JULY/AUGUST AIRFORCEMAG.COMand retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Paul K. Van Riper said
that “America’s next war, like those which have preceded
it, almost certainly will be won—or lost—on the ground.”
“We are out of the era—if we were ever in it—of airpower
being able to cause someone to do something,” said Gen.
Gordon R. Sullivan, former Army Chief of Staff and, in 1998,
president of AUSA.
Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera said in 1999, “We
are committed to making the Army the force of choice of
the country,” adding that, “only one service closes with
and destroys the enemy.”
“In the final analysis, if you want to radically change the
behavior of your opponent, it takes boots on the ground to
do it,” said retired Marine Corps Gen. Bernard E. Trainor.
In May 2000, the Joint Chiefs rewrote their vision doc-
ument, making a complete reversal from their previous
position. “Overseas or US-based units will mass forces or
effects directly to the operational theater,” they now said.
“The capability to rapidly mass force or forces and the
effect of dispersed forces allow the joint force commander
to establish control of the battle space at the proper time
and place,” the new Joint Vision said. “Beyond the actual
physical presence of the force, dominant maneuver creates
an impact in the minds of opponents and others in the
operational area. ... The presence or anticipated presence
of a decisive force might well cause an enemy to surrender
after minimal resistance.”
The counter-revolution in military affairs was almost
complete. What was left of the RMA was destroyed by a
series of events and decisions over the next few years.
DECAPITATION
The immediate response to the terrorist attacks in 2001
centered on air strikes in Afghanistan, which were effective
and successful. Within months, though, the focus shifted
to ground operations in Iraq, eventually evolving to an
emphasis on counterinsurgency.
ere was no part in it for RMA. “We hear many terms,
whether it’s ‘transformation,’ ‘military technical revolution,’
‘revolution in military a airs,’ all indicating something revo-
lutionary has happened,” Van Riper said in a PBS interview.
“What I see are slogans masquerading as ideas.”
Ralph Peters, a retired Army o cer and widely published
military analyst, dismissed the RMA as a “doctrinal cult of
the past decade.”
“Wars are won by seizing and holding ground, and only
ground forces can do that,” said Deputy Secretary of Defense
Paul D. Wolfowitz.
A new Quadrennial Defense Review in 2005 said that irreg-
ular warfare was the dominant form of warfare confronting
the United States. e 2005 National Defense Strategy listed
several “key assumptions,” one of which was that, “We will
have no global peer competitors and will remain unmatched
in traditional military capability.”
Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), a former Marine, lectured
Air Force leaders at a budget hearing. “ e future of the Air
Force is in the service to the mission on the ground,” he said.
“Waves of Russian ghters will not be coming over the horizon
any time soon.”
USAF fortunes sank to a low point in 2008 when Secretary
of Defense Robert M. Gates forced both the Secretary of the
Air Force and the Chief of Sta to resign. e cover story for
the decapitation was failure to ensure security and control of
nuclear weapons, but the real reason was what Gates consid-
ered to be excessive advocacy of airpower.
Gates was determined to cut the F-22 ghter program radi-
cally. “We are ghting two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and
the F-22 has not performed a single mission in either theater,”
he told a Senate committee.
e two deposed Air Force leaders fought against the F-22
cuts. ey also disagreed with Gates when he wanted to divert
airmen from their regular specialties and send them to Iraq
to guard prisoners and drive fuel trucks.
In 2009, Gates “prematurely canceled the F-22 purchaseThen-USAF Chief
of Sta Gen. T.
Michael Moseley
and then-Air
Force Secretary
Michael Wynne
were both forced
to resign in 2008
by Secretary of
Defense Robert
Gates for their
unwavering
commitment to
the F-22, which
he canceled.Photo: MSgt. Jim Varhegyi