The Cataastrophic Success of the U.S. Air Force
The stunning success of the Air Force in dominating its domain since the 1991 Gulf War has created two looming problems for the service leadership: The Air Force no longer has any substantive experience in how to fight and win in a highly contested environment, and its current airmen have never experienced serious losses of people and machines in air combat.
.. The Air Force’s immense success resulting from the courage, skill, and technological superiority of American airmen has now perversely made the service much less ready to fight the next big war.
.. More U.S. airmen were lost in just the European theater than marines killed fighting in the Pacific.
.. No American warplanes have been shot down by enemy aircraft since at least 1991 and none lost to enemy air defenses since 2003.
.. As a result, an entire new generation of Air Force pilots have flown combat missions that have not involved any serious opposition.
.. The Air Force is most brittle in this domain since virtually no one serving in today’s force has personally experienced any wartime attrition of either airmen or their airplanes.
.. the peak of deadly air combat in World War II. The staggering losses of the strategic bomber community flying against German defenses over Europe in 1943 were strikingly portrayed in the classic movie Twelve O’Clock High. This compelling film shows the unrelenting and intense demands of Air Force combat leadership when losses were so great that virtually no aircrews survived to complete the requisite 25 missions before going home.