--- Page 3 --- Secretary of the Air lòrce Dr Sheila E. Widnall Air Force Chief of Staff Gen Ronald R. Fogleman Commander, Air Education and Training Command Gen Henry Viccellio, Jr. Commander, Air University Lt Gen Jay W. Kelley Commander, College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research, and Education Col Leroy Barnidge, Jr. Editor Lt Col James W. Spencer Associate Editor Maj John M. Poti Professional Staff Hugh Richardson, Contributing Editor Marvin W. Bassett, Contributing Editor Steven C. Garst, Director ofArt and Production Daniel M. Armstrong, Illustrator L. Susan Fair, Illustrator Thomas L . Howell, Prepress Production Manager The Airpower Journal, published quarterly, is the professional journal of the United States Air Force. It is designed to serve as an open forum for the presentation and stimulation of innovative think- ing on military doctrine, strategy, tactics, force structure, readiness, and other matters of national defense. The views and opinions expressed or im- plied in the Journal are those of the authors and should not be construed as carrying the official sanction of the Department of Defense, the Air Force, Air Education and Training Command, Air University, or other agencies or departments of the US government. Articles in this edition may be reproduced in whole or in part without permission. If they are reproduced, the Airpower Journal requests a cour- tesy line. --- Page 5 --- JOURNAL Spring 1995 ________________________Vol. IX, No. I _____________________AFRP K MSpring 1995 Vol. IX, No. I _______AFRP 10-1 FEATURES STRATEGY AND State of the Air Force................................................. 4 Dr Sheila Widnall. Secretary of the Air Force The Enemy as a System.............................................40 Col John A. Warden III, USAF INFORMATION WARFARE Weapons of Mass Protection: Nonlethality, InformationWarfare, and Airpower in the Age of Chãos ..............................................................15 Chris Morris, Janet Morris, Thomas Baines Information Warfare ...................................................30 Prof George J . Stein A Theory of Information Warfare: Preparing for 2020......................................................56 Col Richard Szafranski. USAF OPERATIONAL ART Airpower and Peacekeeping......................................66 Lt Col Brooks L. Bash, USAF Air Operations Must Be Joint ...................................79 Maj Scott A. Fedorchak, USA DEPARTMENTS Editorial ..................................................................... 2 Ricochets and Replies............................................. 3 Net Assessment..........................................................91 Mission Debrief...........................................................94 --- Page 6 --- EDITORIAL_________ There Are No Sacred Cows ITH CHANGES in the air, you can al- most hear the herd of sacred cows boarding the train, destined no doubt for the same crypt that holds both the lost Ark of the Covenant and the "regular" crew chief. We see change everywhere (even the "new" Air Force uniform is now old)— in Congress, in the sênior leadership of the Air Force, and in the focus and format of the Airpoxver Journal. Changes outlined by my predecessors at APJ in previous editions leave us all with new challenges. I'm thrilled to take these challenges up with you. In these last few months, the public has been forming opinions of the new Re- publican majority that was swept into Office in the November elections. And it seems that just about everyone except Judge Lance Ito has had an opinion on the "new" uni- form. Of course, he was never asked. But our metrics suggest that you have yet to form an opinion on the substantive APJ for- mat changes discussed in recent editoriais. I can remember great ululations over the de- mise of Air University Review and the shift in APfs focus away from strategy and policy is- sues. Now that they're back, we're alarmed that your silçnce is deafening. I can cer- tainly understand why. W h e n I was a c a p t a i n , I t h o u g h t I c o u l d run the Air Force and often wrote about that. My superiors were patient and attentive to my grand strategic lucubrations, knowing well they would never jeopardize a budget line. My professional writing adolescence occurred during the Reagan years when there was nothing sacred about cows. There were cows enough for everyone. In this era of fis- cal retrenchment and the attendant anxiety that downsizing brings, I'm sure you've been investing more brain cells in your pro- motion portfolio— doing your job to the best of your ability— than in contributing to the professional discourse this journal repre- sents. These days, the challenge of putting food on the table is much more urgent. I'd suggest to you, though, that with these focus and format changes, there has never been a better time to diversify your promo- tion portfolio by becoming an active partici- pant on these pages. These days, everyone's budget line is in jeopardy already and the train carrying the sacred cows has since crested the horizon. Some of the ideas for- warded in APJ will scream for your critique. You don't have to write a thesis to respond— and actively participate in the professional dialogue. In today's Quality Air Force, your supervisors have everything to gain if your name appears as a contributor. If you're in- timidated by your supervisors, let me know. Don't sit on a paper you're waiting to incor- porate into some larger effort. Send it in and we'll work with you and process your papers quickly in our attempt to keep topics current. A s editor of the Air Force's only profes- sional journal, I help shape the professional dialogue of the Air Force officer corps. Your active participation in this forum doesn't make my job any harder or easier. It simply gets the job done. So, I'm thrilled about the changes in the APJ focus. Tell us what you think about them. More important, seize the opportuni- ties afforded by the new format. The Air Force is hungry for your ideas. Let us hear from you soon. JWS NEXT TIME: In Defense of a Little Readability 2 --- Page 7 --- We encourage your comments via letters to the edi- tor or comment cards. All correspornience should be addressed to the Editor, Airpower Journal, 401 Chennault Circle, Maxwell AFB AL 36112-6428. You can also send your comments by E-mail to Spencer=James%ARJ%CADRE@Chicago.AFWC.AF. MIL. We reserve the right to edit the material for overall length. VALUING LEADERSHIP Capt Charles T. Barco's article, "Valuing Leader- ship in an Era of Prophets, Politicians, and Pugi- lísts" (Fali 1994), was a timely look at military leadership in a quality culture, but (1) only hinted at the important questions our leaders and management think tanks must address and (2) made implied assumptions about the answers to those questions: Does the quality management philosophy erode our ability to nurture (and pro- mote) leaders capable of leading in war? Does our commitment to military leadership under- mine our ability to foster quality in our business practices? Do we want coup d'oeil functioning (and, if so, to what degree) within the structured approach to problem solving (or is it more appli- cable to seat-of-the-pants management)? In addressing these and other important ques- tions, we should remember, as stated in the arti- cle and taught in most basic quality courses, that team problem solving is ideal for specific, com- plex, (usually) cross-functional problems that need a range of detailed expertise or a broad or- ganizational "buy-in" to solve. In implementing quality, we should not discard "bureaucratic" no- tions like hiring facilitators, using charters, man- aging by facts/data/analysis, etc. We must realize that these notions make our teams more effec- tive. Experience as a process action team (PAT) leader should not be viewed as a means of train- ing combat leaders. The responsibility of the team leader is to get the best result when he or she has neither all the required expertise nor command authority over the team. Combat lead- ership seems more a matter of operational exper- tise supplemented by a practiced familiarity with other areas (especially logistics). This sort of ex- pertise is more likely to be found in our combat leaders as a result of their training and experi- ence. All that remains, then, is to nurture (in the appropriate arena) those other qualities of leader- ship that will best prepare our combat leaders to apply their intellect, intuition, training, and ex- perience in war. Capt Timothy M. Torres, USAF Scott AFB, Illinois The Author Respotids Captain Torres raises a variety of thought-provok- ing questions that ultimately revolve around how we define quality and then employ it. I have al- ways considered quality a value that fits beauti- fully into our lifetime pursuit of coup d'oeil. But such understanding is dependent on an apprecia- tion of quality as a "system of profound knowl- edge"— not as disjointed fads or bureaucratic notions. Idealiy, quality establishes a pattern of leadership and systems thinking which if prop- erly nurtured can be employed at every levei of our organization in every type of environment. Our ultimate goal of human resource develop- ment in the Quality Air Force should be to de- velop coup d'oeil. A s such, coup d'oeil is not seat-of-the-pants management, but the emerging inner eye that leads you to effectively and effi- ciently read situations/people and then act ac- cordingly. Thus, based on our operating style, coup d'oeil is the absolute art of quality-based problem solving whether it be in war or peace. Fortunately, the increasing thinking skills as- sociated with coup d’oeil can be nurtured. Un- fortunately, I fear that in an effort to implement quality we may be stifling the very intuitive skills we are attempting to develop. Maj Charles T. Barco, USAF Maxwell AFB, Alabanta continued on page 88 3 --- Page 8 --- THE STATE OF THE AIR FORCE Dr S he i la E. W id n a l l S e CRETARYOF THE AlR FORCE HE UNITED STATES Air Force re- mai ns the premier air and space force in the world and a criticai con- tributor to our national security. Our mission is "to defend the United States through control and exploitation of air and space." Our guiding construct, Global Reach— Global Power, defines five roles in support of this mission: sustaining nuclear deterrence, providing versatile combat forces, supplying rapid global mobility, con- trolling the high ground of space, and build- ing US influence around the world. These roles have assumed heightened significance in the post-cold-war era. Air and space power provide an economical means for shaping the international environment through global presence and increasingly underpin national capabilities to conduct decisive combat operations worldwide on short notice. Since our birth in 1947, the Air Force has been an institution that thrives on change, but never so successfully as during the past several years. We have cut personnel by one- third, fighter forces by nearly half, and the bomber force by two-thirds. Our budget is down 40 percent from its cold war high. During this period, the Air Force recreated itself. First carne the Year of Organizing. We restructured top to bottom— consolidating major commands and redefining authority so people charged with new missions control the resources to do the job. Next carne the Year of Training. We are now implementing life-cycle training processes in support of all USAF requirements. The Year of Equipping followed. We reinvigorated planning— devel- oping road maps across 40 mission areas to make educated decisions that balance current readiness with modernization needs. Finally, this past year was the Year of Readiness. We strengthened readiness forecasting and are poised to win future battles through better resource management today. Thus, in a very real sense, this year will be a year of divi- dends. The forward-leaning initiatives of the past four years are yielding big returns. To- day^ Air Force is simpler, more flexible, tougher, less expensive to operate, and fo- cused on the tasks ahead. Yet, while resources have diminished, de- mands for air and space power are increasing. *This article is an excerpt from the "Report of the Secretary of the Air Force, 1994," in the Report o f the Secretary ofD efense to the President and the Congress (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, February 199S). 4 --- Page 9 --- THE STATE OF THE AIR FORCE 5 This trend suggests bigger challenges in the next decade than those we overcame in the past. In a world defined by contingencies, we have set our sights on four objectives to help guide us in these turbulent times: remaining engaged, supporting our people, preserving combat readiness, and building for the future. This report recounts our accomplishments in these areas and identifies key challenges. Engagement The new world environment required a new national security strategy aimed at pro- viding stability for the emergence of new de- mocracies. The Air Force is fully engaged in support of that strategy. While personnel strength has fallen one-third across the force and 50 percent overseas, the number of peo- ple on temporary duty overseas is up nearly fourfold since the Berlin Wall fell. Our global reach forces operated in nearly every country in the world this year. We delivered 75,000 tons of relief to Bosnia and 15,000 tons to Rwanda and Zaire. Our airlift and tanker forces continue to support contingency op- erations in Europe, Southwest Asia, and the Caribbean, as well as to conduct humanitar- ian missions in these and other areas around the globe. Our combat components are also charting new territory. Almost 50 percent of our ac- tive duty fighter force is continuously engaged overseas. These forces support alliances, pro- mote stability, and provide sustained combat power on demand throughout Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. We have flown 18,000 sorties over Bosnia. In February 1994, our F-16s downed four jets attacking targets in a prohibited zone. In the Persian Gulf, we have flown more than three times as many mis- sions since Desert Storm as we did during the war itself. Within 10 days of Iraq's provoca- tion last fali, 122 combat aircraft had aug- mented the 67 already deployed, and we had flown 1,000 sorties in support of Vigilant Warrior. To drive the point further, four bombers on a power-projection mission punctuated American resolve by flying non- stop from the United States to deliver 55,000 pounds of bombs within audible range of Iraqi forces. As Secretary of Defense William Perry said, "The Air Force has really deterred a war. When we deployed F-15s, F-16s, and A-lOs in large numbers, I think they got the message very quickly." Another increasingly important vehicle for Air Force engagement involves expansion of our military-to-military contacts. Since 1993, our security assistance personnel have worked in 101 countries to foster stab ility, sustain hope, and provide relief. Air Force training reached 4,900 international students in 1994. In fact, 29 graduates of our schools are now their nations' air force chiefs of staff. Con- tacts with States of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe are also thriving. We have exercised with Russian, Polish, and Lithuanian militaries. We have sponsored CINC (commander in chief) counterpart vis- its and base and unit exchanges. Thirteen US States have partnerships with new nations as a result of our Air National Guard's Building Bridges to America program. Finally, our liai- son teams in 12 host States provide expertise on everything from civil-military relations to chaplaincies. Through these contacts, we share American military skills, insights, and values so that foreign militaries can better help themselves and so we can operate better with them. Finally, in response to the burgeoning requirements of engagement, the Air Force has reconceptualized presence— what it is, why we do it, and how best to support joint requirements. Our concept of presence in- cludes all peacetime applications of mili- tary capability that promote US influence. Correspondingly, the way we exert presence is changing. We are augmenting a reduced permanent presence overseas with informa- tion-gathering systems linked to joint mili- tary capabilities that can be brought to bear either proactively or just in time. Our space and airborne collection plat- forms help provide global situational aware- ness. Sometimes this information, by itself, --- Page 10 --- 6 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 can promote US influence. In other cases, information linked to forces that can react swiftly with the right mix of joint capabilities anywhere on the globe reduces the need for traditional physical presence. Permanent presence is still imperative in many areas. And even where it is not, we routinely verify our global commitments through deploy- ments. But we do not need and cannot afford to be everywhere at once. We can exercise more influence in more places by providing assistance, assurance, or deterrence either periodically or on demand. This allows for maximum effective use of our air and space forces to help build US influence jointly and globally, while controlling risks and minimizing costs. Supporting Our People People are the ultimate guarantors of com- bat readiness. Attracting and retaining qual- ity people depends on providing a reasonable quality of life. This means three things: pro- viding acceptable standards of living, treating people with dignity and respect, and manag- ing stresses associated with high deployment tempos. Acceptable Standards o f Living The Air Force boosted quality-of-life funding 5 percent this year. We are focusing on key areas such as child care, housing, and family support. We provide quality child care for (As of December 31,1994) South/Central America Counterdrug Operations (Dec 89 - Present)  260 Personnel Oeployed  Over 2,140 AWACS Sorties Iraq Operations Provide Comfort and Southern Watch (Apr 91 - Present)  10,130 Personnel Deployed  Over 202,800 Sorties Bosnia and Herzegovina  1,920 Total Personnel Deployed for Both Operations Boundary representatlons are nol necessarlly aulhoriiative Operation Deny Flight (Apr 93 • Present)  Over 10,030 Sorties Operation Provide Promise (Jul 92 - Present)  Over 4,110 Airlift Sorties and 56,950 Tons  Over 2,300 Airdrop Sorties and 20,100 Tons Haiti Operation Uphold/Maintain Democracy (Sep 94 - Present)  2,510 Personnel Deployed  Over 2,400 Sorties FY 94/95 Humanitarian Aid O Somalia - Famine Bosnia and Herzegovina- Reiiel Supplies Califórnia • Forest Fires/Earthquake Germany • Flood Relief Rússia - Operation Provide Hope III The Former Yugosiav Republtc of Macedonta - UN Peacekeepmg Force Rwanda - Operation Oistant Runner Yemen - Non-combatant Evacuation Tanzaraa • Refugee Camp Relief N Carolma • Forest Ftres Haiti/Cuba - Migrant Relief and Processing Rwanda - Operation Support Hope Zaire • Refugee Relief Southeastern U S. • Flood Relief Western U.S - Forest Fires Johnston Atoft - Personnel Evacuation Papua New Guinea - Volcanic Activity Relief Panama - Cuban Migrant Relief St Kitts • Emergency Supplies FY95 JCS Exercise Locations with Significant USAF Participation  Aegean Sea El Salvador Oman Anbgua Ettuopia Palustan Argentina Germany Panama Austrália Greece Peiu Bahamas Grenada Philippmes Bahrain Guatemala PueitoRico Baltic Sea Honduras Qatar Barbados HongKong SaudrArabia Black Sea Iceland Smjapore Bolívia índia South Korea Botswana Jamaica Thailand Canada Japan Trinidad Chile Jotdan Tunísia CoJombia Kenya TurVey Denmark Kuwait UAE Dommtcan Malaysia UK Republtc Ma» USA Ecuador Meditenanean Venezuela Egypl Moiocco Zimbabwe Space Activity  1 Launch in Past Month  45 Satellites on Orbit --- Page 11 --- THE STATE OE THE AIR TORCE 7 45,000 families each day at substantially less cost to our personnel than commercial caregivers. We are arresting growth of de- ferred maintenance for housing; exploring privatization to improve access to quality units; and working towards private rooms for unaccompanied enlisted personnel. Family support activities such as parenting, chap- laincy, and abuse prevention programs are reaching more people. Finally, in response to an increasing number of families citing fi- nancial strains, we have doubled financial training for new recruits. We have accomplished much, but much remains to be done. The president's recent commitment to the highest-level military pay raise permitted by law will help stop the fali in military pay as compared to that of the private sector, but the gaps generated in past years will continue to grow (albeit at a much slower rate). Therefore, we must continue to look for opportunities to improve the lot of those who serve in today's Air Force and their families. The departmenfs renewed commit- ment to a better quality of life, through in- vestments totaling S2.7 billion, is an important step in our efforts to counterbal- ance that pay gap and to achieve needed re- tention leveis. At the same time, we will c o n t i n u e t o p u r s u e w a y s t o r e d u c e t h e s u b - stantial out-of-pocket housing and moving expenses that now are absorbed by military families. Recruiting also remains a top priority. In recent years American youth have been turn- ing away from military Service. The propen- sity to enlist is down 35 percent since 1990, and some speculate that young people doubt our ability to provide career opportunities that are challenging yet stable. The recently enacted boosts to our advertising appropria- tion should help correct that misperception, but some concerns remain. We aggressively monitor recruiting trends, and stand ready to pursue the resources necessary to achieve ex- cellence in this area so vital to long-term readiness. In sum, 1994 signaled a year of rededica- tion to members of the Air Force and their families—a dedication to more equitable pay, to providing a better quality of life, and to excellence in recruiting and retention. We will continue to build on these accomplish- ments in the year ahead and recognize our responsibility to move quickly in arresting any adverse trends that might emerge. Treatment o f People The Air Force is setting new standards in the equitable treatment of people to enhance unit effectiveness and cohesion. Our focus is in two areas: eliminating discrimination and harassment and enhancing professional opportunities. Air Force leaders at all leveis are getting the word out— discrimination and harassment have no place in our profession and will not be tolerated. Our policy is clear, educational processes are continuously being improved, and local commanders are empowered to deal with incidents in a frank, open, and proactive way. Correspondingly, opportunities for professional growth have been clarified and expanded. Year of Train- ing initiatives resulted in life-cycle education and training objectives that reduce uncer- tainties concerning requirements for ad- vancement. New opportunities are also available to women, who now compete for over 99 percent of all positions. Mattaging the Stress o f Deployments Finally, we are working to reduce the stresses associated with high deployment tempos. Personnel deployment tempos are up four- fold in as many years. Average annual de- ployment rates for special mission and support aircraft are particularly high— HC- 130 (194 days), EC-130E (187 days), E-3 (165 days), U-2 (148 days), AC-130 ( 146 days), MH-60G (145 days), RC-135 ( 143 days), F-4G (135 days), and C- 130 (126 days)— with corre- sponding demands on support personnel. To reduce stress on our people, we are --- Page 12 --- 8 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPR1NG 1995 A strong American defense comes not from the building of gadgets but from the building ofcharacter. Every day, Air Force peopie are rewriting the script that reads “duty, honor, country." Over 800,000 airmen, uniformed and civilian, guard, active, and reserve, serving at 191 installations spanning the globe, have committed their lives in our nation’ s Service. --- Page 13 --- THE STATE OF THE AIR FORCE 9 broadening support bases for affected plat- forms, targeting family support for affected units, distributing deployment burdens through our Palace Tenure program, and working with our Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve partners to balance mission loads across the Total Force. Preserving Combat Readiness We are preserving the combat readiness of the Air Force through resource management, realistic combat training, and stability in funding to meet the challenges of contin- gency operations. Resource Management Year of Readiness initiatives produced three criticai enhancements to Air Force readiness. First, we strengthened readiness forecasting. Our improved status of resources and train- ing system (SORTS) ensures that all units provide readiness snapshots not only of cur- rent health, but forecasts looking three, six, and 12 months ahead. This system helps predict the impact of resource decisions as well as to uncover weaknesses before readi- ness erodes. Second, the way we support weapon Sys- tems is being fundamentally altered. Lean logistics is an integrated effort among main- tenance, supply, and transportation systems to provide the right part, at the right time, at the best price to the user. Lean logistics selec- tively removes one whole tier of maintenance support for highly reliable weapon systems, reduces depot maintenance time, and uses transportation procedures like those of com- mercial package carriers. The results are im- pressive. In the avionics area, for instance, repair pipeline times have been cut by 75 percent. Third, we are enhancing readiness through better distribution of mission tasks across the force. The Air Force is making increasing use of the world-class capabilities of our Air Na- tional Guard and Air Force Reserve. These affordable, accessible, and highly capable partners are integral to our war-fighting strat- egy. They are also making decisive contribu- tions in peacetime contingency operations around the world. We have expanded their mobility roles, introduced bombers, and are funding key upgrades that reflect our increas- ing dependence on these citizen-airmen in frontline roles. In a similar vein, the Civil Reserve Air Fleet has been expanded to pro- vide 34 percent of our cargo and 90 percent of our passenger capability. Finally, we are ob- taining authority to use US air forces assigned to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on a temporary basis outside the re- gion when required. Combat Training Realistic combat training is not a luxury, but a necessity. We have insisted on strong funding profiles for all combat training pro- grams. What began 20 years ago as a mod- est exercise concept known as Red Flag has since become the backbone of USAF readi- ness. As one commander put it, "W hat we did in Desert Storm would have been im- possible if the entire Air Force didn't have flag exercise experience." Now all Air Force flag exercises are joint or combined. Simi- larly, the Air Force is a full partner in all ma- jor Army exercises at the National Training and Joint Readiness Training centers. Fi- nally, we bring our high training standards to over 50 major joint and combined exer- cises around the globe each year. Underpinning this, of course, is the realis- tic day-to-day training that prepares our peo- ple for these large exercises. Thus, we maintain high day-to-day training tempos across the force, and daily operations increas- ingly emphasize composite and joint force operations to build on basic formation skills. Finally, we continue to enhance combat training through simulation, but primarily as a supplement to flight operations. Teamwork and uncompromising standards measured in a realistic flight environment are the --- Page 14 --- 10 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRIHG 1995 touchstones of war-fighting excellence. We w i l l continue to ar m our p e o p l e wi t h exper i - ences that mimic the crucible of w ar in its most demanding phases. Challenges Stability in our operation and maintenance (O&M) budget is key to maintaining Air Force readiness, and that stability depends on timely funding for contingency opera- tions. If future funding is delayed, then the balance between force structure and readi- ness support could easily be upset. We would then have less ability to deal with spot-readiness setbacks in systems such as the airborne warning and control system (AWACS), F-117s, EF-111 s, B-lBs, C-5s, C-141s, AC-130s, and in engines for the F-15 and F- 16. These problems are manageable, but there is little margin for error. A related con- cern is the impact of contingency operations on combat training. Heavily tasked units have fewer opportunities to hone their com- plete repertoire of combat skills. We need continued stability in our O&M accounts, including timely funding for contingencies, in order to manage these problems. Buiiding for the Future A s Gen John Shalikashvili said, "The com- bination of slower modernization rates and a rapidly charçging threat environment makes long-range planning more difficult and more important." The Air Force has set standards in this area of planning. Planning Savvy We have developed 25-year road maps across 40 mission areas to make educated decisions about modernization needs. These plans link future tasks to deficien- cies, to candidate Solutions, and to labora- tory programs for an end-to-end view of each mission area. We evaluate alternatives ranging from nonmaterial options to changes in force structure, systems modifica- tions, Science and technology applications, and new acquisitions. Correspondingly, we continue to evolve and reform the manner in which we conduct the acquisition of sys- tems and capabilities. Through numerous initiatives we are streamlining the process, reducing the paperwork, adopting commer- cial practices, standards, and processes, all aimed at more effectively and efficiently placing the required capabilities into war fighters' hands. This new planning process and our initia- tives in acquisition reform are major mile- stones, but they are also just the beginning of a renaissance in Air Force planning and sys- tems acquisition. The year 1995 is the 50th anniversary of the Air Force Scientific Advi- sory Board (SAB), whose first reports set the trajectory for Air Force modernization for decades. This year will see a similar levei of effort by the SAB, Air Force planners, Air Uni- versity, and our acquisition and modeling and simulation activities. 1 have challenged our best and brightest to revolutionize and institutionalize new planning and acquisi- tion processes that will prepare us for the twenty-first century. Essential Foundations Air Force scientific and technological prow- ess remains the fulcrum for future readiness, but our strategies to maintain preeminence are changing. In prior decades, we produced the most criticai technologies. Now we must harness commercial applications in many areas. Hence, in addition to funding our Sci- ence and technology program at the maxi- mum authorized levei, we have revitalized the SAB as a nexus linking the Air Force to other government agencies, commercial sec- tors, academe, and our allies. Through the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, we support about 3,000 sênior researchers and 2,000 graduate students at universities, in industry, and in laboratories. We have also --- Page 15 --- THE STATE OF THE AIR FORCE 11 developed international data exchanges, re- search agreements, engineer/scientist ex- changes, and Foreign Comparative Test and Nunn Amendment programs, and we are committed to the research activities of the NATO. These efforts keep us at the cutting edge of technological advancements and promote affordable Solutions to aerospace problems. Finally, our approach to research, development, test, and evaluation (RDT&E) i s also changing. Vigorous growth in model- ing and simulation capabilities is promoting better RDT&E at reduced cost. Regional War-fighting Requirements Modernization objectives to meet two ma- jor regional conflict (MRC) requirements must be understood in their strategic con- text. Decisions made today have 30-year implications. Regional threats may change radically. We probably will not have the luxury of a Desert Shield-type buildup. Next time, we may be fighting our way in, racing for control of footholds in one (or two) theater(s). If we lose the race, the re- sult will be a fait accompli or a long, costly war. With these points in mind, Bottom-up Review (BUR) conclusions depended on key modernization efforts to field highly lever- aged forces early on. These forces would (1) secure a lodgment in-theater, (2) blunt enemy progress, and (3) thereby lay abut- ments for a sea and air bridge over which follow-on forces would propagate initial success. Moreover, portions of the lead cadre must be prepared to swing to help reproduce decisive results in a second theater or to deter a second aggressor. In sum, BUR conclusions depend on leverag- ing the capabilities of airpower, at sufficient operations tempos and with the right muni- tions, to defeat two enemies on opposite sides of the globe in less than two months. Within this context, we are focusing on the following priorities. Rapid Global Mobility The C-141 is tired! It will continue to serve through this decade, but it makes better economic sense to modernize with C-17s rather than extend the life of this ag- ing workhorse. The once-troubled C-17 is now a success story— replacing the C-141 at lower operating costs while delivering C-5- type payloads into C-130-size airfields. This core airlifter underpins the nation's two-MRC strategy and is US Transportation Command's highest priority. Production of the C-17 is ahead of schedule, and the aircraft made its operational debut in Vigi- lant Warrior. We are also evaluating aug- mentation using a nondevelopmental airlift aircraft with a decision pending in 1995. We are also upgrading our air refuel- ing and theater airlift fleets to increase flexibility, better support our sister Serv- ices, and enhance viability in the next cen- tury. Air Superiority The initial battle for air superiority may well determine the course of the next MRC. Our early deploying fighter forces may arrive outnumbered to engage the full weight of the enemy's air forces, missile forces, and surface-to-air defenses— all sup- ported by robust command and logistical infrastructures. This is why the F-22 is our top modernization objective. Modem air battles tend to be cataclysmic. An initial disadvantage can quickly cascade into out- right defeat with profound consequences for the progress of a war. Air superiority provides freedom of maneuver so ground, air, and naval forces can operate with im- punity to end conflicts quickly and deci- sively. It is fundamental to the safe arrival and resupply of forces. It is essential for protection of high-value aircraft that help achieve information dominance, such as the joint surveillance and target attack ra- dar system (JSTARS) and the airborne --- Page 16 --- 12 A1RP0WER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 warning and control system. And it must extend deep into enemy territory to ensure success of all other offensive operations. The Air Force has ensured that American f i g h t i n g f o r c e s h a v e h a d a i r s u p e r i o r i t y since Kasserine Pass in the spring of 1943. W e m u s t c o n t i n u e t h i s r e c o r d i n t h e twenty-first century Many foreign fighters are now at parity with the F-15. The F-15 is vulnerable to surface-to-air missiles (SAM), and it may not win the air battle beyond the next decade. The F-22's stealth charac- teristics, supersonic cruise, high maneuver- ability, and advanced avionics all provide the qualitative edge required to fight out- numbered against future opponents and win. The ability to penetrate at the time and place of our choosing and to achieve first look/first shot/first kill decisions un- derwrites the capabilities of all follow-on forces in an MRC. Finally, the F-22 will penetrate enemy defenses unassisted in a strike role once the contest for air supe- riority is decided. A second essential component of air su- periority is suppression of enemy air de- fenses (SEAD), which protects aviation forces that do not possess stealthy charac- teristics. By upgrading a portion of our F-lós with high-speed antiradiation missile (F1ARM) targeting systems, we will more than offset the retirement of the aging F-4G Wild Weasel. Finally, proliferation of mis- siles and w.eapons of mass destruction (WMD) presents the most serious long-term threat to aerospace superiority. Our mod- ernization objectives aim at neutralizing these weapons before launch and very early in flight. This will reduce stress on mid- course and end-game systems provided by our sister Services. Moreover, by neutraliz- ing WMD on enemy territory, we can create powerful incentives not to use it in the first place, better protect our forces if it is used, and thus shift our emphasis from deter- rence by threat of punishment to deterrence by defense. Surface Attack The third vital requirement in an MRC is de- nying enemy power projection on land— and again, early successes reduce the costs of all subsequent operations. Our modernization objectives are centered in three areas. First, we must deliver massive firepower begin- ning in the opening hours of a war through a balanced approach to bomber modern- ization. The B-2's stealth and large payload will significantly improve flexibility and of- fensive striking power. Six B-2s, for exam- ple, are more lethal and survivable than all land- and sea-based airpower used during the 1986 Libya raid. While the B-2 is the head of the fleet, the B-1B is the backbone with its greater numbers, larger payload, and higher speed. The B-1B recently demonstrated its capability to sustain wartime operating rates in an operational readiness assessment, greatly surpassing the required mission-ca- pable rate. Finally, the venerable B-52H will continue to provide an economical means to conduct standoff precision attacks or direct attacks. Acting in concert, the bomber force will provide criticai leverage in an MRC and a responsive swing capability to deter or re- spond to a second conflict. By downsizing the bomber force to an acceptable levei in the near term, we have generated savings to help fund upgrades that will enable us to de- ploy 100 bombers with enhanced capabili- ties by the end of the decade. Second, we are modernizing theater strike and multirole platforms. The principal strength of these forces is their ability to sus- tain high combat tempos over long periods to maximize fire and Steel on target. We are upgrading subsystems to extend life and en- hance capabilities, but no new acquisitions are planned for a decade. Soon after, we must transition joint advanced strike technology (JAST) programs to make the next generation strike aircraft a reality. The ultimate success of JAST is closely tied to the F-22. F-22 pro- duction will provide technological leverage to help ensure JAST technologies are transi- --- Page 17 --- THE STATE OF THE AIR FORCE 13 tioned in a timely and affordable way. Con- versely, F-22 delays would create a fiscal bow wave in the next century as the nation at- tempts to field new fighter and strike aircraft simultaneously. Third, the Air Force has made a precision commitment. In 1944, it took 108 B-17s dropping 648 bombs to destroy a target. In Vietnam, similar targets required 176 bombs. Now, a single precision guided munition (PGM) can do the job. This is how the F-117 destroyed 40 percent of all strategic targets while flying only 2 percent of all strategic sorties during Desert Storm. Consequently, the Air Force has tripled the number of preci- sion-capable platforms since the war, boosted PGM inventories 25 percent above prewar lev- eis, and is developing new generations of PGMs with enhanced accuracy, standoff, and adverse weather capabilities. Domiiiating the Information Environment Global reach and global power are synony- mous with Air Force operations worldwide, but the 1990s have seen the ascendance of another Air Force role— dominating the infor- mation environment— by providing global situational awareness and denying or cor- rupting that of our adversary. Information operations are no longer a cost of doing business but