Hybrid Warfare (merged thread)

[Bill Moore]

Slap,

I disagree with your interpretation of Gray's paper, which by the way is focused on air power (which he mentioned as a caveat to the readers). He repeatedly states that he doesn't understand the continued debate within the U.S. military over land and air power, since both are essential. His central argument in this paper and others is that the U.S. lacks a strategy to unify all its warfighting tools.

I will argue the debate almost solely arises from a few narrow minded officers in the Air Force like COL (R) Warden, who speak more as a company man, than as a warrior who understands warfighting. Senior U.S. officers in theory are supposed to be joint, not parachocial. They are supposed to demonstrate professional maturity and have the higher interest of their country in mind versus the interests of their service. There may be examples, but I'm aware of any senior Army Officer making arguments against air power? We love fighting under the protection of world's finest air force, but we also realize (as do most Air Force officers) that air power isn't always decisive. Once we commit to go to war it generally requires a full effort of sea, land and air power (plus political, economic, information, etc.). In situations short of war air power has proven very successful, such as

Israel's interdiction of Saddam's nuclear production capability.
U.S. air power strike on Libya in response to their state sponsored terrorism.
Putting pressure on Serbia in regards to withdrawing their forces from Kosovo.

However, I see a parallel with air power and nuclear weapons. We had nuclear weapons primarily for strategic deterrence, but over time our foes learn how to tie our hands and make the nukes politically infeasible (asymmetrical threats). A perfect example was Al Qaeda's attack on 9/11, what could we have nuked to any effect? The same is true with kinetic air power, what could we have bombed that would have any lasting deterrence effect? Air power enabled us to be successful in the first phase of the Afghan war, but without land power (U.S. and Northern Alliance) it wouldn't have achieved much.

I included several excerpts from Gray's paper that gives Air Power its due, but also puts it in context.

Near exclusive focus upon the contributions airpower can make to warfare is a mistake.

The study advises frank recognition of airpower’s situational limitations. Those limitations are less than they used to be, but some remain simply as a consequence of the physical realities of flight with reference to a conflict that must relate, ultimately, to decisions and behavior on land.

technological innovation lies at the heart of the argument for the privileging of airpower in a new American way in warfare. There is nothing wrong with that, as far as it goes. Unfortunately for the integrity of the argument, technology is only one of warfare’s seven contexts.

Plainly, a holistic theory of warfare is lacking today. As a direct consequence, argument about the strategic implications of airpower’s recent transformation or the allegedly enduring necessity for the presence of “the man [our man, naturally; CSG] on the scene with the gun” is conducted
out of context and even, one can assert, out of paradigm

Future warfare must, and will, be joint and perhaps even integrated in well “internetted” character.

The potential value of airpower in future warfare is a spectrum of possibilities, depending upon the contexts or situation.

American airpower is a very great asymmetrical advantage. At least, it is very great if it is properly equipped, trained, provided with suitable concepts of operation—doctrine—and properly employed within a coherent strategy in the service of a prudent overall strategy and national policy.

For reasons that are both pragmatically sensible as well as deeply cultural, one can expect airpower to remain the most favored military agency in the American way of warfare.

It is important for those sincerely convinced of the great advantages conferred by superior airpower not to understate its systemic and situational limitations.

First, because airpower, broadly defined, is and will long remain a prime source of US asymmetrical advantage, it should be exploited to the fullest for all the leverage it can deliver.