AF Secretary and Chief of Staff Dismissed

[Sargent]

Ski wrote: Listen, all services need to take a real hard and honest look at all of their major procurement projects. The FCS is a wishing well. The bottom line is our stuff takes way too long to design, build and is wicked expensive to maintain. Martin Van Creveld stated that aircraft today in the West are almost custom design pieces due to the complexity of the systems. Modern state based warfare is very expensive for a slew of different reasons - I think we are on the very edge of pricing ourselves out of business. The ROI on a $12B month war for us vs a less than $10M a month war for AQ is telling enough. Now that we have a weak dollar, bad housing market, energy troubles, etc...the ball is going to stop rolling towards DoD. People in our country are starting to have trouble making ends meet - I know people who spend over $600 a month in gasoline in the DC area - they were forced to buy 40 miles out because they couldn't afford living in the Beltway. And DC is an affleunt area. It's worse once you get out into "real America."

I wonder whether the aviation community's love of aircraft on technological steroids (and hence exceedingly expensive) has something to do with the fact that it's officers who fly. That is, if enlisted personnel were the aviators would there be a different philosophy on the development of aircraft?

My gut says that while aviation remains a sort of knightly endeavor it will continue to be cost-intensive on a per aircraft basis. If it were to become the province of the masses, as it were, this would change.

The only question is, would this be better?

Regards,
Jill

[George Raihala]

China alone has over 300, including modern versions known as the SU-30MKK. India has 40 SU-30s and licenses to make 140 more. There are 449 SU-27s in service in Russia. Lots of other folks, like Vietnam and Venezuala have them or have them on order.

The SU-27 has seen very limited combat by the Eritrean AF.

The list of countries procuring the Flanker is a long one, many of whom could be potential adversaries, although the liklihood of fighting any of them is arguable. Some of them, such as India, field very well trained pilots indeed. Others probably are very clueless on modern tactics and wouldn't use the aircraft near its capabilities at all.

I do agree, that the timeline for designing and procuring takes far too long. The whole acquisition system, starting with the POM, needs to be completely rethought.

[Van]

My gut says that while aviation remains a sort of knightly endeavor ...

But then the AF NCO corps would loose their bragging rights about how they're the smartest as they let their officers do the dirty work

[Ski]

George

Even so, is the rationale/fear factor really that amplified since the countries you list don't have combat experienced pilots? Or for that matter, experienced pilots?

And as I said before, if we get into a fight with India, China, Russia - we all have much worse worries than whether or not the F-22 or the F-25 are viable matches...

[George Raihala]

George

Even so, is the rationale/fear factor really that amplified since the countries you list don't have combat experienced pilots? Or for that matter, experienced pilots?

And as I said before, if we get into a fight with India, China, Russia - we all have much worse worries than whether or not the F-22 or the F-25 are viable matches...

Like I said before, though, its not like we are replacing relatively young airframes...we are replacing fighters that are literally coming apart at the seams. What is the alternative to the F-22 and F-35? Continuing to fly F-15s until they are 50 years old?

And I guess I don't get the rationale that if we get into a fight with China or the others we'll have "much worse worries", as if that means we don't have to pay attention to winning the air superiority battle. Is it better somehow to make it even worse by ceding control of the the air as well?

[Tacitus]

And I guess I don't get the rationale that if we get into a fight with China or the others we'll have "much worse worries", as if that means we don't have to pay attention to winning the air superiority battle. Is it better somehow to make it even worse by ceding control of the the air as well?

Fascinating thread.

I'll let Ski answer for himself what our much worries might be besides whether we have air superiority in a war with China, but before it deteriorates to that point, I'd expect:
1. China to have presumably dumped their holding of US currency reserves on the markets. That's about $1.756 trillion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_reserves
Confederate money, for its novelty value, may be worth more than the $US dollar at that point.

2. Oil finished trading today at $136 or so. Ready for $1,000 per barrell-- who knows if it would even be trading at that stage.

This list could go on. Would such economic catastrophes induce saner heads to come to some kind of negotiated solution?

I only bring this up because others are citing the economic costs of this equipment. The economic costs in a runup with a war with China would give some a crash course in basic international economics. A diplomatic compromise might look alot better when confronted with this.

[George Raihala]

Fascinating thread.

