The Never Ending Airpower Versus Groundpower Debate

[Tom Odom]

It will be interesting to see how things pan out with the change at the top. My friend the SOF MC-130 jock told me at Leavenworth when we were students how the AF was divided. He is now a 2 star; who knows how high he will go now...

Tom

[johca]

. But it seems that if you want to make it to (and past) O-6 you have to drink that air supremacy Kool-Aid. I'm hopeful that will change as the combat and joint experience of the AF becomes broader, but even one of their own (who most likely has been banished to Thule by now) came out and said in a letter to editor in Air Force Magazine that the AF wasn't doing near enough to prepare its general officers for higher command positions because they weren't doing enough joint assignments (it's in the June 08 issue...by a colonel at Maxwell in response to an article here that claimed there was a shadowy conspiracy to keep AF generals out of senior positions...don't have an online link at this time). In the same issue, of course, there's an editorial slamming SecDef Gates....

All the military departments have the problem of commissioned officers jockeying for promotion to the above O-6 grades by gaining political advantage and popularity rather than through extraordinary leading and competent supervising and management. Promotion to these grades has become too much a game of self aggrandizing and conforming to what got the current generals and admirals promoted. The problem is such has in the Air Force at least become the disease of enlisted promotions where EPRs, awards and decorations have become dependant on external off or out of doing primary military duties of getting higher education and participating in community volunteerism. It has become believed wanting to pursue and enlisted career and obtaining NCO authority and status is for those who can’t become a commissioned officer.

However, back to inability of or lack of top combatant command positions being filled by Air Force Generals. In this regard I do I have to give Retired General McPeak some credit although he was not well thought of while he was in charge. McPeak at least recognized being a rated officer and specifically a single seat fighter pilot divorced the commissioned leaders from actually having to provide immediate management, supervision and leading to any group of followers or workers. His initiative to get pilots more involved in other duties other than being in the cockpit never truly got any understanding or support within the AF commission ranks and grades.

Beginning in 1986 the wave of future promotion opportunity was realized to be doing joint operations type duties, but doing Joint Duties became get into a position to fill the square and back out for improving self-promotion potential rather than developing experience and understanding of all ground, air, and water strategies and tactics. The problem with the Air Force is the fighter pilot warrior is a lone knight or the lone gunman who gets very little being in command of leading tactical elements. Their specialty is flying and in most cases that’s all they had interest in until they got promoted out of the cockpit. No matter how you cut, slice, and deice, the Air Force does a poor job of providing its commissioned officer of being more than on-paper leaders, especially now that the transformation to the Expeditionary wing pushed Wing command up above the O-6 pay grade.

The Air Force commissioned duty position is a paradox as it has become focused on control of technology that is limited to doing flight and being the supposed moral oversight preventing misuse of weapon systems rather than leading troops into battle. The resulting dilemma is the Air Force officer lacks the leading tools and strategies to conduct asymmetric battle which requires boots on the ground to seek out, find, and engage low technology ground fighters that maintain very little hard target infrastructure to bomb and interdict.

In my opinion the Amateur Combat Command has become to focused on subordinating, manipulating, and influencing what combatant command do with its air component and has lost focus on its obligation to be ready and prepared to fight.

ACC has become focused on gaining and sustaining influence of Forces command and manipulating organizational transformation within the Air Force so that it controls all air component command positions in the combatant commands by functionally aligning every thing into deployable expeditionary wings sitting on ACC bases as an ACC administratively controlled AEF until its deployed to fight. Its called organizational incest and it strengthens promotion opportunity for those who blindly conform and seldom offer a dissenting opinion. The Air Force needs to wake up to fulfilling it military obligations as a independent military department, or it needs to assimilated back into the Department of the Army.

[johca]

A part of the Airpower Versus Groundpower debate also includes conducting special operations. Although not written for arguing air power pertinent to what special operations missions air power can contribute to, Distinctive Beret Uniform History of the U.S Armed Forces gives indication Air Force had developed some unique capability, but then sort of didn’t know what it had once it put such capability in-place to be used.

