The NEW Force Shaping thread

[nittany03]

This is a TON of officers over the next 13 months and quite frankly, I think we should look into this as not only an Air Force issue, but also a military one. Crystal balls gentlemen....Where does the Navy fit into this people puzzle, if at all?

I think the Navy has its hands full being the Navy, along with all the Army IA billets out there. If the AF really doesn't need these officers, then puzzle is solved simply by drawing down. The big Rumsfeldian push in all the services seems to be limiting manpower requirements via technology. Don't forget that a VERY significant portion of the Defense budget goes to active duty salaries and retired pensions. This has to be taken care of before we buy any cool toys. And whenever the CINC decides to try to cut taxes to stimulate the economy, guess whose budget takes a hit. Everybody's.

 

[BOMBSonHAWKEYES]

While this kid's beliefs are probably skewed by his anger, he does bring up the fact that the Air Force as a stand alone service, much like the Luftwaffe, creates barriers of military capability. You only have to ask yourself about the success of German Naval aviation during WWII. The Germans built a couple of carriers, did some workups, and then realized that their AF pilots couldn't get the Navy's ships to go where they wanted. Hence, there was no large scale german carrier-borne aviation during WWII. The Luftwaffe also had its own army, because if the AF was going to have to carry paratroopers, then by god, the troops they were dropping would have to be AF troops, creating another manpower mismanagement. I think anyone can see that for these, and many other reasons, the idea of an independent AF will compromise the abilities of your other services if the AF is operating in its own self interest.

Think that those examples only apply to germany's AF? If you look closer into the history of the AAF pre 1947, you will find a good deal of its "heroes" actually did their best to stick it to the Army and Navy. Billy Mitchell used the press to leverage the politicians to throw more money at the air forces which led to his court marshall. Hap Arnold fought to build fighters without hardpoints so he could secure more money for aviation persuits without having to allocate his resources to help the Army on the ground. After the formation of the AF and into the missle age, the Navy's budgeting was crushed while the AF kept building more planes and missles. The only thing that kept the Navy from drifting into oblivion was the MC's preformance in Korea, the Cuban missle Crisis, and the Navy's fast response to world events that couldn't be remedied with a ICBM. Even with all of the money that the AF got for its missle program, the navy STILL led the way with its polaris and posideon solid state missles, something it took the AF a while to adopt.

Today things aren't so bad because everything is about jointness. I still think that we should understand that an independent airforce has limitations, albiet different from the limitations it would have had it stood with the Army.

 

[Lawman]

Long time lurker, thought I should finally register. This is a great site btw. Much respect to all the NA's on here.

(EDIT: Deleted content to keep it on track) Anyways as far as force shaping goes, thats the hot buzz word everyones talking about. It mainly effects non-rated officers that are in mission support career fields. Civilians and contractors will fill a great deal of their positions. Rated dudes in the three rated career fields will be cut in much smaller numbers, and in very specific ways. i.e.- some electronic warefare officers versus all ewo/navs. By 2010 force shapping should be over will and total manpower down by a total of 50,000 or so when force shaping began.

Funny but that was a big deal they did for the Marine Corps back in the Clinton Purges. My Uncle being an 02 Logi found himself with walking papers. However it was quickly found 3-4 years later that despite the song and dance they put on for congress Civilian Contractors cant do every support job in the military. And many of these officers that were let go were asked to come back (him included). Not to mention that the potential for fraud waste and abuse goes way up once you transfer ownership of a government program to a Civilian/Corporate group as the checks and balances normally in place as well as the accountability under things like the UCMJ are harder to establish. Then the Military and Congress have to take a company to court and risk damaging future buisness with that company as well as Congressmen worrying about pissing off major constituents in their district. Be interesting to see if the Air Force ends up asking for many of these training and experianced folks back after a few years from now.

 

[HooverPilot]

Ok, here is the new thread without all the crap that happened in the first one. KEEP THIS ONE ON TOPIC!!!

Thanks...

 

[Steve Wilkins]

And whenever the CINC decides to try to cut taxes to stimulate the economy, guess whose budget takes a hit. Everybody's.

The CINC can't cut taxes. Also, when the economy is stimulated, tax revenue goes up. Budgets take a hit because we continuously spend more money than we bring in, or in other words....deficit spending.

 

[nittany03]

OK, point taken, the CINC can only support tax cuts made by the legislature . . .