Contact your bureaucrats!
The McCaffrey Warning: Now that aged F-15s are falling out of the skies, we would direct your attention to a recent report prepared by retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a combat veteran of Vietnam and the Gulf. His comments were contained in a six-page “after action report” prepared after visiting air bases and talking with airmen of all ranks. He wrote: “The US Air Force is badly underfunded, its manpower is being drastically cut and diverted to support of counter-insurgency operations, its modernization program of paradigm-shifting technology is anemic–and its aging strike, lift, and tanker fleets are being ground down by non-stop global operations with an inadequate air fleet and maintenance capabilities. … We should create a US national security policy based principally on the deterrence capabilities of a dominant, global Air Force and Naval presence. … The US Air Force is our primary national strategic force. Yet it is too small, has inadequate numbers of aging aircraft, has been marginalized in the current strategic debate. … The next Administration must fix the manpower, aircraft, and funding shortfalls of the US Air Force or we will place the American people in enormous peril. … We lack the equipment, Airmen, and money to adequately defend America in the coming 15 years. We are placing our national security at enormous risk if we do not soon act to correct these crucial shortfalls.” McCaffrey went on quite a bit more, but you get the idea.
In his memo (see above), he proposes a seven-step get-well program for the Air Force. The seven “imperatives” (McCaffrey’s word) are these:
1. F-22A fighter. “There is no single greater priority for the coming 10 years for the US Air Force than funding, deploying, and maintaining 350+ F-22A Raptor aircraft.” (The current program of record calls for only 183 fighters.)
2. C-17 airlifter. “We must create the strategic national military airlift and air-to-air refuel capability for 600+ C-17 aircraft to project national military and humanitarian power in the global environment. … The C-5 aircraft must be retired–these planes are shot.”
3. UAV, ISR, Strike. “Primary control of these assets should be exercised by centralized Joint Air Component command and control. … We are confusing the joint battle space doctrine. Air Component Commanders should coordinate all UAVs based on Combatant Commander situational war-fighting directives.”
4. Space Primacy. “Our global communications, ISR, and missile defense capabilities cannot operate without secure, robust, and modernized space platforms. … Space is an under-resourced and inadequately defended vital US technical capability.”
5. Cyber Capabilities. “We must expand exponentially the resources, R&D, and human talent devoted to the massive and on-going war against our US communications-computer-control systems. … This calls for a serious Joint Combatant Command status with a heavy Air Force component lead.”
6. Next Generation Bomber. “We need a follow-on long-range system to the B-2 Spirit Bomber. The B-52 needs to be retired within the decade. The B-2 is inadequate and too vulnerable as a long-range strike platform. … Our offensive capability should include … a fully modernized stealth heavy strike bomber.”
7. Missile Defense. “The US Air Force Airborne Laser is just short of operational deployment. … The system needs substantial continued R&D investment and continued operational incremental upgrades in the coming 15 years.”
[Edited for brevity.]