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

Notes

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1) Alvin and Heidi Toffler, War and Anti-War, (New York: Warner Books, Inc. 1993) P. 2

2) In their cover letter to Volume One of the Air Force Strategic Plan the Air Force Secretary and Chief of Staff write, “Threats to America’s security still exist. The Cold War has transitioned to one of regional instability, fueled by ethnic, cultural, territorial, and resource rivalries. The challenges we envision for the next century require a certain type of military—one which is smaller, more efficient, more agile, more expeditionary in nature.” Department of the Air Force, Volume One: Air Force Strategic Plan, March 1998, P 1.

3) “A National Security Strategy for a New Century,” The White House, May 16, 1997, P. 7 The National Defense Panel, (NDP) “Transforming Defense: National Security in the 21^st Century,” Washington, DC, December 1997, P i

5) Joint Vision 2010, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1997, P. 8

6) Ibid, P 16

7) See the discussion of the JFACC, component command relationships, and tasks assigned to the JFACC in Joint Pub 3-0, Doctrine for Joint Operations, (GPO: 1 February 1995), Joint Pub 3-56.1, Command and Control for Joint Air Operations, (GPO, 14 November 1994), and Joint Pub 3-03, Doctrine for Joint Interdiction Operations, (GPO: 10 April 1997).

8) Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD)-1, Air Force Basic Doctrine, (Department of the Air Force, September 1997), P 51.

9)“Daniel Goure and Christopher M. Szara, Air and Space Power in the New Millennium, (Washington, DC: The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1997) P. 44. Additionally, Air Force’s lead doctrine document states, “. . . the more recent history of air and space power application, especially post-DESERT STORM, has proven that air and space power does now have the potential to be the dominant and, at times, the decisive element of combat in modern warfare.” AFDD-1, p 41

10) Maj Gen Charles Link, presentation to the Headquarters US Air Force Strategy Forum, June 26, 1997

11) ibid, p

12) Russell F. Weigley, The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy, (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1973), p xiii

13) Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Operations, Department of the Army, June 1993, p 1-4

14) A Statement on the Posture of the United States Army—Fiscal Year 1996 (Washington: Department of the Army, 1995 pp 26-27

15) See the Secretary of Defense Annual Report to the President and the Congress, April 1997, p 158.

16) William E. Odom, “Transforming the Military,” Foreign Affairs, July/August 1997, Pp.54-64

17) Ibid, P.58

18) “Force XXI: Land Combat in the 21^st Century,” a U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command pamphlet, P. 24. Also see for example Major Robert F. Larsen, “The Role of Airpower,” Army, March 1998, P 8-9

19) One recent analysis reported, “Most analyses of future MRCs share a common conclusion—airpower, and particularly heavy bombers, would play a crucial role in stopping an enemy invasion during the crucial Halting Phase while the US is still in the midst of deploying forces to the theater.” Barry Blechman and Paul N. Nagy, U.S. Military Strategy in the 21^st Century, (Arlington, VA: IRIS Independent Research, 1997), p 9. Additionally, Edward Luttwak concluded that “Fixed garrisons based on heavy ground forces with air, naval, and strategic-nuclear components were appropriate to cope with geographically fixed threats. They are not appropriate to cope with contingencies that could materialize as threats in unpredictable locations.” Dr Edward Luttwak, “Air Power in US Military Strategy,” in Richard H. Schultz and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., eds., The Future of Air Power in the Aftermath of the Gulf War, (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1992), P 17.

20) See Richard P. Hallion, “Airpower and the Changing Nature of Warfare,” Joint Forces Quarterly, Autumn/Winter 1997-89, pp 39-46. Dr Hallion writes on page 40 that, “. . . armies and navies worldwide are developing air and space forces, supplanting traditional expenditures on troops, tanks, and warships.”

21) Luttwak, P 23. Additionally, the Air Force Chief of Staff said: We must also avoid the dangerous pitfall that is, “a belief that air power is a panacea—a tool to be called upon regardless of the objectives. Air power, like any other form of combat, has its limitations, and no form of combat can be effective in the absence of coherent political and military objectives.” See General Ronald R. Fogleman, “Multinational Joint Doctrine . . . An Airman’s Perspective,” a presentation to the NATO Army and Air Chiefs Conference, October 11, 1995.

22) See Captain James F. Pasquarette and Colonel William G. Foster, "An Army Brigade Goes Afloat," Proceedings, May 1994, pp. 89-92. Also, the final coordination draft Joint Pub 4-01.2, Joint Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Sealift Support to Joint Operations, discusses the Army-Navy afloat prepositioning ship program on page IV-12.

23) Quoted in, John T. Correll, “The Clash of Visions,” Air Force Magazine, April 1997, p 2.

