Paul,

Thanks for responding to my comment. Rereading what I wrote now, I see the there was some condescension in it and for that I would like to apologize.

Separately, and this is an observation that has nothing to do with your remarks I've noticed that in attempted discussions about improving the Joint conduct of the enduring ops in either Iraq or Afghanistan, the conversation often deteriorates into a 'Land v Air' debate.
Just for the record, I'm one of the few "Air" guys here. I supported air ops in the Navy and then in the Air Force, so I've never been a ground guy (excepting some SoF support). If you look at some of my previous posts, you'll see I've spent a lot of time defending and attempting to explain the air point of view, but I try to see and understand both sides.

Now, to address your points in turn:

1. You're right - my mistake for misreading your piece, but consider my points below.

2. Better surveillance is always nice, but with limited assets the opportunity cost of using them for border surveillance in lieu of some other ISTAR requirement has to be taken into account.

4. The problem here, again, is cost-benefit. Not only that, but I think that "addressing" infiltration is a vague objective to begin with. What does that mean?

While I'm certainly not advocating ignoring border infiltration, I do believe that the law of diminishing returns applies.* Since we agree that closing or sealing the border is impossible, the question becomes one of what is a reasonable amount of achievable interdiction given a certain amount of forces. This is a question your paper doesn't really address. In calling for more ISTAR on the border you don't really provide much evidence or argument for how much more is needed nor what impact it will have on the border. Nor do you spend much time on how those additional assets would actually be employed.

Calling for more border security in general and ISTAR in particular is probably a good thing but I just don't find your particular argument convincing. More importantly, the Commanders who decide such things probably won't be convinced either, especially when the cost, as you argued, is a sacrifice CAS capability. What Commander will make a very real sacrifice in CAS without any idea of what he would get in return?

Additionally, I'm not sure I agree there is an either/or choice between CAS and ISTAR to begin with. My experience is that a variety of airframes can and do roll from one to the other as needed, which is a credit to the flexibility of our force. More than that, though, the limfac for ISTAR is mostly the result of a limited number of dedicated endurance airframes and, as you mention in your paper, airfield limitations for tactical aircraft. For border surveillance, I would think the endurance UAV option is probably better than a tactical aircraft. In short, I think we could get more aircraft in Afghanistan (and I think we are working on that) to provide greater ISTAR without sacrificing CAS.

*Consider the Soviet experience. They implemented a multi-faceted strategy that included denuding the border area of people, the creation of free-fire zones, extensive use of land-mines, and extensive use of air power as well as satellite and other types of surveillance. Despite all that, they were never successful in seriously impacting Muhahadeen supply and at one point, they even considered building an East German-style wall along the border. As you said at the beginning - upwards of 60,000 people cross the border each day. Given the realities of the situation and in light of the Soviet experience, I simply don't think that reallocating what would be a relatively modest amount of airpower to ISTAR along the border will make a substantial difference.