I believe grasping assumptions explicit in ASB will take us a long way toward understanding why the Air Force wants to rid itself of the A-10. The Politico article quotes then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates as saying any defense secretary:
Who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia, or into the Middle East, or Africa should have his head examined.Implicitly that Secretary should look for another line of work.
If we aren't going to commit "a big American land army" to such places, if all we commit are air and naval resources, we aren't going to need ground support aircraft to protect troops there. Thus the very effective A-10 had no role in the AirSea Battle model jointly envisioned by the Air Force and Navy, which doctrine was official policy for several years.
Events, as they often do, have overtaken the ASB. Today the A-10 is hard at work in Iraq and Syria supporting proxy forces on the ground. It would also have a (probably sacrificial) role in any NATO-involved European conflict with Russian armor. Ground warfare isn't as unthinkable today as it was in 2011 when Gates spoke at West Point, thanks to Tsar Vladimir.
