"You old guys need to get over that s—t."
- Young Marine to Marine Sergeant Major when asked how he felt about fighting alongside an Army unit in Al Anbar, Iraq.
I feel compelled to defend the USAF some. The USAF is undoubtedly making significant contributions to the conflicts in Iraq/Afghanistan. A soldier in theater can be assured of an armed CAS aircraft overhead to support in less than a half hour (often much less) when he gets into trouble. That makes them the "QRF" for many units.

I was on the receiving end of this support - both on the ground in combat and as a coordinator for a BCT's worth of assets. They never failed to show up and support the ground commander. There was sometimes some friction/difficulty, but no more than any other asset.

While I have signifcant disagreement with the USAF's approach to COIN as articulated by MGen Dunlap, (and for those who say it's only his opinion - name a serving USAF GO who has publically disagreed with him - therefore, he speaks for the USAF by default), many of their lower level guys "get it".

The JFO issue remains a problem to get "enough" to the force to support everyone who needs supporting. There are fixes in the pipeline. It was a major topic of the III Corps CALL collection I just attended.

The UAV issue is a self-inflicted wound IMO, and a failure to anticipate the growing demand for UAV's versus who should fly them. I'm not a pilot, so I won't say whether a pilot is needed to support the strategic UAV's or a highly trained WO/Enl. It does seem they're making efforts to fix.

This also applies to the supported/supporting relationship of the CAOC to the theaters requesting support - there is still some friction there to be addressed so too many cooks don't spoil the ATO and CAS pot.

Finally, the F-22. We must retain air dominance for the future. We lose that, I'm up Sh*t creek. I don't know whether it could be performed at lesser cost by another aircraft, and I doubt we need 380 F-22's versus other airframes. We can't affort to let anyone else control the skies.

I'm tempted with the USA and USMC to pull the biblical admonition - "Pull the stick out of your own eye (though the USAF has a stick too)"

I'm more concerned with the articles and speeches emerging from USAF thinking Airpower and PGM's can win a COIN fight than anything. It just defies reality as practiced the last few years. The IAF thought it could defeat Hizbollah using EBO, when it failed the Israeli army was left holding the (unprepared and untrained) bag. Listening to the USAF, they seem to hold similar views to the IAF in 2006 regarding airpower, EBO, and low intensity wars.