The Air Force Innovation Period  

Writing For Engineering 

ENGL 21007

Professor Von UhI

Anthony H. Cordesman, Nicholas Harrington, and Arleigh A. Burke’s research paper “Air Force Modernization” is composed of data about Iran, Iraq, Israel, and the GCC states(United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, and Bahrain). This analysis was focused on fixed-wing combat aircraft modernizations since the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War. The focal point throughout this experiment is the difference in dependency that Iran and the Arab Gulf have when it comes to mediocre US, Chinese, and Soviet air systems and their aircraft strength across the regions. Furthermore John A. Robinson’s article “Air Force Strategic Communication Efforts” explains the changes that have happened since the beginning of the Bush administration and how the Air Force keeps on adapting to new strategies in their transmission. In addition, Mackenzie Eaglen’s report  “Refocus the Air Force on Air and Space Superiority” focuses on how the military should start to change their methods regarding what materials and supplies are used for the aircraft and the workers. The Air Force was made to specialize in aerospace and to utilize this knowledge and service as protection and transportation for the governments and to be used in case of an emergency like war. However, because of the rules and conduct placed by the government, it is very hard to change or update something but what I came to find out is that all three articles are that the Air Force needs to start modernizing.

Although the messages of the articles are very similar when analyzing their evidence, techniques and audience they drift and are dissimilar. For instance in “Air Force Modernization,” the authors talk about how the Combat Modernization process has been for countries like Iran, Iraq, and the Southern Arab Gulf. On how reliant these countries are on places like the United States. “Before the overthrow of the Shah in 1979, Iran was heavily reliant on the United States to provide combat aircraft for Iran’s Air Force (IRIAF)”( Cordesman, Harrington, and Burke, 2018).To be specific many of these countries like Iran are dependent on the help of the United State and based on their help was that their strength as an Air Force in their country was determined. They also compared the fixed-wing combat aircraft strength by their type and comparative Armed. The problem to this day is that because of the Gulf War, the IQAF inventory was depleted, limited to some Su-24, MiG-25 Mirage F-1s, MiG-23s, and Su-22s. International sanctions prevent Iraq from modernizing outdated systems”(Cordesman, Harrington, and Burke, 2018). This is the cause of why the countries  Iran, Iraq, Israel, and the GCC states are so outdated and still depend on the United States, Soviets, and China to update their Aircraft. This leads me to believe that the authors wanted the audience (people outside of these countries) to understand that they are still being modernized but at a slow rate that is being controlled.

 On the other hand, the “Air Force Strategic Communication Efforts” and “Refocus the Air Force on Air and Space Superiority” seem to have a common audience which is the government. In “Air Force Strategic Communication Efforts” an experiment was conducted to get the message out and Chamber stated, “I’ve been in the Air Force 35 years, and we’ve never got this right”(Robinson, 2011).In other words, because of what they have commanded him to do they have never been able to achieve their goal.“The primary “area of responsibility” for Chambers is Washington, DC, he said, because it plays such a tremendous role in how the Air Force’s future is shaped”(Robinson, 2011). One thing to understand is that once you enter the Air Force there is always someone above you that has more power but the person that says the final order is in the government. Robinson is stating that because the government just gives orders they aren’t able to see any progress because there is a lack of communication between the staff and government.

 In addition, the “Refocus the Air Force on Air and Space Superiority” audience leads toward the government as well. Although the topic is different it is still the same concept the government needs to start changing its focus on Airpower. Throughout the whole article, the repetition of repair and rebuild is mentioned which turns out to be a new plan structure given in this article that the government can follow. This plan is tested out on how it would function and is very detailed within each step. For example the plan Repair and Rebuild not only allows updates to the aircraft but adds  “Additional Funding Above Planned Budget like, Growing USAF end strength to 350,000 by FY24, Accelerate F-35 buy and legacy bomber upgrades, Accelerate support aircraft recapitalization, informing new space architecture and Restore readiness and expand munitions buy”(Mackenzie Eaglen, 2017). Not only is the plan adding more benefits but it allows room for changes and updates if needed. At the end of the day, it is all up to the government whether they decide on keeping the structure the same or change it but like General William Shelton said in March 2017 “Here we are 10 years later and we don’t have a lot to show but a pile of studies. . . . We’ve been part of this “one more study” kind of attitude. Well, that may not be the perfect answer, so let’s just do one more study, and meanwhile, time marches on. Satellites have fixed lifetimes, and you need to plan for the death of the satellite. A decision not to move forward is a de facto decision to maintain the status quo with no protection”(Mackenzie Eaglen, 2017). The entire article is based on the author stating that they have updated this plan the Repair and Rebuild many times and it still has room for change but, if they don’t test it out it’s not going to be worth anything after all these years of research. The government does its research and looks for new information but never changes anything. All three articles have to do with the government having control over everything but also how it took years for an innovation to happen but things are starting to change in the Air Force.

In reviewing the article I noticed their structure was completely different from one another. In  “Refocus Air Force On Air and Space Superiority” this article was composed on stating the problems with the engineering in the air force because of their current plan. Next, Eaglen would give research and his opinion on the problem of why the current plan isn’t working. Then Again would state the solution that was in the plan Repair and Rebuild and how this plan solves the current problems and give research on how it would work. During this article, a lot of problems were stated but they followed an order in which the problem was stated because of the current plan and then how the new plan could change that. Eaglen made this article easy to read and to follow through with all the graphs and pictures because they were labeled and made sure that the textual evidence was given before the image or graph to explain what was going on. Also below the graph explains as well what was going on. The next article’s structure is completely different from the one before, “ Air Force Strategic Communication Efforts” one thing that stood out was that it had no textual images or graphs but it did a very good job explaining the main point that you didn’t need to see graph because it was very clear what was being stated. Robinson used the title as a guide for this article to transition into a new paragraph or topic. While he used a subtitle to guide the reader he also used a lot of quotes to support the information that he stated. Robison uses the method of stating his opinion and research and using someone else’s words to fact-check him and agree with what he stated. Lastly “Air Force Modernization” shocked me very much although having three authors’ article structure was not easy to understand because of how the images were labeled. The article seemed to label each picture with a letter J and then a number after, so as I was reading I was confused about the information given to me at the time but as you keep reading you can see the letters correspond to the picture. After getting through the graphs the information in the article was detailed enough that you could understand why certain things were happening. Although I only faced that minor problem all the structure was good in the sense that all have information and research to prove their claims.

In conclusion, each article had its own focus but when it came to the topic which was the Air Force and the audience( the government) for the most part that is where they were similar. Each article had a unique way of expressing its information which mostly all used images and graphs to show the progress throughout time/ the changes. The author made sure that within each section or paragraph it was a new topic that is related to the one before so that way it wasn’t a repetition of what was stated. These articles can be read and are understandable to someone that has no idea what is going on in the Air Force. 

References 

Cordesman, A. H., Harrington, N., & Burke, A. A. (2018). Air Force Modernization. In The Arab Gulf States and Iran: Military Spending, Modernization, and the Shifting Military Balance (pp. 178–194). Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep22516.13

Eaglen, M. (2017). Refocus the Air Force on Air and Space Superiority. In Repair and Rebuild: BALANCING NEW MILITARY SPENDING FOR A THREE-THEATER STRATEGY (pp. 74–100). American Enterprise Institute. http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep03298.8

Robinson, J. A. (2011). Air Force Strategic Communication Efforts. In Communicating Airpower: Strategic Communication and the United States Air Force since 9/11 (pp. 8–24). Air University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep13809.7