Mobility Air Forces

The time has come for another significant shift in air mobility culture. Historically, this culture had three subcultures, intratheater, intertheater, and air refueling. These subcultures existed due to gaps between operating environments. The gaps have largely disappeared and they will not return. The distinctly different mindsets found in the subcultures must disappear as well. Air mobility is a major subculture of the overall U.S. Air Force culture. As such, it shares many of the same basic assumptions, derived from airpower 19s inherently strategic nature. The strongest assumption is the ability of airpower to be decisive. This decisiveness is facilitated through centralized command and control applied flexibly, with unity of effort, by an Airman. Not all Airmen believe strongly in the strategic nature of the Air Force, however. This has led to controversy concerning the proper focus of Air Force efforts, tactical or strategic. These values, assumptions, and controversies have driven cultural, doctrinal, and organizational change within air mobility throughout its history. Gaps, or seams, between the theater and strategic environments have never been hard and fast from an air mobility perspective, not even for the air refueling force during the height of the Cold War. Theater airlift forces have flown predominantly logistical missions. Intertheater forces have flown in combat environments, sometimes frequently. Air refueling assets, have never actively engaged in a nuclear attack, but have participated in many theater contingency operations. Vietnam narrowed the gap between theater and strategic to a point where control of airlift forces was consolidated. Air refueling remained an integral part of Strategic Air Command. Air Force reorganization in the 1990s divided airlift forces once again, but placed air refueling and intertheater forces together for the first time. This reorganization, its focus on strategic missions, and the strength of the three subculture