Gates Goes Nuclear on the Air Force

One fascinating second term subplot that will likely linger into a new administration of either party has been the high levels of conflict between Secretary of Defense Bob Gates and the Air Force brass, something kicked into higher gear today as "Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley and Secretary Michael W. Wynne were forced to resign Thursday during hastily arranged meetings with their Pentagon bosses." Moira Whelan has some useful commentary here and also see Robert Farley.

I suppose one can question his methods, but Gates is fundamentally right on the merits in his various disputes with the Air Force and nobody else has had much success in bringing the service to heel and getting them to focus on the realities of the post-Cold War world.

Comments

Remind me: why do we have an Air Force? As opposed to an Army Air (and Space) Corps?

Posted by Noah Millman | June 5, 2008 5:36 PM

The Air Force may lag the most in updating its mission profiles and equipment. All the services struggle with change because questioning anything usually leads to very short careers. But the Air Force basically promotes only pilots into upper management which leads to very myopic leadership.
Gates is turning out to be a very good Secretary of Defense, I wonder if he might be interested in President some day.

Posted by dfb | June 5, 2008 5:57 PM

I agree Gates is an astoundingly good secretary--would be happy to see him with the peace prize for keeping us out of a war with Iran.

What concerns did you have about his methods Matt?

Posted by Chris Dornan | June 5, 2008 6:07 PM

Gates is a prime prospect to be Obama's Secretary of Defense.

Posted by BobLover | June 5, 2008 7:09 PM

Remind me: why do we have an Air Force? As opposed to an Army Air (and Space) Corps?

Noah, it's because the generals in the USAAF got too big for their britches during WWII. I'll point to the vast strategic bombing and transportation interdiction campaigns, which tended to divorce the Army Air Force from identifying with their original raison d'entre, close air support and recon for the ground forces.

Posted by cmholm | June 5, 2008 7:09 PM

I'll add the USAF doesn't like to do close air support. It's a pain in the ass to do well, pilots can't aim to become an ace, and you get shot at a lot.

It's why the USMC has been adamant about maintaining their own aviation, having seen in Korea, Vietnam, and today the less than optimum service the Army has been getting. It's also why the Army has so many attack helicopters.

Posted by cmholm | June 5, 2008 7:18 PM

Cmholm,

Correct, General LeMay launched the firebombing campaign on Japan for the strategic reason of... not wanting the Navy submarine blockade getting all the credit for winning the Pacific War.

Little did he know the Marine Corps would steal the prize. As Navy Secretary Forrestal put it while observing the Iwo Jima landing, "the raising of that flag on Suribachi means a Marine Corps for the next 500 years".

I do like Gates, he seems like a good guy. I'd like him see further his rout of the Air Force by putting an Admiral in charge.

A

Posted by beowulf | June 5, 2008 7:29 PM

One fascinating second term subplot that will likely linger into a new administration of either party has been the high levels of conflict between Secretary of Defense Bob Gates and the Air Force brass

In a generic sense, I strongly doubt it - the fact that anything will linger. I just finished reading 'the commanders,' Woodward's book on the run ups to Panama and Gulf War 1. Cheney as Secdef got into it with the high level brass a few times, and had no compunction against firing a unified commander nor the Air Force Chief of Staff. My assessment is that this relationship had a neglible affect on Clinton's relationship with the military when he came in.

The civ-mil relationship depends on the long term trends in 'military culture' and the specific attributes and preferences of the civilian leadership and thus is sui generis.

Posted by Kolohe | June 5, 2008 7:31 PM

Hmmm. I wonder if this is the "Keep firing people until you find me someone who will bomb Iran " drill.

Anyone remember that Admiral -- Commander in Chief of Centcom --who was forced into resigning
a few months ago?

Posted by Don Williams | June 5, 2008 7:35 PM

I wonder if this is the "Keep firing people until you find me someone who will bomb Iran " drill.

No, because the Air Force Chief and Secretary have no impact in that regard.

However, in addition to the failures listed, it could be a more generic 'why isn't the air force doing more for GWOT?'