presence and war-fighting methods in their own right. They substitute for force in some cases and increasingly serve as a multiplier when force is required. As principal operator of our nation's air and space information-gathering systems, we have stepped up to modernization chal- lenges on behalf of joint war fighters. This year saw development of an objective command, control, Communications, Com- puter, and intelligence (C4I) environment for the twenty-first century and a map to get there. Our proposal is not a grand design but a set of nested strategic plans that will allow rapid migration toward the goal— harmoniz- ing efforts throughout the Department of De- fense. The objective is a global network with a worldwide information plug-in, common tactical pictures, bandwidth on demand for any application, in any form, to and from anywhere, allowing all war fighters to access the information they need. This Vision is already coalescing in the field. Our Space Warfare Center is bringing operations and support together from all Services to make space support to the joint war fighter routine. We glimpsed what we are looking for in Haiti, where our space teams deployed in support of the joint force com- mander (JFC). For the first time, the JFC, National Military Command Center, and Serv- ice operation centers viewed a common tacti- cal picture displaying everything from readiness data to imagery and weather at the click of a button. The Air Force is making similar strides developing conceptual, doc- trinal, and legal positions on information warfare (IW); incorporating IW into educa- tion, training, and exercise programs; and de- veloping operational capabilities. One important step was establishment of the Air Force Information Warfare Center in 1993. Modernization of information systems proceeds apace. Our space test program successfully flew 23 research experiments this year. We now have a fully operational constellation of 24 global positioning Sys- tem (GPS) satellites; and the first military strategic and tactical relay satellite (MIL- STAR) supported joint operations in Haiti. Our airborne information systems are also being modernized and netted to each other and to ground and space systems to produce large force-multiplying effects. Corre- spondingly, we are modernizing our users to make faster and better use of informa- tion. GPS modifications continue on all Air Force aircraft. Targeting information is finding its way from space and airborne sensors directly to the cockpit or smart weapon. Finally, our new mission support system is pulling together operational, weather, intelligence, threat data, and com- mand and control information from all sources into portable workstations for Army and Air Force war fighters. These are --- Page 18 --- 14 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPR1NG 1995 precisely the advances we need to fully exploit the capabilities of a much smaller military. Space Launch Information dominance depends on afford- able access to space. We turned the corner in space launch this year. The year 1994 saw more than 20 successful launches, continu- ation of our Delta launch vehicle's 100 per- cent success story, and Titan IV's return to flight. We also submitted a space launch plan to the president and Congress to evolve our expendable launch systems and received funding for the first booster replacement in 30 years. Finally, we are enhancing national capabilities through cooperation with indus- try at Vandenberg AFB, Califórnia, and Cape Canaveral, Florida. This progress represents an essential beginning only. America's lead- ership in commercial space launch has de- clined from almost 100 percent of market share in the 1980s to 32 percent this year. If we do not continue to build on recent suc- cesses, the consequences for military and economic security could be serious. The Way Ahead Across the spectrum of peace and conflict, the Air Force exemplifies the ascendant role of air and space power in American security. Air and space power are fundamental to building US influencè jointly and globally through presence. Likewise, air and space power in- creasingly underpin national capabilities to conduct decisive combat operations world- wide. Growing tension between expanding security requirements and dwindling re- sources will continue to challenge us in each of our objective areas: remaining engaged, supporting our people, preserving combat readiness, and building for the future. But Air Force priorities within each area are clear and our plans to achieve them viable. It is also clear, however, that this tension magnifies the importance of two imperatives for the future. First, Solutions to our nation's security needs must be joint Solutions. The Air Force strives to build a team within the team. Second, as technology and threats evolve, so must our views on strategy, doc- trine, and roles and missions. The declining size of our military demands abandonment of the business-as-usual mind-set. Innovative thinking is key to reducing duplication and getting the most capability from our defense budget. To paraphrase General Shalikashvili, the combination of diminishing resources and a rapidly changing threat environment makes interservice trust more difficult and more important. Let me conclude with a salute to our Air Force men and women. We have come a long way from Kitty Hawk to Vigilant Warrior, and during that journey, we have raised the sight of all mankind to the skies and to the stars. People did that. If I have learned anything in the last two years, it is that a strong American defense comes not from the building of gadgets but from the building of character. Every day, Air Force people are rewriting the script that reads "duty, honor, country." Over 800,000 airmen— uniformed and civ ilian, guard, active, and reserve— serving at 191 in- stallations spanning the globe, have commit- ted their lives in our nation's Service. With them lies the promise that we will meet the challenges ahead and go beyond— casting America's watchful eye upon the globe, wield- ing her sword and shield and lending her helping hand. --- Page 19 --- WEAPONS of MASS PROTECTION Nonlethality, Information Warfare, and Airpower in the Age of Chãos C hri s M orri s , J ane t M orri s , T hom as B aj ne s A IRPOWER HAS become the first choice of policymakers and politi- cians around the world who must suggest how the International com- munity should react to stop some infringe- ment of the established order or crimes against humanity. Whether the threat be Serbian warplanes pounding Bosnian relig- ious sites or a resurgence of Saddam Hussein's Iraqi adventurism, Somalian war- lords firing on United Nations (UN) peacekeepers, or Rwandan refugees stream- ing across uncontrollable borders, the politi- cally correct response when the United States or the international community must resort to force is always "air strikes." Why? Because airpower seems to offer the poten- tial of force projection without politically unacceptable risks, without risk of entering upon the "slippery slope" of long-term in- volvement characterized by the commitment of ground troops, without risk of US or coa- lition casualties in a casualty-averse world, and without massive logistical expenses and subsequent reconstruction costs. Since airpower as currently deployable and constituted was designed for battle in a bipo- lar world, it cannot always successfully un- dertake the new roles and missions seen for it by politicians, policymakers, and diplomats. Service chiefs and mission planners alike must find new ways to fulfill decision makers' 15 --- Page 20 --- 16 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 expectations and the evolving requirements of a world no longer divided into two neat power blocs. Airpower has the potential to provide a credible deterrent and effective first response in today's conflict-rich environment. For air- power to afford such early, cost-effective, casualty-limiting, minimally destructive, logis- Airpower has the potential to provide a credible deterrent and effective first response in today's conflict-rich environment. tically feasible ways to project power, it must be able to attain sharply constrained and multiplex objectives in multiple theaters si- multaneously. Nonlethality is the use of weapons of mass protection such as nonlethal and antilethal weapons and information warfare to project high-precision power in a timely fashion, deliv- ering results that are life conserving, environ- mentally friendly, and fiscally responsible. Such weapons can provide airpower with capa- bilities that will yield new supports to diplo- macy, a credible deterrent below the levei of massive conventional force projection, and an expanded ability to meet evolving mission needs when used in conjunction with conven- tional force.1 The ability to nonlethally overwhelm an enemy who is using lethal force has become a clear requirement for peacekeeping, peace en- forcement, operations other than war, and military operations in built-up areas where minimum destruction of life and property are prerequisites for action. Airpower's capa- bility to execute these new roles and missions where policy makers require decisive action to be undertaken in a timely fashion but always from the moral high ground and un- der media scrutiny is increasingly criticai, has increasingly come into question, and must be reaffirmed. In order to maintain airpower's position as a strategic capability of unparal- leled effectiveness, planners must now re- evaluate the very nature of the world in which power will be projected and must be- gin to develop new doctrine and capabilities to fill those needs. Acquiring weapons of mass protection-non- lethal, antilethal, and information warfare weapons—and integrating them into current force capabilities may be one way that airpower can secure for years to come its primacy in strategic utility for the post-cold-war conflict environment. In order to evaluate this thesis, we must reexamine the nature of warfare as it has evolved and its relation to policy in a world that has drastically changed over the last half century and especially in the last decade. We must also examine the potential difficulties of fielding nonlethal, antilethal, and information weapons in the new threat environment. Acquiring weapons ofm ass protection— nonlethal, antilethal, and information warfare weapons— and integrating them into current force capabilities may be one way that airpower can secure for years to com e its prim acy in strategic utility for the post-cold-war conflict environment. An Age of Chãos An unforeseeable consequence of the breakdown of the bipolar world has been to remove war from the purview of the dueling superpowers and to return it to the people. Transnational and subnational groups, rogue States and breakaway republics, civil warmon- gers and tinhorn dictators, ethnic purists, and religious fundamentalists all see the incho- ate environment of the post-cold-war world as an opportunity to seize or increase power. The result is an environment of spreading --- Page 21 --- WEAPONS OF MASS PROTECTION 17 destabilization that can be characterized as an age of chãos. A New Class o f Threat The current chaotic environment of multiplex threats to the intemational mie of law is uniquely unresponsive to conventional diplo- macy or war-fighting methodologies tooled for the cold war over nearly half a century. Taken one by one, the many disparate conflicts erupting among the former Client States of the Soviet Union may seem unmanageable. Taken together as a new class of threat, these flash points can be viewed as the inevitable at- tempts of States built on the Soviet Union's "military-bureaucratic country" model to ex- pand militarily in order to survive.2 Unan- swered questions about the relevance of chaotic destabilization of the former commu- nist world to the national interests of the United States and other major powers in the developed world impede decision making. Ad hoc decisions to act made by policymakers are often disastrously unenforceable by the diplo- matic or military components of nations or groups of allies.3 Quantifying the Threat The greatest threat to the intemational mie of law in modem memory may be the spread of chaotic destabilization throughout the devel- oping world. Unable to see these disparate threats as part of a single class of threat with effects greater t han the sum of its parts, the United States and the intemational commu- nity fail to act decisively. As in the mathemati- cal model of chãos theory, the number of discrete destabilizing events, nondestructive to the status quo when taken singly, may mount until their frequency causes a catastrophic shift in the nature of things— in this case, the balance of power in the world.4 Redefining Roles and Missions Redefined roles and missions of not only militaries but diplomatic corps and intema- tional entities such as the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), as well as the role of the United States as world leader and the single remain- ing superpower, are criticai lest chaotic de- stabilization erode the credibility of the intemational community to maintain order and the rule of law. If faith in the ability of the world community to maintain order fails, the utility of all existing intemational and national entities comes into question. People will sustain their governments only as long as those governments maintain order and provide security and benefits to citizens at home and abroad.5 Recognizing the Problem International consensus for action against destabilizing forces is difficult to achieve, and this very difficulty emboldens would-be aggressors who carefully calculate rationales for their violence, some hiring intemational public relations firms to make their cases for the world's media. Once these forces draw the attention of the world media, the atten- tion of the intemational community, its gov- ernments, and their militaries invariably follows. Thus, the focus of world leaders on areas of crisis is primarily determined not by internai evaluation of the importance of any chaotic situation to the national security of the United States or other nations but by the The focus o f world leaders on areas o f crisis is primarily determined not by internai evaluation ofthe importance o f any chaotic situ- ation to the national security o f the United States or other nations but by the amount of media atten- tion given to a crisis. --- Page 22 --- 18 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 amount of media attention given to a crisis. Since this media coverage is often sought, courted, or even bought by aggressors, com- batants, or defenders, the initiative in such situations is on the side of those who can command world attention. More and more international response to crises seems effec- tively media-driven. The ability of the de- veloped world's conflict management bodies to set the agenda— to preempt crises with early and decisive diplomatic and unconven- tional action or to mitigate such crises with conventional methods— is demonstrably in- adequate for a number of reasons: • A given crisis may bear no apparent or direct relation or pose no imminent threat to one's own national security. • Internai and international consensus for timely action is difficult to achieve because of varying evaluations of the seriousness of the threat. • The roles, prerogatives, and utility of in- ternational instruments such as NATO or the UN in such crises are increasingly unclear. • Internai pressures on nations to act in any such crisis vary in accordance with treaty obligations, commercial interests, and do- mestic constituencies developed for or against specific action. • The developed world's intolerance of casualties when weighed against the casualty tolerance of the developing world, militates against the insertion of ground forces should a consensus’for action be developed. • Roles and missions of military and peacekeeping forces are inadequately defined both in unilateral and multilateral terms. • Training, doctrine, and capabilities for such new roles and missions are consequently inadequate. The result of these unsolved problems is that US and other policymakers wait too long to announce actions and then announce actions that may not be operationally or logistically feasible with the forces and weapons at hand. Airpower and the Reality Gap When the United States or its coalition part- ners wait too long to act and an international situation such as Bosnia has degenerated to a point where leaders must announce some ac- tion they think will restore their international respect and credibility, air power is the inevita- ble inheritor of the problem. In the United States, especially, elected officials continually call on airpower to project a US or US-led coa- lition force decisively from above in any situ- ation where action is demanded but where the commitment of ground troops could lead to casualties or longer-term involvement, both of which are anathema to contemporary policy- makers. This situation has effectively eroded much of the credibility of the United States as a world leader, which was gained at such great cost during the cold war and the Persian Gulf War. The importance of that credibility is not simply a matter of US pride. US credibility is the primary security factor protecting US citi- zens and businesses around the world. Each time limited air strikes are undertaken by NATO or coalition forces with indeterminate results, the damage to US and international security establishments' credibility is greater than it is to that of the declared enemy. Each time US leaders promise swift action by air in circumstances that are operationally imprac- tical, US resolve and international prestige are eroded, leading to increasing danger for all US citizens abroad. A particular problem for airpower inherent in the larger geopolitical situation is that the utility of airpower itself comes into question each time the US Air Force must mitigate policy makers' zeal for impractical action. Recognizing the New Imperatives o f the Age of Chãos The shared imperatives of the world community in the age of chãos are several and conflicting: • To enforce the international rule of law, --- Page 23 --- WEAPONS OF MASS PROTECTION 19 The politically correct response when the US or the International community must resort to force is always “air strikes" because airpower offers the potential of force projection without politically unacceptable risks. However, airpower as it is now constituted was designed for battle in a bipolar world and cannot always successfully undertake the new roles and missions seen for it by politicians, policymakers, and diplomais. • To maintain the credibility of Interna- tional institutions, • To assure human rights, • To defend the viability of intemational trade, • To protect the ecology and environment, and • To ensure national sovereignties. The imperatives of the United States in the age of chãos are divergent: • To ensure the national security of the United States, • To maintain US world leadership, • To sustain the rule of law, • To project power to enforce policy while limiting casualties and damage, • To satisfy US ethnic constituencies and intemational treaty signatories, and • To create a climate of safety for global- ized US trading interests. To the extent that these interests converge, coalition action is possible. To the extent that US interests, which are internally consistent, diverge from the interests of our allies, which are sometimes inconsistent, the United States must decide in each case whether to lead or to defer. Such decisions are in no small part based on the capability to act. Acting in the current inter- national milieu described above means acting in a highly constrained environment very different from that of the cold-war era, an environment that requires the ab ility to do the following: • A c t i n a t i m e l y f a s h i o n . • Act decisively while limiting casualties and damage to the environment. --- Page 24 --- 20 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 • Act below the threshold of v v ar and with- out risking long-term involvement in a politi- cally unsustainable ground v v a r . • Act effectively in an urban or complex environment where enemies and noncombat- ants are mixed. • Act while claiming the moral high ground under constant media scrutiny. • Act in pursuit of clear mission goals with high precision. • Act effectively without risking US casu- alties. • Use the threat of US military action as a credible deterrent. A Short History of War as an Instrument of Societal Change Historically, war has been redefined by so- cieties struggling with their leadership roles. More than 2,400 years ago, Sun T z u coun- seled in The Art o f War that armed force was to be applied so that victory would be gained (a) in the shortest possible time, (b) at the least possible cost in lives and effort, and (c) with the infliction on the enemy of the fewest possible casualties. He also stated that "to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence con- sists in breaking the enemy's resistance with- out fighting" and that "the skillful leader subdues the enemy's troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without lay- ing siege to them; he overthrows their king- doms without lengthy operations in the field."6 Sun Tzu was committed to the economic principies underlying the conduct of war in his time. People, even enemy people, had great value as potential workers and taxable citizens; human and natural resources were the primary prize in warfare; and goods and Services were coveted booty, as were physical property and societal infrastructure. In a .d . 1513, Niccolo Machiavelli observed in The Prince that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain of success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old condition, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.7 Later, in The Discourses he wrote that the object of those who make war, either from choice or ambition, is to conquer and to maintain their conquests, and to do this in such a manner as to enrich themselves and not to impoverish the conquered country. To do this, then, the conqueror should take care not to spend too much, and in all things look mainly to the public benefit; and therefore he should imitate the manner and conduct of the Romans, which was first of all to 'make war short and sharp.' . . . Whoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.8 Like Sun Tzu, Machiavelli and his beloved Roman forebears saw war as a way to extend the boundaries of physical empire, to enrich and strengthen his society with the people, natural resources, and physical attributes of the lands to be conquered and absorbed. Even in a time of great change and turmoil, the basis for war was still economic. In a .d . 1690, John Locke wrote in The Second Treatise of Go v e r n me n t that the State of war is a State of enmity and destruction . . . it being reasonable and just that I should have the right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction; for, by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preserved . . . . Want of a common judge with authority puts all men in a State of nature; force without right upon a man's person makes a State of war both where there is and is not a common judge.9 John Locke lived in a time of wars of attri- tion, when early war-fighting technology had matured until total destruction of all assets and persons of a society was not simply possi- ble but probable. War by Locke's time was something that had to be limited by laws— --- Page 25 --- WEAPONS OF MASS PROTECTION 21 either God's lavv or man's law— and a process that put at risk both innocents and desirable assets of warring societies. Populations are dense and people have less inherent value. The economic basis of war is beginning to be replaced by wars of ideology. On 10 July 1827, Carl von Clausewitz said in On War that war is nothing but a continu- ation of policy by other means.1 0 Clausewitz marks the maturation of "modem" wars of conquest in which war has become an instru- ment of statecraft among nations whose goals may be imperialistic, nationalistic, eco- nomic, ideological, or some combination of all four. The laws of the State have replaced the laws of God and man as adjudicator. The benefit of war is dependent on the wisdom of policy. The goals of war are not self-evident but are determined by the goals of the State. If Clausewitz were alive today he might add that the main and self-justifying mission of the military is to make policy enforceable. Failing that, the m ilitary or any branch of it may risk its own continued survival since it exists at the sufferance of the State and ulti- mately of the people who fund the State so long as the State serves its people. Defining War in the .A g e o f Chãos In modem American military thought, war is usually defined qualitatively. War is lim- ited, such as in the Persian Gulf War, or war is unlimited, as in World War II. "Unlimited war implies that the objective is the complete destruction of the enemy's war-making abil- ity or unconditional surrender. . . . Limited war implies objectives short of the complete destruction of the enem y."1 1 At the end of the twentieth century, war can and should also be defined chronologically as an evolu- tionary procession shaped by the geopoliti- cal climate in each of three eras. The Era of Wars of Conquest, 2800 b .c .— a .d . 1945. From the conquests of Sargon of Akkad in Mesopotamia to Adolf Hitler's dreams of an Aryan hegemony, wars of con- quest were predicated on the conquering State gaining economic and strategic benefit by acquiring the land, physical assets, and populace of others in order to increase its size and wealth, assert its dominance, and ensure its security. Destruction of an enemy re- placed absorption of the enemy. Genocide became more commonplace as societies be- came more populated and the value of hu- man life went down. Occupation of enemy territory became progressively less synony- mous with conservation of his cultural assets since one goal of wars of conquest w as to impose a cultural hegemony and another was to replace the dominance of one race over an area with the dominance of another race. By the time of World War I, scorched-earth war- fare became an accepted tool of statecraft. Because of the relative slowness of societal and technological change and the inherent conservation of assets involved in wars of conquest, this era was a prolonged one. The Era of Wars of Deterrence, 1946- 1989. The cold-war epoch, which ended with the fali of the Berlin Wall at the close of 1989, demarcates a time of wars of deterrence in which countries built weapons of great and of mass destruction whose use was primarily as a deterrent to aggression. Ensuring the sur- vival of the State was the military's greatest goal. The most important task of the military was to contain the spread of rival ideologies. The era of wars of deterrence was predicated on a doctrine of mutually assured destruction and was marked by nuclear proliferation. This was an era in which war itself was of no economic benefit, but Client States and war- time economies fueled international growth, and it was a time in which the value of war was the strength it gave to wartime econo- mies. This era was shaped by the industrial age and the capabilities that produced it. The original economic fundamentais underlying wars of conquest were completely eradicated and replaced with a doctrine of State survival that saw acquisition of enemy assets as imma- terial and that required its military to be able to completely destroy not only the people but the physical assets of its enemies. This era was brief because of its lack of a sustainable --- Page 26 --- 22 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPR1NG 1995 economic goal and the speed of technological change. The Era of Wars of Divestiture, 1990— Wars of divestiture, the first of which was the Persian Gulf War, are wars of sharply limited scope whose economic rationale is the resto- ration of the rule of law and the status quo of free trade. The international community ral- lies to restore order, and the goal of the war is not the eradication of a regime or State but the divestiture of an aggressor's war-making capability and his ability to threaten the world order through wars of conquest. The goal of the State in this era is the maintenance of order and, through its military, the protec- tion of the status quo or the restoration of the status quo ante. The goal of the mili- tary thus becomes the preservation of sover- eign rights and the protection of innocents and preservation of the environment from destruction caused by wars of conquest or wars of deterrence. This era is marked by rapid, interdependent technological and geopolitical change in which geopolitical A paradigtn shift in international behavior has created a new area o f military action between the point where conventional diplomacy fails and a declared war begins. Concomitant with this shift has come a lowering o f the threshold ofw ar itself. stability is measured by the stability of the rule of law. The length of this era will be dependent on the military's ability to ensure a stable rule of law through unilateral, coali- tion, and international action. Because wars of divestiture take place in an environment marked by constraints— particularly due to the presence of the me- dia— and chaotic destabilization, both the political and military communities are struggling to come to grips with the impli- cations of setting precedents on an ad hoc basis, without an articulated framework. Yet, analysis quickly yields numerous cases in point of more or less successful wars of divestiture. The Persian Gulf, So- malia, Haiti, and Bosnia all are examples of wars of divestiture despite the fact that all but the Persian Gulf War have occurred be- low the threshold of war as it is currently perceived. A Low ering T hreshold o f War A paradigm shift in international behavior has created a new area of military action be- tween the point where conventional diplo- macy fails and a declared war begins. Concomitant with this shift has come a low- ering of the threshold of war itself. Reasons for military action are different than they were during the era of conquest or the era of deterrence. We may call these military ac- tions peacekeeping, operations other than war, military operations in built-up areas, or any other politically popular term. The real- ity is that our military-and especially our airpower— is increasingly called upon to act. In this new area of military action, US casu- alties are unacceptable, enemy casualties and collateral damage must be minimized, and the goal of missions is political (such as re- storing order or democracy, limiting hu- manitarian abuse, or reducing but not eradicating a threat) rather than military ac- tion in the classical sense— destruction of an enemy or conquest of his territory as a prel- ude to absorbing his assets. Since acts of war must be ratified by Con- gress, US policymakers are hesitant to come to grips with this new reality. When it is admitted that the threshold of war is lower- ing, Congress may act to preserve its preroga- tive to "advise and consent" below the current threshold at which its consent is re- quired. Until that time, ad hoc policies and unclear mission definitions will prevail for political reasons, despite the difficulties this --- Page 27 --- WEAPONS OF MASS PROTECTION 23 poses for our military, particularly for air- power, which is consistently called upon by political leaders to act-often impractically— to project military power in pursuit of politi- cal objectives that may or may not bear directly on national security. And yet, all classical definitions of war im- ply that a military that cannot enforce policy has failed in its purpose. Therefore, a unique set of problems is developing for airpower and for all other military forces in this new conflict environment. The impractical must be made practical. The military, and espe- cially airpower, must learn how to project power that is hyperaccurate yet minimally destructive, limited wtiile being overwhelm- ing, and effective against lethal force, yet nonlethal. Out of these seeming contradic- tions will come a new set of doctrinal tenets and operational requirements that serve the overriding requirement of policymakers in today's world. This requirement of policymakers— to have at their disposal a new, highly effec- tive, cost-efficient force equipped with weapons tailored to today's limited con- flicts— does not end with force projection. The ability of our military to project lim- ited force must be such that the very limita- tion of this force must be seen as a credible deterrent because the qualitative nature of the force available to the military allows the military to act earlier, and decisively, against aggression while limiting casualties and damage to the environment. Airpower and the New Missions íf war is now most critically an extension of policy, then the military's main mission must be to make policy enforceable across the operational continuum. To fail repeatedly in this is to call the value of a standing military into question. Therefore, military planners must look squarely at the geopolitical de- mands shaping policymakers' needs and be ready to meet those needs. Of all branches of the m ilitary, the Air Force is the Service most challenged by these new mission areas and the new requirements To architects ofair wars, this propensity o f U S officials to call for air strikes in any and all situations is more than problematical; it is dangerous to U S Air Force cohesion and perhaps to the future ofthe Service itself. of policymakers. To a policymaker, airpower seems to offer easy answers to hard questions of how to project US power without risking US lives or involvement in protracted ground wars. To architects of air wars, this propen- sity of US officials to call for air strikes in any and all situations is more than problematical; it is dangerous to US Air Force cohesion and perhaps to the future of the Service itself. A military Service that cannot serve the needs of policymakers risks its raison d'être. A s has been shown since 1990, first with the success of the air war in the Persian Gulf and later with unsuccessful attempts to use airpower decisively in Bosnia and against the Serbs, these new missions are paramount to US national security interests whenever US credibility— US resolve and ability to act— come into question. This conclusion cannot be avoided indefinitely. Although war plan- ners of all Services would prefer not to engage in missions of such demanding constraint as seem to be required by wars of divestiture, there is a growing need to counler chaotic destabilization by projecting power to en- force policy. Therefore, the Air Force must look seri- ously at the way policymakers have clearly indicated that they wish to use airpower now and in the future and must find ways to meet --- Page 28 --- 24 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 the requirements of new roles and missions. Currently, many would argue that combined ground and air operations are limited to the operational and tactical leveis. In the politi- cally constrained environments of the future, airpower and ground power must be strategi- cally applied to achieve our political objec- tives. Consequently, development of weapons of mass protection for the Air Force should be approached as part of a joint effort that also considers capabilities for ground forces and issues of interoperability.1 2 Nonlethal, Antilethal, and Information Weapons in the Age of Chãos The ancient weapons of chariot and cav- ai ry warfare, the seige engines of Greek and Roman technology, the naphtha fireballs of the fifteenth century a .d ., the horse-drawn cannon, the machine gun, the mechanized tank, and the early fighters and bombers of World War II— these have given way first to weapons of mass destruction and then to elec- tronically guided weapons of high precision. As early as the Persian Gulf War, weapons of mass protection were coming into use as a means of destroying enemy command and control. The first 48 hours of the Gulf War showed beyond a doubt that electronic war- fare technologies could keep US servicemen safe from enemy fire by denying the enemy the use of his command, control, Communi- cations and intelligence (C3I) capability. Nonlethality (the theory that overwhelm- ing nonlethal force could be used to defeat lethal force) and nonlethal weapons first re- ceived serious notice after their use in the Persian Gulf War. Carbon circlets were dropped on Iraqi power stations to deny elec- tricity to the enemy, obscurants were used to deny the enemy targeting information about US troop movements, and electromagnetic weapons— reportedly including nonnuclear electromagnetic pulse— were used success- fully to limit casualties, as President George Bush and Prime Minister John Major of the United Kingdom had publicly directed. Nonlethal weapons (defined as weapons whose intent is to nonlethally overwhelm an enemy's lethal force by destroying the aggres- sive capability of his weapons and temporar- ily neutralizing his soldiers) will give the United States new options in peacekeeping and conventional force projection, as well as new supports to diplomacy and a credible deterrent below the levei of massive conven- tional force projection.1 3 Nonlethality posits that the world community has become averse to casualties and that the West, and the United States as leader of the world commu- nity, must develop and be ready, willing, and able to deploy decisive nonlethal weapons in situations where casualty-tolerant rogue States and subnational or pannational groups must be stopped by casualty-intolerant coali- tion forces. Nonlethality requires no massive investment in new technology but a reevalu- ation and redirection of mature research pro- grams into the weaponization and the fielding of usable Systems that conserve life and are environmentally friendly and fiscally responsible. Nonlethality further posits that the technologies that yield nonlethal systems will comprise a real peace dividend.1 4 Nonlethality categorizes nonlethal weap- ons as (1) antipersonnel or antimateriel; (2) electromagnetic, kinetic, or Chemical; and (3) nonlethal and antilethal. Among technolo- gies identified as nonlethal are acoustic, laser, high-power (HP) microwave; nonnuclear electromagnetic pulse; HP jamming; obscur- ants; foams; glues and slicks; supercaustics; magnetohydrodynamics; information war- fare; and soldier protection. Among tech- nologies identified as antilethal are counter- sniper, countermortar, antimissile, and high- precision weapons, including low collateral damage kinetic munitions with reduced lethality. Nonlethal technologies require the simul- taneous development of countermeasures and antifratricide because of the vulnerability of humans and, the weapons of the high-tech- nology battlefield to nonlethal weapons. The --- Page 29 --- WEAPONS OF MASS PROTECTION 25 v-alue of nonlethality is presumed to be great- est to tvvo criticai users: the political decision maker, who must decide how and when to act, and the field commander, who must carry out the orders of the decision maker. A key value and important policy issue central to nonlethality is the ability of non- lethal weapons to allow a nation equipped with them to act earlier against a threat. This same capability brings into question the levei of International and, in the United States, congressional control over a state's ability to venture below the threshold of war.1 5 Nonlethal Weapons, Information Warfare, and the Problem of Provocation without Decisiv eness Information warfare, a subset of nonlethal- ity, traces its independent existence directly to the success of electronic warfare during the Gulf War. In Nonlethality: A Global Strategy, the authors listed information warfare as a subset of nonlethality. Today, information warfare has its own bureaucratic institution- alization and its own user base, funding, and constituency. It has these because electronic warfare proved overwhelmingly successful during the Gulf War. However, information warfare does not have a generally accepted conceptual structure outlining its Utilities and attributes, as does