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No matter what the outcome of the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan billions of dollars will still be needed to replace destroyed or worn out equipment, develop new weapons systems to replace antiquated ones and to rebuild and expand ground forces strained to the breaking point by the rigors of combat.
Traditionally one of the most expensive of all the services to maintain the Air Force is also the least effective. The best that can be said for the bombing campaigns in Europe and the Pacific in WWII was that the results were
“mixed.” For example the industrial production of the Germans actually increased during the height of the strategic bombing campaign. Indeed much of the materials used to produce German fighters near the end of the war came from salvaged allied bombers.
As for the effect of strategic bombing on civilian moral it is likely that it served more to harden resolve rather than to weaken it. The British stood up under the “Blitz” and are now seen as “heroes” in modern culture while both the Japanese and German peoples withstood far more savage attacks and did not break. Nor did the Vietnamese buckle under a bombing campaign that dwarfed the bombing of Europe and Japan combined.
Today American forces are engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq and the Air Force is still trying to bomb its way to victory with decidedly negative results. There were
3,767 documented civilian causalities in Afghanistan from the initial stages of the war up to December 6, 2001. Since then not a year has gone past without more civilians being added to the ledger with over two hundred killed so far this year alone.
Since the start of the war the chief result of bombing has been to create new terrorists, generate refugees who disrupt attempts by the civil government to restore order, discredit the US in the eyes of the world and make Osama bin Laden into a cult hero to beleaguered people throughout the region.
Even supposing that aircraft are occasionally needed, each service has its own air force that is tailored made to its unique mission. The Navy and Marines are specialists at close air support while the army is expert in air assault. The Air Force long ago sold its soul to the Devil of “strategic bombing” but there have been no “strategic targets” since Vietnam and even there they failed to destroy them. There is an old saying to the effect that when the only tool you have is a hammer it is amazing how many problems look like nails. But hammering an elusive foe hiding in among the civilian population is simply not a viable strategy.
And finally the hard fact is that warplanes in general are most likely in their last generation. Not only are there few targets for them but those that there are can be better handled by new “smart” munitions fired from cannons that can make mid course corrections and hit with GPS precision or by the increasingly sophisticated drones that have come to the fore in the current war. These drones can take off, fly to a target and engage it and return safely all without the necessity of an on-board pilot.
Rather like the cavalry before WWII, which spent funds to develop the finest saber in modern warfare long after swords had left the battlefield, the Air Force is busy getting ready to fight the Cold War, which ended a generation ago. They hope to eventually replace the ailing F-15’s with the new generation of F-22 “stealth” fighters that are invisible to any but Russian made radar.
Designed to dogfight with Soviet fighters they are a plane without a mission since the break up of the Soviet Union and at a cost of
$361 million per aircraft the US could afford a fleet of hundreds of expendable drones for the cost of a single plane, not to mention the highly trained pilots. While expensive this is nothing when compared to the estimated $2.2 billion per plane for the B-2 Bomber. At that cost some have suggested it would be cheaper to hire old cargo planes and drop gold bricks on the enemy.
Even in the field of air cargo the Air Force is nothing less that a total failure. It has apparently never occurred to anyone in the Air Force, in all the time it has been in existence, to consult with its chief customer, the Army, as to the size of the vehicles that it is to transport.
While at Officer Candidate School at Ft. Benning Georgia back in the 1970’s I, like most of the other candidates, found that the single most difficult class we had to take was the “Air Officer Loading Course” which featured the dizzying math and science of cramming Army Tanks and jeeps onto Air Force planes not designed to take them with resorting to fractions. The Army found that fitting one and a half tanks onto an airplane or one jeep with its towed trailer and one without was simply not an option.
The best solution is to break up the Air Force and divide its assets among the senior services. The Navy and Marines could continue their excellent record of close air support while the Army took over its own transport. As for the Strategic Air Command—They should be turned over to the Smithsonian, for inclusion in their Hall of Dinosaurs.
