21st Century Shift: Air Force Promoting Ground Troops and Not Pilots.

 @majrod AF recruiting is a job I successfully avoided.  Apologies for you folks that did a recruiter tour, regardless of service.  Worst job, ever.  If I had an 18 year-old son I'd tell him that unless he wanted to be a PJ or TACP, go Navy and then SEAL  (avoid the army at all costs!).  My background is AWACS, a few days pushing flights, and space.  AWACS was the shit.  The time in which I was an MTI was the best time to be an MTI.... these days if you say "fuck" to an airman you can expect a congressional investigation... so no on that.  Space is good but only if you can back it up with a degree.

 @JakeTura It fills a gap.  We'll always need a hornet/eagle/16 driver to provide CAS.  But the savings (and I'm not talking money.... I'm talking Sun Tzu) in time, energy and space provided within the battlespace by employing drones is so far above the bar that it's just silly to not transition our forces with drones as a tip of the spear.

@REAPER95

Force-on-force is not dead.  IEDs are not an offensive weapon.  N. KoreA isn’t going to reunify S.Korea with IEDs.  China isn’t going to expand its sphere of influence with IEDs.  Russia isn’t going to keep its neighbors in line with low intensity ops.  One does not invade a nation with IEDs.  Also to use IEDs one must allow your country to be occupied.  Even in recent low intensity ops there are numerous instances of FOF (e.g. Wanat, Kamdesh, Falujah and dozens more that don't make the front pages or aren't seen by drone operators because every squad, platoon or company has its own drone).  Don’t make the age old mistake of expecting the next war to be like the last one.  Afghanistan has very unique and difficult qualities that have caused numerous nations to not achieve their goals in the area since Alexander the Great.

Drones are an incredible weapons that have yet to reach their full capability but we’ve seen the same phenomena from new weapon advocates believing a new weapon has made the old forms of war obsolete.  We saw the proponents of the machinegun/quickfiring artillery believe the maginot line was impregnable.  Strategic bombing never achieved the successes that Douhet and his disciples thought.  The tank did not end trench warfare and the anti tank missioe didn’t make the tank obsolete.  The atomic bomb did not make war obsolete.   The drone and IED will not end force on force engagements. 

We have been operating against relatively weak opponents in very permissive air environments.  Not a very varied experience to base long term defense strategies.   Drones have their weaknesses as our stealth drone sitting in Iran proves.  Drones carry bombs but they don't provide long term supression like artillery or automatic weapons provide.  Most important is that drones can't sieze nor hold terrain though they can make life unpleasant as long as their munitions and endurance last.  Even if we could darken our enemy's skies with drones one must realize the enemy gets a vote and will find a way to eliminate our advantage.

@REAPER95

Front lines are a thing of the past.  Not only does our current enemy (afg) get this, but we all understand the russians and chinese are noting the successes of the under-equipped, under-educated cannon fodder has managed to have against a massively technologically superior (and that gap is narrowing as I type this) and highly trained force.

The BGM needs to take note, and unfuck itself to become flexible on a 72 hour basis.... this requires myriad changes in doctrine and leadership.  It's a big fucking boat (the pentagon) and turning it around needs to happen quickly.  Like fucking yesterday.

 @formwiz and in another sentence, look how much MORE the USAF has become. They have immense sky control.

 @Old PH2 Not to mention the fact that we can't allow Blackhawk pilots and crew to phone it in when the war fighters need to be exfiled. Imagine being a grunt who has to board a helo in a hot LZ but the pilot has no SA because he's a few thousand miles away behind a PC screen. The sense of urgency will be different for both parties I'm sure. However, I will say that with other fixed wing missions the likelihood of pilots being the vanguard is slim. Sad but that is one of the possible evolutionary paths for the USAF.

 @Conventional Forces SF/SoF of any branch have never traditionally been meant to go head-to-head with battalions of conventional forces.  They are a force multiplier. I don't think BK was implying that they should be employed in that fashion.  I'm pretty sure no one here forgets the role they play.

We live in a world of asymmetric warfare.  For now, at least, the days of employing multiple divisions against multiple divisions over hundreds of miles of battlespace are not the realty.  The entire world knows that the US conventional forces, if employed in that manner, would crush anything in opposition.  So, not being stupid, they choose to change the game.  You're not going to see armored divisions facing armored divisions and air wings competing for air superiority any time soon.

CAS, airlift, and special ops are now the primary roles for AF pilots.  Unmanned aircraft are cheaper and don't cost lives if lost.

There is still a need to keep a competent air-to-air force if for nothing else than to keep from having to fight air-to-air, but I agree with BK:  there needs to be a shift in leadership (promotions to flag officer) that reflects TODAY, not yesterday.