JULY/AUGUST AIRFORCEMAG.COM John T. Correll was editor in chief of Air Force Magazine for
18 years and is a frequent contributor. His most recent article,
“Team B Tackles the CIA," appeared in the June issue.Photo: EmperornieTwo Chinese
fifth-generation
fighters
maneuver
during an air
show in 2018.at less than half the Air Force’s stated requirement to free
up funds for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” according to a
report from the Air Force Association's Mitchell Institute for
Aerospace Studies.
Over the next several years, the Air Force made what was
called a “conscious choice” not to aggressively promote air-
power, attempting to demonstrate instead that it was “all in” on
supporting the ground forces and doing whatever was needed.
“Our most important air and space mission is supporting
our troops and those of our allies on the front lines,” Deputy
Secretary of Defense William J. Lynn III announced in 2010.
RECONSIDERATION
Scattered doubt began to rise. Even within the ground forc-
es, there was concern that the counter-revolution in military
a airs had gone too far.
An internal Pentagon report in 2008 speculated that the
Army’s focus on counterinsurgency had weakened its ability
to ght conventional battles. Army Col. Gian P. Gentile, di-
rector of the military history program at West Point, said that
“the US Army has become a counterinsurgency-only force.”
“ e current strategy requires the United States to engage
in a relatively low-tech, manpower-intensive form of warfare
that pits one of its greatest weaknesses against one of its op-
ponents’ greatest strengths,” said Richard B. Andres, professor
of national security at the National War College.
Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles J. Dunlap Jr. raised
a larger issue. “Today’s thinking about defense spending
is hobbled by the Pentagon’s inability to distinguish suffi-
ciently between the serious challenge of irregular wars and
the need to deter truly existential threats posed by nation
states,” he said.
e rst o cial break came in revised strategic guidance
from Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta in 2012. “ is
country is at a strategic turning point,” he said, calling for a
transition “from emphasis on today’s wars to preparing for
future challenges.”
However, Panetta’s guidance was motivated mostly by the
wish of the Obama administration to cut the defense budget
rather than any driving doctrinal conviction. Pentagon o -
cials said they wanted to reduce ground force troop strength
by 10 to 15 percent.
In 2014, Panetta’s successor, Chuck Hagel, announced the
“Third Offset,” a broad effort to leap ahead of competitors
in advanced military technologies. In 2016, the Trump ad-
ministration phased out the Third Offset language, although
many of the concepts continued.
A new National Defense Strategy in January 2018 declared
an end to the long fixation on terrorism and small-scale
conflicts. “Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism,
is now the primary concern in US national security,” it said.
“The central challenge to US prosperity and security is the
re-emergence of long-term strategic competition.”
To meet that challenge, the US defense program will have
to overcome 20 years of discounting airpower and RMA
technology. The Air Force is much smaller than it was in the
1990s, in aircraft as well as in operational squadrons. The
erosion has been especially acute in high-end systems. The
combined number of F-22 and F-35 stealth aircraft, once
projected at 2,144, has reached only 361 so far.
Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, said that Russia and China had become “near-peer
competitors” and that they “can actually challenge our
ability to project power and challenge us in all domains.”
The National Defense Strategy Commission—a biparti-
san group created by Congress to replace the Quadrennial
Defense Review—warned in 2018 that a “crisis of national
security” existed. “The US military could suffer unaccept-
ably high casualties and loss of major capital assets in its
next conflict,” the commission said. “It might struggle to
win, or perhaps lose, a war against China or Russia.”
Whether the culture of the Pentagon can tolerate a doc-
trine and strategy that addresses that problem remains to
be seen. J