JOINT AEROSPACE POWER:
A NEW NATIONAL STRATEGY

by
Gene Myers
September 16, 1998

A Changing World | Bombs or Boots | The National Aerospace Strategy Recommendations and Conclusion | The Author | Notes

PART II: BOMBS OR BOOTS

The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind, is getting the old one out.

B.H. Liddell Hart

About a year ago I attended a presentation at the Pentagon by then soon to retire Air Force Major General Charles Link.¹⁰ Here was one of the most respected strategic thinkers in his Service giving what would probably be one of his final, if not the last, formal presentations of his active duty career. The room was standing-room-only full, not of generals and very senior Defense Department civilians, but mostly of officers far his junior. They were expecting some controversial parting words. They were not disappointed.

Putting Americans in Harm’s Way

In a nutshell, the thrust of the General Link’s remarks centered on how the US Air Force needed to assert itself more in the joint Service strategy and doctrine world. In his view the US military and nation as a whole has inherited a ground force centric or "boots on the ground" view of military operations. This is a legacy of the Napoleonic era dictum that to convince an adversary’s leaders to accede to your political objectives you must militarily defeat him, and to defeat him you must always destroy his army. In doing this--in dealing with errant nations--even in modern times we tend, as he put it, to want to "put as many young Americans as possible in range of enemy fire as fast as possible"¹¹ because only armies can defeat other armies. Russell Weigley wrote in this vein, “The tendency of war is to require that in order to impose one’s will upon an opponent, the opponent must be disarmed.”¹²

Current US Army doctrine does in fact stress that it is victory over opposing armed forces that provides the path to mission success, even while pointing out the need for reduced casualties.

"The objective of the military in war is victory over the opposing military force at the least cost to American soldiers."¹³

And the 1995 Army posture statement says,

“Wars are won on the ground. Success or failure of the land battle typically equates to national success or failure. The culminating or decisive action of a war is most often conducted by land forces.”¹⁴

The essence of this traditional military strategy for a major land conflict is to halt invading forces, then build up our own substantial surface force, launch a massive counter offensive to defeat the enemy's military, and then terminate hostilities on our terms. This strategy is reinforced in the Secretary of Defense's Defense Guidance.¹⁵ As General Link would no doubt point out, the only real acknowledgment of unique aerospace capabilities is in stopping the invasion. And that is done out of nothing more enlightened than necessity since with few forward deployed forces, aerospace power is the only military component able to react swiftly enough to prevent fait accompli.

Retired Army Lieutenant General William Odom is a clear and ardent representative of the attrition-based “old school” described by the Land Force Model in Figure 1 of this paper. He argues that the value of both Naval and Air Force aerospace forces is in direct support of land force operations--that long-range bombers are ineffective, carrier-based air cannot muster enough power quickly enough to be effective, strategic airlift should be dedicated to deploying ground troops and supporting air, and that the only true precision weapons are owned by the US Army.¹⁶ He made his case for the traditionalists view when he wrote: “Still, army forces, supported by air force tactical air and strategic airlift, offer by far the most effective expeditionary forces for the foreseeable future.”¹⁷ The general is not alone is his opposition to an expanded role for aerospace power in national military doctrine and strategy and in his support for land force “decisive” operations as the apex of the military art. A recent Army TRADOC (Training and Doctrine Command) publication described decisive operations as being the purview of the land force commander and portrayed 21^st century land force operations as not being “markedly different than today.”¹⁸

It is not my purpose here to discount the role of Army forces in the totality of national military operations, but to suggest that, in many cases, there may be a better way than relying so heavily on slow to deploy, labor intensive, casualty prone land forces. That way is through the maximization of our national military aerospace assets. Despite General Odom’s assertions of ground force dominance, we need to remember that it took six months to build the Desert Storm force even before the most recent defense cuts occurred. Air forces, whether of the Air Force or naval variety, are obviously far more responsive than that, and are therefore the force of choice for quick response needs.¹⁹ The fact is that all the Services are now relying more on airpower, and spending a grater share of their budgets on aerospace systems than at any time in history, whether they admit to an emerging predominant role for aerospace forces or not.²⁰

