on the subject of who gets the fighter planes
TRANSCRIPT
ON THE SUBJECT OF WHO GETS THE FIGHTER PLANES
There is the simple fact that the Air Guard is a State force under the protection of the Second and Tenth
Amendments, and of Article 1, Sections 8 and 10, and Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution. The Air
Force thinks the active component (standing) is the default defense establishment.
If the Federal government were to stop spending funds on the Standing Forces (Army and Air Force) the
States revert to the default establishment so long as they can fund it. The Congress has the specified
authority to raise and provide for the doctrine (regulations) of the militias now known as Guard which
doctrine is not a specified or implied power of the Pentagon.
The States are prohibited from having "standing" armies and from having ships of war in times of peace.
That reflects the deep seated distrust of standing armies going back to Colonial days. For those who
assert that what the original founders held is holy writ, all of the Standing forces should be abolished.
The Navy differs from the Army and Navy is that the former may only be funded two years at a time,
while the Navy has no such limit.
Given the abject failure of Standing and mobilized forces to do to Iraq and Afghanistan in 12 years
compared to what was done in Japan, Germany, and Austria in less than five, the continued tax burden
and inherent nature of standing armies to sit on the polity, a zero based budget for standing forces be
held, after determining an optimum size and shape of the default (Guard) military establishment.
A base line of what is needed in force development is under the specified powers of the Congress, the
President gets to command what Congress creates plus what order of battle from the States have to
offer.
WW 2 has some benchmarks: The US in 1941 had 120 million people who fielded a uniformed force of
12 million or 10% of population. That same percentage would be over 30 million in uniform a figure that
would petrify the Pentagon. Those forces were delivered in between October 1940 and August 1945
with the bulk ready for the conquest of Europe in 1944. The 12 million produced 100 combat divisions
and 102 aircraft carriers.
While the composition of a comparable force would differ, the principal starts with people.
The present model for combat operations (transformation, expeditionary, rotational) is based on fraud,
and deceit for reasons that defy classification by DSM‐V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders, Fifth Edition).
A zero based budget was once inflicted on the American People and governments, and is not a
scientifically based method of productivity measurement. A first step of budgeting is to make an
assessment of the minimum forces to a) protect our shores, b) protect our lines of communication and
trade and c) protect our skies.
A second step is to prioritizing what order of battle needs to developed by certain deadlines from urgent
call of a matter of days, months and/or years. IMHO, the Nation should have ready to rock and roll not
less than 1% of the total population in less than a year. That would include all services and components.
This was once the Capstone Program which was set aside by the Capstone Elements, from real missions
to babble.
The level of risk would be defined on what percentage of the population configured in a technologically
sound order of battle given strategic METT‐TC.
The question is much bigger than just the A‐10. It goes to how much of the hardware should be
transferred to the Guard and Reserves who must be funded to reach performance standards to meet
known contingencies.
Foreign entanglements are inevitable but should be left to SOCOM, the Fleet and the Corps. With Guard
and Reserve “capstone” to contingency. The planning Is more important than the plan, which capability
has been shredded at the operational level of war.
At all times the model for commitment to full or near peer war must be kept current which may increase
the percentage of forces on shorter timelines for commitment. Likewise the technology of large scale
war must at least progress in research and development. In this regard the Congress has the specified
powers to be on top of this.
Gordon S Fowkes, M.Ed., KCTJ, LTC USA RET
Friday, June 26, 2015