JOINT AEROSPACE POWER:
A NEW NATIONAL STRATEGY

by
Gene Myers
September 16, 1998

A Changing World | Bombs or Boots | The National Aerospace Strategy Recommendations and Conclusion | The Author | Notes

PART III: THE NATIONAL AEROSPACE STRATEGY

“. . . Air power is a state of mind. A nation’s Air Power is not composed alone of the warmaking components of aviation, nor is it solely a part of air forces. It is a total activity—civilian and military (ground, sea, air, and space based) commercial and private, extant and potential.”

The European Air Chiefs⁴⁶

As discussed in the previous section, our national strategy has traditionally focused on land warfare as the epicenter of our warfighting effort. It is clearly time for that to change—time for a change in our state of mind.

We need to break the tradition of land-centric warfare; to bring the four post-halt options presented earlier to the fore of our national military thinking; and to enhance our ability to conduct the all too frequent operations at levels less than major theater war. To do this we must concentrate today’s strengths, using our current advantages in the air, space, and information environments to project a new way of conducting military operations.

Aerospace Forces are Joint Forces

The first thing we must understand in advancing a national military strategy based on aerospace power is that aerospace forces are not just Air Force forces. Each of the other Services has a substantial, and proportionately growing, air arm, until now dedicated almost exclusively to support of its own surface oriented operations--but potent air forces nonetheless. This discussion proposes that a national aerospace strategy would utilize all these air forces, plus the synergy of space and information to the maximum extent possible. The objective would be to obviate the need for land force-centric attrition warfare whenever possible.

In a December 1997 essay for the Daedalians, recently retired Air Force Chief of Staff General Ronald Foglemen said that members of the order were airmen first and members of a particular Service second. He stressed the need to advance air and space power and not Service parochialism.

“While Service loyalties die hard, we should not be overly concerned about what’s painted on the tail, or whether it’s rotary or fixed wing, or where it takes off and lands.”⁴⁷

It is my purpose here to advance that notion and apply it to our national strategy.

As pointed out earlier, each situation is different, requiring different strategies and forces. But the degree to which we can apply air, space, and information forces in new ways, in different Service combinations, and in differing supported and supporting roles with traditional land and sea forces, is the degree to which we can take advantage of the nation’s strength as an air and space faring nation. We need, as Gen Link put it, to make a ground war “an option rather than an inevitability.”⁴⁸

There are practical reasons to advance a national aerospace strategy.

First, we really need to stop each Service’s multi-front doctrinal war with the others. While some competition is often good for the nation in bringing the best to the fore, the intense and constant interservice bickering of recent years, especially between the Army and Air Force, is counterproductive.⁴⁹

Second, it is necessary to counter the land force grip on national military doctrine and strategy. Land force centric doctrine is neither in the national interest, or in the interest of the young Americans that must fight and die on foreign soil and in foreign waters. Land power clearly has its place but should no longer be seen as the irreplaceable centerpiece of joint operations.

Next, we need to take maximum advantage of American strengths—our overwhelming asymmetrical advantages. We should maximize the effectiveness of aerospace power and the revolution in military affairs (RMA) in accomplishing national objectives and advance the notion that this nation is now primarily an air and space faring nation. Both the QDR and the National Defense Panel (NDP) emphasized the need to harness technology to advance US military capabilities. This will cost money; the NDP says around $5 to 10 billion per year.⁵⁰ The old “equal shares” theology says this should be equally divided, but this paper argues that disproportionate shares should given to the components best equipped to operate in the new environments of the 21^st century and certainly those not wedded to the concept of attrition warfare.

Finally, we need to eliminate as much interservice redundancy as possible. In an era of intense interservice budgetary competition, we should increase service specialization. The central idea of “jointness” is not “every Service plays” but each one contributes its best to the needs at hand. The time when each Service could duplicate the capabilities of others and then tussle over who actually does the job is over. Each round of budget cuts produces another round of “salami-slicing” cuts across all programs by each of the Services—program delays, stretched out buys, and higher unit costs.⁵¹ Continuing in this way will ultimately produce a joint force that is incapable of effectively accomplishing the totality of its global missions and most importantly, its unique service core competencies.⁵²

