BRAC Logic....NAS Brunswick

I'm trying to figure out the BRAC logic in the realignment of NAS
Brunswick, Maine. The plan is to relocate all the planes to NAS
Jacksonville but keep Brunswick open as a Naval Air Facility.

I can understand the rationale for moving to Jacksonville -
consolidating the P-3/P-8 fleets to a single location makes sense. One
could argue the relative merits of Brunswick vs. Jacksonville (i.e.
Brunswick probably has better airspace and has just spent millions
upgrading all the base infrastructure), but reality is Florida has
more electoral votes and a guy named Bush is governor. So we won't
argue this part for now....

But why keep Brunswick as a NAF then? The stated reason is "homeland
defense", which doesn't make much sense (nor do the base supporters'
arguments about homeland defense makes sense), since BNAS has no
homeland defense mission. An airfield without airplanes - or even an
airfield with P-3s and C-130s - can't do much defending.

This might make sense if, for example, they moved all the ME ANG
aircraft to Brunswick from commercial airfields, and closed Otis ANGB
(MA) and moved the F-15s further up the coast to be closer to an
incoming threat....but that's not happening. ME ANG's existing
location at Bangor will be getting more aircraft and the F-15s from
Otis will be going further south and west. Those F-15s are really the
only "homeland defense" aircraft in these parts.....so any active
"homeland defense" role for the future NAF Brunswick is fiction.

This really seems to be creating exactly the sort of base we're trying
to eliminate....an infrastructure that costs money but doesn't support
any deployable forces. It seems like the Navy will quite reasonably
want to close the base in the next BRAC, since it will be costing
money but doing nothing useful. The communities might reasonably join
in that request, since they would rather have a redevelopment property
than a locked-up, skeleton-crewed airfield.

Can anyone figure out what's going on here?

--
Andrew Toppan --- --- "I speak only for myself"
"Haze Gray & Underway" - Naval History, DANFS, World Navies Today,
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