Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Aerospace Daily & Defense Report
June 11, 2008
Pg. 2
Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ recent firing of the top two U.S. Air Force officials was about “accountability” over the service’s nuclear weapons mishandling, but Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Mike Mullen also acknowledged that the move could go to rebalance the air service’s priorities.
In particular, the Pentagon official and four-star USAF general who Gates has tapped to become acting secretary and chief of staff, respectively, are not manned-fighter oriented.
“That’s certainly an important message,” Mullen told defense reporters June 10. But de-emphasizing new fighters is not the only, or even primary, message out of the USAF shake-up. “You can read that a lot of different ways,” Mullen said about the new replacements, and some of it has to do with who is the most talented overall and available for the various positions.
Michael Donley, the director of administration and management for the Defense Department, is Gates’ choice for the service’s top political-appointee position. Air Force Gen. Norton Schwartz, currently commander of U.S. Transportation Command and a former director of the Joint Staff, is Gates’ pick to be Air Force chief of staff (Aerospace DAILY, June 10).
Nevertheless, criticism of the Air Force, spurred by the forced resignations last week of Secretary Michael Wynne and chief Gen. T. Michael Moseley, continues to reverberate around Washington. Loren Thompson, a Pentagon confidant and analyst at the Lexington Institute, released a stinging rebuke of the air service June 9 blaming “cultural insularity” and “political obtuseness,” as well as an “inability to communicate” and failure to adapt to the changing demands of the transformed global security environment.
Under a separate but related line of questions from reporters, Mullen said he would like to see even more USAF officers in top joint-service positions eventually. And asked about lessons learned from the ongoing Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the former chief of naval operations said all the services should become more “SOF-like,” mirroring the special operations forces’ ability to deliver hard and soft power quicker.
Mullen also listed insatiable demands for combat-focused intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). Gates had a dispute with the USAF over unmanned ISR aircraft earlier this year as he began to challenge institutional military communities to better adapt to counterinsurgency warfighting, which is expected to dominate U.S. combat deployments for the foreseeable future.
-- Michael Bruno
June 11, 2008
Pg. 2
Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ recent firing of the top two U.S. Air Force officials was about “accountability” over the service’s nuclear weapons mishandling, but Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Navy Adm. Mike Mullen also acknowledged that the move could go to rebalance the air service’s priorities.
In particular, the Pentagon official and four-star USAF general who Gates has tapped to become acting secretary and chief of staff, respectively, are not manned-fighter oriented.
“That’s certainly an important message,” Mullen told defense reporters June 10. But de-emphasizing new fighters is not the only, or even primary, message out of the USAF shake-up. “You can read that a lot of different ways,” Mullen said about the new replacements, and some of it has to do with who is the most talented overall and available for the various positions.
Michael Donley, the director of administration and management for the Defense Department, is Gates’ choice for the service’s top political-appointee position. Air Force Gen. Norton Schwartz, currently commander of U.S. Transportation Command and a former director of the Joint Staff, is Gates’ pick to be Air Force chief of staff (Aerospace DAILY, June 10).
Nevertheless, criticism of the Air Force, spurred by the forced resignations last week of Secretary Michael Wynne and chief Gen. T. Michael Moseley, continues to reverberate around Washington. Loren Thompson, a Pentagon confidant and analyst at the Lexington Institute, released a stinging rebuke of the air service June 9 blaming “cultural insularity” and “political obtuseness,” as well as an “inability to communicate” and failure to adapt to the changing demands of the transformed global security environment.
Under a separate but related line of questions from reporters, Mullen said he would like to see even more USAF officers in top joint-service positions eventually. And asked about lessons learned from the ongoing Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the former chief of naval operations said all the services should become more “SOF-like,” mirroring the special operations forces’ ability to deliver hard and soft power quicker.
Mullen also listed insatiable demands for combat-focused intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). Gates had a dispute with the USAF over unmanned ISR aircraft earlier this year as he began to challenge institutional military communities to better adapt to counterinsurgency warfighting, which is expected to dominate U.S. combat deployments for the foreseeable future.
-- Michael Bruno