The Air Force's War on Us

One weird recent defense policy subplot is that the Air Force has acquired a large pot of money to produce propaganda ads aimed at convincing the American public that the Air Force is super-important and needs more money. The fruits, a demagogic, inaccurate, fear-mongering ad about our alleged vulnerability to missile attacks on satellites:

Noah Shachtman details the many ways in which nothing said in this ad is true. I'd also associate myself with what Robert Farley has to say. But let's also note that not only does this vulnerability not exist, but if some other country did shoot a missile at a civilian satellite there's nothing Space Command could possibly do about it -- they're not going to intercept the missile. What we'd have to do is retaliate against the perpetrator with perfectly normal atmospheric planes and missiles.

Comments

And anyway everyone knows what we really need are Space Marines anyway not the Air Force!

Posted by Rob | May 10, 2008 1:38 PM

But of course retaliating with normal planes is the POINT for the air force, and one of the things that makes the ad so obnoxious. The Air Force doesn't give a damn about space command. It actively hates some of the other programs its ad totes, like UAVs. The Air Force wants to build manned fighter aircraft, and could give a crap about anything else. But I notice they don't make it into the ad campaign...

Posted by brendan | May 10, 2008 1:50 PM

Surprised you didn't link this up w/ Easterbrook's new article about how The Asteroids Are Coming. I think he says the USAF is mixed up in space-object-defense too, and that their involvement is bad.

Posted by dgj | May 10, 2008 2:12 PM

Isn't using public funds for military propaganda at home illegal?

Posted by Reality Man | May 10, 2008 3:11 PM

Shouldn't the first question be. "Why the Hell would any country be that stupid?" Second question. "Why the Hell would any country want to mess w/my cell phone and bank funds?" What are they planning a massive shopping spree?

This is such crap.

Posted by eh? | May 10, 2008 4:45 PM

Shouldn't the first question be. "Why the Hell would any country be that stupid?" Second question. "Why the Hell would any country want to mess w/my cell phone and bank funds?" What are they planning a massive shopping spree?

This is such crap.

Posted by eh? | May 10, 2008 4:45 PM

Back in the 1960s there was a Saturday Evening Post (or True Magazine) story about the Red Chinese getting a nuke-wielding satellite into space leaving us defenseless and under their control. Obviously, that story hit somebody real hard.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | May 10, 2008 4:50 PM

They're not trying to convince the public of anything... they're playing the same game ADM and others play of being a source of revenue for the networks. That then discourages those networks from ever doing any investigations of those organizations.

Posted by Lukeness | May 10, 2008 7:24 PM

I just read another article today touting the new naval base the Chinese are making on one of their islands.

Apparently now the notion is that not only can the base house up to "twenty nuclear submarines" but it can also house a "host of aircraft carriers" (that China doesn't actually have, of course.)

Apparently the UK and the US have both sent submarines near the base to do electronic intel.

The article also raises this notion that the subs housed there can fire "anti-satellite missiles" which could eliminate the "early warnings" for Japan, Taiwan, etc.

Now, exactly why wouldn't you consider the Chinese shoot down of your satellites an "early warning"?

Clearly if your enemy shoots down your spy satellites, it's time to go to war, right?

To paraphrase the "Hippy Dippy Weather Man" George Carlin, "Since the radar has also picked up a flight of Chinese ICBMs...I wouldn't sweat the loss of our early warning satellites."

Also, this Chinese base is on their territorial property in their territorial waters. Why is it that no one is bitching about the huge nuclear submarine base at Groton, Connecticut? Or the huge naval base in San Diego? Or the huge US military presence on Guam, thousands of miles from the US homeland? Or the US air base on Diego Garcia, also thousands of miles from the US homeland? As in fact, people are bitching about the presence of 160,000 US troops and 14 huge permanent bases in Iraq, along with huge bases in Qatar.

Is it only the US that is allowed to have military bases everywhere on the planet? And anybody who builds a competing military base on their own soil is somehow...wrong? And must therefore be immediately bombed back into the Stone Age?

Face facts. China has a billion people, and a growing economy. They need resources from the rest of the world. They aren't going to sit there and starve while the US consumes eighty percent of the world's resources. And they're smart enough to know that the US is not going to allow them to get their fair share - because humans don't do that. "Fair share" is not a concept humans generally comprehend.

So China is going to build up its military to the degree necessary to deter the US launching a unilateral attack on it over some oil conflict in the future.

And while all states are imperialistic, it's unlikely that the Chinese are going to try to "conquer the world" regardless of its population or eventual technology development - not as long as there is a US with sufficient money and technology.

The same can't be said of the US, frankly.

It's not a good idea to have only one "superpower." Like Lords of the Sith, there should always be two. It may create the risk of a world war, but it also minimizes the risk of that war happening over bullshit and it slightly reduces or slows the predations of any single superpower.

Deal with it.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 10, 2008 8:00 PM

I much rather prefer the new cybercommand the AF is starting up. (Still crossing my fingers I can get into that command...)

Posted by LnGrrrR | May 11, 2008 1:08 AM

The ad seems targeted at recruiting people ("Join the AF and do cools things") rather than lobbying for more money ("Pay for a bigger AF or kiss your cellphone goodbye"). I deduce this from the "join us" tag line at the end of the line. While it's as misleading as most recruitment ads about military life tend to be, I'd say it's far more palatable (and legal) than the propagandistic alternative.

Posted by HP | May 11, 2008 1:41 AM

The ad seems targeted at recruiting people ("Join the AF and do cools things") rather than lobbying for more money ("Pay for a bigger AF or kiss your cellphone goodbye"). I deduce this from the "join us" tag line at the end of the clip. While it's as misleading as most recruitment ads about military life tend to be, I'd say it's far more palatable (and legal) than the propagandistic alternative.

Posted by HP | May 11, 2008 1:42 AM

You seem to have a bone to pick with the policy/budget side of the AF, but don't seem interested in the ongoing strategic missions the AF supports and the stress on the dwindling number of people who do them: air superiority, airlift, strategic deterrence, space, etc. The AF shoulders several missions that support all of the services and tend to get taken for granted, by both the AF brass, who apparently spend their days fantasizing about flying cyberwarrior-space-fighter-jets and the big and small media, who pay more attention on the excesses of procurement than on the right mix of missions. The AF has been, is, and will continue to be led by a defensive band of aging ex-pilots until the service is taken seriously as a strategic actor, which it is, rather than a pimped-out air-cop/truck-driver, which it has become. They just need a hug.

Posted by Mr. Man | May 11, 2008 11:46 PM