However, as a caveat to what follows here, it must be stressed that airpower is not an all purpose panacea. Aerospace forces are also limited in solving our military problems. As Edward Luttwak wrote,

“One must not overlook the situational limits of air power . . . . The value of bombardment depends on the strategic value of the targets it can actually destroy. The less conventional a war, the fewer the stable and easily identifiable targets of high value. Against elusive guerillas who present no stable targets of any value at all, bombardment remains of little use, even if it is perfectly accurate.”²¹

It is my purpose to emphasize the relevance of aerospace power in situations where these forces can most effectively make a major, if not decisive, contribution while acknowledging the real limits of aerospace power. The defeat of invading armies is a case in point, but aerospace forces can contribute much to direct achievement of national objectives in most scenarios.

But, as General Link explained during his Pentagon briefing, after stopping an invasion by an adversary like North Korea, Iraq, or Iran existing strategies reduce our air sortie rate to that needed to keep the enemy from regenerating his offensive vigor, and wait for the cavalry to arrive. And, of course, traditionally the cavalry is the United States Army--its 70-ton tanks, its 20-ton armored personnel carriers, and its gargantuan logistics tail. A recent attempt to remedy their responsiveness problem can be used to illustrate the Army’s dilemma. The Army has placed the equipment for just one "heavy" armored brigade (two tank and two mechanized infantry battalions with associated support units-4,200 tracked and wheeled vehicles including 123 seventy ton M1 tanks) permanently on board seven 50,000 ton class maritime prepositioning ships. The force's stated purpose is to provide the capability to "project decisive force in response to regional crises."²² In the face of a multi-division enemy armored thrust, one brigade will not make much of a difference, but clearly occupies a hefty percentage of available sealift.

It must also be stressed that the Army’s shore-based prepositioned brigade equipment sets in Kuwait, Qatar and South Korea are of little use if we have problems elsewhere. They are also sure to be prime first strike targets for the local adversary, as admittedly would be forward air bases within range of their weapons. The big difference is that ground forces must be within range of enemy weapons to do their job; air forces do not, at least not permanently.

It was General Link’s point that instead of reducing our air effort to preserve forces and weapons to support the “decisive” land force counteroffensive that may take months to develop and accomplish (if the adversary allows us the time to do so), that the Air Force (as well as Navy carrier air and available Army aviation) should take maximum advantage of the revolution in military affairs to continue the pressure on the enemy and accomplish the job by air if possible. This would attain three objectives: 1. End the conflict more quickly, 2. Save the lives of US ground forces, and 3. If successful, hold in reserve those forces that would otherwise be deployed for action in a second contingency if it occurred.

But ground force traditionalists instinctively seek Napoleon’s “decisive engagement. Army Vision 2010 portrays land force as “the force of decision.” It continues, “land power makes permanent ‘the otherwise transitory advantages achieved by air and naval forces.”²³

However, General Ronald Fogleman, recently retired Air Force Chief of Staff, sees it differently. He sees applying asymmetrical strategies as the key to military success in the 21^st century—defined as a strategy that,

“. . . seeks to attack directly the enemy’s strategic and tactical centers of gravity. . . While these centers vary with each enemy, they generally include leadership elite, command and control, internal security mechanisms, war production capability, and one, some, or all branches of its armed forces. . . .”²⁴

The general goes on to say:

“Current attrition models that assess the results of force-on-force engagements based on force ratios and territory lost or gained are not relevant to forces employed in accordance with asymmetrical strategies.”²⁵

