Air Force Community - Air Force Times

Review air power priorities

Russia is making the largest overhaul of its military aviation in post-Soviet history.

Moscow already has ordered 64 Sukhoi Su-34 “Fullback” fighter-bombers and dozens of Mil Mi-28NM “Havoc” and Kamov Ka-52 “Hokum” attack helicopters and vows to have — before too long — a “fifth-generation” fighter that can defeat the F-22 Raptor.

After years in hibernation, the Russian Bear is stirring, moving decisively to restore the world-class air arm it wielded during the Cold War.

The U.S. is bent on trimming its air power.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates is retiring hundreds of legacy jet fighters in fiscal 2010 that won’t be replaced. This year, he succeeded in killing the F-22, the C-17 Globemaster III and the new combat search-and-rescue helicopter, as well as pausing development of a new bomber. His vision for the fifth-generation fighter fleet is the F-35 Lightning II with an assist from the Raptor.

Washington sees the Air Force as a service flying mostly unmanned aerial vehicles and light-attack reconnaissance planes that can help fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Programs of light armed aircraft have yielded mixed results in the past. Tests of the Fletcher FD-25 Defender in the Korean era produced no useful result. During the Vietnam years, light-attack planes performed well as forward air controllers, but their job was to call in airstrikes by the big, robust fighters and bombers that air forces need to win wars.

If the U.S. had unlimited resources, a light armed aircraft for counterinsurgency might be a marginally useful luxury. But before anyone can say definitely that it’s a necessity, more analysis is needed.

Gates should organize an independent commission — one similar to the group set up to examine America’s civilian human spaceflight program — to study how the U.S. can retain air power supremacy in this era of mixed signals and confusing changes. The Pentagon’s statutory strategy study, the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, lacks independence, has become too ritualized and won’t produce unvarnished answers on shaping the Air Force’s future.

The biggest part of the threat from Russia comes not from its air force but from its Strategic Rocket Forces, an independent service branch. Moscow’s intercontinental ballistic missiles have been looking down America’s throat all along.

A strengthening of the Russian air force is simply a reminder that developed and developing nations everywhere are building big, robust combat aircraft while the U.S. is thinking small.

Good things are happening in the Air Force today, but Russia’s militancy is a reminder that the U.S. needs to reassess its priorities. An independent commission might help it navigate this era of contradictions and challenges.