Air University Review, September-October 1984
| The Air Force continuously refines aerospace doctrine to make it relevant to present operations and viable for future contingencies. |
AFM 1-1, 5 January 1984, p. vii |
FOR the past thirty years Air Force officers have benefited from I. B. Holley's research and teaching on doctrine. Many of his ideas have shaped the framework of military doctrinal debates in the United States and have become part of the mainstream of Air Force doctrinal thinking. From his classic study Ideas and Weapons (1953), we learned that it is essential to institutionalize the rigorous analysis of experience and to use the results of the analysis process as the basis of our doctrine. His 1974 Harmon Memorial Lecture reminded us that developing sound doctrine is an "Enduring Challenge," a task never finished. Both of these ideas can be found in the latest edition of AFM 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force.
The new manual is a marked improvement over the 1979 version, which had several flaws. The earlier edition apparently attempted to include something for every constituency in the Air Force. As a result, it lacked the focus one expects in a manual purporting to explain how aerospace power is used in war. Basic doctrine was buried among extraneous image-building and irrelevant discussions of the Triad, the total force, education and training, and personnel management. Additionally, the number and types of illustrations accompanying the text tended to discredit any claim the manual might have had to being a rigorous treatment of a complex, fundamental, life-or-death matter--basic doctrine. The overall result was a manual that pointed to an organization apparently more concerned with training, organization, and equipment than with warfighting--an emphasis that is exactly what military professionals must guard against in a peacetime environment.
Reflecting the spirit of the Warrior Program, the latest edition of 1-1 gets down to serious business immediately and focuses throughout on the role of aerospace power in war. Doubtless, there will be ideas in the manual that will elicit disagreement. But of this, there can be no doubt--the manual clearly lays out a basic military doctrine, a body of beliefs about how best to employ aerospace power in war.
Gone is the puffery of the 1979 edition. There are few quotations in the new manual, and those that appear obviously belong, coming from the likes of LeMay Douhet, and Clausewitz. Gone also are the numerous illustrations that led some to speak of "cartoon doctrine" when the 1979 manual was published. Another refreshing aspect of the 1984 version is that it speaks candidly of war and victory. Passages like this one remind us all that we are in a military organization that is part of the cutting edge of the sword of the Republic.
The conduct of war is the art and science of using military force with other instruments of national power to achieve victory. Military victory is normally the decisive defeat of an enemy which breaks his will to wage war and forces him to sue for peace. In a broader sense, the attainment of stated objectives, limited or total, defines victory. (p. 1-1)
These changes alone are enough to alter the tone of the manual radically and give this edition much greater credibility than its predecessor.
A more elaborate review of the new 1-1 is contained in the second article in this issue, by Colonel Clifford R. Krieger. This article not only reviews the new manual but emphasizes the historical underpinning of Air Force doctrine. In one of his more important observations, an observation that echoes the ideas of Professor Holley, Krieger notes that Air Force doctrine is never finalized. Even as the new edition of 1-1 hits the streets, there are unresolved questions that will eventually make their mark on doctrine. Krieger maintains that professional officers throughout the Air Force have a responsibility to contribute to the effort to clear up such matters and help refine our Air Force doctrine.
The lead article in this issue may be considered an effort to help in the refinement of the January l984 AFM 1-1, which, like all doctrine manuals, will need to be revised some time in the future. In this article, Lieutenant Colonel Barry Watts and Major James O. Hale fault air power leaders for developing doctrine that tends to be composed principally of abstract definitions of roles and missions and fails to give sufficient consideration to combat experience. Moreover, the nature of this doctrine bespeaks a perception of war that does not give adequate recognition to the unknowns that are produced by war's fog and friction and the enemy (i.e., an animate object that reacts). The result, the authors believe, is a rigidity in the Air Force way of war that tends to inhibit appropriate modifications of doctrine in response to the ever changing circumstances of war.
The publication of these two articles on doctrine, coming hard on the heels of the appearance of the new 1-1, illustrates well some fundamental characteristics of doctrine itself--it is indeed an enduring challenge. We at the Review hope that the two articles on doctrine in this issue will make a significant, perhaps lasting contribution to the process of rigorous analysis that must be a part of the enduring challenge.
As we work to refine our doctrine, we would do well to keep in mind Colonel Krieger's observation that there is no best doctrine, only a better one.
D. R. B.
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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