The Coming Air Force Crisis
David Petraeus makes a joke:
Come to think of it, in fact another bedrock element of the Marine Corps is unquestionably having the best recruiting ads on television. But this concept is not just an advertisement. The marines’ sense of toughness permeates the Corps’ lore as well as its reality. To recall an illustrative story, a soldier is trudging through the muck in the midst of a downpour with a 60-pound rucksack on his back. This is tough, he thinks to himself. Just ahead of him trudges an Army ranger with an 80-pound pack on his back. This is really tough, he thinks. And ahead of him is a Marine with a 90-pound pack on, and he thinks to himself, I love how tough this is. Then, of course, 30,000 feet above them an Air Force pilot flips aside his ponytail. Now — I’m sorry. I don’t know how that got in there — I know they haven’t had ponytails in a year or two — and looks down at them through his cockpit as he flies over. Boy, he radios his wingman, it must be tough down there.
As Robert Farley says, this kind of thing is a pretty typical ground forces joke but “the AFA whining reveals a certain insecurity.”
It’s worth observing that this issue is going to become much more severe in the years to come. Air Force officers are already sensitive to the accusation that their service is less physically rigorous or risky than other forms of combat. And of course there’s some real truth to the accusation. Looked at rationally, this is the appeal of air power and always has been. Why try to blow something up at relatively close range on the ground from a base that’s located inside the war zone when you can blow it up from the relative safety of the sky, and then have the vehicle retreat to a far-off base where it can be serviced by people who are at relatively little risk of being killed?
The trouble is that advanced technological developments are driving this logic even further forward through the use of unmanned aerial vehicles. From a rational point of view, UAVs piloted from afar from operators far from the field of battle are a huge win. Since there’s no pilot in the UAV, the cost of having one shot down is relatively low, so it’s viable to use cheaper planes and just resolve to build more if you need them. And since the pilots are safe, you never have to worry about losing your best-trained veterans in combat. Pilotless planes can also do aerial moves that might kill a human being.
At the same time, as you see in Petraeus’ joke and the reaction to it, the military—like all effective military organizations I’m familiar with—is an institutional culture that puts a great deal of stock on honor, courage, and difficult physical work. A service that consists of guys sitting in cubicles playing video games is going to have trouble holding its head high amidst a warrior ethos. And consequently, the Air Force is tending to resist the technological imperative to go more remote. Ultimately, however, that resistance is doomed and it’s not really clear what will come of it.
114 Responses to “The Coming Air Force Crisis”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
August 26th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
So, General, when’s the last time you marched with a pack?
August 26th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Here is the career bio of a MAJOR GENERAL in the US Air Force:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0RBE/is_2004_Annual/ai_n8588919/
Can anyone point out the battlefields?
Hint: Space and Missiles Command is near Redondo Beach, Los Angeles.
August 26th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Ultimately, however, that resistance is doomed and it’s not really clear what will come of it.
I suspect in some future conflict, a bunch of pilots will quickly die in an attempt to face off with UAVs. And that will be the end of the resistance.
August 26th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
like all effective military organizations I’m familiar with
I’d like to hear more on Matt’s familiarity with effective military organizations.
August 26th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Here is the career bio of a MAJOR GENERAL in the US Air Force:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0RBE/is_2004_Annual/ai_n8588919/
Can anyone point out the battlefields?
Hint: Space and Missiles Command is near Redondo Beach, Los Angeles.
Hmm, this ain’t exactly a recent development; in fact it goes back all the way to the old Army Air Corps. Don, you’ve seen the pics of Curtis LeMay. I’m sure that the double chin and the belly were just cleverly disguised flak jackets.
August 26th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Ultimately the AF culture will just change. The focus on honor, courage, and physical fitness derives from the necessity of those qualities to the job of being a soldier.
My guess is the culture will shift to emphasize intelligence and effeciency like in many other fields dominated by technology.
August 26th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
> A service that consists of guys sitting in
> cubicles playing video games is going to have
> trouble holding its head high amidst a warrior ethos.
Keep in mind that the “warrior ethos” is something that has been created in the last 20 years as part of the cultural transformation of the Army. Prior to that we had GIs, an army of Cincinnatuses, professional soldiers (e.g. US Cavalry) and where needed efficient coldblooded killing of the enemy (Patton’s preference). Now there are elements in our society which want to build amongst the citizens an armed force of Warriors(tm) in the mode of the lost cause. Something to think about pretty deeply before we allow it to go any further.
Cranky
August 26th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Now there are elements in our society which want to build amongst the citizens an armed force of Warriors(tm) in the mode of the lost cause.
Actually, it just demonstrates that the South returned to its traditional position of disproportionate dominance within the military after WW2.
You do realize just how Southern the Army and even the Navy were before the War of Southern Aggression, right?
August 26th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Everybody justifies their budget as “supporting the warfighter”; i.e., the grunts.
In the 1990s , the Air Force -CIA National Reconnaissance Office supported the warfighter by setting up a $2 Billion slush fund –hidden from Congress — and using $300 Million to build a huge ,new office building in Westfields, Fairfax County outside Washington DC.
A luxury building described as a Taj Mahal.
The NRO then went on to spend $6 Billion on Boeing in Los Angeles to build the FIA satellites –before having to CANCEL the program and admit it was a failure.
This during a period when hundreds of thousands of Army soldiers –like Bronze Star winner Timothy McVeigh — were thrown out on the streets and the ones remaining in the service were told to apply for Food Stamps to feed their families.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Reconnaissance_Office#History
August 26th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
As Farley and others have noted many times, the era of strategic bombing is over. Petraeus is Army and the Army wants to be able to control its tactical air support, as the Marine Corps does. It wants the Army Air Corps back.
August 26th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
Time to fold the Air Force back into the Army, ground all the useless cold war detritus, fire any Christianists that don’t leave in a huff, and move on.
August 26th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Change the Air Force into the Space Force, give them satellites and ICBMs, and give all their duties involving combat support for ground troops – and the equipment for these jobs – back to the Army.
August 26th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
Now there are elements in our society which want to build amongst the citizens an armed force of Warriors(tm) in the mode of the lost cause. – Cranky Observer
I agree with you about the change in ethos in our society. And certainly trying to recruit for an all volunteer army has something to do with it. But your use of “now” here is somewhat incorrect. While certainly the “warrior” ethos is relatively modern as a general aspect of the military, there always were elements of our society which were wont to entertain notions of chivalrous warriors in the mode of lost causes. I am sure you might know of whom I speak. Perhaps you were thinking of this when you used the key phrase “lost cause”?
But those elements have existed in our society for quite some time. It’s only recently that a whole party has become enthralled to them as part of a deliberate strategy to win votes. But Robert Byrd was once in the KKK, so everyone is equally to blame here, eh?
August 26th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
> But those elements have existed in our society
> for quite some time. It’s only recently that a
> whole party has become enthralled to them as
> part of a deliberate strategy to win votes.
I would say that it is only recently that this meme has been driven forcefully into American culture nationwide. I don’t doubt that there were areas of this type of thinking in the US in the 1840s, say (although from my reading not so much among the professional soldiers who were actually fighting in the West at that time), but while they reached a peak of influence just prior to a certain unpleasant event their mode of thought was not woven into overall US society. Look at the situation today: politicians are afraid to speak out on any topic involving military force, despite it being their duty as legislators to do so, for fear of being branding as “troop hating, face-spitting hippie liberals”. Even a new President appears to have been cowed into near submission by these memes and rhetoric. That’s quite dangerous IMHO.
Cranky
August 26th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
NERDS!
The image issue of having ‘Top Gun’ (yeah, It’s Navy, but whatever) pilots, vs. a bunch of video game playing geek types probably has some impact on the USAF’s attitude towards UAVs. But I think a bigger issue is that having UAVs makes it much easier for the Army to attempt set up their own air corp again. Your training is done with computers, your forward base can be a short crappy runway with a tent for the UAV operators, and who wouldn’t want to see a UAV designed around the GAU-8/A. If tactial support goes back to the Army, then there’s the possiblity of deciding to move the air superiority there too.
