Remarkably, Lowther fails to produce any examples of the USAF contributing good advice to civilian policymakers. Since its founding, history is replete with examples of the opposite; the Air Force counseled almost certainly disastrous escalation in the Korean War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Vietnam War, without serious regard for the political difficulties that U.S. civilian leaders faced at the time. The USAAF, the nearly independent predecessor of the USAF, argued that the D-Day invasion was unnecessary, a policy that would almost certainly have resulted in Soviet control of Europe. In 1990, only the last-minute intervention of tactically minded generals prevented the Air Force from presenting a campaign plan that would have left Saddam Hussein’s army intact and in firm control of Kuwait. And so yes, the independent Air Force does given independent advice, but this advice tends to lean heavily towards the idea that airpower can cheaply, decisively win wars. This would be less of a problem were it not for the fact that strategic airpower is alluring, especially to civilians who lack experience with military affairs. A better approach would be to design military institutions to take an integrated view of national power, rather than invoke competitive dynamics that will likely lead to outlandish claims and bad policy recommendations. nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-real-problem-the-us-air-force-9778
Posted on: Tue, 28 Jan 2014 23:55:15 +0000