At least one of them is a lot closer to "peer" than "near", at least in his own backyard. And he has several well-known long-term objectives which would justify (in his mind) what he hopes would be a limited local conflict. But he'll only go there under the right circumstances, and they have to be very right because he's not reckless or prone to dangerous gambles.

The US and allies maintaining a strong posture in the Pacific goes a long way to discourage adventures. Fortunately several of the key allies have really manned up lately.

Most likely scenario I'd see would be a very weak political climate/regime at home in the US, that might give him the impression that even though we have robust capabilities we won't use them in defense of foriegn interests on the other side of the pond. Even that scenario's not a slam dunk for him though, because he'd have to pull it off without poking the sleeping bear, and sinking a US warship or bombing a US base overseas would probably do just that. He knows from history that ****ing off the US people can turn the eye of Mordor on him.

Who gets bullied more in high school, a 250 lb 6'5" cage fighter or a 100 lb nerdy dweeb? The same concept applies to geopolitics, although nerds who can talk themselves out of anything may be better off than the cage fighter whose just a dick, in a lot of situations. The goal is to be well-rounded, and a post-nuclear military is more of a deterrent than anything. The real wars will likely all be low intensity proxy wars or posturing around flashpoints like Taiwan or the Spratly Islands, that never lead to a sustained conflict.

There is a lot to be said about an out of control military-industrial complex though.

Peace through strength.

Yup.

I've found that making sense of anything the DoD does becomes a lot easier when you look at it through this lens.

I think you're right. Piloting is a secondary duty in the AF, at best, more often than not tertiary! You gotta have guys who can do DTS, give X and Y training, track this, track that. So much is levied on the bag wearers that should be carried by the professional support core - but that would require more personnel. The amount of ancillary BS a pilot has to deal with, in addition to pilot related duties, is a bigger hindrance than the $ delta. If you got rid of at least most of those duties and let aircrew just aircrew, people would never leave.

This is one of the reasons I left full time ASAP and why I only take orders for squadron TDYs, deployment spinup and deployments. I hated how much time spent behind a computer vs actually flew, but even being a part-timer is becoming the same. In my 20+ years in the ANG, every new "advancement" that's come along, has made it harder and harder to be a part timer. Pay cards used to take a minute while I sat in the morning mass brief, but now it can be an hour+ process. Travel vouchers used to be completed as the TDY progressed and I'd just drop it off as soon as I got back to base...never had an issue being paid out quickly. Now it can be a multi-day process and a lot of back and forth/headache. I have had to show up on a day and log 2 pay cards just to process all the crap needed to get paid...getting paid to get paid. If it weren't so damn sad, I'd have to laugh. On an up-note, they got me my corrected W2 on 17Apr...so I got that going for me, which is nice.

If you're talking an April 1992 crash, Kirk was a student assigned to me when I was a FAIP. I was what they called back then a "Class Commander" in the STURON and was directly involved in their assignments. So I guess I was your Class Commander too. No one's dad had any say in who got what, and Kirk was a DG. He may have been the top stick in the class, but it's been 30 years and I can't recall. Maybe I'm remembering everything wrong, but he earned his assignment.
The mishap had a lot to do with crew rest, overseas PCS, and fatigue. It had nothing to do with dad insisting his son get an Eagle.

Sounds like you’re doing it wrong. Our CSS handles everything you mentioned, keeping us focused on flying.

Ya that'd be great. They log our UTAs if we actually go to drill, which I usually don't and if I do, I usually log AFTPs. They'll do our vouchers, and it works ok as long as nothing changes from your auth (rare that something doesn't change), otherwise it gets jacked up. They have no power to fix my W2. No matter what they do, the CSS can't fix the flight pay "issue" that causes like 4 extra pay cards per month. But don't worry I've been assured (in 2018) that a new system will be rolled out Jan of 2021, that will fix it all... Any day now...

Bottom line, it wasn't broken when I could log paper pay cards and paper vouchers. I get moving along with technology, but I'm not sure why paper still isn't an option. Oh well though, I'm out in about a year anyway, so it won't be my problem much longer.

DTS replaced a one-page paper form. It's nice that I can (sometimes) pick my flights, but Good God, the wasted manpower between me and all the various approval layers and authorizing agencies. I cannot comprehend how that can possibly be more cost-effective.