"The USAF should establish an irregular warfare wing capable of providing assistance to partner nations across the full spectrum in developing and employing indigenous air and space power to defeat irregular internal threats," says the AFSOC document, which includes a foreword signed by its commander, Lt Gen Michael Wooley.

But the idea for standing up an irregular warfare wing with a strike and mobility fleet dedicated to the counter-insurgency mission is clearly gaining some momentum. Earlier this year, Rand's "Project Air Force" published a monograph also calling on the service to create an irregular warfare wing within its force structure. In April, top air force leaders also held a counter-insurgency aircraft summit at the Air University at Maxwell AFB, Alabama.
While I rarely miss an opportunity to poke fun at the Air Force, this article doesn't provide the fodder to do so. Yes it addresses fire power, but it also addresses mobility, and I bet if we could look underneath the covers we would find they're looking at intelligence, CMO, HA, and other areas. Most importantly they're looking at expanding the 6th Sqdn's capability to develop capacity in designated partner nations.

LTG Wooley is an impressive officer, and I am confident he'll push AFSOC in the right direction. Additionally, we don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. Those smaller fire power platforms could be essential if we start putting smaller U.S. elements in remote, uncertain environments to work with host nation forces. The ability to call for a more surgical (and of course available) fire power platform will be essential to enable this strategy.

It is an unfair characterization to compare special operations air platforms with big blue's bombers dropping naplam on villages. The Special Ops platforms should be relatively surgical. I think we need a capability beyond our little birds to provide CAS in an urban environment, and to disrupt insurgent activity in their so called safe havens. I agree with a population centric strategy, but we still need the stick, and the sticks that AFSOC are looking at are probably appropriate.