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Published Airpower Journal - Fall 1989

A US Air Force Role in Counterinsurgency Support

Maj Richard D. Newton, USAF

Low-intensity conflicts is the prime challenge we will face, at least through the remainder of this century. The future of peace and freedom may well depend on how effectively we meet it. --George P. Schultz

LT Col David J. Dean, in his book The Air Force Role in Low-Intensity Conflict, established a framework for developing a capability appropriate to low-intensity conflict (LIC) in the third world. He suggested three levels of participation in third world-related LIC for the US military: assistance (training and equipment sales), integration (advising and minimal participation), and intervention (unilateral direct action).¹ The extent of US, and thus the military's, involvement depends upon the political climate of the moment. The US Air Force's training ability and the equipment it offers for export limit its effectiveness in the assistance and integration roles. This article proposes a way for the Air Force to assist allies who face revolutionary conflicts at the low end of the conflict spectrum--a capability noticeably lacking in the Air Force of the 1980s.

LIC/Insurgency
Environment

The phrase low-intensity conflict, while often used in a narrow context, actually defies easy definition. LIC's broad, ambiguous nature makes it difficult for us to address policy and force-structure issues. In 1987 the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) approved the definition of LIC contained in the National Security Strategy of the United States, which attempted to categorize the concept and eliminate its ambiguity. The general agreement is that LIC involves many uses of force up to, but not including, sustained engagements between conventional forces.² This article limits its focus to dealing with insurgency, which involves protracted, revolutionary warfare.

Dr Richard Schultz, Jr., in Low-Intensity Conflict and Modern Technology, offered a model to describe the spectrum of conflict from normal diplomacy through strategic nuclear holocaust (see fig. 1). He also showed what he thought the range of LIC to be as a subset of the total spectrum. Insurgency falls in the center of the LIC range. Schultz's model should be understood as a spectrum representative of conflict from our perspective. To fully appreciate what we are dealing with, we should also lay out a similar model for the environment on which this article is focused: revolutionary war (see fig. 2). According to Samuel B. Griffith, classic Maoist revolutionary warfare encompasses three phases--progressing from initial political organization through guerrilla warfare and culminating in conventional military operations.³ The revolution itself may progress from one phase to the next or revert to a previous stage should circumstances require it. Significantly, each phase provides the underpinnings of subsequent stages; thus, phase 1 and phase 2 activities are present during phase 3 and never lose their initial importance. In our approach to revolutionary war, we must always consider the necessity of dealing with phases 1 and 2 even if a conventional military response to phase 3 is required. Our goal, in the context of Colonel Dean's framework, should be to restrict insurgency (revolutionary warfare) to--and defeat it in--phase 1 if possible (certainly, no higher than phase 2), and our efforts should focus on assistance (and perhaps integration) to avoid any need for intervention.

The common mistake is to consider insurgency as simply an action, when it is more appropriately a number of activities growing out of and appropriate to an environment of revolutionary war. In effect, insurgency is both an environment and a collection of actions suited to it. Counter-insurgency (COIN) is the aggregate of political, economic, informational, and military actions taken by the target government to defeat the insurgency, and--for our purposes--foreign internal defense (FID) is the aggregate of like actions we take to assist the target government in its COIN activities. The military aspects of COIN cannot be denied. They must, however, fit hand in glove with the other objectives and are, properly, less important to solving the root causes of the conflict than other factors. The military has to mesh with and complement the political, social, diplomatic, and in variables in the equation.

The limited funds and resources usually available to the nation experiencing an insurgency ought to be directed at the internal conditions that fomented the conflict and not on multimillion-dollar weapon systems. While it may be a status symbol for those developing countries wanting our help to have F-16s on their ramps, one has to question if these aircraft are proper for the COIN job. More important is the question of whether the particular country has the industrial, educational, and technical base to support such high-technology aircraft.

