The Real Problem in the Air Force? A Loss of Vision
CNAS Author: Alice E. Hunt
Type: News Article
June 9, 2008 — To many around Washington, the simultaneous forced ousters of the Air Force's civilian secretary and chief of staff seem like the culmination of months of bureaucratic missteps and contentious turf warfare.
Although Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said his decision was based on concerns about the service's management of nuclear weapons, observers point out that the report by Adm. Kirkland H. Donald, director of Navy nuclear propulsion, on nuclear security issues followed a series of dogfights over unmanned aerial vehicles, jammed acquisitions programs and the F-22 fighter.
But there is more to the Air Force's problems besides misplaced nukes and controversial jets. At the bottom of it all is a service that has lost its vision of what it provides the country.
Seemingly isolated skirmishes over budget share and program stewardship are derivative of a mission without a clear flight path. Unless a new generation of Air Force leaders is able to define and drive a central narrative for their service, the institution will continue to veer off-course.
Both the problem and the solution start with strategic purpose.
Despite its hangars full of aging aircraft, rapidly rising fuel costs and the demands put on the service by almost two decades of continual operations, the organization has struggled to justify its programs to administration budgeters and congressional appropriators alike.
In March, the Air Force's Directorate of Communication released a pamphlet lamenting that "seventeen years of combat combined with seventeen years without significant recapitalization" were decreasing aircraft readiness and threatening the future of the service.
Yet it still struggled to persuade civilian officials to increase procurement of the F-22, and the service suffered embarrassment when Gates scolded it for being slow to move surveillance drones into the Iraq and Afghanistan theatres. Civilian and Air Force leadership were literally talking past each other.
At the core of these miscommunications is the Air Force's dearth of a compelling storyline. Having a clear, implementable strategy to articulate the force's unique capabilities would underwrite its budgetary requests and help it to manage its top-line acquisition vision. But it is strategically, more than anywhere and most importantly, that the service has stumbled.
A look at Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley's December 2007 white paper, "The Nation's Guardians," reveals the force's struggle to redefine the use and relevance of the nation's air power.
The strategic document implies that USAF will do everything and prioritize nothing, listing tasks and investments with little recognition of a hierarchy of goals. The one concrete priority the outgoing chief of staff clearly defends is in the area of cyber security. Yet here, especially, a service long-defined by air power, fighter jets and lift is making a large narrative leap. Is the Air Force becoming the Cyber Force?
Meanwhile, Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne's strategy, "Sovereign Options," demonstrates the service's tendency to focus on strategic rivalry rather than affirmative purpose. Cautioning that "superiority can become parity and dwindle into inferiority," the secretary makes dominance sound like an end in and of itself without explaining precisely what such dominance will achieve for the United States.
Most importantly, in both of these documents priorities and trade-offs have been abandoned. What are USAF's unique capabilities? What are the core functions the service performs better than any other? Under what circumstances should the nation turn first to its Air Force?
To be sure, articulating a sound strategic narrative is not easy. Both Wynne and Moseley have long pursued good-faith efforts to fit a wide and disparate range of challenges and capabilities into one conceptual framework. These difficulties, however, do not negate the institution's need to hone its range of skills and aspirations into an incisive, coherent and persuasive vision. Failing to do so has already had deleterious effects on the civil-military relationship, the force's procurement wishes and its relations with industry.
Perhaps worse than a skeptical Congress and a frustrated defense secretary would be an aimless crew.
Air Force leaders are already worried about the lack of an institutional ethos. In an effort to boost service loyalty and motivation, Air Force leaders have recently urged all personnel to call themselves "airmen," and to recapture the "warrior spirit."
There is little indication of which precise missions the Air Force should prepare for and to what types of scenarios it may need to adapt. Unfortunately, anecdotal evidence suggests that all of these initiatives have had somewhat bumpy landings.
Fresh leadership will help. But for the good of the Air Force, Gates should put in place a secretary and a chief of staff who will reform not only nuclear stewardship, but the strategic vision for the Air Force. Only when the service gets a fix on its strategic horizon will it be able to resolve its tactical difficulties.
Topic(s): U.S. Military Forces & Operations
Project(s): U.S. Military Forces and Operations
