Air University Review, January-February 1985
| In the Air Force bureaucracy, things get thought about and done largely by groups
of people organized and chartered to think about and do specific things. Major General Howard M. Estes, Jr., USAF (Ret) The answer you get often depends on how you ask the question. Anonymous Range is fundamental to power projection to diverse regions of the world where
speedy intervention is necessary and a supporting base infrastructure is not always
available. Range minimizes the dependence on aerial refueling, intermediate stops, and
other constraints.... Air Force 2000 |
IN a past issue of the Review, Dr. I. B. Holley carefully examined the demonstrated tendency of military doctrine to lag behind technology.1 Joseph Martino, in his comprehensive work on technology forecasting, has pointed out the tendency of any institution––including the military––to resist new systems that would disrupt familiar traditions and methods of operation.2 Although the Air Force makes a deliberate attempt to predict future needs and to use those need predictions to motivate the generation of concepts for future weapons, the system probably does not work as well as one would like to believe. Operational people will tend to think of future needs in terms of past ways of doing business, and those whose job it is to invent new weapon systems will tend to follow familiar evolutionary patterns of development. Robert Perry verifies the latter tendency in his documentation of ballistic missile decisions made in the 1950s.3
We need to recognize then that if our planning process does not guard against undue emphasis on the familiar, it may overlook the possibilities offered by innovation. If it relies too heavily on past ways of thinking and develops plans only within traditional mission area "compartments" (such as tactical, airlift, etc.), it may result only in the development of "new" weapon systems of familiar, traditional types.
This traditionalist approach appears to exist in an area of great importance to the United States at the present time. Before examining that area however, it will be useful to look briefly at one historical example where planning moved in familiar channels with unfortunate results. Between World Wars I and II, the French failed to appreciate the nature of the German threat; even more important, French military leaders confidently expected to fight the next war with the tactics developed in the previous one, and they planned to do it in roughly the same place. The Maginot Line, their ultimate preparation for trench warfare, was built across northeast France, along the German frontier. Failing to perceive the inadequacies of their planning assumptions (and perhaps applying their own version of "strategic sufficiency"), they failed to extend the line to the Mediterranean on the south and to the English Channel on the north. As a result, the system was circumvented easily by a tactic which the planners had not anticipated.
It is entirely possible that our planning today also tends to focus too much on past experiences and not enough on future possibilities. In World War II, the United States built, deployed, and supported a global war machine. Time, abundant resources, and a large capacity for industrial mobilization were necessary for this U.S. accomplishment. But any future conflict is likely to find the United States "on the short end of the stick" in all three of these categories. The "arsenal of democracy," pouring out weapons and equipment along secure logistics pipelines, is no longer a valid planning concept. In spite of this fact, great emphasis is placed today on a perceived requirement for massive airlift and sealift capabilities to transport U.S. forces and supplies to potential worldwide trouble spots.4 Force projection, rather than being a useful generic term for planning purposes, is almost automatically defined as tactical fighters nursed across vast distances by tanker aircraft, along with large transports full of support people, ground troops, and combat equipment––all flying to airfields located conveniently close to future battlefields. This conception assumes, of course, that the requisite airlift is affordable and will be purchased, that bases will be available and safe for lumbering transports to fly to, and that enemy forces will conveniently wait until U.S. forces are set up and supplied before going about their business.
Nevertheless, some published material casts considerable doubt on such assumptions.5 Beyond the difficulty of setting up a conventional tactical air force in a battle area lies the formidable task of keeping it operational there. Large, fixed air bases and their accompanying industrialized support structure are vulnerable to disruption or destruction by hostile forces. One solution might be small-unit autonomy with dispersed combat operations. If this were practical, it would seem to offer a way to keep tactical air forces close to the action; but mobility and dispersion introduce a new set of problems. For example, equipping aircraft with large amounts of built-in test equipment to provide a measure of self-sufficiency extracts a cost in terms of both dollars and system complexity.
And even if the U.S. Air Force could come up with adequate quantities of rugged, dispersed systems, it would still have the problem of supplying large volumes of munitions, fuel, and other supplies to widely dispersed units. In fact, whichever way planners turn in their efforts to plan conventional-looking tactical air forces for possible worldwide use, they seem to run into a stone wall of problems.
