The Air Force often seems to fare better in battle
than it does in peacetime in the corridors of power
in the Pentagon. War plans and joint doctrine emphasize
ground operations. Not even the Gulf War, in which
it was generally agreed that airpower was the decisive
element, managed to change that.
The joint planning models in use today discount the
effectiveness of airpower. Air Force operations not
in support of surface forces are considered "unjoint."
Part of the problem may be that the other services
have had a better explanation--or a better-accepted
one, at any rate--of their operational capabilities.
The Air Force hopes to plug that gap with "Global
Engagement Operations," a comprehensive new formulation
of its capabilities and strategy in the post-Cold War
environment.
An important characteristic of GEO is that its framework
is linked explicitly to the three elements of the National
Military Strategy: shaping the international environment,
responding to the full spectrum of crises, and preparing
for an uncertain future.
GEO casts the Air Force strategic concept into five
stages: shape, deter, halt, win, and re-shape.
The direct hook to the National Military Strategy
is one of several steps the Air Staff is taking to
make GEO as "joint friendly" as possible.
The Air Force is trying its best to explain the advantages
of aerospace power in a manner that is cooperative
rather than confrontational.
"GEO is about joint aerospace power in all its
forms, from all the services," said Lt. Gen. Marvin
R. Esmond, USAF deputy chief of staff for air and space
operations. "Some estimate that spending by the
services for aerospace power amounts to 60 to 70 percent
of the entire Department of Defense budget-from Air
Force aerospace expeditionary forces to Navy carrier
battle groups and Army aviation and missile units.
If we can make the obvious case that every service
makes contributions to deterring, halting, and winning,
GEO will gain acceptance on its own."
Not every crisis scenario will include all five phases.
In the traditional model, early-arriving airpower might
hit the enemy hard, but its role was to buy time for
the Army to get there. GEO makes provision for a classic
joint force counteroffensive but it proposes more options-including
some that are airpower intensive-for the national command
authorities and the theater commander.
For example, if airpower can stop the enemy force,
fix it in place, and deprive it of strategic and operational
initiatives, there may not be a need to proceed with
a ground battle and take the casualties that go with
it. That depends on whether it is necessary to destroy
the enemy or if it is enough to render him incapable
of further action.
A Task From Fogleman
The roots of GEO go back to the spring of 1996. Increasingly
concerned about the "ground-centric" use
of airpower in joint operations plans, Air Force Chief
of Staff Gen. Ronald R. Fogleman directed the Air Staff
to develop a strategic analysis that was "air-dominant
rather than land-centric."
About the same time, in a speech to an Air Force Association
symposium in Orlando, Fla., Fogleman said that a "new
American way of war" was making it possible to
break free of "brute force" attrition campaigns
and move toward "a concept that leverages our
sophisticated military capabilities to achieve US objectives
by applying what I'd like to refer to as an asymmetric
strategy."
In November 1996, Fogleman and Secretary of the Air
Force Sheila E. Widnall announced "Global Engagement:
A Vision for the 21st Century Air Force," which
emphasized the core capabilities of the force and predicted
a greater emphasis on space operations in years ahead.
Reporters asked Fogleman about an assertion in the
new "Army Vision 2010" that land power makes
permanent "the otherwise transitory advantages
achieved by air and naval forces." Fogleman replied
that "those who say only ground forces can be
decisive" in conflicts of the future "are
clearly wrong."
Operational concepts with airpower in an expanded
role were field-tested in the Quadrennial Defense Review
in 1996-97 and in National Defense Panel deliberations
in 1997. Two of the main concepts of "Joint Vision
2010," put out by the Joint Chiefs of Staff just
before the QDR got under way, were "dominant maneuver" and "precision
engagement."
In the big defense reviews, dominant maneuver became
associated with the Army and was pitted, in the bureaucratic
infighting that ensued, against precision engagement,
which was associated with the Air Force. The real sticking
point, though, was the halt phase.
The idea had sprung from the Bottom-Up Review of 1993,
in which Secretary of Defense Les Aspin said that the
first phase of US combat operations would typically
be to halt a moving enemy in a distant theater where
the United States did not have sufficient forces in
place to do the job.
That requirement had airpower written all over it.
