Military might is still important

The debate over the 2016 defense budget continues to boil.

The use of overseas contingency operations funds as a way of circumventing the debilitating effects of the Budget Control Act and “sequestration” are controversial.

One recent suggestion out of the Senate Armed Services Committee indicated that the U.S. Air Force should look at the total numbers of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 proposed for the life of the program with an eye toward reducing the total numbers. This is suggested because the world situation changed since the program was started.

If anything, the demise of the Soviet Union rendered the world a potentially a more dangerous place.

The Soviet presence effectively stabilized a significant part of the globe. After the demise, a significant portion of the globe has become troublesome and potentially unstable.

Now the United States seeks global peace and stability with a much smaller force structure.

Our “peace dividend” has shrunk the conventional capability of the Air Force by more than 70 percent since 1991’s Operation Desert Storm in Iraq and Kuwait.

At that time, the Air Force had 188 tactical fighter squadrons in its inventory. That number is down to 54 and is projected to go to 49 by the end of 2016.

We certainly have the most advanced force capability of any nation on the globe. Our stealth, precision strike, global mobility, air refueling and intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities continue to provide an unmatched ability to respond to any situation threatening our national security.

However, capability is only half of the security equation. The other half is capacity, or the ability to bring overwhelming force to bear as the situation dictates.

While capability wins the battle, capacity can deter it.

We witnessed two failures of deterrence recently, one in the Middle East with the rise of ISIS and one in the Ukraine with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggressive adventurism.

The first can be chalked up to a failure of will. “War weariness” no doubt prompted U.S. decision-makers to pull our combat forces before the Iraqi government was able to put together an effective fighting force of its own.

The second was prompted by a perception on the part of Russian leadership that we are no longer retain sufficient force structure or the national will to respond in a meaningful way to potential threats in the European environment.

The combination of force structure and demonstrated will is the heart of deterrence

While the US Air Force adopted the motto of “Fly, Fight and Win” as Job 1, it has always been preferable to deter the conflict from starting in the first instance.

The former Strategic Air Command motto of “Peace is Our Profession” exemplifies deterrence, but it is not merely a nuclear concept.

Capability wins wars, but capacity deters them and save lives.

To further reduce our deterrent capacity to fight high-intensity future conflicts with an unknown future adversary — or even China and Russia, who are building up their forces — is a higher risk.

Deterrence may look expensive, but it is much cheaper than war.

David A. “Dave” Dietsch of Arlington is 27-year Air Force veteran and vice chairman for field operations of the Air Force Association.

This story was originally published June 29, 2015 at 5:59 PM with the headline "Military might is still important."