We love letters! Write to us at letters@afa.org. To be published, letters should be timely, relevant and concise. Include your name and location. Letters may be edited for space and the editors have final say on which are published.
Danger, Will Robinson
Reference “Verbatim: The Bots in Control” [January/February 2025], it does not appear to me that any combatant commander nor a commander in chief could allow artificial intelligence to make any final decision to launch either conventional or nuclear weapons against a known enemy.
However, targeting staffs could develop target lists and attack matrices that would facilitate the use of AI to identify decision options by commanders and the CINC, or their staffs. AI may then expedite the recommendations of munitions loads, fuzing, weapon systems, aircraft configurations, optional air support and flight route, altitude and speed based on current conditions to attack a specific target, aim points relative to its location, terrain, weather, deconfliction with other coordinated support/attacks and defensive threats.
A combatant commander or the CINC could finally delegate the authority to a staff to launch via a tasking order or execution message.
From my experience at the air operations center level, AI could save 48 hours in the planning and coordination phase. At the tactical unit level, it would save two hours of mad scrambling to prepare aircrews to launch each mission of a total air campaign.
Lt. Col. Russel A. Noguchi,
USAF (Ret.)
Pearl City, Hawaii
Once Upon a Time
In the article “How the Air Force and Space Force Combined to Defeat Iran’s Missiles” [January/February, p. 34] “decoration creep” has apparently taken over the Air Force. Too bad. The Silver Stars and Distinguished Flying Crosses lavished upon F-15E crews for intercepting the Iranian drone and missile barrage are an insult to Airmen who have previously been so awarded.
I read and reread the account of the night’s activity but never found an instance when the aircrews were subjected to enemy fire against their aircraft. The most I found was the threat —unrealized—of ground explosions as they recovered and launched aircraft. (And were they really going to stay in the bunkers and not relaunch aircraft because of the Red Attack warning?! How comforting that would be for folks depending on them for defense!)
A “routine” Thud mission into North Vietnam was more deserving of award recognition than the “turkey shoot” of that night. I characterize the F-15E work that night as what would be required in an Operational Readiness Inspection—with the aircrew-satisfying addition of live armament.
Lt. Col. Garwin Smith,
USAF (Ret.)
Maryville, Tenn.
Still Waiting
In regards to the article [“KC-46 Mission Capable Rates Slipped Further from Goal in 2024,” Feb. 7] by John Tirpak, the USAF was told that the Frankentanker (aka KC-46) before it was built would be a troublesome platform. And here we are years behind schedule with an aircraft that has significant issues from a company, Boeing, that can’t seem to fix them.
Stop the financial bleeding, the USAF needs a refueling platform that works, now! Buy the Airbus refueling platform, it works for other countries.
Col. Clyde Romero,
USAF (Ret.)
Marietta, Ga.
Name the Target
President Donald Trump on more than one occasion has mentioned a “Golden Dome,” or missile defense, for the U.S. similar to what Israel has successfully employed against Gaza and Iranian missile attacks. The January/February issue [“World,” p. 17] defined this objective as a “space-based … system.” Note that the Iron Dome as presently employed by Israel is a ground-based system.
I have had the opportunity and privilege of working on both types of systems, first in the ’70s on the Army’s Ballistic Missile Defense Program (BMDP, a ground-based system); and later in the ’80s on President Ronald Reagan’s Defense Technology Study Team (DTST, aka “Star Wars,” a space-based system).
Any missile defense has to contend with three basic challenges: first, detect the threat (in the presence of jamming, weather, or other clutter) where the threat is the reentry vehicle (RV) with a conventional or nuclear warhead); second, discriminate or find the threat amid multiple objects associated with penetration aid systems; and finally, destroy the threat using either kinetic or directed-energy systems.
Detection is probably the easiest given the sensors and networks currently available. Discrimination is much harder given the choices available to the offense here, including chaff, physical and electromagnetic decoys, and during reentry, the breakup of associated tankage accompanying the RV.
Destruction is a technology and a timing problem. The Golden Dome uses kinetic interceptors as was considered in the BMDP (nuclear was an earlier choice but abandoned due to the fratricidal effect of the high-altitude electromagnetic pulse that would have been created).
The DTST considered using directed energy from several large orbiting lasers, and even focusing the X-rays from a nuclear device, but both were eventually abandoned. The costs involved didn’t balance with the deployment and technology risks.
Consider the timing problem: At reentry, depending on the threat trajectory or reentry angle, there are only seconds to discriminate and destroy an RV, given that a nuclear weapon detonates at altitude for maximum effect. Earlier in the trajectory, before apogee, the threat deploys its penetration aids and could present an easier target. The most effective way to destroy the threat, of course, would be to destroy the missile during the launch phase before it deploys the RV or its pen-aids.
However, it’s not very practical.