Posted by Kolohe | June 5, 2008 8:00 PM

When he transfers all 27 of the chaplains at the Air Force Academy to the Diego Garcia FOD patrol and installs some actual religious people from a cross-section of America's religions and churches I will start to take a bit of notice. Not until then.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | June 5, 2008 8:19 PM

Amazing! You mean someone in this administration views competence as more important than personal loyalty. It's a first!

Posted by carsick | June 5, 2008 8:31 PM

If Mr. Gates really wants to reform the military, he should do something about the fucking born agains who, apparently with the connivance of top officers, are using it as a proselytizing agent to spread their fundamentalist crap.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-rodda/the-great-commission-and_b_105306.html

Posted by SLC | June 5, 2008 8:35 PM

You got dissed, Matt. What you gonna do 'bout it?

Posted by M | June 5, 2008 9:38 PM

However, in addition to the failures listed, it could be a more generic 'why isn't the air force doing more for GWOT?'
Posted by Kolohe

That's a fairly stupid question, akin to "why did the Navy and the Marine island landings forces do all the work in the Pacific Ocean and Island war against Japan? Where was the Army???"

Well, duh...they were there on certain islands after the Marines took the place or established enough territory to allow conventional grunts to base and use a logistics train, rather than a self-sustaining Marine expeditionary force. But the Army was not designed to fight Japs on the high seas or invade from the ocean. But they were well designed as a force to battle the Nazis where the sea was an obstacle of just a few tens of miles separating them from major land masses where battles of armor and maneuver and great mass thrusts could happen.

Same now with the Navy and AF. They exist mainly to protect America from enemies other than radical Islamists, who, unlike the Muslims, do have serious air, missile, naval capacity. You have to laugh when some dipshit with a moveon.org account and a sociology degree argues that we have no need for submarines, China SIGINT monitoring, or jet fighters as good or better than rivals Russia, China, and potentially dangerous nations like Venezuela fly -because "Muslim terrorists and insurgents have none of these things".

And though the AF missions are primarily air superiority progressing to air supremacy over an enemy, space & satellite comms, and strategic bombing by plane or missile - they still do quite a bit. In Afghanistan and Iraq, for every sortie the vaunted navy carrier groups do to support troops inland, the Air Force does 10 sorties. And does it's sorties for a cost 60-85%% less than the Navy.

The Army is hardly the repository of greater wisdom. They have had a horrific time with their own programs fiscal overruns and addressing their deficiencies in focusing tactics and strategy on fighting the last war, while the Navy(sorta), AF, and Marines focus on the next war.

Posted by chris ford | June 5, 2008 9:49 PM

SLC - If Mr. Gates really wants to reform the military, he should do something about the fucking born agains who, apparently with the connivance of top officers, are using it as a proselytizing agent to spread their fundamentalist crap.

At least the Fundies step up and serve their country. How many Jews these days do?

Posted by chris ford | June 5, 2008 9:54 PM

The AF would jump for joy at orders to bomb Iran.

Posted by SqueakyRat | June 5, 2008 9:56 PM

1) FUCK ME! I think I know what this is -- it's the delay in the big, expensive TSAT program.

You can't have a 300 percent increase in battlefield surveillance if the UAVs don't have comms links back to the rear. And you CAN'T get highbandwidth video if you don't have laser links between geosats in space.

2) And some of the people controlling THAT system development have ..er.. competing priorities. Which I won't go into but some of them live on a street called Skynet. (I'm NOT kidding.) Ask yourself what competes with a UAV.

3) If TSAT isn't set up before Bush leaves the door, it may well be canceled by Obama and the Democratic Congresses because of the huge expense. And a lot of things which depend upon it will be pulled down as well.

There's already been one slip in award of TSAT. And on May 23, the Air Force indicated that it was going to slip award of the contract for another 6 months -- past Bush's exit from office.

See
http://www.afa.org/magazine/jan2008/0108laser.asp
and ESPECIALLY

http://cache.search.yahoo-ht2.akadns.net/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=TSAT+delay&fr=yfp-t-501&u=defensenewsstand.com/showdoc.asp%3Fdocid%3DAIRFORCE-19-21-2&w=tsat+delay+delays&d=L5ycg5zfQ2wS&icp=1&.intl=us

If the latter link doesn't work, go to yahoo.com, enter "TSAT" in the search bar, go down to the third link (InsideDefense) and click on "cached" entry.