Once the political decision is made to provide US assistance, the Air Force has a responsibility to offer effective help to those nations that have asked for it. That obligation includes advocating the proper aircraft, if any, for the situation at hand. It goes against congressional sensitivities for the Air Force to endorse other countries' products--even though our own defense industry might not produce the aircraft appropriate to a particular FID/COIN requirement. Moreover, Air Force research and development funds cannot be spent for systems intended for the exclusive use of foreign forces.⁴

The Defense Guidance of the secretary of defense requires the Air Force as well as the other three services to prepare for combat across the entire spectrum of conflict. However, political factors and fiscal realities force the Air Force to prepare for the upper end of the conflict spectrum. Strategic nuclear war constitutes the greatest threat to our national survival. The American public understands the Soviet threat to Europe and its consequences for US national interests. Because we have prepared to fight and win World War III, a case can be made that we have effectively deterred it. World War III has since become the least likely scenario, and our near-total preoccupation with the upper end of the conflict spectrum has driven Air Force doctrine, training, and organization away from the very arena of conflict and combat that our military would most likely face (see fig. 3).⁵ In fact, the Department of Defense (DOD) expenditures for special operations forces (SOF) have averaged between one-tenth and one-half of 1 percent of its budget.⁶ The Air Force--because it has optimized its doctrine, training, and equipment for the upper end of the conflict spectrum--has effectively excluded itself from assisting or integrating with those allies facing conflict below midintensity conventional warfare, particularly insurgency. In short, our limited capacity to fight protracted conflicts at the low end of the spectrum together with constraints on our ability to provide the proper equipment and training to countries fighting a revolutionary conflict has restricted the Air Force's flexibility. Our present situation is analogous to the one during the late 1950s when we were faced with the option of massive retaliation.

Current
Air Force Capability

Historian Richard P. Hallion noted that "because the Air Force as a service is wedded to technology, there is always the danger that technology will make one's doctrine obsolete and will replace doctrine as the determinant of the future course of the Air Force."⁷ Although maintaining our place on the leading edge of technology is critically important, we should not ignore an appropriate mix of older and leading-edge technology for the insurgency environment. The sophisticated, high-tech, expensive weapon systems used by the Air Force make its equipment, management practices, and training incompatible with the needs of nations most likely to be involved in a protracted, revolutionary conflict. Developing nations tell us they require simple, inexpensive, easily operated and maintained systems.⁸ Currently, however, the Air Force does not advocate weapon systems unique to COIN and lacks the ability to train and educate our allies to employ such systems. The increased risk and frequency of warfare in and among developing nations, and those same nations, increasing significance to US national interests warrant greater Air Force emphasis on support to COIN.

The prevalent attitude among Air Force leaders and planners seems to be that preparations for and successful deterrence of World War III mean we will have no trouble "stepping down" to combat at the low end of the spectrum. Apparently they feel that an F-16 can be just as effective in El Salvador as in the Fulda Gap (West Germany). This article does not deny that the Air Force can fight and win a limited (not necessarily low-intensity) conflict. Indeed, our interventions in Grenada and Libya demonstrated that we can successfully conduct short-duration operations with conventional or special operations forces.

The problem is that shifting to FID/COIN is not a matter of "stepping down"; it is a matter of sidestepping to a new environment. But our current doctrine, training, and equipment are not suited to our allies' COIN efforts or their capabilities. The message the Air Force seems to be sending is that it can fight and win at any level of conflict. It would be better, as previously noted, for us to help others to fight and win their own counterinsurgencies.

Since the end of the Vietnam War, there has been a reluctance to commit US forces to combat. This attitude causes the American public and the Congress to fear and resist any involvements that may draw into another foreign conflict.⁹ In fact, former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger went so far as to propose strict guidelines--prerequisites for committing our military to combat. Thus, a commitment to combat--made only as a last resort--would require the sustained support of the American people and Congress, clearly defined political and military goals, and the intent to win.¹⁰ COIN does not lend itself to enthusiastic support by the Congress or the American people. With its propensity for protractedness and unclear political goals, COIN is extremely difficult to justify to an American public that tends to think in terms of nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union. Furthermore, the unique morality and ethics of insurgency and revolutionary warfare are foreign to traditional American norms.¹¹

