AEF - "Joint Aerospace Power: A New National Strategy"

JOINT AEROSPACE POWER:
A NEW NATIONAL STRATEGY

by
Gene Myers
September 16, 1998

PART IV: RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION

“Two-dimensional surface warfare concepts and doctrine still dominate military thinking. If air and space power is to reach its full potential, airmen must reexamine all aspects of warfare from the multidimensional (time, vector, velocity, and elevation) air and space perspective.”⁶⁹

Air Force Basic Doctrine

Tradition can be the harbinger of disaster. Time and again once mighty military forces have fallen to the council of the traditionalist. Adversaries with the vision and initiative to recognize and act on the changes confronting them have often brought stinging defeat to what were considered to be far superior forces.

The United States must maximize its asymmetrical advantages in the aerospace to maintain its edge over any potential adversary. To do this we need to develop a new mentality, a new way of thinking about military operations. This requires that:

We eventually shun the land-warfare centric tradition of military operations—not to its exclusion from the lexicon, but to its subjugation to a truly joint service paradigm that brutally assesses the true strengths of the various force elements in the 21^st century and then applies them according to the situation at hand.

We replace it with an overarching aerospace paradigm:

Seek first to use aerospace forces as the sole or dominant force in accomplishing national military objectives.
When not possible due to situational factors, aerospace forces are the supported force in a joint component (sea, air, land) operation.
When this is unattainable, joint aerospace forces are a major supporting force element in a more traditional combined arms operation

We acknowledge that all Service aerospace forces are synergistic components of the national aerospace force and that adherence to mother Service support doctrine, while clearly not passe, will now often be held in abeyance to directly achieving national objectives through the aerospace

We recognize that space and information operations are now as vital to total national economic well being as any industrial capability ever was. They are also now as central to our total military capabilities as are land, sea, and air forces and are an integral and indispensable component of joint aerospace operations

We appreciate the powerful asymmetric leverage that American aerospace superiority provides in both achieving national objectives and offsetting emerging adversary asymmetric strategies and capabilities, especially those that would deny us access to vital areas of the globe

We replace the concept of attrition warfare in actions such as halting invading armies with the capability to control enemy military forces and enforce our will upon enemy leaders. Within the context of our total efforts to bring a conflict to a satisfactory conclusion the threat of “national war” would serve to back up actions to control the adversary’s warmaking capability. This will be done as much as possible by joint aerospace forces at the strategic and operational levels of war while avoiding to the extent possible the more casualty and collateral damage prone tactical level.

Specifically, the Department of Defense and the Joint Staff should:

Ensure that joint and Service doctrine recognize and foster:

The concept of joint aerospace operations and the need for a body of aerospace doctrinal concepts that would guide US military forces in the 21^st century. Current joint force doctrine is oriented to a supporting role for aerospace forces. Future doctrine should not only eliminate such inequities but foster a leading role or, at least, a coequal partnership among aerospace, land, and sea components.
The abandonment of the attrition warfare model as the standard planning template for more advanced control oriented concepts based on RMA technologies and a core of aerospace forces.

Initiate joint Service aerospace training programs that would integrate the application of each Service’s aerospace forces as part of a joint aerospace force in support of joint force missions rather than individual Service or component objectives.

Develop a joint aerospace planning and operations function that would consider national military aerospace forces as a joint force warfighting element rather than as a strictly Service component. DoD/JCS aerospace staff elements would also be required to prosecute aerospace priorities and pursue adequate Service funding and equipping of aerospace forces.

Take the lead as the advocate for expanding space capabilities as a true and equal partner of both national aerospace capability and of total national military capability. This includes advancing space-based/space-transient warfighting capabilities.

For the US Air Force—the nations leading aerospace force—the task becomes one of teaching and leading. Service leaders have not convinced enough of the defense establishment audience of the merits of aerospace power to even begin the job of forming a joint aerospace coalition. The job of replacing the attrition legacy with an aerospace future is far from done. As the nation’s Air Force, it is incumbent on the aerospace Service not to dominate the debate or achieve some sort of doctrinal or fiscal preeminence over the other Services but to guide the development of an aerospace-based national strategy with the strong contribution of all the Services.

This discussion just scratches the surface of all that is needed to assure continued American military preeminence in the 21^st century. It may be criticized as parochial—so be it. The blood and brawn tradition will eventually have to be broken to pave the way for US military dominance based on new paradigms of skill and knowledge as represented by the RMA and combined air, space, and information technologies. We no longer have the forces or the national temperament for bludgeon strategies nor do we live in a world that tolerates such disregard for life and property when other options exist.

There is no reasonable option to increased national reliance on aerospace power. This is an area of absolute superiority for the United States—an asymmetrical advantage over adversaries that would apply their own niche advantages against us. We have the opportunity to seize the initiative, to expand and perpetuate that advantage—a chance that history proves is seldom realized before the catalyst of military disaster brings about the inevitable. It is a chance we dare not waste for fear of venturing from the familiar surroundings of tradition.

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