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Air & Space Power Journal - Summer 2005

Beyond Blue Four

The Past and Future Transformation of Red Flag

Maj Alexander Berger, USAF

For almost 30 years, the Red Flag exercise has trained Blue Four—lieutenants and captains competent in their aircraft but without flying experience in a composite strike force—to survive in combat. Red Flag has also given more experienced pilots the opportunity to serve as mission and package commanders in order to learn the best way of employing an integrated, large-force package to achieve a tactical mission objective. However, as the complexity of air operations has increased with the advent of network-centric warfare, precision-guided munitions, and stealth technology, and as special operations, space, and information warfare have integrated with combat air forces, so has the pressure increased to change Red Flag to include more platforms and expand its training focus.

Because realistic training at Red Flag has not kept pace with the changing nature of warfare, the exercise is wrought with “Red Flagisms” that limit its value. Today’s aircrews, trained to think operationally, are directed to focus on the tactical problem of the day at Red Flag. They fly over air-defense sites to hit individual targets although their experience tells them to first roll back enemy ground threats with stealth and electronic-warfare aircraft as well as precision-guided bombs. This article considers the changes Red Flag has -undergone since its inception, evaluates their impact, and recommends ways of managing the transformation of this exercise.

History of Red Flag

The genesis of Red Flag traces back to the Vietnam era, when the air-combat effectiveness of the US Air Force dropped dramatically. Specifically, the Air Force enjoyed a 10-to-one kill ratio during the Korean War but only a two-to-one advantage during the latter part of the Vietnam War. Disturbed by this trend, the service set out to identify the root cause of its loss in proficiency, tasking its Tactical Fighter Weapons Center at Nellis AFB, Nevada, to conduct a series of studies called Project Red Baron to analyze all air-to-air engagements during the war in Southeast Asia. An interim report released in 1972 identified three significant trends. First, it found that multirole fighter units were expected to perform such a broad range of missions that pilots lacked proficiency across the board. Second, most pilots who were shot down never saw their attackers and did not even know that the enemy had engaged them. The report concluded that since pilots routinely trained against US aircraft from their own squadrons, they were unaccustomed to looking for the smaller, more agile aircraft flown by the North Vietnamese. Finally, Air Force pilots not only lacked familiarity with the enemy’s fighter tactics and aircraft capabilities but also did not develop or train with tactics intended to exploit the adversary’s weaknesses. As a result, they could not adapt to the fast maneuvering by North Vietnamese fighters during dogfights.¹

Other studies at the time found that aircrew training and proficiency problems extended beyond the Vietnam War. The Litton Corporation, for example, studied air-combat trends in every conflict from World War I through the Vietnam War, concluding that a pilot’s first 10 combat missions were the most critical.² If aircrew members survived those missions, their chances for victory and survival increased dramatically.

Graduated, Realistic Training

The lessons of these studies quickly spread throughout the Air Force, and senior leaders directed dramatic changes in aircrew training. In response to the observation that multi-role fighter units could not effectively train in all missions, the Air Force specified a primary and secondary “designed operational capability” for each squadron, allowing pilots to specialize in specific mission areas such as air-to-air or ground attack.³

In order to address the problems of visually identifying enemy fighters and developing tactics to exploit enemy weaknesses, Tactical Air Command (TAC) started an initiative called “Readiness through Realism,” which made combat training more intense and -realistic than in the past. One key recommendation from the Red Baron report stated that “realistic training can only be gained through study of, and actual engagements with, possessed enemy aircraft or realistic substitutes.”⁴ Therefore, dissimilar air combat training (DACT) became a mandatory part of a pilot’s mission-qualification and continuation-training program. Between 1972 and 1976, the Air Force created four aggressor squadrons—flying T-38 and then F-5 trainer jets with Soviet-style paint schemes—specifically to provide DACT to fighter pilots. Rather than flying these jets like American pilots, aggressor pilots learned and adopted Soviet fighters’ maneuvers and tactics.

