It is helpful to view current applications of American airpower in
two operational mediums. On the one hand, aircraft and tactics have
provided high certainty of air superiority against enemy fighters.
On the other hand, American airpower has reached new levels of
effectiveness with night-and-day, all-weather, stealth, and
precision bombing sustained with surprisingly sensitive
surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities for target
identification and battle damage assessment. The enforcement of the
"no-fly zones" over Iraq, known as Operations Northern and Southern
Watch, during the 1990s - as well as the wars in Bosnia, Operation
Allied Force in 1999; in Afghanistan, Operation Enduring Freedom in
2001; and in Iraq, Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 - highlighted
the singular effectiveness of airpower to predominate in some joint
and combined forms of war. Lt. Col. Craig D. Wills examines this
rather new application of airpower in the long-running history of
direct support of ground combat operations - an activity long
declared by thoughtful Airmen as doctrinally unsuitable for
airpower. Now it seems that this air support to the ground forces
can be considered a core mission function. How times have changes.
Wills argues that the twentieth-century argument between air and
ground proponents has changed significantly since the Gulf War, and
it comes down to the relative importance of the ground or air in
the mix. It is more than just using air as a supporting component
to the ground forces - if this is true, current force organization
and employment is adequate. However, if the air predominates in
combat operations, then, as Wills puts it in his first chapter,
joint operations doctrine need to be rethought. A changed balance
"will affect the military at every level ... force structure
organization, weapons, doctrine, and training" (p. 3).
Notwithstanding the blunt commentary from ground proponents, Wills
offers that airpower has come to dominate air/ground relations.
This is demonstrated, he says, by three factors. First, no
adversary can mass without great destruction by precision-strike
airpower; second, this lethality is the most politically attractive
weapon in America's arsenal because it is discriminate; and third,
this is doubly attractive because it is so inexpensive, especially
for political leadership. In several chapters, the author explains
why airpower is so different in the twenty-first century, showing
how airpower has changed land combat. The most dramatic
illustration is the new combination of air, special forces, and
local or indigenous troops that can, in many instances, defeat
larger and better-equipped forces. This kind of "force
intensification" preserves combat power and American lives. Such a
remarkable increase in the capability of airpower changes the
dynamics of American warfare and therefore needs to be recognized
in doctrine and force structure.
General
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