Gen. T. Michael Moseley, Air Force chief of staff, is readying nominees -- as are other service chiefs -- for the post in the wake of President Bush’s announcement earlier this month that Adm. William Fallon, the current head of PACOM, is his new choice to head U.S. Central Command.

“We have, in fact, a couple of very well-qualified candidates we believe we can present,” Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne said in an interview today with Inside the Air Force.

The current roster of four-star combatant commanders includes two Air Force generals who oversee functional commands: Gen. Norton Schwartz, U.S. Transportation Command; and Gen. Lance Smith, U.S. Joint Forces Command.

The regional commands, with Fallon’s pending move to U.S. Central Command, are dominated by Navy admirals, including Adm. Timothy Keating at U.S. Northern Command and Adm. James Stavridis at U.S. Southern Command. Army Gen. Bantz Craddock heads U.S. European Command.

“The Air Force feels very unrepresented” at this level, said an analyst with close ties to the service leadership.

Air Force leaders for more than 20 years have unsuccessfully proposed candidates for PACOM. In 2004, however, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld nominated Gen. Gregory “Speedy” Martin to be the first Air Force general to oversee the Hawaii-based command. Rumsfeld withdrew Martin’s nomination after Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) of the Senate Armed Services Committee linked it to the Pentagon’s failed bid to lease Boeing 767 aerial refueling tankers. Martin was not accused of any wrongdoing.

Fallon eventually filled the post, leaving many Air Force officials feeling “robbed” and as though “it was very unjustly taken,” said the analyst.

Service leaders are hoping Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are willing to pick up where Rumsfeld left off and tap another Air Force general for the Pacific post. While the region consists of vast swaths of sea, Air Force officials contend that these bodies of water are covered by air -- and that any confrontation with China or North Korea would heavily rely on land-based aircraft as well as naval power.

Asked what case the Air Force is making to Gates, Wynne said: “I think the best way is to demonstrate it is clearly a command authority where knowledge or exploitation of the Air Force is a major part of the command structure. I think the tyranny of distance that exists out there, frankly, is one of the best presenters of that.”

Merrill “Tony” McPeak, Air Force chief of staff from 1990 to 1994, said he had little success securing geographic combatant command positions for his generals.

“There’s no reason why we shouldn’t pick the best guy to head these commands, no matter what color uniform he’s wearing,” McPeak said. “We have to get to actual jointness. PACOM has never been a joint command, it’s been a disguised Navy command, and if we believe in jointness, if we believe in Goldwater-Nichols [the 1984 legislation that created the combatant command structure], let’s mix it up. Let’s make it truly joint.”

Brad Glosserman, executive director of the Hawaii-based Pacific Forum CSIS, an arm of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the Navy “does the heavy lifting here, and I think looking at the nature of 21st century challenges and responses, the Navy will assume an even greater role.”

The Defense Department is shifting additional submarines to the Pacific and boosting its naval presence on Guam, and there is regular discussion of moving a second aircraft carrier to the Pacific.

“Whatever the logic of the security challenge may be, you still have to deal with bureaucratic challenges,” Glosserman said. “I think the bureaucratic politics will continue to favor a Navy COCOM.”