Preceding the firings/resignations of the two senior officials in the US Air Force, the Chief of Staff Buzz Mosely and the Secretary Michael Wynne, Secretary Gates gave a series of speeches giving serious hints at what was on his mind and what direction he thought the services, especially the Air Force should be. In the immediate wake of the announcements of their departures, he went to three USAF bases and gave speeches. If you’ve read my words here on this site you know I believe the Air Force has serious problems from a fascination bordering on obsession with the F-22 Raptor to an excruciatingly slow process to recognize that we might need to acquire new and different aircraft to support the fights in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines, Horn of Africa, you name it. Among other problems….
What is going to follow in the next day or so will be an attempt by me to distill what exactly Secretary Gates requested from the Air Force and from it’s Airmen. I am then going to publish that Request for Assistance in the form of a new Excalibur project, here is the original proposal to acquire a counterinsurgency aircraft, the AT-6C. I may not get time to complete a full Wikipedia like page but will try and get something organized in a week or so after travel to see family and friends. Along the way, I will show some anecdotes from my career and experience to illuminate some events and practices that have existed in the past and may continue today.
My purpose: to improve the United States Air Force and it’s capabilities to defend our nation. Note, I didn’t say pay off my mortgage, increase my 401K, or hire another fifteen program managers, this will be done for the good of the country and the Air Force. When I was in Iraq, a Navy friend of mine and I chatted about Excalibur and in some ways, I blame him for this whole thing. Originally, I wanted to do this as a coordinated venture between the Joint Staff (my reserve home) and something like National Defense University or Institute for Defense Analysis. I gave my pitch to a few folks and I received two bits of advice that rise up above the rest, one from a senior officer and one from this now Lieutenant Commander.
The senior officer said don’t involve anyone that gets “rated” by someone. He meant avoid active duty personnel if you can because our promotion system(s) scare off many good ideas and force people into the mainstream, so as not to be seen as some reformer (John Boyd), a loose cannon (Claire Lee Chennault) or some zealot (Billy Mitchell). And yet these three men are today heralded as great thinkers and yet each while alive fought the system and The Man. Then he told me something hugely important, he said we’re all too old. He meant that the folks staffing our headquarters, our commands, our think tanks were universally older and fairly lacked the ability for original thought.
The other piece of advice I remember almost crushed me. My friend, the LCDR said after reading my vision in my 8 page pamphlet said “you can’t do this in the government, they’ll never go for it and if they did, they would either take ten years and or crush you in the process.” He told me I would have to do this privately. I remember holding my head in my hands because I don’t have a deep pocketbook and lacked the resources to do this properly. But as I pitched the idea around town with some folks here and there, I realized how unbelievably risk averse corporations and even private company owners are.
I really wonder how our nation had the men and women willing to grab musket and throw out the British, how they explored this land west, where the spirit has gone to put a man on the moon? I read press releases where corporations are receiving multi-billion dollar contracts to provide personnel and support, where think-tanks continue their lucrative relationships with the services. The services have more and more internal organizations charged with study and thought and where has it gotten us? The USAF has Checkmate, the School for Advanced Airpower Studies, and other handpicked groups but what exactly are they producing?
Once I’ve distilled the essence of what the SECDEF has asked, I’m going to throw it out to the world and ask, what ideas do you have? I don’t care if you are an independent truck driver, schoolteacher, farmer, retired fighter pilot, or active duty commander, if you got ideas, we need them. You can remain anonymous completely with nothing of your background mentioned, use a pseudonym and outline your experience, or you can use your name and stand up and be counted. I will create new e-mail addresses and allow you to submit your ideas. If you have a paper you wrote twenty years ago that still has applicability, send it. If you’ve got a short problem statement and a few ideas, we’ll take them.
The incredible hubris that fills this town, that fills the Pentagon, that only some giant corporation can have ideas or they won’t listen to junior officers or enlisted personnel, I’m just not buying it. We can’t turn away ideas and frankly, we’ve been fishing off the same piers for so long the fish are just anemic. So, as I said a few days ago, start writing down your ideas. What’s the problem as you see it and what are your ideas to solve it?
Oh, by the way, just to be clear, the ultimate idea is to get contracts to support this Excalibur idea and a couple of small contracts here and there we would be able to open up the ability to support this effort. Until that time, I’ll drive on till the mortgage man comes knocking.
Let’s get busy….