I really think the USAF is worried that in another decade the only thing they’ll be doing is flying C-5s from point A to point B.
August 26th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
“I suspect in some future conflict, a bunch of pilots will quickly die in an attempt to face off with UAVs.”
And then when a series of UAVs develop computer glitches that render them useless, we’ll go right back to pilots.
Mike
August 26th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Damn, I’m so old I can remember when the Russians thought they could hold on to their empire with tanks…
August 26th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
At least the Air Force gets the last laugh – they, along with the Artillery folks, get the most kills on the battlefield, regardless of how tough the Marines claim to be.
As for drones, keep in mind that not all environments are going to be as convenient for them as Afghanistan and Pakistan, where there’s essentially little to no efforts to jam the transmissions between craft and controller, and where the enemy isn’t actively trying to disrupt the Command and Control system (drone operations require a lot of bandwidth). You really need drones capable of carrying out their missions without active control from base if the signal gets lost.
August 26th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
In fairness to the Air Force, you do not defend a major power like the United States by dragging rifles around in a field.
Emotionally, I liked the Army and Navy guys I have worked with a lot more than the Air Force. The Army and Navy officer corps have a culture of integrity that is required when you are depending on subordinates to risk their lives supporting you. There is the idea of mutual obligation, of honor and of integrity. Not to say that everyone lives up to it 100 percent but it is there.
The Air Force –or at least the parts I dealt with –struck me more as being like a civilian corporation and of having the management values of a corporation.
However, there is also no denying that some Air Force Units — the Minuteman missile fields and the Air Force Reserve fighter units in the US, for example — make an enormous contribution to US national security.
But we naturally have sympathy for the guy putting his ass on the line in some shithole. Even though our leaders probably put him there more to guard/promote some business investment than to actually defend the USA.
Many people in the military are not warriors –but do more to protect the USA than the warriors themselves. I just don’t like senior leaders who fuck the grunts in the course of grabbing a budget to “support the warfighter.”
August 26th, 2009 at 4:06 pm
Re daveNYC at 15: “But I think a bigger issue is that having UAVs makes it much easier for the Army to attempt set up their own air corp again. Your training is done with computers, your forward base can be a short crappy runway with a tent for the UAV operators, and who wouldn’t want to see a UAV designed around the GAU-8/A. If tactial support goes back to the Army, then there’s the possiblity of deciding to move the air superiority there too.”
—————
Only one problem. You can’t communicate very far (70 miles?) with drones via line of sight transmissions. (Earth curvature.)
So you need satellite uplinks. Guess who controls the satellites?
That was a wet blanket on drones for years — guess what recon drones COMPETE with? (Hint: Remember that $6 Billion trainwreck I mentioned above?) It took some real arm-twisting –and the pressures of war — to get drones off the ground.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
Re: Ultimately the AF culture will just change. The focus on honor, courage, and physical fitness derives from the necessity of those qualities to the job of being a soldier.
My guess is the culture will shift to emphasize intelligence and effeciency like in many other fields dominated by technology.
Mike in the Mountain West,
Thank you for pointing out the basic gutless, soulless and Godless nature of hipster cultural liberalism. The Yglesian hipsters of the world think honor, courage and hard physical labor are silly and out-of-date. Why haul heavy loads up mountains on your back, when you could spend your day surfing porn sites and playing video games. All that nonsense about ‘in the sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn thy bread’ is so outmoded and unfashionable.
Very good. Have your way, and let the United States military become the same hotbed of Roman decadence that the rest of our society shall become. In time, of course, that society shall fall, as all decadent societies inevitably fall, just as Babylon and Rome fell before it. And the day will come when the weakened United States is divided up into Russian and Latin American spheres of influence, and a very good thing it shall be too. At least when we are governed by Bolivian colonels instead of by American congressmen, we will be governed by people who think honor, courage, and hard labor are more important than pot, porn, and playstations.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Re: Damn, I’m so old I can remember when the Russians thought they could hold on to their empire with tanks…
Serial Catowner,
In the coming economic and environmental crisis, Russia will outlast America, and in the words of Khrushchev, they will bury us. For a very good reason. Russians know how to suffer and endure, and Americans don’t.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Correction to 19: I meant to refer to the Air National Guard fighter units (who defend the USA) , not to the Air Force Reserve.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
UAVs only look good because they are being used against a bunch of guerillas without any triple-A capability.
The use of UAVs in a conventional war with an enemy with advanced weapons will be very destabilizing. Say, for instance that the US uses UAVs against the Russians in a future conflict. The controllers of those UAVs are a legitimate target so Russians decide to use the only long-range weapon available to them which are long-range missiles with conventional warheads to take them out. How is the US to know whether those missiles have conventional or nuclear warheads?
Actually, the most likely way to deal with them is to take out the comms satellites that are used to carry the signals that control them. What will happen if the UAVs are, for instance, in Georgia defending US troops and the controllers are in Creech AFB near Las Vegas and the Russians take out the Pentagon’s comms satellites? The poor bloody grunts will be without air cover and it is over fifty years since the US fought a war in which it didn’t have air supremacy.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
All of this discussion assumes that there will continue to be an Air Force after our overseas creditors and suppliers cut off the funds we no longer can raise on our own and access to the technical equipment we no longer can produce.
Come to think of it, it also assumes there would continue to be an Army or Marine Corps.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Say what you will about the Air Force (and most of it is true) but these guys are pretty excellent http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pararescue
August 26th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
And then when a series of UAVs develop computer glitches that render them useless, we’ll go right back to pilots.
There will undoubtedly be major aspects of aerial warfare devoted to trying to f’up the operations of UAVs in various ways, and correspondng aspects of aerial warfare devoted to defending UAVs from such attacks. But there is no way we are going to be training pilots and then sending them into a meatgrinder for use on the rare occasions when they might briefly survive long enough to accomplish something.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
Re Hector at 21:
Hector, Hector, Hector.
The Air Force is NOT a bastion of “gutless, soulless and Godless nature of hipster cultural liberalism”.
Given a choice between moral superiority and a 500 Kt warhead from Malmstrom, I’ll side with the nuke anyday.
Anyone that tried to “divide up the USA” –other than ourselves — would be a pile of radioactive ashes.
It wasn’t the Roman centurion who ended up on the Cross.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
I would imagine that the Army is already deep in development of unmanned ground vehicles, and that the perception of the Air Force as the branch with the video gamers will be short lived because the other branches will have their own playstation brigades. I also suspect that the disrespect for the airforce is undercut to a certain extent by the idea that the airforce are the guys who show up to save your ass when you’re pinned down by enemy ground forces. Gratitude for a life-saving airstrike probably goes a long way.
The biggest problem with these technological advances is that while robots are a great choice for doing the killing part of warfighting, modern war is about winning hearts and minds and you really need humans on the ground for that. Plus, the lower the risk of human life, the more tempted we are to use force in situations where it’s a bad strategic idea.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Methinks the Army wants its Air Corps back.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
One thing about the “warrior ethos,” is that it is useless in warfare. Superior technology and those who use it (nerds) will always triumph over the “warriors.” (jocks) French knights (warriors) got thrashed by English crossbows at the battle of Agnicourt in 1415. French soldiers (warriors) got massacred by Prussian artillery in 1870 and the French made the same msitake in World War I by overly concentrating on elan (warrior ethos)and not tactics. The Japanese (warriors) made the same mistake against the Soviets in 1939 and than against the Americans during the Pacific War by conducting banzai charges against tanks and planes. From these examples it is obvious that the warrior ethos is severely detrimental to military effectiveness and any officers that believe in it reaaly need to be weeded out of the service.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
…Looked at rationally, this is the appeal of air power and always has been.
