Volume 27, Issue 3, May - June  2013

From the Air:
Rediscovering Our Raison D’ętre

As operations in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down and the military establishment faces austere funding for the near future, now is the time for the Air Force to refocus on those core functions for which the service was originally established and that it is uniquely suited to perform. Whether the nation confronts a threat to the homeland and competition from a military peer or finds itself in another irregular war, the Air Force should invest its efforts and limited resources in those core functions that support air, space, and cyberspace superiority; power projection; global intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; and nuclear deterrence as it encounters new strategic challenges such as air-sea battle.

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  • Hugh Curry 7/9/2012 11:02:25 AM

    Great article on the strategic need for airpower. This needs to be articulated at the highest levels of US political leadership. We need to help them understand the impact that airpower has on U.S. strategic security policy in order to convince them that we need to recapitize it to remain strong. It is the U.S. assymetic advantage over any potential adversary. It must remain strong to deter them. Our nation depends on it. Let the debate begin.

  • Fred Curtis 7/19/2012 1:49:51 PM

    Excellent article. It is time to reconstitute the Strategic Air Command and give it all the combat missions except for CAS and airlift. The Global Strike Command is artificial segmentation. We used to say "Air Forces are an Entity" AFM 2-1 original.

  • Paul Darling 8/18/2012 12:33:41 PM

    The Air Force's Raison D'etre was to deliver nuclear weapons and protect the US from the same. The mechanism in 1947 was aircraft. Since 1960 that is no longer true. Of all the many core competencies that the AF lays claim to, most are not flying related. Yet how many 4 stars in the AF aren't command pilots? You speak of air power when you mean to say air planes. The AF needs less dogma disguised as Doctrine and more Douhet, Clausiwitz and Sun Tzu. Self congradulatory articles that reference AF Pilots and their doctrine will not help the AF find a useful identity.