Robert Farley argues pretty effectively that the Air Force has outlived its usefulness and ought to be dissolved back into the other branches. Longtime readers will know that we’re pretty skeptical of the Air Force’s role in 21st-century warfare.
Nonetheless, it bears mentioning that the Air Force is on the leading edge of alternative energy deployments, having just switched on the largest solar array in North America at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. A small nuclear plant could be next.
Now Playing: Episode 368
Terror in Mumbai, the collapse of Seattle banking and an update on the new Obama cabinet.
Links Mentioned: A timeline of the Mumbai carnage … SAM and WaMu … some early warning signs of trouble at the Seattle bank … Obama’s new Labor secretary?
Great piece. I hate the Air Force, largely because it exists only because Curtis LeMay convinced people that it was a good idea to incinerate millions of civilians to win a war. It’s got an innate conservative streak, and a nasty one.
Kaplan, over at the Atlantic Monthly, wrote an interesting piece in last month’s issue about the decline of the Navy, and why that’s important for the U.S. Here’s a somewhat abridged version: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200710u/kaplan-navy
I find the Navy to be too conservative for my tastes, too, but Kaplan does a great job laying out why the Navy is critical. Strange to say, but as long as the Navy can break itself of its addiction to multi-billion-dollar floating targets (aka, aircraft carriers), I’d actually support a fairly dramatic expansion of the Navy’s size and role after reading this argument.