Not in the Second World War, where an American combat pilot’s odds of surviving to the end of the war were less than fifty-fifty.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:37 pm
Well it’s kinda funny that the best military strategist this country has produced that has influenced/changed the Marine Corps thinking is an Air Force officer.
Yep – Colonel John Boyd.
Google him up and you’ll learn something.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
If you were to talk to former members of the USAF many will tell you that a prime component of joining the USAF was that the odds of having one’s buttocks shot off are minimal. It is the age old argument of brains over brawn. There will always be soldiers and marines just as there will always be pilots and ground support. The latter will be convinced that their efforts are just as important, the former less convinced until that plane drops supplies, bombs or close support at a critical time.
However, the inter-service jokes will never end. Nature of the competition.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
I’m offended that he thinks a regular Marine is tougher than an Army Ranger.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
An interesting new book about how the “warrior ethos,” degraded the Japanese army’s doctrine in the 1930s and made it not only unable to fight modern technological wars but also contributed to Japanese atrocities in China is Edward Drea’s new book “Japan’s Imperial Army: Its Rise and Fall, 1853-1945.”
August 26th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
I seem to recall something about the Soviet Union falling because they were unwilling to use those tanks on citizens. Clearly bible instruction would have helped avert this problem.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Re John at 31: “French knights (warriors) got thrashed by English crossbows at the battle of Agnicourt in 1415.”
————
Er.. it was rapid-fire Welsh longbows.
The Frenchies had Italian crossbowmen but they let their high-tension bowstrings get wet in the rain.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
And the longbows were only magical if you had spent 10 years or so building up the enormous shoulder/back muscles needed to draw a 100 lb bow.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Could you and Ezra refrain from overusing the phrase, “It’s worth…(observing, noting, etc.). You guys are good writers, too good to fall into repetetive habits.
August 26th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
RE: Hector @ 21
This lecture is made beautifully ironic by its medium. I assume when you’re done on the computer you’re going to go clear some brush off your ranch and march up and down the square a bit, right Mr. Hard Workin’ Man?
August 26th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Very good. Have your way, and let the United States military become the same hotbed of Roman decadence that the rest of our society shall become. In time, of course, that society shall fall, as all decadent societies inevitably fall, just as Babylon and Rome fell before it. And the day will come when the weakened United States is divided up into Russian and Latin American spheres of influence, and a very good thing it shall be too. At least when we are governed by Bolivian colonels instead of by American congressmen, we will be governed by people who think honor, courage, and hard labor are more important than pot, porn, and playstations.
============================================================
In 1917 and 1941 the German high command had much the same feeling about the inability of the decadent Americans to field any sort of effective military. How’d that work out for them?
August 26th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
To Don Williams
Sorry for the typo the English did use longbows and not crossbows. But is was the very unwarrior commoners, who were the archers and not the warrior knights, that gave the English their victory at Agincourt.
August 26th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
‘Emotionally the air force is doomed.’ Message delivered. Thanks. I guess I have had enough of emotional massaging for now and best be moving on.
August 26th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
John Henninger Says:
August 26th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
One thing about the “warrior ethos,” is that it is useless in warfare. Superior technology and those who use it (nerds) will always triumph over the “warriors.” (jocks) French knights (warriors) got thrashed by English crossbows at the battle of Agnicourt in 1415. French soldiers (warriors) got massacred by Prussian artillery in 1870 and the French made the same msitake in World War I by overly concentrating on elan (warrior ethos)and not tactics. The Japanese (warriors) made the same mistake against the Soviets in 1939 and than against the Americans during the Pacific War by conducting banzai charges against tanks and planes. From these examples it is obvious that the warrior ethos is severely detrimental to military effectiveness and any officers that believe in it reaaly need to be weeded out of the service.
============================================================
Actually you need both, and you’ve cherry-picked examples. Do you really think that the German troops who beat the French in 1870 had a lesser warrior ethos? Ask the Russians about how ineffective the Japanese warrior ethos was when they got whipped in 1905. The Japanese situation in the 30s and 40s is a bit more complex than you’ve made out. Frankly, Japan was too poor an industrial nation to build both a first class navy (which they did) and to build a first class mechanized army. The Japanese army had to psych themselves up to compensate. If you look closely at the history, most of the Japanese suicide charges against Americans were just that – a desire to go out in glory when the situation was irretrievably lost
For a counter example look at the German invasion of France in 1940. Contrary to what you may assume, the French had more and better tanks than the Germans (the Germans used a lot of captured ones when they invaded Russia the next year). Their army with the BEF was larger. Germans had the edge in aircraft, but that wasn’t decisive in the battle. The Germans were more aggressive and had superior tactics and routed a demoralized French army. That warrior ethos.
August 26th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Well there are ways around that, increase the height of your antenna (blimp or AWACS type plane), use a different frequency, a signal repeater drone, a local controller, something. Sure there would be tech problems to overcome, but I think they’d pale in comparison to the resistance of the institutions to change. That and whichever defense contractor’s cash cow is getting gored.
I”m sorry, but what in the nine circles of Hell does hauling heavy loads up a mountain have to do with being an air force pilot? Plus, where’s the love for Canada? Wouldn’t they try and take over a piece of the soon to be defunct USA? Or are they too decadent with cosmopolitan hipsterism?
August 26th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
In the coming economic and environmental crisis, Russia will outlast America, and in the words of Khrushchev, they will bury us. For a very good reason. Russians know how to suffer and endure, and Americans don’t.
=============================================================
If there are any Russians left. The country is in a state of demographic collapse. The population is shrinking and the average life span contracting in one of the best economic periods the country has ever had. Self-impose suffering
August 26th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
If there are any Russians left.
Campesino beat me too it. There won’t be enough Russians left to occupy their own country, let alone colonize North America.
Oh well–I guess that is just more glorious suffering ahead for the Russians!
August 26th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
> The Yglesian hipsters of the world think honor,
> courage and hard physical labor are silly
> and out-of-date.
“Honor” is a problematic concept in many aspects, but granting it to you arguendo: There is honor, courage, and hard work in general. There is honor, courage, and hard work in service of DEFENDING the United States. Then there is honor, courage, and hard work in support of imperialistic military adventures, unprovoked invasions of other nations, “throwing crappy countries against the wall”, and the profit margins of United Fruit and Halliburton, which is another thing entirely. If you mean to defend the third type, then please be explicit that that is what you are doing and why, exactly, that is a good thing.
Cranky
August 26th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Is “hipster” now just a generic epithet for people that socially isolated basement-dwelling fatguys don’t like?
August 26th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
I would imagine that the Army is already deep in development of unmanned ground vehicles
Channel-flipping the other day, there was a contestant on Millionaire who said he was working on that very project. There’s already the whole robot bomb detonation and sweeping stuff, but the Army loves the idea of having supply convoys that drive themselves.
Look at the RAF, though, which has a well-established cultural/class divide — pip, pip, Ginger! — and you’ll find the same inter-service jokes, but not quite the same kind of antipathy directed towards to the USAF. That’s probably heightened by the perceived asymmetry of the ongoing deployments, though it also reflects a broader military culture in terms of recruitment.
August 26th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
> The Germans were more aggressive and had
> superior tactics and routed a demoralized
> French army. That warrior ethos.
Which in the end merely allowed them to prolong the agony when faced with Great Britain and its superior boffins, the Soviet Union and its superior tenacity + US-built trucks, and the US and its superior industrial base, trucks, logistics, firepower, and dogged organization. The US, outside certain areas, has NEVER embraced the “warrior” meme which is antithetical to the concept of a modern civil republic and civilian government, yet it has managed to keep any outsiders from drinking from the Ohio and even managed to intervene successfully overseas once or twice (and unsuccessfully several times too). There is a big difference between the “GI” and the “American Warrior(tm)” and again I think we had better think long and hard before we encourage the latter.