Moreover, in the interval since the BottomUp Review,
the Air Force had made considerable progress in long-range
strike capability-and in the attendant effects it could
wreak on an invasion force.
The QDR-NDP Split
In the spring of 1997, the Quadrennial Defense Review
recognized the value of the halt phase. The QDR said
that a prime operational requirement was halting an
enemy force rapidly, short of its objective, and perhaps
avoiding a costly and bloody ground campaign to evict
the enemy from captured territory.
However, the National Defense Panel report later that
year excluded any mention of the halt phase. Its exclusion
was largely due to behind-the-scenes work by the Army,
which was opposed to giving airpower (obviously pivotal
to the halt phase) too prominent a role.
Interservice differences are still pronounced, but
GEO explores for points on which both sides can agree.
For example, an early-arriving aerospace expeditionary
force may get to the crisis quickly, within days of
unambiguous warning but before the enemy invasion force
gets rolling. Its arrival may dissuade the enemy from
making an attack. This situation-"enhanced deterrence" in
GEO parlance-is comparable to an existing Army concept.
"The Army has a term called 'strategic pre-emption'
where one side can act so quickly that the other side's
options or potential for success are nil," Esmond
said. "Essentially, under GEO, the growing expeditionary
capability and lethality of all the services will contribute
to the capabilities of the 'deter' phase and the 'halt'
phase. The joint capability to 'halt' may stop an invasion,
and the perception of that capability may prevent an
enemy from even trying to invade."
GEO Across the Spectrum
GEO goes all the way across the spectrum of conflict,
applying to peacetime operations and Smaller-Scale
Contingencies as well as to Major Theater War. Although
the emphasis is on the response to conflict and the
contribution of aerospace forces to deterring, halting,
or winning it, the "bookends" of the concept--shape
and re-shape--get serious attention.
"Shaping the international environment" is
the continuous effort to maintain security and stability
and to head off situations that lead to crisis. It
includes building trust with friendly nations, contributing
to alliances, sustaining regional stability, demonstrating
commitment, and showing resolve.
Among the Air Force efforts in the shape stage are
the peacetime deterrence of both nuclear and conventional
war, global awareness from air and space, air mobility
to underwrite global presence, and air expeditionary
forces for contingency deployments and operations short
of war.
The deter phase of GEO is the lowest level of response
to crisis. It may include the live demonstration of
military power. The lean, lethal aerospace expeditionary
forces into which the Air Force is organizing its combat
units are ideally suited for such missions.
As the Air Force concentrates its intelligence, surveillance,
and reconnaissance capabilities in the deter stage,
it establishes a dominant situational awareness in
which a close watch is kept on the adversary's movements
and order of battle. Deployment of combat forces in
the deter phase can help to reassure coalition allies
and create for the enemy a perceived fait accompli
of defeat.
Operation Vigilant Warrior some four years ago was
an example of the deterrent capabilities of aerospace
power in a peacetime engagement. On Oct. 6, 1994, US
Air Force satellites and U-2 aircraft detected two
Iraqi Republican Guard divisions moving south toward
Kuwait. USAF fighters deployed from the United States
and US-based B-52s struck targets in view of the Iraqi
army. On Oct. 10, Iraq announced that its troops would
be withdrawn from border areas.
If Deterrence Fails
If deterrence doesn't do the job, affairs move on
to the halt phase, in which the objective will be to
gain control and fix the enemy's forces in place so
that he can no longer mass combat power.
An example of halting the enemy in a small-scale conflict
was Operation Deliberate Force, the three-week air
campaign in Bosnia in 1995 that was the decisive factor
in bringing the Bosnian Serbs to the peace talks in
Dayton. Earlier use of airpower had been sporadic,
incremental, and ineffective, but on Aug. 30, NATO
began sustained and serious airstrikes against Bosnian
Serb military positions. By Sept. 14, the Serbs had
had enough. They agreed to agree to comply with UN
demands and enter the negotiations at Dayton.
The Battle of Khafji, in January 1991, was an instance
of airpower halting an armored advance in a Major Theater
War. On the night of Jan. 29, Iraq launched its only
offensive of the Gulf War, moving armored divisions
against the lightly defended town of Khafji, just across
the border in Saudi Arabia. Their intent was to lure
coalition forces into a ground battle. What they got
was more coalition airpower, which hammered the oncoming
tanks, turned them, and harried them relentlessly during
their retreat. One tank brigade, caught in the open,
was practically destroyed from the air.