Because of America's reluctance to commit forces to direct action (intervention) or even to integrate with an ally's forces, security assistance has become our primary military alternative in the third world.¹² This option is usually (but not always) politically more palatable to a wary public. The Army, through its First Special Operations Command has developed an enviable capability to assist others with FID support to COIN efforts. It sends mobile training teams (MTT) to teach basic health and sanitation, to improve standards of living, as well as to teach small-unit infantry skills needed to fight insurgents. However, the Air Force lost its ability to train allied personnel for the insurgency environment with the demise of the USAF Special Air Warfare Center (USAFSAWC). The best we seem to be able to do is minimally integrate our forces with those of our allies. For example, tactical and strategic intelligence systems have successfully supplied some of our allies' information needs. By and large, though, integration is tantamount to intervention in the eyes of the American public and is carefully avoided or disguised.

Traditionally, special operations forces have assumed primary responsibility for COIN-related foreign internal defense, especially in the Army and Air Force. Since the 1980 disaster at Desert One, these forces have received a great deal of attention. Though much work remains to be done, Air Force special operations forces have come a long way since that April night in the desert of Iran. The resounding success of Air Force SOF (MC-130 Combat Talon and AC-130 Spectre forces) during the Grenada operation attests to their remarkable resurgence. But, as Col Kenneth Alnwick pointed out in 1986, there has been a "major shift in emphasis . . . moving the Air Force SOF community away from traditional SOF missions in counterinsurgency, nation-building, and psychological warfare toward special operations behind enemy lines--more reminiscent of the World War II experience than the experiences of the last two decades.¹³" Special operations forces are neither familiar with nor proficient in concepts or systems unique to revolutionary warfare in developing nations.

By and large, when the Air Force says it does well in LIC, it means that it excels in executing a one-time raid (like the Libyan action), in conducting limited joint operations (like the one in Grenada), or in supporting the theater commanders' unconventional warfare (UW) requirements. "Capabilities for the broader missions of low-intensity conflict-assisting third world air forces, integrating with them, or directly intervening in a situation that requires activity beyond [emphasis added] a single mission," says Colonel Dean, "are not currently within the means of the Air Force Special Operations Forces.¹⁴

In 1961 the Air Force activated the 4400th Combat Crew Training Squadron (CCTS) at Eglin AFB, Florida. Using the older, surplus aircraft the United States was exporting to allied nations, this squadron trained foreign aircrews and ground crews to fly and maintain attack, reconnaissance, and airlift aircraft. The squadron also devised doctrine and tactics for employing air power in an insurgency environment.¹⁵ In 1962, responding to pressure from President John F. Kennedy to create forces to flight "Communist-sponsored was of national liberation," the 4400^th CCTS was absorbed into the newly created Special Air Warfare Center, also at Eglin AFB.

The responsibility for training allied crews in COIN and counterguerrilla techniques fell to the center's lst Air Commando Group.¹⁶ As the war in Southeast Asia continued and the requirement for COIN air strikes and airlift increased, the role of the center changed from training allied crews to training US crews for direct intervention. Reflecting the increasingly conventional response of the Air Force to hostilities and the spiralling numbers of US troops committed to the war, by late 1966 the air commandos were flying mostly in support of our own activities.¹⁷ In 1974, with the US withdrawal from Southeast Asia, the Special Air Warfare Center (since renamed the USAF Special Operations Force) was inactivated. With it went the Air Force's former capability to train friendly nations to fight their own counterinsurgencies with doctrine and equipment appropriate to the unique situations in those countries.

Currently, the four major Air Force SOF acquisition programs concentrate on the high-technology aircraft necessary for unconventional warfare and special operations. These aircraft include the MC-130H Combat Talon II, AC-130U gunship, MH-53J Pave Low III, and MCV-22A Osprey.¹⁸ While all these programs are vitally important and long overdue, none are designed for export to developing allied nations or to fight alongside indigenous forces in those environments where the Air Force signature might be less than desirable. Those MC-130s and AC-130s, or even "vanilla" C-130s in meaningful numbers, are too expensive for the developing nations of the world. Procurement of these systems reinforces Colonel Alnwick's assertion that the Air Force special operations forces tend to concentrate on their own operations to the exclusion of FID support to COIN.

