Interesting and short slide show on historical why air forces failed...or eventually succeeded. Below is the cover note that accompanied the link when I got it:
Just passed FYI. V/R, Spike
Just passed FYI. V/R, Spike
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"Why Air Forces Fail"
- Thread starter Renegade One
- Start date
Sorry about all of the formatting boof in the above...not sure why that happened.
Harrier Dude
Living the dream
Fixed.
I almost bought this book two days ago to remind me not to drink the kool-aid here, perhaps I'll go back and pick it up.
Couldn't agree more. I would added disjointed as well. However, I hope these are just talking points and there is more filler when it is presented. Flexibility but specific. En masse yet small and agile. Heavily regimented yet fluid and adaptable.
What popped out to me was on page 18
While they fail to to provide an example I would add in a slide discussing the 1989 Air raids against our computers.
-Plagued US Army and Navy personnel who actually left desks to work.
-Frequency and duration of attacks increased due to lack of movement.
-Luxury chair padding was in sharp decline causing back pains and muscle soreness to the ever watchful and vigilant.
Since my last post was so short, I did want to note that I appreciate that Renegade posted it. It does cover some Air Force's in time periods that are generally overlooked (the Polish and Italian examples) but I also think it gives some valuable insight to many on this board into the politics of defense spending.
So how did I get to defense spending from a presentation like that? Well, you have to look who created it. The Air Force Association is an "independent, nonprofit, civilian aerospace organization that promotes public understanding of aerospace power and national defense." To put it in simpler terms, it is an association interested in promoting the USAF. These organizations exist for every service; the Navy League (which covers the USMC, USCG and merchant marine too) and the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) are the other two well known ones.
These associations serve a purpose in promoting the services as well as lobbying the public and the government in support of their respective services. There is no 'official' sanction from the services for this, since the services can't legally 'lobby' and they have to toe the official line that is put out by DoD. When they don't follow the rules bad things can happen, just look at what happened to the Air Force leadership. So these organizations fill a niche/need in promoting what they see as necessary for the services, this often includes promoting certain capabilites and lobbying for fixes to what they see are gaps. In short, they often provide the PR and argue for what the services want, when the services themselves are sometimes cannot and are 'stymied' by their bosses/Congress. If you need any evidence where their focus lay, all three have their national offices within a mile of each other and just 3 miles from the Pentagon.
So, when you see a presentation like this you have to see where it came from and what their agenda is, in this case the AFA. To me, this looks like a sales pitch for the F-22 and other big ticket USAF items, geared for the general public and your run of the mill staffers in Congress. So an interesting brief, but a 'loaded' one as well.
So how did I get to defense spending from a presentation like that? Well, you have to look who created it. The Air Force Association is an "independent, nonprofit, civilian aerospace organization that promotes public understanding of aerospace power and national defense." To put it in simpler terms, it is an association interested in promoting the USAF. These organizations exist for every service; the Navy League (which covers the USMC, USCG and merchant marine too) and the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) are the other two well known ones.
These associations serve a purpose in promoting the services as well as lobbying the public and the government in support of their respective services. There is no 'official' sanction from the services for this, since the services can't legally 'lobby' and they have to toe the official line that is put out by DoD. When they don't follow the rules bad things can happen, just look at what happened to the Air Force leadership. So these organizations fill a niche/need in promoting what they see as necessary for the services, this often includes promoting certain capabilites and lobbying for fixes to what they see are gaps. In short, they often provide the PR and argue for what the services want, when the services themselves are sometimes cannot and are 'stymied' by their bosses/Congress. If you need any evidence where their focus lay, all three have their national offices within a mile of each other and just 3 miles from the Pentagon.
So, when you see a presentation like this you have to see where it came from and what their agenda is, in this case the AFA. To me, this looks like a sales pitch for the F-22 and other big ticket USAF items, geared for the general public and your run of the mill staffers in Congress. So an interesting brief, but a 'loaded' one as well.
In other words, complex problems have simple, easy-to-understand wrong answers.
I want to take that quote, wrap it up, love and care for it as my own, and use it over and over until I am old / killed by young people. Just beautiful.