The Joint Chiefs of Staff document, Joint Vision 2010, supports this point of view even while insisting on what some would consider an obsessive pursuit of Service integration. In its support for a reduced emphasis on sequential operations using massed forces in favor of using long-range, highly lethal, precision capabilities to produce “massed effects,” the Vision clearly plays to aerospace power’s strong suit. In emphasizing the capability to replace people and materiel with such advances as stealth, speed, and high precision, it reduces the risk to our military personnel and may serve to at least reduce an adversary’s ability to capitalize on US national casualty aversion through asymmetrical strategies.²⁶

So, it is not just in achieving the rapid halt or even the eventual defeat of the enemy’s army that aerospace power can contribute to our nation’s warfighting doctrine and strategy. Through asymmetrical strategies that emphasize, speed, range, stealth, and greatly increased weapon effectiveness it may more often be the defeat of the enemy nation or coercion of its leaders—the direct attainment of national political goals. Admittedly, aerospace power will not always be able to accomplish such Herculean tasks—and certainly will only rarely operate alone. At times sustained brute force will be required of our nation’s soldiers and sailors. However, to ignore the potential contribution of aerospace power to decisive outcomes is every bit as egregious an error as insisting that air forces can accomplish all possible tasks alone.

We need to understand that, in presence of advanced military systems to do otherwise, “victory” in future conflicts will rarely mean abject, unconditional defeat of an enemy’s military capability as was the case in World War Two. “Success” will increasingly be measured by how well we attain more limited national objectives. This will not involve the grinding, bloody attrition of the enemy’s armed forces, and often his homeland, en route to our objectives as was the case twice in Europe and three times in Asia during this century.

The mission most appropriate to the Air Force variety of aerospace power is not to commit attrition war at all, unless there is no other choice, but to gain control of the situation and then conduct strategic war whenever possible against the enemy’s sources of power—his centers of gravity. Air Force doctrine says as much:

“Strategic attack is defined as those operations intended to achieve strategic objectives by direct attack. It is the intent of these operations to achieve their objectives without first having to engage the adversary’s fielded military forces in extended operations at the operational and tactical levels of war.”²⁷

Strategic Control and National War

Colonel David A. Deptula argues this can be done through control of the enemy. Given the ability to do otherwise, wholesale destruction of enemy targets is no longer the preferred method of convincing an enemy to give up the fight.²⁸ The advent of precision weapons, advanced command and control capability, and stealth systems as well as the concept of parallel warfare has allowed us to control, rather than destroy critical enemy systems and forces. We can now stop his supply, control his communications and see his movements, and attack his strategic rear areas—in many cases we can now render his forces useless. Colonel Deptula maintains that “To render the enemy force useless is just as effective as eliminating the enemy force itself in terms of securing favorable conflict termination.”²⁹

We no longer need to sequentially attack a prescribed set of targets to attain some predetermined level of destruction. Rather, aerospace forces, whether halting an invading army or conducting strategic attacks against an enemy’s deep centers of gravity, need only inflict enough damage to render the force or target system ineffective. As we saw in both World War Two and Desert Storm, an enemy armored commander that is attacked every time he moves will eventually stop moving. An electrical grid overloaded by the destruction of 30 percent of its relay stations may very well collapse on its own. And a surface-to-air missile site in eminent danger of attack from radar seeking missiles just might not turn the radar on during a raid. In each case, the objective—control of the system—is achieved without classic attrition, or annihilation, warfare. It just requires a new way of thinking about dealing with an enemy—one that gets maximum value from available forces while reducing the carnage or war.

