One thing worth doing is to consider why something is (or is not) before passing judgment on why it should or should not be - the world changed, and we created the USAF, I'm not sure the rational for creating it as an independent service has gone away. While I've always admired the ACE and the support it provides the GCE, the Army's requirements and capabilities have led it down a different road. We've gotten pretty good at working with the AF to meet our needs across the spectrum of conflict while not having to worry about the overhead that would go with maintaining the USAF. The USAF has such a distinct role within our military that to subordinate it to another service would probably diminish its capabilities to fulfill that role. As has been pointed out, we assume air superiority, and have not had to live without it for the last few generations - but we'd sure notice it if it were gone. While we've had to be creative in some areas we've managed to make up for any shortfalls in CAS (and on average I think its there when we need it) like fire support by capabilities such as GMLRS and improvements in cannon and mortars - not to mention RW CAS from 58s and 64s. I'm not sure we'd have ever gotten to those capabilities required to project and sustain combat power in both the strategic and operational sense that we enjoy to great extent through the AF if it had remained a subordinate service.

It comes back to having to operate across the full spectrum and against a wide variety of enemies across the globe at the most inopportune times.

Best regards, Rob