Cranky
August 26th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
A horrible mistake was made in the creation of the Air Force. In the creation of the Air Force it was stipulated that the Army could not use fixed wing aircraft in combat. The resultant command problems and inter service rivalries were always a problem when providing close ground troop support and made for such absurdities as the helicopter gun ship. You see the Army could fly copters so they fell in love with them.
The bigger problem was the institutional imperatives which lead to ever more expensive planes without a function. The B1, Stealth Bomber, and the Osprey. I’ll leave aside a service Academy famous for cheating, sexual abuse, and now overt racism in the name of Christian Dominionist ideologies.
The Air Forces mission is to kill defenseless civilians, while spending trillions of dollars. Something to be proud of.
With the drones the Army is getting its revenge. It isn’t going to be pretty however.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
> and the Osprey
The Osprey is pretty much a Marine Corps/Navy project at this time.
Cranky
August 26th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
There might also be some built up good will from the Battle of Britain. Fighting against a numerically superior opponent in order to save your country looks good on a resume. The USAF doesn’t really have anything quite like that in its history.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Clearly there is a struggle over funding for a pet project, because this is complete and utter bullshit. The Navy isn’t full of grunts. Is the Navy having this image problem?
When I was in the Air Force, competence was supreme. We had frequent written tests, and were absolutely required to be literate and knowledgeable. We worked with very expensive equipment in one unit, in a very expensive system. We accepted the halon system in operations as necessary, for instance, because we knew we were as expendable as any grunt and the mission was more important than we were. We knew that in the event of a nuclear war we would track and report missiles and blasts until it was over. We couldn’t run around screaming and call for an air strike, or in any other way look as if we were on the set of a WW II flick—the good war. Nevertheless we would have taken part is an unprecedentedly macho display of power. Thanks to brains being more important than looking tough in the Air Force and some leaders in the Pentagon, we have not had WW III to demonstrate our bravado.
In another unit, we were trained to be grunts—mobile radar units are on the ground in combat zones. We carried M-16s and used them in exercises. We did taxing physical work. Some gloried in the machismo of it all, but all demanded competence, speed, and accuracy from themselves and everyone else. We were responsible as individuals and as a group for a large number of people. Making a mistake could result in many deaths and the loss of millions of dollars worth of equipment. When a pilot crashed a jet, we all crossed our fingers and thought of the mechanic that might end up in Mannheim. If this culture has degraded, it’s not because the Air Force doesn’t satisfy wet dreams inspired by cinema and advertising.
I despise drones for many reasons, not being “macho” and marketable aren’t on that list. Perhaps it’s better if people on the ground call for the air strikes and know what the hell they’re doing. I prefer a pilot risk his life and be on site to assess the situation, so that he might decided not to attack, in the event that he can see it’s a wedding party.
If the Air Force is having problems with recruitment, they might want to consider speeding up the advancement of rank. They can’t show ads of manly grunts pissing their pants and crying for their mothers because that would be mean. But it happens all the time. The image of the fearless warrior is bullshit. The rare ones who do fit the image are psychopaths.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Re: In time, of course, that society shall fall, as all decadent societies inevitably fall, just as Babylon and Rome fell before it.
Babylon never was a military powerhouse. It inherited its short-lived empire as a result of helping overthrow the Assyrians. It added to its empire mainly by overpowering small, weak states like Judea. As soon as a greater military force came along (Cyrus’ Persians) Babylon folded.
Rome was decidedly not decadent when it fell (and rumors of its decadence were always much exagerrated anyway). When Rome (in the West) fell it had been officially Christian for three generations, and had given pride of place to Christianity for three generations before that. Gibbon of course argued that Christianity was Rome’s decadence, but I doubt you would be making that argument.
Re: And the day will come when the weakened United States is divided up into Russian and Latin American spheres of influence
Demographically Russia is in far worse state than the US. If Russian power revives I expect it be pointed mainly westward, at Europe.
And should the US someday fall I expect it to collapse internally, if only because there are no external foes who could do the job, and it’s unlikely there ever will be (I am excluding invasion by advanced space aliens, and events millennia from now). I could see fissures separating the US into three nations (four counting an independent Hawaii): the South, the Southwest united with (and probably ruling) Mexico and the northern states united with Canada. (Florida might also go its own way, perhaps in some sort of Caribbean confederation).
Re: But is was the very unwarrior commoners, who were the archers and not the warrior knights
True, but those archers were also a highly trained, elite force. They weren’t just a bunch of peasants who picked up a bow when dragooned into the army. During the Napoleonic Wars a British general proposed bringing back the longbow since it was, even then, superior to firearms in range and killing power. The project went no where because the amount of training needed to make a competent longbowman was vastly greater than that needed to turn a recruit into a competent marksman.
Re: The Germans were more aggressive and had superior tactics and routed a demoralized French army. That warrior ethos.
Or superior tacticians and strategists. The French were preparing to refight WWI. The Germans knew better than to repeat that slaughter-fest and, having studied Sherman’s March, decided the best stategy would be to flank the French and drive to their rear.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
There might also be some built up good will from the Battle of Britain.
Less the Battle of Britain, perhaps, than the Dam Busters of 617 Squadron, given that the (canine-censored) film is a perennial: Peter Jackson’s been planning a remake for a while. But certainly, the RAF inherits the legacy of The Few.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Nephew Vincent was in the airforce for six years, as a forward spotter. Trained with and served with army rangers virtually the whole time. Maybe there are cushy jobs in the airforce, but there are some godawful tough ones too.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Re: Is “hipster” now just a generic epithet for people that socially isolated basement-dwelling fatguys don’t like?
Huh? I’m about 5′8” and weigh about 130 lbs. If that counts as a fatguy, by all means.
Nor do I live in anyone’s basement.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
My father told me this inter-service joke years ago:
The Army runs a highly-regarded jump school at Fort Bragg. The Marines sent a few platoons there for training. As they sat in the class with a bunch of GI’s, the instructor informed the class that the next day they’d make their first jump, from an altitude of 500 feet.
One of the Marines asked if the plane could fly at 300 feet instead.
“Sorry, we can’t do that,” said the instructor. “If we fly that low, the parachutes won’t have time to open.”
“Oh,” said the Marine, “we’re using parachutes?”
August 26th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Re: “Honor” is a problematic concept in many aspects, but granting it to you arguendo: There is honor, courage, and hard work in general. There is honor, courage, and hard work in service of DEFENDING the United States. Then there is honor, courage, and hard work in support of imperialistic military adventures, unprovoked invasions of other nations, “throwing crappy countries against the wall”, and the profit margins of United Fruit and Halliburton, which is another thing entirely. If you mean to defend the third type, then please be explicit that that is what you are doing and why, exactly, that is a good thing.
Just as I thought- Mr. Cranky Observer, like Yglesias, Miss Marcotte, and the other cultural liberals, dislikes the concept of honor. In response to Mr. Cranky Observer, I support the first and to some small extent the second conceptions. I don’t give a cr*p for the profit margins of Halliburton or for the unprovoked wars of agression that Mr. Bush and the unspeakable Mr. Cheney responsible for.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
He probably has Gibbon’s ridiculous views on the Eastern Roman Empire as well (which was decidedly not in decline when the Western Empire finally bought it, and actually continued to get more powerful until they got hammered by the muslims and various groups coming out of the Eurasian steppe in the 7th century CE and onward).
Not to mention that the idea of Russia maintaining power projection in the US aside from the nuclear bludgeon is a joke (and to be more blunt, Russia is more likely to fall apart than the US – and this is actually a real fear among Russians). As for the Latin Americans, if the US ever goes completely south, they’ll probably have gone to hell before then.
Not to mention that the longbow wasn’t the end-all, be-all of medieval warfare – the British longbowmen got their asses handed to them later on in the 100 Years’ War after early victories at Agincourt and Crecy.