I'll let Ski answer for himself what our much worries might be besides whether we have air superiority in a war with China, but before it deteriorates to that point, I'd expect:
1. China to have presumably dumped their holding of US currency reserves on the markets. That's about $1.756 trillion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_exchange_reserves
Confederate money, for its novelty value, may be worth more than the $US dollar at that point.

2. Oil finished trading today at $136 or so. Ready for $1,000 per barrell-- who knows if it would even be trading at that stage.

This list could go on. Would such economic catastrophes induce saner heads to come to some kind of negotiated solution?

I only bring this up because others are citing the economic costs of this equipment. The economic costs in a runup with a war with China would give some a crash course in basic international economics. A diplomatic compromise might look alot better when confronted with this.

Yep, that would all suck. Agree 100%. Not to mention the fact that we would be fighting another nuclear power, which may be an even bigger worry. Does having those worries mean that we disregard everything else?

And I still haven't heard a convincing argument for why we should not be replacing 30 year old airframes that are nearing the end of their useful life. The very newest F-15C is 23 years old...the last ones for the USAF came off the assembly line in 1985. How many people on this forum drive a car that old?

[Fuchs]

And I still haven't heard a convincing argument for why we should not be replacing 30 year old airframes that are nearing the end of their useful life. The very newest F-15C is 23 years old...the last ones for the USAF came off the assembly line in 1985. How many people on this forum drive a car that old?

Wrong question.

Try these questions:

A)
Did the #### hit the fan in your economy because of a long-time structural disaster (not enough industrial production to sustain the consumption level) of your economy?

B)
How many countries have a significant air power with a younger aircraft fleet?

C1)
Did another service of your military procure hundreds of brand new fighter-bombers recently?
C2)
Isn't that more fighting power than the second strongest air power can muster?
C3)
Didn't even the USAF recently get almost 200 brand new fighters granted?
C4)
Isn't that more air combat power than the second strongest air power can muster? AGAIN?

D)
Can your old combat planes be upgraded for a service life extension as it's common in allied air forces?

[Ski]

Tacitus brings up a few of the salient points about a war with China. Here are a few more:

1. Have you seen how much is produced in China and is exported to the US today? Turning that spigot off might - my guess is probably - shut down the American economy almost overnight.
2. There are millions of Chinese in the US, and more than a few spies have been caught over the last decade or so...wanna bet there are a few sleeper cells here?
3. Forgetting about the nuclear weapons, what exactly would we fight over? Taiwan can be defended from Taiwan, and if Taiwan fell, it would be a loss, but it wouldn't be the end of the world. Is Taiwan worth the world's economic situation going #### up for a significant period of time? Probably not...and I think those who make the decisions know that.

The USAF has been gambling that quantity is not as important as quality. You reap what you sow.The USAF has had NO concept (and to be fair it's every service) of how to produce cheap, reliable and most importantly, effective weapons that can be manufactured, replaced and sustained easily.

Again - the USAF made it's own bed by creating airframe requirements that were overly complex, expensive and technologically over the top. The money is running out, number one, and number two, they had ample opportunity to continue the legacy of the F-16 and completely ignored it. So forgive me if I don't shed any crocodile tears about how old the USAF aircraft are today. The tanker example is another shining moment of self-immolation by the USAF.

[Sargent]

Tacitus wrote: 2. Oil finished trading today at $136 or so. Ready for $1,000 per barrell-- who knows if it would even be trading at that stage.

Ski wrote: 1. Have you seen how much is produced in China and is exported to the US today? Turning that spigot off might - my guess is probably - shut down the American economy almost overnight.

The assumptions in both of these assertions only looks at the effect on the US.

China's economy is at a vulnerable point, and both of these situations would likely harm it more than the US.

Turn off the spigot on China's exports, and what happens to China? Where will they get the funds to continue further development? Who is going to buy this volume of cheap goods? If we ditch China's imports, we could always commission Mexico to pick up the slack -- hell, it might help with immigration issues, killing two birds with one stone. You'd also reduce the energy footprint of our imports -- less is used to move goods from Mexico than from China. And if Mexico isn't big enough, there are a whole lot more countries to our south who'd be willing to jump in to help out. Might be a boon to hemispheric relations.

As for oil at $1000 a barrel, again, look at where China is in its economic development. How will they continue to feed the growing consumer demands? There is much more likely to be problems trying to cope with that than here in the US. The Chinese economy is not nearly so flexible or adaptable to shift away from petroleum in its manufacturing systems and products -- think about all that plastic, folks.