Not content to limit training improvements to air combat, in 1975 TAC initiated the Coronet Real program to improve ground-attack training by upgrading Air Force ranges with realistic target displays, ground-threat simulators, and assessment equipment.⁵ Previously, training ranges provided generic range targets such as painted bull’s-eyes or stacked oil drums that did not resemble realistic enemy targets. Under Coronet Real, US training ranges were upgraded with improved target complexes, often using excess military equipment that included tank concentrations as well as mock-ups of enemy surface-to-air missiles (SAM), antiaircraft artillery (AAA), and even large industrial complexes. The program also created electronic-warfare ranges at both Nellis and Eglin AFB, Florida, using ground-threat simulators to mimic a Soviet-style Integrated Air Defense System (IADS). These manned SAM and AAA radar simulators not only emitted signals similar to the threats they replicated, but also tracked targeted aircraft and recorded miss distances on a computer to assess the effectiveness of aircrew countermeasures.

Finally, Coronet Real included several initiatives to instrument training ranges in order to collect and present detailed information for aircrew training. Video cameras slaved to SAM-tracking radars captured images of a pilot’s reaction to being targeted, providing valuable feedback on the success (or failure) of evasive tactics. Optical scoring equipment accurately measured the impact point of live or inert ordnance dropped from attack aircraft. Finally, the project added a tracking system called Air Combat Maneuvering Instrumentation to monitor aircraft flying on the ranges and to reconstruct air-to-air training engagements. In 1975 TAC appropriated over $200 million for range improvements—most of which went to the Nellis Range Complex.⁶

Birth of Red Flag

With the Air Force’s increased emphasis on specialized and realistic aircrew training in the mid-1970s, the timing was ideal for a group of fighter pilots working in the Directorate of Operations, Headquarters Air Force, to propose taking training to the next level. Armed with the results of the earlier studies, they suggested creating an exercise in which junior pilots could experience the rigors of air combat and try out new tactics in a realistic but safe training environment. A briefing entitled “Red Flag: Employment Readiness Training” presented the Red Flag concept of operations (CONOPS) at TAC’s Fighter Weapons Symposium in April 1975. It identified the opportunity to use existing resources—particularly Nellis’s two aggressor squadrons and the targets, threats, and instrumentation on that base’s range complex—to create a two-week exercise designed to season inexperienced pilots. The CONOPS envisioned using a Red Flag central manager called White Force to oversee realistic combat training for the tactical air forces, direct Red Force aggressor employment, and run Red Flag debriefs to identify mistakes and recommend improved tactics.

Under the Red Flag concept, operational flying units called Blue Force would rotate through Nellis for month-long deployments, and individual crews would rotate after two weeks. Red Flag training events, or “scenarios,” would conform to a unit’s specific designed-operational-capability requirements, with 75 percent of the sorties dedicated to the unit’s primary mission. The CONOPS also envisioned Red Flag training employing a graduated approach, focusing first on individual aircrew training and eventually progressing to composite strike missions in the latter part of each Red Flag period.

Finally, the CONOPS saw Red Flag as a -tailor-made training exercise, providing specialized scenarios for mobility aircrews, Strategic Air Command’s nuclear bombers, special operations forces, and even joint participants from the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps. Although it identified the Nellis range as the primary area for Red Flag training, the CONOPS also recommended using additional ranges throughout the southwest United States to expand the scope and size of Red Flag.⁷ Despite facing some initial high-level resistance to the proposal, Maj Richard “Moody” Suter—who reportedly conceived the idea for Red Flag on the back of a cocktail napkin one night at the Nellis Officers’ Club—persisted with the idea. On 15 July 1975, Major Suter briefed the concept to TAC commander Gen Robert Dixon, who approved it on the spot for implementation. The first Red Flag exercise commenced on 27 November 1975.

