April 28, 2019
Debate This Statement: America Should Do Away with the Air Force
A radical idea?
by Robert Farley Follow drfarls on Twitter L
While naval and land warfare have become considerably more integrated with one another than they were at the beginning of the 20th century, they remain sufficiently distinct that we can still imagine an Army and Navy developing (if in consultation) separate and coherent strategic organizational visions. This is not the case with the Air Force, which will remain locked in an uneasy, distant embrace with its parent services.
With the Iraq War over and the fighting in Afghanistan winding down, why does the United States need to maintain two large land armies, the Army and Marine Corps? The question seems perfectly reasonable given the apparent absence of large terrestrial threats, but it leads us down the wrong path.
The United States military is all about redundancy; in addition to two armies, it also fields two navies — the Navy and the Coast Guard — and five or six air forces, depending on how you count the aerial arms of the various branches.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/debate-statement-america-should-do-away-air-force-54737