In the future nothing will be immune to attack from the aerospace medium. A major goal of Air Force planners is the development of a space-, air-, and ground-based battle management and command and control (BM/C2) system that in the 21^st century will be able to “find, fix, or track and target anything that moves on the surface of the earth.”⁵³ Superiority in the combined medium will be absolutely vital to any military operation, and increasingly in the future, to the vast majority of commercial activity, at least by the US. It is necessary that the United States advance a strategy of global power projection capability lead by aerospace power. Why? Briefly:

Aerospace forces can hit with increasing precision. Near-zero-error weapons are now a reality as well as ones that are far smaller and more lethal than their 1980s and 1990s cousins, allowing more targets to be struck with greater effectiveness per sortie.⁵⁴ In this context Under Secretary of Defense Paul Kaminski exclaimed, “we are moving closer to a situation known as ‘one target, one weapon.’”⁵⁵

They put very few US airmen at risk—fewer people than land or sea forces. In an era of at least perceived extreme public concern with casualties, aerospace forces will increasingly become weapons of choice.

By discriminately applying precision weapons, aerospace forces can hold collateral damage to non-targeted adversary population and infrastructure to a minimum—the Desert Storm and Bosnia operations provide excellent examples.

Aerospace forces can get there faster than anything else--a real plus in an emergency and a several orders of magnitude improvement over land, and many sea, forces.

They can wreak havoc with massive destruction if need be, and again, accomplish that dubious deed much faster than surface forces. The essence of deterrence remains the enemy’s perception of retribution and pain that can be inflicted by their opponent. Aerospace forces remain at the center of those perceptions.

They can conduct true parallel operations at all levels of war simultaneously. This is true in two dimensions: First, a particular strength of aerospace forces is the ability to operate at the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war simultaneously. A second dimension is the environmental one—aerospace forces can also be applied to accomplish missions in the air, land, sea, and space environments simultaneously.⁵⁶

They can achieve national objectives without necessarily first engaging in large-scale, costly, force-on-force land-or sea-based attrition warfare. This saves lives and national treasure.

Air and space systems have real “omnipresence” over all parts of the globe and can place an “information umbrella” over the adversary. Particularly important, as space systems proliferate and become even more effective, no point or enemy on earth will be immune from detailed scrutiny.

Reprioritizing Joint Force Application

A national aerospace strategy would not trivialize the contributions of sea and land forces, but would reprioritize their application. This strategy would have the aerospace forces of all services applied to national tasks in the following manner:

First, as a joint aerospace team to achieve national objectives unilaterally through the aerospace environment whenever possible.

If this cannot be done, as often it will not, the next option would be to accomplish such tasks with the joint aerospace force as the supported element in a “combined arms” operation.⁵⁷

Only as a last resort would surface forces be the supported element and contributor of the “main effort” for combatant operations. The emphasis here is on joint aerospace forces.

This does not imply exclusion of any element of US armed forces from an aerospace-based national strategy. It does imply that, depending on operational need, other Service air arms, such as Army and Marine attack helicopters or Navy and Marine attack fighters might be a part of a joint force aerospace operation, supported by other elements of joint forces.

As Figure 4 suggests, an aerospace strategy that emphasizes more Service specialization might result in aerospace forces more often being the supported component at the higher end of the range of military operations while surface, or more specifically, land forces being the supported force at the lower end. German Air Force Colonel Horst Lempke agrees. He says that, generally speaking, aerospace power becomes more effective as the intensity of the conflict and/or the sophistication of the enemy increases. This reinforces Luttwak’s situational contribution concept.⁵⁸ Again, this is a notional construct that in no way implies hard and fast “rules” and would result from a combination of factors including:

• The requirement to deploy forces rapidly to meet a variety of operational challenges.
• The speed, range, and global “presence” of aerospace forces.
• The incredible flexibility and versatility of the range of joint service aerospace forces to accomplish both specialized and overlapping functions.
• The extreme difficulty of rapidly moving heavy land forces on a global scale.
• The absolute requirement for “boots on the ground” in many lower intensity operations such as peacekeeping, peace enforcement, or disaster relief.
• The increasing precision and lethality of aerosapce forces in major combat operations.
• The need for rapid mission accomplishment with minimum friendly casualties as well as collateral damage to the adversary.

