clashing military cultures

[brock]

Saw this on another site. Was wondering what most of you guys thought.

New York Post

April 13, 2005

Clashing Military Cultures

By Ralph Peters

Last month, I sat in the office of Col. Jon "Dog" Davis, a veteran Marine aviator. While at war, the Corps' pilots had seen a rise in their accident rate. Davis was determined to do something about it.

I wanted to be sympathetic, so I said, "Well, you're flying some very old aircraft."

Davis, a taut, no-nonsense Marine, looked me in the eye and said, "They may be old, but they're good. That's no excuse."

As commander of the Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron 1 out in Yuma, Ariz., Davis could have nodded and gone along, blaming the jets and helicopters. But he's a Marine. And Marines don't make excuses. They do their best with what the taxpayers give them. And their best is pretty damn good.

Contrast that with a recent conversation I had with two Air Force generals. I had written columns critical of the platinum-plated F/A-22, the most expensive fighter in history and an aircraft without a mission. So the Air Force decided to lobby me.

Those two generals spun the numbers until the stone-cold truth was buried under a mantra of "air dominance," imaginary combat roles and financial slight-of-hand. Still, I wanted to be fair. I took them seriously and investigated their claims.

Not one thing they said held up under scrutiny.

Morally bankrupt, the Air Force is willing to turn a blind eye to the pressing needs of soldiers and Marines at war in order to get more of its $300-million-apiece junk fighters. With newer, far more costly aircraft than the Marines possess, the Air Force pleads that it just can't defend our country without devouring the nation's defense budget.

Meanwhile, Marine aviators fly combat missions in aging jets and ancient helicopters, doing their best for America — and refusing to beg, lie, cheat or blame their gear.

I had gone out to Yuma to speak to Dog Davis' Marines about future war. The truth is they should have been lecturing to me. There is nothing more inspiring than being around United States Marines (yes, a retired Army officer wrote that). The Corps does more with its limited resources than any other branch of government. The Marines are a bargain rivaled only by our under-funded Coast Guard.

Even the military installations are different. A Marine base is well-maintained and perfectly groomed, but utterly without frills. Guest quarters are Motel 6, not the St. Regis. Air Force bases are the country clubs of la vie militaire.

Meanwhile, the Air Force twiddles its thumbs and dreams of war with China. Its leaders would even revive the Soviet Union, if they could. Just to have something to do.

If you go into the Pentagon these days, you'll find only half of the building is at war. The Army and Marine staffs (the latter in the Navy Annex) put in brutal hours and barely see their families. The Navy, at least, is grappling with the changed strategic environment. Meanwhile, the Air Force staff haunts the Pentagon espresso bar and lobbies for more money.

The Air Force hasn't forgotten how to fight. But it only wants to fight the other services.

Recently, the blue-suiters have been floating one of the most disgraceful propositions I've ever encountered in Washington (and that's saying something).

I heard the con directly from one of the Air Force generals who tried to sell me on the worthless F/A-22. The poison goes like this: "The Air Force and Navy can dominate their battle space. Why can't the Army and Marines?"

Let me translate that: At a time when soldiers and Marines are fighting and dying in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, the Air Force shamefully implies that our ground forces are incompetent, hinting that, if the Air Force ran the world, we'd get better results.

How low can a service go? Not a single Air Force fighter pilot has lost his life in combat in Iraq. But the Air Force is willing to slander those who do our nation's fighting and dying.

As for the vile proposition itself, well, it's easy to "dominate your battle space" if you don't have anyone to battle. Our fighter-jock Air Force doesn't have an enemy (Air Force special-ops and transport crews, as well as ground-liaison personnel, serve magnificently — but the generals regard them as second-class citizens).

While courage is certainly required, Air Force and Navy combat challenges are engineering problems, matters of physics and geometry. Our Army and Marines, by contrast, face brutally human, knife-fight conflicts that require human solutions.

The Air Force is about metal. The Marines and Army deal in flesh and blood — in problems that don't have clear or easy solutions.

Hey, if the Air Force knows of a simple, by-the-numbers way to win the War on Terror, combat insurgents in urban terrain and help battered populations rebuild their countries, the generals in blue ought to share the wisdom. (They've certainly been paid enough for it.)

But the Air Force doesn't have any solutions. Just institutional greed. Their strategy? Trash our troops. Lie about capabilities and costs. Belittle the genuine dangers facing our country, while creating imaginary threats. Keep the F/A-22 buy alive, no matter what it takes.

A little while ago I wrote that our Air Force needed to be saved from itself. Now I'm no longer sure salvation's possible.

If you want to see how to fly and fight, call in the Marines.

Ralph Peters is the author of "Beyond Baghdad: Postmodern War and Peace."