A Proposed Solution

A master plan for Air Force SOF calls for four special operations wings: three operational wings oriented to geographical areas of responsibility and one training wing.¹⁹ The operational wings are designed to support the theater commanders' conventional, high-intensity war plans. They are not organized, trained, or equipped to assist other countries needing to develop various forms of air power for revolutionary warfare environments. That is a different mission, requiring a uniquely integrated organization; however, it is a mission that still belongs in the SOF arena.

I suggest a fifth special operations wing within Twenty-Third Air Force, the air component of the US Special Operations Command. Modeled on the Special Air Warfare Center of the 1960s, this fifth wing would be dedicated to training and educating third world air forces in COIN air power employment, as well as to developing and testing the doctrine, tactics, and techniques necessary for COIN operations. Army crew members should be included in the cadre since the wing should manifest joint operations and since Army flyers are the experts in certain missions (for example, heliborne insertions and extractions). This special air warfare wing could consist of a technical training squadron (TTS), a flying training squadron (FTS), and a combat development squadron (CDS). The wing should also sponsor mobile training teams that are tailored to fit the needs of a host country and able to instruct indigenous air forces in the required employment doctrines and tactics. Aircraft assigned to the wing ought to represent technologies most nearly approaching those found in the developing nations that the wing would service--but available in the United States.

The intent is to build experience in developing and flying the missions needed by the host nations, rather than to build experience in the actual types of aircraft those countries might own. The issue is one of training and education assistance instead of equipment advocacy. The days of T-6s, T-28s, B-26s, and C-47s donated through foreign assistance programs are gone. There are not many of those aircraft left in the boneyard, and that older technology is not suited to today's version of COIN. The commercial marketplace is full of aircraft that are better suited to developing nations' needs, cheaper to buy, and easier to maintain and operate. The goal should be to develop an experienced US cadre that is knowledgeable about working in a low-technology aeronautical environment. The aircrew and support personnel could transition to and apply their Air Force operational background to the aircraft and support environment peculiar to the requesting nation. For example, experienced Air Force C-130 pilots who fly short takeoff and landing (STOL) airlifters in the special air warfare wing might serve on a mobile training team in such aircraft as the Shorts Sherpa, CASA 212, or the Broman BR2000. Their credibility would be based on their background in COIN airlift employment rather than on the number of flying hours they have in general transport. The same basis of credibility would apply to attack pilots and so on.

The technical training squadron of the special air warfare wing could function in much the same way as similar units in our transition training units (TTU) and replacement training units (RTU) do now. That is, it could offer an array of classroom instruction geared to specific weapon systems, if appropriate, and to the operating conditions peculiar to COIN. All classroom instruction required prior to flying training and for support training offered by the wing should be the responsibility of the TTS. In addition, it should perform the registrar function for students attending operation and support training at the wing, and it should maintain a central Air Force technical library for equipment common to third world nations as well as Air Force equipment assigned to the wing.

The flying training squadron might consist of three flights: a C-23, a UH-1, and an A-10. These aircraft may not be optimum for the job at hand nor do many developing countries possess all or even some of them but they are simply suggested starting points for a discussion of proper types. All are similar in performance and capability to those aircraft available at a reasonable price to developing nations; they represent a source of experienced crew members from the Air Force community; and all are presently in the Air Force inventory and supported by our logistics system. The FTS would provide flying instructors for the mobile training team or could provide flying instruction at the wing in the equipment types available, for those countries wishing it.

The combat development squadron should be organized into an attack-/fire-support flight, an airlift flight, and a reconnaissance flight. The flights should not be weapon-system specific but should concentrate on integrating weapon systems and mission requirements. A key obligation of the CDS should be to develop innovative uses for common equipment (for example, intelligence gathering from helicopters). Crew members assigned to the CDS ought to be graduates of the various Air Force advanced weapons and tactics courses. With information gleaned from mobile training teams, the CDS should reevaluate and refine doctrine and tactics or develop new concepts as required. Additionally, the CDS should have a function much like that of the current USAF Special Operations School. Supported by the generic flights within the squadron, the school should teach employment doctrine and concepts for the COIN environment at both the tactical and operational levels. Lessons learned from experience and research could be applied to the development and refinement of doctrine, tactics, techniques, and procedures appropriate to portions of the low-intensity spectrum and could be disseminated among ourselves and our allies for application.

