Friday we were working a tactical problem where a theoretical BCT (Brigade Combat Team) found itself 72 hours in front of the follow on BCT and had a limited opportunity to seize a bridge head and an enemy center of government. The situation quickly turned bad as we suddenly found out that this BCT had several enemy mechanized divisions between 12 and 24 hours out and the BCT only had 48 hours of ammo and fuel - OK staff make your tactical decisions. BTW the weather is bad and the enemy has relative air parity and their are no TLAMs (Tomahawk Cruise missiles) - you got what you got for 72 hours.

What is wrong with this picture? Well for starters since when did we go to war without our Air Force recently? Where are the all weather strike capabilities that would certainly be there under the conditions (be they from any of our war fighting services)? Who can claim even relative air superiority against us - anywhere? How about the satellites and J-Star type ISR assets that would have told us that a corps sized element was on the move further then 24 hours out - and the JFACC piece that would have ensured that these divisions were at least fixed (as in unable to move or reposition)

Now - I give you the point of the exercise was to stress the influence of logistics during tactical operations - but this is not the first time as a ground guy I've seen us assume away the advantages we know we will have because we have built the world's best air force (and I'd argue- the second and third best as well) for unknown reasons. Why do we do that? Is it because we don't own them and never want to rely or depend on the USAF? Because we believe that such conditions as those stated could happen? I don't know.

However, the USAF provides us (and our allies) an advantage across the spectrum of war that no one else enjoys. It often provides deterrence options just by being on the ground somewhere where the enemy cannot strike. In the past I have not agreed with everything USAF MG Dunlap has written, but I believe it is true that in the aggregate of our capabilities - the USAF as it exists offers us an asymmetric advantage that offers a wide range of possibilities throughout the spectrum of conflict.

One of the hard questions to answer these days for ground force construct/organizational planners is how much of what will we need in the future? One thing worth considering is that during a conventional phase of a war large, amounts of PGMS delivered by air, rocket artillery, cannon and missile fires combined with the means to target enemy C2, armor, artillery, mobility & CSS assets and clusters of ground forces are a sweet advantage that offers up options to ground commanders. While we've proved you need lots of ground forces to help secure a population beyond those required to terminate a regime, we also proved that ground combat power is exponentially enhanced when you combine it with the threat of air superiority. Is it reasonable to assume we will always go to war with our Air Forces and other advantages available? What does this say about the types of ground forces we can develop if we make that assumption?

I think acknowledging that the Air Force as it exists provides us incredible advantages during the high intensity - major combat operations phase of a war, and may offer us flexibility as we look forward in considering how much of what we require by type to meet our ground service commitments in other phases of a war - be it Phase 0 thru Phase 5. These advantages might allow us some flexibility in force design across the DOTLMPF (Doctrine, Organizational, Training, Leadership, Personnel and Facilities) spectrum that allow us to focus limited resources and better achieve our ends.

From a ground perspective - I never want to be without air superiority, and if the USAF can provide options that allow us to consider the future battlefield differently - then I'm all for those options too. We have to be careful about inferring the wrong lessons from the current conflict and applying them to the future - we also need to look at where are real shortfalls were, and how we can address those. Ken had mentioned we don't often consider things like balance and consistency of equal value with other attributes - more wisdom from a guy whose heard this tune a time or two (or 4)

Best, Rob