[Seriously]

A very one sided and short sighted article.

[Day Man]

Not a single Air Force fighter pilot has lost his life in combat in Iraq. But the Air Force is willing to slander those who do our nation's fighting and dying.

Sad, misinformed d-bag. EABOD.

[outbreak]

Not a single Air Force fighter pilot has lost his life in combat in Iraq.

Very small portion of the Air Force called out for not dying.

But the Air Force is willing to slander those who do our nation's fighting and dying.

And the whole branch blamed, hypocritically, I might add.

[nsplayr]

Ralph Peters is a f*cking idiot and I simply refuse to read the BS he puts out on a daily basis.

[Breckey]

According to this I only count three Marine fighter crashes from the start of OIF to now, with two casualties. By that same token I also count six AF fighter crashes with three casualties. Maybe the Marines aren't doing enough in this war...

[brickhistory]

Dud's (typo intentional) trying to make a living.

If he can't drum outrage over something the Administration is doing, then he'll go for it in an inaccurate, skewed essay.

Peters was a career Army intel type and wrote a pretty decent Cold War fiction book back in the day - Ivan decides to go for it in Europe type tale. Retired as a Lt Col and went to make his living wielding a pen (or word processor).

The Air Force does go 1 v 3 with the other services (I count the USMC as a separate service) for funding. Remember this piece is dated 2005 when the fight for the F-22 (then all-seeing, all-doing F/A-22) was still on-going.

But each of the other services also goes 1 v X for its share of the Pentagon funding pie. The USN would love to have a 12 carrier, 400-500 ship blue water navy. The Army spent a boatload (pun intended) on the FCS during the same time as this essay (Peters conveniantly doesn't deal with that as it would counter his own argument).

Nothing new here, folks.

I look forward to Mr. Peters essay if/when China starts flexing its military muscles in a violent way and all 187 (minus those in depot, down for mx, etc) F-22s are trying to hack it.

And not a word back in 2005 for the 40+ year old tankers. Even older BUFFS?

Peters knows, actually knew, about boots. Aerospace? Not so much...

[FlyingBull]

Ralph Peters is a f*cking idiot and I simply refuse to read the BS he puts out on a daily basis.

2

He says the service that has been at war for 19 straight years is the one 'out of the fight'. Jackass.

Edited October 6, 2010 by FlyingBull

[tac airlifter]

Not a single Air Force fighter pilot has lost his life in combat in Iraq.

More proof that Peters is a liar: 16 pilot dies in Iraq

[Guest Alarm Red]

The New York Post is just another one of Rupert Murdoch's hype-generators. It is the print version of Fox News and has about as much credibility. Murdoch is an entertainment mogul and and I'm sure he laughs himself to sleep every night. The true joke is on anyone who gets worked up over any of his editorial content (which make up most of his media ventures).

[ClearedHot]

Nonsensical drivel from a lying FUCK.

The Marines are crying as loud as the Air Force when comes to aging fighters. Their F-18's are the oldest jets out there and they are falling apart. As a result of the age of their jets they have waged a war in the Pentagon and on the Hill to keep their version of the F-35 alive when it should have been cancelled several years ago.

[BQZip01]

Saw this on another site. Was wondering what most of you guys thought.

This is amazingly short-sighted and Marine-oriented.

1a. The AF jets are OLDER than the USMC jets (on average). No one on the AF side is using that as an excuse for accident rates.

1b. Older jets DO break more often no matter how good maintenance is because the parts are older and more prone to breakage.

2. We've lost more personnel in the Air Force jet than Marine Corps jets

3. The F-22 (the "A" was dropped about a year ago, genius) indeed has a mission. Just because it doesn't directly support the troops on the ground in one country doesn't mean it doesn't have a role. I suppose the NAOC plane is useless as is AF1, Cobra Ball, and a slew of others that aren't in Iraq right now.

4. I challenge this "reporter" to reveal who said "The Air Force and Navy can dominate their battle space. Why can't the Army and Marines?" because I don't know a single person in the AF who doesn't understand the basic problems with ground combat. Sure, the AF and Navy are kings of their domain and it is reasonable to ask what can be done to help the Army/Marines attain a better combat readiness/effectiveness, but politics are largely the problem, not what the Marines/Army has done.

5. Air Dominance is merely a term, but the F-22 was the first a/c designed with this in mind. Other fighters were designed to be superior. This one was designed to fly with impunity.

6. We do NOT fill "imaginary combat roles", but real ones. B-52s were on-call CAS during Tora Bora and were the only ones with the legs to maintain on-station for their full duration (Marine a/c dropped all their weapons on one or two passes and went home!...to be fair, so did most AF aircraft). RC-135s provide critical intel. B-2s can get into/out of HIGHLY contested airspaces. Just because we've beaten the insurgents back in Iraq to the point where we can fly and sail with impunity doesn't mean the next war will be the same.

