Quote Originally Posted by Cliff View Post
So we should only organize/train/equip for the current fight?
Shouldn’t we organize/train/equip for the most realistic fight? If so we have ample air and seapower for the rogue nations and no fly zones. We have ample air and seapower if North Korea crosses the DMZ, Hezbollah dirty-bombs NYC with Iranian help, or a Yemen terrorist sneaks chemical weapons into D.C. In any of those scenarios, the war that followed would not be all airpower. Higher ground casualties would result, exacerbated if budgets spend excessively where we have sufficient domination, and not enough rectifying vulnerabilities of “distasteful” but essential ground combat.

Business owners don’t spend excessively making their business completely fireproof because that is an extremely low probability incident. They buy fire insurance. We buy nukes to deter Russia/China…and reasonable air and seapower...but not at the expense of conflicts with 90% probabilities vs 1%.

Not arguing with the budget comparison. Nevertheless, China's budget goes a lot farther... because their weapons are being made by Chinese, who get paid a lot less than the average American defense worker.
They will pay $75-$100 million upfront…about half of an F-22 and closer to an F-35. Larger O&S and maintenance costs are well beyond most nation defense budgets and personnel skills. We see that Russia/India think they will export 800 Pak FAs. Who will buy them in quantity? The 50-100 sold to a few foes would barely leave the ground due to day 1 allied attacks, or a week of allied retaliation after the aggressor has his day. For less money, Nation X can buy many more TBMs that can hide, reload, and survive.

Your argument that MAD is sufficient for deterring China and Russia is a slippery slope... As we found out with the New Look, this severely constrains your options, and probably isn't a good idea. If China decides to start cutting off Japanese oil over a dispute, are we willing to threaten them with nukes? If the answer is no, then MAD is probably sufficient to insure US national survival, but not protect our national interests.
War games? Not sure if you are talking about arguments over islands/drilling location. But cannot imagine any scenario where China could/would blockade Japanese oil. They attacked Vietnam a few years back and were humiliated.

MAD precludes Russia and China from getting too bold. Other conflicts like Georgia are yawners and were somewhat self-provoked. Taiwan will fix itself due to unity leaders and economic simpatico. We could blockade China’s oil far more readily in the Straits of Mallaca if they did invade.

The odds are not 0. B-2s need to be protected if fighters are present.
Reasonable statisticians comparing probabilities of a Soldier/Marine dying in current and future conflict versus hypothetical threats to a B-2 by a foe with 5th gen aircraft would see: less stealth, less numerous, lesser radars and night vision, less training & untested pilots, fewer tankers; airfields already hit by cruise missiles, stealth bombers, and attack UAS; few Chinese AWACs, unreliable engines, undercapable jamming/missiles….need I say more.

According to the unclass 2010 report to Congress on China, the Chinese Air Force has over 327 fourth generation fighters... all of which are very capable. They have 252 advanced SAM systems... neither of these numbers include naval systems. I would submit that we currently have the minimum force required- in fact, it was classified as "moderate risk" in congressional testimony.
Even classified assessments can be questionable. Look how we exaggerated the threat of the Mi-25? Anyone with an agenda can exaggerate risk to push different priorities while realistic air and sea casualties are low at best in any scenario.

Meanwhile, real Soldiers/Marines/Sailors/Airmen on the ground are getting killed…not Airmen at altitude or Sailors at sea. Since the end of the Cold War, only ground combatants have faced serious risk. 327 fourth generation aircraft based on the F-16 and Su-27 could not down more than a handful of F-22/F-35, B-2s, or stealthy cruise missile/ UAS. None of those U.S. systems facing 252 advanced SAMs would experience losses approaching what Soldiers/Marines experience in one month of current/future combat….multiplied by 100 months.

That said, you seem to miss my point. I'm not arguing for gutting the Army to buy more F-22s. I would have liked to have seen us buy the 40 more that were in the budget originally to give us a viable/sustainable force - but we didn't, and we're not going to get more. We need new tankers, new CSAR helos and the new bomber more, frankly. The big problem will be our F-16s and F-15s wearing out before we can actually buy F-35s (if and when we get to buy some).
It’s a zero sum gain budget environment with Iraq winding down, Afghanistan on a countdown, and Libya starting its upward spiral with a less than clear endstate and poor current results.
Planned tanker numbers were based on nuclear bomber requirements of 50 years ago. Current tankers are at half their lifespan despite advanced age and we never have used more than 300+ of the 500+ in any conflict, nor do we have the space to park them outside TBM range.