Both Generals Fogleman and Link would argue, not that attrition is not at times required, but that blind reliance on it and decisive engagement theory amounts to cardinal sinning. These US authorities are not alone in these beliefs, however. The report of the European nations Air Chiefs’ Conference—all 16 chiefs of national air forces--concluded:

“More directly than any other military means, Air Power can be employed in pursuance of the strategic and operational objective. Air Power need not necessarily be employed against the enemy armed forces in a lengthy battle of attrition. Indeed this should be avoided if at all possible.”³⁰

This is in direct agreement with current US Air Force doctrine which argues that the ability of joint forces to bring disproportionate pressure on enemy leaders has replaced attrition war as the preferred method of achieving national goals.³¹

But adherents of attrition warfare present arguments that would make Ulysses Grant proud. They see nothing “unjoint” about insisting that no conflict can be won without the clash of combined arms teams, with the resultant spilling of soldiers’ blood—it is imbedded in US national strategy and is a long time tenet of joint force doctrine. But these same folks cry foul at the mere hint that airpower can achieve objectives unilaterally or—heresy of heresies—with surface forces in support.³² Perhaps it is purely a habit of endless centuries of land and sea warfare, but a habit that is indulged with blood—ours and our adversary’s, and one that national military guidance describes as no longer appropriate.³³

Destroying the enemy’s Army is key to the degree despotic leaders rely on it for power, and if approached as a ground force crusade, is likely to involve a massive commitment of people and materiel with a resultant high probability of substantial casualties. The degree to which aerospace power can substitute for some, or most, of that commitment in attaining national objectives, not just destroying enemy forces, is a major measure of its effectiveness in the post Cold War era.

This clearly does not imply the demise of the land or sea force portions of the joint force. But it does suggest that adversaries must understand that if they initiate a conflict with the United States, they risk involving vital elements of their national structure as well—especially the levers and sinews of national command and control, not just their armed forces. Surely, they risk their army, but no legitimate target should be immune from the targeteers list unless prohibited by national direction. One respected analyst recently wrote:

“. . . under the old rules [during the Cold War Soviet-American standoff] we never sought ‘rollback’ but merely return to the status quo ante—thereby limiting our opponent’s potential losses. In the new circumstances, our opponents should not be assured that their table stakes are limited to loss of the objective they sought, but crossing the line implies unlimited liability—at least of regime survival. . . the role of fear that unspecified but potentially unacceptable consequences will occur should not be underestimated.”³⁴

The national war concept does not conflict with the notion of controlling rather than destroying the enemy since control can be achieved in more selective ways than in earlier wars. It would also follow that it does not imply indiscriminate slaughter of civilians as was the case in Tokyo, Dresden, and of course Hiroshima during World War Two. We can now bring the nation under more “discriminate attack.” As was shown in Desert Storm and in Bosnia, we can accomplish our purposes, including bringing the war to the enemy nation, without the massive killing of noncombatants or turning them out of their homes. They may be in the dark; they may be terribly inconvenienced; they may not have any form of mass communication or transportation, but for the most part they will not be dead or living in the streets.

To the degree we are successful in achieving strategic control and prosecuting national war from the air and space, and to the degree, as Edward Luttwak pointed out, the conflict can meet the situational limits of a sustained aerial attack, is the degree to which we place fewer young Americans in harms way. Bombs will not always replace boots in 21^st century warfare but joint operations are also not an “everybody plays” proposition. In the end it is General Link again who describes the essence of joint warfare:

“. . .jointness is not a substitute for high levels of competence in a particular medium of warfare but rests on an appropriate degree of integration of these highly developed specialized competencies.”³⁵

And Lt Col Johnny Jones in a discussion of Service specialties, or core competencies, in joint operations, concludes,

“Attaining a totally joint force only serves to cripple Service core competencies, to reduce Service identities to the point that each Service is doing everything somewhat, but none is doing anything well.”³⁶

It is now a matter of insisting that collectively joint aerospace forces have specialties—core competencies--that do not center on supporting land force campaigns—not to the exclusion of such support when it is indeed needed—but as a substitute whenever possible. Only then will the nation’s demanding desire for rapid, highly effective, low casualty, low collateral damage operations be achieved.

