Air Power in the New COIN Era
Air Power in the New COIN Era: The Strategic Importance of USAF Advisory and Assistance Missions
Quote:
With insurgency growing in importance as a national security problem, it is receiving new interest across the services, in the Department of Defense (DoD), and elsewhere in the U.S. government. Although ongoing operations in Afghanistan and Iraq give particular immediacy to the problem, the challenge of insurgency extends well beyond these specific conflicts. It is important, therefore, that the U.S. Air Force (USAF) consider how to meet the growing demand for air power in joint, combined, and interagency counterinsurgency operations and that other services’ and DoD-wide reassessments of the subject take the potential roles of air power in counterinsurgency fully into account. In particular, airmen should take the lead in exploring how air power might work in combination with other military and civil instruments to help avert the development of an insurgency or perhaps to check a growing insurgency long enough to allow political and social initiatives (the heart of any successful counterinsurgency strategy) to take hold.
To address these and related policy challenges, RAND Project AIR FORCE conducted a fiscal year 2005 study entitled “The USAF’s Role in Countering Insurgencies.” This study addressed four major policy questions:
(1) What threat do modern insurgencies pose to U.S. interests?
(2) What strategy should the United States pursue to counter insurgent threats?
(3) What role does military power play in defeating insurgencies?
(4) What steps should USAF take to most effectively contribute to counterinsurgency?
This work builds on more than 40years of RAND Corporation work on insurgency, peace operations, and other types of lesser conflicts. This monograph has several purposes and audiences. First, it seeks to be a short primer on the problem of insurgency, counterinsurgency principles, and the role of air power in countering insurgencies. It is hoped that it will be a valuable introduction for airmen new to the topic. Second, it is hoped that the analysis on the potential demand for advisory assistance, as well as the data collection and analysis of recent 6th Special Operations Squadron (6 SOS) missions, will offer new insights to counterinsurgency practitioners in USAF. Finally, the monograph seeks to offer senior USAF leaders a way ahead to develop increased capability in this area without sacrificing the Air Force’s edge in major combat operations...
Frustration All Around...
It is a terrible, terrible fact that "transformation" has been high-jacked by those who see high-ticket, high-technology solutions to every problem-set we now, and will for the foreseeable future, face. I have been working these issues (urban, asymmetric, IW, COIN, etc...) for ten years. Every time I think we have turned the corner and the light bulbs are popping on someone or some “program” flips off the switch. IMHO, the USAF and USN are most guilty – but others are too. Programs that have emanated out of JFCOM’s J9 over the last several years smack of inmates taking charge of the insane asylum. Moreover, as has been posted on another thread here today – our ground forces are still struggling for solutions – and not necessarily at the tactical level…
AFROTC may not be the best indicator...
I don't know what AFROTC is doing.
I am doing the AF's Air Command and Staff College (ACSC) by correspondence right now, and I think a lot of SWJ folks would be surprised by the amount of focus on Small Wars in the courses.
I'm on the 5th of 7 classes. The first was on leadership... std mil leadership stuff.
The National Security class focused extensively on the interagency... 2/7 lessons were mainly dealing with the interagency process, mostly using OIF and OEF Phase IV as the examples. State's Coord for Reconstruction and Stabilization was discussed extensively. Weak and Failing States and Terrorism was another lesson, for a total of 3/7 in the National Security lesson on topics similar to what I've read here. The other lessons are the basics of how the NSC, PDDs, etc work, and then a WMD lesson.
The Strategy and War (SW) class, you would think, would focus mostly on the F-22s kicking down the door for B-2s to take on the IADS and HV tgts... but no, it mostly focused on small wars.
The strategy lesson of the SW class was standard... what is strategy, examples, etc. The War lesson focused on how a war is really won after the "Shock and Awe" is done, and the vanquished need to be made a functional country again.
The American way of war lesson was the closest to what I would have expected, but included some articles about the effectiveness of the traditional American way of waging war.
The other ways of war lesson included an article by SWJ's own Steve Metz, as well as one by Col Nagl.
Even the Transformation and OIF lessons in the SW class focused on Phase IV ops... other than a Cebrowski article, the other readings dealt with Stabilization/reconstruction or 4GW...
The Expeditionary Airpower class was mostly history of airpower and foundations, but had some pretty good stuff on Vietnam, and the treatment of OIF and OEF had some frank discussions, as well as articles like "EBO in Small Wars" and "The Phase IV Fight".
3/7 lessons in the NS class on Small Wars-type stuff.
5/7 lessons in the SW class.
Some good stuff in the Airpower class.
So far I have read very little about Shock and Awe, or big air campaigns... in fact, almost none. All this in the AF's premier PME course, the one that is supposed to take Majors from tacticians and take them into the realm of operational art and strategy...
Now, I know that I will once again be seen as defending the AF. Which I am, because I am part of it. :) But I have to tell you that the AF in general is very focused on the fights in OEF and OIF in particular, and pretty focused on Small Wars in general (almost too much at times if you ask me). Is it in the way folks on this forum would like? Maybe not - I think we tend to look more at what our capabilities are using high intensity systems to support the low-end fight.
That said, a couple facts:
The AF has about 6000+ folks deployed with the Army on "In Lieu of Taskings".
Under Total Aircrew Management Initiative (TAMI 21), 180 young fighter pilots are being sent to Predator and to U-28s and PC12s to support the GWOT. The single squadron of U-28s is being augmented by an unspecified number of PC-12s, according to Air Force Magazine.
Predator CAPs are being boosted from 12 to 21 according to DefenseNews.
I am sure not everything is as it could be if we had a lot more money to spend. But as I've said before, if you don't have enough F-22s and F-35s to stop those who by 4th gen fighters and double digit SAMs, then you're not going to have to worry about the small wars for long, because pretty soon someone will decide to go for a big one.
I think the USAF is caught in the position of having to org, train, and equip for a high end war as well as low end, while in two low end fights. That combined with a lot of old airplanes means that you have to balance risks. I think with the Army neccessarily having to focus more on the low end, it makes sense for the USAF and USN to support that effort while hedging on the high end - reduces the risk of us getting caught flat footed in the near term.
Anyway, it has been instructive to go through some of these classes after having been involved in the discussions here. I look forward to learning more - my next class is the Joint Forces one so I am sure I will be asking some questions.
V/R,
Cliff
I do not mean this to be derogatory or in any way
insulting, it is a serious, non-snarky comment appropos of yours -- I have seen that for many years (believe it or not, the USAF existed before I put on a war suit, not long, mind you but it was there...) and I am convinced it has a lot to do with attitude. A whole lot...