4) One of the two competitors for this HUGE pot of gold is Lockheed Martin. In the district of a certain Speaker of the House.

The other competitor is Boeing -- in the district of Jane Harman -- who was BLOCKED from becoming Chairwomen of the House Intel Committee by a certain Speaker of the House.

Plus the wife of a certain pudgy Vice President was on the Board of Directors of Lockheed Martin from 1994 until the inaugural in 2001.

DAMM!. NO WONDER Robert Gates is hastily shooting very senior Air Force officials -- he feels the fucking scissors around his own nuts.

Posted by Don Williams | June 5, 2008 11:35 PM

After finally RTFA, I wonder why the firing has to be about anything more than just what it seems: not keeping track of a few nukes. That FU has rightfully blown a number of careers up the chain of command.

Posted by cmholm | June 5, 2008 11:53 PM

Re cmholm comment "I wonder why the firing has to be about anything more than just what it seems: not keeping track of a few nukes "
------------
You obviously have never seen the military's ass-covering machine in action.

meone could start a NUCLEAR war with Russia BY MISTAKE and no more than one or two levels in the chain of command would be forced to retire.

Maybe three levels. Tops.

NO, this has to be POLITICAL. I.e., a shitload of money is involved. I.e., PROCUREMENT -- NOT Operations.

It's the recent TSAT sabotage by schedule slip. I'd bet my left testicle.

Posted by Don Williams | June 6, 2008 12:16 AM

That's a fairly stupid question, akin to "why did the Navy and the Marine island landings forces do all the work in the Pacific Ocean and Island war against Japan? Where was the Army???"

Well, duh...they were there on certain islands after the Marines took the place or established enough territory to allow conventional grunts to base and use a logistics train, rather than a self-sustaining Marine expeditionary force. But the Army was not designed to fight Japs on the high seas or invade from the ocean...

So wrong, my head hurts. In the Pacific War, the only difference in mission between Army and Marines was geography, both did amphibious assaults and both faces extended ground campaigns.

The President divided US forces geographically between Central Pacific (Admiral Nimitz) and Southwest Pacific (General MacArthur). MacArthur had Army troops and some Marines, USAAF planes and Navy ships under his command. Nimitz had Marines and some Army troops, Navy and Marine Air and, of course, Navy ships.

Posted by beowulf | June 6, 2008 12:17 AM

"Remind me: why do we have an Air Force? As opposed to an Army Air (and Space) Corps?"

Its a good question. Technically, the mission of the Air Force is to bring other countries to heal by bombing their cities. This will cause them to lose production, and cause their citizens to rise up and force the government to make peace. This is as opposed to the Army, which is supposed to fight its way into those cities and occupy them.

Something like this has happened twice, with Japan in 1945 and Serbia in the 1990s. If you reject the notion of strategic bombing, for moral or for practical reasons, you reject the rationale behind keeping the USAF as a separate service.

However, note that the way the US fights wars is based around the idea of applying massive firepower while taking as few casualties as possible, and has been that way for some time. This means spending lots of money and giving lots of attention to bombers, and the fighters that protect the bombers. If the air force was folded back into the army, you would probably just see pilots being promoted all the top army commands, in addition to what they are getting now. The soldiers on the ground would probably be even more shafted.

During World War II, the USAAF was part of the army. The Luftwaffe, on the other hand, was a separate service from the Wehrmacht. But the Germans worked close air support of ground troops, by any measure, much better than the Americans did, and were less focused on and capable at the strategic aspects of air power. Sometimes differences in military cultures trump organizational changes.

Posted by Ed | June 6, 2008 1:39 AM

"Remind me: why do we have an Air Force? As opposed to an Army Air (and Space) Corps?"

Its a good question. Technically, the mission of the Air Force is to bring other countries to heal by bombing their cities. This will cause them to lose production, and cause their citizens to rise up and force the government to make peace. This is as opposed to the Army, which is supposed to fight its way into those cities and occupy them.