Early Evolution of Flag Exercises

The initial feedback from aircrews participating in the first Red Flag exercises was overwhelmingly positive. The first year included nine exercises that trained 2,500 aircrews from all Air Force commands, the Air Force Reserve, Air National Guard, Marine Corps, Navy, and Army. It also saw several milestones, including large-scale joint training with the Army at Fort Irwin, California, and the integration of operational test and evaluation of the F-15 and A-10 aircraft into the exercise.⁸ Virtually every postexercise report during that first year also lauded the opportunity for units to develop and evaluate new tactics against a realistic and adaptive adversary. Although aircraft accident rates during the first four years of Red Flag were four times higher than the TAC average, forward-looking senior Air Force leaders remained committed to pursuing realistic training.⁹

The huge success of Red Flag led the Air Force to consider additional ways of improving combat training. In 1976 TAC created the Blue Flag exercise to provide realistic training to numbered-air-force personnel working in command and control (C2) facilities and airborne platforms. Following TAC’s lead, Pacific Air Forces created a realistic training exercise called Cope Thunder, using its aggressor squadron and training ranges in the Philippines. US allies also realized the value of realistic training, and in 1978 Canada hosted the first Maple Flag exercise, which featured Red Flag–like training in terrain more closely resembling that of Eastern Europe. In 1981, when the Army created the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, the Air Force removed close air support training from Red Flag and created the Air Warrior exercise.

The next significant leap in realistic training came when Gen Wilbur L. “Bill” Creech, TAC commander from 1978 to 1984, instituted the Green Flag exercise at Nellis. Initially held twice a year, it resembled Red Flag but added new Blue Force players, including intelligence-gathering platforms, electronic-warfare aircraft, and numbered-air-force planning staffs. Green Flag’s focus on electronic warfare was specifically designed to counter the prevailing attitude in TAC that aircrews had to fly at low altitude to avoid medium-altitude SAM threats. Since flying low put aircraft within range of AAA guns, General Creech considered this logic flawed.¹⁰ At his direction, Blue Force players first had to employ electronic-combat systems to roll back enemy air defenses and gain air superiority at medium altitudes before attacking other targets. Aircrews quickly developed new tactics and integrated those systems to address the challenge of operating at the higher altitude. During his tenure, the general also expanded the size of Red Flag and Blue Flag and continued range-improvement programs by investing over $600 million in new targets and threat systems.¹¹

TAC’s numerous realistic training initiatives completely transformed the culture of Air Force training. Prior to 1975, “flying safety is paramount” served as the Air Force’s catchphrase for peacetime training. With the advent of Red Flag and the other initiatives, the new slogan “train the way we are going to fight” became firmly entrenched in the vernacular of aircrews everywhere.

Recent Red Flag Initiatives

From its inception, Red Flag training mirrored contemporary Air Force, joint, and coalition war-fighting capabilities and doctrine. So it comes as no surprise that today’s Red Flag is more complex and dynamic than ever before. Current exercises, between eight and 10 two-week periods each year, train over 13,000 aircrews, intelligence analysts, and support personnel. Red Flags typically include a variety of US and allied combat-air-force, mobility, and special-operations aircraft performing missions such as air superiority; interdiction; electronic warfare; airlift support; search and rescue; and command, control, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C2ISR). As in the past, today’s exercise tests Blue Force’s ability to confront an advanced enemy force employing a robust threat using increasingly complex adversary tactics. However, new initiatives introduced over the past five years have increased the scope and complexity of today’s Red Flag exercises—possibly to the detriment of realistic aircrew training.

The Nellis Combined Air and Space Operations Center

Perhaps the single most significant change to the Red Flag structure over the past decade was the establishment of a combined air and space operations center (CAOC) at Nellis. In July 2000, the Air Force chief of staff released a message outlining his vision for realistic training at the operational level, just as the Air Force had done with tactical training over the previous 20 years. The message specified that “all USAF assets/capabilities will now plan and execute together in a ‘live fly’ training environment, to include realtime command and control.”¹² This directive drove the creation of a CAOC tasked to incorporate -operational-level play into all of Nellis’s training, testing, and exercises—including Red Flag.