The answer to a range of future worldwide threats may not lie in the purchase of more transports, tactical aircraft, or other stereotyped mission area hardware. It is more likely to be found in a comprehensive search for innovative systems and appropriate techniques for their employment, a search that goes beyond traditional mission area boundaries and includes a realistic appraisal of both U.S. resource limitations and technological opportunities. Although the discussion that follows is not the result of a comprehensive and detailed search and analysis effort, it is the result of a train of thought that attempts to keep those two critical factors in view; and it suggests one promising system concept.
Perhaps the key is to start at the beginning, with the gruesome but fundamental fact that the purpose of a weapon system is to kill people and destroy property. (If the threat to do so will control an enemy's behavior, so much the better.) The best system is the one that will destroy people and things most cost-effectively. Whether such a system looks like those we are accustomed to is unimportant. And the requirement to deliver destructive force at global range may force us to change our views of what future "tactical" systems should look like.
Planners must anticipate a variety of future circumstances under which destructive force may have to be applied. In some cases, conventional tactical aircraft may be most cost-effective. In others, the battleship New Jersey might be the best system for the job. In many other conceivable future situations, however, the need for extremely rapid response and global range will be paramount. In such cases, it would appear that the needed destructive force, whatever its level, could best be applied by long-range aeronautical systems, particularly if the trouble spots were in remote areas (the interior of Africa, for example) far from established U.S. air bases.
The argument can be raised, of course, that large aircraft are vulnerable over the battlefield, and indeed they are. So, too, are smaller, conventional aircraft. Losses in Vietnam and in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War illustrated this fact.
What is needed then? Effective force projection requires a system that can operate from secure, supportable bases; transport destructive force to targets at global ranges; apply that force accurately and in a timely manner; and safely return to do the job again and again if necessary.
These requirements seem like a big order for any possible all-purpose aircraft. Therefore, the key is to think of a system, not an aircraft. A large, long-range aircraft to supply large capacity and global range would be a basic part of such a system. One or more types of standoff missiles would probably be necessary to reduce vulnerability of the carrier. If friendly forces were being furnished close air support, they might provide target designation. In autonomous operation, drones might be used to fly into hostile environments and seek out targets for destruction, as suggested by recent public relations releases concerning the Aquila program. Starting with the concept of a long-range carrier aircraft and carefully integrating target acquisition subsystems, including drones, plus accurate standoff weapons, could result in a new level of cost-effectiveness in force projection.
More than forty years ago, as the final quotation opening this article shows, a famous air power pioneer looked ahead to a day when military aircraft would provide rapid force projection at global ranges. Advances in propulsion and materials are bringing these ranges closer. At the same time, electronic and computer advances may be bringing closer the scout and strike vehicles to provide the survivability needed by such a system. The resulting system, however, will be neither tactical fighter nor strategic bomber; and to evaluate the need for it and to assess its potential will require stepping out of familiar mission area ways of thinking that tend to confine our thinking to one or the other.
Enon, Ohio
Notes
1. I. B. Holley, Jr., "Of Saber Charges, Escort Fighters, and Spacecraft," Air University Review, September-October 1983, pp. 2-11.
2. Joseph Martino, Technology Forecasting for Decision Making (New York: American Elsevier, 1971), p. 82.
3. Robert L. Perry, The Ballistic Missile Decisions (Santa Monica: Rand, 1967).
4. For example see Thomas Fabyanic, "Conceptual Planning and the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force," Armed Forces and Society, Spring 1981.
5. See Dr. E. Asia Bates, "The Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force––Fact or Fiction," Journal of the Royal United Services Institute, June 1981.
Leonard C. Gaston (B.S., Texas Tech; M.B.A., Ph.D., Ohio State University) is an Operations Research Analyst with the Deputy for Development Planning, Aeronautics Systems Division, Air Force Systems Command and is an Air Force Reserve officer assigned to the Air Force Business Research Management Center, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. Dr. Gaston is a previous contributor to the Review.
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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