What does the Air Force do between the Space Force and the Army?
Technology is reducing the Air Force job description:
The vision to expand the Air Force's operational reach through advanced autonomous systems and artificial intelligence is inching closer to reality -- and the impact of that vision will affect not only drone operations but many other fields as well. Self-directed machines are candidates for any of the mundane or risky tasks that make up much of an airman's workload, whether in engineering, security, maintenance or a spectrum of other careers. What the Air Force must determine as that future approaches is how this new operational reality will affect the roles and responsibilities of human airmen and the structure of their work.
I think this misses the point. All the services will shed jobs with technology taking over from humans.
My question is what does the Air Force do that other services can use technology to do for themselves?
The Army sees its own air power as decisive:
The year is 2030, and an Army scout aircraft streaks above the treetops at 200 miles an hour.
At speeds no conventional helicopter could reach, advanced sensors and automation help the human pilots skim over obstacles while staying under radar. Wireless networks link the manned craft to a swarm of unmanned ones: mini-drones to scout ahead, big flying “mules” to haul high-powered jamming pods and racks of missiles. Miles overhead, satellites spot enemy anti-aircraft batteries and warn the pilots to evade, then transmit target coordinates to long-range missile batteries that blast a path for the aircraft to advance.
How does it survive?
The concept is what the Army, with its typical awkward jargon, is calling the “lower-tier air domain.” The idea is to fly the seam between earth and sky: high enough to race over the rivers and rough terrain that slow down ground troops, low enough to avoid radar-guided missiles that threaten jets. In this in-between realm, the generals told us, Army aviation can not only survive, but make a unique contribution to victory that neither high-altitude airpower nor surface forces can replicate.
I called "lower-tier air domain" the "brown skies"--below the "blue skies" high up and just above the ground--in this article in Army magazine that explored the drone threat in that domain. A domain that the big Air Force assets can't safely operate in to support the Army.
I think that part of the Army air power must be fighter drones operating in the brown skies to defend against enemies with the same vision for using offensive air power in the brown skies that the Army has.
And with longer-ranged missiles and artillery, the Army can do things that only the Air Force could do. Yes, Army fires assets could pave the way for better Air Force intervention. But eventually, would it be more cost effective to then turn the job over to planes or to expand Army capabilities to do the same mission?
And the Air Force has lost missions to Space Force which has control of the "black skies" of space.
I still think Space Force was not the best course of action. I wanted the Air Force to shift emphasis upward and become an Aerospace Force that focuses on affecting combat on the surface of the planet and let the Army do what it envisions low down. We'd save a Space Force--or a Space Navy--for when we move beyond the Earth-Moon system.
