Air Force United States Air

Air Force United States Air Force During World War II, the U.S. Army Air Corps established the significance and value of air warfare. Air power contributed greatly in the Navy as well. So, when President Harry S. Truman signed the National Security Act of 1947, a separate U.S. Department of the Air Force was created and the U.S. Air Force came into existence. Its initial focus was on creating flying weapons using the new jet rocket technology. In the intervening years, the U.S.

Air Force has become the supreme air force in the world. (Saunders, 2008) The vision of the U.S. Air Force is "Global vigilance, reach and power. " the Air Force mission is to "fly, fight and win." (Air Force Link, 2008) The Air Force played a vital role as part of the United States nuclear arsenal throughout the Cold War. Its Strategic Air Command (SAC) controlled both ground-launched Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) and nuclear bombs carried on long-range bombers like the B-52 Stratofortress.

(Grabianowski) The end of the Cold War did not mean completion of the Air Force's mission. The Air Force's speed, range, precision, leathality, and flexibility gave America what Secretary of the Air Force Donald B. Rice called "global reach, global power." (U.S. Air Force - USAF History) The Air Force recognized the need for streamlining in the post Cold War period. In the 1990's, it consolidated from thirteen to eight major commands. It closed bases, and downsized from 600,000 personnel in 1988 to less than 388,000 in the late 1990s.

Despite the smaller force, the Air Force has been called to action and successfully completed those missions in places like Bosnia, the Gulf War, and Iraq, and has supported humanitarian operations in Somalia, Rwanda, and around the world. (U.S. Air Force - USAF History) The Culture of the Air Force The U.S. Air Force Culture and Language Center defines culture as, "the creation, maintenance and transformation across generations of semi-shared patterns of meaning, sense making, affiliation, action and organization by groups.

It would seem easy to simply put the Air Force into the category of "the military," but the reality is that the Air Force has a very different culture from its sister services. The Air Force relies heavily on a common understanding of the service's mission to promote cohesion among airmen. Its identity is based largely on its organizational and conceptual history and the primacy of technology over warfighting theory.

This leads to a culture in which small, often technology-based, subcultures flourish, a condition that requires a common, service-wide understanding of the Air Force mission to hold things together. (Thomas, 2004) History plays a significant role in shaping an organization. Of the American military services, the Air Force has the most limited historical basis for its identity. The Army, Navy, and Marine Corps each trace their organization's history back to the Revolutionary War. The Air Force started as branch of the Army, and airmen waged political battles for its independence.

The Air Force was created for a specific purpose: the exploitation of a technology that had come of age. A unique Air Force identity developed over time as airpower became better understood, doctrine was developed, and new traditions were started. (Thomas, 2004) Technology, the identification with the mission of nuclear deterrence, and the values derived from early experiences provided.