Halt, Then What? The Options

The point is that aerospace forces can and should do more than just halting and destroying invading armies. It really is important to remember that since each conflict will be different, different tools must be applied to each situation. It seems almost a given that, for a variety of budgetary and political reasons, increasingly scarce forward deployed air, land, and even sea forces will be even more so in the future. It will, therefore, be increasingly up to those aerospace forces that can be quickly applied to a crisis to carry out at least the initial tasks, whether that is attacking an invading army, enforcing a treaty, or bringing in much needed relief supplies.

In this case, the discussion centers on halting an invading army, actually two of them, “in close succession,” the topic du jour among American military planners.³⁷ It is clear that the first step in bringing any conflict to a satisfactory conclusion is preventing the enemy from achieving their goals in the first place—stopping their advance or changing their mind. But in the case of rapid halt, after the enemy is stopped, the question then becomes—“now what?”

In the modern era there are basically four military options for what to do after an invading army is stopped by aerospace power (or any other means):

1. Pound them from the air just enough to prevent them from getting feisty again. Conserve planes, bombs, crews, and fuel for the combined arms counteroffensive that will follow once sufficient ground forces have arrived to accomplish it. This is attrition war writ large and operates on the premise that objective accomplishment, whatever our national/coalition authorities define that to be, is impossible without first destroying the enemy’s army. This may very well be necessary in some cases, but insisting on it in all cases is to insist on attrition warfare with all the blood, agony, and cost that implies.

2. Pound the now helpless ground force victims as well as their reinforcements and support by air with the same intent as the above counteroffensive option—attrit the enemy’s military as a stepping stone toward ultimate victory (achievement of objectives). This activity may save friendly lives but the end results are the same, destroy the army as a precondition of achieving goals. As with the first option, it also eliminates the holding of the halted force as hostage to political efforts to end the conflict before further bloodshed is required. It may also assume that in some cases destroying an army, by air, or any other means is easier that it really is. An armed enemy, though “halted” and unable to mount a capable offense, can hardly be considered as helpless and certainly will not stop thinking. But controlling that army, preventing its movement, its resupply, or its massing for combat, may be a different story.

3. Keep the halted enemy pinned down and “controlled” by air an/or surface forces while the rest of the available air power goes after the enemy’s “innards” in a strategic and operational level air campaign. Land forces, if available, can serve the vital role of fixing enemy surface forces—keeping them out of mischief for fear of being faced with a land force as well as an air attack. The objective here is to bring the war home to the adversary’s national leaders and population and directly force acceptance of our terms without a lengthy force-on-force attrition campaign. This is essentially what happened in Desert Storm except that we waited for six months for a huge ground force arrive and get set up-something the next adversary will not be inclined to allow.

4. Infinite variations of the above. The unique circumstances of each contingency will, or should, dictate some variation of the previous propositions. This is the true ideal of “jointness”—using forces according to their best contribution to the task at hand—maximizing their core competencies. It eschews traditionalism as obsolete and exploits advances in technology and characteristic American innovation. It should not be a product of Service parochialism, and should certainly not assume any single contribution as being decisive by tradition.

A powerful Air Force can make a potent contribution to any of the four options and, depending on the circumstance, can achieve objectives as the supported Service in a joint force or, on rare occasion, alone (with the Berlin Airlift serving as an excellent example). Again, Lieutenant Colonel Johnny Jones writes, “Rather than insist upon a defense establishment that is totally integrated, we should insist upon the coordination of defined Service competencies.”³⁸ However, a supposedly joint Service publication sponsored by National Defense University had this to say about the Persian Gulf War, and by inference, all military operations involving enemy ground forces:

“The experience in Desert Storm confirmed that ground maneuver forces are needed to liberate territory occupied by an aggressor. The punishing air strikes that the allied forces unleashed against the Iraqi forces occupying Kuwait did a great deal to destroy forces, unit cohesion, and morale. Nevertheless, the conclusion of the war and the expulsion of the Iraqi army took place only when U.S. ground forces drove them out.”³⁹

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