in his sparse acceptance speech when becoming the Commandant in the early summer of 1975, “Marines get in step behind me, and do so smartly.” So we did. Secretary Hegseth, do as John Wayne advised his young cowboys “Slap some bacon on a biscuit and let’s go! We’re burning daylight!
Tough, but clear analysis, which I fear is not limited to USAF. An additional missing ingredient here is a clear, feasible, supportable and complete National Defense Strategy. You cannot build or sustain any force (ground, air or maritime) if do not know what you are trying to achieve. Unfortunately, the NDS and NSS documents I have looked at over the years have lacked any really clear end state for DOD and did a really poor job of prioritizing threats and resourcing.
This causes big problems that we have all seen, because the U.S. has worldwide interests and responsibilities that are not going to change. Service leadership should be deeply involved in informing and shaping NDS and NSS documents, especially with an eye to sustaining the force long term (I also do not think much of a lot of service civilian leadership over the years as they lack experience at the strategic levels). This again requires, as you point out clearly, real leadership and backbone over the long haul, because the political process always wants to reduce DOD spending to support “other priorities”.
Always remember that when a politician, uniformed or not, says “more lethal”, they really mean smaller and cheaper.