I think the Air Force needs to go up to space and let the ground guys take over the aerial missions needed to directly support the troops.
Air superiority (including counter-air missions against enemy airfields), space control (both offensive and defensive), ICBMs, air transport, and electronic warfare should be the Air Force missions. Missions that are directly in support of ground forces should be controlled by those services with either helicopters or UAVs.
Science fiction calls space assets "ships" but there is no reason we must have a space navy in the future. Aim high, Air Force. Space Force has a nice ring, too.
Well, Jim L. wrote to note an article that argues that the Air Force is blowing the space mission. It argues for a separate Space Force:
It’s time to admit that the 2001 decision—in keeping with the recommendations of the second Rumsfeld commission—that made the Air Force the “Executive Agent for Space” has just not worked: not due to any malfeasance or corruption or lack of good will, but simply because the USAF has other priorities.
So if the ground forces get the low flying ground support and recon missions; and a new Space Force gets the space missions, what is left for the Air Force? ICBMs and airlift? There was a time, say circa 1957, that the power to destroy the planet was sufficient to justify the existence and dominance of the service that could do that. Not any more. Which is a good sign, I should add.
We will have a Space Force one way or the other. And if the Air Force isn't able to become this force, there won't be a separate Air Force for long. Like I wrote, the Air Force needs to Aim High as their slogan asserts and become the Space Force.
