The Never Ending Airpower Versus Groundpower Debate

[Tom Odom]

Just stumbled onto two studies today;

The first is a 2006 study by RAND entitled Learning Large Lessons, The Evolving Roles of Ground Power and Air Power in the Post-Cold War Era

The roles of ground and air power have shifted in U.S. post–Cold War warfighting operations. Furthermore, the two services largely responsible for promulgating the relevant doctrines, creating effective organizations, and procuring equipment for the changing conflict environment in the domains of land and air—the U.S. Army and the U.S. Air Force—do not appear to be fully incorporating the lessons of post–Cold War operations. Indeed, the Army and the Air Force (and the other services) have tended to view the conflicts of the post–Cold War period through their specific institutional prisms. Additionally, all the U.S. military services have focused the vast majority of their attention on warfighting, to the exclusion of other types of military operations that are increasingly central to achieving national security objectives. These mind-sets must change if the U.S. armed forces are to provide the capabilities most needed to protect and advance national interests in the future.

The study--done for the Air Force in the interest of "jointness"--is very much a wolf in sheep's clothing in some regards, notably I would say in preserving the need for high dollar AF systems. Still it is a remarkable shift from what we in writing Certain Victory encountered from our Air Force counterparts.


And in a similar but more historical vein from the Combat Studies Institute:

Interservice Rivalry and Airpower in the Vietnam War

The historical development of airpower suggests that interservice rivalry is especially prevalent in this particular area of military activity. From the very beginnings of military aviation, armies and navies have argued as to how the new assets should be used, how they should be developed and which service should control them. This was certainly the case in the United States.

The problem has been compounded, rather than resolved, by the development of independent air forces...

This study concentrates on tactical airpower in South Vietnam and deals with the air war over North Vietnam only insofar as it influenced interservice issues in the South. In order to fully understand the interservice airpower issues that emerged during the Vietnam War, it is fi rst necessary to look back at the pre-Vietnam doctrinal background that preceded them. In regard to the Vietnam War itself, the study’s starting point is the arrival of the first US combat aircraft in South Vietnam in 1961, and concludes with the pivotal year of 1968. The latter date is of necessity somewhat fluid, but it forms a rough stopping point because rivalry over airpower issues between the US armed forces seems to have been in decline after this date, or at least it seems to have been subject to attenuation by compromise agreements which were in force until the end of United States involvement in Southeast Asia. Expressions of these compromises are to be found in post-1968 documents, but these reflect pre-1968 experience.

Best

Tom