Reflections of a Middling Cold Warrior: Should the Army Air Corps Be Resurrected? The Case for an Autonomous Air Force, World War II, Nuclear Weapons, Aviation Technologies, Personalities, Cultures

This excellent report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. With the ending of the Cold War, the apparent conclusion of many political leaders of states that war is hardly a practical tool of statesmanship, and the recent preoccupations of the American military on counterinsurgency, some people have wondered whether the original reasons for the founding of a separate air force are any longer valid. Dr. David Mets is well qualified to write this monograph to comment on this perception. He enlisted in the Navy before there was a United States Air Force and was a petty officer with an aviation rating at the time of the air arm's founding and can remember the times well. But more than that, he has been a student of the history of airpower for 50 years—first at Annapolis as a midshipman, and later as an Air Force officer teaching at the Air Force Academy and at West Point. He was thus exposed to the arguments and counterarguments about independent airpower from the perspectives of all three services. He has witnessed the exercise of independent airpower as a Strategic Air Command pilot as well as in supporting operations at the tactical level with two tours in Southeast Asia. One of his books is a biography of Gen Carl Spaatz who was the first chief of staff of the Air Force and his research for that work included an interview with Stuart Symington who was the first secretary of the Air Force. Mets argues that all the other services have competent pilots in their ranks. Thus, that cannot be the foundation for a continued separate air force. Rather, he concludes that the Airmen in the Navy necessarily are focused on maritime affairs and those in the Army must be equally focused on the local land battle from the beginning of their service. The original argument for the autonomous air force was that its Airmen would be the only ones whose perception was concentrated on the global level. The conclusion is therefore that the argument remains valid that a service with consistent culture focused on the problems of global vigilance, global reach, and global power is a fundamental requirement for United States national security. Only an organization made up of Airmen whose indoctrination from the start of their service is concentrated on a global outlook can satisfy that requirement.