Well, provided that the USAF was initially split off from the Army because of Strategic bombing, and strategic bombing is DOA, it makes you wonder why we don't become purple, completely.
Duuuh Marine Corps
I got it! We should just draft everybody in the Air Force, Army and Navy and put them in the Marine corpsThey must be laughing at us because how long have they had the concept of a combined Air, Land and Sea Force adapted to what ever situation they currently face.
Well, provided that the USAF was initially split off from the Army because of Strategic bombing, and strategic bombing is DOA, it makes you wonder why we don't become purple, completely.
When everyone is special, no one is.Originally Posted by slapout9
I got it! We should just draft everybody in the Air Force,Army and Navy and put them in the Marine corps
It is right to learn, even from one's enemies
Ovid
not exactly
Mondor, I see your point and the capabilities you talk about are valid:
BUT, these are internally (all services and gov't orgs as well as NATO etc) focused C4ISR issues not threat based future strategic-operational issues. They are VERY IMPORTANT so dont take this the wrong way. I see them as the difference between Wermacht tanks having radios and French tanks not, it is a battlefield C2 issue.
The debate of Airpower vs Groundpower is esoteric, like the old debate of manuever vs attrition. In war a bit of both are always necessary, we exclude options at our peril. Slapout had it right somewhat with the MAGTF (Marine Air Ground Task Force) concept, but Marines pride is taken in being expeditionary, forcible entry, assault or shock troops, from the sea. While sustained land combat is a skill set it is not the prefered method of employment (look to USMC deployments 7 mos vs USA deployments 12-15 mos).
The Army on the other hand is designed principly for sustained land combat (whatever form it takes). If the Army and AF designed an AGTF it would have to be viewed in this light. Even a constabulary brigade or division can be an AGTF, it is just the mission-purpose and intent would be the driving force for the troop, technology and vehicle mix.
Semper Fi, --T
My position is that if we do not address these internal issues then we will continue to be in a reactive mode to strategic-operational issues. How can we determine the relevance of our actions to a potential future threat if we do not have a good grasp on what we are doing ourselves? I guess the old maxim “know your enemy as you know your self” is the root of the problem. We do not know, communicate and share data amongst, ourselves, so how can we know the enemy? Difficult to win in COIN when you have no idea what you opponent is up to.
The data and organizational argument ties into the air V. ground argument in a direct way. Until we are able to communicate with ourselves and targeted external groups (NGOs, non-NATO forces…) we will not be able to bring the correct tools to bear on a situation as quickly as we should. It is very much a pro tailored task force argument.
Imagine a PRT that has State, US Mil (air and ground), Coalition, Host Nation, and NGO members/partners. Each is able to view a common operational picture and the organization is tasked based, and may even have a (shock, gasp) civilian lead.
After reading this I realize I am probably off topic. I need to compose my thoughts on this in a thesis level of effort paper and not in the Air V. Ground discussion.
It is right to learn, even from one's enemies
Ovid
Mondor,
I am working the issue you bring up. You can forget the NGO integration on a team. The key to any of this in any role is identifying your core competnecies as an organization, and developing them in people within the organization that enables them to particiapte in a construcitve manner. This means that more is not always better. As far as the USAF goes, I think a lot of us have weighed in with some things that the USAF could do in COIN.
The PRT as an Air Ground Task Force (+)
Mondor,
Good point with the PRT angle. Regardless of the systems that do the intergrating the point of creating a multi-purpose task force, tailored to the mission at hand is excellent.
The idea of a task force that integrates air and ground combat units with logistics, multi-national units, government support units (indigenous-local, UN, DOS, DOJ etc) is right on. Liaisons (with cellphones) for NGO's is about all you can expect from most of these. NGO's do not generally want to associate with the gov't forces as it violates their neutrality rules.
Mondor, I hear what you are saying about special but have we gone overboard. We have Airborne units,Special forces,Rangers,SEALs,Recon, USMC in general plus Air Force PJ and even the Coast Guard has rescue swimmers. If you get to special I think you end where you talked about nobody is special. Anyway just a thought.
TROFION, relative to a force/organization for COIN why don't we let a COMBINED ARMS team CLEAR, let the MP's HOLD, and let the ENGINEERS build under a USA Military government and when it is stable enough, turn it over to the civilian host nation government with a letter saying we fixed now don't screw it up?
Clear: IA with US MiTTs and Coalition combined arms.TROFION, relative to a force/organization for COIN why don't we let a COMBINED ARMS team CLEAR, let the MP's HOLD, and let the ENGINEERS build under a USA Military government and when it is stable enough, turn it over to the civilian host nation government with a letter saying we fixed now don't screw it up?
Hold: Combination of IA with MiTTs, IP with MiTTs, and combined arms battalions all sync'd in their shared AO with US Commanders of the combined arms unit serving as the OIC of the AO.
Build: As much as possible should be rebuilt by local Iraqis with any required technical oversight and guidance provided by Engineers (Do US Army Corps of Engineers sourced MiTTs with the Iraqi equivalent of USACE and local civil building code enforcers exist?). However, large infrastructure projects will probably require coalition military Engineer units (Horizontal, vertical, prime power, well drilling...).
