In exemplification whereof, the
following report is hard to beat.
The Air Force's Flight to Weakness
The Wall Street Journal,
November 7, 2012
Jack David and Michael Dunn
Serious talk of America's defense budget was largely absent from the
final weeks of the presidential campaign, once President Barack Obama
likened Gov. Mitt Romney's concerns to an anachronistic focus on
"horses and bayonets."
But when Mr.
Romney lamented that (among other things) the U.S. Air Force has the
fewest airplanes it has ever had, he was correct. At its founding in
1947, it had more than 12,300 planes. Today: approximately 5,200.
As the Air Force has been
retiring large numbers of older aircraft in recent years, its
budgets-drafted by the Pentagon and ultimately enacted by Congress-have
prevented it from acquiring enough NEW aircraft to perform the missions
of those retired. From 2008 through 2012, the Air Force RETIRED MORE
THAN 700 MORE AIRCRAFT THAN IT BOUGHT.
Nevertheless, the Obama
administration's budget request for fiscal year 2013 sought to RETIRE
AN ADDITIONAL 300 AIRPLANES while buying only 54 new ones - a proposal
that Congress has SO FAR refused to endorse. The last time the U.S.
bought so few aircraft was 1915 (for the Aviation Section of the
U.S. Army Signal Corps, an Air Force predecessor).
The U. S. even bought move aircraft during
the Great Depression.
Then there is the matter of how America's offensive and defensive
capabilities have been weakened over the past 20 years
compared with those of its
adversaries and potential adversaries. From that perspective,
Mr. Romney's critical statements on defense
cutbacks DIDN'T BEGIN TO PORTRAY HOW PERILOUS is the state of the Air
Force - and HOW SOON its weakness might begin endangering missions
ESSENTIAL to U.S. national security.
Russian and Chinese aircraft,
flown by Indian pilots in exercises, have already bested the U.S. Air
Force's FOURTH-generation aircraft, F-15s and F-16s. Both Russia and
China have developed FIFTH-generation fighters similar to the Air
Force's F-22 and F-35. Moscow and Beijing say they intend to produce
those aircraft IN NUMBERS FAR GREATER than does the U.S., and they have
announced plans to SELL them to other countries. Russia and China are
also creating air DEFENSES that will challenge all but the most
sophisticated U.S. aircraft, as are Iran, Venezuela and other
countries.
Also troubling are the recent
CLOSURES of several Air Force PRODUCTION LINES. This means that
if current estimates of Air Force needs turn out to be too low - for
example, if the rising capabilities and intentions of Russia or China
become greater threats then anticipated -
then the U.S. WON'T be able to act quickly
in response. THE PRODUCTION LINES AND THE PEOPLE WHO MANAGE THEM WILL
BE GONE.
Over the past four years, the Obama administration
TERMINATED OR DELAYED SEVEN AIRCRAFT
PRODUCTION LINES, including those of the F-22 fighter jet, the
C-1 7 transport airplane, the replacement search-and-rescue helicopter,
and a new bomber.
These cuts affect not only the
Air Force capabilities but also the aerospace INDUSTRY which currently
accounts for 10 million jobs and almost $50 billion in net exports -
the largest of any American industry, according to the Aerospace
Industries Association. Closing production lines has meant
losing thousands of defense jobs over the
past three years. With $500 billion in "sequestration" cuts scheduled
to begin on January 2 - as part of $1.2 trillion in automatic
cuts agreed to in Washington after budget talks failed in 2011 -
the defense industry will lose another 2.13
million direct and indirect jobs, according to a study from George
Mason University.
Building an Air Force is a
LONG-TERM
process. The reason that the military branch in the U.S. has performed
so well is that
the American people
nourished it with DECADES of sustained and consistent investment. Yet
the Air Force's fleet of planes is older than it has ever been - more
than 25 years on the average. Some planes, such as the B-52 and KC-135,
are more than 50 years old. Americans probably wouldn't let
their children or grandchildren take a car that old out on the
interstate or operate it when the temperature is 40 degrees below zero,
especially if the vehicle already has hundreds of thousands of miles on
it and needed repair. Ironically,
the
inattention and repeated cuts that have taken a toll on this
branch of the military
haven't
received the public attention they deserve because the Air Force has
been so successful. No U.S. soldier has been killed by enemy
air power since 1953.
For six decades
the Air Force has been able to deny operational air space to
adversaries, so U.S. ground forces have operated with little fear of
enemy aircraft attacking their positions.
But the U.S. relies on the Air Force to do much more than that -
including to hold at risk any actual or potential enemy target,
anywhere in the world; to protect the ground forces of friends and
allies, such as the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan or the freedom
fighters in Libya; to protect the U.S. from a nuclear attack; to reach
into Iran if called upon; to provide navigation through its global
positioning systems; to gather intelligence remotely from far-flung
areas; to defend against cyberattacks; to airlift humanitarian aid
anywhere in the world; and otherwise to deter potential adversaries.
WHAT THE AIR FORCE CAN'T DO IS
CONTINUE ON ITS PRESENT PATH. At least not for much longer.
[Emphasis
added]
Mr. David, a senior fellow of
the Hudson Institute, was a deputy assistant secretary of defense in
the George W. Bush administration. Mr. Dunn, a former president and CEO
of the Air Force Association, is a retired Air Force lieutenant
general.