The Air Force has good and logical reasons to take over executive agency of the higher flying unmanned aerial vehicle mission, a senior service official said Monday. (Find some in our earlier report.) There’s another element, though, and that is to force a discussion of roles and missions and the open-ended borrowing of USAF people for Army missions. It “makes no sense” for Air Force people to be driving Army trucks and doing other ground force jobs indefinitely if the Army is dedicating a like number of people to operate and fly UAVs, said the official. The Air Force and Army should each “focus on their core competencies,” he added.
The U.S. military is carrying out intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions along the southern border and off the coast of Mexico using U.S. Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint and U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft as part of the Pentagon’s effort to secure the southern border at the direction of President…