Security

Air Force Purge Stemmed From Future War Fights

When Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired the Air Force’s military and civilian chiefs earlier this month, he insisted that the decision was "based entirely" on the service’s mishandling of nuclear weapons. Michael Wynne, the ousted Air Force Secretary, would beg to differ. At a reporters’ roundtable, "Wynne claimed that his ouster was part of a […]

Cut01_2When Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired the Air Force's military and civilian chiefs earlier this month, he insisted that the decision was "based entirely" on the service's mishandling of nuclear weapons. Michael Wynne, the ousted Air Force Secretary, would beg to differ.

At a reporters' roundtable, "Wynne claimed that his ouster was part of a series of escalating policy disagreements -- like the need for F-22
fighter planes -- with the administration," the *L.A. Times *reports.

*"Over the course of the last year, I have become more strident and challenging on several fronts," Wynne said, adding that his views on how to fight future wars had "crisped up" his differences with Gates. *

Gates expressed doubts that the United States will get into a shooting war with a "peer competitor" like Russia or China any time soon. After he was fired, the outgoing Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. "Buzz" Moseley, echoed those sentiments. Not Wynne.

"My response to Secretary Gates in that interchange was my brother was shot down in Vietnam by a Russian surface-to-air missile that was sold to the North Vietnamese," Wynne said. "I never considered Vietnam to be a peer competitor. But I lost my brother to the fact that some peer sold the weapon that killed him."

Wynne's defenders in the Air Force are equally unapologetic. While Gates has spent months railing against the military-industrial compl ex's fixation on a showdown China or Russia -- "next-war-itis," the Defense Secretary called it -- Air Force Maj. Gen. Charlie Dunlap, writing in the* Tampa Tribune*, says "the entire defense establishment nevertheless suffers from a 'This-Waritis'
contagion." Which means the bureaucratic and strategic battle that ousted the Air Force's chiefs is far from over.

[Photo: AFA]

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