What I really think you're missing, LawVol, is the disconnect between some of the people in the AF and how the AF acts when it is on the policy stage. Jimbo brings out some good examples, and I could reel off many others from the historical perspective. What it often comes down to is the AF's institutional inability to deal with any situation other than the one they feel is ideal or desired. They have also had an historical tendency to claim that they have the only true understanding of joint service or operations (take a look at "Air Force Roles and Missions: A History" if you don't believe me...it has an interesting spin on this).

As an organization, the AF tends to swing from one extreme to the other. SAC's dominance of the AF from its first days until the 1970s is one example, the rise of fighter pilots from the early 1970s to today another. There are some fine thinkers and doers within the AF (easy to see if you look at the Air University's paper collection), but this thought does not seem to rise up to the higher levels. As a result you get JAG generals claiming that airpower CAN win a COIN situation by itself, and in an earlier generation you got claims that one E-3 served the same deterrent purpose as a carrier battle group.

What can the AF do to change this perception? For one they should take a long, honest look at the real situation we face today and come up with some real answers. We need tanker capability and airlift. Period. Even the AF has admitted that their main role in an Africa Command would be lift. There should be the same level of focus on this as there is on the "next generation" bomber. They could also focus more attention on their personnel issues and consider cutting programs instead of people next time budget decisions need to be made. They could also stop the "airpower won the war" record. The AF, like all other services, is a supporting arm. It supports national goals. It cannot win everything on its own, any more than the Army can win everything on its own.

As a historian I understand this is a difficult thing for the AF to deal with based on its own history and culture. Tilford makes some interesting comments about this in his book "Setup."