But I do agree with Ski's assessment regarding our own military hardware production values. And it's not just our aircraft -- everything we do is based on fuel gluttony, from the generators running non-stop to maintain the ice cream and air conditioning to the vehicles and aircraft.

Perhaps these USAF shakeups ought to serve as a warning of the watershed approaching in how we do business.

Regards,
Jill

[Stevely]

The assumptions in both of these assertions only looks at the effect on the US.

China's economy is at a vulnerable point, and both of these situations would likely harm it more than the US.

Turn off the spigot on China's exports, and what happens to China? Where will they get the funds to continue further development? Who is going to buy this volume of cheap goods? If we ditch China's imports, we could always commission Mexico to pick up the slack -- hell, it might help with immigration issues, killing two birds with one stone.

I submit the Chinese have a much higher threshold of economic pain than we do. We'd cry uncle long before they would.

I don't think it's realistic to assume that we could walk away from China and find an easy surrogate elsewhere for cheap production. Where would the capital come from to gear Mexico up to be a major producer to make up for the loss of Chinese imports? Or more to the point, who would we have to go to hat in hand to ask for a loan to do this? And assuming we had the money, how long would that take? Et cetera, et cetera. I understand China has its share of problems, I just think people underestimate how strong their position is economically vis a vis us.

There has been a massive, almost unprecedented transfer of capital, know-how and manufacturing capability from this country (and others) to China that has been decades in the making. It can't be undone easily or overnight, if at all.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the threat we make to China that they will have nowhere to sell their junk if we won't let them do it here, is rapidly diminishing (questionable in the first place that we could summon the national will to step back from the crack pipe...), thanks to other parts of the world rapidly becoming major consumers of their goods, above all China's internal market itself.

Their hand is simply much stronger than ours, in my opinion, and it gets better all the time. It's one of those things that someone should have done something about, but it's much too late.

[Ken White]

I submit the Chinese have a much higher threshold of economic pain than we do. We'd cry uncle long before they would...Their hand is simply much stronger than ours, in my opinion, and it gets better all the time. It's one of those things that someone should have done something about, but it's much too late.

in my case, on three points:

The Chinese probably do have a higher threshold then do we; the Chinese government, OTOH almost certainly does not.

Their hand may -- just may -- get stronger than ours, economically speaking but I don't think it's their yet. I think you misunderestimate American resiliency.

It's never too late; being late makes it difficult on occasion but rarely precludes a correction -- if, in fact one is required. Which I question...

[Stevely]

in my case, on three points:

The Chinese probably do have a higher threshold then do we; the Chinese government, OTOH almost certainly does not.

Their hand may -- just may -- get stronger than ours, economically speaking but I don't think it's their yet. I think you misunderestimate American resiliency.

It's never too late; being late makes it difficult on occasion but rarely precludes a correction -- if, in fact one is required. Which I question...

Ken,

I hope I am misunderestimating ( ) our resiliency! It's one of those things I would rather not be right about.

[Ken White]

- Discounts at Waffle House.

- Ability to substitute 'their' for 'there.'

- Having witnessed American resiliency put to the test in circumstances far worse than those that pertain today.

- Ability to use Bush's 'misunderestimate' in lieu of the more correct but lengthier 'fail to properly appreciate the depth of.'

- Being able to pontificate knowing full well one is not infallible...

[Stevely]

Ken -

There are even more good deals to being old than I previously suspected... me, I was mostly just looking forward to mocking the youth like Statler and Waldorf and asking grand kids to pull my finger.

[Ken White]

embarrassment to your kids, they say.

I have exceeded all expectations.

[Cliff]

The USAF has been gambling that quantity is not as important as quality. You reap what you sow.The USAF has had NO concept (and to be fair it's every service) of how to produce cheap, reliable and most importantly, effective weapons that can be manufactured, replaced and sustained easily.

Again - the USAF made it's own bed by creating airframe requirements that were overly complex, expensive and technologically over the top. The money is running out, number one, and number two, they had ample opportunity to continue the legacy of the F-16 and completely ignored it. So forgive me if I don't shed any crocodile tears about how old the USAF aircraft are today. The tanker example is another shining moment of self-immolation by the USAF.

Ski-

Unfortunately, a cheap/reliable airplane will get shot down by the cheap/reliable SA-20s that the Chinese have, or their (not so cheap, but still somewhat reliable) Flankers.