With a core staff of AOC experts to facilitate training, the Nellis CAOC provides a battle-ready facility for deployed AOC personnel from air operations groups (AOG) to conduct operational-level training during Red Flag exercises. Ideally, a full CAOC staff will deploy to a Red Flag exercise in order to meet specific AOG training objectives. In order to increase the complexity of AOC play, the Nellis CAOC also integrated into a simulation-based training exercise called Desert Pivot, run by the 505th Distributed Warfare Group at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico. Now called “Virtual Flags,” these operational-level exercises align with Red Flags to give Blue Force players in the CAOC combined live-fly, constructive training (networked simulators) and virtual training (computer war games) in development and execution of the air tasking order with an emphasis on time-sensitive targeting. Even without a Blue Force AOC, the White Force CAOC staff can provide tactical aircrews with training in time-sensitive targeting during Red Flag by passing updated target coordinates to airborne C2 aircraft during mission execution.

US-Only Red Flag

In 2000 Air Combat Command (ACC) designated two Red Flag periods each year as “US-only” exercises in order to integrate selected special-access programs.¹³ This special exercise would expose tactical-level participants to operational capabilities previously not discussed at Red Flag and would ensure that these future AOC planners understood the scope of those capabilities before deploying in response to a crisis. With the freedom to plan and debrief at a higher classification level, US-only Red Flags add a number of atypical elements, including B-2 and F-117 stealth aircraft, C2ISR platforms (including Compass Call, Rivet Joint, Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, U-2, and Predator), and space and information-warfare capabilities. US-only Red Flags have been instrumental in bringing previously stovepiped communities together with combat air forces in a live-fly environment.

Greening-Up Red Flag

Red Flag also shifted its training focus, “greening up” to compensate for the Air Force’s elimination of Green Flag exercises. This change acknowledged the fact that our air forces will never operate in a hostile air environment without the protection afforded by suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD) and electronic-combat aircraft. Navy and Marine Corps EA-6Bs and Air Force F-16CJs participate in virtually every Red Flag to jam or target enemy radars. The proliferation of munitions guided by the global positioning system (GPS) has also led to an increased emphasis on bombing enemy SAM and AAA systems, a mission known as destruction of enemy air defenses (DEAD). Additionally, US-only Red Flag exercises incorporate a vast array of systems capable of targeting enemy air defense networks—both kinetically and nonkinetically.

Air Expeditionary Force Grouping

Another recent initiative entailed grouping units deploying to Red Flag into their respective air and space expeditionary force (AEF) rotation. In 2000 ACC decided to use Red Flag as the capstone training event in a unit’s “spin-up” to an AEF deployment. By deploying to Red Flag by AEF, units could learn how to employ together and work out any coordination issues prior to actual deployment. The AEF lead wing became the “core wing” for the exercise, and its commander would use Red Flag to set the tone and direction of the deployment.

Joint Red Flag Exercises

In 2002 Joint Forces Command directed that one Red Flag period every two years be designated a “Category 2 Joint Interoperability Training Exercise” that would evaluate integration in a number of joint interoperability tasks, including close air support, personnel recovery, fires, and SEAD.¹⁴ Although Red Flag has always included joint participation, this specialized exercise required participants to integrate capabilities rather than simply deconflict operations, as in the past. In Red Flag 03-2, the first of the new joint exercises, scheduled for January 2003, the Army’s 101st Airborne Division would deploy 24 AH-64/ Apache attack helicopters to conduct deep-strike missions with Air Force SEAD and fighter support. Additionally, the National Training Center (hosting the Army’s III Corps) and Air Warrior exercises would take place concurrently with Red Flag. All three, having adopted a common-threat scenario, would execute and be evaluated with joint integration in mind. Preparations for Operation Iraqi Freedom, however, necessitated the cancellation of Joint Red Flag several weeks prior to execution of the exercise. Joint Red Flag 05, held in March and April 2005, attempted an even greater level of joint integration.