Here’s some information about function fitness, Functional Fitness as it Pertains to Obtaining and Sustaining Pararescue Qualification.

[slapout9]

The co-author of this article Major Gregg Brown was at the SMART Wars SMART Strategies workshop I went to last year. He told me he was going to write this and it has finally been published. He is an aid to General David Deptula of EBO fame. He had some interesting ideas about what the Air Force should become and how they could better serve the Joint Community. Also had some good ideas about the Army he likes tanks. So flame away about his article.



http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/a...8/deptula.html

[johca]

Tanks have terrain limitations and UAVs have telemetry limitations caused by weather, terrain, solar activity, bandwidth, and potential jamming issues. The more UAVs operating in a confined area the more difficulty there is pertinent to sustaining separation and preventing midair in the heat of maneuvering to avoid a threat. There still remains the logistics of refueling, rearming and repairing/maintaining. Certainly great for asymmetric warfare against a low tech enemy or battle against a low density in number threat. My confidence diminishes when considering employing UAV capability toe-to-toe in a conventional fight against a nation having significant emerging technology capability such as China. Also Rusia may be less of a imminent threat, but who can predict the future with any certainty?

I never am comfortable with eggs all in one basket. The article reminds me a lot of persuasion and convincing I was reading during the late 1980s and early 1990s when it was being considered to do away with the A-10 because F-16s and other advanced new technology fighters were considered equal if not superior to the A-10 in participating in and contributing to providing effective close air support. Perhaps my lack of confidence results in not knowing what current technology is capable of, but technology has to be paid for and kept up with new developments to counter new attack threat to or defense from the UAV capability. Telemetry depends on EMF and disrupting EMF and analog sensors (no such thing as a digital sensor) is cheap and easy to do. (Digital imaging depends on anlog devices doing the measurement and the digital communication still requires wave form and frequency to carry it).

[Cliff]

The intersection of culture and doctrine produces statements like Airpower's unique characteristics necessitate that it be centrally controlled by airmen.. I'm not gonna get drawn into the argument over the assertion. But if I were to look an AF general in the eye and say "Ground power's unique characteristics necessitate that it be centrally controlled by soldiers", I'd get blown through the door. Any discussion of how ground forces command, logistics, operational art, and tactics has been changed by modern communications and weapons systems would be ignored for the apparent arrogance of the assertion.

Hmm. Isn't it Joint Doctrine to have a COCOM, who is in charge of a CFLCC, CFACC, and CFMCC? I don't think that you'd get much arguement about the ground forces being centrally controlled... it kind of makes sense - that whole Unity of Command thing...

Re: the Cold Warrior vs COIN Warrior generation gap; I've seen it personally. The young folk 'get' Joint. Mostly, (there are exceptions, but they are not vocal enough) the older guys don't get Joint. You've got a generation of Captains getting promoted who have never served during peacetime. Northern Watch was certainly combat operations, but just too few of the Air Force were directly involved to really effect the culture. What was important, what got you promoted, and what merited confidence and respect prior to 9/11 is not the same as for the post-9/11 crowd. This isn't just the Air Force, but the gap does appear more pronounced in the AF than in the Army.

I completely disagree with the ONW/OSW having few of the AF... the whole reason the Air Expeditionary Force structure was invented was to share the load... the entire Combat Air Forces went to combat with our USMC and USN brothers and sisters every 12-18 months. We got shot at, shot back, and our young folks learned what combat is like. Was it super-high intensity? No. But there's a certain something to having flown over someone else's country, having them shooting at you, and having to protect your own folks. The problem with the AF now is that we are almost LESS involved... or at least, different folks are involved. Intel, ALOs, TACPs, Spec Ops are more involved now or involved at similar levels. The CAF forces are less involved....