24) General Ronald R. Fogleman, “Advantage USA: Air Power and Asymmetric Force Strategy,” Air Power History, Summer 1996, p 7

25) ibid, p 12

26) See Joint Vision 2010. Specifically the vision states, “The American people will continue to expect us to win in any engagement, but they will also expect us to be more efficient in protecting lives and resources while accomplishing the mission successfully.” P 8 Additionally, on page 17 it says, “By 2010, we should be able to change how we conduct the most intense joint operations. Instead of relying on massed forces and sequential operations, we will achieve massed effects in other ways.”

27) Approved Air Force Doctrine Document 2-1.2, Strategic Attack, currently in final preparations for release by the US Air Force, p 1

28) Colonel David A. Deptula, Firing for Effect: Change in the Nature of Warfare, (Aerospace Education Foundation: 1995)

29) Ibid, P. 10. In describing the concept of parallel war as it was applied during the 1991 Gulf War, Col Deptula writes about the Iraqi electrical grid, “The determinant of whether to plan a strike on an individual site was whether the electrical system was operating in the area of interest, not the level of damage or lack thereof to an individual site.” P. 11

30) The EURAC Perspective on: Air Power’s Contribution to Security and Stability, a report prepared under the direction of the European Air Chiefs’ Conference, September 1996, p 32.

31) AFDD-1, P 24

32) Perhaps the most recent example of this sort of Napoleonic thinking is the previously referenced article by Retired Army general William E. Odom, “Transforming the Military,” Pp 54-64.

33) The National Security Strategy states, “Decisive force is the commitment of sufficient military power to overwhelm all armed resistance with a minimum of collateral damage and loss of life . . . .” A National Security Strategy for a New Century, May 1997, p 24

34) Jeffrey R. Cooper, “Strategy,”, Air and Space Power in the New Millennium, p. 72.

35) Maj Gen Charles D. Link, USAF, “The Role of the US Air Force in the Employment of Air Power,” in Richard H. Schultz and Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., eds., The Future of Air Power in the Aftermath of the Gulf War, (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 1992) p 85. Lt Col Johnny Jones writes, “. . . it seems the product of jointness is often confused with the purpose of jointness. Joint operations should not be considered an end unto itself, but rather a means to an end . . . .“ LtCol Johnny Jones, “Core Competencies: Maintaining Service Identity for Joint Effectiveness,“ appeared on the College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research, and Education (CADRE) web page Air Chronicles on June 23, 1997

36) Lt Col Johnny Jones, p 2.

37) The Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), (May 1997, p 13) reaffirmed both the 2 major theater wars (MTWs) planning scenario and the need to accomplish these MTWs by stopping two enemy invasions—“. . . being able to rapidly defeat initial enemy advances short of their objectives in two theaters in close succession, one followed almost immediately by another.”

38) LtCol Johnny Jones, p2

39) Strategic Assessment, 1997, (Washington, DC: Institute for National Strategic Studies, 1997), p 250.

40) Field Manual 100-5, Operations, Department of the Army, June 1993, p 1-4.

41) QDR, p 4

42) Ibid., p 13

43) In this regard, the National Security Strategy says, “Because of our dominance in the conventional military arena, adversaries who challenge the United States are likely to do so using asymmetric means, such as WMD, information operations or terrorism.”P 14. QDR goes further: In a conventional war with the US, an adversary “could also employ asymmetric means to delay or deny U.S. access to critical facilities; disrupt command, control, and communications, and intelligence networks; deter allies and potential coalition partners from supporting U.S. intervention; or inflict higher than expected U.S. casualties in an attempt to weaken our national resolve.” QDR, p.4

44) See QDR pp. 12,13 & 17 and National Military Strategy

45) Richard G. Davis, Decisive Force: Strategic Bombing in the Gulf War, Air Force History and Museums Program, 1966, p 74.

46) The EURAC Perspective. . . , p. 8.

47) Ron Fogleman, “An Open Letter to My Fellow Daedalians,” Winter 1997

48) See James Kitfield, “To Halt an Enemy,” Air Force Magazine, January 1998, p. 65.

49) See a detailed discussion of the Army and Air Force post Vietnam rivalry in, Gene Myers, The Army-Air Force Doctrinal Disputes: Symptoms or Causes, published by the Aerospace Education Foundation’s Eaker Institute for Aerospace Concepts, April 1998.

50) NDP, P59

51) A recent Air Force Magazine article stated, “Defense Department leaders have generally spread the pain of the post-Cold War drawdown equally, cutting each service by roughly a third since 1989.” See Kitfield, “To Halt an Enemy,” p. 63.

52) In their study of airpower in the 21^st century Barry Blechman and Paul Nagy concluded, “. . . if the US military continues with its traditional method of implementing budgetary and force structure reductions in a proportional manner, it will run the risk of being incapable of executing the missions required of it in the next century.” Blechman and Nagy, P20.45

53) Department of the Air Force, Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21^st Century, 1997, p13.

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