"In the context of a Major Theater War, we would
hope that at the end of the halt phase-with the adversary's
objectives denied and a US-led coalition in control
of air, space, land, and sea-that a rational enemy
would conclude that continuing military operations
is senseless," said Esmond. "Unfortunately,
even rational enemies will sometimes continue hostilities,
and that is where the 'win' phase comes in."
The win phase continues the effort without a break
in the action and with whatever force is required to
defeat the enemy decisively. Among the joint force
commander's options are to intensify operations against
the adversary's remaining capabilities with precision
attack and information warfare. Another option is to
integrate aerospace forces into an all-arms combined
counteroffensive.
Once the enemy is defeated, operations would move
into the re-shape phase, in which the objectives will
be to consolidate the victory, stabilize the situation,
and take measures to prevent the crisis from breaking
out again.
GEO Goes On From Here
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael E. Ryan has
signed off on GEO, and it was briefed to the service's
three- and four-star generals at their Corona Top conference
last June.
The Air Staff has used the "Thunder" campaign
model to run a computer analysis of GEO against scenarios
in the Defense Planning Guidance, with good results.
Even more encouraging, GEO simulations run by 7th Air
Force have led to modification of the joint operations
plan for the Korean theater to include provision for
a halt phase.
In November, the Air Force's premier wargame, held
at Maxwell AFB, Ala., used GEO as the "operational
template" for a week of simulated and computerized
conflict in which three "blue" teams took
on three "red" teams. The basic scenario
tested the response of aerospace expeditionary forces
to a Smaller-Scale Contingency that escalates to include
an enemy cross-border incursion.
Another application coming up for GEO will be the
Air Force's use of it in the debate on revision of
Joint Pub 3-0, "Doctrine for Joint Operations," the
top-rung statement of joint operational policy, this
year. Last summer, Joint Pub 3-09, "Doctrine for
Joint Fire Support"-a new product, and lower on
the policy ladder than Joint Pub 3-0-was published
with the provision that the surface commander holds "primacy" over
operations and control of "fires" within
his area of operations, which may reach for a considerable
distance. Questions about the relationship of air forces
and land forces have flowed forward to consideration
for Joint Pub 3-0.
There is missionary and diplomatic work to be done
on other joint fronts as well. The joint simulation
model, Tacwar, rates the effectiveness of airpower
at less than a third of its actual effectiveness demonstrated
in combat. It also throttles airpower back arbitrarily
in the early part of theater conflict.
A Tacwar simulation of a theoretical future conflict
in Korea, run for the Deep Attack Weapons Mix Study
in July 1996, for example, allocated about 3,000 air
attack sorties a day to halt the enemy in the first
two weeks of conflict. That level of sorties in the
simulation produced a sharp drop in the enemy's military
capabilities.
But then Tacwar cut the sortie rate to 1,500 a day
in order that the Air Force would not run out of preferred
munitions before the joint counteroffensive could begin.
The enemy's military effectiveness rate leveled out
and did not begin falling again until weeks later,
when sorties were again raised to 3,000 a day when
allied ground forces were in place and ready.
Similarly, wargames at the Army training center at
Ft. Irwin, Calif., and elsewhere routinely restrict
air operations in the early parts of theater conflict
scenarios, holding back until ground forces can arrive
to begin an air-land counteroffensive with the Army
taking the dominant role.
The Air Force has taken GEO concepts to the "Army
After Next" wargame, where it generated interest,
and has conducted several briefings for people from
other services. The reception so far has been pretty
good, according to people who were there.
If GEO lives up to expectations, it will be a strategic
conception that helps make the case for airpower beyond
the circles of those who are already convinced.
"The Army had Territorial Conquest and Clausewitz
and the Navy had Sea Control and Mahan," said
an Air Staff officer working on the issue. "At
best, we had Desert Storm and Warden [USAF Col. John
Warden, now retired, author of The Air Campaign in
1988], which was a start, but airmen were more defined
by our stovepipes and controversies than by a unifying
vision of aerospace power."
The Air Force believes that GEO is its best bet to
improve that situation.