And they took advantage of a major French oversight, namely thinking that a mechanical drive through the Ardennes was impossible.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Re: And should the US someday fall I expect it to collapse internally, if only because there are no external foes who could do the job, and it’s unlikely there ever will be
This is very true. I accept America to collapse of its own contradictions. America will not be undermined from without, but it can be undermined from within, and the process already well underway.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
True, but those archers were also a highly trained, elite force. They weren’t just a bunch of peasants who picked up a bow when dragooned into the army.
Actually, yes, they often were peasants and were not an elite force. England at the time required all men to train every weekend with the bow, so virtually every Englishman was competent with the weapon. The economics of the time didn’t allow for the upkeep of a professional military (even the knights didn’t spend all their time fighting).
August 26th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
The Joint Chiefs were having an argument about which branch had the most guts. An army officer took them out to a post, called a soldier, said “Soldier! Take your rifle, run out 50 years then blow your brains out!” The soldier said, “Sir! Yes, Sir.”, and did what he was told. The Army general folded his arms smugley and said, “That takes guts!” The other officers were unimpressed. They went to a ship, the Navy general called a sailor and said, “I want you to climb to the top of the crow’s nest and dive straight down.” “Sir! Yes, Sir!” Splat. The Navy general said, “THAT takes guts!” The other three were not impressed. They went to a marine base. The general ordered a soldier to take a grenade, run out 100 yards, pull the pin, and stand at attention until dead. “Sir! Yes, sir!” Boom. “THAT takes guts!” The other three were not impressed. They went to an Air Force base. The AF general cried out, “Airman! Airman!” The airman looked at the general. The general said, “I want you to get a haircut, straighten your gig-line, and shine your shoes!” The airman said, “Fuck you.” The Air Force general folded his arms smugly and said, “That takes guts.” The other generals were impressed.
August 26th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
Actually, yes, they often were peasants and were not an elite force. England at the time required all men to train every weekend with the bow, so virtually every Englishman was competent with the weapon. The economics of the time didn’t allow for the upkeep of a professional military (even the knights didn’t spend all their time fighting).
Scotland and England banned golf (and football too I think) because it was taking time from archery practice.
The Turks – particularly the Yeni Ceri – had a similar situation. The disastrous part of Lepanto was not the ship losses, they could replace those in a few months to a year, it was rather the loss of something like their entire naval archer corps. That was a loss that could only be made good over a *generation*
August 26th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Come to think of it, the fact that manly G.I. Joes training for foreign soil are the ruling image of our military, shows how far divorced our armed services are from having DEFENSE as a priority. Being vigilant to protect our people from harm and ready to risk our lives used to be sufficiently masculine for most people. You didn’t have to shoot anyone or look like a Marlboro ad to be a defender.
If the Army wants to run the aircraft, electronic surveillance and satellite technology that they are overly dependent on, they better get their shit together and recruit literate people who are more concerned with keeping everything operational and being responsible—however remote that responsibility may appear— than with beating their chests and looking the part of a grunt, telling everybody how they can kick their ass because they were in the shit, blah, fucking, blah, blah, blah.
August 26th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
What does Patraeus get out of this? A lot of the work the Air Force does is saving ground troops. There is a true story about a pilot in Viet Nam, whose systems were failing. He called ground control and started panicking on air. There was nothing that could be done for him, and an air battle was in progress that involved a significant amount of air space, ground to air assaults, and ground troops that were being overrun by the enemy. Ground control said, “Shut up and die like a man.”, then turned off his radio. Losing a pilot meant far less than losing the mission and letting all those ground troops die. Even if every last single grunt actually were an illiterate, slack-jawed moron, the MISSION meant more than a fellow airman—even a pilot. As necessary as “the man next to me” meme may be in the psychology of war for combat soldiers, the fact is that it’s very common for ground troops to be saved by the man up there and everyone directing him. It requires looking at a much bigger picture than “the man next to me”. Some people can’t wrap their heads around the defense of air space being more important than the person next to them or to themselves, but people who handle such a responsibility understand it quite well and can sit calmly, quietly, and vigilantly being accurate while all hell is breaking loose around them.
I can see how the pilot working remotely from Vegas perverts that psychology, but a lack of testosterone isn’t the problem. If anything, the troops might want to complain that damage the remote pilots are doing is causing atrocities that the ground troops are paying for. Bigger dicks in the army taking over remote operations won’t make that any different.
Looks to me like Generals are using a divide and conquer strategy with the grunts to cover for the fact that we’ve recently had two wars with lame justifications, unclear goals, bad strategy, terrible logistics, blatantly criminal contractors ripping off the troops for an enormous profit, and unlawful behavior. None of these problems are caused or remedied by manipulating images.
August 26th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
@wiley heh that was a a great joke! The main reason the Army wants more control over it’s air support is that the Air Force has to be bludgeoned into giving it. Look at the mess with the A-10. As long as the Air Force sees themselves as only anti-air and bombing it will stay that way. That why the Marine Corps has it’s own planes; they get good at combat support and the regular Navy pilots don’t have to concentrate on it.
August 26th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
> Just as I thought- Mr. Cranky Observer, like
> Yglesias, Miss Marcotte, and the other cultural
> liberals, dislikes the concept of honor.
I can’t tell you how deeply your words wound me.[1]
One exercise I often pose to young, eager staffers who are thoroughly eviscerating a suggestion, idea, concept, plan, etc that they don’t like is for them to provide me the best arguments on the other side. Let’s see if Hector can explain why I, along with many others, consider the idea of “honor” problematic in many respects. I’ll wager 3:1 he cannot.
Oops, wagering is bad in the Hectorverse. I’ll just say I am quite confident he cannot.
Cranky
[1] Literally I cannot, since they don’t wound me at all.
August 26th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
I don’t know why the AF would be begrudging. My unit was “attacked” by an A-10 during an exercise, and it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life— that includes my time as an art history major. To troops being rescued it must look especially beautiful. I’ve heard a couple of army vets from Iraq wax lyrical about the Warthog. I imagine to those who are targets, it’s just as powerfully ugly.
On the shallow side, remote piloting is not sexy like jets and pilots are and the Air Force may be feeling the collective sting of losing those icons. I’m not going to feel sorry for the pilots who aren’t getting dates because of the image thang, or the recruiters who aren’t getting more suckers who think they’ll be a pilot because they got the image thing down and they want it. Those dolts deserve a desk job. There are other reasons why I don’t like the drones, and if we were more concerned about civilian casualties, that would be the issue—not image.
But the fact is that our pilots aren’t military leaders, they take orders. They’re flying grunts who don’t take so many bullets, but they take the risk of dying in a fiery crash and failing an entire platoon.
The remote pilots are in a bizarre psychological space and remote from physical threat, but are no less responsible for the results of their actions, though they are still just following orders and the procedures that have been laid out for them. Our methods of intelligence gathering, targeting, and strategy is the responsibility of those on the ground—who appear to be mostly army and marines. Perhaps the entire system is being perverted by over-reliance on satellite technology to target. I curse the career officers who lobby for control over operations to get the money, if that’s a major a part of the problem, and I suspect that competition for contracts between the branches is not nearly dependent enough on effectiveness and concern for keeping civilian deaths and friendly fire deaths to a minimum.
I suspect that our armed forces haven’t really been clear about their purpose for quite some time, and the Bush administration muddied it all. The military seems to me to be severely lacking in discipline and quality leadership right now. Rape, gang violence, and proselytizing is a serious problem. We have been slaughtering peoples. Our policy is in the toilet. Our strategy undecided. Our wars unreported.
It’s far past time for this nation to stop strapping the armed forces on like a dildo and fucking poor countries with it to feel good about ourselves.
August 26th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Is it just me, or is Petraeus so blatantly phony that every
word he says makes me throw up ? One moment he’s posing as
a warrior-scholar, the next he’s making sophomoric jokes about
how wimpy the USAF is (while those same pilots are serving under
his CENTCOM command and risking their lives). Disgusting.
