Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley says that moving combat search and rescue back to Air Combat Command ensures CSAR assets are “directly linked to the Combat Air Forces and the personnel they support.” He maintains ACC will be able to mobilize CSAR faster for a national crisis and share CSAR appropriately for air expeditionary force rotations. Gone is the rationale used two years ago that linked rescue folks with similar functions in Air Force Special Operations Command. (See our 2003 article link above.) AFSOC officials say shedding CSAR will let the command “focus on the continually expanding special operations mission.”
A new Air Force plan for how many fighters it needs in the next decade marks a sharp upturn from what it thought it needed just seven years ago. But analysts worry that the aspirational plan now in Congress' hands doesn’t make a tight enough connection to national strategy.
