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February 2010/$4 The Airlifters’ War UAVs are Indispensable Rising Risk in the Fighter Force The Cost of Schweinfurt © 2010 Lockheed Martin Corporation SNIPER SETS THE ATP STANDARD. HOW? MULTI-PLATFORM INTEGRATION. COMBAT-PROVEN. Sniper Advanced Targeting Pod (ATP). The only pod that meets the USAF’s stringent ATP standard. And the only pod integrated across USAF mission-critical platforms. Supremely reliable, maintainable and with a low life-cycle cost, combat-proven Sniper supports ground forces, and delivers unmatched precision targeting at longer standoff ranges. Building the bridge to 5th generation targeting is all a question of how. And it is the how that makes all the difference. February 2010, Vol. 93, No. 2 2 Editorial: 68 Richard Whitcomb’s Triple Play ObamaCare Vs. Defense By Richard P. Hallion By Robert S. Dudney The most gifted and infl uential aero- This nation is face-to-face with nautical researcher of his time knew disarmament by entitlement. a thing, or two, or three. 24 Rising Risk in the Fighter Force By John A. Tirpak After the QDR, USAF will have fewer fi ghters, fewer options, and therefore tougher choices. 32 The Indispensable Weapon By Marc V. Schanz 32 It’s the Air Force UAV, which delivers vital information as well as an oc- casional shot between the eyes. 38 The Airlifters’ War By David Wood Mobility airmen have approached their Afghanistan missions with a 56 messianic zeal. 46 The Cruise Missile Question By James Kitfi eld Will arms control and tighter budgets www.airforce-magazine.com fi nish off the nuclear armed version? 50 Living in the Bull’s-Eye 4 Letters 38 Photography by Greg L. Davis 6 Washington Watch Manned and unmanned QF-4s make for spectacular targets. 10 Air Force World 56 The Aircraft Losses Mount 13 Index to Advertisers By Otto Kreisher 16 Senior Staff Changes Years of constant operations have taken a serious toll on USAF’s fl eet. 20 Chart Page 22 Issue Brief 60 The Cost of Schweinfurt By John T. Correll 44 Verbatim One of every fi ve B-17s that set out from England was lost. 73 Keeper Page 74 Field Contacts 64 Fighting With Light By Jeremy Singer 75 AFA National Report The nation’s armed forces are edg- 78 Unit Reunions ing toward what may prove to be a About the cover: C-130s taxi at Nel- laser revolution. 80 Airpower Classics lis AFB, Nev. See “The Airifters’ War,” p. 38. USAF photo by A1C Stephanie Rubi. AIR FORCE Magazine (ISSN 0730-6784) February 2010 (Vol. 93, No. 2) is published monthly by the Air Force Association, 1501 Lee Highway, Arlington, VA 22209-1198. Phone (703) 247-5800. Second-class postage paid at Arlington, Va., and additional mailing offi ces. Membership Rate: $36 per year; $90 for three-year membership. Life Membership (nonrefundable): $500 single payment, $525 extended payments. Subscription Rate: $36 per year; $29 per year additional for postage to foreign addresses (except Canada and Mexico, which are $10 per year additional). Regular issues $4 each. USAF Almanac issue $6 each. Change of address requires four weeks’ notice. Please include mailing label. POSTMAS- TER: Send changes of address to Air Force Association, 1501 Lee Highway, Arlington, VA 22209-1198. Publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited material. Trademark registered by Air Force Association. Copyright 2010 by Air Force Association. AIR FORCE Magazine / February 2010 1 Editorial By Robert S. Dudney, Editor in Chief ObamaCare Vs. Defense N THE morning of Jan. 19, the more widely available, driving costs take shelter in US power. What is our OAmerican national debt stood at much higher, even as planned budget fallback plan? $12,276,477,277,649.25, according to “offsets” somehow always failed to “This is how empires decline,” ob- the US Treasury. Call it $12 trillion, close materialize. serves Harvard history professor Niall to a year’s worth of national economic Harvard professor Martin Feldstein, Ferguson. “It begins with a debt explo- output. Every US citizen—man, woman, a former chairman of the White House sion. It ends with an inexorable reduction and child—owed an average of $39,900 Council of Economic Advisors, predicted in the resources available for the Army, to the nation’s creditors. the actual 10-year net cost would ap- Navy, and Air Force.” By the time you read this, the fi gure proach $2 trillion. We believe him. That defense will be squeezed is not will be higher, since the debt grows by So, what does this have to do with in doubt. In recent remarks at the Naval $4 billion per day. In fact, US indebted- defense? The answer is, lots. War College in Newport, R.I., the Chair- ness, which was $5.7 trillion in 2000, is Future Presidents and Congresses, man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. expected