Challenges to Realistic Training

Air Force operations in every conflict since Operation Desert Storm have proven the value of Red Flag training. However, recent changes in the structure and focus of Red Flag have also increased the difficulty of creating a realistic and coherent exercise. Red Flag training has expanded beyond simply training Blue Four to experience their first 10 combat missions; it now provides the opportunity to conduct realistic training at the operational level of warfare. However, some significant challenges still limit the value of realistic training at Red Flag.

Outdated Range and Assessment Tools

An assessment of the first Red Flag exercise noted that “threat locations did not provide harassment within target area[s]” and that “threat density is insufficient and does not include the latest threat equipment . . . to insure training accomplished and tactics employed are realistic.”¹⁵ In the early exercises, strike packages had to go through one of the electronic-warfare training ranges on their way to designated targets, just to get experience flying in a high-threat environment.¹⁶ Similar range challenges persist today. Although Red Flag exercises now integrate an even wider mix of strike, stealth, electronic-warfare, C2ISR, special-operations, space, and information-warfare capabilities, Nellis lacks an equivalent full-spectrum Red Force against which Blue Force participants can plan and operate.

The Nevada Test and Training Range (NTTR) has changed little in the past three decades, with the majority of its targets still resembling Soviet-style formations of tanks, convoys, and SAM batteries. Ground-threat simulators can imitate only older-generation threats such as the SA-2, SA-3, SA-6, SA-8, Roland, and AAA fire-control radars—systems similar to those found in Iraq during Desert Storm. Additionally, contractor manpower shortfalls limit the number and duration of threat emitters supporting the multitude of range activities.¹⁷ More significantly, range threats can only emit a signal that will trigger a fighter aircraft’s radar-warning receiver. They do not provide useful training for C2ISR, stealth, or electronic-warfare participants who normally monitor or target the associated communication systems and links and nodes of a true enemy IADS. Consequently, because many Red Flag participants do not employ their systems as they would in actual conflict, they fail to receive the same level of realistic training that the exercise provides tactical aircrews.

The lack of threat simulators that replicate the latest generation of “double digit” SAMs (the SA-10, SA-11, SA-12, and SA-20) means that Red Flag participants train against a threat less capable than one they would likely face in combat. No pilot flying in a nonstealth aircraft would willingly go up against these extremely capable systems alone. However, by not training in a realistic, robust threat environment, participants gain a false sense of security when they return from Red Flag having successfully survived their first 10 combat missions against only limited threats on the NTTR. This problem will increase exponentially when the F/A-22 and Joint Strike Fighter—systems designed to counter the very latest air and ground threats—become operational.

Neither does the NTTR offer a realistic low-altitude threat. During the opening days of Desert Storm, the United States quickly learned that fighters operating below 10,000 feet placed themselves in grave danger. Yet the NTTR does not have systems designed to simulate or assess nonguided AAA—one of the most significant threats aircrews face in any potential conflict area. As a result, Red Flag participants focus more on surviving the mission than on following realistic tactics and routinely operate at low levels in order to evade detection by Red air and radar systems. Similarly, “smoky SAMs,” which provide a -visual cue of a shoulder-fired SAM launch, do not trigger infrared jammers or missile-launch detectors found on most modern helicopters and tactical-airlift aircraft. Furthermore, because we have no way of assessing these missile simulators to determine if a missile “killed” the aircraft, a targeted aircrew will never know if its countermeasures and evasive tactics were effective in defeating the SAM.

Finally, assessment tools have also not kept pace with evolving Air Force and joint capabilities. Just as the focus of Red Flag training has expanded, so has the need for the exercise’s mass debrief to show the integrated and operational-level effects of all players’ actions. The various assessment tools available to the White Force staff for capturing data, though sufficient for reconstructing an attrition-based war (e.g., number of airplanes shot down and proximity of bomb hits to intended targets), do not measure the effectiveness of Blue Force’s effects-based operations. For -example, the range’s threat operators must manually record the effectiveness of electronic jamming against their threat system and then call the results back to Nellis, where data is compiled for the mass debrief—a process both time consuming and inherently difficult to quantify when providing feedback to Red Flag participants.

