THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, November 26, 1994 TAG: 9411260053
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long : 134 lines
The Air Force has decided to retreat on at least a few fronts in its battle with the other military branches, particularly the Navy, over the proper roles and missions of the military.
Gen. Ronald A. Fogelman, who became Air Force chief of staff Nov. 1, quietly backed away this week from two controversial stands taken by his predecessor, Gen. Merrill A. McPeak.
In a letter Monday to a commission studying roles of the military, the Air Force said Fogelman will ``afford Adm. Boorda (Chief Of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Boorda) the opportunity to correct'' erroneous information in an Air Force position paper on overseas presence.
The Air Force also advised the commission it no longer will argue for dissolution of the U.S. Special Operations Command. That Florida-based command controls Air Force, Army, Navy and Marine forces in a variety of special missions around the world.
Air Force officials were unavailable Friday to comment on Fogelman's moves. A Navy spokesman declined to elaborate on what information in the Air Force's presence paper Boorda believes is inaccurate.
Questions about presence - how the military projects American power around the world - have divided the Navy and Air Force for several years.
The Navy argues that its aircraft carrier battle groups are indispensable for meeting presence needs, and notes that carriers are usually the first U.S. military assets dispatched to world trouble spots. But under McPeak, the Air Force maintained that at least some of the presence function could be filled - and at a substantial savings - by its long-range bombers.
The bombers-vs.-carriers dispute is among 26 interservice issues being studied by the commission, which Congress created this year to recommend elimination of unneeded duplications in the military.
The group's work, particularly a batch of controversial proposals advanced by McPeak, has touched off something of a bureaucratic civil war in the Pentagon. The results could dictate the shape of the armed forces into the 21st century.
To civilians, the proper roles of the military seem clear. The Navy fights on the water, the Army and Marines on the ground, the Air Force in the skies. But military people know that there are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of areas of overlap.
Each service, for example, has its own air force. The Army, Navy and Marines each control a fleet of helicopters; the Navy also has bombers, fighters and an assortment of other planes; the Marines use fighter jets to protect their forces on the ground and the Air Force has an array of warplanes and transport aircraft.
Does each service need all of that? In peacetime and with budgets shrinking, could we get more defense for our money if the services did some consolidating?
Congress created the commission to answer such questions. Its report is expected in spring. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
``We've got to be cost-effective.''
Interview: Rear Adm. Thomas A. Lynch, the Navy's liaison to a
commission charged with eliminating overlap among the services,
discusses changes facing the military / A6.
Photos
Aspin
Edney
RisCassi
Welch
MEMBERS OF COMMISSION
Members of the Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed
Forces:
John P. White, the commission chairman, was an assistant
secretary of defense and later deputy director of the Office of
Management and Budget in the Carter administration. He is now
director of the Center for Business and Government at the John F.
Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Les Aspin was secretary of defense during the first year of
President Clinton's administration. He is a former chairman of the
House Armed Services Committee and served 11 terms in Congress,
representing Wisconsin.
Antonia H. Chayes was undersecretary of the Air Force during the
Carter administration. She is a lawyer and is president of the
Consensus Building Institute.
Retired Adm. Leon A. Edney is a former naval aviator who also
served as vice chief of naval operations and headed the U.S.
Atlantic Command. He now is vice president for naval systems of
Loral Corp.
Robert J. Murray is president and chief executive of CNA Corp.
and president of the Center for Naval Analysis. He is a former
director of the National Security Program at Harvard's John F.
Kennedy School of Government and a former dean of the Naval War
College.
Franklin D. Raines is vice chairman of the Federal National
Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae). He was economics and trade
cluster coordinator for President Clinton's transition staff and was
assistant director of the White House domestic policy staff during
the Carter administration.
Retired Army Gen. Robert W. RisCassi is the recently retired
commander of American forces in South Korea. His Army career
included stints as director of the Joint Staff, Army vice chief of
staff and two combat tours in Vietnam.
Jeffrey H. Smith, a Washington lawyer, headed the Clinton
administration's defense transition team. He served in the Army and
has held legal advisory positions in the State Department and the
Senate Armed Services Committee.
Retired Marine Lt. Gen. Bernard E. Trainor is director of the
National Security Program at the John F. Kennedy School of
Government at Harvard and a former military correspondent for The
New York Times. He is a former deputy chief of staff for the Marine
Corps and served two combat tours in Vietnam and one in Korea.
Retired Air Force Gen. Larry D. Welch is a former Air Force chief
of staff who now is President of the Institute for Defense Analyses.
He has served as commander of the Strategic Air Command and the
Joint Strategic Planning Staff.
KEYWORDS: NAVY AIR FORCE U.S. ARMED FORCES
by CNB