Something like this has happened twice, with Japan in 1945 and Serbia in the 1990s. If you reject the notion of strategic bombing, for moral or for practical reasons, you reject the rationale behind keeping the USAF as a separate service.

However, note that the way the US fights wars is based around the idea of applying massive firepower while taking as few casualties as possible, and has been that way for some time. This means spending lots of money and giving lots of attention to bombers, and the fighters that protect the bombers. If the air force was folded back into the army, you would probably just see pilots being promoted all the top army commands, in addition to what they are getting now. The soldiers on the ground would probably be even more shafted.

During World War II, the USAAF was part of the army. The Luftwaffe, on the other hand, was a separate service from the Wehrmacht. But the Germans worked close air support of ground troops, by any measure, much better than the Americans did, and were less focused on and capable at the strategic aspects of air power. Sometimes differences in military cultures trump organizational changes.

Posted by Ed | June 6, 2008 1:42 AM

When things are this remedial. you have to be glad for soneone like Gates doing this. You can make the argument for how things should be other than remedial, but guys like Gates matter a lot right now. This is actually fairly big, and it's always nice to see real Repulicans redeem themselves.

Posted by jonnybutter | June 6, 2008 1:44 AM

Come on, we all know what is going on here.

What is good for the American military (let's ignore the question of whether it is good for America or the world) is ever more automated UNMANNED aircraft. They can already do some things a lot better than piloted craft, including hanging around in the sky for long periods of time. Their abilities are only going to improve as electronics continues its inexorable path.

The problem is that the Air Force is only mildly interested in what is good for the US military, and much more interested in the sexiness of not just having the fastest machines around, but having the PERSONNEL that drive these machines.

This is the basic conflict: Gates sees a future world without pilots; the Air Force believes a world without pilots is a world they don't want to live in.

I suspect that, at the end of the day, the Military-Industrial complex prefers Gates' vision, not least because it results in more items that can be transferred to other areas (space, the slow automation of ground transportation, even aspects of civilian air). But obviously the Air Force will do whatever it feels it can get away with to derail this. Would they go so far as to deliberately disobey orders to make drones and cruise missiles fail and thus appear ineffective? I've no idea; on the other hand, after the fsck-up that is Iraq, could anyone even tell that they were deliberately trying to screw up, rather than just being as incompetent as everything else touched by Bush?

Posted by Maynard Handley | June 6, 2008 3:58 AM

"At least the Fundies step up and serve their country. How many Jews these days do?

Posted by chris ford | June 5, 2008 9:54 PM"

Oh fuck you. The last time I checked, there were a lot more fundies than Jews in this country, despite your conspiracy theories about the Jews controlling the media or whatever. When you serve your country, that means serving all Americans and that means serving Jews, Muslims, gays, lesbians, atheists, etc., not just the fundies. When you so hate Jews, you are hating part of the country and loyal Americans you claim to love.

Posted by Reality Man | June 6, 2008 4:55 AM

"At least the Fundies step up and serve their country."

Serve their country? Doing what exactly?
Please enlighten us as to exactly what of America's interests have been served by invading Iraq because I and 80% of the rest of the country don't have a damn clue.

As far as I can tell, what the Fundies have done is to participate willingly in the mass looting of the country, shoveling wealth from the poorer 99% into the hands of the wealthiest 1%. I'm not sure quite why you think this was such an admirable enterprise, but I expect that most Jews feel proud not to have been part of it.

Posted by Maynard Handley | June 6, 2008 5:03 AM

Re Maynard Handley's comment "This is the basic conflict: Gates sees a future world without pilots; the Air Force believes a world without pilots is a world they don't want to live in. "
----------
Yes. The UAVs compete with the manned F22 fighters. Not just for budget dollars -- but eventually also for mission.

Some people think smart UAVs with AI computers will replace manned fighters because they can pull a lot more Gs than manned craft can -- plus you have the value of dropping 200 lbs in body weight. Some people think F22 and JSF will be the last manned fighters ever built.

Obviously, Air Force flyboys don't like this idea and evolutionary path. So I suspect they've been putting their thumb on the scale when it comes to budget dollars. Raiding other budgets to cover F22 and JSF cost overruns.