nonlethality. There- fore, the authors will treat information war- fare as sharing the same general attributes and strategic values as other nonlethal and antilethal weapons. Information warfare technologies do dif- fer from some other nonlethal and an- tilethal technologies in that information warfare technologies can seldom if ever be used alone. Because of this, we have chosen information warfare as our example in ex- amining criticai issues of geopolitical us- ability. To be of consequence, any new defense technology must be useful, usable, and used.1 6 It must have political utility. It must be legal. It must be moral in a milieu in which all military actions are subject to scrutiny by the media and the international community. It must be effective. It must be a superior ch o ice to m eet a p olicy o b jec- tive. It must be dependable. It must pro- duce the desired result. It must be short, sharp, successful, and economical. Most of all, it must be decisive or contribute to a decisive victory or a desired outcome, even if that outcome is deterrence or show of force. Information warfare technologies are those that deny, deform, destroy, or disable the enemy's Communications and targeting capabilities. They may also be designed to act upon infrastructure points and there- fore upon noncombatants. Some informa- tion warfare technologies are mature but classified. Others are conceptually obvious but are still in the design stage. Still others have been available since the height of the cold war but have never been used for fear that their use might be too provocative in an arena where consequences and repercus- sions are still murky. International policymakers and weapon- eers alike must consider four issues— legality, decisiveness, effectiveness against new forms of aggression, and proliferation— when con- sidering the use of information and other nonlethal and antilethal weapons, especially in actions below the threshold of war. Legality What actions made possible by new capabili- ties will be legal under international law? Some existing treaties predate but prohibit the use of information warfare technologies that belong to the electromagnetic spectrum of weapons. Chemical nonlethal weapons (riot control agents) risk a similar fate be- cause of the draft Chemical Warfare Conven- tion which may soon be ratified by the US Senate. --- Page 30 --- 26 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 Decisiveness Which new operational capabilities offer decisive advantages, either when used alone or in concert with conventional force, and which are too provocative to provide real utility? Information warfare brings to the policymaker and diplomat the most serious problems of decisiveness that exist among the nonlethal arsenal. It may be tempting to intercept and deform an- other nation's Communications and send those messages on their way with new in- formation inserted, but circumstances in which such tactics alone will provide a de- terrent or a decisive victory will be rare. It may be attractive to use information war- fare to deny a rogue State access to interna- tionally banked funds, but such actions may be unacceptably provocative in the eyes of the international community. Communications or banking embargoes are now possible, but the results of imposing them may be unclear.1 7 D efem e against New Forms o f Aggression What new capabilities must we develop in order to have defenses against their use by rogue States or international criminais? Both issues noted directly above may limit or slow US or Western development or use of new kinds of weaponry. However, neither legality nor decisiveness will deter rogue States, ter- rorists, and subnational and pannational groups of religious fundamentalists, cul- tural separatists, or ideologues of any sort from building and using information weapons as well as some types of non- lethal and antilethal weapons that can be configured from off-the-shelf components and that require no technological expertise or hardware that is effectively restrictable. Only the creation of a nonlethal, antilethal, and information arsenal can convey to the West the expertise needed to develop and deploy effective countermeasures against nonlethal, antilethal, or information warfare attack, especially attacks on our woefully vulnerable banking and Communications Systems. Pmliferation What technologies will inevitably proliferate because of their mature nature, and how should the international community acknow- ledge and deal with the proliferation of new and evolving nonlethal and antilethal capabili- ties that impact international security? Infor- mation weapons have already proliferated beyond hope of containment. The personal Computer, the telephone, the modem, the In- ternet-all are at the heart of modern man's daily life. Attempts to put mediating electron- ics in new defensive systems cannot address this vast vulnerability. Information warfare is already the domain of Computer hackers. Its weapons are available worldwide. Its systems can be cobbled together from electronics Stores on the streets of any city in the world or can be ordered by mail. Banking and Commu- nications security can only be ensured by new and stringent efforts to develop proprietary safeguards, countermeasures, and antifratri- cide and share them not only with our allies but with our interdependent commercial en- terprises worldwide. Other nonlethal tech- nologies with even more aggressive capabilities, such as high-power microwave weapons, can be constructed from easily ob- tainable commercial components. As the in- formation highway makes technology more accessible, this trend can only continue to grow. In the Age of Chãos, What Constitutes an Act of War? These examples are but a few of many cases that illustrate that nonlethal weapons, and especially information warfare technologies, bring into question as never before the issue of what constitutes an act of war. Unless and --- Page 31 --- WEAPONS OF MASS PROTECTION 27 until we wish to use nonlethal and informa- tion warfare technologies alone against an enemy, this question may seem immaterial since all nonlethal technologies, including in- formation warfare, used in conventional op- erations have the potential to provide new and needed options to military planners. However, as deterrence and allied shows of force become more commonplace, this ques- tion of what defines an act of war takes on increasing immediacy. If we accept that the threshold of war is being lowered and that new technologies will provide new options to war planners, we must accept the necessity of redefining the act of war itself. When we are using nonlethal, antilethal, and information weapons in concert with conventional weapons for peacekeeping or in pursuit of clear national objectives, such new technologies and new operational strategies and tactics yield no such difficul- ties. In such cases, nonlethality can pro- vide commanders with new ways to meet mission objectives and allow diplomats and policymakers to act in an area of warfare heretofore inaccessible— that area between the moment that diplomacy fails and a shooting war begins.1 8 Nonlethality and a New Strategic Doctrine The way we insert nonlethal and informa- tion warfare technologies into our force mix will be criticai issues linked to the adoption of a new strategic doctrine suited to the evolving geopolitical climate. That doctrine may well be the containment of barbarism or the containment of conflict itself, a possibility only if the world com- munity acknowledges the true nature of the current geopolitical climate and chooses to act aggressively not only for self-preserva- tion but for the protection of human rights. The articulation of any such new strategic doctrine that can be shared by the world community will be based partly on the re- alization that nonlethal, antilethal, and infor- mation weapons comprise a new category of weaponry—weapons of mass protection. Weapotts ofM ass Protection Nonlethal, antilethal, and information weap- ons form a new arsenal for a new era of war- fare, an arsenal that can generally be termed weapons o f mass protection. Weapons of mass protection are weapons that can be used ear- lier to deter by denial1 9 in order to support di- plomacy, to limit aggression, to nonlethally disarm or dissuade, and to destroy lethal ca- pability with a minimum of damage to non- combatants, combatants, and the environ- ment. Weapons of mass protection may in- clude nonlethal weapons, antilethal weapons, and conventional weapons. They may be elec- tromagnetic, kinetic, or nonlethal Chemical. Weapons of mass protection have broad utility in that they meet the following con- straints imposed by the new geopolitical climate on policymakers and military plan- ners: • Limit casualties and environmental and collateral damage. • Act earlier and decisively in defense of human life. • Minimize reconstruction costs. • D e t e r b y d e n i a l . • Restore a credible threat of effective action. • Enforce the rule of law. • Maintain the moral high ground. • Protect lives of US and allied personnel. Uscful, Usable, and Used We have noted that weapons, to be viable, must be useful, usable, and used. To be relevant, armed Services must be able to deliver the required intensity and type of force to the target in such a way as to de- liver the desired result to the policymaker. When this result is a cessation of hostili- ties or a divestiture of the ability to threaten aggression rather than complete --- Page 32 --- 28 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 surrender or unequivocal victory, new meth- ods must be made available to the military planner so that the goals of the policymaker can be met. Airpower and Nonlethality Airpower is clearly the first choice of policy- makers when contemplating timely action abroad. The US Air Force can utilize existing technology and weapons platforms to de- velop new capabilities that will provide poli- cymakers with the tools necessary for timely action in the new area between conven- tional diplomacy and warfare. These tools can and must be a mixture of precision ki- netic, nonlethal Chemical, and electromag- netic weapons that are legal, ethical, humane, and effective. Since potential ene- mies will be using lethal force when US or allied forces act to overwhelm that lethal force with weapons of mass protection, it is important that the capabilities of nonlethal, antilethal, and information warfare tech- nologies be known and understood not only by policymakers but by aggressors, both for the potential deterrent effect and to demon- strate that fear of casualties will not stop the US or allies from acting. Most of the f lash points of chaotic destabi- lization are Client States of the former USSR. Airpower can reach these venues in a timely fashion and with a less-troubling levei of troop coirrmitment as far as Congress is con- cerned. Whether air planners will take up the challenge and adapt their technologies and platforms to these new missions may be the question that determines the future of air- power in the coming century. Notes 1. Janet Morris and Chris Morris, Nonlethality: A Global Strategy (West Hyannis Port, Mass.: Morris & Morris, 1990, 1994). 2. Janet Morris, Victor Krivorotov, Chris Morris, The Age o f Chãos (West Hyannis Port, Mass.: Morris & Morris, 1992). 3. Janet Morris and Chris Morris, Toward a Nonlethal Strategy (West Hyannis Port, Mass.: Morris & Morris, 1990). SUMMARY The age of chãos has created new demands on policymakers and war planners alike. Wars of divestiture, which may occur far be- low the previous threshold of war, provide a new challenge to the United States. Weapons of mass protection can be developed that will allow the United States to assert its leadership while holding a moral high ground interna- tionally. Airpower holds the key to timely delivery of weapons of mass protection in ways that will create new supports to diplo- macy, a new deterrent below the levei of mas- sive conventional force projection, and enhanced, politically usable conventional force with which to meet the challenges of the chaotically destabilized, media-scruti- nized environment. The basic values inher- ent in airpower— deep penetration, broad reach, precision delivery, early entry— must be augmented with the ability to carry pay- loads whose results enforce policy through- out the operational continuum in ways suitable to the needs of decision makers in this age of chãos. Wars of divestiture have at their core the aim of restoring order with minimum destruction. Weapons of mass protection have a political utility that encom- passes the changed environment for warfare and allows the United States to enforce its policies when necessary, thereby exercising its role as world leader. Airpower, demonstra- bly the first choice for early action by US decision makers, can project nonlethal, an- tilethal, and information warfare while con- serving lives, limiting destruction, and deterring by denial, thus helping to chart the course of US military power in this new and evolving action area. 4. Chris Morris and Janet Morris, Nonlethality and Psyops (West Hyannis Port, Mass.: Morris & Morris, 1993). 5. Janet Morris and Chris Morris, "Nonlethality in The Operational Continuum," in Nonlethality: .4 Global Strategy. 6. Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Samuel B. Griffith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963). --- Page 33 --- WEAPONS OF MASS PROTECTION 29 7. Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince and The Discourses (New York: The Modem Library, 1940). 8. Ibid. 9. John Locke, The Second Treatise o f Government (New York: The Liberal Am Press, 1952). 10. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Pnnceton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976). 11 From a discussion with Renatta Price, assodate director for Systems Concepts and Technology, ARDEC, 1 December 1994, Picatinney Arsenal, New Jersey; and letter, Renatta Price to authors, subjea: [Limited and Unlimited War], 11 January 1995. 12. From a briefing presented by Charles Swett (ASD/SOUC/PP) and Donald Henry (OUSDA/S&T/OM) to the National Defense University, 17 November 1994; and conversation of authors with Col Thomas M. Keamey, USAF, College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research, and Education (CA0RE), Maxwell AFB, Alabama, 18 January 1995. 13. Chris Morris and Janet Morris, Nonlethality: An OverView (West Hyannis Port, Mass.: Morris & Morris, 1994). 14. From a series of discussions with Thomas Moore, professional staff member, Senate Armed Services Committee staff, 1994. 15. From a series of discussions led by Col John Warden, USAF, commandant, Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, and Malcolm Weíner, president, Millburn Corporation, at the American Assembly, 8-10 February 1994. 16. Thomas B. Baines, Information Operations in War (unpublished paper, 1994). 17. Warden discussions, 1994. 18. Swett briefing. 19. Ibid. --- Page 34 --- ofsupreme importance in war is to attack the enemy's strategy. SUNT What is --- Page 35 --- INFORMATION WARFARE P rof G eo r ge ]. S te i n W E NEED TO State up front that much of what is discussed in this essay on information war- fare is unofficial speculation. There is no official, open-source US govern- ment definition of information warfare. The Department of Defense calls its current thinking and approach to information war- fare "command and control warfare" (C2W).! There is little agreement among the Services about either information warfare or C2W; and among civilian defense analysts looking at the issues of information warfare, there is even less agreement. Why, then, should we be thinking about this new and strange idea? The chief reason, of course, is that while we don't know just what we've got here, all the Services agree that informa- tion warfare is something important.2 Was Desert Storm the first war of third-wave in- formation warfare or the last war of mecha- nized second-wave industrial warfare?3 We're not sure, but a lot of people, includ- ing potential rivais, are trying to figure it out.4 This article attempts to make some sense of this new idea called information warfare. We'll look at four sets of ideas: (1) a definition of information warfare; (2) how we should start thinking about developing a strategy of information warfare; (3) why cur- rent Air Force doctrine may be the best f ramework for developing a doctrine of i n- --- Page 36 --- 32 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 formation warfare; and (4) a very brief com- ment on the danger of failing to develop information warfare. Defining Information Warfare Information warfare, in its largest sense, is simply the use of information to achieve our national objectives. Like diplomacy, economic competition, or the use of mili- tary force, information in itself is a key as- pect of national power and, more importantly, is becoming an increasingly vi- tal national resource that supports diplo- macy, economic competition, and the effective employment of military forces. In- formation warfare in this sense can be seen as societal-level or nation-to-nation conflict waged, in part, through the worldwide in- ternetted and interconnected means of in- formation and communication.5 What this means is that information warfare, in its most fundamental sense, is the emerging "theater" in which future nation-against-na- tion conflict at the strategic levei is most likely to occur. Information warfare is also changing the way theater or operational- level combat and everyday military activi- Inform ation warfare... is fundam entally ttot about satellites, wires, and comput ers. It is about influencing human beittgs and the decisions they make. ties are conducted. Finally, information warfare may be the theater in which "opera- tions other than war" are conducted, espe- cially as it may permit the United States to accomplish some important national secu- rity goals without the need for forward-de- ployed military forces in every corner of the planet. Information warfare, then, may de- fine future warfare or, to put it another way, be the central focus for thinking about con- flict in the future. Information warfare, in its essence, is about ideas and epistemology— big words meaning that information warfare is about the way humans think and, more impor- tantly, the way humans make decisions. And although inform ation warfare would be waged largely, but not entirely, through the communication nets of a society or its mili- tary, it is fundamentally not about satellites, wires, and computers. It is about influenc- ing human beings and the decisions they make. The greatest single threat faced by the Air Force— and by the Services in general, as we begin to think about information war- fare— is that we will yield to our usual temp- tation to adopt the new technologies, especially information technologies, as merely force multipliers for the current way we do business.6 It would be a strategic mistake of historical proportions to focus narrowly on the technologies; force the technologies of information warfare to fit familiar, internally defined models like speed, precision, and lethality; and miss the Vision and opportunity for a genuine mili- tary revolution. Information warfare is real warfare; it is about using information to cre- ate such a mismatch between us and an op- ponent that, as Sun Tzu would argue, the opponent's strategy i s d e f e a t e d b e f o r e h i s first forces can be deployed or his first shots fired. The target of information warfare, then, is the human mind, especially those minds that make the key decisions of war or peace and, from the military perspective, those minds that make the key decisions on if, when, and how to employ the assets and ca- pabilities embedded in their strategic struc- tures. One could argue that certain aspects of the cold war such as Radio Free Europe, Radio Marti, or the US Information Agency were a dress rehearsal for information war- fare. One could argue that certain current capabilities in psychological operations (PSYOP), public affairs and civil affairs, to- --- Page 37 --- INFORMATION WARFARE 33 gether with the intelligence agencies, satel- lite drivers, Communications specialists, Computer wizards, and the men and women in agencies like the Air Intelligence Agency or the new Joint Information Warfare Cen- ter, represent some of the key learning envi- ronments in which we'll develop some of the new capabilities for information war- fare.7 And while the concept of information warfare in its Computer, electronic warfare, and Communications net version is most fa- miliar in military operations involving tradi- tional state-to-state conflict, there are new and dangerous players in "cyberspace"— the battlefield for information warfare. There has been a proliferation of such players— nonstate political actors such as Greenpeace, Amnesty International, rogue Computer hackers like the Legion of Doom, some third world "rebel" who stages a "human rights abuse" for the Cable News NetWork (CNN), or ideological/religious inspired ter- rorists with easy access to worldwide Com- puter and Communications networks to influence, to exchange information, or to coordinate political action on a global basis. All of this suggests that the military or gov- ernments of a traditional nation-state may not be the only serious threat to our security or the driver of our national security poli- tics .8 Cyberspace may be the new "bat- tlespace," but the battle remains the battle for the mind. There must be no confusion of the battlespace with the battle. Let's take a look at this in a context we think weTe familiar with: propaganda as an effort to influence national morale and sup- port for the nation's armed forces. The Viet- nam War taught us the consequences of winning every battle in the field and losing the information war on the home front. Be- fore the advent of information warfare, propaganda was traditionally targeted through various mass media to influence a mass audience. One key change made pos- sible by the new technologies is the poten- tial for customized propaganda. Those who have received individually targeted political advertising from a company specializing in "niche" marketing research must have had a momentary shudder when they realized that there are private companies who seem to know everything about their buying habits and tastes, whether they support the Na- tional Rifle Association or attend Tailhook conventions, and what television shows they watch. Every credit card purchase adds data to someone's resources, and not every- body is selling just soap or politicians. Con- temporary public and commercial databases and the constantly expanding number of sources, media, and channels for the trans- mission of information, essentially available to anyone with a bit of money or skill, have created the opportunity and "target sets" for custom-tailored information warfare attacks on, to take just one example, the families of deployed military personnel. Think about the morale implications of that for a min- ute. Computer bulletin boards, cellular telephones, video cameras, and fax ma- chines—all of these provide entry points and dissemination nets for customized propa- ganda assaults by our opponents on mili- tary, governmental, economic, key civilian strategic structures, or even the home check- ing accounts of deployed troops.9 Opera- tions security (OPSEC) is increasingly a most vital military security issue. However, information warfare should not be confused with or limited to just propaganda, decep- tion, or traditional electronic warfare. A major new factor in information war is the worldwide infosphere of television and broadcast news. Information warfare at the strategic levei is the "battle off the battle- field" to shape the political context of the conflict. It will define the new "bat- tlespace." We face an "integrated battle- field," not in the usual sense of having a global positioning system (GPS) receiver in every tank or cockpit but in the Clausewitz- ian sense that war is being integrated into the political almost simultaneously with the battle. Many people suspect that the na- tional command authorities (NCA) are in danger of becoming increasingly "reactive" to a "fictive" universe created by CNN, its --- Page 38 --- 34 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 various international competitors, or even a terrorist with a video camera.1 0 This media- created universe we live in is fictive rather than "fictional" because although what we see on CNN is "true," it is just not the whole, relevant, or contextual truth. Never- theless, this fictive universe becomes the po- litically relevant universe in which the government or the armed forces are sup- posed to "do something." Members of Con- gress, the national command authorities, Developing a strategy o f Information warfare starts with serious, Creative, and " color-outside- the-lines" thinking. . . . and our mothers all watch the "instant news" followed by "instant" second-guess- ing commentary. This is increasingly the commander's nightmare. First, 15 congress- men are calling the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to ask whether retired admi- rai so-and-so's criticai analysis on "Night- line" of the CINC's ongoing theater air campaign is valid. More importantly, 300 congressmen are also getting 10,000 calls, E - mails, faxes, and even letters from angry families who've just seen the television re- port (carefully "leaked" to French television by an unhappy defense contractor and inno- cently repeated by CNN) that the US mili- tary-issue antimalaria pills don't work in Bongo-Bongo. All this without the real "bad guys" trying their hand at information war. Use your imagination. Somalia gets in the news, and we get into Somalia despite the reality of equally disastrous starvation, dis- order, and rapine right next door in Sudan. The truth is that there were no reporters with "skylink" in Sudan because the govern- ment of Sudan issued no visas to CNN re- porters. We all know the impact of the pictures of the failed raid to capture Mo- hamed Farah Aidid in Somalia. The poten- tial, then, for governments, militaries, par- ties in a civil war such as Bosnia, or even religious fanatics to manipulate the multi- media, multisource fictive universe of "the battle off the battlefield" for strategic infor- mation dominance should be obvious.1 1 The armed Services are just beginning to think about how these new technologies of instant communication will change the bat- tlespace, and, quite frankly, there are not many good answers yet. Fictive or fictional operational environ- ments, then, whether mass-targeted or niche-targeted, can be generated, transmit- ted, distributed, or broadcast by govern- ments or all sorts of players through increasingly diversified networks. The in- formation war potential available to States or other players with access to the universe of internetted Communications to use the networks over which banking information is transmitted to suggest that a "hostile" State is about to devalue its currency could easily provoke financial chãos .1 2 Direct satellite radio or television broadcasts to selected audiences, analogous to central control of pay-per-view programs, again offers the po- tential for people in one province or region of a targeted State to discover that the maxi- mum leader has decided to purge soldiers from their clan or tribe from the army. Your own imagination can provide many examples of how the increasingly multi- source Communications systems offer both the armed forces and the national command authorities countless new possibilities for societal-level information warfare to shape the information battlespace to our advan- tage. Let us take just one example of how cur- rent technologies could be used for strate- gic-level information warfare. If, say, the capabilities of already well-known Holly- wood technologies to simulate reality were added to our arsenal, a genuinely revolu- tionary new form of warfare would become possible. Today, the techniques of combin- ing live actors with computer-generated --- Page 39 --- INFORMATION WARFARE 35 video graphics can easily create a "virtual" news conference, summit meeting, or per- haps even a battle that would exist in "ef- fect" though not in physical fact. Stored video images can be recombined or "morphed" endlessly to produce any effect chosen. This moves well beyond traditional military deception, and now, perhaps, "pic- tures" will be worth a thousand tanks. Imagine the effect of a nationwide broadcast in banditland of the meeting between the "digitized" maximum leader and a "digit- ized" Jimmy Carter in which all loyal sol- diers are told to cease fighting and return to their homes. The targets of information war- fare, remember, are the decisions in the op- ponent's mind, and the battlespace of the human mind is also the zone of illusion. Let's play with this a bit. Through hitch- ing a ride on an unsuspecting commercial satellite, a fictive simulation is broadcast. This may not be Science fiction, and readers of Tom Clancy's latest novel Debt o f Honor will suspect it's not. Simultaneously, vari- ous "info-niches" in the target State are ac- cessed via the net. Some of the targets receive reinforcement for the fictive simula- tion; others receive slightly misleading vari- ations of the target state's anticipated responses, and the whole of the opponent's The arm ed Services are just begimiing to thitik about how these new technologies of instant communicatioti will chatige the battlespace, and quite frankly, there are not many good answers yet. military is subject to a massive electronic deception operation. What is happening here? At the strategic levei, this is the paralysis of the adversary's observation, orientation, decision, action (OODA) loop.1 3 The oppo- nent's ability to "observe" is either flooded or very slightly and subtly assaulted by con- tradictory information and data. More im- portantly, his ability to "orient" is degraded by the assault on the very possibility of ob- jective reasoning as we replace his "known" universe with our alternative reality. His "decisions" respond increasingly to our fic- tive or virtual universe, and, most impor- tantly, military "actions" within his strategic structures become increasingly paralyzed as there is no rational relationship of means to e n d s . W h a t h e d o e s i s n o t b a s e d o n r e a l i t y because we've changed his reality. This is real war fighting. It would seem, then, that if we can develop a strategic Vision and real capability for information warfare, we can bring American strategic power within sight of that elusive "acme of skill" wT ierein the opponent is subdued without being killed as we destroy his ability to form or execute a coherent strategy. How, then, do we think about developing information warfare strat- egy? Developing Information Warfare Strategy Developing a strategy of information war- fare starts with serious, Creative, and "color- outside-the-lines" thinking about current information technologies and ways in which these might be turned to strategic purpose to serve the national command authorities and military use. This will in- volve thinking about information in new ways: What information is needed? What organizational changes would occur in the way we gather, process, distribute, and use information? What information-based op- erational changes could then happen?1 4 The Services are starting this new thinking under the labei "command and control war- fare."1 5 This, however, is only the first step, as the "digitized battlefield" fails to revolu- tionize strategic thinking. Let's illustrate this with a bit of history. As Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich observed, some time --- Page 40 --- 36 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 before the American Civil War, the Prussian general Helmuth von Moltke was thinking about railroads and telegraphs: If we used the telegraph to relay m obilization orders quickly and then used railroads to concentrate troops from bases scattered throughout Prússia, we could concentrate the main effort at the key battle location of a cam paign. W e w ouldn't have to m obilize the army, then concentrate i t, then march it to where we hoped the key battle would occur.1 6 Good insight. And this, unfortunately, is about where we are when we think of Infor- mation warfare as only command and con- trol warfare.1 7 That is, how does this technology permit tanks, ships, and aircraft to do what they do now a bit better. It was Moltke's next insight, argues Speaker Ging- rich, that the Joint Staff and the Services need to imitate: But the Prussian army is not organized, nor does it operate in a way that v/ould permit it to respond to telegraphed orders to get on trains and show up somewhere else. That's not how we organize, train, and equip. What I need to do is reform the way to get the inform ation needed to do this, the way we’re organized so we can use this inform ation, and figure-out new ways to operate; what I need is a new G eneral Staff sy ste m .1 8 So Count von Moltke realized that before he could make revolutionary use of the new technology, he had to solve the higher-order question of what changes in information, organization, and operations would be needed. This is the challenge we face now. The armed forces have a good idea that in- formation technologies just might be the driver in future warfare, but we haven't yet articulated the strategic Vision or identified the higher-order changes we need to make to really make this all come together. Now, let's add another idea— this time from the Air Force heritage. In some ways, "info-warriors" are like Gen William ("Billy") Mitchell and the pioneer league of airmen. They see the potential. MitchelFs Vision of the potential for airpower drove, at great cost to himself but great benefit to the nation, the development of a new form of warfare. Now here's the key point. Once the Vision of strategic airpower was pre- sented clearly, once people were able to say, "Yes, I see how this could change warfare," VoN MOLTfsE Prussian general Helmuth von Moltke realized that be- fore he could make revolutionary use of railroads and telegraphs, the new technologies of his day, he had to solve the higher-order question of what changes in infor- mation, organization, and operations would be needed. This is the challenge we face now with information technologies. then the technologies followed: "Oh, air bombing— you'U need a bombsight." "Oh, enemy aircraft— we'1 1 need some kind of d e- tection system; let's call it radar." This is the point— the technology is not just a force multiplier. It is the interaction of strategic Vision with new technology that will pro- --- Page 41 --- INFORMATION WARFARE 37 duce the revolution in military affairs and a new warfare form. This, then, is the challenge of informa- tion warfare. Is there something about in- formation and the information technologies that would permit us to create such a mis- match between what, when, and how we and our opponents observe, orient, decide, and act or such a levei of "information dominance" that the opponent is helpless— and not just on the battlefield? Is there a way we could use information, like current theories of airpower, to create an "informa- tion campaign" that engages an opponent simultaneously in time, space, and depth across the full range of his strategic struc- tures so that the result is strategic paralysis (he is deaf, dumb, and blind to anything ex- cept that which we permit him to hear, say, or see)?1 9 Not that we just blind him, but that he sees what we wish him to see with- out realizing that it's "our" reality, not his. Can we envision that kind of strategic infor- mation warfare? And, as was the case with airpower, technology will follow strategic Vision. It's OK if we can't insert Computer viruses by direct satellite broadcast-today; fry every air defense radar with an electro- magnetic burst from a remote unmanned aerial vehicle (UAVO— today; transfer all the dictator's Swiss bank accounts to the Inter- nai Revenue Service (IRS)— today; project holographic images, complete with proper electronic signatures, of 15 squadrons Corn- ing in from the north when we're coming in the back door— today; or beam the Forrest Gump interview with "El Supremo" into every radio and television in banditland— to- day. Develop the strategic theory of infor- mation warfare, and the technology will come. Information Warfare Doctrine There is, of course, no official informa- tion warfare doctrine, and the efforts of the various Services to describe command and “Info-warriors" are like Billy Mitchell and the pioneer league of airmen. They see the potential. Mitchell's V i- sion of the potential for airpower drove the development of a new form of warfare. Once the Vision of strategic warfare was presented clearly, then the technologies fol- lowed. It is this interaction of strategic Vision with new information technologies that will produce the revolution in military affairs and a new warfare form. control warfare as the military application of information warfare remain incomplete. For the Air Force to focus almost exclusively on C2W that is defined as the "integration, coordination, deconfliction, and synchroni- zation" of OPSEC, deception, PSYOP, elec- tronic warfare, and physical destruction efforts targeted against the opponenfs --- Page 42 --- 38 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 fielded military forces represents a failure to appreciate either air and space povver or to appreciate how airpower doctrine could guide the development of an information warfare campaign. How, then, might we use current Air Force doctrine as presented in Air Force Manual (AFM) 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine o f the United States Air Force, as a template to start thinking about informa- tion warfare? First, assume that information warfare is warfare in the information realm as is air warfare in the air and space realms. A s the objective of air warfare is to control the air realm in order to exploit it while protecting friendly forces from enemy actions in the air realm, so the objective of information warfare is to control the "infosphere" in or- der to exploit it while protecting friendly forces from hostile actions taken via the in- formation realm. Thus, as air control is usu- ally described as counterair, with offensive and defensive counterair, so any strategy and doctrine of information control must address counterinformation in terms of of- fensive and defensive counterinformation. Offensive counterinformation, like offensive counterair, could be seen as involving infor- mation exploitation through psychological operations, deception, electronic warfare, or physical attack and information protection as, again, physical attack, electronic warfare (EW), and, often overlooked, public and civil affairs. Defensive counterinformation, like defensive counterair, would include ac- tive protection such as physical defense, OP- SEC, Communications security, Computer security, counterintelligence, and, again, public affairs. Passive protection would in- clude standard ideas like hardening sites and physical security. If control, or dominance, of the informa- tion realm is the goal, like air control, it is not an end in itself but the condition to per- mit the exploitation of information domi- nance for, as in air doctrine, strategic attack, interdiction, or close "battlefield" support through C2W attack. Information domi- nance of both the strategic "battle off the battlefield" and the operational "informa- tion battlespace" is, like air and space con- trol for traditional surface warfare, the key to strategic effect. The relevance of air- power doctrinal thinking for information warfare now becomes obvious. A review of the history of the airpower debates would show, in part, that those who insisted that airplanes were merely a force multiplier to provide close air support for the "real" ef- fort would never recognize the strategic po- tential of airpower or support the acquisition of technologies for strategic air missions. A s long as information warfare thinking is dominated by a doctrine that ar- gues that the only information warfare mis- sion relevant to the armed forces is command and control warfare and that C2W is merely a force multiplier against the Com- munications and information assets of the fielded enemy forces, the potential for the exploitation of information dominance for strategic information warfare and, again, the identification and acquisition of key tech- nologies will be missed. C2W, like close air support, is a vital military mission. It is, in fact, a central component of information warfare, but, like close air support and other "traditional" battle-oriented missions, not the whole story. The challenge is to use Air Force doctrine as the foundation to envision the "Information Campaign," which, like the "Air Campaign" in the Gulf War, is of strategic significance. What, for example, would "speed, precision, and lethality" be in an "info-strike?" Epilogue: Danger of Not De- veloping Information Warfare Strategy If the world really is moving into a third- wave, information-based era, failure to de- velop a strategy for both defensive and offensive information warfare could put the United States and the US military into the situation of being on the receiving end of an "Electronic Pearl Harbor."20 Information --- Page 43 --- INFORMATION WARFARE 39 is fluid; the advantages we now have, and which were demonstrated in the Gulf War, could be lost because we have very little control over the diffusion of information technology.2 1 Second, it's a smaller world, and our potential opponents can observe our technologies and operational innova- tions and copy ours without them having to invent new ones for themselves.2 2 Remem- ber, the biggest center for developing new Computer software is not Silicon Valley but Madras, índia. What will they sell to whom? Finally, and to return to an earlier point, if the US military approaches infor- mation warfare merely as a force multiplier and adapts bits and pieces of technology to just do our current way of warfare a bit bet- ter—if we "digitize the battlefield" for an endless rerun of mechanized desert war- fare— the real danger will be that someone else will refuse to play the game our way. Notes 1. Joint Chieis of Staff, Memorandum of Policy 30, subject: Command and Control Warfare. 