"Moving stuff around" and other roles
Quote:
If you've made your bones in a fighter or bomber, it can sometimes be a tough thing to admit that a transport MIGHT be the better option in some cases. And that's one of the things we kick around here; different ways of doing things. With AFRICOM on the horizon, it's best to kick ideas around now than learn things the hard way on the ground, IMO.
Steve gets at the heart of it, I think we have to move past what we are doing and on to what we are beginning to understand may be required of us. In the case of lift I think we can determine some of those requirements by asking: How much? How often? What are we moving (could be lots of stuff military and commercial capacity)? Who are we moving it for? Where are we moving it to and from (things like infrastrucutre requirements come to mind)?
It may not be all organic. It might not be all air lift. Certainly, its not the only thing we want the AF to do for us (U.S.)
This is obviously not something that is just an AF issue. It is probably one of the reasons the services have to do some soul searching and hash out missions and roles. Its also a good that the discussion will be facillitated by the HASC. We have to start the discussion about matching policy with strategic & operational cabilities/capacity.