Posted by Don Williams | June 6, 2008 6:37 AM

Did the topic of Christian bullying at the AF Academy have any effect on Gates' decision?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/03/AR2005050301499.html

I suspect not, as it's a feature, not a bug.

Posted by Jamey | June 6, 2008 8:26 AM

Evidence, if more were needed, that Gates should be retained as SecDef well into the first Obama administration. Then, I'd like to see him replaced with John McCain.

Posted by robert powell | June 6, 2008 8:40 AM

Re Chris Ford

"At least the Fundies step up and serve their country. How many Jews these days do?"

1. Mr. Ford raises a legitimate question here. However, here's a comment from a retired Navy Chaplain from Ed Braytons' blog who indicating the illegality of the actions of the fucking born agains.

"As I have said many times before on this site, I spent a great deal of my time as a Command Chaplain countering the divisive and illegal tactics of para-church groups trying to use the U.S. military as a base for obnoxious evangelistic propaganda. Several months ago I pointed out that the situation is far worse than is generally understood by those outside the military. Recently, on this site, a participant took me to task for pointing out the problems caused by such groups as Campus Crusade for Christ Military Ministries. I think the person had good intentions but failed to see the legal implications attending to religion in the military and religion in secular society. Over the years it became clear to me that many of these hyper-evangelistic types were totally unethical in the way they did business. For instance, "lying for Jesus" is not bad; in fact, it's good if it "wins souls for Christ." While railing against social vices that have no connection to any concept of biblical salvation, they spout volumes in support of their own rules of petty morality while violating the basic foundation upon which all trust is based -- that of truth. Dealing with them is a study in frustration. If left unchallenged, they intensify their efforts via all that is negative in the concept of crusade/jihad. When challenged, they assume the posture of martyrs who are being persecuted for serving Jesus Christ. I expect that things will get worse and may never get better. It takes courage to enforce the laws that were created to keep this kind of religious nonsense in check.
CAPT Norm Holcomb, CHC, USN (Ret)"

2. Of course, the fucking born agains referred to are not members of the military but civilian members of the Campus Crusade for Christ who have no more business proselytizing on US military bases then members of the Communist Party. The notion, prevalent in many fucking born again circles that Muslims in Iraq should be forcibly converted to Christianity as a part of US strategy there is atrocious and counterproductive and should be halted as of this instant.

Attached are a some links to threads on Mr. Braytons' blog which address these issues.

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/06/rodda_on_military_proselytizin.php#more

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/06/marine_removed_for_religious_c.php#commentsArea

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/05/military_proselytizing_needs_t.php#more

Posted by SLC | June 6, 2008 8:45 AM

Gates is a prime prospect to be Obama's Secretary of Defense.

I hope this is true, but I rather doubt it.

Posted by TW Andrews | June 6, 2008 9:29 AM

Don't mend it, end it

or,

The Court Martial Should Have Hanged Billy Mitchell

There was absolutley no sound reason for us to have split off the Army Air Corps into an independent Air Force. Nothing short of righting that error could ever get the Air Force to face any realities of any world situation, because there is no rational world view in which an independent Air Force makes any sense. They have an insitutional investment in unreality.

Posted by Glen Tomkins | June 6, 2008 10:09 AM

I can see Gates staying on in an Obama administration. It'd be an easy way to demonstrate bipartisanship, since from what I've seen Gates is pretty compatible with Obama's goals.

Posted by AlanC9 | June 6, 2008 10:34 AM

Re Glen Tomkins

Excuse me, in most countries' militaries, the air force is a separate entity. Examples, Great Britain, Israel, Germany, etc.

The problem is appointing air force generals as overall commanders. As examples, General Myers was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when the inadequate ground force was sent into Iraq, ignoring his Army Chief of Staff General Shinsekis' reservations. As another example, General Halutz was the commander of the IDF during which the totally incompetent strategy for the Lebanon operation in 2006 was executed.

Posted by SLC | June 6, 2008 10:35 AM

plus you have the value of dropping 200 lbs in body weight.