8 March 1993. 2. Gen Gordan R. Sullivan and Col James M. Dubik, "War in the Information Age," Military Review 74 (April 1994): 46-62. 3. Alan D. Campen, ed., The First Information Wan The Story o f Communications, Computers and Intelligence Systems (Fairfax, Va.: AFCEA International Press, 1992). 4. Mary C. Fitzgerald, “Russian Views on Information Warfare," Army 44, no. 5 (May 1994): 57-59. 5. John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, "Cyberwar is Corning!" Comparative Strategy 12 (April-June 1993): 141-65. 6. Carl H . Builder, The Icarus Syndrome: The Role o f Air Power Theory in the Evolution and State o f the US. Air Force (New Brunswick. N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1994). 7. “Information Dominance Edges toward New Conflict Fronner," Signal 48 (August 1994): 37-39. 8. Winn Schwartau, Information Warfare: Chãos on the Electronic Superhighway (New York: Thunders Mouth Press, 1994). 9. Peter Black, “Soft Kill: Fighting Infrastructure Wars in the 21st Century." Wired, July-August 1993, 49-50. 10. Douglas V. Johnson, The Impact o f the Media on National Security Decision Making (Carlisle Barracks, Pa.: Strategic Studles Institute, US Army War College, 1 994). 11. John Arquilla, "The Strateglc Implications of Information Dominance," Strategic Review 22, no. 3 (Summer 1994): 24-30. 12. H. D. Amold et al„ “Targeting Financial Systems as Centers of Gravity: 'Low Intensity to 'No Intensity' Conflict," Defense Analysis 10 (August 1994): 181-208. What if they, like Count von Moltke or Gen- eral Mitchell, think real hard, purchase the dual-use technologies on the free world market, alter their whole strategic concept, and make the leap to a strategy of informa- tion warfare? We do not yet have a strategy of informa- tion warfare, and we have not answered the higher-order questions of how we would re- organize, retrain, and reequip for third-wave warfare. But if any of this has made even some sense, you now know the urgent re- quirement for developing the Vision that produces the strategy. The strategy will identify the technologies, organizational changes, and new concepts of operations. We must really become like von Moltke and Billy Mitchell— "If we could use this to do t h a t , t h e n w e could. ..." □ 13. John R. Boyd, "A Discourse on Winning and Losing," 1987. Unpublished set of briefing slides available at A ir University Library, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. 14. Maj George E. Orr, Combat Operations C3 !: Fundamentais and Interactions (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1983); and F rank M. Snyder, Command and Control: The Literature and Commentaries (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1993). 15. Lt Col Norman B. Hutcherson, Command and Control Warfare: Putting Another Tool in the War-figltteCs Data Base (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, September 1994). 16. Newt Gingrich, "Information Warfare: Definition, Doctrine and Direction," address to the National Defense University, Washington, D.C., 3 May 1994. 17. Joint Publication 3-13, "Joint Command and Control Warfare (C2W) Operations," second draft (Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington, D.C., 15January 1 994). 18. Gingrich address. 19. John A . Warden III, The Air Campaign: Planning for Combat (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1988). 20. Alvin and Heidi Toffler, War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn o f the 21 st Century (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Co., 1993). 21. V. K. Nair, War in the Gulf: Lessons for the Third World (New Delhi, índia: Lancer International, 1991); see especially chap. 4, "Role of Electronics in the Gulf War," and chap. 5, "Desert Storm: Air Power and Modern War." 22. Jean Pichot-Duclos, "Toward a French 'Economic Intelligence' Model," Defense Nationale, January 1994, 73-85 in Federal Broadcast Information Service: West Europe, 25 January 1994, 26-31. --- Page 45 --- THE ENEMY ASA SYSTEM C ol J ohn A. W arde n III, USAF We were a different breed o fca t right from the start. We flew through the air while the others walked on the ground. — Gen Carl A. Spaatz S PAATZ'S DICTUM is as accurate a de- scription of airmen today as it was over a half century ago. Slightly modified, it also applies to strategic warfare because strategic warfare is a differ- ent animal from the warfare we have known throughout history. It is not easy to under- stand because we need to toss out many of our ideas about war. Furthermore, prosecut- ing it requires top-down thinking— thinking from the big picture to the small— rather --- Page 46 --- 42 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 than the bottom-up thinking that serves us so well when we deal with tactical issues. There are basically two ways to think— in- ductively and deductively. The first requires gathering many small facts to see if anything can be made of them. The second starts with general principies from which detail can be learned. The first is tactical, the sec- ond is strategic. In the Air Force, most of our early training involves us with inductive processes. To become good operational art- ists and strategists, however, we must learn to think deductively. A good example from the civilian world comes from a comparison of architects and bricklayers. Architects approach a problem from the top down involving a place where people are going to live. First, they envision a town with its areas for schools, houses, and busi- nesses. When they have the overall plan in mind, they begin to think about what kinds of buildings will go into each area. They decide on a style of house that they believe will meet the needs of the probable resi- dents. They design a house starting with general ideas of space and appearance. A t the very end of the process, they may specify brick facings and how many courses of bricks will be used. Each step progresses from the large to the somewhat smaller until they finally have reached that levei of detail that they can leave to someone else. Think how bricklayers would approach the same problem. Given their training, they would start with the idea of stacking bricks, but-they wouldn't have any way to know how to integrate bricks with other ma- teriais or how one house would relate to an- other or how the town would be divided. In other words, you can't build a very well-or- ganized town if you approach it from the bottom up. The same thing applies to devising a cam- paign. If you start your thinking based on the bricks in the enemy camp, it is unlikely that you will produce a coherent plan. Con- versely, if you approach it from the stand- point of large ideas about objectives and about the nature of the enemy, you have a good chance of developing something that will work. We cannot think strategically if we start our thought process with individual aircraft, sorties, or weapons— or even with the en- emy's entire military forces. Instead, we must focus on the totality of our enemy, then on our objectives, and next on what must happen to the enemy before our objec- tives become his objectives. When all of this is done rigorously, we can begin to think about how we are going to produce the desired effect on the enemy— the weap- ons, the delivery systems, and other means we will use. As strategists and operational artists, we must rid ourselves of the idea that the cen- tral feature of war is the clash of military forces. In strategic war, a clash may well take place, but it is not always necessary, should normally be avoided, and is almost always a means to an end and not an end in itself. If we are going to think strategically, we must think of the enemy as a system com- posed of numerous subsystems. Thinking of the enemy in terms of a system gives us a much better chance of forcing or inducing him to make our objectives his objectives and doing so with minimum effort and the maximum chance of success. Finally, as twentieth-century strategists, we must demystify war to a considerable ex- tent. Napoléon and Clausewitz were right when they talked about friction, fog, and morale. They were right, however, in a time when Communications were almost nonex- istent, weapons had little more range or ac- curacy than those of the Roman legions, most movement w as at a walking pace, bat- tles were won or lost depending on the out- come of tens of thousands of almost personal encounters between soldiers who could see each other when they fired, and war was largely confined to the clash of men or ships at a limited point in time and space. Under these circumstances, morale was to the physical as three is to one. In fact, the --- Page 47 --- THE ENEMY AS A SYSTEM 43 physical was largely the "physical" of the in- dividual soldier and it was almost impossible to separate the intangibles like morale, fric- tion, and fog from the physical. Today the situation is significantly different; the indi- vidual fighter has become a director of large things like tanks, aircraft, artillery pieces, and ships. Fighters are dependent on these things, these physical things, to carry out the mission. Deprived of them, the ability to affect the enemy drops to near zero. Whether the equation has changed to make the physical to be to the morale as three is to one is not clear. That the two are at least coequal, however, seems likely. The advent of airpower and accurate weapons has made it possible to destroy the physical side of the enemy. This is not to say that morale, fric- tion, and fog have all disappeared. It is to say, however, that we can now put them in a distinct category, separate from the physical. A s a consequence, we can think broadly about war in the form of an equation: (Physical) x (Morale) = Outcome In today's world, strategic entities, be they an industrial State or a guerrilla organiza- tion, are heavily dependent on physical means. If the physical side of the equation can be driven close to zero, the best morale in the world is not going to produce a high number on the outcome side of the equa- tion. Looking at this equation, we are struck by the fact that the physical side of the en- emy is, in theory, perfectly knowable and predictable. Conversely, the morale side— the human side— is beyond the realm of the pre- dictable in a particular situation because hu- mans are so different from each other. Our war efforts, therefore, should be directed pri- marily at the physical side. Objectives are key to success in strategic w ar. When we go to war with a State or with any strategic entity,1 we must (or certainly should) have objectives, and these objec- tives, to be useful, must go far beyond those such as merely beating the enemy or wreck- ing his military forces. (Indeed, the latter may be precisely what we don't want to do; remember, war at the strategic levei is not the same as at the tactical levei where defeat of the enemy's tactical forces is required al- most by definition.) After all, we don't go to war merely to have a nice fight; rather, we go to war to attain something of political value to our organization. The something that we want to attain may be as extreme as annihilation of the State or colonization of it. At the opposite pole, we may simply want our enemy not to annihi- late us. In between is an enormous array of possibilities, a few of which follow: in the Gulf War, the US wanted Iraq out of Kuwait and wanted Iraq's power diminished to where it was no longer a threat to its neigh- bors; in Operation El Dorado Canyon, the US wanted Libya's Muammar Qadhafi to stop sponsoring international terrorism; in Indochina, the US wanted Vietnam to re- main free of North Vietnamese and commu- nist domination; in the American Revolutionary War, the Americans wanted to be free from Great Britain; in the War of 1898, the United States wanted to wrest Cuba and the Philippines away from Spain; and in World War II, Japan wanted to own her pri- mary sources of raw material and energy. At th e s t r a t e g i c levei, we a t t a i n o u r o b j e c - tives by causing such changes to one or more parts of the enemy's physical system that the enemy decides to adopt our objec- tives, or we make it physically impossible for him to oppose us. The latter we call strategic paralysis. Which parts of the enemy system we attack (with a variety of weapons ranging from explosives to nonlethal Computer vi- ruses) will depend on what our objectives are, how much the enemy wants to resist us, how capable he is, and how much effort we are physically, morally, and politically capa- ble of exercising. A good place to start our examination of enemy systems is at the center. By defini- tion, all systems have some kind of organiz- ing center. The nucleus of an atom Controls the orbits of the electrons just as the sun Controls the motion of the planets. In the --- Page 48 --- 44 A1RP0 WER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 Table 1 Systems Body State Drug Cartel Electric Grid Leadership Brain • eyes • nerves Government • communication • security Leader • communication • security Central control Organic Essentials Food and oxygen (conversion via vital orgrans) Energy (electricity, oil, food) and money Coca source plus conversion Input (heat, hydro) and output (electricity) Infra- structure Vessels, bones, muscles Ftoads, airfields, factories Roads, airways, sea lanes Transmission lines Population Cells People Growers, distributors, processors Workers Fighting Mechanism Leukocytes Military, police, firemen Street soldiers Repairmen biological world, every organism has a di- recting mechanism ranging from the com- plex human brain to the nucleus of an amoeba. A strategic entity-a State, a busi- ness organization, a terrorist organization— has elements of both the physical and the biological, but at the center of these whole systems and of every subsystem is a human being who gives direction and meaning. The ones who provide this direction are leaders, e i t h e r o f t h e w h o l e c o u n t r y o r s o m e p a r t o f it. They are the ones on which depends the functioning of every subsystem, and they are the ones who decide when they want their strategic entity to adopt— or not to adopt—a different set of objectives. They, the leaders, are at the strategic center, and in strategic warfare must be the figurative, and sometimes the literal, target of our every ac- tion. The Five-Ring Model To make the concept of an enemy system useful and understandable, we must make a simplified model. We all use models daily and we all understand that they do not mir- ror reality. They do, however, give us a com- prehensible picture of a complex phenomenon so that we can do something with it. The best models at the strategic levei are those that give us the simplest pos- sible big picture. As we need more detail, we expand portions of our model so that we can see finer and finer detail. It is impor- tant, however, that in constructing our model and using it, we always start from the big and work to the small. The model that we have found to be a good approximation of the real world is the five-ring model. It seems to describe most systems with accept- able accuracy and it is easily expandable to get finer detail as required. Thinking about something as large as a State is difficult, so let us start our examination of the five rings with something somewhat more familiar to us—our own bodies (table 1). A t the very center— the personal strategic center— is the brain. The body can exist --- Page 49 --- THE ENEMY AS A SYSTEM 45 without a functioning brain, but under such circumstances, the body is no longer a hu- man being, or a strategic entity. (A strategic entity is anything that can function on its own and is free and able to make decisions as to where it will go and what it will do.) The brain provides the leadership and direc- tion to the body as a whole and to all its parts. It, and it alone, is absolutely essential in the sense that there can be no substitute for it and without it the body, even though technically alive, is no longer operating at a strategic levei. Included with the brain are the preceptors that allow it to gather and disseminate information internally and ex- ternally. The eyes and other organs fali into this category. All Systems seem to require certain or- ganic essentials— normally some form of in- put energy and the facilities to convert it to another form. For human beings, the essen- tial inputs are food and oxygen. Thus, next in order of priority are those organs we call vital, like the heart, the lungs, and the liver— the ones that convert or convey food and air into something the body can use. Without these organic essentials,2 the brain cannot perform its strategic function, and without the brain, these organs don't get the com- mands they need to provide integrated sup- port. Note here that a machine can substitute for all the vital organs; conversely, there is no machine that can take over strate- gic functions from the brain. One might ask why the vital organs would not be more important than or equal to the brain. The reason is that without the integrating, directing function of the brain, these organs are without meaning. Con- versely, the brain could theoretically be kept alive and in communication with the out- side world through some form of life- support systems. Under such circumstances, it would still be a "person" and would still be capable of influencing the outside world. A heart without a brain, on the other hand, is a very expensive, complex pump without meaning or ability to act or to affect. Next in order might be the infrastructure of bones, blood vessels, and muscles. This infrastructure is important, but there is a lot of it, and the body is capable of working around problems involving it. Continuing our examination of the body, we might next list the tens of millions of cells that carry food and oxygen around the body. They also are important, but one can lose a fair portion and still survive. So far, we have identified a complete Sys- tem, a body that can do everything it is de- signed to do. In a perfect world, it would need nothing more. Unfortunately, the world is not perfect; rather, it is f illed with nasty parasites and viruses that attack the body whenever they can. The body protects itself with specialized protective cells such as white blood cells. They constitute the fifth and last part of our universal system model. As we think about human bodies, we think in terms of systems; although we can assign various leveis of importance to the parts of the body, the parts really constitute a system. If any part of the system becomes incapable of functioning, it will have a more or less important effect on the rest of the body. Interestingly, each part of the body is in turn a system. The heart, as an example, has an internai control mechanism, uses in- coming energy, has an internai network of vessels, has millions of cells to do necessary work, and has its own specialized protective cells. So we have a strategic entity or sys- tem— the body—which in turn is composed of many subsystems, each one of which tends to mirror the whole entity in terms of the way it is organized. A t the other end of the spectrum is the solar system. The sun is analogous to the brain. It is located in the center and its grav- ity keeps the planets in orderly orbit. Its organic essential is the fusion process that gives heat to the whole solar system and that maintains the sun at the appropriate size and mass. It sends its heat and gravity through the infrastructure of space itself and the planetary orbits. The planets themselves are analogous to the cells in a body or the peo- --- Page 50 --- 46 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 ple in a State. The only thing the system lacks is the fifth component that protects the system from outside attack. Inorganic Sys- tems, unlike organic ones, have no self- protection capability. If some group wanted to destroy the solar system, it could do so by attacking and de- stroying each planet— or, it could simply de- stroy the sun (or perhaps merely put a gravity shield around it if it wanted the sun for some other purpose). With the sun gone, or its gravity blocked, all the planets would fly off into outer space and the solar system would be history. It is useful to note that the effect on earth of the sun's destruc- tion would not be evident for about nine minutes and that some life on earth would continue for some period of time thereafter. (One must always assume a delay between strategic events and subsequent tactical ef- fect.) The earth, however, would be irrele- vant if the sun, its strategic center— its "brain" were to disappear. Between the human body and the solar system in size and complexity are such hu- man artifacts as a large electrical grid. An electrical grid consists of a central controller, has organic essentials of energy input and conversion to create electricity, has an infra- structure of transmission lines, is populated by people who keep it functioning, and has repairmen to fix it when something breaks. Having looked at different systems with which we have some familiarity, we recog- nize a similarity that carries across all of them. The model that unfolds before us and that seems to describe a reasonable number of different systems has four basic compo- nents: central leadership or direction, or- ganic essentials, infrastructure, and population. In addition, all organic systems seem to have a fifth component that protects the system from outside attack or general degradation. In other words, we have a sim- ple model that serves as a road map to help us understand very complex processes. If we were to start from the bottom up to understand something like an electrical sys- tem, we would have to become experts in electricity, computers, mechanics, materiais, and many other subjects. Unless that was to be our lifework, we would probably never get to the point where we really understood how everything comes together. And electri- cal systems are only one of a near infinite number of systems that are of interest to the strategic thinker and war planner. Since we can't possibly learn any of these systems in detail, we must present them in ways that allow us to gain sufficient understanding so that we can deal with them in the real world—and deal with them we must because they are our essence and the essence of our enemies. The model built, we can look for addi- tional similarities that apply to systems in general. One of great significance is the ap- parent applicability of the second law of thermodynamics. This natural law tells us that the inexorable movement of everything is from a State of order to a State of disorder. Our homes are good examples of the second law in action.3 We all know that it takes great energy to make our homes orderly— and even more to slow the process of disor- dering. We know that our homes are in a constant State of deterioration, from the ten- dency of clothes and books to "migrate" from closets and shelves and clutter the house, to the calcification of the plumbing, to the chipping of the paint. The more com- plex a system, the more precarious its main- tenance tends to be and the more likely that injections of energy in the wrong places will speed its natural movement toward disor- der—and perhaps even to chãos. Figure 1 presents the five rings in their simplest graphical form. Figure 2 is very similar, except it shows a variety of subsys- tems in orbit about the center. It may be helpful to some to think of these orbiting subsystems as electrons; if the electrons move into a different orbit or disappear completely, the atom changes its nature. Fi- nally, figure 3 is another variation, but this time the circles have become ellipses. This variation helps to show that the model is depicting a dynamic system and that all sys- --- Page 51 --- THE ENEMY AS A SYSTEM 47 tems are not going to have precisely the same relationship among the five rings. The five rings provide a model for systems at a macro levei. They also describe centers of gravlty for a strategic entity. Let us now see how our models apply to a strategic entity like a State or a drug cartel and how we can use them to develop cam- paign plans. Before proceeding, however, it is imperative to understand that strategic war may have nothing to do with the en- em/s military forces. Strategic war is war to force the enemy State or organization to do what you want it to do. In the extreme, it may even be war to destroy the State or organization. It is, how- ever, the whole system that is our target, not its military forces. If we address the system properly, its military forces will be left as a useless appendage, no longer supported by its leadership, organic essentials, infrastruc- ture, or population. This is not to say that we do not have to think about how to defeat an enemy military force directly. Indeed, there will be times when its defeat is the only way to get to the strategic centers it FIELDED MILITARY POPULATION INFRASTRUCTURE ORGANIC ESSENTIALS LEADERSHIP Figure 1. The Basic Five-Ring Model --- Page 52 --- 48 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 FIELDED MILITARY POPULATION INFRASTRUCTURE ORGANIC ESSENTIALS (e.g., ELECTRICAL POWER) LEADERSHIP DIRECT EFFECT Figure 2. The Five-Ring Model with Subsystems Figure 3. The Five Rings as Ellipses PM --- Page 53 --- THE ENEMY AS A SYSTEM 49 guards; at other times, we may not have the wherewithal to attack the enemy's strategic centers. In these cases, however, we must still understand that even the enemy mili- tary is a system that is well described by the five-ring model. Key to our success is keep- ing in mind that strategists and operational artists start with the large entity, the enemy system, then work their way down to the small details as required. Using the Flve Rings for Strategic Warfare The concept of centers of gravity is simple in concept but difficult in execution because of the likelihood that more than one center will exist at any time and that each center will have an effect of some kind on the others. It is also important to note that cen- ters of gravity may in some cases be only indirectly related to the enemy's ability to conduct actual military operations. A s an example, a strategic center of gravity for most States beyond the agrarian stage is the power-generation system. Without electric power, production of civil and military goods, distribution of food and other essen- tials, civil and military communication, and life in general become difficult to impossi- ble. Unless the stakes in the war are very high, most States will make desired conces- sions when their power-generation system is put under sufficient pressure or actually de- stroyed. Even if they do not sue for peace, their loss of electric power will have a devas- tating effect on their strategic base, which in turn will make prosecution and support of the war extraordinarily difficult— especially if the power system is shut down quickly, in days rather than in months or years. Note that destruction of the power system may have little short-term effect at the front— if there is a front. Every State and every military organiza- tion will have a unique set of centers of gravity—or vulnerabilities. Nevertheless, our five-ring model gives us a good starting point. It tells us what detailed questions to ask, and it suggests a priority for the ques- tions and for operations— from the most vi- tal at the middle to the least vital at the outside. These centers of gravity, which are also rings of vulnerability, are absolutely criticai to the functioning of a State. The most criticai ring is the command ring because it is the enemy command struc- ture, be it a civilian at the seat of govern- ment or a military commander directing a fleet, which is the only element of the en- emy that can make concessions, that can make the very complex decisions that are necessary to keep a country on a particular course, or that can direct a country at war. In fact, wars through history have been fought to change (or change the mind of) the command structure— to overthrow the prince literally or figuratively— or, put in other words, to induce the command struc- ture to make concessions or to make it inca- pable of leading. Capturing or killing the state's leader has frequently been decisive. In modern times, however, it has become more difficult— but not impossible— to capture or kill the com- mand element. A t the same time, command Communications have become more impor- tant than ever, and these are vulnerable to attack. When command Communications suffer extreme damage, as they did in Iraq, the leadership has great difficulty in direct- ing war efforts; in the case of an unpopular regime, the lack of Communications not only makes it difficult to keep national mo- rale at a sufficiently high levei but also facili- tates rebellion on the part of dissident elements. When the command element cannot be threatened directly, the task becomes one of applying sufficient indirect pressure so that the command element rationally concludes that concessions are appropriate, realizes that further action is impossible, or is physi- cally deprived of the ability to continue a particular course or to continue combat. The command element will normally reach --- Page 54 --- 50 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 these conclusions as a result of the degree of damage imposed on the surrounding rings. Absent a rational response by the enemy command element, it is possible to render the enemy impotent— to impose strategic pa- ralysis—by destroying one or more of the outer strategic rings or centers of gravity. The next most criticai ring contains the organic essentials. Organic essentials are those facilities or processes without which the State or organization cannot maintain it- self. It is not necessarily directly related to combat; indeed, war-reíated industry may not be very important qua war industry in many cases. As an example, consider the ef- fect on a drug cartel if its drug production comes to a halt. Just as nothing happens instantly to the earth if the sun disappears, the drug cartel will not instantly go up in smoke. It is quite clear, however, that the system must either change dramatically or perish. On a State levei, the growth in the size of cities around the world and the necessity for electricity and petroleum products to keep a City functioning have put these two com- modities in the essential class for most States. If a state's organic essentials— whether generated internally or imported— are de- stroyed, life itself becomes difficult and the State becomes incapable of employing mod- ern weapons and must make major conces- sions, which could be as little as forswearing offensive operations outside its own borders. Depending on the size of the State and the importance it attaches to its objectives, even minor damage to essential industries may lead the command element to make conces- sions. The concessions may come because a. damage to organic essentials leads to the collapse of the system. b. damage to organic essentials makes it physically difficult or impossible to main- tain a certain policy or to fight. c. damage to organic essentials has inter- nai political or economic repercussions that are too costly to bear. The number of organic-essential targets in even a large State is reasonably small and each of the targets in subsystems such as power production and petroleum refining is fragile.4 The third most criticai ring is the infra- structure ring. It contains the enemy state's transportation system— the system that moves civil and military goods and Services around the state's entire area of operations. It includes rail lines, airlines, highways, bridges, airfields, ports, and a number of other similar systems. It contains the major- ity of a state's industry because most of its industry does not fali in the organic- essential category. For both military and civil purposes, it is necessary to move goods, Services, and information from one point to another. If this movement becomes impossi- ble, the State system quickly moves to a lower energy levei, and thus to a lesser abil- ity to resist the demands of its enemy. Com- pared to organic-essential systems, there are more infrastructure facilities and more re- dundancy; thus, a greater effort may be re- quired to do enough damage to have an effect. The fourth most criticai ring is the popu- lation. Moral objections aside, it is difficult to attack the population directly. There are too many targets, and, in many cases, espe- cially in a police State, the population may be willing to suffer grievously before it w ill turn on its own government. Indirect attack on the population, such as North Vietnam used against the United States, may be espe- cially effective if the target country has a relatively low interest in the outcome of the war. As the North Vietnamese showed, it is entirely possible to create conditions that lead the civilian population of the enemy to call on its government to change the state's policies. The North Vietnamese accom- plished their aims by raising American mili- tary casualty leveis higher than the American people would tolerate. Almost certainly there are actions that can be taken to induce any enemy civilian population to offer some degree of resistance to its govern- --- Page 55 --- THE ENEMY AS A SYSTEM 51 ment's policies. It is tough to determine what those actions might be because hu- mans are so unpredictable. As part of an overall effort to alter the enemy system, an indirect approach to the population is prob- ably worthwhile; one should not, however, count on it. Early air theorists such as Giulio Douhet thought that wars could be won by inflict- ing such casualties on the civilian popula- tion that morale would break with subsequent capitulation. Historically, of course, he was on solid ground; besieged cities have normally surrendered when the pain and suffering became too much for the civilians to bear. Many have argued, how- ever, that the bombing of Britain and Ger- many in World War II actually stiffened civilian morale. While there is certainly no evidence to support such an improbable claim, the evidence is quite clear that neither British nor German civilian morale fell to the point where the respective governments were forced to surrender. That morale did not collapse in Britain and Germany is no proof that a different approach wouldn't lead to different results in different places and times. As an exam- ple, Iraqi terror attacks on Iran certainly af- fected civilian morale and almost certainly led the Iranian government to agree to an armistice with Iraq. Again, let us reiterate that we hold direct attacks on civilians to be morally reprehensible and militarily diffi- cult. That, however, will not keep someone else from trying it against us or one of our friends. It is something that has existed since time immemorial and isn't likely to go away in the near future. The last ring holds the fielded military forces of the State. Although we tend to think of military forces as being the most vital in war, in fact they are means to an end. That is, their only function is to protect their own inner rings or to threaten those of an enemy. A State can certainly be led to make concessions by reducing its fielded military forces^and if all of its fielded forces are destroyed, it may have to make the ulti- mate concession simply because the com- mand element knows that its inner rings have become defenseless and liable to de- struction. Viewing fielded forces as means to an end and not necessarily important in themselves is not a classical view— in large part because the majority of the classical writing and thinking on w a r f a r e h a s been done by conti- nental soldiers who had no choice but to contend with enemy armies. Modern tech- nology now, however, makes possible new and politically powerful options that in fact can put fielded forces into the category of means and not ends. In most cases, all the rings exist in the order presented, but it may not be possible to reach more than one or two of the outer ones with military means. By the end of 1943, for example, the Germans in World War II were incapable of making serious at- tack on anything but the fourth and fifth rings (population and fielded forces) of their primary enemies; they did not have a useful long-range attack capability. The Japanese could attack only the fifth ring (fielded forces) of their primary enemies. Con- versely, the United States and the Allies could attack every German and Japanese ring of vulnerability. The Iraqis in the 1991 Gulf War had an even more difficult prob- lem: they could not reach any of their prin- cipal foe's strategic rings unless the United States chose to put its fielded forces in harm's way. For such States that cannot em- ploy military weapons against their enemy's strategic centers, the only recourse is indirect attack through psychological or unconven- tional warfare. It is imperative to remember that all ac- tions are aimed against the mind of the en- emy command or against the enemy system as a whole. Thus, an attack against industry or infrastructure is not primarily conducted because of the effect it might or might not have on fielded forces. Rather, it is under- taken for its direct effect on the enemy sys- tem, including its effect on national leaders and commanders who must assess the cost --- Page 56 --- 52 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 of rebuilding, the effect on the state's eco- nomic position in the postwar period, the internai political effect on their own sur- vival, and whether the cost is worth the po- tential gain from continuing the war. The essence of war is applying pressure against the enemy's innermost strategic ring— its command structure. Military forces are a means to an end. It is pointless to deal with enemy military forces if they can be by- passed by strategy or technology either in the defense or offense. One additional point needs to be made about the five rings. They are in the order presented for several reasons: the most im- portant is in the middle (World War II Ger- many continued to resist, however ineffectually, until Hitler died); there is an increase in numbers of people or facilities moving from the center to the fourth ring (one or two leaders, a