{"id":50922,"date":"2025-01-18T16:51:50","date_gmt":"2025-01-19T00:51:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=50922"},"modified":"2025-01-18T16:53:11","modified_gmt":"2025-01-19T00:53:11","slug":"military-service-parochialism-all-the-services-always-want-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2025\/01\/18\/military-service-parochialism-all-the-services-always-want-more\/","title":{"rendered":"Military Service Parochialism: All the Services Always Want More"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views<\/a> with the author\u2019s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n

A few days ago, I posted the following comment to a fine article<\/a>\u00a0that addressed America\u2019s nuclear triad and the reality that we really only need the Navy\u2019s nuclear submarine force for deterrence:<\/p>\n

My old service, the Air Force, will fight for new ICBMs and new \u201cstealth\u201d bombers just because they always want MORE. More money, more bases, more planes, more power. Doesn\u2019t matter if America needs them or not. Doesn\u2019t matter if new nuclear weapons may end the world. What matters is dominance, especially Air Force dominance over the U.S. Navy and Army.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNothing can stop the U.S. Air Force\u201d in its budgetary battles at the Pentagon.<\/em><\/p>\n

Honestly, this is self-evident to me. The Air Force always wants more planes, especially offensive aircraft like fighters and bombers. The Army always wants more divisions, more equipment, a bigger Army. The Navy always wants more ships.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>

Who cares if it costs $700 million per plane? Or even a billion? It\u2019s a bomber and the Air Force wants it! (The B-21 Raider)<\/p><\/div>\n

Within the armed services, there are special interests. So, for example, the Navy carrier enthusiasts fight for their hegemony while the submariners fight to keep their slice of the budgetary pie. Within the \u201cold\u201d Army, the combat branches (infantry, armor, artillery) fought to ensure their continued relevance (and money). Now there\u2019s an entire special ops and forces community, a military within the military, along with a new Space Force, a cyber command, various intelligence \u201ccommunities,\u201d all fighting for more budgetary authority and power.<\/p>\n

Everyone always wants MORE. Victory in the U.S. military is measured by who wins the Pentagon budgetary battles, not who wins in Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Service parochialism is encouraged at the highest levels and is instilled by the service academies. A friend of mine\u2019s daughter recently received her acceptance letter to West Point. The letter stressed the proud tradition of the Army, and though it mentioned service, it said nothing about the Constitution and the oath of office. Each service academy stresses loyalty to service branch. Duty, honor, country takes a back seat to bleeding Air Force blue or Army green.<\/p>\n

Pride in service isn\u2019t necessarily a bad thing, but it can be blinding on issues like building new ICBMs and stealth bombers. The default Air Force position is to support more missiles and bombers \u201cjust because.\u201d Because they\u2019re \u201cour\u201d toys, part of \u201cour\u201d mission, bringing with them bases, command billets, influence, and all the rest.<\/p>\n

Service parochialism ensures a military that is wasteful, overly conservative, and dysfunctional. Too much bleeding of Army green or Air Force blue has led to too much real bleeding of red.<\/p>\n

William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), professor of history, and a senior fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN), an organization of critical veteran military and national security professionals. His personal substack is Bracing Views<\/a>. His video testimony for the Merchants of Death Tribunal is available\u00a0<\/span>at this link<\/a>.<\/em><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author\u2019s permission. A few days ago, I posted the following comment to a fine article\u00a0that addressed America\u2019s nuclear triad and the reality that we really only need the Navy\u2019s nuclear submarine force for deterrence: My old service, the Air Force, will fight for new ICBMs and new \u201cstealth\u201d bombers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[758],"class_list":["post-50922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50922"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50933,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50922\/revisions\/50933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50922"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=50922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}