Jack-of-All-Trades, Master of None

As Red Flag has integrated more and more specialized training events (e.g., time-sensitive targeting, combat search and rescue, airlift, special operations, and IADS rollback with stealth, space, and information-operations tools), it has diluted its focus on training Blue Four. Each new training event often comes at the expense of another.

Consider the concept of rolling back the enemy IADS through execution of an integrated campaign using electronic warfare, SEAD, information operations, and precision-guided munitions. Some senior Air Force leaders, including the Air Force chief of staff, have stated that Red Flag should emphasize integrating combat power to negate a robust adversary threat (by means of a “global strike task force”) rather than trying to train fighter and bomber crews to operate in a robust, but perhaps overly challenging, threat environment. Red Flag 03-1 integrated this vision with an IADS rollback campaign using permanent removal of destroyed SAMs at the beginning of the exercise. Although it is hard to argue that participants should not “train the way they will fight,” using simulated weapons that do not require tactical employment on the training range (such as information-operations tools or bombers employing dozens of simulated, GPS-guided munitions from standoff ranges) to preemptively destroy ground threats at Red Flag denies valuable training in surface-to-air threats that tactical aircrews can get only at this exercise. Additionally, operators employing the wide range of electronic-warfare aircraft, space, and information-operations capabilities often literally fight over who gets first shot at the limited number and types of threat simulators on the training ranges; indeed, few threats may remain when strike aircraft enter the threat area. Consequently, aircrews participating in Red Flags may be learning the wrong lesson: that a handful of electronic-warfare aircraft, bombers with -precision-guided munitions, and various nonkinetic capabilities will effectively negate a modern enemy’s IADS in a single mission.

Finally, it remains unclear how to balance the operational training requirements of numbered-air-force personnel deploying to the Nellis CAOC against the valuable tactical training that aircrews receive flying their first 10 combat missions in Red Flag exercises. The more Red Flag focuses on executing real-time C2 during live-fly missions, the less training tactical aircrews get in decentralized mission planning and execution. For example, the opportunity to retask actual strike aircraft against time-critical targets during a live-fly, large-force execution mission provides outstanding training for Blue Force AOC and airborne C2 personnel. However, this same training detracts from Red Flag’s traditional format of planning a mission, flying it as planned, and then analyzing the results to determine if failures came from flawed planning or flawed execution. There are clear benefits to testing AOC operations during live-fly exercises, including having an integrated mass debriefing during which AOC personnel can receive pointed feedback directly from tactical aircrews. However, this change will undoubtedly have some impact on tactical-level training.

Inconsistent Training for AEFs

As mentioned earlier, not all of today’s Red Flags are created equally. The US-only version brings together a robust mix of strike, stealth, C2ISR, electronic-warfare, space, and information-warfare platforms and capabilities in an exercise that truly reflects the way joint air forces will fight in future conflicts. Its participants practice large-force employment in a high-threat environment with robust C2ISR feeds and a fully manned AOC. Compare this with the traditional Red Flag, which lacks stealth platforms, space and information--warfare capabilities, and a Blue Force AOC staff. Two other air-combat exercises, Pacific Air Forces’ Cope Thunder and Canada’s Maple Flag, offer a training focus similar to Red Flag’s but typically include an even less diverse mix of participants with a less robust aggressor threat. Even fewer participants will take part in the expanded Joint Red Flag exercises, scheduled to occur once every two years.

Despite the significant differences among today’s Red Flag, US-only Red Flag, Joint Red Flag, Cope Thunder, and Maple Flag, the Air Force views all of them as equivalent realistic-training exercises. Air Force squadrons are scheduled to attend only one major training event during a 20-month AEF cycle. Clearly, all units will not receive the same level of training unless we make an effort to better manage their training events.

