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Council Member
Before anyone goes high and to the right, it's just an interesting article. I'm no pundit espousing one way or the other. Abolishing a branch of the military is way out of my pay grade.
But, the more I think about it the more it makes sense. The Marine Corps has its own air assets for CAS, the Army should as well. Marines prefer to work with Marines, and I"m sure soldiers feel the same way. Launching strategic bombing and deep air support missions from Naval platforms nearer the target than CONUS entails much less risk due to shorter flight times and could provide more responsiveness. Is it worth having a branch of service whose functions can easily be accomplished by the other branches? I don't know, I do know the American people would be in an uproar if any serious attempt was made to disband the Air Force.
One thing that just pisses me off is the Air Force's argument that they are essential to counterinsurgency. One just has to look at the Isreali/Hezbollah war of last year to see that strategic bombing is dangerous when applied to an insurgency. Hezbollah surrounded likely bombing targets with civilians, causing an uproar in the press when Israel did bomb those targets. All the expensive, fancy air assets in the world are being marginalized with minimal effort and no cost.
And counterinsurgency is no fad, if the US military had kept a focus on COIN we wouldn't have to be relearning it now.
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