On jointness, the USAF has been working with the USN and USMC's forces for a long time now - ONW/OSW was a major driver behind that, since we fought daily with our fellow aviators. The result has been the services specializing... the Navy has left air superiority, tanking, and most of the SEAD mission to the USAF, with EA left to the Navy and everyone doing strike/CAS. We are now to a point where the services can't go to war without each other, and we all know it. Trust me, at the warfighter level, we work joint ops every day even in training.

I'll go out on a limb and say that the AF future looks pretty bright because of their young warfighters. It's just going to be a little painful getting there.

I agree. Most of the comments on the AF folks make on this forum are so far from the reality of what our young folks are doing, it is crazy... If you honestly think that the culture of the AF is determined solely by the top few folks, then maybe you can say there's a cultural problem. If you think the culture is the traditions/moral fiber/ways of doing things held by the majority, then I think the USAF is better off than folks say.

[Steve Blair]

I agree. Most of the comments on the AF folks make on this forum are so far from the reality of what our young folks are doing, it is crazy... If you honestly think that the culture of the AF is determined solely by the top few folks, then maybe you can say there's a cultural problem. If you think the culture is the traditions/moral fiber/ways of doing things held by the majority, then I think the USAF is better off than folks say.

I think you need to understand that it's that senior leadership that is doing the talking for the AF. That's what people see and read. They don't hear from your young warfighters...they hear folks like Dunlap saying that airpower can win a COIN scenario on its own. Cultural perception is often controlled by those at the top.

The other thing that makes me cynical about this is that we've seen it happen before. A whole generation of AF officers came out of Vietnam intent on changing things...and for the most part they were either co-opted with the existing power structure or eased out. I honestly do hope that it's different this time around.

But I also feel that this is one of those issues that we'll have to agree to disagree on....

[Cliff]

However, back to inability of or lack of top combatant command positions being filled by Air Force Generals. In this regard I do I have to give Retired General McPeak some credit although he was not well thought of while he was in charge. McPeak at least recognized being a rated officer and specifically a single seat fighter pilot divorced the commissioned leaders from actually having to provide immediate management, supervision and leading to any group of followers or workers. His initiative to get pilots more involved in other duties other than being in the cockpit never truly got any understanding or support within the AF commission ranks and grades.

This is part of why Gen Mosely was re-aligning maintenance under operations - give folks a chance to lead more than just other pilots.

The Air Force commissioned duty position is a paradox as it has become focused on control of technology that is limited to doing flight and being the supposed moral oversight preventing misuse of weapon systems rather than leading troops into battle. The resulting dilemma is the Air Force officer lacks the leading tools and strategies to conduct asymmetric battle which requires boots on the ground to seek out, find, and engage low technology ground fighters that maintain very little hard target infrastructure to bomb and interdict.

I don't think we really should expect AF officers to lead boots on the ground against an insurgency... maybe train the host nation AF, or support the Army or USMC, but leading troops on the ground? They do need to lead from the air, since you can't ask anyone to do something you can't do yourself...

In my opinion the Amateur Combat Command has become to focused on subordinating, manipulating, and influencing what combatant command do with its air component and has lost focus on its obligation to be ready and prepared to fight.

ACC has become focused on gaining and sustaining influence of Forces command and manipulating organizational transformation within the Air Force so that it controls all air component command positions in the combatant commands by functionally aligning every thing into deployable expeditionary wings sitting on ACC bases as an ACC administratively controlled AEF until its deployed to fight. Its called organizational incest and it strengthens promotion opportunity for those who blindly conform and seldom offer a dissenting opinion. The Air Force needs to wake up to fulfilling it military obligations as a independent military department, or it needs to assimilated back into the Department of the Army.

Johca, not sure where you're getting this. The re-alignment under ACC is due to the fact that the DoD and Congress have mandated pulling back to the US (ACC is the MAJCOM for CONUS bases) from Europe and the Pacific... hence ACC had no choice in this or input.