Recommendations for Training
Transformation

Although Red Flag has undergone many changes since its inception, we have neither coordinated nor integrated them to create a true transformation in realistic training. In April 2003, the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Transformation Planning Guidance directed transformation in military training to reflect the changes in post–Cold War capabilities and techniques: “The rigorous and realistic training regimen which our military conducts provides our forces with extraordinary battlefield advantages. . . . For this advantage to persist into the future, we must transform our training in the same way we transform the rest of the force.”¹⁸

In some ways, the transformation of Red Flag began shortly after its birth in 1975. The combination of new participants (particularly in US-only exercises) and an expanded training focus has resulted in a dramatically new exercise that mirrors the transformation in joint-force capability. Today’s Red Flags go beyond Blue Four. Whereas the original Red Flag culminated in a large-force employment mission, today’s exercises start at this point. Instead of training Blue Four to survive the first 10 missions through tactical employment, today’s Red Flag trains a joint/combined air and space team to survive 10 combat missions through the tactical and operational integration of escort, strike, C2ISR, and nonkinetic capabilities in order to neutralize an enemy’s combat capability. Individual aircrew training certainly remains important, and Red Flag still provides it. But recent initiatives such as the IADS rollback campaign directed by the chief of staff suggest that leaders and participants are willing to sacrifice some level of tactical training in order to teach the more important lesson of realistic mission execution. Red Flag now provides Air Force, joint, and allied participants the opportunity to train as they will fight—as an integrated joint and combined team.

However, the transformation of Red Flag proceeds piecemeal, without senior-level oversight or debate at the action-officer level over how best to transform realistic training in the Air Force. More importantly, if the exercise is to be beneficial to a full spectrum of participants, we must overcome some significant obstacles that prevent a true transformation of realistic training at Red Flag. The following recommendations address such a transformation.

Large-Scale Range Upgrades

More than any other factor, the state of the NTTR will determine the quality of realistic training at Red Flag. The dramatic shift in Blue Force capabilities and expanded training focus have not inspired an equivalent effort to update range capabilities or assessment tools. In order to address this significant shortfall, the Air Force must undertake a range-improvement initiative, similar to Coronet Real, to increase the fidelity of the NTTR for training and exercises. It must create a realistic IADS that can simulate the latest-generation SAM systems and present targetable links and nodes that connect these systems to a realistic C2 facility. The range should also incorporate a robust mix of assessable low-altitude SAM and AAA simulators. Sufficient manning must exist to support around-the-clock range operations—with equal priority given to operational-training requirements as regards test activities. Red Flag training scenarios must change to reflect the most dangerous threat anticipated, such as a modern adversary employing an advanced and overlapping IADS, rather than the easiest threat to replicate or even the most likely expected threat. Finally, range upgrades should also include replicating modern target sets such as underground and hardened facilities, urban target complexes, and mobile targets such as convoys and Scud launchers. Such plans have been discussed but have faltered for lack of adequate funding.

Effects-Based Assessment Tools and Procedures

With the addition of an operational-level component to Red Flag, participants must better understand the operational effects of their integrated missions. We need to develop new assessment tools that provide real-time, recordable feeds that show the effectiveness of electronic-warfare and other effects-based operations on the NTTR—just as the Nellis Air Combat Training System captures and reconstructs the air-to-air war over the range today. In October 2002, the Red Flag staff began demonstrating the impact of electronic warfare, SEAD, and DEAD missions in the mass debriefing by showing slides with time slices depicting the expanding and contracting SAM rings on a range map. Although this is a step in the right direction, these slides are only an arbitrary representation of Blue Force’s effect on the IADS rather than a true analysis of the impact of coordinated counter-IADS operations against a living, thinking adversary.