More than that: 200 lbs for the pilot, 200 for the ejection seat, a few dozen pounds for the displays and controls the pilot uses, plus the weight of canopy, plus the assorted life-support systems, plus the cockpit structure, plus the weight of structure you can eliminate (making the plane smaller) because you don't need to make room for the meatbag, and so on.

Wouldn't surprise me if total mass saving was 2 tonnes or more on something like an F-16.

Posted by KeithM | June 6, 2008 11:37 AM

The 2nd largest air force in the world doesn't have the same problems as the US Air Force. Air, sea and ground forces are run as a single department with common training, logisistics and leaders.

I refer of course to the United States Naval Service (whose Marine Corps ground force is larger than the British Army). It was only because the Navy was developing GPS navigation and cruise missiles that the Air Force took a serious interest in either.

Because the Navy is divided betweeen Surface, Submarines and Aviation (plus the Marine ground pounders), it doesn't have all its bureaucratic eggs in the manned aircraft basket.

Fold the Air Force and Marine Air Wings into the Navy and the Army into the National Guard (if we need a draft in the future, a National Guard draft is politically more feasible).

We could expand the Fleet Marine Force to its World War II size of 6 divisions (from the current 3). If a president wants more troops than that for overseas duties, well, a draftee National Guard means he's going think twice about calling the reserves up.

Posted by beowulf | June 6, 2008 12:33 PM

What sort of "mishandling" got these two top Air Force officials booted? Was Gen. Moseley's number one pickup line at the officer's club: "Wanna come up to the war room and play with The Button?" See more here: http://www.236.com/news/2008/06/06/air_force_officials_fired_over_6989.php

Posted by eliana | June 6, 2008 1:46 PM

RE beowulf's comment "We could expand the Fleet Marine Force to its World War II size of 6 divisions (from the current 3). If a president wants more troops than that for overseas duties, well, a draftee National Guard means he's going think twice about calling the reserves up."
----------
I strongly agree with beowulf. Look at what the Founders said about the danger and expense of maintaining a huge standing army in peacetime.

On the other hand , if you want a deeply corrupt Empire instead of a Republic, then you need a huge mercenary army to protect the overseas investments of your wealthy elites.

You'll notice the whores in the Mainstream News Media never talk about these issues.

Posted by Don Williams | June 6, 2008 3:53 PM

I like beowulf's suggestion too, except for the draft part. We don't need it, and it would be counterproductive to military effectiveness. A volunteer Guard Army is perfectly feasible, and the safeguard idea is redundant--no president in the foreseeable future is going to launch any wars that couldn't be handled by six Marine divisions, certainly not without massive public support. Which, by the way, Bush had in 2003.

Posted by robert powell | June 6, 2008 4:19 PM

I strongly agree with beowulf. Look at what the Founders said about the danger and expense of maintaining a huge standing army in peacetime.

On the other hand , if you want a deeply corrupt Empire instead of a Republic, then you need a huge mercenary army to protect the overseas investments of your wealthy elites.

You'll notice the whores in the Mainstream News Media never talk about these issues.

Posted by Don Williams | June 6, 2008 3:53 PM

--------------------------------------------------

Well, look on the bright side. It could be worse - we could go back to the Foederati.

Posted by Greg | June 6, 2008 5:01 PM

However, in addition to the failures listed, it could be a more generic 'why isn't the air force doing more for GWOT?'
Posted by Kolohe

That's a fairly stupid question, akin to "why did the Navy and the Marine island landings forces do all the work in the Pacific Ocean and Island war against Japan? Where was the Army???"

Late to respond. Please note I said doing *more* not 'why aren't they doing anything at all.'

Also note we are actually not actually in the process of fighting the Chinese or Iranians or Russians or others concurrently, just deterring them.

Plus your air force sorties, even if cheaper, are preconditioned on basing rights, which have been withheld in the past. And, in a really roundabout way, led to 9/11.

Posted by Kolohe | June 7, 2008 2:21 AM

Not to mix threads, but I think Kolohe has illuminated the basis of the upcoming SOF agreement with Iraq. In brief, we agree to be their air force, and they agree not to fuck us over.

Posted by robert powell | June 7, 2008 4:43 AM