7. "Still, I wanted to be fair." BS

8. "...Air Force and Navy combat challenges are engineering problems, matters of physics and geometry. Our Army and Marines, by contrast, face brutally human, knife-fight conflicts that require human solutions." Guess what, AF problems ALSO require human solutions just as Army/USMC problems require engineering and geometry. Indeed, the AF does do not have knife fights, but that isn't a problem of "institutional greed".

9. "But the Air Force doesn't have any solutions. Just institutional greed." The Air Force has plenty of problems and plenty of solutions to ITS problems. It isn't our responsibility to fix the problems on the ground (though we fill enough Army posts in Iraq to make you think otherwise...my brother is AF Civil Engineering and is deployed with the Army because they fill their own CE ranks. They've had this problem for 15+ years and are happy to rely on the AF to fix their problems. I contend that this is THEIR problem and they are content to not fix it.

10. "Their strategy? Lie about capabilities and costs. Belittle the genuine dangers facing our country, while creating imaginary threats." I see no evidence of lies, only accusations. No one is belittling ANYTHING that you've shown at ALL!

In short, it is a poorly "researched", biased, half-assed political piece for the ground pounders. It doesn't reflect reality.

[Spoo]

Dang, after reading all the replies I'm tempted to go back and read the article.

EDIT: Wait, you dredged up a five year old editorial piece from some ex-army Intel guy praising the USMC and ripping the AF with little relevance in the current pol/mil landscape? Nevermind...

Edited October 6, 2010 by Spoo

[PirateAF]

Article is 5 years old...that's like 35 in dog years.

[busdriver]

brock, I'm surprised. You of all people should know what the AF is providing in the current fight. Further, if you're of the mind that future conflicts will always be along the lines of fourth generation warfare, I should think you can still find a role for aircraft like the F-22. I'm certainly very separated from air dominance operations, but I can still see a very clear need for the F-22. Fuck me, can you imagine trying to operate in an environment that includes double digit SAMs?

Ralph Peters? He seems like a giant blow hard. Fuck him.

[OverTQ]

The AF is at a growth point. But the problem is in which way does it grow. There will eventually be something that changes the landscape of the battle space for the AF so dramatically that it has to shift the way it fights. Much like the Airplane itself changed the effectiveness of the battleship. The other problem is how much is too much money to put into a program. Although the AF has taken a lot of heat in the recent years, it will come out better than it was before (but maybe with different platforms/strategy). Ralph is using the AF as a antagonist to elevate his views of "How the world should be". We in the Army have crashed a lot more aircraft than all the other services combined. And we have some of the newest aircraft out there. Sometimes metal and blood are the price of doing business. I think Ralph is just drumming up business for his latest book idea.

[BQZip01]

Although the AF has taken a lot of heat in the recent years, it will come out better than it was before (but maybe with different platforms/strategy).

I don't think so. Individual platforms may get better (F-22 is a major improvement on the F-15), but the overall capabilities are rapidly dropping: the F-22 can carry roughly the same armament as an F-15C, but there are far fewer of them. Let's take the analogy one step further: for the sake of round numbers, let's say the 400 F-15s could carry 4 AMRAAMs each and roughly half of their missiles would be hits. With the same payload, the F-22 increased the percentage of hits to 100%...but there are only 100 of them. By not increasing the buy of F-22s the overall capability of the AF drops as F-15s are retired/fall apart in midflight (couldn't resist that one)

I think Ralph is just drumming up business for his latest book idea.

2

[brock]

Busdriver,

I though the article was b.s. as well. Peters is a wind bag and very myopic in his thinking. In a perfect world we would all have the best equipment. But we don't live in a perfect world. The current fight is very Marine/Army centric and people like Peters feel those forces should be the ones getting the resources. And for the most part we have. He has failed to mention that the Marines have are recieving V-22's, H-1Z/Y's for their helo fleet.

The Air Force needs fighters, a new tanker and CSAR platform. Which one should be the priority. I guess that was the input I was looking for since all of those platforms are represented.

Everybody has made sacrafices in both AOR's. I've flown over 1000 hrs in both OEF and OIF. Most of that being medevac. I have the names of those who didn't make it home on my blackberry. On that list are a number of AF personel to include an F-15E crew from Bagram.

[Guest Hueypilot812]

This guy (incorrectly) stated that not one AF fighter pilot has lost their life in this war...that statement in itself is a twist of facts, because AF fighter pilots aren't the only ones operating over there. Let's not forget our other AF brothers who have died in OIF/OEF...such as the SOF guys. Go tell the AFSOC community that the AF hasn't lost anyone flying in the combat environment.