The December 1997 report of the National Defense Panel clearly stated the need for the rapid global projection of power and stated in no uncertain terms that such a capability “is the cornerstone of America’s continued military preeminence.”⁵⁹ It also stresses the need to do it quickly while avoiding the risks of adversary asymmetrical strategies. Aerospace forces are clearly best suited to form the central core of such a capability—joint aerospace forces from all Services.

The American military establishment must form a synergistic national aerospace force structure that emphasizes the strengths of each element while reducing the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of the total force. In this context, Air Force forces would specialize in the very rapid projection of power for global-ranging requirements. Expeditionary force bombers and fighters, operating from as far away as the continental United States or as close as theater bases just a few dozen miles from enemy targets, would be supported by space-based ISR and eventually offensive and defensive weaponry and speed of light information operations. Their specialty would be providing air and space superiority over the operating theater as well as interdiction and strategic attack of deep targets.

Navy carrier-based air would back up Air Force forces for such deep operations to the limits of their range, would maintain sea lines of communication, and assist Marine and Army air elements with the “close battle” when required, but concentrate on avoiding the close battle whenever possible through interdiction of enemy ground forces. Army and Marine aviation assets would concentrate on the close battle—direct support of deployed surface forces and close in interdiction of enemy forces—in fulfilling the classic combined arms air mission.⁶⁰ But in executing a strategy emphasizing aerospace forces, they would not necessarily always be dedicated to surface force support, especially when surface forces were not present or engaged--a primary objective of such a strategy. In the case where the rapid halt of a large invading army were required, all available joint aerospace forces would be used to cause the halt provide commanders the four options discussed earlier in this paper.

As Figure 5 suggests, the closer that aerospace operations occurred to surface forces the more they would operate in support of those forces and conversely the more their mission is concerned with targets not in the vicinity of surface forces the more they are in either an independent or supported role. The safety of the surface force requires such close-in control. This does not imply that surface and aerospace forces cannot act in a mutually reinforcing manner as when heavy surface force engagement provides aerospace interdiction targets as land formations move and the enemy attempts to supply the hungry maw of battle. By the same token, the mere presence of competent land forces would force the enemy to mass his combatants which provides excellent hunting for aerospace forces. This is traditional mutual reinforcement strategy, one that is discussed in detail in both Air Force and joint Service doctrine.⁶¹ The difference is that under the new strategic regime it would be conducted whenever possible to maximize the effect of aerospace forces rather than provide opportunities for successful surface force engagement. This will not always be possible—every engagement brings a new set of circumstances and challenges. It simply implies a new way of thinking about warfare that emphasizes America’s strength in the aerospace rather than playing to an adversary’s desire to engage us, as did Saddam’s Iraqi forces, in bloody land combat. By any measure General Link stated the dilemma for his service and the nation.

“. . . the Air Force, in its zeal to be a good support service in the joint context, may have been a more effective advocate for platforms to carry young Americans to be shot at than for platforms to carry bombs to the enemy.”⁶²

Applying the Options

Changing this perception requires changing the way we think about applying military power. There is a continuing debate within American politico-military circles as to our nation’s ability to accomplish its stated strategy of halting two heavily armored invasions in two widely separated theaters almost simultaneously or, as suggested by the NDP Report, even the advisability of advocating such a strategy.⁶³ As implied by the NDP, this debate is based on old paradigms--the need to always apply all forces in the politically correct combined arms counteroffensive campaign. In fact, the 1997 Secretary of Defense Annual Report to the President and the Congress says we need to deploy the entire panoply of US military forces to conduct any generic major theater war.⁶⁴ Looked at in this way, our ability to “walk the walk” on a two MTW strategy is indeed questionable.

But earlier in this paper four post-halt options were presented—1) Hold the invading army and build for a classic combined arms counteroffensive; 2) Destroy the enemy army from the air; 3) Hold the halted army and conduct attacks on the enemy’s vital deep targets; 4) Variations on the preceding three. In the case of two major theater conflicts a fifth option is necessary—halt the enemy army and hold them in place while deployments and force adjustments are made for the second contingency.

The aerospace strategy emphasis maintains that whatever you do should emphasize aerospace power to the extent possible in conducting the five options, while considering Edward Lutwak’s admonition on the situational nature of warfare. This emphasis may very well allow the attainment of the Two MTW strategy by stressing the range, speed and versatility of joint aerospace forces. But in stressing such preferential employment it allows all available joint forces to be most effective.

