Air Force Doctrine on C2

[selil]

After having read John Robb's book "Brave New War" it becomes instantly apparent that he's a systems guy. Looking for the key stone in any system whether it be economic, technical, or command will allow for a collapse of that system. His examples in the book are readily apparent as real world examples of system collapse.

When looking at power, water, food, or government for effectiveness in war de-centralization of decision making capacity and generation of ideas (food, water, power) are imperative. This distributed system is incredibly effective in keeping telephone and computing systems functional no matter the level of the disaster. The Internet is a distributed communications system. The ideas of distributed networks are not new and fairly well analyzed.

Into this fray I find this in my in-box today.

“Command and control” is one of the key operational functions as described in Air Force Doctrine Document 1, Air Force Basic Doctrine. It is the key operational function that ties all the others together to achieve our military objectives. Our doctrine for command and control rests on the Air Force tenets of centralized control and decentralized execution. A commander of Air Force forces will be designated whenever Air Force forces are presented to a joint force commander. This designation provides unity of command.

....

"Command and control of air and space power is an Air Force-provided
asymmetric capability that no other Service or nation provides,"
according to a new U.S. Air Force publication on the subject. See
"Command and Control," Air Force Doctrine Document 2-8, June 1, 2007:

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/usaf/afdd2-8.pdf

Centralized control and decentralized execution are not distributed nor are they an asymmetric advantage or capability. Reading through the document I'm flabbergasted by the total lack of understanding of distributed systems knowledge.

From the document it suggests that all air and space assets will require the commander of those assets to be contacted prior to their utilization or change in mission status. In other words on first blush what is discussed as de-centralized execution is actually reinforcement of silos of command and control.

Interesting reading having just finished Robb's book.

[Ken White]

". . .

* 'Centralized control and decentralized execution are not distributed nor are they an asymmetric advantage or capability. Reading through the document I'm flabbergasted by the total lack of understanding of distributed systems knowledge.'*

From the document it suggests that all air and space assets will require the commander of those assets to be contacted prior to their utilization or change in mission status. In other words on first blush what is discussed as de-centralized execution is actually reinforcement of silos of command and control.

Interesting reading having just finished Robb's book.

snicker at some of the pronouncements that come forth on air warfare...

And one reason I'm not a Robb fan.

Very good catch, BTW

[Ski]

I've heard the same thing from Army officers however. At the Armor Advanced Course in 2002, my instructor used to preach the whole "centralized planning and decentralized control" foolishness.

As Chet Richards stated at the Boyd Conference, it should be "centralized vision, decentralized execution."

[Steve Blair]

This is a thread that runs constantly through AF doctrine, though. They seem to have convinced themselves that a massive ATO, that cannot be changed without 48 hours' prior notice, IS decentralized execution.

One thing that has to be understood about some AF doctrine is that it's an exercise in a limited form of self-justification (both for internal and external consumption). It must support the AF vision (and its reason for existence) first and foremost, and it's been that way since the beginning.

I'm not saying the Army's better (or worse). Just pointing out that with AF doctrine you will always find that "Airmen controlling Airmen" and centralized planning mantra. A legacy of SAC in many ways.

[Ken White]

an movement of decision making to ever higher levels is short sighted and inimical to combat. Given a big busy war, it'll disappear but as long as our efforts are relatively small scale as in Iraq and Afghanistan, the beast will live. It should not.

Centralization generally is more efficient -- it is almost never more effective.

Over control invaded the Army during Viet Nam. Battalion Commanders in the post 1967 period found they had few Captains, few senior NCOs but had plenty of new Lieutenants and Instant NCO Sergeants. The kids were incredibly dedicated and smart but were short on experience. They had to be watched constantly. Thus begun "engineering for success." Micromanagement, simply put.

When those LTC became senior Generals, they came up with bright ideas like issuing all LRS units digital cameras and modems so the troops could send pictures back to TOCcus Giganticus so that proper decisions could be made. Of course, the troops would have 'accidentally dropped' their megabuck megapixel cameras on the jump to get rid of the weight -- and the over the shoulder management. That never occurred to said Generals (and in fairness, neither did their well paid and theoretically experienced and supposedly apolitical Sergeants Major who forgot that they got paid to keep the Flags from doing dumb stuff warn them of the problem).

We have developed processes over the years due to a number of factors. Initially the Signal Corps operated all the Radios due to the complexity; all the FOs were Officers because they had an education and could do the math. By WW II, that had changed, yet for bureaucratic reasons, both habits died only slowly. One is still around.

Fast forward to today. Not a reason in the world for LTs to be FOs (other than populating the FA Branch), for UAV steerers or Cround FACS to be pilots. Nor is there any reason to think a General in Tampa or Doha can make better decisions than a Brigade or Battalion commander on the ground in the 'Stan or Iraq.

I understand network centric warfare and I understand big pictures. Most of us do to one extent or another. I also understand that the US Army tends to opt for technical solutions to training problems and that those solution do not work more often than they do work. Lack of training and failure of technology then contribute to experience. The cost is generally higher casualties for us.

Innovation and initiative have long been tenets of US doctrine; both have been resoundingly squashed in recent years, not by design but by fear. Fear of failure and fear of not remaining competitive. Zero Defects has much to answer for...

"Centralized vision, decentralized execution" is Commanders Intent (a General Officer thing) and trust the troops to do the job without telling them how to suck eggs, not much more. Leadership is know your job, do your job and be fair. I submit he who over controls is violating all three precepts. Viet Nam may have created a monster but it's time to kill it; we train better today, much better and there's a lot of talent out there that is being consumed by over control.

[Van]

My thoughts on the nature of the USAF are in the "Air Power vs Ground power debate" thread of old, but...

Ken, you nailed it, this is the USAF institutional wisdom hard at work, but it goes back further than SAC. This is fallout from Army Air Corps TTPs circa WWII and earlier. Centralized control and decentralized execution goes all the way back to WWII bomber squadrons with a single navigator for the entire squardon, and all the other planes flying formation on the navigator's aircraft. The AAC and the Army leadership made some very delibrate but short-sighted decisions about how to train pilots, and we continue to suffer the consequences. Yes folks, in the grander scheme of things, this is the Army's fault. (I'm Army, and this is painful to admit).

On the other hand, the USAF's ability to gain and maintain air dominance (more than just air superiority) has been a decisive edge for our ground forces since the sixties, when it is relevant (not like the early part of Viet Nam) and we choose to exploit it.

I think the greater problem than nuts and bolts of operations today is competition for appropriations. Senior leaders in all services spend too much time viewing the sister services as competitors for budget, and not enough time trying to avoid duplication of effort and figuring out how to improve interservice compatibility and operations. True jointness is not every service having aircraft that can work together, it is have aircraft from the air service that support the theater commander's vision without distinguishing between air, ground, info ops, etc objectives, focusing on theater objectives rather than air component objectives. We're better than we were in Viet Nam, when a request for Marine aircraft to cross into SAC airspace had to go through the Pentagon, but we can do better.

[Steve Blair]

Actually the centralized planning and checklist mentality is very much a SAC creation, at least in terms of the hardening of the creative arteries within the AF planning culture. It was this sort of thinking that lead to the heavy bomber losses in the first days of Linebacker II. They would have been right at home with a massive ATO that took three days to change.