The Secretary of Defense must read Cato-at-Liberty. I suggested Thursday that Robert Gates should break 25 years of fighter pilot rule over the Air Force when he picks Buzz Moseley’s replacement. And voila. General Norton Schwartz, who was head of US Transportation Command (the logistics center for the military, essentially) has experience as a C‑130 (airlift) pilot and in Air Force Special Operations Command. He has even written about using AC-130 gunships to support urban combat operations.

This is the kind of guy the Army would pick to run the Air Force. The Air Force fighter leadership apparently wanted to elevate Gen. John Corley, commander of the Air Force’s Air Combat Command, a former F‑15 guy, to the top spot. Not only did Gates not do that, he moved Schwartz’s deputy from Transcom, Lieutenant General William Fraser III, a three-star former bomber pilot, to Vice Chief of the Air Force.

Gates is slapping around the figher mafia that runs (ran?) the Air Force. The chances of F‑22 procurement going beyond 183 (the Air Force, at least until today, wanted 381) just went down, although Congress and the next administration will have something to say about that. The China threat inflation coming from the Air Force should diminish. The Air Force’s commitment to supporting Army led counter-insurgency campaigns will increase. The cries that the Air Force is underfunded will soften.