to hit a towering $21 trillion in confronted with an unplanned-for cost Michael G. Mullen, warned, “Money is this decade. gusher, would have limited options. They [not] going to keep rolling in. ... It’s just This can’t go on, yet it is against this would be forced to run larger defi cits not going to happen.” grim background that Washington has (adding to debt and interest payments), We might be more welcoming of the been pushing to forge a massive new raise taxes, cut discretionary spending, ObamaCare project were the federal social welfare program that would make or—more likely—go with some combina- balance sheet otherwise in reasonably the fi scal mess worse. We manifestly tion of these. good shape, but you be the judge: can’t afford it, and all signs are it would This nation is Last year, the annual budget deficit pose a special threat to America’s mili- came in at more than $1.4 trillion— tary power. face-to-face with disarma- about 10 percent of GDP, says the We are speaking, of course, about ment by entitlement. Congressional Budget Office. The US “ObamaCare,” the new health entitle- hasn’t seen a deficit that large for more ment sought by President Obama and With respect to defense outlays, it is than 60 years. this Congress. For our money, the easy to see two depressive effects, one Part of the problem, clearly, stems danger does not lie in any specifi c provi- direct and one indirect. from the deep recession. It has not only sion. The danger would stem from the Direct. Spending on entitlements prompted several expensive stimulus program’s huge future cost. and debt service would crowd out other efforts but also resulted in reduced tax What is its cost? The truth is, no one spending, particularly defense. receipts. Still, CBO sees no end to the really knows, because its publicly stated We have a precedent. In the 1990s, borrowing and spending binge. assumptions are so gimmicky. After the Washington deluded itself it could con- Indeed, the government is in poor shocking Jan. 19 election of Republi- trol a defi cit, keep taxes low, and protect shape to cope with a crisis caused by can Scott Brown in the Massachusetts social programs by reaping a “peace existing entitlements, much less take on Senate race, the White House began dividend.” It was a strategy that touched an enormous new one. The US already fl oating a scaled-down approach to try all of the capital’s political erogenous is staring at $37 trillion in unfunded to salvage something of the original zones, but it put the armed forces in a Medicare liabilities. plan. Yet to be seen is whether that deep modernization hole. The next time Sooner or later, the defi cit-spending “something” would include all or most would be worse. joyride must end. Social Security, Medi- of its high-cost provisions. Indirect. A large and professional care, and Medicaid have been in place Even fervent supporters, however, military is expensive. A strong US econ- for decades, and they are not going owned to a 10-year cost of $1 trillion, omy, and the tax revenues it generates, away. ObamaCare, however, is a dif- supposedly “paid for” with some $500 underwrites this force. The problem ferent story. Abandoning it would be billion in new taxes (real) and more is that, if Americans are saddled with a good starting point for the effort to than $500 billion in offsetting Medicare huge new ObamaCare taxes and debt control future defi cits. cuts (fantasy). service payments, the economy won’t In a recent survey, the Pew Research That $1 trillion was surely a low-ball grow enough. Center found that a large plurality of estimate. Government programs always For a case study, one need look no Americans, 49 percent, think the US overshoot predicted cost, as witness the further than Western Europe, home should “mind its own business interna- examples of Medicare and Medicaid. of the modern welfare state. It is an tionally” and leave other countries to According to the Wall Street Journal, arena of heavy spending on health care, fend for themselves militarily. Congress in 1965 pegged Medicare pensions, and welfare payments—and It would be hard to fi nd a more costs at $12 billion in 1990. Actual stagnant economies. In all but a very shortsighted approach to US security. amount that year: $90 billion. few nations, military forces are small, However, unless Washington changes In the case of ObamaCare, future weak, and poorly fi nanced. what is now an irresponsible course overruns are built in. No one disputes Either of these courses would put this on ObamaCare, Americans will in a that, as time went on, its massive nation face-to-face with disarmament by decade or two lack the military strength subsidies would become more and entitlement.