The basic single major theater war scenario is represented by Figure 6, below. It suggests that once the enemy is rapidly halted short of their objectives by aerospace and what other forces are available in theater, options are reviewed and applied according to the objectives sought and the conflict environment. It does not rely on the traditional joint force build-up and combined counteroffensive.

As suggested by Figure 7, when a second MTW erupts, the fifth option, halt and hold, may come into play. Rather than attempting to deploy the entire joint MTW force envisioned by national guidance, the objective under an aerospace strategic regime would be to make the most effective use of aerospace power to reduce the forces required to meet the two MTW contingency. Each contingency is different—situational—and so are the solutions. The only common threads would be the emphasis on global-range aerospace power projection and the desire to minimize casualties and damage. The advantage of rapidly halting and controlling the enemy force by air in the first MTW is that it provides time to consider the alternatives and decide on a strategy for both contingencies.

The two cases presented in Figure 7 represent two different situations—say a Desert Storm type contingency where the environment is well suited to heavy application of aerospace power against a vulnerable leadership. The second could be a Korean or other contingency in heavy mountainous or forested terrain with a well armed and led enemy force and more secure central command. Each will require a different approach, but past experience in conflicts such as the Gulf War, Bosnia, or even the air war over Japan in World War Two, teaches us that aerospace power can take a leading role in both. But past experience in conflicts such as the Gulf War, Bosnia, or even the air war over Japan in World War Two, teaches us that aerospace power can take a leading role in both.

In MTW Two that may be as either the supported or a supporting force, and already present land forces may likely play a major role in halting and then conducting the counteroffensive or in holding the halted army as the war is taken to the enemy homeland. In MTW number one aerospace forces are more than just supported or supporting; they are the predominant force in both achieving control and terminating the conflict.

Space

As defined early in this paper, aerospace power is the synergistic combination of air, space, and information systems. The Air Force has said that the space component will be an increasingly important factor in its total force structure and employment doctrine. In fact, the Service says it is intentionally transitioning from and “air force into an air and space force on an evolutionary path to a space and air force.”⁶⁵ Space must also be a major, if not the central, element of the national strategy for the employment of joint aerospace forces in the next century. There are several reasons:

• Its position as the ultimate high ground from which a militarily superior force can dominate those below. The ability to observe an enemy provides information dominance, a priceless commodity in warfare.
• In April of 1997, the US had “over 220 active commercial, civil, and military satellites on orbit worth in excess of $100 billion.”⁶⁶ The United States has a massive, rapidly increasing commercial and government investment in space-based systems that must be protected from inevitable challenges.⁶⁷ There is an immutable lesson of military history: Where goes commerce--follows the flag.
• As a hedge against an adversary gaining an asymmetrical strategic edge over US forces. Earlier, this paper discussed the grave view that our national strategy and policy review documents take of potential enemy capabilities in this area. Advances and proliferation in areas such as missiles, NBC weapons, and ISR, when combined with national concern for casualties, in some instances may force us to fight from out of range of enemy systems. For aircraft operations, “out of range” could mean a few hundred to thousands of miles—with every mile reducing base vulnerability but also reducing aircraft responsiveness to the often rapidly changing environment in the conflict area. But out of range could mean only 50 or 60 miles in the case of space-based systems, and at the speeds of space operations, responsiveness eventually becomes a moot point.
• Space is an area of increasing US asymmetrical advantage. We posses a preeminence here no one else does—advantages that must be maintained and protected. The Air Force’s notion of evolving from an air force eventually to a space and air force acknowledges this.

Sooner or later unilateral political prohibitions on space-based offensive and defensive space-based systems will have to be overcome. The maintenance of US military and commercial supremacy in the information age as well as the ability to counter rapidly emerging adversary asymmetrical advantages demands it. Secretary of Defense Cohen wrote to the Congress and the President:

“In the future, space power will be as important as sea power and air power are today. The control and utilization of space as a warfighting medium will help to enable the United States to establish and sustain dominance over an area of military operations. Establishing such dominance will be a key to achieving success during a crisis or conflict.”⁶⁸

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