Airpower’s Crucial Role in Irregular Warfare

[SWJED]

Airpower’s Crucial Role in Irregular Warfare by Frank Hoffman in the SWJ Blog.

I'm writing to make everyone aware of an outstanding article on airpower's many crucial enabling contributions to Irregular Warfare. I think this will interest everyone given our previous exchanges on airpower and the COIN manual.

General Peck's article is a balanced, even restrained, articulation of what airpower can and has brought to today's ongoing irregular campaigns, and highly recommend it. Gen Peck is the Commander of the Air Force Doctrine Center and Vice Commander of Air University. He brings impressive operational and academic credentials to bear on the subject, including his 300 combat hours in the F-15...

General Peck's article at the link...

[LawVol]

This is a good article and quite clearly articulates the value of airpower's direct approach. However, I've read this before; not the document, the idea. Gen Dunlap has essentially said the same thing before and I know I've read it elsewhere.

This idea continues to emphasize airpower's lethal role to the near exclusion of its non-lethal role. To be sure, Gen Peck provided an outstanding discussion of how ISR, electronic warfare and the like contribute to the Irregular warfare fight, but his application of these skill sets is in support of airpower's lethal application. Read through the article again and you will see this. I counted one sentence that specifically addresses the true nature of COIN. It said:

By providing humanitarian assistance, medical support, and transportation for government officials to remote areas, airpower can promote the government’s credibility and improve the quality of life for its population.

If airpower is to play a significant and meaninful role in COIN, we must move past its lethal approach (which will necessarily be needed) to an approach wherein the indirect application of airpower is more than an afterthought. For example, less emphasis on lethal platforms might allow us to increase our airlift capability. This, in turn, might allow us to avoid some/all road convoys or provide some/more humanitarian assistance. Additionally, perhaps some of the money saved could go towward increasing our skills in law enforcement, construction, BEAR base capabilities and the like. This would permit the AF to take up some slack for our overworked ground forces. We have the capabilities to do civil affairs/humanitarian assitance type operations, but need to devote resources to this. Airlifting a combination construction and law enforcement team into a town on the heels of combat operation would make more of a difference is future stability than bombs on target.

The general's emphasis on developing "adaptive, creative, and knowledgeable" airmen is a breath of fresh air. I sincerely believe that we need people willing to challenge tradition in the spirit of improving our Air Force's ability to deliver more sovereign options in the fight ahead of us. And it is in this spirit that I respectfully offer my thoughts.

That being said, I do believe in the centralized control of airpower. Too many people ask for a specific platform rather than simply telling the expert what they are trying to acheive.

[Tom Odom]

Ok I read the article. It is a catalog of buzz words and listing of ill-defined capabilities. Also I would say that General Peck was the guy who remarked that 3-24 showed too much concern over civilian casualties. See this thread

The Air Force wasn’t thrilled about the Army-Marine Corps counterinsurgency document, which the service said gave short shrift to airpower’s capabilities, as proved in the ongoing counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Maj. Gen. Allen G. Peck, commander of the Air Force Doctrine Center at Maxwell AFB, Ala., said he had seen the doctrine penned by Petraeus and Amos, and said that it reflected “a very two-dimensional view of how to fight a counterinsurgency.” If airmen had written it, it would be “different,” Peck observed.

The Air Force provides “maneuver” capabilities by backing up ground troops with kinetic and nonkinetic means, Peck noted.

The Air Force is working on its own COIN doctrine and is proposing to the Pentagon that a joint doctrine be developed. The Air Force version is on a fast track to be finished in August. The service is simultaneously pushing for a joint doctrine.

When that process is under way, “it will be helpful for us to have our Air Force doctrine in hand,” he said.

USAF agrees with Petraeus and Amos that air mobility is a powerful “asymmetric” capability and certainly endorses the view that ISR—air and space-based systems alike—are critical.

However, Peck said he was concerned about the doctrine’s tendency to low-rate the value of force applied from the air. He said FM 3-24 does “probably a bit too much hand-wringing over the potential for collateral damage,” because the Air Force exercises great care in selecting targets and uses the minimum explosive power possible to achieve the desired effect.

[Steve Blair]

Ok I read the article. It is a catalog of buzz words and listing of ill-defined capabilities. Also I would say that General Peck was the guy who remarked that 3-24 showed too much concern over civilian casualties. See this thread

I stuck up a blog comment, but I agree that this is a collection of buzzwords that have been said before by others.

The AF really needs to break out of its centralized roles and missions mold and look beyond what's been done before and their own interests and see what they can bring to the table for COIN. I'm honestly not sure if the older generation officers can do it...it will be up to the folks in LawVol's group and some of the kids I see pass through there to put those changes forward.

You have hit on an interesting point, LawVol, with mention of airlifted civic action/construction teams. While airlift has its own limitations, it makes an outstanding surge or quick impact tool. Red Horse-type teams could be lifted into an area in the immediate aftermath of a battle or natural disaster to at least begin reconstruction. Medical teams would accompany them for immediate work. I'd envision a handoff to Army or Marine teams within a few days or weeks, but the AF's ability to airlift these assets makes them an ideal "first responder" type component for COIN.

As for Peck's "hand-wringing about collateral damage"...how would HE feel if the police smashed up his car in the process of giving him a parking ticket? It's only collateral damage....

[LawVol]

I see a great "first responder" role for the AF in COIN operations that could take up alot of slack for the USMC/USA. The availability of airlift (a form of airpower even if some don't really want to emphasize it) means that AF assets can be inserted immediately into a given area to act as a stop gap and address emergency needs.

Imagine if you will a scenario wherein appropriate AF units are air lifted into a town in the immediate aftermath of combat operations. As green forces clear and move through this town, blue forces come in and establish law and order (something I'm writing on now), give medical care, begin to rebuild/repair infrastructure, etc. I wonder what difference this would have made in Iraq if used and planned for?

These are the things the AF needs to think about when it talks about the felxibility of airpower. Airpower's reach can extend much farther than a plane's wingtips.

[slapout9]

LawVol,we already have one of these it is called the 82ND Airborne Divison.

[Steve Blair]

LawVol,we already have one of these it is called the 82ND Airborne Divison.

LawVol's got a good point about using AF assets as immediate follow-on tools, kinda like the Navy uses Seabees. The 82nd's a combat asset (and in theory the national reserve strike force) so it's not likely to be used in that way unless there's no other real option (like now).

On the other hand, the AF has assets that either aren't being used or not put to the best use they could be at this time. That, IMO, has more to do with the institutional outlook regarding assets. It's not a combat asset unless it can deliver some sort of ordnance (or spot for another asset that can deliver ordnance). This ignores the great impact airlift and airlifted assets can have in the total COIN environment. It may not have staying power, but that's not the point. It does have the ability to get needed supplies and tools to an area as soon as they're needed, and can be replaced by follow-on forces as they become available.

Air power advocates need to stop talking about full spectrum and actually do it. Airlift and "first responder" construction, medical, and relief forces are an important part of that spectrum.