Meanwhile, the less lofty terms, “offensive” and “defensive,” have long been associated with counter-air operations. Defensive sorties were ground alert, airborne alert, or scrambles launched against enemy aircraft attacking your territory or forces. Offensive sorties attacked enemy forces, usually over enemy territory or controlled seas.

I understand offensive and defensive; they have to do with where and when and situation. I don’t understand tactical or strategic. The words have now become meaningless and dysfunctional. In fact, in modern military speech, they are more often used to divide people and frustrate efforts than to illuminate and facilitate. People use them loosely who don’t know what they are talking about. So, for example, a B-52 is called a “strategic bomber.” A strategic bomber? Then why was it doing close air support in the Gulf, a “tactical” operation?

In reality, the person most likely to call a B-52 a strategic bomber will be an airman from SAC headquarters trying to keep control of an asset he is responsible for in terms of organizing, training, and equipping. If that asset is engaged in non-nuclear operations and deployed to a theater other than CINCSAC’s, it’s an asset potentially lost to SAC. It’s all thought of as a zero-sum game.

There is also a service-biased crowd that like to think of the USAF as made up of strategic or tactical elements—that is, either elements that attack the enemy heartland (as the Eighth Air Force did over Germany in World War II—the real Air Force) or tactical elements that are essentially mobile artillery for the army, and therefore not really Air Force. I call such people airheaded airmen. They don’t realize that air can and will do whatever is necessary to get the job done. In fact, the real Air Force does not define the job as either “strategic” or “tactical.” The job flows down from the President and the Unified Command. As an airman, my job is to tell the President and the Unified Commander what air can do to get that job done, either on its own or by supporting other forces.