few dozen organic essentials, many infrastructure facilities, and a large number of people); and the theoreti- cal vulnerabilities decrease from the inside to the outside— largely due to numbers in- volved. The fifth ring is actually smaller in number than the fourth ring of population, but it is theoretically less vulnerable to di- rect attack simply because it is designed to be so. A relative handful of bombs around Qadhafi drove him to make concessions; that same number falling on his tanks would have been inconsequential. Although we discussed earlier the idea that strategic war is different from our popu- lar view of war, it is such a difficult concept to grasp that it bears another discussion. We can take ourselves back to a mythical, but logically plausible, early world where all men lived in peace. That is, they lived in peace until one group decided it wanted something that a neighboring community had and was going to take it. That some- thing, of course, by definition lay within the four innermost rings; perhaps it was food, perhaps it was some part of the infrastruc- ture, or perhaps it was the people them- selves. That first war was certainly successful be- cause there was no fifth ring to defend the inner four. (Despite the lack of armed forces clashing, it was every bit as much a war as any that took place subsequently.) The at- tacked community, however, quickly reme- died the situation and created a force, a fifth ring, to defend the inner four. Our point is simple: strategic war carne first, and it was only after the widespread creation of fifth- ring military forces that we began to think about war as the clash of those forces. Logic, of course, says that the purpose of w ar, if it is to be anything more than a side- show, is to do something to the enemy's in- ner rings or to prevent him from doing something to yours. If this is the case, then clearly our planning should be based on af- fecting or defending inner rings at the earli- est and least costly opportunity. We should only deign to do classical battle if we have no choice. Before continuing, we must ask ourselves if there exist States or organizations that do not have all five rings or centers of gravity. Our basic answer is no, simply because our five rings are merely a model of the real world of systems built around life-forms of any type. On the other hand, the relative importance of the outer four rings (the lead- ership ring is by necessity always of para- mount importance) has changed over time. In addition, vulnerabilities of the rings clearly change from one societal system and one historical period to another. As an example, when William the Con- queror developed his campaign plan for the conquest of England, he would not have identified organic essentials, infrastructure, or the population as centers of gravity against which he could hope to operate with decisive results. His target had to be the center ring— King Harold himself. H e had neither the time nor the resources to deal with population, infrastructure, or organic essentials. Consequently, he aimed directly for Harold, who was protected by his fifth- ring army. (At that time in history, the leader and the army were frequently one and the same.) When Harold fell to a high- --- Page 57 --- THE ENEMY AS A SYSTEM 53 trajectory arrow, William had accomplished his strategic objective. Today, the problem is more difficult because it is rarely possible to operate directly and successfully against a single organization leader. Therefore, it will normally be necessary to strike at several of the inner rings. The utility of the five-ring model may be somewhat diminished in circumstances where an entire people rises up to conduct a defensive battle against an invader. If the people are sufficiently motivated, they may be able to fight for an extended period by using the resources naturally available to them. This occasionally happens when the invader is so terrible that people see no hope if they surrender. When people do fight to the last, they are fighting as individuais and in essence each person becomes a strategic entity unto himself. While such may be possible for the defense, it is not for the of- fense. It is a special case, and one definitely not to be confused with Maoist ideas on guerrilla warfare in which the guerrilla or- ganization is well described by the five rings. To this point, we have discussed centers of gravity that are strategic because they are principal parts of the enemy system. Ideally, a commander will attack centers of gravity as close as possible to the leadership ring of the five rings. He may, however, be forced to deal with the enemy's fielded military forces because he cannot reach strategic centers without first removing enemy defenses be- cause enemy forces are threatening his own strategic or operational centers of gravity or because his political masters will not permit him to attack strategic centers. In these cases, he must view his enemy military forces as systems and go through the same analysis that he did when he was dealing with the enemy as a whole. What does one do when it is necessary to deal with the en- emy's military forces for whatever reason? Centers of gravity exist not only at the strategic levei but also at the operational level-and, indeed, are very similar. A t the operational levei, the goal is still to induce the enemy operational-level commander to make concessions such as retreating, surren- dering, or giving up an offense. Like the State command structure, however, the op- erational commander has rings of vulner- ability—or centers of gravity— surrounding him. In fact, each major element of his command will also have similar centers of gravity. At the operational levei, the first ring or center of gravity is the commander himself. He is the target of operations either directly or indirectly because he is the one who will decide to concede something to the enemy. Included in his center ring is his central command, control, and Communications system; without the ability to collect infor- mation and issue orders to his subordinates, the commander— and his command— are in peril. As at the strategic levei, howev er, the likelihood of physically seizing or paralyzing the command ring is relatively small; thus, recourse to the operational rings, or centers of gravity, surrounding the operational-level commander may be necessary. The next operational ring is the organic- essentials ring (which at the operational levei may be thought of as logistics) because it contains the essentials of combat-the am- munition, the fuel, and the food without which modem war cannot be prosecuted. A cursory review of history quickly reveals the dire straits that operational-level command- ers have encountered when their logistics ring suffered from enemy attack. Indeed, war in the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- turies was in large measure designed around isolating a commander from his logistics ring. Experience on both sides in the Gulf War, as well as in the study of operational- level petroleum, oil, and lubricants (POL) distribution in the Soviet army, shows that the problem of providing key logistics sup- port for a large-scale offensive has become incredibly more difficult than ever in the an- nals of warfare. The difficulty and complex- ity, however, make attack of this center of gravity easier and more decisive than even in World War II, where much equipment was still moved by horse-drawn vehicles5 and --- Page 58 --- 54 A1RP0WER JOURNAL SPR1NG 1995 where total requirements per man in the field were a fraction of what they are today. An infrastructure is necessary to move the materiel found in the organic-essentials ring as well as fielded military forces them- selves—and this infrastructure is the third operational ring. It consists of roads, air- ways, seaways, rails, Communications lines, pipelines, and a myriad of other facilities needed to employ fielded forces. None of the three inner rings will func- tion without personnel to staff them, and these support personnel constitute the fourth operational ring. Like the population in the fourth strategic ring, however, these personnel present difficult targets and will rarely be appropriate for direct attack. The fifth and last ring of the operational commander is his fielded forces— his aircraft, his ships, and his troops. The fifth ring is the toughest to reduce, simply because it is designed to be tough. As a general rule, a campaign that focuses on the fifth ring (either by choice or because no alternatives exist) is Íikely to be the longest and bloodi- est for both sides. Nevertheless, it is some- times appropriate to concentrate against the fifth ring, and sometimes it may be neces- sary to reduce the fifth ring to some extent in order to reach inner operational or strate- gic rings. Parallel Attack The most important requirement of stra- tegic attack is understanding the enemy Sys- tem. The system understood, the next problem becomes one of how to reduce it to the desired levei or to paralyze it if required. Parallel attack will normally be the preferred approach, unless there is some cogent reason to prolong the war. States have a small number of vital targets at the strategic levei— in the neighborhood of a few hundred with an average of perhaps 10 aimpoints per vital target. These targets tend to be small, very expensive, have few backups, and are hard to repair. If a signifi- cant percentage is struck in parallel, the damage becomes insuperable. Contrast par- allel attack with serial attack in which only one or two targets come under attack in a given day (or longer). The enemy can allevi- ate the effects of serial attack by dispersai o v e r t i m e , b y i n c r e a s i n g t h e d e f e n s e s o f t a r - gets that are Íikely to be attacked, by concen- trating his resources to repair damage to single targets, and by conducting counterof- fensives. Parallel attack deprives him of the ability to respond effectively, and the greater the percentage of targets hit in a single blow, the more nearlv impossible his response. Parallel attack has not been possible on any appreciable scale in the past because a commander had to concentrate his forces in order to prevail against a single vulnerable part of the enemy's forces. If he prevailed, he could reconcentrate and move on to at- tack another point in the enemy's defenses. The process of concentrating and reconcen- trating was normally lengthy and one that the enemy worked hard to foil. This pro- cess, better understood when labeled "serial warfare," permitted maneuver and counter- maneuver, attack and counterattack, and movement and pause. It also gave rise to the phenomenon known as the culminating point in campaigns— that point at which the cam- paign is in near equilibrium where the right effort on either side can have significant ef- fect. All of our thinking on war is based on serial effects, on ebb and flow. The capabil- ity to execute parallel war, however, makes that thinking obsolete. Technology has made possible the near simultaneous attack on every strategic- and operational-level vulnerability of the enemy. This parallel process of war, as opposed to the old serial form, makes very real what Clausewitz called the ideal form of war, the striking of blows everywhere at the same time. For Clausewitz, the ideal was a Pla- to n ia n shadow o n the back o f the cave vvall, never to be known by mortais. The shadow has materialized and nothing will be the same again. --- Page 59 --- THE ENEMY AS A SYSTEM 55 Conclusion Strategic warfare provides the most posi- tive resolution of conflicts. To execute it well, however, we must reverse our normal method of thinking; we must think from the big to the small, from the top down. We must think in terms of systems; we and our enemies are systems and subsystems with mutual dependencies. Our objective will al- most always involve doing something to re- duce the effectiveness of the overall system, if you will, to make it more susceptible to the infectious ideas we want to become part of it. At the same time, we must take neces- Notes 1. Strategic entities are really our subject matter with a nation-state being a type of strategic entity. A strategic entity is any organization that can operate autonomously; that is, it is self-directing and self-sustaining. A State is a strategic entity as is a criminal organization like the Mafia or business organizations like General Motors. Conversely, neither an army nor an air force is a strategic entity because they are neither self-sustaining nor self-directing. This is an important distinction in itself. Of most importance here, however, is that our discussion of strategic centers and strategic warfare is as applicable to a guerrilla organization as to a modem industrial State. 2 Those familiar with the five-ring model used to develop the initial Gulf War air campaign plan will recognize a name change at this point from key production to "organic essentials." It has always been clear that there were certain facilities or processes so important to a State that they required a specific labei and class. Thus. we identified the production of electricity and petroleum products as "key production" because we believed that taking them away from a State which had them would transform the State into something quite different and far less powerful. Many people, however, had difficulty distinguíshing between key production, normal production, and infrastructure. I believe the name change to organic essentials (meaning they are part and parcel of the system and essential to its survival in its current State) should help clear up sary action to ensure that the enemy does not do unacceptable damage to our system or any of its subsystems. We must not start our thinking on war with the tools of war— with the airplanes, tanks, ships, and those who crew them. These tools are important and have their place, but they cannot be our starting point, nor can we allow ourselves to see them as the essence of war. Fighting is not the es- sence of war, nor even a desirable part of it. The real essence is doing what is necessary to make the enemy accept our objectives as his objectives. □ this problem. In addition, as the similarity between many different types of systems becomes clearer, organic essentials seem to have more universal applicability. 3 With thanks to Stephen Hawking and his book A B r i e f History o f Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes (New York: Bantam Books, 1988). 4 Superficially, Allied attacks on German industry in World War 1 1 would seem to contradict the idea that essential industry is fragile. In that conflict, however, bombing accuracy was not good; more than half of all bombs dropped missed their targets by well over a thousand yards. When accuracies are improved to where more than half of all bombs fali within a few feet of their target, as did the majority of those aimed at petroleum and electric targets in Iraq, it becomes clear that what took thousands of sorties and many tons of bombs can now be accomplished with orders-of-magnitude less effort. 5 Well over a third of German transport used on the offensive against the Soviets in 1941 was horse-drawn. Likewise, the supplies needed to keep Patton's entire Third Army on the offensive in 1944 would barely support a single corps today. The proliferation of motor vehicles, Communications equipment, and doctrine demanding high rates of fire has perhaps created more problems than it has solved for an offensive army. --- Page 60 --- A THEORY OF INFORMATION WARFARE Preparing for 2020 Col Ric h ar d Szaf r anski , USAF HE PROFESSION of arms in a de- mòcracy is not exempt from over- sight or from consideration of just conduct, even in warfare. Where the will of the people, the moral high ground, and the technological high ground are the same, the profession will remain a useful and lofty one. If, however, the moral high ground is lost, a domino effect occurs: pub- lic support is lost, the technological high ground is lost, and the armed forces are lost. It is within this framework that this article postulates a theory of information warfare1 within the larger context of warfare and pro- poses ways to wage information warfare at the strategic and operational leveis. The tools to wage information warfare are at hand, and because information weapons are such powerful weapons, both combatants and noncombatants need to be protected against them. The vulnerability to informa- tion warfare is universal. The decisions to pursue the development of information weapons or to prosecute information warfare are governmental decisions. These decisions need to be made consciously and deliber- ately and with an understanding of the moral and ethical risks of information war- fare. After assessing all the risks and decid- ing to create information weapons or engage 56 --- Page 61 --- A THEORY OFINFORMATION WARFARE 57 in information warfare, the decision makers should first have an understanding of these weapons and a weapon employment theory before such warfare starts rather than after the weapons are deployed or have already been employed. Information Information as used here means the "con- tent or meaning of a message."2 An aim of warfare always has been to affect the en- em/s information systems. In the broadest sense, information systems encompass every means by which an adversary arrives at knowledge or beliefs. A narrower view maintains that information systems are the means by which an adversary exercises con- trol over, and direction of, fielded forces. Taken together, information systems are a comprehensive set of the knowledge, beliefs, and the decision-making processes and sys- tems of the adversary. The outcome sought by information attacks at every levei is for the enemy to receive sufficient messages that convince him to stop fighting. Why would an adversary stop fighting? There are a number of possibilities: an in- ability to control fielded forces, demoraliza- tion, the knowledge or belief that combat power has been annihilated, or an awareness that the prospects of not fighting are supe- rior to the prospects of continuing the fight. These "stop-fighting" messages might be as varied in content or meaning as "Cannae has ruined you," or "Submit to the Tartar or die," or "Your counterattack has failed," or even "Your own people do not support you in warfare that kills babies." Although the methods of communicating the stop-fight- ing message have changed over the years, the meaning of the message itself remains fairly constant: stop fighting. As social institutions evolved from first- wave agrarian societies to second-wave in- dustrial States, information systems evolved and decision-making processes became more complex. Mercantile organizations arose within or alongside the dominant political structures, adding elements of greater com- plexity as the scope of their activities en- larged. Knowledge networks of knowledge workers, the newest form of institutional structure, emerged and their numbers in- creased in tandem with the availability of the tools of information technology. As in- formation technology advanced, informa- tion systems allowed knowledge, or know-how, to make all the other institu- tional forms more effective.3 A s societal institutions evolved, the ways in which societies fought evolved also. The terrorizing drums, banners, and gongs of Sun Tzu's warfare, aided by information technology, became the sophisticated psy- chological operations of modern warfare. The aim of warfare moved from, or could move from, exhaustion to annihilation to control, according to John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt.4 Information technology may now have evolved to the point where "control" can be imposed with little physical violence or bloodshed. On the surface this appears to be a good thing. At its center, it may be a dangerous thing. Closer scrutiny should reveal which of these is the case. What Warfare Is Warfare is the set of all lethal and non- lethal activities undertaken to subdue the hostile will of an adversary or enemy. In this sense, warfare is not synonymous with "war."5 Warfare does not require a declara- tion of war, nor does it require existence of a condition widely recognized as "a State of war." Warfare can be undertaken by or against state-controlled, state-sponsored, or nonstate groups. Warfare is hostile activity directed against an adversary or enemy. The aim of warfare is not necessarily to kill the enemy. The aim of warfare is to merely sub- due the enemy. In fact, the "acme of skill" is to subdue an adversary without killing him.6 The adversary is subdued when he behaves in ways that are coincident with the ways in --- Page 62 --- 58 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 which we— the aggressor or the defender— in- tend for him to behave.7 In aiming to sub- due hostile will, we must have a clear understanding of the specific nonhostile be- haviors we intend to compel, or the hostile ones we want to prevent. When the security forces of a State engage an enemy State in warfare, the government determines the specific nonhostile behaviors sought from the adversary. When other groups-guerrillas, gangs, clans— engage in warfare, the group leader decides the specific nonhostile behaviors sought. In both State and nonstate warfare forms, the decisions made by group leaders define the aims, the methods, and the desired postconflict condi- tions of the warfare. Even so, it is a fiction, albeit a common and convenient one, to as- sert that "States" or "groups" wage warfare. The decision to engage in warfare, including the decision to terminate warfare, is made by leaders in the State or group. Likewise, it is the hostile will of enemy leaders that must be subdued to be successful in warfare.8 Group members, or the citizens of States, may influence the leaders' decisions, but it is the hostile will of Ieadership that must be subdued. If the "mandate of heaven" passes from the leader to other group members— successor leaders or the population at large— the hostile will of these new leaders must be subdued. Information warfare can help withdraw the mandate of heaven from the hands of adversary leaders. The great discovery that launched the in- formation-age was awareness that everything in the externai world could be reduced to combinations of zeroes and ones. These combinations could be transmitted elec- tronically as data and recombined upon re- ceipt to form the basis of information. According to the seminal work on control warfare by Arquilla and Ronfeldt, informa- tion is more than the content or meaning of a message. Rather, information is "any dif- ference that makes a difference."9 Informa- tion warfare is a form of conflict that attacks information systems directly as a means to attack adversary knowledge or beliefs. Infor- mation warfare can be prosecuted as a com- ponent of a larger and more comprehensive set of hostile activities— a netwar or cyber- war-or it can be undertaken a s the sole form of hostile activity.1 0 Most weapons —a word used to describe the lethal and nonlethal tools of warfare— only have high utility against externai adversaries. While most often employed against externai adversaries, many of the weapons of information warfare are equally well suited for employment against internai constituencies. For example, a State or group would not normally use guns and bombs against its own members; however, the weapons of information warfare can be used, have been used, and very likely will be used against both externai and internai ad- versaries. Information warfare in the Third Reich, for example, was omnifrontal. Information warfare is hostile activity di- rected against any part of the knowledge and belief systems of an adversary. The "adver- sary" is anyone uncooperative with the aims of the leader. Externally, this is the agreed- upon "enemy," or the "not us." Intemally, the adversary might be the traitor, the faint of heart, or the fellow traveler-anyone who opposes or is insufficiently cooperative with the leader who Controls the means of infor- mation warfare. If the internai members of a group are insufficiently supportive of the aims of the leader during warfare, internai information warfare (including such things as propaganda, deception, character assassi- nation, rumors, and lies) can be used in at- tempts to make them more supportive of the aims of Ieadership. Warfare and Its Relation to What We Know or Believe Whether directly employed against an ex- ternai adversary or internai constituencies, information warfare has the ultimate aim of using information weapons to affect (influ- ence, manipulate, attack) the knowledge and belief systems of some externai adversary. It --- Page 63 --- A THEORY OF INFORMATION WARFARE 59 is useful in warfare, for exampie, for an ex- ternai adversary to know, or at least believe, that the opposing State or group is united against him or her. Information warfare, si- multaneously employed to make internai constituencies cooperative and externai ad- versaries believe its enemy is a united front, is used to help seat that awareness in the knowledge and beliefs residing in the mind of adversary leadership. The Fragility o f Knowledge and Beliefs Knowledge systems are those systems or- ganized and operated to sense or observe verifiable phenomenological indicators or designators, translate these indicators into perceived realities, and use these perceptions to make decisions and direct actions.1 1 Sens- ing that the plate is hot, one releases it. Ob- serving that one's expenditures exceed income, one curbs spending. Our sensing and observing systems allow us to know. We decide and act based on our knowledge, but not on knowledge alone. Knowledge systems are organized according to scientific princi- pies and sustained by the scientific method. That is, knowledge systems are organized to collect empirical data by sensing or observa- tion to formulate hypotheses, to conduct tests that validate or invalidate the hypotheses, and to use these findings as the basis for further action. Belief systems are those implicit or explicit orientations both to empirical data in the form of verifiable perceptions and to other data or awareness (nightmares, phobias, psychoses, neuroses, and all the other crea- tures living in the fertile swamp of the sub- conscious, the collective unconscious, or Jung's "unconscious psyche"1 2 ) that are not verifiable or, at least, are less easily verifi- able.0 According to John Boyd, the process or act of orientation (what Boyd calls "the Big O" in the OODA [observation-orientation-de- cision-action] loop) also is influenced by ge- netic heritage and cultural traditions.1 4 Thus, the orientation of American leaders is different than the orientation of, say, Japa- nese or Chinese leaders. The orientation of capitalists and their leaders is different than the orientation of socialists and their leaders. Unlike knowledge systems, belief systems are highly individualized. Why? They in- clude the stuff of the unconscious and sub- conscious, powerful elements of which others and even the bearer may be unaware. Even though the target of information war- fare is the mind of enemy leadership, it is glib reductionism to think of the enemy as being of "one mind." The enemy is really many individual enemies, many minds. This only complicates the problem slightly. For exampie, if the enemy is dispersed, separate minds can be attacked separately, using the fact of isolation to the attacker's advantage. If the enemy is concentrated (and over half the people on the planet will live in metro- politan complexes by the year 2020 and will be accessible in large numbers by way of in- formation technology), the attack can be prosecuted against large groups. Even so, the aim of warfare is to subdue the hostile will of leaders and decision makers. This can be done directly by attacks aimed at in- fluencing or manipulating the leader's knowledge or beliefs or indirectly by attack- ing the knowledge or beliefs of those upon whom the leader depends for action. Lead- ers and decision makers usually are not diffi- cult to identify in any organization hierarchy. When an organization applies power or force, that organization most often assumes hierarchical characteristics. Thus, the knowledge and beliefs of decision mak- ers are the Achilles' heel of hierarchies. Knowledge systems, because they are more scientific, are less influenced by cul- ture and by irrational or nonverifiable fac- tors than are belief systems, yet both knowledge systems and belief systems are components present in every human deci- sion-making system.1 5 What is known, in- cluding the methods by which it carne to be known, can be tested by its relation to some- thing else and determined to be valid or in- valid, true or false, real or unreal. What is believed is not subject to all the same tests. Even so, beliefs are no less compelling than --- Page 64 --- 60 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 empirically derived knowledge. Both knowl- edge and beliefs affect human decision mak- ing. Since the aim of warfare is to influence adversary behavior by influencing adversary decisions, Information warfare actions must be directed against both the adversary's knowledge systems and belief systems. If an adversary is organized as a coalition of mul- tiple and cooperative centers of gravity, many culturally conditioned belief systems may exist within the coalition. These may be engaged and defeated in detail. The coa- lition need not be separate States or groups working as an alliance. The coalition can be the constituencies within a State or within groups. Clausewitz was correct in asserting the potential liabilities associated with a llies and coalitions.1 6 Moreover, leaders and deci- sion makers of the coalition provide the most fertile targets for direct or indirect at- tacks. Targeting Epistemology The target system of information warfare can include every element in the epistemology of an adversary. Epistemology means the entire "organization, structure, methods, and valid- ity of knowledge."1 7 In layperson's terms, it means everything a human organism— an in- dividual or a group— holds to be true or real, no matter whether that which is held as true or real was acquired as knowledge or as a belief. A t the strategic levei, the aim of a "perfect" information warfare campaign is to influence adversary choices, and hence adver- sary behavior, without the adversary's aware- ness that choices and behavior are being influenced. Even though this aim is difficult to attain, it remains the goal of a perfect information warfare campaign at the strategic levei. A successful, although not necessarily perfect, information warfare campaign waged at the strategic levei will result in adversary decisions (and hence actions) that consis- tently mismatch or fail to support the inten- tions or aims of the adversary leader. A successful information warfare cam- paign waged at the operational levei will support strategic objectives by influencing the adversary's ability to make decisions in a timely or effective manner. Said another way, the aim of information warfare activi- ties at the operational levei is to so compli- cate or confound the adversary's decision- making process that the adversary cannot act or behave in a coordinated or effective w ay. In information warfare, the goal is to harmo- nize the activities taken at the operational levei with those taken at the strategic levei so that, taken altogether, the adversary makes decisions that result in actions that consis- tently support our aims by consistently fail- ing to support the adversary's aims. At the strategic levei, the leaders contem- plating an information warfare campaign need to know the answers to at least three questions. First, what is the relationship of the information warfare campaign to the larger aims of the campaign? Second, what is it we wish the adversary leaders to know or believe when the information warfare campaign is concluded? That is, what is the desired epistemological end-state and conse- quently the success criterion? Third, what are the best information warfare tools to em- ploy in order to meet the established success criteria? That is, how will "means" be re- lated to "ends"? At the operational levei, the leaders re- sponsible for prosecuting the "grand tactics" also need the answers to some questions. Will there be any withheld targets or prohib- ited weapons in the information warfare at- tacks? Is the epistemological end-state to be reached all at once, everywhere, or are there interim States that need to be reached in spe- cific geographical areas, in a specific se- quence, or in specific sectors of information activity? The questions of "command and signal" also need to be addressed. Specifi- cally, leaders at the operational levei need to know when attacks will be terminated and the means by which the termination order will be communicated. These are important questions because information weapons, de- pending on the weapons used, may cause collateral damage to the attacker's knowl- --- Page 65 --- A THEORY OF INFORMATION WARFARE 61 edge and belief systems.1 8 In the worst case, the adversary’s response could include coun- terattacks against "friendly" information Sys- tems that are somehow indistinguishable from collateral damage caused by the infor- mation analog of "friendly fire." This thought requires some elaboration. Warfare is a human social activity.1 9 The workplace of vvarriors is society, the societies of those engaged in combat and the societies of active and passive spectator groups. Be- cause it is a human activity— and one de- pendent on human action, reaction, and interaction— the outcomes of some warfare activities may be unpredictable. As Grant Hammond notes in "Paradoxes of War," if the outcomes of a war could be known in advance, there would be scant reasons for the loser to fight in the first place.20 More- over, there may be lag times between action and response; some outcomes take longer to develop than others. Thus, the notion that World War II was the outcome of World War I (or the peace treaty that terminated com- bat) may very well be true. The unpre- dictability, howev er, is not confined to the consequences of war termination. Specific actions in warfare can have specific and un- predictable reactions. Information attacks— attacks aimed at the knowledge or belief systems of adversaries— can have consequences that are as unpre- dictable as attacks aimed at the physical destruction of property or combat equip- ment or those aimed at killing human be- ings. Suffice it to say that information attacks have stochastic effects and that un- less these are considered and evaluated in ad- vance, an information attack may not have the effect ultimately desired. Worse, it may have consequences that are so undesirable that the attacker will rue that an attack was made in the first place. The notion of sto- chastic effects, like the notion of collateral damage, needs to be considered at both the strategic and operational leveis of informa- tion warfare. The Target Sets o f Inform ation Warfare The more dependent the adversary is on in- formation systems for decision making, the more vulnerable he is to hostile manipula- tion of those systems. Software viruses only hurt those dependent on software. Radio- electronic combat only works against forces reliant on rádios or electronics. Electromag- netic pulse generators— unless the generator is a nuclear weapon— do not affect human cou- riers and runners. While this suggests that only postindustrial States or groups are highly vulnerable to information warfare, the opposite may be the case for two reasons. First, preindustrial or agrarian societies still have vulnerable epistemological systems. Be- cause information warfare can be prosecuted against the adversary's entire epistemology— both knowledge systems and belief systems— even preindustrial agrarian or primitive societies are vulnerable to information war- fare. Second, industrial societies, and even some advanced industrial societies, may ac- quire much of their telecommunications in- frastructure from more advanced or postindustrial societies or groups. By way of analogy, consider the case of the homeowner and the architect. The homeowner may not be aware of flaws in his or her residence, but the architect is aware. Likewise, the operator or "owner" of a tele- communications system designed or built by others may be unaware of important fea- tures of which only the designer or manu- facturer has knowledge. If the architect is not directly subordinate or accountable to "the owner," then the potential exists for the architect to exploit the hidden features to his own advantage. In the warfare of busi- ness competition, the architect may have the means, motive, and opportunity to exploit these features to meet the objectives of the firm, whether or not the government or the State approves of these actions. In the case of advanced societies or groups, attacks against telecommunications systems can wreak havoc with an adversary's ability to make effective decisions in war- --- Page 66 --- 62 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 fare. Yet, one should also appreciate that an apparition in the sky, even a natural phe- nomenon like a solar eclipse, can be used to attack the belief systems of a less advanced group. Totems and taboos might function equally as well as the targets or the tools of information warfare against a primitive group. Thus, vulnerability to information warfare is nearly universal, the differences being only a matter of degree. An lllustration ofComplexity Information warfare is a complex notion. It is complex because the weapons employed are and always have been as common as words, pictures, and images, even though to- day these may be communicated or manipu- lated in uncommon ways. It is complex because the attacks are crafted by minds to affect minds. In addition, it is complex be- cause the attacks can be direct or indirect, aimed at internai or externai constituencies, the only constant being the effect sought. The desired effect of information warfare is to influence and change what the adversary be- lieves or what the adversary knows. The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857-58 provides an example of the complexity. The mutiny re- portedly was triggered by a rumor that the British were coating rifle cartridges in ani- mal fat.2 1 Contact with this fat was taboo to the Hindu and Muslim sepoys (Indian na- tives in the British army). Even though the cartridge coating was not animal fat and could be. subjected to scientific tests that would result in this knowledge, the sepoy be- lieved the substance was animal fat. This be- lief was more compelling to the primitive sepoy than knowledge. Thus, it was belief, not knowledge, that influenced sepoy behav- ior and triggered a difficult struggle between the British and the Indians. This case is also illustrative of the fact that even though the use of this misinformation was directed against the British leadership, the attack was indirect. It was the sepoy leaders who started the rumor, and in so doing attacked the belief systems of both Hindu and Mus- lim sepoys to spur them to rebel against their British masters. Thus, information warfare can be waged both intemally and externally, by, against, or between societies or groups of varied tech- nomic capability (a combination of ad- vances in technology and the increase of economic wealth).2 2 When waged against internai constituencies, its aim is to use those constituencies to meet the larger aim of warfare: subduing the hostile will of an externai adversary. When information war- fare is prosecuted externally, the object is to subdue the hostile will of externai adversary leaders. Vulnerable Sophisticates? In States or groups with high technomic capability, the target set for information war- fare at the strategic levei is wonderfully rich: telecommunications and telephony ,2 3 space- based sensors, Communications relay sys- tems; automated aids to financial, banking, and commercial transactions; supporting power production and distribution systems; cultural systems of all kinds; and the whole gamut of hardware and software that consti- tutes how the adversary knows and what the adversary believes. Strategic information sys- tems in States with high technomic capability oftentimes