Officer Rot in the USAF

I found this by following a link on Jerry Pournelle's site. Hopefully the changes in the Air Force recently begun by Secretary Gates will begin to turn these problems around.

Seraphic Secret: Officer Rot in the Unites States Air Force:
". . .
The plague of peacetime bureaucracy has set in, and it's set in hard. “Officer rot” is what Robert dubbed it, and I can't think of a better term to describe the disease. Officers are advanced in a system that awards those who clog the service's pipes with new and excessive regulations. Simplicity and speed are downplayed in favor of safer methodologies.
. . .
Smart people realize that accidents are a statistical certainty.

The Air Force does not.

Now that's a very specific example of a larger problem. And the problem is this: Air Force careerists have made risk aversion their number one priority. 'Who dares, wins' has gone the way of the Dodo. Airman and their officers are forced to memorize the Six Steps of Operational Risk Management and are expected to apply to every decision they make, so that risk may be avoided at all cost. Not unnecessary risk, mind-you. Risk. Period.

Risk aversion, as many thinking types know, is a horrible trait in an officer and a leader. World War II was marked by an innovation in military thinking never seen before in the US Military—except when Confederates Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were engineering innovative ways to kill Union soldiers.
. . .
When I think of officer rot, I think about Air Force careerists trying to get rid of the A-10 Warthog—arguably the greatest close air support platform ever—in favor of a fast-moving Joint Strike Fighter.

They are so caught up in the wars of old, may God help us if the Chinese make good on their threats to reunify with Taiwan, or if Putin brings back the Russian Empire, or if Kim Jong Il decides he wants a bungalow in Seoul.

I'm an Air Force man and I'm telling it to you as plain as I can. We're screwed. Donezo. Kaput.

Pity, as the USAF would be our front line against any of those scenarios.
. . .
as Marshall said, “The chariot, the longbow, the airplane... all wars in history have been decided by the man standing on the smoking battlefield with a sword in hand.”

Just so. The Air Force exists to support the infantry.

Careerist Air Force officers have it in their head that the infantry supports the Air Force. If you can think of a better way to describe that than rot, I'm all ears."

Emphasis added