I’m no big fan of any of the US military, but flying combat
airplanes is dangerous at all times, in peace and war.
One small mistake, or a mechanical failure that the pilot
has no control over, and within a few seconds the pilot is
dead and there’s a smoking hole in the ground. If Petraeus
doesn’t understand that, he’s a complete idiot; if he does
understand it, he’s a total prick to be dissing the USAF
pilots under his command just to get a cheap laugh.
August 26th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
I new some Airmen 25 years ago – mechanics, electronics technicians etc. This post is over 25 years too late.
August 26th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
Re: Actually, yes, they often were peasants and were not an elite force. England at the time required all men to train every weekend with the bow, so virtually every Englishman was competent with the weapon.
Actually, most of the longbowmen were not even English but Welsh. Wales was one area of Europe where serfdom had never penetrated (when I wrote “peasants” I was thinking “serfs”) and many Welsh farmers were free-holders, not even tenants of wealthier landowners. And yes, they were considered an elite military class, and there were rather few of them. The ones with really superb archery skills were professionals in this regard and they farmed (or pursued other work) only very part time. The knights of course looked down on them, both because they were not noble and because they were not mainly English– and because they were really, really lethal in what they did. One reason the longbow never really caught on beyond it use in the 100 Years War is because it did challenge the preeminence of the mounted knight in battle, much as firearms were rejected because they challenged the Samurai in Japan.
August 26th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
Re: He probably has Gibbon’s ridiculous views on the Eastern Roman Empire as well (which was decidedly not in decline when the Western Empire finally bought it, and actually continued to get more powerful until they got hammered by the muslims and various groups coming out of the Eurasian steppe in the 7th century CE and onward).
Actually a major chain of natural disasters in the 6th century collapsed populations worldwide and this was particularly intense in Europe and the Middle East. These disasters also set in motions a new wave of migrations, bringing the Slavs into the Balkans and various Turkic tribes westward too. By the 600s the Eastern Empire had lost so many people that its major cities had become ghost towns and it lacked the manpower (and the economy) to defend its borders. It did recover eventually of course, but by then the territorial losses had become permanent.
August 26th, 2009 at 8:57 pm
1) I think it would help if the news media did a better job of informing America about the order of battle. Starting with the radius of damage of 200 Kt warheads, going on to MIRV and then talking about firestorms. Then talking about how many of those warheads we have out in Montana and Wyoming.
It might make the American People get less wee wee’d up whenever the Republicans lobbying for new oil fields to seize talk about the evil Al Qaeda coming over and raping our daughters.
Saddam Hussein was chickenshit when measured against our forces.
2) America’s military strategy is based on High Tech — not on 10,000 Marines going to Asia and killing 1 Billion of the heathern Chinee. And the Air Force excels at the High Tech , although the Navy and to some extent the Army have their capabilities as well.
But high tech doesn’t have the emotional tug of Steven Spielberg movies. We can respect the warrior spirit –but a visit to Hiroshima might put it into better perspective.
As would a FEMA presentation of what a nuclear strike on the USA would look like.
August 26th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Re Richard Cownie at 73: “Is it just me, or is Petraeus so blatantly phony that every
word he says makes me throw up ? One moment he’s posing as
a warrior-scholar, the next he’s making sophomoric jokes about
how wimpy the USAF is (while those same pilots are serving under
his CENTCOM command and risking their lives). Disgusting.”
————–
Well, that’s not entirely fair either.
We laugh at the interservice warfare and budget battles but those battles are literally a matter of life and death to the military commanders involved.
Compare Army casualties to number of Air Force casualties in the past 10 year and then compare budgets.
If you have men dying due to lack of funds (uparmored HumVees etc) you tend to lose patience reading in the news about $200 Million stealth fighters and $6 BILLION lost on Boeing’s attempt to figure out how to build a spy satellite.
Of course, another perspective is that it is FAR more important to maintain our ability to defend the USA against future Russian or Chinese attacks than to occupy some godforsaken shithole for Big Oil.
But Petraeus didn’t have any choice re occupying said shithole.
August 26th, 2009 at 9:18 pm
For example, Secretary of Defense Gates criticized the Air Force for pushing for more hugely expensive F22s when the F22s have provided NO support for the war on terror:
“The reality is we are fighting two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the F-22 has not performed a single mission in either theater. So it is principally for use against a near peer in a conflict, and I think we all know who that is,” Gates said. “And looking at what I regard as the level of risk of conflict with one of those near peers over the next four or five years until the Joint Strike Fighter comes along, I think that something along the lines of 183 is a reasonable buy.”
Ref: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/02/gates/
Actually, as some of you may recall, he fired the Secretary of the Air Force and also the Air Force Chief of Staff last year.
August 26th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
The longbow was not very important at Agincourt other than as a deterrent to a French mounted assault. The French were defeated by mud. Hip deep in mud, their knights surrendered or had their throats cut. There was an initial mounted charge, and the longbows halted that, but it wasn’t very significant.
After Crecy, French armor increased in thickness making their knights nearly invulnerable to the longbow. At Poitiers, Prince Edward used the “English Formation” – archers in “V”s protected by stakes on each flank, projecting ahead of the line. This allowed them to shoot the French horses in the flanks, leading to their slaughter. After this, French knights fought on foot. Had Agincourt not been so muddy, the English would have lost catastrophically. The French used their unmounted tactics to take back the land they lost to Henry V.
By the end of the century, after an intense and costly breeding program, the French had large numbers of warhorses that could bear the weight of horse armor thick enough to stop longbow arrows. They also had a class of professional cavlry soldiers to replace the nobility, who were really not that good at fighting. This force could ride through a hail of arrows unscathed, or, charge through a formation of Imperial Landsknecht pikemen with little injury.
Then people started shooting guns at them.
August 26th, 2009 at 9:20 pm
I see no need to scare a populace holding a nuclear force sufficient to kill us all with images of nuclear threats that will result in the demand for missile shields, star wars, and other monstrosities. If what we’ve got doesn’t make us feel safe, then maybe we have a problem with weapons making us feel safe, in general.
If we’re going to focus on threats, perhaps we should educate ourselves more about the threat of accidental nuclear war, wars escalating to nuclear wars, policies escalating the threat of nuclear war, and the monitoring of fissile materials. It is wonkish and boring— not as boring as working in nuclear forces, though. It’s not photogenic like the grunt or pilot centerfold, but it’s of far more consequence. It can’t as easily be made into a football game for media cheerleaders to hold a pep rally over, and for “patriotic” civilians to watch, with their ribbons and bumperstickers to show their team spirit that will dissipate rapidly when the announcers can’t even pretend that we’re “winning”, but it’s REAL.
The nature of the beast is that it is as much a threat to US as anyone else. We are fortunate that none of our accidents resulted in nuclear blasts on the homeland, or nuclear war. We could at least be aware of what exactly we are threatening when we want to “nuke _________ into a glass parking lot.”
Why our culture is so childish about power is beyond me, but we might want to grow out to lessen the risk of getting a taste of our own medicine.
August 26th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
1) Number of casualties in Iraq as of last year, by branch of service:
Ref: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2008-03-13-iraq-casualties_N.htm
Army: 3,162
Marines: 1,020
Navy: 100
Air Force: 51
2) On the other hand, a failure in deterrence and WWII part 2 could lead to the deaths of tens of millions of Americans alone.
August 26th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Re Wiley at 81: “If what we’ve got doesn’t make us feel safe, then maybe we have a problem with weapons making us feel safe, in general. ”
But I don’t understand how the Republicans can beat the drums for war time and again based on a fictional threat and yet NO ONE in the News Media or Democrats points out how overblown their fearmongering is.
Why does NO ONE on the Sunday talk shows or news ever point to our massive existing power and the fact we spend more than the rest of the world COMBINED.
If we are a republic then why are our national discussions such bullshit Kabuki dances designed to mislead and deceive rather than to enlighten. Present the Numbers — that alone should cut through Republican bullshit.