are mirrored by operational-level ones of equal complexity. All are vulnerable to attack. Information warfare need not be deferred until hostility becomes open. Adversary leadership will be less likely to fight if it be- lieves one or more of the following: that violence is bad, or that they will be without allies, or that they will face harsh sanctions should fighting erupt, or that their industrial base will not support prolonged warfare, or that their armed forces are unready. Should actual fighting break out, attacks at the op- erational levei can harmonize with attacks at the strategic levei. The target set at the operational levei is equally lucrative when the adversary has high technomic capability and relies on --- Page 67 --- A THEORY OF INFORMATION WARFARE 63 automated aids to fight. Hierarchical Sys- tems are most vulnerable, but even networks have control or relay nodes that are suscepti- ble to attack. To function effectively, net- works have hierarchical elements or nodes. Often these elements are invisible— embed- ded software protocols, filters, sort instruc- tions, and the like.24 That they are more difficult to attack may not make them im- mune to attack. The higher its technomic capability and the greater the number of its interactions with other groups (including internai groups) or States, the greater the State or group's potential vulnerability to informa- tion warfare. The vulnerab ility may increase as network size increases, dependence on the information transacted increases, or the number or volume of transactions increases. Consequently, a State or group "engaged" worldwide may be exposed or vulnerable worldwide. (If the objective of engagement is a strategic campaign aimed at affecting the knowledge or beliefs of others, then those engaged are, of course, similarly vul- nerable.) Democracies are no less vulnerable than totalitarian regimes, although demo- cratic social systems, as groups, may be somewhat more fault-tolerant. By that is meant that democracies promote diversity and diversity increases the tolerance for dif- ference. This willingness to accept diversity (and even the bizarre), the routine co-exis- tence of contradictory knowledge and differ- ent beliefs among individuais and groups, and the constant attempts at manipulation by marketing experts do not reduce the vul- nerability of a democracy, but they do miti- gate the impact of information warfare attacks. Said another way, many people in democratic nations may be immune to at- tacks because their knowledge may be lim- ited, their belief systems may always be in flux, and much information registers only as noise. Thus, images of televised eroticism may have little effect on many in the United States. Yet, the same images that almost are mundane in the United States could have dramatic effects if televised in China, Iraq, or Iran.2 5 Even though the democracy's social Sys- tem may be fault-tolerant, its technomic control apparatus may be less so. Banking, finance, trade, travei, and air traffic control are now and increasingly will become more dependent on information technology sys- tems. In 1992 the United States invested over $210 b illion on information technology (about half the levei of worldwide invest- ment), and the amount invested is expected to grow about 18 percent each year for the next several years.26 As dependence on in- formation systems grows, warfare waged by nonstate groups— terrorists, religious extrem- ists, hostile businesses— against information systems constitutes a real threat. The bomb- ing of the World Trade Center, whatever other general or specific objectives it might have had, apparently was designed to inflict serious damage on the trading and banking capability of the United States. The informa- tion warfare component of some future stra- tegic warfare campaign waged by terrorists certainly will not fail to include the power- production facilities and Communications systems serving the principal target. Simul- taneous attacks against widely dispersed nodes could have a strategic effect. That is, they could affect the knowledge, beliefs, and the will of leaders. A cautionary note: because an informa- tion warfare campaign at the strategic levei aims to subdue hostile will by affecting the knowledge and beliefs of the adversary, it cannot discriminate between combatants and noncombatants. Because the weapons of information warfare systematically attack the adversary's knowledge and belief systems (that which makes us different from other species), the likely outcomes of information warfare need to be evaluated consciously be- fore information attacks are prosecuted. A successful information warfare campaign in- terposes a false reality on the human target. A t the strategic levei, these targets include both combatants and noncombatants. The interposition of a false reality ultimately --- Page 68 --- 64 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 may be as wrongful and inhumane as the wanton destruction of crops. To unhinge a noncombatant from reality, especially when the effects cannot be known or controlled, may be no less wrongful than to force an- other into starvation or cannibalism. Said another way, the principies of just war and just conduct in warfare need to be evaluated whenever strategic information warfare is contemplated. Deception and disinformation, radio-elec- tronic combat, propaganda, and the whole gamut of "psychological warfare" or com- mand and control warfare attacks against en- emy combatants at the operational levei cannot be said to be wrongful. These aim to subdue without fighting or to reduce the amount of violence required. Becoming un- hinged from reality in combat, like death or some other form of suffering, is a risk of which combatants are aware and is a possi- bility that combatants must accept. Thus, as long as information warfare and weapons are restricted by norms or laws to the opera- tional levei of warfare, it would appear that they are no more or any less evil than any other weapon. The problem remains a two- fold one: determining the morality of an in- formation warfare campaign waged at the strategic levei and restricting the use of in- formation weapons to the operational levei. The decision to pursue information war- fare or develop information weapons is a leadership decision. It is a strategic decision in the United States because it is the Con- gress, repxesenting the entire citizenry, that links means to ends. In the United States, such a program (if done by the State) would be done with money appropriated by the Congress. The Congress, or its oversight committees, will evaluate the morality of in- formation warfare. In the wake of this evalu- ation, the Congress may confine these weapons and their use to the operational levei of warfare. The Congress may also es- tablish safeguards to prevent any such weap- ons so developed from being used against internai constituencies. The legislative branch also may make laws preventing the use of information weapons against non-US noncombatants and internai constituencies. A s out-sourcing and contracting-out initia- tives increase, the Congress also can be ex- pected to act to prevent some commercial enterprise from developing such weapons. (Have not news stories and "exposés" pro- duced by commercial news enterprises proven to be contrived, aimed at influencing our knowledge and beliefs? Have not sub- liminal messages been used in the past in at- tempts to influence our purchasing behavior? Have not hackers entered and af- fected-or infected— databases already? We need to consider that there may be only a slim difference between a hacker and a ter- rorist in the information age. This is espe- cially so if the hacker can attack things like finance, credit ratings, college transcripts, or other databases upon which technomic insti- tutions depend.) The political leaders in the United States can be expected to consider the morality of information weapons and in- formation warfare, no matter which group develops the weapons or engages in the war- fare, and to regulate their use accordingly. The Congress very likely will conclude that the employment of information weapons at the operational levei is useful and necessary, but that employment against noncombat- ants, or their employment at the strategic levei is wrong. The United States should expect that its information systems are vulnerable to at- tack. It should further expect that attacks, when they come, may come in advance of any formal declaration of hostile intent by an adversary State. When they come, the at- tacks will be prosecuted against both knowl- edge systems and belief systems, aimed at influencing leadership choices. The knowl- edge and beliefs of leaders will be attacked both directly and indirectly. Noncombat- ants, those upon whom leaders depend for support and action, will be targets. This is what we have to look forward to in 2020 or sooner. □ --- Page 69 --- /I THEORY OF INFORMATION WARFARE 65 Notes 1. Information warfare sometimes is erroneously referred to as command and control warfare, or C2W, The aim of C2W is to use physical and radio-electronic combat attacks against enemy information systems to separate enemy forces from enemy leadership. In theory, information warfare actually is a much larger set of activities aimed at the mind and will of the enemy. 2. Chris Mader, Information Systems: Technology, Economia, Applications (Chicago: Science Research Associates, Inc., 1974), 3. 3. The “waves" of societies are described by Alvin Toffler in The Third (Cave (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1980). See aiso Alvin and Heidi To ffler, War and Anti-Wan Sunival at the Dawn of the 21st Century (Boston: Uttle, Brown and Company, 1993). A seminal work on institutional forms is forthcoming from David Ronfeldt. 4. John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, "Cyberwar is Corning!" Comparative Strategy 2 (April-June 1993): 141-65. 5. Martin van Creveld, The Transformation o f War (New York: Free Press. 1991), 196- 205. Words like war and the lately contrived warfighter confuse the warriors in a democracy by misuse. In the United States, War (with a big W) is declared by the Congress: the people representing all the people. Executive War Powers are really warfare powers. The days of Clausewitzian, trinitarian Wars may very well be over, as van Creveld suggests. The days of warfare, however, are not over. 6. Sun Tzu, The Art o f War, trans. Samuel B. Griffith (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), 77. 7. Richard Szafranski, “Toward a Theory of Neocortical Warfare: Pursuing the Acme of Skill,” Military Review, November 1994; and idem, "When Waves Collide: Conflict in the Next Century," /FQ: loint Force Quarterly, Winter 1994-95. 8. Joseph A . Engelbrecht, "War Termination: Why Does a State Decide to Stop Fighting?" (PhD diss., Columbia University. 1992). Colonel Engelbrecht is a colleague at the Air University^ Air War College. 9. Arquilla and Ronfeldt, note 9, 162. According to this definition, a message with no discemible “meaníng” is still "information." This definition is useful when contemplating the tactics of information warfare. 10. Ibíd. 11. Phenomenology can be defined as "the theory of the appearances fundamental to all empirical knowledge." Dorion Cairns, in Dagobert D. Runes, ed., Dictionary o f Philosophy (Totowa, N.J.: Littlefield, Adams & Co., Ltd., 1962), 231-34. 12. C. G. Jung, The Undiscovered Self (New York: The New American Library, Mentor Book, 1958), 102. 13. Information warfare requires that philosophers, cultural anthropologists, area specialists, linguists, and semanticists join the “operations" staff. The days have passed when war colleges or staff colleges could neglect these other disciplines. 14. John R. Boyd, briefing slides, subject: A Discourse On Winning and Losing, August 1987. Maxwell AFB, Alabama. 15. Ibid. 16. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), book 6, chapter 6, 372-76. 17. Ledger Wood, in Runes, 94-% . 18. The effects to which I refer are more complicated than the inability to prevent your own jamming from interfering with your own Communications systems. These unconfinable, spillover effects of stray electrons can be modeled and some compensation can be made for their effects. The weapons and effects of information warfare are not so easily confinable or controllable. In warfare It is common to both demonize and ridicule the enemy. Ridicule often takes the form of (okes. If these jokes ridicule an enemy from a different ethnic group, these jokes become officially sanctíoned racist jokes. If the ethnic group is part of our own citizenry, such attacks can cause collateral damage. The collateral datnage to the armed forces may have effects as far-reaching as the appearance of officially condoned racism. If one accepts that weapons and attacks have stochastic effects, then some consequences are unpredictable. 19. Van Creveld, 35. 20. Grant T. Hammond, “Paradoxes of War," /FQ: loint Forces Quarterly, Spring 1994. Dr Hammond is a colleague on Air University's Air War College faculty. 21. George C. Kohn, Dictionary of Wars (New York: Facts On File Publications, 1986), 214. 22. Technomic is a word coined by Col Joseph A . Engelbrecht. He defines it to mean "of or relating to progress in the development of the application of scientific principie (technology), and in the development of wealth (economics), and in the interrelationship between advances in Science and the spread and increase of economic wealth. Technomic vitality. Technomic proliferation." 23. Gerald R. Hurst, "Taking down Teiecommunications" (Thesis, School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., 28 May 1993). 24. Ibid. 25. Iran provides a good example. The Majles investigation into the lranian department of "Voice and Vision" illuminates lran's sensitivity to the content and meaning of pictorial messages. Consider these comments from the investigation: A basic criticism of the pictorial programs of the Voice and Vision is lack of attention to full veiling of women, lack of attention to the chador, and spreading of the culture of the "manteau" and scarves of the immoral kind. The grand leadet on occasions has given opinions and directlves to the Voice and Vision organizaiion or its director. Unfortunately, the instructions and directives of his honor were not implemented. For example: ___From 1368 | 21 March 1989-20 March 1990) to 1370 [21 March 1990-20 March 1991], he made reminders to the Voice and Vision on 14 occasions, the most important of which concem: A) Misiníormation. B) The low levei of quality of lhe beyond-the-border programs and failure to propagate and spread Islamic vlews in them. C) The broadcast of biasphemous sentences concemlng the Sire of the Pious. . . . E) Showing actual persons in the role of the infallible imams. See "Majles Investigates Activities of Voice and Vision," 3. 4, IS November 1993, 5-6, in Foreign Broadcast Information Service Report: Near East and South Asia (FB1S-NES-94-016-S), 25 January 1994, 6-8. 1 am grateful to Dr George Stein of the Air University's Air War College faculty for pointing out this example of what simultaneously might be internai information warfare and potential vulnerability to externai information warfare. Saudi Arabia recently joined China as the most recent nation to outlaw satellite television receivers. One can easily appreciate the effects that Music Television (MTV) might have on such cultures. 26. A teiecommunications executive speaking in an Air University forum under the promise of nonattribution disclosed these estimated figures. --- Page 70 --- AIRPOWER AND PEACEKEEPING Lt C ol B rooks L. B as h , USAF The expenses required to prevent a war are much lighter than those that will, ifnot prevented, be absolutely ne cessary to maintain it. — Benjamin Franklin T HE ROLE of airpower in peace- keeping is auxiliary, and its use should ultimately improve the chances for success. Specifically, airpower must support both general peacekeeping princi- pies and specific objectives of an operation. In simplest terms, peacekeeping is primar- ily a diplomatic tool used to stimulate the peaceful resolution of conflict and is not an end in itself. Since the existence of peace- keeping was not foreseen in the United Nations (UN) Charter, the term has no internation- ally accepted definition. Consequently, this article uses a synthesis of the outlooks of the International Peace Academy and the UN: Peacekeeping is an international technique used in conjunction with diplomacy for the purpose of conflict management. Peace- keeping operations employ voluntary military and diplomatic personnel from one or more countries, either to create the conditions for conflict resolution or to prevent further hostilities through the supervision of an 66 --- Page 71 --- AIRPOWER AND PEACEKEEPING 67 interim or final settlement of conflict. Peacekeeping forces are impartial and exist only with the consent of all disputing parties; therefore, peacekeeping forces do not interfere with the internai affairs of the host countries or use coercion to enforce agreements— the use of force is limited to self-defense.1 This definition embodies three principies or foundations that set peacekeeping apart from other international methods of conflict control or resolution: (1) impartiality, (2) consent, and (3) force limited to self-defense. Peacekeeping is not a soldier's job, but only a soldier cati do it. — Anonymous UN Peacekeeping Soldier The strategic contributions of US air- power for international recognition of peacekeeping operations can be significant. The willingness of the sole remaining super- power to use its valuable airpower assets re- flects an important commitment, both financially and materially, to UN opera- tions.2 In the past, the US provided only political and financial support, yet the evolving international environment now ex- pects direct contributions of personnel and material. Consequently, the lack of direct US involvement would signal that the particular operation is not important or does not have a good chance for success. Therefore, in many circumstances, US airpower commit- ments may foster greater international confi- dence and reassure contributing countries that their commitment of resources is pru- dent. In addition to showing commitment, air- power also can provide added credibility to peacekeeping in the eyes of the disputing parties. Improved effectiveness in observa- tion and reporting can reduce mistrust among those parties and foster the confi- dence building necessary for long-term res- olution of differences. One such example occurred in the Sinai in 1980, when the US provided modern surveillance and Commu- nications equipment to the peacekeepers, thus enhancing the confidence of Egypt and Israel during disengagement and cease-fire.3 In sum, the commitment of airpower acts as a political statement that signals a higher levei of US commitment to the world com- munity, adds credibility to UN peacekeep- ing, and has the added benefit of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of peace- keeping operations. Despite these strategic benefits, attendant adverse consequences of using airpower may occur, and one must consider them in the context of the specific peacekeeping situ- ation. These consequences include problems with ethnicity, philosophy, and politics; negative perceptions of airpower; economic restrictions; and the unpredictable utility of airpower. First, traditional peacekeepers argue that airpower and high technology have little utility for dealing with problems rooted in ethnicity, philosophy, and politics. How- ever, the use of airpower does not suggest that it can replace the personal interaction required of the ground peacekeeping force. Air assets used in peacekeeping are simply a tool to enhance the efforts of the peace builders to achieve long-term resolution of hostilities. Furthermore, this argument is closely related to the concept of national sovereignty. Suffice it to say that this is a major concern and may inhibit the use of airpower if the disputing parties reject intru- sive technology. Nevertheless, this issue would be resolved prior to a given operation and, therefore, would not directly inhibit its chances for success. Second, there is significant concern about the negative perceptions of disputing parties who face the destructive potential of US air forces. Ultimately, this problem is not spe- cific to air assets but is a part of the larger philosophical argument concerning the use of force. Indeed, negative perceptions among disputing parties may be justified if the UN --- Page 72 --- 68 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRJNG 1995 continues to close the gap between peace- keeping and peace enforcement. Granted, since airpower may amplify these negative perceptions, its users must be sensitive to fundamental peacekeeping principies. There- fore, the UN must make specific efforts to reassure the disputing parties. Third, there is justifiable concern over the financial implications of airpower opera- tions. Due to the increasing size and num- ber of these operations, the UN peace- keeping budget has mushroomed from $421 million in 1991 to over $2.7 billion in 1 992.4 Accordingly, UN officials are extremely cost conscious. In fact, the problem is so acute that the UN recently criticized Canadian peacekeepers as "high-cost" contributors due to their insistence on deploying properly equipped units.5 However, UN Secretary- General Boutros Boutros-Ghali recently pro- posed that the great powers provide high- value assets free of cost. Consequently, cost will be a domestic political concern rather than a burden on already-strapped UN cof- fers. From a US perspective, these costs will have to be weighed against the potential contributions of airpower towards the suc- cess of peacekeeping and the conflict-con- trol process in general. Finally, policymakers must have a sense of airpower's potential utility before they decide on a political course of action. Un- fortunately, the benefits of airpower will not be constant due to numerous variables such as the scope and length of the operation, ge- ography, and weather. The combination of these variables and others within the unique peacekeeping paradigm makes isolation of the specific benefits of airpower extremely difficult. The remainder of this article pro- vides a general assessment of airpower capa- bilities in order to give policymakers a sense of its operational utility. Operational Analysis Using airpower in peacekeeping may prompt images of highly sophisticated air- borne sensing equipment recording every ground movement, aircraft whisking peace- keepers to trouble spots, satellites peering over the shoulders of troops, and sophisti- cated Communications instantaneously re- porting violations of accords. Although these capabilities may be possible with in- creased US involvement, associated limita- tions of airpower in the peacekeeping context also exist. Peacekeeping forces, necessarily made up of military assets, are the keystone to a successful operation. These forces perform peacekeeping tasks in support of the political peacemaking or peace-building objectives. Consequently, any degradation of military performance due to difficulties or problems will have a direct effect on the successful out- come of any given operation. To examine the role of the military and— specifically—air forces, we may consider their Services in a functional context. The functional categories of command and control (C2), Communica- tions, intelligence, mobility, and force pro- tection are common to all peacekeeping tasks and provide a framework to examine the strengths and weaknesses of airpower. The relative predominance of each func- tional category fluctuates according to the specific peacekeeping operation but is rep- resentative of the spectrum of potential requirements. These functional duties, combined with unique characteristics of airpower, bring to peacekeeping a set of tools with the potential to overcome habit- ual difficulties. In fact, the characteristics of responsiveness, flexib ility, mobility, and range may apply particularly well to numer- ous situations often faced by peacekeepers. Command and Control Effective C2 and the fundamental command principie of centralization are vital to peace- keeping. Although airpower may indirectly contribute to C2 through improved Commu- nications (discussed below), the concern here is the task of integrating high-value US --- Page 73 --- A1RP0WER AND PEACEKEEPING 69 air assets into the UN C2 structure. The sat- isfactory resolution of this problem will dic- tate whether or not US airpower can feasibly be included in peacekeeping operations. From a US perspective, the greatest obstacle to committing air assets is the question of vvho will command and control these assets. Historically, the UN demands operational control of military forces under a UN commander. Traditionally, however, the US is reluctant to relinquish the command of military assets— especially high-value air forces—in risky situations. This position is The airpower characteristics of responsiveness, flexibil- ity, mobility, and range may apply particularly well to the numerous situations often faced by peacekeepers. Air- power gives commanders another tooI to enhance both effectiveness and efficiency of peacekeeping operations. summed up in the annual report of the sec- retary of defense: "The United States will not delegate to anyone outside our govern- ment the authority to commit U. S. forces."6 But this position may not be inflexible when applied to peacekeeping. For example, the "traditional" aspects of this position have recently lost their force insofar as the US involvement in Somalia set a precedent for command relationships in future UN peacekeeping operations. In So- malia, Turkish general Cevik Bir commanded over 4,000 US troops— the largest number ever to serve under a foreign commander in a UN operation.7 Furthermore, the Russians have also broken with tradition by indicat- ing their willingness to commit military forces under UN operational command.8 Moreover, the fear of committing US forces to high-risk situations incorrectly assumes that airpower may be used without US ap- proval. In actuality, the wording of the UN mandate and, if necessary, a US veto in the Security Council would allow the US to con- trol its airpower assets at the strategic levei. Concerns over operational C2 emanate from the dual fear of misapplication of air- power and excessive exposure to risk. In- deed, the fear that airpower may be used improperly correctly identifies a UN struc- tural weakness. Specifically, the UN does not have the capability or expertise to run a large airpower operation, and the employment of airpower would therefore be accom- plished ad hoc. Maj Jay Meester, who was in- volved in the Congo peacekeeping operation, succinctly supports this fear: Perhaps the most glaring problems are the misuse of tactical airpower and the inab ility to effectively command and control it. Actually these factors are tied together. [Non-US] Group commanders are, by and large, minimally efficient. . . . Consequently inordinate demands for air support are made with little appreciation of air capabilities. Control of air assets has been decentralized to allow independent action on the part of each ground commander.9 --- Page 74 --- 70 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPR1NG 1995 The US can, however, mitigate these con- cerns through the structure of airpower par- ticipation. One organizational solution may be to create a UN "air component com- mander" headed by a US airman. This con- cept would be in line with the current peacekeeping tradition of dividing national forces into sectors. If the US commanded the air sector, our air forces would retain substantial operating independence yet would remain subordinate to the needs of the overall UN force commander. In essence, this arrangement would be similar to the current C2 structure used for US fighter air- craft supporting the Bosnia no-fly zone.1 0 Although this operation falis under NATO command, it remains under strict political control of the UN. Whereas the US main- tains operational control through NATO, the ultimate strategic direction flows through the UN force commander and is approved by the Security Council. Similarly, concerns about risks can be mitigated through the aforementioned com- mand arrangement. However, the UN force commander will always have the prerogative of overriding operational recommendations. Even so, US fears may be without basis due to the fact that peacekeeping is not a combat operation. The risk associated with the use of airpower in peacekeeping is fundamen- tally different from the risk associated with its use in combat. Throughout history, only a handful of peacekeeping aircraft has been intentionally destroyed. Thus, strategic C2 of US airpower will ul- timately reside with the US by virtue of its position on the Security Council. Airpower assets should not be committed to an un- wanted action without US approval. Opera- tionally, US concerns for effective airpower application and avoidance of unnecessary risk are warranted but can be solved by the integration of US expertise into the chain of command. The importance of this C2 prob- lem must not be minimized because its reso- lution is a prerequisite to achieving peace- keeping benefits in the other functional categories. Communications It is probably true to say that most peacekeeping operations will continue to use [Communica- tions] equipment about a generation behind those currently in use in the more modern and larger armies. —Peacekeeper's Handbook Although the structure of C 2 is important, the essence of its effectiveness is dependent on Communications. Timely and adequate signal Communications at all leveis of the operation are necessary to effectively plan, direct, and control the various peacekeeping activities. At the strategic levei, secure and reliable Communications provide the interface between operations and UN headquarters. A t the operational levei, effective Communica- tions are necessary, not only for routine daily operations but also for the peace- building effort. Heretofore, sophisticated Communications equipment in UN peace- keeping operations was either unavailable or prohibitively costly, resulting in less efficient peacekeeping Communications capabilities. In peacekeeping, Communications are particularly difficult for three reasons. First, peacekeepers are often hampered by in- teroperability problems caused by variations in equipment, procedures, and languages among participating nations. Although one may argue that the integration of airpower may contribute to this problem, these diffi- culties will be pervasive regardless of the military approach the US ultimately employs in peacekeeping. Second, the lack of permanent Communi- cations facilities often forces peacekeepers to rely on temporary and ad hoc arrangements. The current effort in Bosnia is illustrative in- sofar as peacekeepers rely on unreliable high-frequency radio Communications .1 1 According to a Canadian peacekeeper, "I was involved in setting up Communications for several peacekeeping operations, and every time was completely different. We were never sure what would work until we hit the ground, and we were usually wrong --- Page 75 --- AJRPOWER AND PEACEKEEPING 71 the first time. If someone was to ask me to pick a system to use for area surveillance in all these operations, 1 don't think it exists."1 2 Third, Communications are often ham- pered by intentional degradation of Commu- nications capabilities. Because information is criticai to the disputing parties, each rou- tinely tries to gain an advantage through bugging and interference.1 3 Lt Gen Gustav Hâgglund relates his experience as force commander of the UN ínterim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL): "The Nonvegian battal- ion noticed that when it captured infiltrators and reported in Norwegian to the battalion headquarters, South Lebanon Army or Israeli Defense Forces patrols appeared on the scene of capture within minutes."1 4 In addi- tion, UN Communications are often pur- posely cut off to preclude the interference of the UN in planned confrontations. Commu- nications efficiency is criticai for rapid re- sponse, and the effectiveness of UN intervention rests primarily upon the speed and accuracy of initial reports.1 5 Although the problem of interoperability may be intractable, the Communications problems of security, speed, range, and flexi- bility can all be improved with air force as- sets. Air assets cannot— or should not— replace land Communications, but they can reduce the aforementioned problems through the use of satellites and, occasion- ally, airborne platforms. However, a trade- off exists between the potential benefits of using airpower and the disadvantages of in- creased costs and complexity— the latter lead- ing to a natural reluctance to embrace air capabilities. PeacekeepePs Hcindbook aptly sums up this reluctance: "Contingents hith- erto used in peacekeeping operations have come from small countries which neither need, nor can afford, the very sophisticated systems used by larger powers. Simple pro- cedures and easily understood methodology will make for greater reliability."1 6 In other words, peacekeeping Communications are hindered not necessarily by the lack of equipment but by accommodating the reali- ties of a multinational force. Therefore, the increasing availability of satellite Communi- cations to small countries makes this capa- bility a viable consideration for the future. Characteristics of satellite Communica- tions (e.g., capacity, flexibility, range, reli- ability, robustness, and resistance to jamming) are all useful to peacekeeping forces to help offset the increasing technical sophistication of disputing parties. The multinational effort in the Persian Gulf in 1990-91 relied extensively on satellite Com- munications despite the modern Communi- cations system available in Saudi Arabia. In fact, over 90 percent of the Communications into and out of the area of operations were carried over satellite systems, and thousands of inexpensive and reliable satellite Commu- nications receivers were used at the unit levei.1 7 Notably, only a small percentage of these Communications traveled over com- mercial satellite systems readily available to the UN. Consequently, US participation is essential if the UN is to have greater access to satellites. US defense systems such as Fleet Satellite Communications System (FLTSATCOM), Defense Satellite Communi- cations System (DSCS), and Air Force Satel- lite Communications System (AFSATCOM) can all be adapted for peacekeeping use.1 8 In addition to satellites, US airborne Com- munications platforms may be useful on an ad hoc basis. During the criticai initial de- ployment of UN forces, permanent or land- line Communications can be augmented by temporary airborne support. Likewise, in times of crisis, airborne Communications can replace civil Communications, which are susceptible to deterioration and unreliability at precisely the time they are needed the most .1 9 Clearly, Communications enhanced by airpower can provide benefits to peacekeep- ing at all leveis of command. A t the strategic levei, enhanced satellit e capabilities will pro- vide the UN force commander with reliable and secure Communications for impartial negotiations and efficient access to UN headquarters. A t the operational levei, both satellite and airborne Communications can --- Page 76 --- 72 A1RP0WER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 enhance effectiveness through greater ground- unit connectivity and reliability. Intelligence Reliable reporting is a cornerstone of all peace-keeping. Good observation devices are essential. —Lt Gen Gustav Hágglund Intelligence (i.e., military Information, in the UN context) is essential to verify compli- ance with the terms of a peacekeeping agree- ment.2 0 The primary source of such intelligence will always be peacekeepers on the ground; however, these forces have limi- tations— particularly in observation capabili- ties. Rarely do peacekeepers have access to satellite observation, airborne radars, or re- motely piloted vehicles. General Hãgglund States that "the only way for a peacekeeping force to gain access to this kind of [high- technology] information is for a great power to make it available."2 1 Indeed, President George Bush confirmed the willingness of the US to help in this regard: "We will also broaden American support for monitoring, verification, reconnaissance and other re- quirements of UN peacekeeping or humani- tarian assistance operations."2 2 Therefore, increased US participation in intelligence gathering is a distinct possibility. Even though the US has significant national tech- nical means (NTM) for intelligence, the diffi- culty will be to determine exactly what kind of intelligence the UN needs and how to make it available. Perhaps the best way to determine the "what" is to focus on solving intelligence problems common to peacekeeping opera- tions. First, peacekeepers cannot be every- where at all times, especially when disputing parties do not necessarily want them to be knowledgeable of their activities. The incor- poration of night- and all-weather imaging sensors will increase the time in which peacekeeping forces can operate effectively within a given territory. Such was the case in the Sinai in 1975, when peacekeepers used aerial surveillance and satellite reconnais- sance to create a system to monitor compli- ance with cease-fire accords.2 3 Second, the inability to detect potential violations or impending violence in a timely manner is problematic. Airborne and satel- lite observation and signals-interception ca- pabilities may direct peacekeepers to potential problems and may increase man- power efficiency. For example, both UNIFIL and the UN Operation in the Congo (UNOC) experienced several incidents— in- cluding direct attacks on peacekeeping troops—that were avoidable had timely infor- mation been available.2 4 Air intelligence provides the force commander with an addi- tional tool to help determine the military aims of disputing parties. Third, peacekeepers have difficulty hold- ing disputing parties accountable for viola- tions of agreements. Minor violations will lead to larger retributions; therefore, unless the disputing parties are effectively deterred from violations, the peacekeeping operation may escalate uncontrollably. For example, during one nine-week period in the UN Iran-Iraq Observer Group Mission (UNI- IOGM), peacekeepers recorded 1,072 cease- fire violations, and the UN was unable to hold the disputing parties accountable.2 5 Better observation techniques— especially the threat of releasing incriminating informa- tion— may improve deterrence of violations. A number of air and space intelligence Systems can help solve such problems. Pos- sible sensors for aerial surveillance include synthetic aperture radar, thermal infrared line scanners, and electro-optical sensors.2 6 In addition, space platforms can support the spectrum of peacekeeping intelligence needs through signals intelligence (SIGINT) and imagery intelligence (IMINT) to identify and assess troop disposition and movements. Multispectral imagery (MSI) enables detec- tion of troop movement, and the Defense Satellite Program (DSP) can provide infor- mation on hostile activities through infra- red sensing.2 7 Most importantly, satellite --- Page 77 --- AIRPOWER AND PEACEKEEPING 73 intel l i gence collection can be especi al l y tim e ly if c o m b in e d w ith satellite C o m m u n i- cations. Generally, there is little disagreement on what intelligence can provide to peacekeep- ing. The larger obstacle concerns the how part of the problem (i.e., intelligence dis- semination), which includes (1) sensitivity to excessive information collection and (2) management of classified information. Increased air surveillance will cause the sovereignty issue to manifest itself fully. Herein lies the basis for the UN charac- terization of intelligence as military informa- tion, insofar as the former connotes both overt and covert intelligence.2 8 In fact, peacekeeping operations in the Sinai, Cy- prus, and— most recently-Namibia were spe- cifically denied high-technology informa- tion gathering.2 9 Consequently, disputing parties must be convinced that air intelli- gence collections will be overt and con- ducted with the knowledge of all disputing parties. Nevertheless, mounting evidence indi- cates that peacekeepers may be allowed greater freedom in the area of surveillance as nations become more familiar with satel- lites. That is, the rigidity of sovereignty is beginning to erode, and the perception that satellite imagery is intrusive is changing due to increasing use and access of that capabil- ity. The precedent for using satellite im- agery was set almost two decades ago when the US provided Syria and Israel with sat- ellite photography every two weeks during the peacekeeping efforts of the UN Disen- gagement Observer Force.30 Further, prolif- eration of obtrusive technology among developing nations may serve to desensitize disputants as they gain access to satellite ca- pabilities. Satellite images are now available in the open market from countries such as France, Germany, Japan, and— most re- cently—Rússia.3 1 In addition, over 100 devel- oping nations are involved in some aspect of space research, and up to 18 are expected to have satellite receiving stations by the turn of the century.3 2 A Canadian peacekeeping study concludes that intelligence assets would foster greater confidence among dis- puting parties through verification that all signatories to a treaty are actually complying with its terms.3 3 The first difficulty of increased intelli- gence access is developing an acceptable Sys- tem to manage the dissemination and inter- pretation of intelligence. Opponents argue that increased intelligence capabilities will result in greater infrastructure requirements and difficulties with information manage- ment. In fact, intelligence-processing re- quirements will exacerbate UN problems with resource management. Intelligence management requires interaction, collation, and fusion of multiple sources of intelli- gence to pinpoint the type, extent, and loca- tion of force activity. In addition, the workload on the functional aspects of Com- munications and mobility will also multiply. Although intelligence growth will cause in- frastructure expansion, this problem is not insurmountable. The second difficulty is the challenge of managing intelligence information, espe- cially that derived from NTM. Intelligence capabilities are traditionally shrouded by considerable security measures. Although the use of commercial imagery from US land satellite (LANDSAT) or the French SPOT Sys- tems would circumvent this problem, these sytems have limited utility for peacekeeping. In 1990, LANDSAT users waited an average of 16 days for images; further, these commer- cial systems possess no signals-interception capabilities.3 4 The two dissemination problems discussed previously may be solved by establishing an international intelligence organization. There are several proposals for organizations specifically designed to promote security through the use of satellite intelligence. The proposed International Satellite Monitoring Agency (ISMA)— which may be adapted to satisfy US security concerns3 5 — involves con- struction of an image-processing and inter- pretation center, ground-processing stations, and organic satellites. Unfortunately, such --- Page 78 --- 74 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 international intelligence concepts belong to the distant future. Near-term UN satellite intelligence must utiliz e existing US intelli- gence infrastructure. Most US intelligence assets can be used for UN purposes in a parasitic manner with- out substantial expense or degradation of ca- pability. In other words, the US intelligence community need not specifically launch or move satellites to support UN activities but can adapt currently available products. Un- fortunately, a negative consequence is a con- cern for the principie of impartiality since Processing could not be truly international. But this problem may not be too great, con- sidering the proliferation of satellite technol- ogy: by the end of the century, over 24 countries will be operating 48 unclassified remote-sensing satellites.3 6 Thus, intelligence or information gather- ing represents one of the greatest potentials for the application of airpower in peacekeep- ing. Both airborne and satellite assets can provide information that will contribute to the success of peacekeeping through better observation. Factional groups may find it more difficult to anonymously disrupt agreements and operations, while the pri- mary disputing parties will be deterred from violating agreements. Specifically, as R. Jef- frey Smith notes, "Nations that know what their enemies are doing are less likely to in- crease world tensions through actions bom of fear. And nations that know their ene- mies are observing them are far less likely to threaten international peace through rash behavior. Governments are also more likely to propose and sign treaties if they believe they can verify their enemies' compliance with treaty terms."3 7 Xfobility Historically, airpower in peacekeeping has taken the form of transportation and logisti- cal support. Intertheater airlift support for UN peacekeeping is well established and needs little justification. However, the lack of strategic airlift is a continuing concern and has had negative consequences in the past. For example, the airlift logistics system in the Congo operation was unable to fully support peacekeeping operations, and the first UN Emergency Force in place between Egypt and Israel required two years of emer- g e n c y r a t i o n s . 