Gregory S. Martin

As articulate and decisive as Secretary Gates has been in moving the Department of Defense, along with its Services and Agencies, towards a more “balanced” force, one must ask: “Will the balance for today be the right balance in 20, or 30 years from now?”

Although our combat forces have been dominant in the more “conventional” types of conflict, they have not been as decisive, in general, against the insurgents and terrorist forces, using irregular warfare techniques with less technologically sophisticated weapons. In fact, the weapons and system capabilities needed to be successful in irregular warfare are not necessarily lesser included capabilities inherent in our conventional warfare systems.

Whether our forces are inserted into a peacekeeping and stabilization situation, such as in Bosnia, or left with task of stabilizing and reconstructing a nation after a major conflict, such as in Iraq, they will be faced with irregular warfare adversaries. While increasing emphasis on those irregular warfare capabilities makes sense, “balance” should not mean “focus on today’s wars with little concern for the very real possibilities of future challenges.”

The nation must not lose focus on the kinds of technologies and capabilities that have given our military forces the ability to be dominant in other, larger and higher intensity conflicts. The world is an unpredictable place and the future security challenges may look far different than those we face in Iraq and Afghanistan. When Secretary Gates announced the termination of the C-17 and F-22 production lines; cancelation of the next Combat Search and Rescue Helicopter, the Presidential Helicopter, the multiple kill vehicle, the next generation bomber and the Transformational Satellite communication system; and moving the Airborne Laser program to a research and development effort, he delivered a potentially destructive blow to America’s air and space industrial base.

Individually, some of the decisions may seem appropriate, but in the aggregate they could “unbalance” the forces needed in the next 20-30 years in a way that may unacceptably increase the risk to this nation’s national security…forever! If the decisions made by Secretary Gates are sustained by the Congress, thousands of engineers and aircraft and space systems craftsmen will depart a work force that has been one of the only manufacturing sectors to achieve a positive trade balance with overseas trading partners.

But more important, as few would dispute, that same work force has built the capabilities and systems that have given all of our military forces the air and space dominance needed to be successful. In short, those capabilities give our forces an asymmetric advantage.

As the Members of Congress consider Secretary Gates’ budget and program proposals it is essential that they fully debate the balance in capabilities needed for both the current conflicts and those likely to be joined in the future. Isn’t it ironic that the same person who, as the CIA Director, suffered the results of the 1970s’ dismantling of this nation’s human intelligence capabilities may now be visiting a similar fate upon our nation’s air and space capabilities?

General Martin, USAF (ret.), is a former Commander of the Air Materiel Command and United States Air Forces Europe.