It was futile for the Air Force to cling to owning the close air support mission even as it resisted providing it to ground forces. And as the Air Force waged that budget battle, it let the Space Force put a glass ceiling over the Air Force.
Artillery and aircraft aren't obsolete. But:
In many respects surveillance and attack quadcopters have replaced artillery and air strikes because the quadcopters can attack immediately when they find a target.
That's long been my view about the fate of the Air Force:
We need a space service. There are rumors of machines that could take the Air Force into space. But if the Air Force blows its opportunity to aim high, another perhaps independent space service will eventually be created. And the ground forces will take the missions the Air Force blindly insists on trying to keep when technology is putting many of those missions in equipment that fits in rucksacks.
There is an expanding market in the air and the space above it, and a shrinking market near the ground. The Air Force has long resisted the ground support missions in favor of strategic missions. Now the Air Force is recanting?
The Air Force is foolish to fight for a disappearing market for their ground support services.
Aim high, Air Force. That's your future. And we need you there, dominating the new high ground.
And about the big guns for that matter. As RUSI notes:
UAVs may redistribute the balance of missions assigned to different systems, but they do not eliminate the requirement for traditional artillery.
I guess it isn't really fair to suggest the Air Force ignored space. But rather than aim high to embrace space like I urged them to do nearly two decades ago, the Air Force is seeing technology eliminate their close air support role down low--which it didn't like to do anyway--even as the Air Force lost space in the new high ground to that separate Space Force that I warned them about, too.
NOTE: TDR Winter War of 2022 coverage continues here.
NOTE: I'm adding updates on the Last Hamas War in this post.