Given numbers of actual aircraft shot down in past decades, how many CSAR aircraft are required when MV-22/CV-22 already exist and plenty of MH Special Ops and Naval helicopters are fielded? Agree we need a new bomber but considering that only a handful of B-2s were required in Libya and stealthy Navy UAS and MC-X will exist, we may not need anywhere near 80-100 new stealthy bombers.
As Secretary Gates said, another large land conflict is unlikely for multiple reasons. Based on the extreme distaste for "boots on the ground", I think the Libya model is much more likely to be the model. I would expect that SOF and adviser forces will be heavily used as well.
Believe the Libya model will prove not nearly as successful as some believe. Even if it is, it is atypical terrain and a minor threat. Try the same thing in the terrain of Lebanon, North Korea, Venezuela, or Ukraine, and try to find TBMs in Iran. Distaste for boots on the ground does not preclude that need in multiple much more likely conflicts than China/Russia. From the looks of unrest in the Middle East both now and in the past 20 years, more of the same is inevitable.

Given all of that, we do not have too large an Air Force - we have one that is just large enough to give us a moderate-high level of risk based on our stated national strategy. It is going to get smaller due to attrition and airframes aging out- and that is not a good thing.
Proof lies in deployments required per service member. Any service that deploys less than the Army has more force structure than the Army proportionally.

As I have said before on this blog, the job of the USAF and USN is to make sure our wars stay small by being so good that they can't be beat. If we can't deter folks conventionally, we're left with nukes, as you mentioned...
We would never use nukes in North Korea, Lebanon, Syria, Ukraine, or Venezuela. Airpower would supplant rather than dominate Joint firepower in those scenarios as the Israelis learned, and South Koreans and NATO understand. We have more than sufficient allied air and seapower advantages programmed to deter Russia/China. The rogue nations with unstable leadership are the ones most difficult to deter, and as Qaddafi’s actions show, no amount of air and seapower are a deterrent when we tell him we won’t go ashore with anything but the CIA and SOF/SF.

Saddam used chems on Halabja in Kurdistan in 1988, as well as on the Iranians. There is evidence of his using Mi-8s to drop Sarin on Karbala in March of 1991. Again, all of this was PRIOR to the no-fly zones being enforced- they were established AFTER Saddam attacked the Kurds in the North and the Shiites in the South.
1988 was well before Desert Storm. March 1991 was shortly thereafter because we stopped short of doing the job correctly…and settled on a NFZ.

You are now changing the argument... ONW and OSW fulfilled their objectives at a relatively low cost relative to what troops on the ground would have cost. If the objective was regime change, that's a different story.
Add the wear and tear on aircraft that now must be replaced prematurely and cost of ONW/OSW to the cost of OIF to finish the job…not to mention higher gas prices due to “oil for food.”

As I said above, I think we have more NFZs/No drive zones in our future - it is a (relatively) cheap way of stopping dictators from using their high-end military to slaughter their people, and doesn't have the stigma of boots on the ground. Sudan is a good example of a place where we might use this same strategy.
Maybe. Seem to recall the last time we sent cruise missiles into Sudan and Afghanistan, it didn’t work well. Bombing did not stop genocide in Bosnia. A NFZ won’t stop terror attacks or safe havens. NFZ won’t hinder Iran or Hezbollah TBMs or a DPRK attack across the DMZ. Russia could attack Ukraine and go to ground long prior to any decision to use airpower alone.

No fly zones and airpower/seapower have been incapable of ending warfare, terrorism, and irrational despots as we have known them over the past 50 years. By themselves, air and seapower won’t deter or end war over the next decades, either. Spending in that utopian pursuit would vastly increase the deficit and risk economic instability. Local economic community assistance due to air and seapower bases and manufacturing defense spending would benefit primarily our coasts where base costs are already inflated and other economic activities exist in greater abundance.