August 26th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
“We laugh at the interservice warfare and budget battles but those battles are literally a matter of life and death to the military commanders involved.”
Oh, sure. The Air Force ought to get a smaller share of the
budget, and if there needs to be a ding-dong battle between
the service chiefs then they should go at it and sort it out.
But I don’t see that as any excuse for a pissy joke aimed
at the *pilots*, who don’t take the budgeting decisions and
don’t choose the aircraft.
Anyway it reminds of a story about a young Member of
Parliament sitting on the backbenches. An older MP asks
him “Do you know where your enemies are ?”, and he replies
“Of course, they’re sitting on the other side”.
“Oh no”, says the old hand “Those are your *opponents*; your
*enemies* are in your own party”.
Much of the structure and behavior of the US military is
best explained by viewing it as 4 organizations (Army, AF,
Navy, and Marines) in conflict over who’s going to get the
most money and the shiniest toys. The intermittent appearance
of plausible (or even implausible, like Iran) *opponents*
is merely the terrain in which this bitter inter-service
conflict plays out.
Nations involved in serious wars which threaten their very
existence handle things differently.
August 26th, 2009 at 10:03 pm
I don’t get it either, Don. I find it exceedingly frustrating and it has at times filled me with despair. Embedded journalism is a huge factor, another is the continue mythologizing of war and service people writ large by hollywood and highly paid media specialists who advertise fot the Pentagon. Another is dehumanization and bone ignorance of other cultures. Another is the fact that government(s) have finely honed skills in pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes, especially the troops’. Another is that the money we spend on the military is always assumed to be necessary and well spent—a Cold War attitude that we must have absolutely superiority to survive.
When selective service registration became a requirement in the 80s, I thought for sure men would rise up and demand that they not be singled out as cannon fodder because of their sex. I thought they would demand equality, but that didn’t happen. I suspect the Pentagon and Rendon Group are exploiting the insecurities of men and offering them validation they don’t need in order to get them to do the dirty work of chicken-hawk war profiteers and at least be able to say that they have a job.
They are certainly deflecting responsibility by focusing on the troops in the media. When a commander says, “A few bad apples.” to the world, he’s failed on every level a leader can fail.
August 26th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Hey Matt + warmongers:
Why don’t all you would-be fantasy flyboy-killers get to work
on getting rid of the war machine instead of glorifying both
human killers and robot killers? I know you prefer the robot
killers because then there’s no inconvenient conscientious
objectors to refuse to extrajudicially kill women and children
(collateral damage) upon your macho command.
You really make me sick. boo-yah
Thanks for the opportunity to comment on your moral depravity.
August 26th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
Thank you, Jesus?
August 26th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
“Army: 3,162
Marines: 1,020
Navy: 100
Air Force: 51″
Sure, the USAF doesn’t suffer many fatalities in this
kind of conflict. But that’s because they don’t have so many
people in total, and of those people, aircrew are a very tiny
fraction. But for those aircrew it’s really damn dangerous:
even without the extra hazards of combat, being a pilot or
navigator ranked #3 in 2002 on the list of most dangerous
jobs.
I don’t have the precise figures for the casualty rate for
aircrew in Iraq and Afghanistan, compared to ground force
casualty rates, and maybe for this particular conflict it’s
not *the* most dangerous job. But in most conflicts it is,
WW2 aircrew were decimated, in Korea and Vietnam it was
similarly risky, and even in peacetime it’s very dangerous.
Making jokes about the easy life of pilots is in really poor
taste, most especially for someone with pilots under his
command.
Pilots are to be honored and respected for their courage and
skill. *And* as a matter of policy, we should probably
have a smaller USAF budget and fewer pilots in future.
Because that choice shouldn’t be about courage and skill, but
about finding the best and most cost-effective ways to get
the job done.
August 26th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
> Actually, most of the longbowmen were not even
> English but Welsh.
> The longbow was not very important at Agincourt other
> than as a deterrent to a French mounted assault.
> The French were defeated by mud.
The English longbow has become the Rorschach blot and Elven ring of the discussion of military tactics (and alternate history novels): it is and can do whatever the commentator needs it to do, possessing any necessary super powers and Awesome Undefeatability(tm).
Cranky
August 26th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
When I was in a tactical control squadron, working with NATO training pilots, I noticed that crashed jets were common. Most pilots safely ejected, but many millions of dollars worth of equipment smack the ground regularly, war or no war.
What’s ridiculous is Patraeus ridiculing pilots when he has been the architect of atrocity. What a shitty military leader. Let’s replace him.
August 26th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
“A service that consists of guys sitting in cubicles playing video games is going to have trouble holding its head high amidst a warrior ethos. And consequently, the Air Force is tending to resist the technological imperative to go more remote.”
I agree with Matt here, but I’m not sure that he grasps the
full implications. This means that the Air Force decision-
makers put a higher priority on “holding its head high” in
the inter-service pissing match than on actually fighting
the two wars that we’re engaged in. Think for a while about
just how deeply f*cked-up that is.
And I’ve had it with all this “warrior ethos” crap. In WW2
it seemed the ethos was “let’s win this fight the best way
we can think of and get back home and do something useful”,
and that worked terrifically well. The track record in the
era of the “warrior ethos” is less stellar: Gulf War 1 was a
stunning tactical victory but a strategic failure, Iraq is
a mess, Afghanistan is a mess. Plus Abu Ghraib and a host
of other war crimes. If that’s what the “warrior ethos”
gets you, screw it.
August 26th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
It is fucked up, Richard. No doubt about it. The AF also spent a lot of money changing their dress uniforms lately. What a useless waste of time. I am hoping that some high-ranking leaders were concerned about relying on remote technology for the RIGHT reasons.
As far as the remote pilots are concerned, I understand what a mind-fuck it is to sit in a white room without windows and participate in a process that can lead to woeful destruction. Some of these pilots have a hard time reconciling the fact that during their shifts they kill people in Afghanistan, then they go pick their kids up from soccer practice. A decent person should have a problem with that. Lambasting them for not being low-IQ grunts, Tom Cruise, or without conscience doesn’t help.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:45 am
it is and can do whatever the commentator needs it to do, possessing any necessary super powers and Awesome Undefeatability(tm)
Yeah, I’ve always wondered the choice words the real Falstaff (John Falstof) and Talbot would have had for those folks.
Moreover, I do love how they can hold this fantastic belief in the invincibility of the English yew bow, and yet never wonder why on Earth they ended up losing. I guess they just mumble about la Pucelle or some such.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:51 am
Why does NO ONE on the Sunday talk shows or news ever point to our massive existing power and the fact we spend more than the rest of the world COMBINED.
Paul Kennedy does. Admittedly, though he’s a Yale professor, and has been for many many years, he’s still a Brit, and what he says isn’t good Sunday show viewing — that’s to say, the current global balance of military spending, population and GDP ain’t gonna stay that way.
August 27th, 2009 at 6:10 am
Humor In uniform:
In the Army, it’s 1600 hours. In the Navy, it’s eight bells. In the Marine Corps, Mickey’s big hand is on the 12 & his little hand is on the 4. In the Air Force, it’s four o’clock.
August 27th, 2009 at 6:27 am
Re: Moreover, I do love how they can hold this fantastic belief in the invincibility of the English yew bow, and yet never wonder why on Earth they ended up losing.
Disastrously bad leadership after the death of Henry V. His heir was an infant who grew up to be “mentally challenged”. His regents were greedy, small-minded men focused on feathering their own nests.
August 27th, 2009 at 7:41 am
re: “warrior ethos”
It seems to me that until recently, the warrior ethos was actively discouraged.
I remember reading at a young age how roman boys were taught that Rome beats the barbarian hordes because Romans were soldiers, and the barbarians were just warriors. This was presented in youth book in conjunction with the story of Cinncinatus.
Since republican Rome was the simile for the US, the point was clear. The US has soldiers, not warriors, and we win wars because of it.
