One of my guys (USN Maintenance Officer, VFA type) just got picked for an IA in Afghanistan. Supposedly they are pulling a bunch of the ground pounders over there to help train the budding Afghan AF. Ummm, last I checked, there was no Afghan AF, but whatever...

At any rate, his story lines up with what the USAF guys are saying here about sending IPs over there to establish some kind of UPT capability.

How to build an AF from the ground up? No matter what, I'm sure it won't be cheap.