<p>US Air Force officers are trained to act, not to reflect. Those who form policy and plans in the Pentagon are called 'action officers'. Air Force leaders are not prone to introspection and rarely strive to learn from the past.
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<p>In the 1970s, the Air Force was beaten over the head with lessons that came in the immediate present. There was no mistaking the message of the 27 January 1973 ceasefire in Vietnam: it was 'never again'. Air Staff officers learned more from Operation Nickel Grass, when the Military Airlift Command racked up 136.6 million ton-miles hauling arms and equipment to Israel during the October War of 1973.
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<p>The end in Southeast Asia left the US armed forces demoralized, plagued with race and drug problems, and unable to retain public support for the draft, which had guaranteed a pool of manpower and a 'citizen army' since 1940. The fighting between Israel and its Arab neighbors highlighted the inadequacy of US airlift. With the C-141 StarLifter and C-5 Galaxy in service, the USAF's air transport capability had improved, but not enough. Nickel Grass led indirectly to the dual-role ATCA (Advanced Tanker/Cargo Aircraft) which evolved into the Douglas KC-10 Extender and to development by the end of the decade of a Rapid Deployment Force. But the aftermath of Vietnam led to the most dramatic change in the American military in the second half of the century: in 1975, after 35 years, Americans abandoned the draft and went to an 'all volunteer' force. It was a move for which the nation was poorly prepared.
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<p>With Richard Nixon in the White House, the United States began the 1970s striving to reduce tensions with the Soviet Union and China, but the temperature of the Cold War remained well below the freezing mark. The USAF chief of staff was no longer a 'bomber general'—fighter pilots have monopolized the job for the remainder of the century—but nuclear war with the Soviet Union still took priority in warfighting plans. The Air Force controlled two 'legs' of what it called the 'strategic triad', the triple-pronged nuclear armada of bombers, ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles; the term was first used in 1970 by an assistant to General John D. Ryan, chief of staff 1969-73. Year after year, the Air Force's nuclear warfighting mission gave the service a larger chunk of Congressionally-appropriated funds than any other branch of the armed forces.
