My conspiracy theory is that this paper is a timely spin piece on air power not focused on the military community, but focused on Congress (dollars). It is timely in that Iraq is becoming ever more unpopular, midterm elections are looming, new and old Congressmen next Spring will have to offer alternatives to "staying the course", so unfortunately this article may sell to the intended audience for all the wrong reasons.

But looking past that, there are some merits to this article (not much). Air power is our asymmetric edge, and I don’t think that can be argued. It currently gives us battlefield dominance in almost all kinetic situations. It is best applied in conjunction with other joint forces, but it can be applied effectively unilaterally to execute punitive raids. I can’t argue that, nor can I argue that not all small wars, conflicts, etc. require us to obligate our nation to execute FID/COIN, which is not only expensive economically, it almost always is costly politically (we lose consensus and unity) and morally (we start on moral high ground, but over time our position degrades to the point where we are fighting to get back on the moral high ground as we're portrayed as occupiers and the source of all problems for that particular nation). We should never sign up for COIN lightly, because we are putting our national reputation on line in by engaging in a situation where it is very hard to effect a positive outcome. That means we still require the ability to execute punitive type strikes without buying the country and signing on for nation building as a viable option. Air power permits that at a limited cost (planes are expensive, but so is moving and sustaining a BDE of soldiers). What the article failed to mention (not surprisingly) is the use of air power alone, especially against non-state actors, is frequently perceived as a sign of weakness by our enemies. They don’t think we have the will to commit to our troops to the fight, thus if we use JDAMS unilaterally we could very well embolden our enemy. On the other hand a JDAM strike in conjunction with paratroopers dropping in, or Marines coming over the beach presents another image altogether.

Finally, I think the killing of AMZ could have been executed by any infantry platoon, but why give him the opportunity to kill a soldier and sign off with an IO victory? On the other hand, air power alone never could have found him.

Overall the article is laughable, but if it works we’ll see new work shortly on Air Force Golf Courses and O-Clubs, while the Army and Marines carry the bulk of the fight underfunded.