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A Freed Hostage: ACC Commander’s Parting Shots
http://breakingdefense.com/2014/09/freeing-the-hostage-acc-commander-outspoken-on-eve-of-retirement/A Freed Hostage: ACC Commanders Parting Shots
By Richard Whittle on September 17, 2014 at 4:00 AM
Our industrial base has eroded and were reducing our military down to a skeletal size at a time when the world is looking crazier by the day, Gen. Mike Hostage told reporters Tuesday at the Air Force Associations annual conference. (But) there is nothing happening right now that is going to make sequestration go away, so were going to live with the sequestered federal budget. With his retirement just seven weeks away, the Air Combat Command chief admitted that hes finding it easier to speak his mind about what budget politics is doing to the future of Air Force hes served for 37 years. Hes not happy about it. I believe in civilian leadership of the military, he said. My job is to provide the best military advice. If somebody doesnt want to take it, wants to make a less than perfect military decision, I accept that. That is our system. Im okay with that. But what I cant abide by is being told, No, dont say that, you cant say that. One decision Hostage particularly lamented was the move to retire the venerable, high-flying U-2 spyplane and replace it with RQ-4 Global Hawk drones even though there arent enough Global Hawks yet to provide the same coverage. Keeping the U-2s actually was the Air Force plan until last March, when Secretary Deborah Lee James said that a drop in Global Hawk Block 30 sustainment costs justified the change in plan. It also happens that the Northrop-built Global Hawk has some passionate supporters in Congress, while the last new U-2 was built in 1989. The politics of it say, Nope, youre going to buy the Global Hawk and were not going to give you any more money to do ISR, said Hostage. That leaves me with how do I pay for the remainder of Global Hawk? The answer: retire the U-2 even though it will take eight years for the Global Hawk fleet to provide 90 percent of the capability of manned aircraft, Hostage said. The combatant commanders are going to suffer for eight years and the best theyre going to get is 90 percent. Hostage was far more sanguine about the comparable decision to cancel the equally venerable A-10 Warthog ground attack aircraft. In Afghanistan, he said, 70 percent of close air support was provided by other aircraft. The loss of the U-2, though, bothers him deeply. You give the best military advice, then all the realities of politics and economics and all the other constraints impose a different path, which the military then has to make work. Ill go to my grave making that happen, Hostage said. But dont ask me to tell everybody that thats the best decision made. Among other constraints leaving Hostage frustrated as he ends his Air Force career is the fact that the services 4th and 5th generation fighter planes use different data links and thus dont talk to each other a particular problem when tight budgets will require flying those 4th generation fighters decades longer. Hes also appalled that the 5th generation F-35 and F-22 cant communicate with each other via data link, either. Solving that problem is a top ACC priority, he said. The strategic shift toward Asia and the Pacific declared by President Obama adds other constraints. The Air Force needs a new Combat Rescue Helicopter (CRH) to retrieve downed aircrew, Hostage said, but in a conflict with a peer competitor in Asia (code for China), vast distances and sophisticated air defenses might require the speed and countermeasures of Air Force Special Operations Command CV-22 Osprey tiltrotors. Neither the A-10 nor the rescue helicopter are going to survive in a close-in IADS {Integrated Air Defense System) fight, he said. In the near term, though, the danger to all these aircraft is the budget wars.
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