Conclusion

The Air Force, in both its conventional and unconventional roles, is preparing to fight the war most threatening to our national survival--World War III. However, it has sacrificed its ability to assist our allies who are combatting protracted revolutionary warfare. During the early 1960s, the Special Air Warfare Center helped counter Communist-sponsored wars of national liberation. The need for that capability is still valid, but the Air Force is no longer able to assist without directly intervening. Doctrine, along with fiscal and political realities, has dictated an Air Force force structure and organization unsuited for COIN support.

We must resurrect the concept represented by the Special Air Warfare Center in order to successfully influence those conflicts important to out national interests-and we must do so within the constraints imposed by the political and social facts of life. With creativity and minimal investment, we could shift assets and restore our capability. Our present doctrine addresses unconventional and limited warfare in certain areas but passes over counterinsurgency. This article has proposed a way for the Air Force to assist our allies as they fight in the environment of revolutionary warfare, while minimizing the impact on Air Force programs that are necessary to fight and win World War III.

Notes

1. Lt Col David J. Dean, The Air Force Role in Low-Intensity Conflict (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1986), 78.
2. Jerome W. Klingaman, "US Policy and Strategic Planning for Low-Intensity Conflict," in Low-Intensity Conflict in the Third World, ed. Lewis B. Ware (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1988), 166.
3. Mao Tse-tung on Guerrilla Warfare, ed. and trans. Samuel B. Griffith (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1961), 20-22.
4. Maj Eric M. Pettersen, "Providing Tools for Victory in the Third World," Armed Forces Journal International 126, no. 2 (September 1988): 109.
5. Sam C. Sarkesian, "The Myth of US Capability in Unconventional Conflicts," Military Review, September 1988, 12.
6. Stephan O. Foster, "Pentagon Slow-Rollers Stymie SOF Improvements," Armed Forces Journal International 126, no. 3 (October 1988): 102.
7. Dr Richard P. Hallion, "Doctrine, Technology, and Air Warfare: A Late Twentieth-Century Perspective," Airpower Journal, Fall 1987, 16.
8. Pettersen, 108.
9. Stephen T. Hosmer, Constraints on US Military Strategy in Past Third World Conflicts, Rand Report no. N-2180-AF (Santa Monica, Calif., 1984), viii.
10. Caspar W. Weinberger, "The Use of Military Power," remarks to the National Press Club, Washington, D.C., 28 November 1984, 5-6.
11. Dr Sam C. Sarkesian, "Low-Intensity Conflict: Concepts, Principles, and Policy Guidelines," in Low-Intensity Conflict and Modern Technology, ed. Lt Col David J. Dean (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1986), 21-22.
12. National Security Strategy of the United States (Washington, D.C.: The White House, January 1987), 33-34.
13. Col Kenneth J. Alnwick, "Perspectives on Air Power at the Low End of the Conflict Spectrum," Air University Review, March-April 1984, 18.
14. Dean, Air Force Role, 197.
15. Lt Col David J. Dean, "The USAF in Low-Intensity Conflict: The Special Air Warfare Center," Air University Review, January-February 1985, 47.
16. History, USAF Special Air Warfare Center (TAC), 1 April-31 December 1962, 2.
17. Dean, "The USAF in LIC," 55.
18. Robert S. Dudney, "Towards a Fifth Armed Service," Air Force Magazine, May 1988, 24.
19. USAF Special Operations Force Master Plan (U) Washington, D.C.: Department of the Air Force, 1983), B-1-5.

Maj Richard D. Newton (USAFA; MA, Webster University) is a student at the US Army Command and General Staff College. He has served as a special operations helicopter flight examiner and tactics officer and as an Air Staff training officer. Major Newton is a previous contributor to the Airpower Journal.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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