The US Air Force is finally retiring the aging A-10. Now it plans to get rid of some the specially trained airmen who guide the Warthog to its targets.

• The US Air Force has begun retiring the A-10, an aircraft famed for its role in close air support.
• The service is now planning to reduce Tactical Air Control Party airmen, who call in airstrikes.

After decades of fighting in the Middle East, the US is shifting its focus to great-power competition with China.

With the looming prospect of a war in the Indo-Pacific region, the US military is adapting to the realities of modern warfare, in part by focusing resources on the assets that would be competitive in such a conflict.

Indeed, the US Air Force is finally retiring the aging A-10 Warthog ground-attack aircraft, which a top official has said "doesn't scare" China.

Now the service is planning to get rid of some of the airmen who are specially trained to guide the venerable Warthog to its targets.

Roles and cuts

Tactical Air Control Party, or TACP, airmen are an elite cadre who specialize in calling in airstrikes to support ground troops. TACP airmen undergo extensive screening and training before being attached to a US Army or Marine Corps unit.

TACP is a special-operations career field and its members typically focus on higher-level planning and operations, but other US troops receive similar training to qualify as Joint Terminal Attack Controllers, or JTACs, and are generally attached to lower-level units.

But TACP airmen might be a more limited presence in the future. According to Pentagon's budget request for 2024, the Air Force is looking to cut its TACP force by more than 40% over the next three years.

If the plan goes ahead, the Air Force TACP community will have a little over 2,100 positions for officers, enlisted troops, and civilian personnel in 2025, down from the 3,700 slots it has currently, a spokesman told Air Force Times.

TACP airmen are spread throughout the Air Force's active-duty and National Guard components. According to Air Force Times, the service might consolidate TACPs within Air Combat Command, one of the service's nine major commands, which is responsible for training and maintaining units to support the US military's war-fighting regional commands.

"I think the military is getting ready for a war where we won't have air dominance," a former Air Force Combat Controller told Insider. (Combat Controller is another career field similar to TACP.)

"Ukraine has given us a contemporary example of what a 21st-century battlefield looks like without air dominance. Sure, there are still CAS [close air support] missions, but not at the scale we were used to in 20-plus years of fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq," said the former Combat Controller, who was granted anonymity because he still holds a security clearance.

"TACPs and JTACs are expensive to recruit and train," the former Air Commando added. "It's not an easy job, and it requires you to think fast and clearly under extreme pressure. In our profession, a wrong coordinate and distance measurement could mean your buddies seeing their families again or not."

The Air Force might be slashing in half the number of TACPs, but there is no indication that the US military is doing away with its terminal guidance capabilities.

JTACs are spread throughout the US special-operations community. These Navy SEALS, Army Green Berets, Air Force Combat Controllers, and Marine Raiders have undergone additional training and are qualified to control and coordinate close air support and airstrikes.

Combat Controllers are part of an elite cadre of battlefield airmen within Air Force Special Operations Command and specialize in airfield operations, including surveying and establishing airstrips in hostile places and air traffic control. Combat Controllers get attached to other special-operations units to coordinate close air support, much like TACPs.

Changing priorities

The US's wars in the Middle East have been oriented around ground combat. A war in the Indo-Pacific would be vastly different and would likely be conducted primarily by air and naval forces. Moreover, China's military has the capabilities and numbers to prevent the US military from enjoying the level of air dominance it had in the Middle East.

To be sure, having fewer TACP airmen means that ground units might be without the expertise to call in airstrikes, but the prospect of more contested airspace means mission sets like close air support for ground troops are seen as less of a priority.

"Do I need folks kicking doors and calling in strikes over here? Not necessarily," Col. Nathan Colunga, head of the Special Warfare Training Wing, told Air Force Times earlier this year.

Colunga said Air Force special operators need to focus more on building connections with partners and allies and on "helping, teaching, and shaping" their ability to do what they need to do.

Air Force leaders are trying to make the service as competitive in a near-peer conflict as possible, directing limited budget dollars away from what they say are less relevant needs and toward higher-end capabilities. Only time will tell what having fewer TACP airmen will mean on the battlefield.

Stavros Atlamazoglou is a defense journalist specializing in special operations, a Hellenic Army veteran (national service with the 575th Marine Battalion and Army HQ), and a Johns Hopkins University graduate. He is working toward a master's degree in strategy and cybersecurity at Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies.