One of the
odder notions from the National Defense Panel last year was to merge
US Transportation Command with the Defense Logistics Agency to form
a new unified command called the US Logistics Command.
It was a bad suggestion and unlikely to be adopted. The people who framed it
no doubt meant well, though. When they looked at Transportation Command, they
saw it essentially as a link in the supply, distribution, and transportation
chain. They wanted to make that linkage more efficient.
Their point was not altogether without merit, but their perspective was wrong.
The value of logistics (which includes maintenance, supply, and acquisition of
materiel) is too obvious to require explanation. The logistics mission deserves
its own priority and identity. However, the same is true of the Transportation
Command mission.
Although some TRANSCOM activities may closely resemble trucking, shipping, and
distribution functions in the commercial sector, others especially air mobility
go well beyond that and have a critical military element in their composition.
Air mobility consists of airlift and aerial refueling. In the Gulf War of 1991
and the limited Desert Strike operation in September 1996, it was refueling by
tankers along the way that made it possible for bombers to fly nonstop from bases
in the United States and deliver their ordnance in Southwest Asia. Without aerial
refueling, the national strategy of rapid global response to crisis would not
be possible.
Airlift is in constant demand to support forces and operations of all kinds,
but it can also be an operational mission in itself. The classic example is the
Berlin Airlift, of which this year begins the 50th anniversary.
In June 1948, the Soviet Union shut off road, rail, and barge access to Berlin
in an attempt to force out the western powers and absorb Berlin into the Soviet
sector. The only routes remaining open were the air corridors that had been established
formally by previous four-power agreement.
For more than a year, the airlift kept West Berlin alive. Every 90 seconds, another
airplane touched down, bringing food and coal. In all, they made 277,000 flights
into the beleaguered city, delivering 2.3 million tons of cargo. In 1949, the
Russians tacitly conceded that their power play was a failure and lifted the
blockade.
The Berlin Airlift was a great humanitarian mission, but it was more
than that. It successfully defended West Berlin against takeover by a
hostile military power and defeated the Soviet Union in the first big
confrontation of the Cold War. There are not many military operations
in the modern era that rank with it in strategic importance.
The Yom Kippur War was another instance when air mobility had strategic
consequences. In October 1973, with Israel fighting desperately for survival,
the United States sent Military Airlift Command to the rescue. Nine hours
after receipt of orders to go, C-141s and C-5s were in the air with supplies
and ammunition. They maintained Operation Nickel Grass for the next 32
days, through the end of the crisis. Later, Reader's Digest would call
it "The Airlift That Saved Israel." Premier Golda Meir said
that, "For generations to come, all will be told of the miracle
of the immense planes from the United States bringing in the material
that meant life for our people."
It was a dramatic example of the projection of US power and the use
of the armed forces to influence global events.
Air mobility is a military occupation. Sometimes it is a combat occupation.
In January 1968, US Marines at Khe Sanh were encircled and cut off by the North
Vietnamese Army. The Marine outpost sat in a valley and was bombarded by intense
mortar, rocket, and artillery attacks from the surrounding hills. Until the
siege was broken 11 weeks later, Khe Sanh was reinforced and resupplied under
fire by tactical airlifters, who took their share of battle damage in the course
of 1,128 sorties into Khe Sanh.
The primary wartime role of air mobility is to get the other forces to the
fight and to sustain them until sealift begins to arrive, several weeks later.
Most defense analysts acknowledge that air mobility, principally airlift, is
the main constraint on the nation's capability to respond to military emergencies
in faraway places.
Despite a general inclination toward reductions in force structure and personnel,
last year's Quadrennial Defense Review projected an increase in the requirement
for strategic mobility and said that smaller US forces would be adequate only
if they could be transported swiftly and over long distances.
Air mobility means global reach. On a nonstop, 8,000-mile mission last September,
for example, Air Mobility Command C-17s picked up 600 airborne troops in North
Carolina, met tankers operating out of Spain for refueling en route, and delivered
the jumpers, bang on schedule, after 20 hours in the air to their drop zone
in Kazakhstan.
In most operations, air mobility will be a leading force in support of the
mission, but sometimes as in the case of the Berlin Airlift air mobility will be the
mission.
It is a significant instrument of national power. We must take care that the
focus on it is not lost through organizational realignments and mergers.
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