Secretary of Defense Robert Gates apparently forced out Air Force Chief of Staff General Mike “Buzz” Moseley and Secretary of the Air Force Mike Wynne today.

Initial reports are that lax nuclear weapons security was the “last straw.” Good reason.

There’s also this scandal. Moseley was recently slapped by the Pentagon IG after a two-year investigation involving the FBI showed that he might have helped a friend’s company receive a $50 million contract to provide media support for the Air Force’s Thunderbirds air show. That investigation led Senator Levin and the Armed Services Committee to call for another IG investigation of the Air Force leadership’s possible “ethical violations” in steering contracts. The IG’s initial audit of the units that run the Thunderbirds – Air Combat Command and the 99th Contracting Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada – found several contracting improprieties.

I would like to think that another cause of the firings was the Air Force’s recent use of $80 million in tax dollars to propagandize the public about their role in our defense with an ad campaign called Air Force Above All – a name bizarrely reminiscent of Deutschland über Alles. Sample claim: The Chinese have the world’s biggest Air Force. (True if only you count rusting turboprops and irrelevant to the fact that our Air Force is vastly superior to China’s). But that’s just wishful thinking.

The most important reason for the firings was probably the rift between the Air Force leadership and Robert Gates. Gates has repeatedly criticized the Air Force (rarely by name, but no one was fooled) for what he called “next-war-itis,” the tendency to push for its weapons program over immediate war needs. Gates was annoyed by the Air Force’ s reluctance to go full speed in getting UAVs, particularly Predators, to the field, even while it tried to gain control of all US military UAVs; by its inability to accept stopping F-22 production at 183 and end-runs to Congress to get funding for more; and by its overall lack of team spirit.

This goes to wider schism in the Pentagon and really, in the country. On one side you have people like Gates who want to transform the military to fight counter-insurgencies. On the other side, you have the services’ leadership, especially the Air Force’s, who understand that a military transformed to that end makes them an adjunct in fighting our wars, not its primary instrument. The Air Force’s view essentially is that the US military should not get away from its strengths – technology over manpower, standoff strikes versus population management. Gates would answer that there aren’t enough possible conventional wars to justify the Air Force’s agenda. Military analysts have mostly cheered Gates on this front and will likely support the firings for the same reason.

A pox on both your houses, I say. It’s true that the Air Force and Team Big War ignore the dearth of conventional enemies and want to make China into a vessel for all their procurement dreams. But Team Counter-Insurgency is too eager to use the military to fight a series of unnecessary wars, and they overstate our ability to win them.

One thing Gates should consider is selecting a non-fighter general to run the Air Force. The Air Force has been run by fighter pilots since the late 1970s, more or less, when they wrested control of their organization from bomber pilots. If Gates wants to change the Air Force, he might look for a leader from one of the Air Force’s other sub-communities, who may share his frustrations.