Abolish the Air Force

[Ender]

There is a great deal that has been added over the last few days that has "formed" my thinking a bit more (which is great). I have to admit a number of these more recent posts have given me a great deal to think about. I will abate my seeming assault on all things Blue and concede that there are any number of things official and unofficial that the USAF brings to the fight (here we go) that no one else can. (Give me a sec...)

I have lived in a pretty Air Force centric part of the world for awhile now and it has not been hard of late, to find an airman (of any rank or rate) around here who has had any difficulty telling me why I (we) need them. I have to admit most of what they have said and what has been posted here re: strategic deterrent, evils of force parity, ICBM's, space, the "long bomb" etc... is pretty convincing. But what is most convincing for me and what has sealed it over the last couple days is not so much what I have been told, but what I haven't. Ask a senior air force person questions about popular subjects long enough and there is just a certain point where the conversation has to end because they really can't talk about the very basics of what they do. I now loosely understand that the USAF has their hands in many (important and vital) pies that are not fit for public (or my specific) consumption and just because I don't either like, understand or appreciate the importance of those "pies" does not mean we should take an axe to one of our own.

Slapout, your most recent post and the one before it "Tater's Guide" really clarified the issue for me, Carl you had a major impact as well. We are really all in this together, no one of us wants to win this (ALL) more than the other. The debate for me intellectually when distilled, is not whether I think the USAF should really be abolished (I don't) but much deeper than that, whether or not our entire force structure is aligned in a manner that is oriented towards flexible, efficient lethality. Are the branches, all of them, defunct? By that I mean do we really need to divide here and there, on every little nickel and dime, issue, program and initiative? We have enough enemies on the outside without creating them on the inside and a Divided We Stand, United We Fall DoD just does not make sense to me. What does make sense though is to have a completely functional, completely flexible unified fighting force...standardize all of the gear, (AND I MEAN EVERYTHING) so that any one single fighting component is interchangeable with any other comparable platform anywhere across the spectrum. I am thinking of a model "parallel" to the US Army's Stryker vehicle concept but only on a macro scale an not just with gear and guns but also and more importantly with applications and capabilities. Make our systems stackable and train everyone to a common standard under a unified banner. Sit everyone down and make them sing the same music. Make sure no one other team member is playing a tune that any other team member can not either play himself or appreciate and there will be a serious decline in not only our blue on blue but also our collateral damage as well. Team A vs Team B bull#### sucks and I know it as well as anyone.

All of my studies outside of martial academia end up revolving around two "roles," domestic and foreign policies. In essence we ideally (try to) handle those outside differently than we do those inside (neither better nor worse, just differently.) The questions a National Defense Force (of sorts) with separate foreign and domestic arms and applications raise a few questions for me:
-How would we strip our separate identities without actually stripping our separate identities?
-How would we reconfigure everything to a semi standardized model, divide the wealth so to speak to one mouth and still maintain that capitalist competitive edge while not looking like the socialist bastards we just beat? If any bunch is the anti individualist it is the DoD and that is okay...
-Slapout is right, nature is pretty friggin infinitely smart, and elegantly simple too. Why can't we combine the basics (martial nature) with technology (martial nurture) and simplify everything? My junior read on the favored passtime of the typically elderly, experienced and powerful, warfare- with most of us serving pawn to the General participant, is one that holds strategy, operations and tactics, at their core have remained relatively unchanged over the centuries.

Information Age or not, we are not so different or developed now than our ancestors were then. Until someone can conclusively tell me how they did certain things back in the day (like build the pyramids etc..) my "We're So Cool and sooo Smart Jury" is still out. In almost every aspect the essence is still the same but our application, or all of the details have shifted over the years. An example: Our warrior forbears studied the hunting methods and techniques of falcons as well as lions (two prime predator examples that may have some bearing to this current topic) as much then as we study them now and while our specific purposes for doing so were not completely parallel, they are strikingly similar. Are we forsaking the "old" for the "new" and how do we marry those worlds without either further entrenching ourselves in an antiquated force structure model ORRRR...losing our traditions and values by forgetting where we come from, what we have been through (collectively and individually) and why all that matters and makes us right at the end of the day?

(As an aside: The only way I would be okay with realizing any of the scandalous thoughts of standardization I have in my head now would be, if by scrapping even the USMC, we were able to at least keep all of and only the Marine drill instructors and Boot Camp experiences- call everyone whatever you want after the fact but at least they would start off on the right foot! )