America's Air Force: the nation's guardian

Joint Force Quarterly, April, 2008 by T. Michael Moseley

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Nations nearly always go into an armed contest with the equipment and methods of a former war. Victory always comes to that country which has made a proper estimate of the equipment and methods that can be used in modern ways.

--Billy Mitchell

I am deeply honored to contribute this essay to Joint Force Quarterly. It is altogether fitting for the Chairman's journal to dedicate an issue to airpower, especially so close to the 60th anniversary of an independent U.S. Air Force. I will leave it to others featured in this issue to discuss the contributions of American airpower as it has evolved over the past 100 years, from the creation of the Aeronautical Division in August 1907, through the establishment of an independent Air Force in September 1947, to the mighty organization that I am privileged to lead today.

Instead, I want to use this opportunity to acquaint our brothers and sisters in arms--the entire joint team serving our great nation--with the strategy I have charted for America's Air Force. This strategy defines the Air Force's indispensable role in promoting and defending the national interest and outlines the urgent actions necessary to cope with today's and tomorrow's challenges. Consider this essay a definitive statement of your Air Force's intent to maintain its role as the Nation's guardian--America's force of first and last resort. Consider it also a tribute to Airmen--those who have gone before me and those I lead today.

Since the days of Kitty Hawk, airpower has been viewed through the lens of its awesome technology: beautiful flying machines streaking effortlessly across the sky; mighty rockets flawlessly lifting satellites into orbit; and persistent electronics sensing, signaling, connecting, transmitting, processing, and controlling integrated, cross-dimensional effects in air, space, and cyberspace. Yet it is the Airmen who transform hunks of metal, buckets of bolts, microprocessors, and circuitry into the Nation's warfighting edge. Taking care of Airmen--America's sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives--means much more than just providing them with the training, equipment, and quality of life they deserve. Taking care of Airmen calls for leadership they can trust with their lives. It also requires a concerted effort to uphold their pride, foster their warrior ethos, and safeguard their rightful position in the pantheon of the Nation's defenders.

As the youngest of America's five Services, our battle traditions are less than a century old. Yet we are heirs to a proud legacy of leading by example, from the front, assuming the full measure of risk and responsibility. This heritage has been forged by airpower's early pioneers; by the first air combat heroes of Lafayette's Escadrille; by the Tuskegee Airmen who racked up an impressive combat record against overwhelming odds, fighting both the Nazis abroad and racial prejudice at home; by pilots and navigators who flew into harm's way in two World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan--and Iraq again; by astronauts who blasted into space and walked on the moon; by crews of HH-3 Jolly Green Giant rescue helicopters who risked their lives so others might live; by prisoners of war who continued to fight from a prison cell; and many, many others.

Airmen fly and fight in inherently dangerous domains. Schweinfurt and Ploesti are our Iwo Jima and Omaha Beach--though we were in those fights, too. Than Hoa Bridge and the Hanoi Hilton are our Khe Sanh and Ia Drang Valley--though we were over those battlegrounds as well. This heritage obligates us to honor the sacrifice by recommitting ourselves to the common touchstone of warrior virtues and a single, unifying purpose: fly, fight, win.

Airmen are America's cross-dimensional, global maneuver force. The power that we wield is at once tactical, operational, and strategic. We are indeed democracy's sword and shield--its guardians and avengers. America's Airmen are ever faithful to an ethos that unifies warriors across centuries and warfighting domains. At this time of war, America could ask no more and no less from its youngest Service.

History shows that military advantage is fleeting. In the wake of Operation Desert Storm, America's global reach and global power were the sole arbiter of world affairs. A Pax Americana replaced the Cold War nuclear standoff, until that deadly September 2001 morning when 3,000 people were killed on American soil.

That very day, the U.S. Air Force spread its wings over America's cities in an extraordinary operation aptly named Noble Eagle. The Air Force continues to provide this combat air patrol with about 100 aircraft committed daily, all while serving as the Nation's ultimate nuclear backstop, acting as its global eyes and ears, and flying and fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. In these theaters, Air Force precision targeting kills insurgent leaders, saving American and coalition lives; airlift transports troops and supplies, removing 3,500 convoys and some 8,600 people per month off deadly roads; aeromedical evacuation accounts for the highest survival rate (97 percent) of any conflict in history; space-based capabilities provide precise global timing and navigation, weather, and secure communications indispensable to all operations; and other intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets find and track enemies, enabling precise targeting and near-real-time assessment of effects.