A senior Senate lawmaker, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), told me this morning that he believes the Air Force suffers from systemic problems and must examine how it buys weapons, how it manages its forces and perhaps rebuild its long-term strategy in the face of todays changing international situation.
Sessions a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and ranking member of its strategic forces subcommittee, said he and his colleagues arent certain how to proceed yet to fix the service.
Sessions did praise Gates for his actions in sacking Air Force Secretary Mike Wynne and Chief of Staff Mike Moseley, noting he had helped reestablish personal responsibility among senior leaders.
A congressional source, asked about the likelihood that Congress might undertake a probing look at the Air Force to try and figure out what must be done to rebuild the service said any action was unlikely before the election. Senior lawmakers are already being drawn into daily management of the campaign message wars. And senators such as Sessions, while eager to do the right thing, will find it difficult to muster support from their colleagues for a bipartisan effort such as this would require.
Sessions comments came the day after Defense Secretary Robert Gates made extraordinary visits — well intentioned and well executed to Air Force commands to deliver the message that he believes the service matters and has his support and to give service officials the chance to ask him questions face-to-face. One of the most interesting exchanges shed some bright light on just how much far apart are the secretary and the Air Force.
Gates, flying to Colorado Springs, Colo., told reporters that he took the opportunity of a question about the F-22s to address the speculation that, in truth, these changes were due to disagreements over the F-22. And I said that that was not true, that in fact that issue had been settled for some weeks. And that I had essentially made the decision that we would allocate enough money to keep the production line open so that the next administration could decide on the balance between buying more F-22s and buying more joint-strike fighters. And I thought that that was a significant procurement decision that ought not be made in the last six or seven months of an administration.
You can imagine how much the Air Force officers believed that, no matter how true it is. The gap is so wide that even gates spokesman, Geoff Morrell, felt compelled to tell reporters that despite rumors: the F-22 issue had nothing to do with the secretary’s decision for a change of leadership in the Air Force.
Gates briefly mentioned the acquisition side of the Air Forces problems, noting that he is figuring out how to get the modernization program back on track. He gave the example of the tanker decision. I mean, we’re 10 years past when we should have started replacing the tanker fleet.
Gates said that no one asked him about his recommendation of Gen. Norton Schwartz, leader of Transportation Command, as Air Force Chief of Staff. A reporter asked about the choice. He’s very process-oriented. I mean, the changes that he’s made in TRANSCOM have been pretty dramatic in terms of how you manage all these priorities and the logistics of supporting the war in two theaters with limited capability But I also liked his experience and mobility and jointness. He has a lot of joint experience. His whole command has been about how do you support all of the services. So that was important. And frankly, also, the Special Operations experience.
– Colin Clark
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
take cas and a-10 out of the hands of the air force. they dont want to do and rather spend their money on something else so be it.
Hire Non AF personnel, NATO air forces personnel, other vets ( non AF) & enlist ex Enlisted AF types for ideas.
Change the System.
AF to me should be Hi Tech from Combat Games to Weapons, NOT stuck in the 1950s era.
Change the leadership & Cong funding.
Change policies.
Change Wash DC BS alone.
The problem with the Air Force is that we (yes, I’m in the USAF) allow the “truck drivers” to run the show. Look at any other similar operation and “operations” is dispatch and maintenance. The drivers are there to drive.
Too many pilots think they are leaders because they know where to point the nose of an airplane.
I wouldn’t take too much of what Sessions says as altruistic and “wanting to do the right thing.” He wants to do the right thing for the Army and if that means gutting the Air Force then so be it. Not denying that the AF has serious problems but Sessions is just as, if not more, opportunistic as other politicians.
Tremendously interesting story. I’m guessing that if there is a subtext here, it is Iran, not the F-22. Based on gossip and rumors on the ever reliable Internets, the Air Force was the only service enthusiastic about a new war. This may or may not be true, but it resonates with Gate’s speech about “Next-War-itis”. This shake-up can be read as Gates giving the AF a slap upside the head to remind them they have more important things to worry about than Iran. Like their own nukes. And the wars they are currently waging. And the abysmal procurement system.
If so, then it signals Gates has no intention of attacking Iran. At least in no more than a symbolic manner, like firing a couple of Tomahawks at empty training camps.
Admittedly, this is speculation built on rumor. I’d like to hear what better informed readers think.
You can’t just “give the A-10 to the Army” because: 1) The A-10 wasn’t designed to do just CAS. It was specifically built to defeat enemy armored units, a job it did extremely well in the first Persian Gulf War as well as the conventional fazes of the current Iraq and Afghan wars. These missions were done behind the front lines, and did not involve the CAS mission.
2) The training path a pilot goes through to become an A-10 pilot is the same as all fighter pilots. They start out flying T-6′s, advance to the T-38, and then to the A-10. The A-10 has fighter-jet manueverablity and performance, and requires fighter-pilot training. Obviously, the Army has no fighter-pilot training. To ask the Army to adopt the A-10 would also be asking it to adopt the T-6 and T-38 as well, along with a completely unfamiliar training routine. Giving the A-10 to the Army just doesn’t make sense from a pure training standpoint.
RE: “You can’t give the Army A-10s…”
Yes, you can. Its called joint training. It already happens for arty and armor officers of both the USA and USMC, it can work with pilots as well (it may already be in effect for some pilots for all I know).
The USA could send pilot trainees through USMC, USN, or USAF pilot pipelines for the mechanics of flight. Ditto with A&P, ordnance handlers, and other maintainers. However, their professional training would come from Army schooling, which is where the major change from the present would occur. They would be *Army* pilots supporting Army troops, which is a hell of a lot different than USAF flyboys “deigning” to help out the Army “dogs”. Institutional focus and memory MATTER.
Would be hard put to cite a source, but there was a proposal many years ago to swap responsibility for Patriots & A-10s. The reasoning at the time was that Patriots & fighters operate in the same airspace on the same air defense mission.
Maybe there’s an opportunity to revive this idea. BMD doesn’t have much to do with most of what the Army does. It would be interesting to see what the Army would do if they could freely choose between rotary & fixed wing birds (and without the budget limitations the Marines work under)
I totally agree with you Anon. I cannot speak for the USAF because I am ex Dutch airforce (RNLAF), but I recognize the situation you point out, so it makes sence to me. Same problem in the Dutch airforce. In my opinion Leaders must by picked by leadership and management skills, not that they piloted an aircraft in their carreer.
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