Also, when forces are deployed to an AOR, even if they are part of an AEF, they no longer fall under ACC but instead OPCON is chopped to the appropriate COCOM and ADCON is chopped to the appropriate AF Component Commander... so ACC is out of the loop - just as it was in ONW/OSW, OAF, OEF, and OIF.... just like TAC was largely ignored in Desert Storm.

The consolidation under ACC is a fact of life... there's not much we can do about it given manpower and budget limitations along with the forced pullback to CONUS that BRAC and its ilk resulted in...

[SWJED]

USAF Counterinsurgency Issues and Trends

With a hat tip to Daniel Troy of the Consortium for Complex Operations - United Press International recently ran a three part series titled Emerging Threats: USAF Counterinsurgency authored by Shaun Watterman....

Access to all three parts plus an analysis piece are at the SWJ link.

[slapout9]

An alternative Air Force view on Dunlap's critique of the new Army/USMC COIN manual. Go to the link below and scroll down to the section called-IN My Humble Opinion-then look for Short Changing The Joint Fight-An Alternative View by LTC. Buck Eaton USAF.


http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aunews/

[Ken White]

Dunlap revisited, more like. While he offers a slightly different approach, the message is essentially the same.

Not that I totally disagree with what either he or Dunlap have to say; just that I think in both cases they unfortunately come across as a little whiney and "Hey, you left us out..."

[Tom Odom]

Dunlap revisited, more like. While he offers a slightly different approach, the message is essentially the same.

Not that I totally disagree with what either he or Dunlap have to say; just that I think in both cases they unfortunately come across as a little whiney and "Hey, you left us out..."

Agreed. I am not convinced Buck like Dunlap ever read 3-24. He read passages and filled in with what he wanted it to say. More Hap Arnold airmindedness mess.

Tom

[Entropy]

Anyone know when JP 3-24 is due? It will be interesting to see how the joint vision of COIN ends up.

[Cavguy]

Anyone know when JP 3-24 is due? It will be interesting to see how the joint vision of COIN ends up.

Early next year if the timeline holds up. The lead author is at Leavenworth and works near us.

No drafts for passing around yet. I do know the USAF is participating fully.

[Darksaga]

You know, it is nice to have the capabilities that the Air Force offers however when you get down to brass tacks you have to have boots on the ground to accomplish the mission effectively.

[selil]

In one of the LIC books commissioned by the USAF in the late 80s early 90s I read recently it said something to the effect "It is as imperative to mission success that the Air Force have infantry as the Army have Air Power" I about fell out of my chair.

C4ISR Journal this month has some pretty good articles on detecting stealthy air craft using ultra-violet and other out of visible spectrum light techniques. Cheap, inexpensive, useable for targeting (as anybody who knows anything about missiles will tell you), light is a big handicap for stealth. High power lasers of course are the answer for AAA and SAMs. But, then who needs stealth. Somebody smarter than me likely has figured that out.

[Rex Brynen]

Terrorism Funds May Let Brass Fly in Style
Luxury Pods for Air Force Debated

By R. Jeffrey Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 18, 2008; Page A01

The Air Force's top leadership sought for three years to spend counterterrorism funds on "comfort capsules" to be installed on military planes that ferry senior officers and civilian leaders around the world, with at least four top generals involved in design details such as the color of the capsules' carpet and leather chairs, according to internal e-mails and budget documents.

[Tom Odom]

A military officer familiar with the program, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about it, likewise said that its extravagance has provoked widespread contempt among lower-ranking Air Force personnel. "This whole program is an embarrassment," the officer said, particularly because transport seating for troops en route to the battlefield is in his view generally shoddy.

Now there is an airman/leader disconnect.

[selil]

And, here I was all impressed that at the cyber space symposia I saw generals riding on the bus to get to lunch or the hotel.

[slapout9]

Link below has a picture of the thing,capsule,lounge chair,whatever you want to call it. Notice the drink holder to

http://blog.wired.com/defense/