We now have a century’s worth of evidence that almost all Air Force general officers have no real interest in the close air support mission—and are actively hostile to procurement of dedicated, single-mission CAS planes. Ever since the days of Billy Mitchell and Giulio Douhet, the famous airpower publicists and theorists of the 1920s, senior airmen have been working to convince policymakers that if only they were given enough money to buy a big enough bomber force, they could secure victory from the heavens without any help from forces on the ground. In truth, the idea on which the Air Force gained its independence, that aerial bombing alone can win wars, has been proven wrong again and again. Yet rather than adapting to what actually worked in combat, the Air Force persists in its efforts to organize and equip itself as if the past 100 years of military history did not exist.

That history is crystal clear about what actually worked in close support of ground forces. The landmark combat achievements of close support are well-documented. Among them are the brilliant contributions of the P-47s of Generals Elwood Quesada and Frederick Weyland to the Third and Fifth Armies’ blitz across France during WWII;  of the First Provisional Marine Brigade’s Corsairs, whose extraordinary tactical integration with ground Marines was critical in preventing the collapse of the Pusan Perimeter’s left flank during the Korean War; of the handful of A-1 squadrons that saved several hundred Special Forces camps and countless long range patrols from being overrun in the jungles of Vietnam; of the 144 A-10s that destroyed more tactical targets than the rest of the Gulf War Coalition’s 1,900 fighters put together; and of the tiny half-squadrons of A-10s deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria that have saved American and allied lives for 15 years in hundreds—if not thousands—of “danger close” firefights.

The critical common element of these close support achievements—other than adequately armed, maneuverable, and survivable planes—is that for each of these combat successes the pilots responsible were intensively trained for the primary mission of supporting ground troops. Unfortunately, because of the Air Force’s lack of peacetime priority for close support, that training had to be obtained in combat—a most costly and dangerous place to train--for the three wars before the Gulf War.  But the Gulf War marked a historic change: for the first time, the Air Force actually entered a war with an extant cadre of real close support experts, both pilots and forward controllers. The simple reason was that the Air Force now had in inventory a fleet of specialized mission close support aircraft, the A-10, and the pilots and ground controllers singularly focused on that mission. This in contrast to the Air Force’s traditional and preferred multi-mission training syllabus, an approach that invariably relegates close support to lowest priority.

Professing Love for CAS While Ensuring Its Demise

To demonstrate the Air Force’s sincere commitment to close support for the past year a parade of generals—including the past and the present chief of staff, and the commander of Air Combat Command—have all touted the Air Force’s three-pronged approach to close support: upgrading and sustaining the A-10, launching the light attack OA-X, and/or shaping requirements for an AX-2 heavily armed follow-on to the A-10. Given the ongoing logistical strangulation of the A-10 fleet as discussed above, we know the first prong is far from being pursued. The OA-X second prong, according to insiders and the available evidence, is destined for a short life after it succeeds as an excuse for getting rid of A-10.

As for the AX-2 specialized CAS mission follow-on to the A-10, the Chief of Staff’s recent interview with Aviation Week pours a bucket of cold water on that third prong. In that interview General Goldfein ignores the clear lessons of close support combat from WWII to Syria, explicitly downplaying the single-mission CAS platform and the specialized pilot while discoursing at length about future “families of systems,” “21st Century close-air-support discussion,” and “moving us forward into new ways of doing business.”

For the troops whose lives depend on the close air support mission—and for those who agree with them that the Air Force is obliged to give the soldier close support at least as good as the A-10 in every future war—the implications of going along with the wishes of current Air Force leaders are clear. Supporting the OA-X and letting the Air Force short-change the sustainment of the A-10 fleet will enable the generals to eliminate all A-10s within 10 years. That will permanently kill any chance of a better A-10 follow-on force operated by a continuing community of pilots and controllers who are true experts in providing the first-class close support. The troops who have to fight the next war will do so without effective close air support. They will have to fight harder to secure their objectives and will be more vulnerable to being overrun in situations where other ground reinforcements are too far away.

This is why any prudent Pentagon observer should be extremely suspicious of the Air Force’s motives behind the OA-X program. It simply does not fit within their own self-image. So what is really going on?

Dan Grazier is the Jack Shanahan Fellow at the Project On Government Oversight.

This article originally appeared on the Project On Government Oversight.

Image: Reuters