Fletch, first - what statistics are you talking about?

Next, do me a favor and do some research on what a pilot in a UAV does. While we do have pilots doing the takeoff and landing, those phases of flight represent about 20 minutes of a 20 hour sortie. If the non-rated guys who are so good at MS Flight Sim want to exclusively do take-off's and landings, have at it - be my guest. But, right now are talking about someone fulfilling the role of an ISR/CAS asset commander and making all of the decisions associated with the position and commanding the respective crew. I will ask you what I have already posted before - would you put these LT's as AC in the U-28, an ISR asset with less capability than some of our UAS's and no offensive capability? How about the left seat of an AC-130? I will assume the answer is "no". Why not? I will argue that it is easier for a neophyte to maintain SA in a combat environment by actually being there vs having to build the picture in his brain via remote sensing. If you think the most difficult part of the UAS is the flying, you don't understand the concept of employment. If it only comes down to the flying, let's put the new guy in the F-15 - by far the easiest to fly aircraft that I have flown, but by far the most difficult to employ. By the way, the most difficult portion of employment of the F-15 or any other combat asset is in the mental aspect, not the physical. I do agree with only one example of having those who are not otherwise physically capable of flying being assigned to a UAS - take experienced combat aviators who are now DNIF and assign them to the UAS.

 

Fletch - not up to arguing at this time is not a reason to delete a post. It was already typed and posted - let it stand - you didn't have to be up to anything to do that.

 

War without risk is not war, call it something else but it is not war. I have no problem smiting thine enemies, it is the antiseptic detachment of killing enemies with a UAV, it denudes the essence of historical human conflict. Perhaps we can create another name for these operators, for warrior is already taken.

 

My apologies - after a few minutes of having posted my response with no comment, I decided to delete. 'Lo and behold, here are two...

 

I am not disagreeing with your argument whole-heartedly... However, please differentiate how all of the above responsibility would be handled differently by a new UPT graduate as opposed to the new program of officers having not gone through UPT. Has either individual honestly had training to handle this responsibility? One evil against the other... These are decisions that are difficult for experienced veterans, let alone those new to the field (from my understanding).

 

Human history of battle is still overwhelmingly characterized by face-face battle with swords and other close-contact weapons. The use of guns and other distance weapons are only very recent history over the entire span. As far as the warrior thing goes (you mentioned it), is that a title that has a currency requirement? What if a former combat pilot (former warrior) moves to a UAS assignment, does he lose the warrior status? Should he consider himself a former warrior? Should we even consider any of ourselves warriors? While I don't agree with them, there are many soldiers who scoff at the idea of any USAF pilots calling themselves wariors due to their relative separation from the enemy.

What level of risk constitutes appropriate risk? Does the B-52 crew that launches the ALCM from outside of the AOR meet the criteria? It can be argued that they really haven't assumed any additional risk over a local sortie, and may not even be at as much risk as they would on an LFE such as Red Flag. How about the take-off and landing element of the UAS that is forward-deployed, do they meet the criteria? What about the UAS crew that is in Vegas now, but was forward-deployed a month ago - they were at risk? How about the crew that launched this weapon YouTube - F-15E Destroys Iraqi Fansong Radar, are they unethical, they were presumably well outside the range of the SAM that was attacked - did they meet the risk threshold? They were in Iraq north of the 36th parallel (I was there) so there was some risk, but not from that particular SAM site, although there was largely ineffective AAA. What about an F-22 shooting down a MiG-21 - I'd say the risk was limited in that scenario? How about an F-15 shooting down a hijacked B-777? If you try to minimize risk, are you at risk of crossing the line to being unethical?

I am not a fan of the reliance on the UAS, but I am of the opinion that as long as we have them we need to man them with the most qualified people we can. I have my reasons to dislike where this UAS thing is going (over-reliance on technology, too great a temptation for command and control to be too directive in the execution of the mission, movement away from centralized command/decentralized execution, etc), but ethics? Considering that the role of the USAF is to be an instrument of destruction in the application of national interest, I'd have to say the subjective use of level of risk to determine ethicality is interesting.