38 In d e e d , t h e c u r r e n t d e m a n d for greater timeliness increases UN reliance on strategic airlift. For example, the UN re- cently proposed moving up to 30,000 US, European, and Russian troops to Bosnia within 72 hours of a peace agreement.3 9 Un- doubtedly, the absolute necessity of US stra- tegic airlift will continue for the foreseeable future. On the other hand, tactical airlift support for UN logistics and transportation has long been overlooked. Since peacekeepers rely al- most exclusively on externai support mecha- nisms, tactical mobility is essential for supply of food, billeting, equipment, main- tenance, and medicai treatment.4 0 A s such, freedom of movement is essential yet may be one of the most difficult obstacles to overcome for several reasons. Modem combat zones, for instance, are saturated with mines— witness the fact that the UN protection force in Bosnia must con- tend with the nightly mining of essential roads.4 1 In addition, disputing parties often challenge freedom of movement in order to gain an advantage. This situation is a daily occurrence in Bosnia, where closed roads, vehicle checks, and harassing fire serve to manipulate peacekeepers and degrade their effectiveness.42 In fact, a recent relief con- voy in the former Yugoslavia passed 90 road- blocks over a distance of only 250 miles.4 3 In addition, geopolitical and geographic obstacles can make mobility impossible for peacekeepers. Again, one may tum to the situation in Bosnia, where the fate of thousands in isolated Sarajevo rests primar- ily on airlifted supplies.44 The US is currently air-dropping up to 78 tons of cargo daily to regions unable to receive supplies via ground convoy.4 5 Harry Summers recently --- Page 79 --- A1RP0WER AND PEACEKEEPING 75 commented that "the airdrops were ridiculed when they first began and many— myself in- cluded—doubted their practical value . . . but we were wrong. . . . The relief airlift was not a symbolic display. Thousands in the re- gion are alive today because of the dedica- tion of US and allied airlifters."4 6 Further, efficient mobility is criticai to the effective deterrence of hostilities. Rapid show of force is generally considered to be an effective deterrent to the resumption of hostilities in peacekeeping.4 7 Indeed, several experienced Canadian peacekeepers claim that a high State of readiness is a significant factor in avoiding escalation of conflict and decreasing the potential for loss of life.4 8 Often, peacekeeping forces are placed in a position to gain quick local superiority by concentrating troops in hopes of persuading the violating party to back off. In Somalia in 1993, for example, US marines established a quick-reaction force that used helicopters for the specific purpose of controlling hos- tilities before they escalated.4 9 The following general rule applies to peacekeeping: "maxi- mum show’ of force ensures best minimum use of weapons."50 Although both US fixed-wing and heli- copter assets can enhance peacekeeping mo- bility, they carry with them certain disadvantages in terms of resources and cost. That is, efficient airlift will require an ex- panded ground infrastructure for planning missions, as well as loading and servicing aircraft. In addition, the UN may not be able to afford the expense associated with in- tegrating increased tactical airlift. US satellite capabilities such as weather information, mapping, and navigation assis- tance can provide further mobility improve- ments. For instance, the US Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) is a source of weather information for peace- keepers. MSI capabilities can help identify suitable drop zones, helicopter landing zones, existing roads or airfields, and surface conditions affecting ground mobility.5 1 Moreover, the global positioning system (GPS) and the Navy Navigation Satellite Sys- tem are available to peacekeepers.S 2 GPS re- ceivers, readily available during the Persian Gulf War, could provide peacekeepers with enhanced navigation and improved verifica- tion of territorial agreements. Lastly, the use of air assets for psychologi- cal operations (PSYOPS) in peacekeeping has value as a public information resource. PSYOPS can counter the effects of disinfor- mation programs by factions of the disput- ing parties or can announce the terms of a cease-fire. Such operations might employ air resources as information-delivery platforms for radio and television broadcasting, loud- speakers, and printed literature. Using PSYOPS in conjunction with the greater mo- bility of UN officials might well lend credi- bility to the peacekeeping effort. Clearly, improved strategic mobility can increase the timeliness of initial UN deploy- ments and therefore minimize escalation of conflict. Additionally, tactical airlift pro- vides the means of rapidly transporting secu- rity forces and supplies to forward areas by physically extending the reach of observers and negotiators. In support of humanitarian relief, tactical airlift can provide direct assis- tance by delivering food and medicine or transporting personnel for public Services management, sanitation and hygiene, and medicai support. Finally, satellite weather and mapping capabilities can assist both ground and air mobility. Force Protection A final function of all military forces is self- protection. In April 1983, 241 American peacekeepers were killed by a suicide car bomb in Lebanon; between October 1992 and mid-January 1993 in Bosnia, the UN re- corded 54 attacks on its personnel, including the shelling of convoys.5 3 In all, over 600 UN peacekeepers have been killed due to hostile actions or operational accidents, while another 200 were lost to "other causes."5 4 Force protection is a growing concern, as evidenced by a statement from --- Page 80 --- 76 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali: "Innovative measures will be required to deal with the dangers facing United Nations personnel."5 5 Airpower may well be one such innovative measure. Peacekeeping forces rely on a perception among the disputing parties that disputants will be held accountable for compromising the safety of UN forces. Through a combi- nation of air-enhanced mobility, Communi- cations, and intelligence, peacekeepers may enhance their safety by either avoiding trouble or deterring threatening actions. Airborne assets can detect large expendi- tures of munitions or unannounced move- ments of forces. This capability, coupled with enhanced Communications capabilities, permits faster notification of an impending threat to outposts. Canadian peacekeepers in UN Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) in Namibia recognized the utility of this ca- pability in 1989. Their after-action report specifically labeled the failure to receive prompt information on troop movements as "potentially disastrous" and recommended that national intelligence sources be used for self-defense in all future operations.5 6 The capability to move reserve forces quickly—discussed previously— not only calms hostilities but also provides an added meas- ure of force protection. Such action might have averted tragedy in 1961 when 44 iso- lated UN personnel in the Congo were at- tacked and ruthlessly massacred.5 7 As a last resort, airpower can provide direct interven- tion with supporting fire in self-defense, or it can evacuate UN personnel from a deterio- rating situation. Airpower assets, as opposed to alternative military assets, may help alleviate the grow- ing domestic demand to reduce risk to US military personnel. In this respect, the benefits of providing airpower are twofold. First, although air force personnel are not completely safe, they are relatively safer than ground forces, who are exposed to ran- dom bullets, shelling, and mines. Second, great powers are prime targets for hostage taking by parties who seek to influence pol- icy. In reality, air commitments are signifi- cantly less manpower-intensive than army or marine contingents. Accordingly, air sup- port personnel can easily be located in a spe- cific area, which is easier to protect than a peacekeeping zone containing ground forces spread among the disputing parties. Nevertheless, airpower can never com- pletely eliminate risk to US personnel. For example, in 1973 a Canadian peacekeeping flight was shot down by Syrian antiaircraft artillery (AAA) fire, killing all nine peacekeepers aboard.5 8 Similarly, one should not forget that UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjõld and seven UN staff members were killed in an aircraft accident during the Congo peacekeeping effort in 1961. Fear of these and future incidents pro- vides the strongest general arguments against the use of airpower. For example, with regard to the US proposal to provide airdrop relief in Bosnia, Lt Gen Philippe Morillon, current UN force commander in the former Yugoslavia, commented that "in the current climate of paranóia, everybody will shoot at everything in the air."5 9 The general rightly based his observation on ex- treme factional instability and the presence of significant AAA capab ilities. However, events are proving his concerns unfounded. Through June 1994, US cargo aircraft flew over 1,800 airland and over 2, 800 airdrop missions without serious mishap, and their early success prompted Germany and France to join in the humanitarian airlift mission.6 0 Military Effectiveness: Putting It Together From a macro viewpoint, military forces ultimately serve in peacekeeping to help preserve a fragile peace and discourage fur- ther conflict. Airpower can enhance both effectiveness and efficiency as peacekeepers perform their many tasks. Although meas- ures of effectiveness are extremely difficult --- Page 81 --- A1RP0WER AND PEACEKEEPING 77 to define in peacekeeping, there is little doubt that one can accrue benefits and ad- vantages from air capabilities. The synthesis of air-enhanced Communications, intelli- gence, mobility, and force protection will greatly assist peacekeeping tasks. The latter include armistice observation; preservation of law and order; guarantee of right of pas- sage; interposition of buffer forces; show of force; and supervision of disputed territo- ries, withdrawals, POW exchanges, cease- fires, and elections.6 1 The humanitarian airlift operation in Bosnia provides an exam- ple of the potential of fusing various air- power assets.6 2 This airdrop operation uses space-based GPS assets to improve the accu- racy of airdrops; airborne C2 assets (E-2Cs and airborne warning and control system [A W A C S] aircraft) to coordinate fighter escort and identification of threats; and intelli- gence satellites to provide digital-imaging re- connaissance to verify landing location of airdrops and future drop zones. In addition to these potential operational benefits, the primary advantage of airpower may be the improvement of overall effi- ciency, which would bolster deterrence against breaking a fragile peace. First, the air component's ability to closely monitor the situation through electronic means and to move personnel over a wider range of outposts could discourage disputing parties and factions from attempting to disrupt the peacekeeping process. Second, the air com- Notes 1. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, An Agenda for Peace: Preventive Dipíomacy, Peacemaking and Peace-keeping (New York: United Nations, 1992), 11; and Paul F, Diehl, International Peace Keeping (Baltimore: Johm Hopkins University Press, 1993), 5. The International Peace Academy is a nonpolitical, nonprofit, educattonal institute located at the UN and is regarded as a leading academic authority on peacekeeping activities. 2. Barton Gellman and Ann Devroy, "US May Offer Troops for Bosnia," Washington Post, 10 February 1 993, 1. 3. Wilham M. Stokes, "Technology and the Future of Peacekeeping," in Henry Wiseman, ed., Peacekeeping: Appraisals Si Proposals (New York: Pergamon Press, 1983), 218. 4. Paul Lcwls, "A Short History of United Nations ponent's ability to quickly provide a show of force could help diffuse potential hostilities. Third, the ability to provide intelligence sharing could lead to improved trust and confidence among disputing parties. Fourth, the use of air assets for PSYOPS may improve conflict deterrence. That is, through the use of media capabilities, leaf- lets, or even loudspeakers, UN forces could directly communicate with the population or factional groups about the status of agree- ments or inform them of the UN presence. Finally, the presence of US air assets could provide tacit deterrence when disputants rec- ognize the ability of these assets to quickly change peacekeeping into peace enforce- ment. Although peacekeeping avoids the use of force, concurrent diplomatic peacemaking can make clear the implications of not ad- hering to peacekeeping accords. Heretofore, the UN was unable to carry out peace en- forcement under chapter 7 of the UN Char- ter, but today's disputing parties understand that this can happen much more easily and quickly. In summary, the ability of US airpower to improve the effectiveness of military forces could make future peacekeeping operations more successful. At the same time, we must recognize that airpower is not a peacekeep- ing panacea and may at times have a nega- tive influence. □ Peacekeeping," MHQ: The Qnarterly lournal o f Military History 5, no. 1 (Autumn 1992): 34. 5. Col A. S. Henry et al„ "Peacekeeping," Final Report on National Defense Headquarters Program Evaluation E2/90 (Ottawa, Canada: Program Evaluation Division, 30 June 1992), 184. 6. Dick Cheney, Report o f the Secretary o f Defense to the President and the Congress (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, January 1993), 22. 7. Stanley Meisler, "US, UN Apparently Agree on Somali Command Pact," Los Angeles Times, 23 February 1993, 2; and Rick Maze, "U.N. Takes Command of Somalia," Air Force Times, no. 35 (5 April 1993): 30. --- Page 82 --- 78 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 8. John Q. Blodgett, "The Future of UN Peacekeeping," The Washington Quarterly 14, no. 1 (Winter 1991): 212. 9. "Debriefing of Major Jay J. Meester, Chief Air Section, Comish the Republic of the Congo," report no. 65-1-2 (Washington, D.C.: Headquarters USAF, Special Warfare Division, 8 January 1965), 3. 10. Nicholas Doughty, "NATO Planes to Guard No-fly Zone," Washington Times, 2 April 1993, 7. 11. John F . Burns, "Aid Convoy in Bosnia Is Blocked by Serbs for 3d Day," New York Times International, 17 February 1993, A2. 12. S. B. Fleming, Organizational and Military Impacts o f High-Tech Surveillance and Detection Systems for UN Peacekeeping Operational Readiness and Evaluation Project Report no. PR535 (Ottawa, Canada: Department of National Defence Canada, December 1992), 13. 13. Gustav Hàgglund, "Peace-keeping in a Modern War Zone," Survival 32, no. 3 (May-June 1990): 236. 14. Ibid. 15. International Peace Academy, Peacekeeper's Handbook, 3d ed. (New York: Pergamon Press, 1 984), 207. 16. Ibid., 209. 17. Gen Donald J. Kutyna, "The State Of Space," Defense Issues 6, no. 14 (1991): 4. 18. Maj Steve Malutich and Maj Bruce Thieman, "Space Systems for Military Use," Air Command and Staff College Seminar/Lesson Book. vol. 10, Space Operations (Maxwell, AFB, Ala.: Air University, 1991), 78. 19. PeacekeepeCs Handbook, 209. 20. Hàgglund, 235. 21. Ibid. 22. President George Bush, "Address by the President of the United States of America to the 47th Session of the United Nations General Assembly," USUN Press Release 84-(92), 21 September 1992, 4-5. 23. Fleming, 5. 24. J. D. Murray, "Military Aspects of Peacekeeping: Problems and Recommendations, ” in Wiseman, 179. 25. Peacekeeper's Handbook, 332. 26. Michael Krepon and Jeffrey P . Tracey, " 'Open Skies' and UN Peace-keeping,” Survival 32, no. 3 (May-June 1990): 255-58. 27. Malutich and Thieman, 33. 28. Brig Michael N. Harbottle, "Peacekeeping and Peacemaking," Military Review 49, no. 9 (September 1969): 49; and Peacekeeper’ s Handbook, 59. 29. Henry et al., 241. 30. Hàgglund, 235. 31. Louis J. Levy and Susan B. Chodakewitz, "The Commercialization of Satellite Imagery," Space Policy 6, no. 3 (August 1990): 211. 32. Leonard S. Spector, "Not-So-Open Skies," Space Policy 6, no. 1 (February 1990): 14. 33. Henry et al., 24. 34. Spector, 12. 35. Thomas E. Cremins, "Security in the Space Age,” Space Policy 6, no. 1 (February 1990): 37. 36. Ibid., 41. 37. Quoted in Levy and Chodakewitz, 213. 38. Murray, 188. 39. Doyle McManus, "Clinton Aides Divided on Use of GIs in Bosnia," Los Angeles Times, 19 March 1993, 2. 40. PeacekeepeTs Handbook, 158. 41. Robert Marquand, "For UN Peacekeepers in Croatia, Isolation Is Tough Challenge," Christian Science Monitor, 14 December 1992, 6. 42. Hàgglund, 234. 43. Lucia Mouat, "UN Struggles to Keep Politics out of Relief," Christian Science Monitor, 7 January 1993, 3. 44. Hàgglund, 234. 45. Michael R. Gordon, "US Is Increasing Airdrops to Bosnian Town," New York Times International, 20 March 1993, A2 . 46. Harry G. Summers, "A Date to Remember: Actions, Decisions Pull World to Bosnia," Air Force Times, no. 38 (26 April 1993): 54. 47. Fleming, 11. 48. Ibid. 49. Maze, 30. 50. Hàgglund, 239. 51. Malutich and Thieman, 30. 52. Ibid., 24. 53. Burns, Al; The Blue Helmets: A Review o f United Nations Peace-keeping, 2d ed. (New York: United Nations Department of Public Information, 1990), 234; and Alan James, Peacekeeping in International Politics (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1990), 359. 54. The Blue Helmets, 419-50. 55. Boutros-Ghali, 39. 56. Henry et al., 116. 57. The Blue Helmets, 234. 58. Ibid., 109. 59. Burns, A6. 60. Stephanie Kang, "Hurricane? Famine? Call the Air Force," Air Force Times, 15 August 1994, 17. 61. Johan Jorgen Holst, “Enhancing Peace-keeping Operations," Survival 32, no. 3 (May-June 1990): 265; and Larry L. Fabian, Soldiers without Encmies (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1971), 261-65. 62. Craig Covault, "Military Air Operations Grow over Balkan Crisis," Aviation Week & Space Technology 138, no. 16 (19 April 1993): 61. --- Page 83 --- AIR OPERATIONS MUST BE JOINT M aj S cott A. Fedo r c h a k , USA T HE ADVENT OF airpower in the twentieth century revolutionized warfare by adding a third dimension to the "traditional" battlefields on land and sea. Further, its capab ilities have evolved significantly. Initially, for example, airpower functioned as a subordinate ele- ment to the Army, and in World War I its missions included little more than aerial ar- tillery observation and communication. To- day^ independent Air Force and the smaller service-unique air components, however, op- erate in a wide variety of combat and sup- port roles in the joint environment. The debate over airpower's role among the vari- ous armed Services has been a recurring is- sue since the airplane demonstrated its utility as a weapon of war during the First World War. Interservice discussions have been widespread and intense, caused by the Services' parochial self-interests and differ- ing viewpoints on how to wage joint warfare. Specifically, the sea and ground Services want airpower to operate under their control in direct support of the tactical and operational leveis of their respective campaigns, while the Air Force wants to focus its assets on an independent air campaign against strategic targets in support of the theater campaign.1 During the past seven decades, a variety of joint organizations tried to meet wartime requirements by establishing differing degrees of control over the Services' air assets. Their efforts met with varying leveis of success. 79 --- Page 84 --- 80 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 After noting problems in several joint mili- tary operations in the early 1980s, Congress passed the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reor- ganization Act of 1986 to reform and im- prove the joint war-fighting capability of the Services. This law gave the regional com- manders in chief (C1NC) primary responsi- bility for war fighting in their respective theaters, while subordinate land, sea, and air component commanders would control the The debate over airpower's role atnotig the various arm ed Services has been a recurring issue since the airplane dem onstrated its utility as a weapon of war during the First World War. four Services' components assigned to the theater. In the late 1980s, the European CINC established the joint force air compo- nent commander (JFACC) as a coordinator to organize the theater's air assets and accom- plish the CINC's mission.2 The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) first approved this concept in Joint Publication (Pub) 26, and the other war-fighting CINCs later accepted it as a doc- trinal mechanism to command and control the theater's airpower assets.3 The current concept gives the JFACC operational control over all air assets assigned or attached to the theater, along with responsibility for plan- ning and executing air operations in support of the CINCs mission.4 Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm provided the first operational, wartime exercise of the new command and control (C2) system, which proved to be the most effective system to date in commanding and controlling joint airpower.5 As expected with a new operat- ing system, several questions arose, dealing with joint interoperability and service- specific concerns about the system's imple- mentation. The lessons learned from this experience can be used to improve the cur- rent JFACC system and enhance its perform- ance in future conflicts involving joint power projection. The Current JFACC System The JFACC concept codifies the Air Force's long-held premise that (1) airpower must operate under a single air commander who exercises centralized control of air assets and (2) the execution of air missions must be decentralized. Only then can the Air Force optimize airpower's unique capabilities. Airpower assets—primarily high-performance, fixed-wing attack aircraft from the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps-are combined un- der the JFACCs operational control for the planning and execution of air operations in support of the CINCs intent for the overall theater campaign. Centralized control is ex- ercised through the processes of apportion- ment, allocation, and distribution. Apportionment consists of determining and assigning the total expected air effort (in terms of percentages and/or priorities) that should be devoted to each airpower mission (e.g., counterair [CA], air interdic- tion [AI], close air support [CAS], strategic attack, etc.). The CINC makes the appor- tionment decision, based on the JFACCs rec- ommendation on use of available theater air assets. For example, the CINC may deter- mine that CA is his first priority and should include 50 percent of the available air assets, based on his intent for next-day operations. His second and third priorities may be AI and CAS, including 30 percent and 20 per- cent of the air assets, respectively. These ap- portionment percentages may vary through- out the operation, depending on the en- emy's air, ground, and sea capabilities and phasing of the overall theater campaign plan. After the CINC makes the apportionment decision, the JFACC and staff conduct the allocation process, which consists of trans- lating the apportionment percentages into numbers of sorties, broken out by available aircraft type, unit, and mission. During this --- Page 85 --- AIR OPERA TIONS MUST BE JOINT 81 phase, they also perform mission planning for the available aircraft that support each airpower mission. This process results in the air tasking order (ATO), which provides specific mission orders for each aircraft's next-day operations. After it is approved, the ATO is sent to all Services for decentral- ized execution of the air missions. The distribution process takes place after the allocation process is completed. That is, the JFACC "gives" CAS sorties to the land component commander (LCC) who then dis- tributes available sorties to subordinate Army and Marine Corps elements for use in their mission planning.6 Apportionment, al- location, and distribution are designed to be logical and simple, but problems stemming from differing Service doctrines and equip- ment in Desert Storm limited the JFACCs effectiveness in implementing these three processes. The JFACC System in Desert Storm Overall, the JFACC system succeeded in meeting mission requirements during Desert Storm. The air campaign was a major factor in forcing Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait and in keeping coalition losses to a minimum. Because Desert Storm marked the first use of the JFACC concept, however, one could ex- pect some problems to occur. One of the most publicized criticisms conceming joint interoperability involved the JFACCs use of an Air Force-designed ATO as a mission- planning document.7 Faced with planning missions for hundreds of aircraft from doz- ens of coalition partners, the Air Force pro- duced a daily ATO consisting of several hundred pages. A series of courier flights then delivered the ATO from JFACC head- quarters in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to Navy carriers at sea because communications- system incompatibility between the Air Force and Navy prevented electronic trans- mission of the document. JFACC planning and execution processes encountered even harsher criticisms along service-specific lines. Indeed, some JFACC planners noted that it was sometimes easier to work with coalition members from other nations than with members of the other US Services.8 For instance, the Navy and Marine Corps complained about the JFACC system's operational philosophy and targeting. Tradi- tionally, the Navy's cairier air groups have operated autonomously, accustomed to de- centralized control, planning, and execution of their operational missions.9 Similarly, Marine Corps doctrine notes that the Marine Air/Ground Task Force (MAGTF) commander retains operational control over all organic assets, including high-performance, fixed- wing aircraft.1 0 But the JFACC system's rig- idly centralized control over target selection, planning, and decentralized execution di- rectly opposed both the informal and formal systems of the Navy and Marine Corps. The resultant turmoil had to be overcome through improvisation.1 1 Another criticism charged that the Air Force-dominated JFACC staff allocated Air Force assets to attack more lucrative (and highly visible) targets but rele- gated Navy and Marine Corps aircraft to less valuable targets.1 2 However, postconflict studies have shown that many Navy and Ma- rine Corps aircraft simply lacked adequate target identification systems as well as the capability to deliver precision guided muni- tions (PGM) and thus were not suitable for certain targets.1 3 The major criticism of the Army and Ma- rine Corps concerned the lack of air effort in support of ground operations in the overall theater campaign plan. Conversely, the ma- jor complaint of the Air Force sênior leader- ship was that preparation for ground operations diverted assets from the strategic effort.1 4 During the air campaign's initial phases, the JFACC concentrated assets on strategic attack to wrest air superiority from Iraq and to eliminate its command, control, Communications, and intelligence (C31 ) fa- cilities and nuclear, biological, and Chemical (NBC) capability, in accordance with the --- Page 86 --- 82 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 CINC's apportionment decision. As the air campaign progressed, the CINC intended to shift the focus to interdiction sorties against Iraqi ground forces for the upcoming ground war to liberate Kuwait. However, sênior JFACC staff planners diverted interdic- tion strikes nominated by the Army to strate- gic targets, an action that countered the CINC's intent for the overall campaign.1 5 Air Force commanders and planners felt that diverting aircraft from the strategic effort prevented the air campaign from decisively defeating Iraq without the need for a ground war.1 6 But Army and Marine LCCs were not convinced that airpower alone could force Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. They felt that although the ground campaign would still be required, the JFACC did not support the "shaping" of the ground battlefield until di- rectly pressed by the CINC.1 7 For example, airpower struck only one-third of over 3,067 Army-nominated ground targets in prepara- tion for ground operations.1 8 A t the begin- ning of the air campaign, the MAGTF commander withheld half of his organic, fixed-wing assets from JFACC control, saving them for his priority targets.1 9 Later in the air campaign when the JFACC had not allo- cated "sufficient assets," the MAGTF com- mander withdrew all of his fixed-wing aircraft from JFACC control to shape the bat- At the very heart o f warfare lies doctrine. It represents the central beliefs for waging war in order to achieve victory. —Gen Curtis LeMay tlefield in accordance with his intent.20 Al- though this action solved the MAGTF's near- term problem, it defeated the purpose of using a JFACC to optimize the use of air assets. Neither does it offer long-term, workable Solutions to problems with air- ground operations. We need to find better Solutions, and this process begins with un- derstanding the major doctrinal differences among land, air, and sea forces. Doctrinal Differences Gen Curtis LeMay noted that "at the very heart of warfare lies doctrine. It represents the central beliefs for waging war in order to achieve victory."2 1 But the four Services dif- fer in their respective war-fighting doctrines and in their perception of warfare and air- power's role in it. These differences became especially evident during Desert Storm. For example, the JFACC staff was joint in name only, since its nucleus consisted of the Ninth Air Force staff, augmented by other Air Force elements and liaison officers from the other Services and nations that supplied airpower assets.2 2 Unsurprisingly, Air Force doctrine dominated the JFACC planning process,2 3 fo- cusing on CA operations and strategic at- tacks, regardless of the other Services' concerns.2 4 Airpower advocates from the time of Giulio Douhet through the present day believe that the heart of the enemy's ability to wage war (its strategic center of gravity) lies in his industrial base.2 5 After achieving air superiority, the Air Force then launches a strategic attack aimed at destroy- ing the enemy's industrial infrastructure and achieving decisive results without interven- tion by land and sea Services. In essence, Air Force doctrine makes support of ground (or naval) forces a low-priority mission for air combat units.26 Thus, the JFACC staff's rec- ommendations for aircraft apportionment to the CINC followed the dictates of Air Force doctrine, which preferred to handle opera- tional-level ground targets with A I rather than CAS.2 7 On the other side of the doctrinal coin, the Army, Marine Corps, and Navy see them- selves as the final arbiters of armed conflict in their respective environments. To them, airpower plays only a supporting role, merely augmenting available firepower and --- Page 87 --- AIR OPERA TIONS MUST BE JOINT 83 limiting hostile fire on friendly forces. Un- like the .A ir Force, the advocates of land and sea power consider the enem/s strategic center of gravity to be his army and navy, respectively; thus, available airland and sea resources should concentrate on the oppos- ing center of gravity to fulfill the cam- paign’s objectives.2 8 Naval and military strategists such as Carl von Clausevvitz, An- toine de Jomini, Alfred Thayer Mahan, and Julian Stafford Corbett all agree that occupa- tion of the enem/s territorv offers the deci- sive solution to combat. This viewpoint is best summarized in the Naval War College's classic text of 1942, Sound Military Decision: "The final outcome [of war] is dependent. .. on ability to isolate, occupy, or otherwise control the territory of the enemy" (em- phasis in original).2 9 In Desert Storm, the UN and US objective of liberating Kuwait did require a land campaign entailing ejection of Iraqi forces and occupation of the land.3 0 Such doctrinal differences over the role of airpower in support of the theater campaign plan made disputes among the Services al- most inevitable. Joint Interoperab ility and the Need for Joint Doctrine Many joint interoperability problems with hardware are undergoing research and development for possible Solutions. The Navy and Marine Corps still need to en- hance their air capability to influence the land campaign in accordance with their re- cently published white paper . . . From the Sea, “ which shifts the Navy's traditional fo- cus from a blue-water, fleet-on-fleet confron- tation to support of joint-force projection operations in the littoral regions of the globe. For example, the Navy and Marine Corps need more aircraft with the capability to deliver PGMs and with advanced target Identification systems compatible with cur- rent Air Force systems. Fath Service should procure equipment— especially Communica- tions and weapons systems— that is compat- ible with that used by the other Services. Several joint Communications, electronics, and systems boards have already been estab- Many ofour current problems over the uses o fth e various Armed Services stem from a lack o f coherent doctrine on how they should be used individually and collectively in an operational campaign to secure some strategic en d . T h is p r o b l e m . . . a p p l i e s n o t only to joint air doctrine but also to joint war-fighting doctrine in general. lished to ensure the compatibility of new common-use hardware, software, and other equipment. Increased peacetime training of Air Force, Navy, and Marine aviators in JFACC procedures will also improve opera- tional effectiveness of the new system. Further, the ongoing joint training opportu- nities through the reorganized US Atlantic Command (USACOM) will improve joint in- teroperability by establishing common pro- cedures and knowledge in all four Services. Many service-specific complaints are not yet solved and will remam unsolved until the four Services agree on joint war-fighting doctrine. Instances of the lack of adherence to established joint doctrine, such as the Ma- rine Corps's withholding of air assets from JFACC control, limit the amount of interop- erabílity that can be developed among the Services. Col John A. Warden III, the archi- tect of Desert Storm's air campaign, notes that "many of our current problems over the uses of the various Armed Services stem from a lack of coherent doctrine on how they should be used individually and collec- --- Page 88 --- 84 A1RP0WER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 tively in an operational campaign to secure some strategic end" (emphasis added).3 2 This problem— which applies not only to joint air doctrine but