Mad Minerva notes an article calling for the abolishment of the Air Force as an independent service, with assets going to the Army or Navy, as appropriate:
Defense scholar Robert Farley’s Foreign Affairs article is entitled “Ground the Air Force,” and proposes folding it “back into its two sibling services.” After transitional costs, this would not only reduce the massively expensive redundancy of separate air power entities, but would remove one of the main engines of self-defeating inter-service rivalry. Moreover, abolishing the Air Force would merely ratify changes that are already happening: The redefinition of air power around pilotless drones is eviscerating the bomber-jacket culture of fly-boys; as the Air Force’s Minuteman nuclear missiles age into irrelevance, the officers in charge of them are failing tests and acting out. In other words, the Air Force’s responsibilities have eroded.
I'm fine with folding in some Air Force capabilities to the Army that technology is pushing down to Army units. And it is a mistake for the Air Force to fight for this market share.
But we need an Air Force to provide supremacy over the battlefields that the Army fights to control. That supremacy should include space and cyber-realms.
My advice for the Air Force is to aim high, as their old slogan said. NORAD went from being the North American Air Defense Command to being the North American Aerospace Command. Space Force still has a nice ring to it.