This guy is pretty stupid for a former Army intel guy. MOST people with a brain can understand that just because you're engaged in a counter-insurgency, low-intensity war, you don't just dump all your conventional forces because "we don't need that". There are plenty of countries out there that would love for us to scrap all our F-22s.

Finally...this guy makes it sound like the USAF is just brimming with brand-new, shiny airplanes. That couldn't be further from the truth. F-22s aside, MOST of our inventory is far older than anything the USMC operates. I believe the USMC either no longer operates or only has a few of the 1960s-era KC-130Fs...all the rest are KC-130Ts (like H2s) and KC-130Js (brand ing new). In about two years, the USAF will FINALLY retire its last C-130E, which the oldest are now about 49 years old, and will go beyond 50 years old before they head to the boneyard.

The B-52s are all approaching 50...the KC-135s are either at 50 or a few airframes might be past 50...hell, even most of our fighter fleet (specifically the A-10, F-15C and older F-16s) are older than many of the USMC's F/A-18s.

So making a statement that the USAF has "new airplanes" because 180 of the 3000+ aircraft are brand new is disingenuous.

Old article or not, the problem is many people that aren't associated with the military read this tripe and take it as fact. I just had a discussion with a friend who's non-military about our ops in Iraq, and it amazed me the bullshit they read in the paper, magazines and other sources that just don't reflect any reality other than the one-sided opinions of the author.

[Guest Alarm Red]

Once again, this was in the New York Post and you are all getting worked up? The National Enquirer or US Weekly is about as journalistic as the Post. Please don't confuse this blowhard with a journalist, or give him or his drivel any more attention than they merit.

[BQZip01]

The B-52s are all approaching 50...the KC-135s are either at 50 or a few airframes might be past 50...

KC-135s are over 50 as are almost all of the BUFFs (at least one has a 62-XXXX tail number)

[Guest Hueypilot812]

KC-135s are over 50 as are almost all of the BUFFs (at least one has a 62-XXXX tail number)

The tail number "year" is the year it was actually funded, not delivered. Add about a year or so after that. In any case, 1962 to now is 48 years...close, but not quite 50 (yet). But big picture (other than quibbling over the year a jet was built, etc), the large majority of USAF aircraft are very old for their respective airframes. 50 is old no matter what you're flying...30 is pretty old for a fighter, and so on. I think for a long time the USMC was flying F/A-18As and A+ aircraft but I think in recent years, as the Navy took delivery of the F/A-18E/F, they've been sending their F/A-18Cs to the Marines...so while they still get the Navy's hand-me-downs, their jets are probably newer than most of the USAF's fighters.

Instead of attacking the USAF as the source of the USMC's "old airplane" problem, they should look to who owns them (the Navy) and notice that they are modernizing faster than the USAF is.

Once again, this was in the New York Post and you are all getting worked up? The National Enquirer or US Weekly is about as journalistic as the Post. Please don't confuse this blowhard with a journalist, or give him or his drivel any more attention than they merit.

While you and I know this, most Americans that aren't media savvy and don't have a really good grasp on what it's really like in the military would consider the New York Post as a legit media source. It seems that most of my friends/family that aren't into current events (which is most of them) think any media source prefaced with "New York" must be staffed with the best and brightest Columbia U. journalist grads, etc.

Our problem is we hang out with people that A) know what really goes on within the military, and B) due to the nature of our jobs (being mil officers and all), we keep up with current events and don't spend all our time watching "The Jersey Shore", etc. So considering those two things, we fail to appreciate the level of ignorance many of our fellow civilian Americans possess about politics, the military, and world affairs. I have been asked on a number of occasions if I thought those articles written by Seymour Hersh about the imminent invasion of Iran were true...all I say to them is "well, he said we'd invade within a year or so, and that was how many years ago?" And that is the problem with rags like the Post...they are yellow journalism and rumor mongering cloaked in intelligent-appearing writing.

[Prosuper]

The biggest problem the USN and USMC have with their legacy F-18's ABCD's is they reaching the end of the # of carrier traps they can do.

[Guest Crew Report]

KC-135s are over 50 as are almost all of the BUFFs (at least one has a 62-XXXX tail number)

Not all KC-135's are 50 years old. The oldest one I've flown on were '57 models and the newest where '64 models.

[Prosuper]

Not all KC-135's are 50 years old. The oldest one I've flown on were '57 models and the newest where '64 models.

The 55 and 56 models have been all retired, their wings are different from the 57 thru 64 models and would have reqd alot more engineering to take the new CFM56's.