also to joint war-fighting doctrine in general— is both systemic and historical and will continue as long as the Services continue to operate under separate doctrines. The Department of Defense (DOD) has several independently developed doctrines: the Army's AirLand Battle, the Navy and M arine C o rp s's . . . From the Sea, and the Air Force's global reach— global power, all deal- ing with the projection of joint expedition- ary forces but otherwise exhibiting precious little that links them together for a common purpose. None of the current Service doc- trines goes far enough in supporting joint operations because none fully integrates the capabilities of the others. A s noted above, Air Force doctrine minimizes support to the joint airland campaign, while Navy operat- ing philosophy and Marine Corps doctrine oppose the centralized control of joint air efforts through the JFACC. Instead of main- Instead o f maintaining independent (sometimes opposing) doctrines, we tieed to write one joint doctrine to guide the projection o f joint air, land, and sea power. taining independent (sometimes opposing) doctrines, we need to write one joint doc- trine to guide the projection of joint air, land, and sea power with one "central [be- lief] for waging war in order to achieve victory" (to reiterate General LeMay's point) and then develop Service doctrines that support joint power projection. This war- fighting joint doctrine should be developed at the new Joint Warfighting Center at Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virgínia, under the guidance of the JCS3 3 and should be suffi- ciently broad and flexible to allow each Service to produce a supporting doctrine that takes advantage of its unique capabilities and characteristics. Conversely, no Service should develop a doctrine that opposes the effective development and execution of joint doctrine and operations in future endeavors. Refinements to the JFACC System The current JFACC system is an effective mechanism for controlling joint airpower but could stand some refinements. For in- stance, future JFACC staffs should be truly joint, including equal representation from the four Services. Gen William W. Momyer noted that "when a headquarters that is sup- posed to control multiservice forces is not structured with a balanced staff, inter-service problems tend to become magnified since there is inadequate consideration of at least one service's view at the outset."3 4 The JFACC staff-particularly the operations and planning cells— should include enough Army, Navy, and Marine Corps representatives to ensure that the concerns of each Service are addressed in the apportionment and alloca- tion processes. The staff planning processes should use established joint doctrine instead of service-specific doctrine or theories that limit the effective execution of joint air op- erations in-theater. In other words, JFACC staff members should not subvert the staff planning process or the CINC's allocation decision, as was the case in the Gulf War when several Air Force members of the JFACC staff used "Creative diversions" to di- vert tactical strikes from Kuwait to strategic targets in Iraq in an attempt to validate the prewar claim that airpower can defeat en- emy land forces without using friendly land or sea forces.3 5 On the other hand, the de- mands of ground commanders should not dilute the CA effort to the point of failure, unless the tactical situation on the ground --- Page 89 --- AIR OPERATIONS MUST BE JOINT 85 dictates othenvise. The responsibility for maintaining this delicate balance between competing demands for airpower falis squarely on the shoulders of the JFACC and his or her staff. Once the CINC makes the apportionment decision, the allocation of aircraft must fulfill the ClNC's original in- tent, and no aircraft should be diverted to other targets unless unanticipated changes in the theater situation so dictate. If diver- sions occur, then one should make appropri- ate modifications to the ATO to fulfill the CINC's apportionment decision and his or her intent for subsequent phases of the thea- ter campaign. Army, Marine Corps, and Navy leadership must understand the strategic, operational, and tactical roles of airpower in the theater air campaign. Because airpower is a scarce resource on the battlefield, it may not be available for every potential target. Wartime experience has shown that AI makes more effective use of limited air assets than does CAS and that higher-priority missions in ac- cordance with the CINC's intent may limit the number of sorties providing direct mis- sion support to ground and sea forces.3 6 Thus, local commanders should be prepared to adjust their operational plans accordingly if planned and requested CAS sorties are not available. On the other hand, Air Force, Navy, and Marine air components need to be aware of their roles in supporting ground and sea forces on the modern battlefield. Because airpower is a tremendous force mul- tiplier for land and sea forces, commanders should frequently use it to increase US mili- tary effectiveness and to reduce friendly casualties. The Services must develop improved joint education so their members can understand the capabilities and limitations of airpower in its strategic, operational, and tactical roles in the theater campaign. This education should cover the role of the JFACC in sup- porting the CINCs theater campaign plan and the way airpower can best support each phase of the campaign in the air, on land, and at sea. Planners and operators in the joint environment must learn when and how to adapt service-specific doctrine and con- cerns to meet the requirements of joint op- erations in power projection and not allow parochial interests to override the needs of the joint operation. The first priority of joint air operations in support of the theater campaign must be CA operations to achieve air superiority be- cause wartime experience has shown that air, land, and sea forces cannot effectively per- form their missions while under air attack.3 7 Joint US airpower has done a superb job of ensuring air superiority to support US ground and sea forces— witness the fact that these forces have not faced a hostile aerial attack since 30 June 1953, during the Korean War.38 After air assets have established air superiority, the CINC can then apportion those assets among all sea, air, and land forces in-theater to meet other Service and mission requirements and to ensure accom- plishment of the CINCs mission. With re- gard to other priorities, Adm James Winnefeld notes that "the first priority [for airpower] should be the needs of the sup- ported commander ifa decisive engagement is under way. . . . The second p rio rity shou ld be the requirements of the air component commander. This order of priorities should be reversed if the supported commander is not decisively engaged or about to engage" (emphasis in original).3 9 When ground and sea forces are not in use or not in-theater, the CA and strategic campaigns should have priority on available assets because, as some sources argue, the JFACC is the sup- ported commander.40 However, after ground and sea forces are committed or intended for use in the theater campaign plan, sufficient air assets must be apportioned and allocated to meet the supported commander's AI and CAS requirements, in accordance with the CINCs intent. If time permits, subordinate air, land, and sea commanders should be in- formed of the apportionment and allocation decisions (along with any subsequent changes) in order to increase their under- standing of the CINCs intent and campaign --- Page 90 --- 86 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 plans and to allow them to adjust their sup- porting plans accordingly. Conclusions The JFACC system is the most effective joint organization that DOD has devised to command and control joint air operations. Nevertheless, we must refine the system to make it more responsive to the requirements of the C1NC and the subordinate command- ers of all four Services. Air operations must be joint — not merely an amalgamation of in- dividual Service efforts operating in accord- ance with individual Service concerns and agendas. Joint operations are the primary means by which the US will project power abroad in the new world order. Indeed, Gen Notes 1. Gen William W. Momyer, Airpower in Three Wars (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Air Force, 1978), 39. 2. Maj Dwight R. Motz, "JFACC: The Joint Air Control 'Cold War’ Continues . . Marine Corps Gazette 77, no. 1 (January 1993): 67. 3. Maj Jeffrey E. Stambaugh, “ JFACC: Key to Organizing Your Air Assets for Victory," Parameters 24, no. 2 (Summer 1994): 98. 4. AFCS Pub 1, The loint S taff OfficePs Gtmie 1993, 1993, 1-19. 5. Motz, 68. 6. " ‘The Air Campaign' Videotape Script," Air Command and Staff College Seminar/Lesson Book, vol. 9 (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University, 1993), 37-52. 7. Rear Adm James A. Winnefeld and Dana J. Johnson, loint Air Operations: Pursuit o f Unity in Command and Control, 1942-1991 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1993), 105. 8. Ibid., 151-52. 9. Richard P . Hallion, Storm over Iraq: Air Power and the Gulf War (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), 257-58. 10. Gen P . X. Kelley, unpublished white letter 4-86, "1986 Omnibus Agreement for the Command and Control of Marine Tacair in Sustained Operations Ashore,” Headquarters USMC, Washington, D.C., 18 March 1986. 11. Steven U. Ramsdell, director. Naval Historical Center, letter, subject: Trip Report, 14 May 1991. 12. Winnefeld and Johnson, 163-64. 13. Ibid., 115-17; and Hallion, 257. 14. Col Richard B. H. Lewis, "JFACC Problems Associated with Battlefield Preparation in Desert Storm," Airpower lounuil 8, no. 1 (Spring 1994): 9. 15. Rick Atkinson, Crusade: The Untold Story o f the Persian Gulf War (New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1993), 222. 16. Vincent C. Thomas, Jr., “The Voice of Experience: Henry C. Stackpole III predicted that the US will probably never witness a military opera- tion that is neither joint nor combined.4 1 In the past, each Service followed an inde- pendent doctrine based on its own interests. Although such doctrine allowed for some degree of overlap when the Services worked together in joint operations, in the future we may not have the luxury of redundant capa- bilities and must make more effective use of available forces. Because joint air operations will prove invaluable to power projection in future conflicts, we must develop the joint doctrine, equipment, and procedures to sup- port the JFACC system. Only then can we use it more effectively and efficiently to pro- ject force against hostile land-, air-, or sea- based threats. □ Interview with Lt. Gen. Bernard E. Trainor, USMC (Ret.),“ Sea Power 34, no. 9 (September 1991): 12. 17. Winnefeld and Johnson, 125. 18. Atkinson, 222. 19. Winnefeld and Johnson, 119-20. 20. Lt Gen Royal N. Moore, Jr., "Marine Air: There When Needed,” US Naval Institute Proceedings 117, no. 11 (November 1991) : 64. 21. Quoted in Air Force Manual (AFM) 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine o f the United States Air Force, 16 March 1984, i. 22. Comdr Daniel J. Muir, "A View from the Black Hole," US Naval Institute Proceedings 117, no. 10 (October 1991): 85-86. 23. Winnefeld and Johnson, 111. 24. AFM 1-1 (1984) notes that "airpower can exploit speed, range, and flexibility, better than land and sea forces, and therefore, it must be allowed to operate independently of these forces" (page A-6). 25. Col Dennis M. Drew and Dr Donald M. Snow, Making Strategy: An Introduction to National Security Processes and Problems (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, August 1988), 98. 26. Bill Sweetman, "Close Air Support: Fighters High, Helicopters Low," International Defense Review 25, no. 1 1 (November 1992): 1 077. 27. Capt Scott A . Fedorchak, "Close Air Support: Repeating the Past. . . Again?" Airpower loum al 8, no. 1 (Spring 1994): 23. 28. Carl H. Builder, The Masks o f War. American Military Styles in Strategy and Analysis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 83-84, 89-90. 29. US Naval War College, Sound Military Decision, Classics of Sea Power (1942; reprint, Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1992), 46. 30. Atkinson, 107, 221. 31. . . . From the Sea: Preparing the Naval Service for the 21st Century (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Navy, September 1992) . --- Page 91 --- AIR OPERA TIONS MUST BE JOINT 8 7 32. John A. Warden III, The Air Campaign: Planning for Combat (Washington, D.C: National Defense University Press, 1988), 6. 33. Steven Watkins, "Joint Office Gains Clout As General Takes Reins,' Army Times, 19 September 1994, 35. 34. Momyer, 53. 35. Atlcinson, 222; and Barton Gellman, “US Bombs Missed 70% of Time," Washington Post, 16 March 1991, 1. 36. Momyer, 59. 37. Ibid., 163; and The Lord Tedder, Air Power in War, The Lees Knowles Lectures (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1953), 32. 38. Maj Hunter W. Vardaman, "US Has Owned Sky over Its Troops for 40 Years," Air Force Times, 16 August 1993, 37. 39. Winnefeld and Johnson, 152. 40. Stambaugh, 107. 41. "Plane Parts, Rotting Timbers, White Paper, and Fighting Joint,” US Naval lnstitute Proceedings 119, no. 6 (June 1993): 9. --- Page 92 --- 88 AIRPOWER fOU RN AL SPRING 1995 Ricochets continued from page 3 Excellent article! Captain Barco's insights and understanding of leadership and "quality" are, in my opinion, absolutely correct and very timely. The conclusions he's developed need to be fully understood, appreciated, and integrated into the thinking and actions of our sênior leadership, of which Tm a member. I will certainly do what 1 can in my leadership positions, as well as to be personally involved in influencing my peers and seniors. One area particularly concems me. I under- stand effort is under way to develop and publish a regulation on "quality implementation." The inappropriateness of this is obvious and obvi- ously supported by Captain Barco's research and conclusions. The value of a quality-oriented phi- losophy in leading and managing today's organi- zations is well documented, but most have failed during bureaucratic approaches to implementa- tion in large part due to the points made by Cap- tain Barco. I suggest that those in sênior leadership posi- tions and those others that aspire to those posi- tions must integrate the thinking and conclusions in Captain Barco's article into their approach to leadership and the implementation of quality concepts in the Air Force. Maj Gen Frank D. Watson, USAFR Washington, D.C. The Author Responds I share General Watson's deep concem regard- ing any future regulation on "quality implemen- tation." In a quality culture, enlightened leadership—not regulation— defines the Vision, sets the goals for the joumey, and estabüshes any needed boundaries along the way. History provides ample evidence that regula- tion impacts a leader's ability to freely innovate, think, and ultimately lead. For quality to flour- ish, Creative and aggressive "systems thinking" must replace our addiction to the comfortable bureaucracy of yesterday. It's a shame. What S. L. A . Marshall said 40 years ago may st ill hold true in some shadowed pockets of the USAF: What we leam from history is that we simply do not leam from history! Maj Charles T. Barco, USAF Maxwell AFB, Alabama COMMENT CARDS SITUATIONAL LEADERSHIP MODEL Great article on leadership ("A Situational Leader- ship Model for Military Leaders," Fali 1994). However, figure 10 (page 41) is conceptually flawed. Failing deterrence, the policy staff and operations should be concerned with an eclectic measure of military merit such as probability of kill, avoidance of collateral damage, cost, and avoidance (risk of), inter alia, depending on the situation. Sorties are a metric of mass. Maneuver and economy of force must also be considered. Lt Col Larry Feltes, USAFR, Retired West Chicago, Illinois The Author Responds Good point. All models are simplifications and as such may mislead. My intent was to suggest that the mission, outcome, or product of a staff is different from the product of an operational unit and may require the leader to adjust his or her leadership style. 1 would suggest that, generally speaking, staffs concem themselves with produc- ing policy and plans, whereas operational units produce an activity. The activity I gave as an ex- ample was sorties. It could have been bombs on target, terrain occupied, or short tons moved to a forward location. Col Don Waddell, USAF Maxwell AFB, Alabama CHÃOS THEORY It sounds as though the authors of "What Does Chãos Theory Mean for Warfare?" (Fali 1994) are --- Page 93 --- RICOCHETS 89 saying that chãos theory could allow for realistic simulations with the variations they prescribe. Ignoring the commerciai Computer war games, I know personally that advanced board war games have had those uncertainties/start variations/pre- scriptions mentioned for 15 years. TSgt John E . Michalski, U SA F Oklahoma C ity, Oklahoma SPECIAL EDITION 1994 I usually look forward to the arrival of a new Air- power Journal. The Special Edition 1994 was very disappointing. Stick to your niche! We need a professional joumal for cliscussion of airpower is- sues at the operatíonal levei of war. Lt Col Stetson M. Siler, USAF EdwardsAFB, Califórnia EDITOR'S NOTE: Sorry about the disappointment. Strongly agree with your last sentence— that won't change. Read my editorial on page 2 o f this issue. Sticking to our "niche" has stifled debate on sub- stantive issues related to airpower, alienated some o f our readership, turned away quality authors, re- duced our publishing load, quieted the professional dialogue, brightened fireplaces in homes across the country, and failed to evoke comment from Rush Limbaugh on anything— in short, chãos theory by another name. Excepting Mr Limbaugh, we're changing all of that. JWS I feel that the Special Edition 1994 was an exc el- lent volume. Something like this could be done perhaps twice a year. I found it most informa- tive. Lt Col James D. Stevens, USAF Wichita, Kansas ELECTRONIC MEDIA When will Airpower Journal be available electroni- cally? I suggest America Online or the DOD Tec- net. Lt William O. Glascoe III, USAF Sunnyvale, Califórnia EDlTOR'S NOTE: Glad you asked! We're working on getting our own page on the Internet with data access via the World Wide Web (WWW). The in- terface will be a hypertext page o f text and graphics with cross-links that you can select. The links will send you to other hypertext pages, indexes o f infor- mation on particular airpower subjects, text files, graphics, etc. The possibilities are endless! We'll provide more information as it becomes available and keep you (our readers) apprised o f our prog- ress. JMP --- Page 94 --- Winter 1994 IRA C. EAKER AWARD WINNER Capt Edward P . 0 ’Connell, USAF Ist Lt John T. Dillaplain, USAF for their article Nonlethal Concepts: Implications for Air Force Intelligence Congratulations to Capt Edward P. 0'Connell and lst Lt John T. Dillaplain on their selection as the Ira C. Eaker Award winners for the best eligible article from the Winter 1994 issue of the Airpower Journal. Captain 0'Connell and Lieutenant Dillaplain receive a $500 cash award for their contribution to the Air Force's professional dialogue. The award honors Gen Ira C. Eaker and is made possible through the support of the Arthur G. B. Metcalf Foundation of Winchester, Massachusetts. If you would like to compete for the Ira C. Eaker Award, submit an article of feature length to the Airpower Journal, 401 Chennault Circle, Maxwell AFB AL 36112-6428. The award is for the best eligible article in each issue and is open to all US military personnel below the rank of colonel or equivalent and all US gov- ernment civilian employees below GS-15 or equivalent. 90 --- Page 95 --- N E T AM E N T Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. —Sir Richard Steele Airpower: A Centennial Appraisal by Air Vice- Marshal Tony Mason. Brassey's, 33 John Street, London WC1N2AT (distributed in the US by Macmillan Publishing Co., 201 West 103d Street, Indianapolis, Indiana 46 290), 1994, 320 pages, $40.00. Where is airpower going as it enters its second century? What can it offer governments at the end of the East-West confrontation and during the reemergence in the early 1990s of strategic unpredictability and uncertainty? Airpower: A Centennial Appraisal is the first book-length at- tempt to answer these sticky questions. Written by the preeminent British airpower expert, re- tired air vice-marshal Tony Mason, it is a study of the role of airpower in today's uncertain inter- national environment, and it suggests how air- power can provide relevance and the ability to secure the political objectives of governmental leadership. This seminal work provides an in-depth probe of airpower in the last years of the NATO-Warsaw Treaty Organization confrontation, the process of conventional arms limitation, the Gulf W ar, the process of peacekeeping, the disintegration of the Soviet air force, and the beginnings of the Russian air force's reconstitution; it also exam- ines airpower's role as it begins its second cen- tury. The significance of these events for airpower's second century is first put into con- text through an examination of certain specific topics garnered from airpower's first century. The air vice-marshal feels there is a very real danger in the 1990s that debates about airpower may be threatened by a reemergence of zealotry and obtuseness as Services face reductions in re- sources, diminished threats, and a blurring of roles. Now is the time to analyze airpower not only in terms of its unique characteristics but in the context of warfare as a whole. The first two chapters unabashedly use hind- sight to analyze airpower in its infancy and its growth through World War II from a peripheral through pervasive to dominant national instru- ment. The section closes with an examination of the Arab-lsraeli conflict, in which— the author argues—airpower really did dominate because it was in total harmony with the strategic environ- ment. The author then looks at how "it was air power which strongly influenced the nature of East-West confrontation, rather than the con- verse." The question of how airpower can con- tribute to arms control comes in for scrutiny through the example of the course of the con- ventional arms control treaty, signed in the early 1990s. Next, Mason turns to several questions: Was the Gulf War unique? Did it set a precedent? What lessons and conclusions can be drawn from this 1991 apotheosis of airpower? If the Gulf War did set a precedent, then what are the constraints, possibilities, and implications for airpower in the peacekeeping environment? The question of Rússia, the impact of the Gulf War, the disintegration of the USSR, and the new doc- trinal framework that has been developing over the last two years all come in for review. The fi- nal chapter is devoted to what is termed the "era of differential airpower." Many readers may well find their cherished notions challenged by the argument that on the "threshold of its second century," airpower is now "an integral compo- nent of warfare." Airpower: A Centennial Appraisal is an excel- lent discussion of airpower and its role for the future. Although the reader will disagree with some sections, the book is intended to be thought-provoking rather than divisive. How- ever, readers from the land and sea Services may well become incensed with some of Mason's con- clusions. For example, he points out that— although during the Gulf War, corps command- ers complained of the lack of air support— it was the theater commander who directed that air pri- orities be concentrated elsewhere. According to Mason, this situation clearly shows the problem 91 --- Page 96 --- 92 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 inherent in AirLand Battle doctrine (and in most Army-Air Force combined efforts). Ground-force operations are implemented at the corps levei, while airpower assets—given their flexibility and radius of action— are coordinated at the theater levei. He also argues that even with the success of Desert Storm, AirLand Battle is still an un- proven doctrine in the mid-1990s. Continuing a discussion of the Gulf War and the aircraft carrier, Mason concludes that the si- multaneous, parallel operations that charac- terized airpower’s operations in that conflict are probably beyond the scope of the carrier task forces. Further, discussions concerning the effec- tiveness of carrier-based versus land-based air- power should be based on productivity rather than costs, in light of the carrier's vulnerability to mines, air attack, and shore-to-ship missiles, as well as constraints on the carrier's range, pay- load, and scale of offensive operations. Mason concludes that the "carrier is now primarily a 'small-war' instrument." The book also argues that "there is sufficient circumstantial evidence to suggest that [airpower in the Gulf War] proved that it could substitute for land power." Regardless of these arguments, the closing sentence is perhaps the most impor- tant in the entire volume: "Air forces must har- monize their equipment with their doctrine but keep their Vision far into the future." A s an airpower historian and doctrine analyst, I cannot stress enough my conviction that all airpower advocates must read this book. All read- ers will not agree with Air Vice-Marshal Mason’s conclusions, but they will agree that those con- clusions provide plenty of material for thought. Airpower: A Centennial Appraisal is a must read. Maj Michael J. Petersen, USAF Maxwell AFB, Alabama Joint Military Operations: A Short History by Roger A . Beaumont. Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Box 5007, Westport Connecticut 06881, 1993, 264 pages, $55.00. Joint Military Operations is a concise and infor- mative review of 3,000 years of joint warfare. Throughout this book, Beaumont weaves the themes of unity of command, friction, inter- service rivalry, doctrine, training, and the role of leadership to support his main thesis: successful joint warfare has been practiced numerous times since the age of Rome, but many nations con- tinue to relearn these lessons the hard way. In the first chapter, Beaumont deftly summa- rizes joint warfare from antiquity up to World War I. Greek and Roman amphibious operations are described as the best examples of early joint- ness. He then discusses British and American joint operations during the Revolutionary War (joint warfare was utilized routinely but with few major successes) and the Civil War (success- ful joint operations were the result of personali- ties meshing instead of established doctrine) as well as the disarray of joint warfare during the Spanish-American War (one of many examples of how quickly joint lessons are lost, only to be re- learned with much loss of blood). Entire chapters are devoted to World War I, the interwar years, World War II, and the postwar era up to and including Desert Storm. Each topic adequately describes how the formula for suc- cessful joint warfare is quickly forgotten throughout history, only to be learned again later. Beaumont's chapter on World War 1 concen- trates on the failure of jointness in the famous Gallipoli campaign of 1915 and the introduction of airpower into the joint equation. While Gal- lipoli's failure was attributed to poor planning and inadequate joint doctrine, the one bright spot was close air support. However, the author concludes this section on World War I with the statement that "joint operations were seen to be well off to the side of the turbulent mainstream of war" (page 60). The chapter "Between the Wars" is equally grim in describing how jointness was a distant concern to most nations. Much time is spent dis- cussing the interservice rivalry over the use and control of airpower and the way close air support became a "third priority" for the Army Air Corps. This lack of concern for joint operations manifested itself in a long learning curve for most nations early in World War II. The British and Americans in particular en- tered World War II with little preparation for joint warfare, but once again necessity forced them to relearn the fundamentais quickly. Beau- mont comments that "from mid-1940 to the spring of 1942, jointness suffered from uneven operational skill and experience; from the skepti- cism of many commanders, staff officers, and civil servants; and from delays, setbacks, and runs of bad luck" (page 87). However, he points out how the Allied skills in jointness were im- proved through numerous operations as the war progressed. Operation Overlord is the epitome of effective joint warfare, although too little time is spent on this major operation. Again, after the --- Page 97 --- NET ASSESSMENT 93 war, joint operations fade away as the US be- comes dependent upon nuclear weapons and one Service to carry out deterrence—the Air Force. Perhaps the weakest part of Joint Military Op- erations is the chapter that deals with jointness from 1943 to 1991. Although the author dis- cusses a vast amount of material, the discussion is sometimes superficial—especially the part deal- ing with Desert Shield/Storm. Beaumont's final chapter "The Central Prob- lem of Friction," wraps up many of his common themes that explain problems in joint opera- tions. These problems include clashes of person- alities, interservice rivalry, reduced funding, bureaucratic politics, little unity of command, basic human "tribal" impulses, and— of course— friction. The book closes with an appropriate quote: "The history of joint operations shows how often what was done was not all that could have been done, and how the price of tinkering and leaving matters to fate was often far higher than expected" (page 194). Joint Military Operations is a very informative, fact-filled, and readable account of the advances and setbacks in joint warfare since the Roman Empire. Although a bit lacking in examples of modern joint warfare— especially Desert Storm— this book should be required reading at all US war colleges. A s course director of the only un- dergraduate core course in joint operations in the US, I highly recommend Joint Military Opera- tions— so much so that all instructors who teach this course at the Air Force Academy will be get- ting copies soon. Capt Phil Bossert, USAF USAF Academy\ C olorad o --- Page 98 --- Mission Debrief I Can Write Better than That! O K, T H E N D O I T ! Airpower Journal is al- ways looking for good articles written by our readers. If you've got something to say, send it to us. We'll be happy to con- sider it for publication. The Journal focuses on the operational levei of war— that broad area between grand strategy and tactics. We are interested in ar- ticles that will stimulate thought on how warfare is conducted. This includes not only the actual conduct of war at the operational levei, but also the impact of leadership, training, and support functions on opera- tions. We need two typed, double-spaced draft copies of your work. We encourage you to supply graphics and photos to sup- port your article, but don't let the lack of those keep you from writing! We are look- ing for articles from 2,500 to 5,000 words in length—about 15 to 25 pages. As the professional journal of the Air Force, APJ strives to expand the horizons and professional knowledge of Air Force person- nel. To do this, we seek and encourage chal- lenging articles. We look forward to your submissions. Send them to the Editor, Air- power Journal, 401 Chennault Circle, Max- well AFB A L 36112-6428. . . . But How Do I Subscribe? EASY . . . • Just write New Orders, Superintendent of Documents, P.O. Box 371954, Pittsburgh P A 15250-7954. • Say that you want to subscribe to AFRP 10-1, Airpower Journal, stock number 708- 007-00000-5. • Enclose a check for $13.00 ($16.25 for international mail). • Spend a year enjoying four quarterly is- sues mailed to your home or office. Basis of Issue A FRP 10-1, Airpower Journal, is the profes- sional journal of the Air Force. Require- ments for distribution will be based on the following: 1 c o p y f o r e a c h g e n e r a l o n a c t i v e d u t y w i t h the US Air Force and Air Reserve Forces. 1 copy for every 5 (or fraction thereof) ac- tive duty US Air Force officers in grades sec- ond lieutenant through colonel. 1 copy for each US Air Force or Air Reserve Forces office of public affairs. 3 copies for each Air Reserve Forces unit down to squadron levei. 3 copies for each air attaché or advisory group function. 1 copy for each non-US Air Force, US gov- ernment organization. 1 copy for each US Air Force or US govern- ment library facility. If your organization is not presently re- ceiving its authorized copies of the Air- power Journal, submit a completed AF Form 764a to your publications distribu- tion office (PDO). The Editor 94 --- Page 99 --- MISSION DEBR1EF 95 Our Contributors Sheila E. Widnall (BS, MS, PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology) has been secretary of lhe Air Force since Augusi 1993. In previous positions with the Air Force. Dr Widnall served on the USAF Academy Board of Visitors, and on advisory committees to Mílitary Airlift Command and Wnght-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Dr Widnall, a faculty member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for 28 years, became an assoaate provost at the university in January 1992. A professor of aeronautics and astronautics, she is intemationally known for her work in fluid dynamks, spedfically in the areas of aircraft turbulence and the spiraling airflows created by helicopters. She has served on many boards. paneis, and committees in govemment, academia, and industry. The Tacoma. Washington, native is the author of some 70 publications. Chris Morris is presidem of Morris E t Morris, a private consultancy spedallzing in long-lerm strategies for identifying and acquiring new defense technologies with umque political utillty. He has also served as research director of the US Global Strategy Coundl since 1989. His work on nonlethality issues and on US/Russian technology exchange lias been used by all branches of the US government as well as by sênior Russian military and industrial officials. Mr Morris and his wife Janet are award-winmng authors of more than 30 books of fiction and nonfiction. His academic background includes undergraduale work at Rockford College and spedalized st udy at Harvard University. Janet Morris is vice presidem of the Morris E t Morris consultancy. She Is sênior fellow and research director at the US Global Strategy Council and has served as program director for the coundl’s nonlethality program since 1989. Her seminal work on nonlethanity has provided extensive support to US govemment agencies, departments, and congressional oíficers. She assisted in leading the first of several US/Russian technology exchange missions to Moscow in 1991 and cowrote a benchmark report on Russian military technology for the US govemment. Ms Moms’s academic background includes undergraduate work at New York University and specialized study at Harvard University. Thomas B. Baines (MA, Ohio University: MI'A, North Carolina State University; JD, Tulsa University) is manager of the Spedal Technologies Sedion at Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois. He served as a US Army noncommissioned officer, chief warrant officer, and aviation officer, including 26 months in Vletnam. A t the time of his retirement from the Army in 1991 with 36 years of Service, he was the manager, Current Requirements/Crisis Operations, Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, US Army Spedal Operations Command. Dr George J. Stein (BA, Assumption College; MA, Pennsylvania State University, PhD, Indiana University) is director, International Security Studies Core and professor of European Studies at the Air War College, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. Before joining Air University in 1991, Professor Stein had taughl in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, Miami University, since 1977. He was active in SPA CECA ST 2020 and continues his research in Information warfare. --- Page 100 --- 96 AIRPOWER JOURNAL SPRING 1995 Col John A. Warden III (USAFA; MA. Texas Tech Universily) is command,mt, Air Command and Staff College, Maxwell Alll, Alaharuo Previnus assignments include spccl.il asslstant Io lhe vice presidem oí the United States anil deputy director lor war lighling, llcadipiarters USAI'. Colonel Warden is lhe aulhor o( T lic Air C ooip oi^ n : 1'latm inj; for Combt i l and is a gtaduate ol lhe National War College. Col Richard Szaíranski (BA, Florida State Universily; MA. Central Michigan Universily) is the lirst holder ol the Chair for National Mllilary Strategy at the Air War College. Maxwell Al ll, Alahama. Colonel SzafrariskPs duties have inclttded staff positions In the headquarters ol Stratcgic Air Command, United States Space Command, North Amer- ican Aerospace Defcnse Command, and Air Force Space Command. Ile lias commanded II-52 units at the squadron and wing levei, most reccntly ascommanderoí the 7th Bomh Wing, Ctrswell AFB, Texas, (rotn 1991 to 199.1. I le was also the base commander of 1 ’eterson AFB, Colorado llls svritings on mililary strategy and operai ional art have appeared previousíy In Ai r powc r l our nal as well as in ritramclcrs and Slrotrgie Kevicw. Colonel S/aíranski is a grad- uate of Air Command and Staff College and Air War College. I.t Col tlrooks I . B.ish (USAFA; MS, Central Michigan Universily; MA, Naval War College; MA. Scltool of Advanced Airpowcr Sludics) is execullve officer to the commander of F i f l e e n t h Ai r F o r c e . A s ê n i o r p i l o t w i t h S.OOO liou rs in the KC-10 and C-141, lie previousíy served as cxcculive officer to lhe vicc-commandcr of Air Mnlnlity Command (AMC); cliicf of stratcgic concepts at llcadipiarters AMC; program managerof Prime Nuclear Airlift Force and squadron cliief of standardization and evaluation at Travis AFB, Califórnia; Air Staff training officer at lhe Pcntagon; and standardiaation and evaluation pilot at McGufre Al ll, New Jersey. Colonel Bash is a distinguished graduate oí Squadron Officer School and College of Naval Command and Staff, and a graduate of the School of Advanced Airpower Sludies and Air War College. Maj Scott A. Fcdorchak (BS, USMA; MSBA. Roston Universily; MS, Massachusel is Instituto of Technology) Is dclachmciu commander, Kth Psychological Opcratlons Baltalion, Fort Bragg, North Carolina. 1'reviously, lie was au assistam professor of physics at the US Mililary Academy and commander of bolli lhe Joinl Security Force in Honduras and lhe Slltli Military Police Company, Fort Drum. New York. He has also held various baltalion staff positions in the US and Germany. Major Fcdorchak is a graduate of Army Command and General Staff College, Air Command and Staff College. College of Naval Command and Staff, and Marine Corps Command and Staff College. Please # 3 * u Recycle --- Page 101 --- Tear Oul and Remove ^c/í^c:"9 Co d * Superintendent of Documents * 5476 Subscr i pt i on Or d e r F o r m Charge your order. It's easy! To fax your orders (202) 512- 2233 □ YES, enter ___subscription(s) to the Airpower Journal magazine. (AURE) at "13 each (s 16.25 foreign) per year. 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Geiger, USAF, Retired Dr Richard P. Hallion, Air Force Historian Col Raymond A. Hamilton, Jr., USAF, Retired Maj Gen I. B. Holley, Jr., USAFR, Retired, Duke University The Airpower Journal (ISSN 0897-0823), Air Force Recurring Publication 10-1, is published quarterly. Subscriptions may be ordered from New Orders, Superintendent of Documents, P.O. Box 371954, Pittsburgh PA 15250-7954. Annual rates are $13.00 domestic and $16.25 outside the United States. The GPO stock number is 708-007- 00000-5. The Journal welcomes unsolicited manuscripts. Address them to Editor, Airpower Journal , 401 Chennault Circle, Maxwell AFB AL 36112-6428. Submit double-spaced, typed manuscripts in duplicate. All submissions will be edited in accordance with the standards set forth in the Air University Press Style Guide. Journal telephone listings are DSN 493-5322 and commercial ( 334) 953-5322. --- Page 104 --- Summer Readings • SPACECAST 2020 --- Page 105 --- 1»7 # 4 r*/»] /àfjM ^ i 7 J y v *