'Cloud Airpower' -- a three dimensional blanket of microsensors and machines that can dominate a target zone -- is the future of the Air Force. It's how the Air Force will participate in the future of warfare (which will be mostly a form of special operations and not conventional warfare). However, the AF leadership doesn't want to acknowledge it. Instead, the US Army is doing the innovation/tinkering necessary (this is a rough early effort, but it is coming from the right direction - from the bottom up):
The battalion is called Task Force Odin — the name is that of the chief god of Norse mythology, but it also is an acronym for “observe, detect, identify and neutralize.” The task force of about 300 people and 25 aircraft is a Rube Goldberg collection of surveillance and communications and attack systems, a mash-up of manned and remotely piloted vehicles, commercial aircraft with high-tech infrared sensors strapped to the fuselage, along with attack helicopters and infantry...The Army cobbled together small civilian aircraft, including the Beech C-12, and placed advanced reconnaissance sensors on board. Also assigned to the task force are small, medium and larger remotely piloted Army surveillance vehicles, including the Warrior and Shadow, with infrared cameras for night operations and full-motion video cameras.
All are linked by radio to Apache attack helicopters, with Hellfire missiles and 30-millimeter guns, and to infantry units in armored vehicles.