Jon hit the nail on the head. Any hopes to foster any progress are nested in the combined efforts that place the ISF to the forefront of any operation. Without the Iraqis this will all fall apart. By placing them at the tip of the spear in all 3 phases not only do they gain experience but they gain the support of the people. My only issue is placing CAB commanders in charge of the AO. There's going to have to be a balance there, especially since the country is sovereign. More like a joint command between CAB commanders and IA/IP commanders.
Agree with all, it has to be a combined everything with Iraq for it to stick and for them to believe in themselves and their country.
Ngo
I agree with the NGO statement. In the field they do not want to be associated with any military force. Some of them are rabid anti-military and will not associate with military types even at the cost of the lives of the folks they are trying to help. However, folks like MSF would probably like to get information on demographics, roads, and medical data (outbreak points, reports of communicable diseases...), if not directly from us then through a third party such as the IRC or UNHCR. So probably no "embedded" NGO bodies, but a council of interested parties would be feasible. I know something like this worked in the Balkans and in the early days in Afghanistan.
It is right to learn, even from one's enemies
Ovid
Wow, sounds an awful lot like the plan of action used in Germany and Japan in from 1945 into the 1950's. The first step of using the recently disarmed military forces to start the reconstruction effort is one that we can not go back in time and initiate. However, there is no reason that a CCC type program, with education, civic lessons, in addition to the work could not work now.
The CCC would not only help clean the place up and put money in the local economy, but could serve as a potential recruiting ground for law enforcement, military, and government agencies.
I would love to see something like this tried on a national level in Afghanistan. I would especially like to target the poppy growing areas. Part of the work could be land reclamation/restoration and less destructive farming techniques.
In either country it would create jobs, establish a positive government presence, and take a large number of unemployed potential bad guy trigger pullers off the street and put them to work. Part of the trouble in Afghanistan seemed to be that the only way these young guys had to impress their friends was to shoot of a magazine of rounds at the coalition forces.
It is right to learn, even from one's enemies
Ovid
Don't airpower advocates assume that any given situation - counterinsurgency or otherwise - can be solved/resolved by: creating more effective ordinance; finding more effective ways to put said ordinance on target? Isn't that really the gist of the airpower argument?
I don't think you can stop an insurgency or win 4GW that way whether the ordinance is bullets or bombs. Maybe if mass destruction/total annihilation was acceptable, but otherwise no.
My local AFN radio affiliate informs me that the Air Force has another weapon in the GWOT. "Show of Force". I guess B1s fly over populated areas at night, popping flares at low altitude with 'burners lit. And they publicize this to the press as "aiding the war on terror".
LAWVOL -
here's a link:
http://lightfighter.net/eve/forums/a...1791061302/p/1
Airpower
The comments by Rifleman and 120mm are exactly what I'd like to change in the AF. I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I firmly believe that lethal airpower is not the solution to an insurgency. Bombs on target are quite effective at killing bad guys. Unfortunately, no matter how precise, they nearly always kill a civilian or damage some property that is used by the civilian population. Thus, in killing one insurgent, you inevitably create another (or more) so that relying on lethal airpower to defeat an insurgency becomes a sisyphean task.
The "show of force" tactic is completely stupid. You still acheive the negative effect mentioned above, but you don't kill a bad guy. It's equivalent to making Sisyphus' rock heavier each time. We're still caught up the "bomb 'em to the stone age" mentality frm Vietnam. I think some of the younger officer corps realized this, but the leadership either doesn't understand (or doesn't want to understand).
120mm: thanks for the link. I'll check it out.
I was at a talk by the Norwegian Foreign Minister yesterday, and that is the model (a multi-state NGO council) that they are using - a single point source for NGO development aid. He did, however, note that one of the problems that that model has is that they have no security elements embedded in it and no budget for security elements. This is one of he factors that has een making it hard for NGOs to operate in areas like Darfur, and also in many of the UNHCR run refugee camps.
Believe it or not, one of the biggest problems with NGOs is bureaucratic, i.e. they all have their own reporting forms / structures, and so much time and energy is tied up in host countries filling in the forms, they frequently will refuse new aid.
On using UNHCR, I would advise against it. They are overly bureaucratic and, on the whole, dedicated to image presentation and fundraising rather than any actual work on the ground. Their record speaks for them in this sense. For example, consider the refugee camps in Uganda, which are under UNHCR "oversight". Their mandate includes granting a recognition of refugee status that will be accepted internationally for purposes of immigration fast tracking, but they take years to do this processing. In fact, they are so poor at it that the birth rate in the camps exceeds their processing rate.
Marc
Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
Senior Research Fellow,
The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
Carleton University
http://marctyrrell.com/
I think one of the biggest issues with AF leadership (as I've mentioned before) is that the two major contributions (CAS and airlift) that the AF can make NOW to small wars are two things that they do not want to do (for a number of cultural reasons). You're right, LawVol, in the observation that many of the younger officers understand or see this, but they don't have an impact on a leadership that still clings to the old ways.
"On the plains and mountains of the American West, the United States Army had once learned everything there was to learn about hit-and-run tactics and guerrilla warfare."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War
If it's any consolation, LawVol, I'm fighting the exact same kind of idiot thinking in the Army. Just on different issues.
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