United States Air Force

As the final days of Vietnam unfolded, the question was raised, "What happened to the Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF)?" This book addresses that question in considerable detail. In order to sift out the story, three periods in the life of VNAF were selected-the Tet offensive of 1968, the Easter offensive of 1972, and lastly the March offensive of 1975. By examining each of these time periods, the factors at work in each period could be isolated so as to determine the performance of the VNAF. The role of the USAF was dominant in the 1968 and 1972 offensives. Although VNAF had grown in size to about 44 squadrons and 42,000 people by the time of the 1972 offensive, application of airpower at the major points of the enemy assault was U. S. Further, the bombing of the North Vietnam heartland during these two periods was the compelling leverage that resulted in the initiation and pursuit of active negotiations to stop the war. The intervening period between the peace agreement of January 27, 1973 and the North Vietnamese offensive of March 1975, was marked by fundamental changes in the character of the NVA forces and their deployment for battle. The NVA moved its center of logistics near the DMZ and into South Vietnam proper. The magnitude of SAM and AAA defenses constituted a major departure from those of the 1968 and 1972 campaigns. The VNAF, structured for a low scale war, was confronted with an enemy having the most sophisticated air defense weapons of the day.

America's Airmen and Air Force capabilities play a foundational role in how our military fights and wins wars. The Air Force's agile response to national missions - in the time, place, and means of our choosing - gives our Nation an indispensable and unique advantage that we must retain as we plan for an uncertain future. Whether responding to a national security threat or a humanitarian crisis, your Air Force provides the responsive global capabilities necessary for the joint force to operate successfully. It takes the combined efforts of all of our military Services and the whole of government to deny, deter, and defeat an enemy, and over the last decade this integration has tightened. Just as we depend on our joint partners, every other Service depends on the Air Force to do its job. Whether it is Global Positioning System (GPS) information to navigate waterways, airlift to get troops to and from the fight, manning intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos to deter aggression, or reconnaissance and satellite communication to tell forces where enemy combatants gather or hide, the Air Force provides these capabilities, as well as many others. Here at home, our Airmen patrol the skies ready to protect the homeland and are integral to the movement of people and lifesaving supplies when disasters, like Hurricane Sandy or the California wildfires, strike. This capability to see what is happening and project power anywhere in the world at any time is what Global Vigilance, Global Reach, and Global Power are all about. The current fiscal environment requires the Air Force to make some very tough choices. When making decisions about the best way for the Air Force to support our Nation's defense, the abrupt and arbitrary nature of sequestration created a dilemma between having a ready force today or a modern force tomorrow. To best support national defense requirements, comply with the Defense Department's fiscal guidance, and meet defense strategy priorities, as updated by the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), we attempted to preserve capabilities to protect the homeland, build security globally, and project power and win decisively. To do this the Air Force emphasized capability over capacity. We worked hard to make every dollar count so we could protect the minimum capabilities for today's warfighting efforts, while also investing in capabilities needed to defeat potential high-end threats of the future. Moving forward, we seek to maintain a force ready for the full range of military operations while building an Air Force capable of executing our five core missions: 1) air and space superiority; 2) intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); 3) rapid global mobility; 4) global strike; and 5) command and control, all against a well-armed and well-trained adversary in 2023 and beyond.

The well-intentioned author of the article "The Killing Ma-chines," which appeared in the Atlantic last year, offers a lengthy description of a Hellfire missile strike by a remotely piloted aircraft (RPA). The story's protagonist, a "19-year-old American soldier" who entered Air Force basic military training straight out of high school, became an MQ-1 Predator crew member upon graduation. Reportedly, on his very first mission at the controls, the "young pilot" observed a troops-in-contact situation on the ground. The "colonel, watching over his shoulder, said, 'They're pinned down pretty good. They're gonna be screwed if you don't do something.' " The narrative goes on to describe the Hellfire missile strike and the psychological effect it had on the Airman. To a sophisticated military audience, the factual inconsistencies in this account are apparent. Air Force RPAs are crewed by Airmen, not Soldiers. The 19-year-old Airman (an enlisted rank) cannot be an Air Force pilot (an officer rating). The article claims that during his first time at the controls, this Airman finds himself on a combat mission in-theater. In reality, he would have become familiar with the controls at initial qualification training, prior to arriving at his first combat squadron. Furthermore, when colonels speak to Airmen about life-and-death combat decisions, they tend to do so in terms of direct orders rather than leading suggestions. How can Mark Bowden, notable historian and author of such well-received books as Black Hawk Down, commit such factual errors? The answer is simple. Information about Air Force RPA operations is rarely available-and when it is, it usually proves unreliable. This article contends that because an information vacuum exists with respect to US RPA operations, well-meaning people cannot gain adequate knowledge to develop and share an informed opinion on the most important RPA questions. It calls this dearth of information "the epistemic problem."