So those are all the problems. What are the solutions being discussed now, I don’t know. Maybe there are technology breakthroughs with directed-energy weapons and artificial intelligence (AI) that will make them all moot. I would like to think so.
In the future it should be made clear what threat is being discussed: short- range ballistic missiles, or intercontinental ballistic missiles. The former is what Israel’s Iron Dome is defending against, and is only applicable to U.S. forces in theater, for example. The latter was the BMDP and DTST threat. The threat from submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) is extremely difficult and differs in many respects from the discussion above and is not considered here.
Missile defense against any of the threats discussed will be extremely difficult and technologically challenging. It should also be a challenge worth accepting considering it could mean national survivability.
Peter Hansen
Torrance, Calif.
Pride and Commitment
Your article in “World: Patches, Nail Polish, Shaving: Dress, and Grooming Standards,” [January/February, p. 19] sent me scurrying to the internet to read all the gory details in the latest Air Force dress and appearance instruction, still known by old-timers as “35-10.”
During my Active-duty days, I prided myself in being a “sharp troop.” Sure, there was that mustache that somehow kept creeping outside the vermilion of my mouth when I was a technical sergeant. Then there was the time one of my senior NCOs challenged my flattop for being too tall. Two blemishes over 40-plus years on Active duty isn’t too bad.
But I digress …
I applaud Secretary of the Air Force Gen. David W. Allvin for moving forward from what appears to have been the kinder-gentler Air Force that was portrayed in the previous instruction. Imagine a full-color visual aid therein depicting 60 shades of acceptable nail polish shades (none for men), plus 12 more that were verboten. Then there’s the six photos of a female eye showing OK and not-OK eye makeup combinations.
Finally, 11 photos and three figures of acceptable female hairstyles with special attention to the wearing of a ponytail.
Happily surprised to read that the “gig line” is back. We first met in basic training in 1968 and it’s been a part of my getting-dressed process ever since.
The general mentioned the elimination of the duty identifier patches. The old instruction had a list of over 130 now defunct patches. It looked to my nescient eye that the patches started out as a good idea to highlight the wearer’s functional area in the absence of an occupational badge on the operational camouflage pattern shirt. Most observers would relate to ATC (Air Traffic Control), SF (Special Forces), CE (Civil Engineering), Cyber but evidently nobody wanted to be left out and soon requests were granted for any and all.
The abstract result: 3E3 (Structural Specialist), 2MO (Missile and Space System Maintenance), GHOST (Golden Hour Offset Surgical Team), IEEM (International Enlisted Engagements Manager), VACE (Verification and Checkout Equipment) and the like. The latter identifiers don’t exactly answer the question, “What did you do in the war, daddy?”
I even watched General Allvin’s video explaining his rationale for elimination of the patches. I had to chuckle when he said, “as we identify as one type of Airman or another, with one specialty or one skill set or another, we really diminish ourselves.” Ironically, the general spoke these words while wearing his zipper-front blue jacket with “Dave Allvin” and his pilot wings monogrammed on the front.
I get it! I really do. That’s why they call it the “Air” Force and not “Ground” Force. All Airmen know and love the opening line of the Air Force Song: “Off we go into the wide blue yonder. …” It still makes my chest swell to hear, but makes me choke up too as I get older as well.
Col. Bill Malec,
USAF (Ret.)
O’Fallon, Ill.
Shared Vison
An excellent article on rethinking defense policy [“A Call for a New NSC-68 and Goldwater-Nichols Reform,” p. 42] was diminished by a couple of flaws and the lack of some bold reform ideas. The caption, “Led by the Air Force, the U.S. crushed Iraq’s Army …,” once again scratched old wounds by minimizing the significant contributions of the other services.
The Air Force just needs to drive a stake in the notion that airpower can be victorious without ground and naval forces. Also, the continuing harping on the age of the B-52 (72nd anniversary of first flight and projected service life of 100 years) leaves out the new models and major upgrades.
The role, value, and vulnerability of our majestic carriers also needs to be rethought.
Col. Michael R. Gallagher,
USAF (Ret.)
Eugene, Ore.
Begrudging Acceptance
I find the article on William Momyer [“Heroes and Leaders,” January/February, p. 56] interesting. It bothers me that Air Force leadership allowed its pilots to operate under such stupid restrictions. I volunteer at a local museum that has an F-105. I tell visitors the rules of engagement (ROE) F-105 pilots flew under—not attacking MiG bases, portions of Hanoi and Haiphong being off limits, to name a few—and they are in complete disbelief.
While I am sure many Air Force generals were disgusted with the ROE, none offered to resign. I have studied the use of airpower in Vietnam and have the utmost respect for the men who flew in Rolling Thunder.
Maybe I am being extremely harsh, but it seems to me Rolling Thunder accomplished one thing: It ensured the North Vietnamese had a constant pipeline of POWs to torture.
TSgt. Joe Domhan,
USAF (Ret.)
West Babylon, N.Y.