August 27th, 2009 at 8:13 am
[...] Matt Yglesias sees this as a “crisis” and foreshadowing a greater problem ahead. Robert Farley says it shows “a certain insecurity” in the Air Force and Yglesias thinks it exists for good reason. The service has always operated in relative safety — as Matt says, that’s rather the point of air power — and the increasing use of unmanned drones takes that the the ultimate conclusion. Naturally, “A service that consists of guys sitting in cubicles playing video games is going to have trouble holding its head high amidst a warrior ethos.” [...]
August 27th, 2009 at 9:43 am
Disastrously bad leadership after the death of Henry V. His heir was an infant who grew up to be “mentally challenged”. His regents were greedy, small-minded men focused on feathering their own nests.
Heh heh, yeah. Henry VI was an idjit.
August 27th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Re: I remember reading at a young age how roman boys were taught that Rome beats the barbarian hordes because Romans were soldiers, and the barbarians were just warriors. This was presented in youth book in conjunction with the story of Cinncinatus.
Since republican Rome was the simile for the US, the point was clear. The US has soldiers, not warriors, and we win wars because of it
Excellent analogy, PSP. Just who ended up winning in the end- Rome, or the barbarians? I think you know.
Indeed, the fall of Rome in the fifth century, at least to me, seems like one of the keystone events around which discussions of political morality, history, moral theology, and military strategy should focus. And the conclusions one must draw from it are not too favorable to the modern US.
August 27th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Re: Why don’t all you would-be fantasy flyboy-killers get to work
on getting rid of the war machine instead of glorifying both
human killers and robot killers? I know you prefer the robot
killers because then there’s no inconvenient conscientious
objectors to refuse to extrajudicially kill women and children
(collateral damage) upon your macho command.
This ‘Jesus’ is, of course, an imposter, and I would counsel him against taking the Lord’s name in vain to make a political point. Christ was not a pacifist, and He was very clear that war will be around till the end of this world. “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass…” Matthew 24.6. And also that killing in war is not necessarily evil. That said, the Imposter Jesus also has a point. The shift of our military towards a more high-technology army with unmanned aircraft and so forth is really a way for the United States to kill defenceless people in other countries, including civilian targets, without risking our own lives. Hardly seems consonant with a warrior culture of honor and courage- or for that matter with any virtue worth having.
Do not assume that because I despise nihilist cultural liberalism, I like the culture of the US military and the Right. Both are evil, and both are corrupt.
August 27th, 2009 at 10:42 am
> Excellent analogy, PSP. Just who ended up
> winning in the end- Rome, or the barbarians?
> I think you know.
>
> Indeed, the fall of Rome in the fifth century,
Between the republic and the not-totally-whacked-out version of the Empire, how long did Rome survive? 800 years? Call me back in (1776 + 700 = 2476) and we’ll get back to the subject of why Rome’s approach to civic military virtue was a bad one.
Cranky
August 27th, 2009 at 10:58 am
“Christ was not a pacifist,”
That “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemy as yourself” stuff was just for the rubes.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:00 am
“Christ was not a pacifist,”
St. Stephen was a latte-sipping librul pussy, of course.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:04 am
Well, the wealthy simply pulled the Roman Empire back to a more defensible area –Constantiople — and I believe the Empire there survived for 1500 ?? years. Here in the US, we are already implicitly surrendering the Empire in the West (California) to Mexico.
We are following a similar pattern to the Roman Empire in the West circa 400 AD prior to its collapse.
Our native citizens aren’t having large families because we are taxing them out of existence to support a military Empire. In consequence, we are having to recruit foreigners for our legions.
From http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/12/26/military_considers_recruiting_foreigners/
August 27th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Re: Our native citizens aren’t having large families because we are taxing them out of existence to support a military Empire
Actually, many Americans (particularly in the Northeast) aren’t having larger families because they have been deluded by the false dogmas of Judith Jarvis Thomsen and her sort.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:13 am
I think Petraeus was just making a dumb joke and didn’t mean any offense, but Matt, I’ve got to disagree with your take on the Air Force.
The Air Force does a lot of 1) making other services’ jobs possible, and 2) pulling their asses out of the fire. Air Force Pararescue is the premier personnel recovery program in the military (and I have never understood why it doesn’t get the popular recognition that Rangers and SEALs do). The Air Force SERE instructors are the ones who teach the rest of the military how to survive long enough to be rescued, avoid capture, and resist torture. The Air Force does much of the military’s aeromedical evacuation. They rescue ground troops with air strikes. They bring in the supplies that everyone needs to actually do their missions.
I admit that I’m a bit of an AF partisan – my aunt is an active duty AF colonel who has served deployments in the Middle East, and my AF grandfather died in the line of duty – but simply based on what the AF does I wouldn’t call them a bunch of guys playing video games in cubicles.
August 27th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Re: That “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemy as yourself” stuff was just for the rubes
Ho hum. That was meant to forbid personal vengeance, not to forbid the just use of violence on the part of public organization like states. Christ also said, “To him who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him will I give power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; as the vessels of a potter shall they be shivered, even as I have received from my Father.”
August 27th, 2009 at 11:39 am
So, if I kill those who disagree with me, I get to be a Jesus too?
August 27th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Then He said to them, “But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one. For I say to you that this which is written must still be accomplished in Me: ‘And He was numbered with the transgressors.’ For the things concerning Me have an end.”
So they said, “Lord, look, here are two swords.”
And He said to them, “It is enough.” ” (Luke 22:35-38, NKJV)
August 27th, 2009 at 11:54 am
Actually, many Americans (particularly in the Northeast) aren’t having larger families because they have been deluded by the false dogmas of Judith Jarvis Thomsen and her sort.
Err, mate, my Mum didn’t have more kids for the reasons Don mentioned, and she’s definitely a feminist.
The problem is that it’s next to impossible in the US for a woman to have a high level career and a large family. Or, hell, any career.
The Euros do things like maternity leave much better; if you want to blame feminism and atheism for smaller family sizes, they are more in line with your case. My mother didn’t want to torpedo her career.
And before you start saying well, that’s because she didn’t care about her family, no, it’s *precisely because she did* that she chose to go in for a successful career. You have any idea how expensive it is to send kids to good schools? There’s no way we could have done that with just my Dad’s salary.
August 27th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
[...] Matthew Yglesias: It’s worth observing that this issue is going to become much more severe in the years to come. Air Force officers are already sensitive to the accusation that their service is less physically rigorous or risky than other forms of combat. And of course there’s some real truth to the accusation. Looked at rationally, this is the appeal of air power and always has been. Why try to blow something up at relatively close range on the ground from a base that’s located inside the war zone when you can blow it up from the relative safety of the sky, and then have the vehicle retreat to a far-off base where it can be serviced by people who are at relatively little risk of being killed? [...]
August 27th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
UAVs are very effective against low-tech enemies like the Taliban, but I wouldn’t want to rely on them for my security against a modern enemy. If the enemy can disrupt the UAV’s C&C link, then it’s useless.
August 27th, 2009 at 10:14 pm
Will we ever have a war like WWII again? Will all of our future wars be of the asymmetrical type? Most of the UAVs are limited in their roles. None as yet are capable of the 51 bomb loads of a B-52 or even greater capacities of the B-1 or B-2.
It was only a few years ago we envisioned a cross border war with a perceived virulent enemy. The idea that those who were stationed in Europe or even today in Korea and had/have a mission of being ready to meet that foe and win are or were soft is laughable. Having worked to produce the 3000 bomb frag on a nightly basis and having worked in a chemical protective suit while doing our wartime jobs tells me there is nothing soft about what we had to do. And to think that those who fight in this kind of war will not be in danger is ridiculous.
UAVs add a to our repertoire, we’ve taken nothing off the table. To think that every future war will be the US with a full complement of chess pieces and the enemy with only pawns is self delusion.