The USAF didn't create the requirements - the threat does. The USAF didn't get to decide what potential adversary countries bought for their forces. How would you suggest we counter these threats?

I'm not sure what "legacy" you are talking about. The F-35 is supposed to take over the F-16 legacy - hence use by all our allies and a focus on air to ground. The original F-16 was a day, VFR only fighter - designed to take off, fly a short distance, dogfight with MiGs over the Fulda Gap (with only 2 heat-seaking missiles and a very weak radar), and land. It would be nearly worthless against a threat like the Chinese possess or the Venezualans would like to possess. Modern F-16s are closer to the F-22 in terms of avionics, but they still don't have the stealth and supercruise to be able to survive double-digit SAMs. They also have been extensively upgraded to carry air to ground weapons and newer missiles - it is a completely different plane. This is part of why F-16 wings are cracking and falling apart - the aircraft wasn't originally designed to do what it is doing now.

BTW, maintainability is one of the primary design features of all new aircraft. Considering the complexity of the aircraft we are flying now, the fact that young 18 year olds with high school diplomas and a few months training can maintain them says a lot about how sustainable they are. The limitation now is that there's only so much you can do to maintain an old airplane - eventually the basic components fail. We are spending millions to keep our old aircraft serviceable, and the costs are only going to go up - all to keep older aircraft in service. It'd be like taking your 1983 muscle car, and racing it every day of the week for 20 years, then expecting it to be able to beat the newest 2008 Dodge Viper with no issues... there's only so much you can do.

I'm not saying there's not issues with aircraft procurement - but at the same time, with how few defense contractors are left, how few aircraft we are buying, and the threat driven requirements, how do you make it better? I don't see it happening anytime soon.

V/R,

Cliff

[SWJED]

How the Air Force Fell So Far by Loren B. Thompson, Lexington Institute.

The forced resignation of the Air Force's top civilian and uniform leaders last week is the latest chapter in a chronicle of decline that has been unfolding for decades. The political influence of U.S. air power has gradually ebbed away since the cold war ended, and the resulting vacuum has been filled by representatives from other services, most notably the Navy. Air Force officers today are largely excluded from the uppermost tier of the joint command structure, and have grown accustomed to being out of step with the priorities of senior political appointees running the Pentagon. Some proponents of air power offer conspiracy theories to explain why the Air Force has fallen to the lowest point in its sixty-year history. But an honest appraisal of what happened suggests that the service's wounds are mostly self-inflicted.

Perhaps the greatest defect of Air Force leaders in recent times has been their failure to adapt to the changing demands of a transformed global security environment. The Air Force won its independence from the Army and became first among equals in joint military counsels by offering a theory of strategic bombing that seemed uniquely responsive to the geopolitical rivalries of the industrial age. The promise of air power at its inception was that it could hit the "vital centers" of enemy power, and thus bring speedy victory that avoided the static trench warfare of World War One. A generation later, nuclear weapons made air power even more potent -- not so much as an agent of victory, but as a tool of deterrence. However, U.S. defeat in Vietnam signaled that the source of danger was shifting to elusive, unconventional aggressors, and the Air Force failed to change as fast as the threat did...

[Entropy]

The money quote from the article above (at least for me):

A final defect has been the Air Force's inability to communicate with outsiders in a way that makes its capabilities and needs compelling. This is a problem for all the services, but the Navy and Marine Corps have worked much harder to improve their outreach abilities. Because the Air Force has lost the capacity to speak clearly, few Americans are aware of what it is doing in the global war on terror; fewer still realize it may be more relevant to future conflicts than the other services.

[Ken White]

Perhaps the greatest defect of Air Force leaders in recent times has been their failure to adapt to the changing demands of a transformed global security environment. The Air Force won its independence from the Army and became first among equals in joint military counsels by offering a theory of strategic bombing that seemed uniquely responsive to the geopolitical rivalries of the industrial age. The promise of air power at its inception was that it could hit the "vital centers" of enemy power, and thus bring speedy victory that avoided the static trench warfare of World War One. A generation later, nuclear weapons made air power even more potent -- not so much as an agent of victory, but as a tool of deterrence. However, U.S. defeat in Vietnam signaled that the source of danger was shifting to elusive, unconventional aggressors, and the Air Force failed to change as fast as the threat did...

Proving that priorities differ from person to person, I guess...