Nations have always used technology to dominate the battlefield and maximize the efficiency of the application of force. I don't think that any of the requirements ever made mention of risk. While we may lament the transition of the nature of combat we are witnessing (some have already been doing that since the introduction of IED's, others have even been doing that since the introduction of air-air and surface-air guided missiles), calling it unethical may be a bit extreme.

Fletch - I don't want to rehash the entire 13 pages of the other thread - but I think sending recent UPT grads to this assignment is only a minor, minor improvement over sending non-rated officers and is still not acceptable. As I said, we need ISR asset commanders, and recent UPT grads have neither the experience, SA, nor decision-making skills required in that role.

 

Fletch - I don't want to rehash the entire 13 pages of the other thread - but I think sending recent UPT grads to this assignment is only a minor, minor improvement over sending non-rated officers and is still not acceptable. As I said, we need ISR asset commanders, and recent UPT grads have neither the experience, SA, nor decision-making skills required in that role.[/quote]


I agree entirely.

(13 pages? No wonder I didn't find it - wouldn't have the patience. Sorry for the rehash).

 

MEM, I appreciate the eloquence and context of your post. I agree with you in every respect. Time and technology have marched on, our enemies use innocents to exploit the dichotomy of war and the Western Judeo-Christian ethos. They are successful working within our OODA loop. The resultant reliance on the UAV is an employment decision. Politically, it isolates political risk, provides real time continuity on the battlefield, and furthers the precedent of the Kosovo conflict, limiting casualties to our forces at all costs. My military career is long over, and the advancement of tactics and strategy has entered a phase of political isolation of the warrior from the war. I stated my personal distaste for the concept of war without risk, and from my seat on the sidelines, it stands. It is your military now, and I support all those who serve on my behalf. I had some contact with Nortie Schwartz in my career, and there is no doubt in my mind the internal upheaval within the Air Force will result in a more effective and capable force. In a simpler time, I spent time at JSOC in the infancy of our growing response to Low Intensity Conflict, and General Schwartz was both the intellectual force and operational expert behind transformational warfare. It will be fascinating to observe the legacy he creates. Thank You for your dedicated service.

 

Great words everyone! Just to mix it up...we had a guy tonight drop UAVs as his first choice. He "Joined the AF to support the troops on the ground...what a better way than to fly UAVs" Not saying he wouldn't have gotten it anyway but what insight...especially from a guy who just spent 55 weeks learning to fly airplanes.

 

I can only hope that Gen Schwartz understands that a transformational force does not mean an unqualified force. His move to reducing the entry qualifications for these positions does not give me a warm fuzzy. It seems to me that, if the CSAF and the combatant commanders deemed it so, we could grow any MWS force with qualified personnel. Anyway, considering the UAS in particular, the bottleneck is with training slots, not with filling those slots.

If anything, a transformational force (especially in the infancy phases of the transformation) needs the MOST qualified people it can muster. Only the people who have the experience, the judgment, and the operational maturity should be ones making the decisions out there regarding how we move into fighting our new style of war. The bulk of our transformational decisions need to be made in the field, not at AU or in the Pentagon. The Army finally came around to that concept, and so should we. By the way, the Army did not put it's most unqualified personnel out there in those Civil Affairs units, the sniper teams, or those small-unit special ops teams (or any of those other forces that were part of the transformational Army) - the new guys went to the traditional roles to gain experience so they could later move to those evolving positions. I whole-heartedly agree that the USAF needs to transform to fight the battles we are given (not the ones we want), but we need to ensure that we have the best people in the field making it happen and creating the tactics of the future.

Don't mistake "a new way of doing business" with "new people doing the business." UAS is a new tool in an existing war and we need to figure out how best to use the new tool. When the AIM-7 came along, we didn't take new pilots and have them create these new tactics required by the new weapons - we took pilots experienced in Air-Air and had them create the new tactics as an evolution of the lessons we already had learned. When the C-17 came around, we didn't take new pilots and have them create the procedures to fully exploit the capabilities of the aircraft - we took experienced, qualified personnel from other MWS's and had them do the job. Once the MWS had matured, then the new blood started to flow in. Right now, the UAS is still maturing, the capabilities are still developing, the tactics are still evolving - and most importantly, this is all happening while actual troops are on the ground in actual combat getting actual support where their actual lives depend on it.