New procedures overseen by White Force assessors can also aid in filling gaps in realistic threat replication. For example, it may not be possible to simulate and assess the effect of unguided AAA on the range. However, the assessors could use Red’s ground order of battle to determine high-threat areas where AAA would engage aircraft and then use statistical methods (e.g., rolling the dice) to determine if low-flying aircraft transitioning these areas were damaged or destroyed.

New Flag Exercises

As previously discussed, not all Red Flags are created equal. In particular, the US-only exercises are unique in their force makeup and training focus; thus, they cannot compare with their standard counterparts. In order to ensure the proper mix of units for the two annual US-only exercises, the Air Force should redesignate them as Green Flags, which would also help facilitate unit scheduling (by concentrating low-density/high-demand assets into two exercise periods each year) and help the White Force staff prioritize numerous unique unit-training and range requirements. All Red Flags will still retain some degree of electronic-warfare play, as do today’s “greened up” exercises. But the US-only Red Flags more closely resemble the old Green Flag exercises in their force makeup (with additional C2ISR and electronic-combat participants) and operational focus (with the return of numbered-air-force play in the Nellis CAOC). More importantly, the new Green Flag would give Air Force and joint participants a unique opportunity to conduct effects-based operations in a live-fly environment using integrated kinetic and nonkinetic capabilities. In addition to bringing back Green Flags, the Air Force should consider designating Joint Red Flag a new type of “flag” exercise. Using different names for distinctive types of training would help everyone understand the unique focus of these varied exercises.

Modular Training Blocks

Not all specialized training events will necessitate creating new Flag designators. We can still incorporate some unique training into a standard Red Flag without significantly changing the focus of the entire exercise. In order to prioritize and deconflict the increasingly complex range of training in Red Flag, its staff should use modular training blocks similar to the specialized scenarios developed for the original exercise. Currently, ACC is considering extending the length of Red Flag to three-week periods to accommodate the expanded focus. Doing so will not ensure the optimization of unit training without going further to adopt a modular training syllabus to allow the Red Flag staff to build a customized exercise schedule that balances unit-training objectives and optimizes the use of scarce range time and threat support. Mutually beneficial modules, such as strike and reconnaissance, could be employed simultaneously and might not require additional range time for mission execution. Other modules with conflicting goals (e.g., DEAD vs. SEAD vs. ground-threat training) will require coordination and close monitoring. Some training could be staggered (e.g., adding time-sensitive-targeting training to the end of a Red Flag mission) or might even occur over several days (e.g., a dedicated IADS rollback campaign) but may not require participation by all units.

Modular training at Red Flag would also allow White Force to prioritize daily training events and would clearly identify each mission’s primary training audience and objectives—something not currently done. Prioritizing would allow White Force to ensure that training unique to Red Flag takes priority over that available elsewhere. For example, Red Flag is one of the few exercises in which tactical aircrews can practice large-force employment in a high-threat environment. Most CAOC training, however, can also occur in virtual and constructive exercises such as Blue Flag or a number of other operational-level offerings. Creating modules will allow Red Flag planners to integrate the increasing number of specialized events without detracting from Blue Four training.

A modular approach can even accommodate unique training requirements for joint and coalition participants. Joint training at Red Flag will become increasingly important as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s Joint National Training Center (JNTC) initiative—part of his transformation planning guidance—takes shape. The JNTC seeks to do for the joint force what Readiness through Realism did for the Air Force in the post--Vietnam era. It aims to integrate training ranges, create more joint exercises, and leverage technology to integrate live-fly, constructive, and virtual training.¹⁹ Modularizing training events for Red Flag would offer an ideal way to schedule, track, and manage the multitude of Air Force, joint, and coalition training requirements currently taking place in the exercise.

Tiger Team for Guiding Red Flag Transformation

None of these recommendations will result in the transformation of realistic training without the support of senior Air Force and DOD leaders. Many of the recent changes to the exercise have come from the individual initiative of the Red Flag and Nellis CAOC staffs. However, senior Air Force leaders who either opposed or simply had no knowledge of these initiatives often undermined this approach. As a result, the piecemeal nature of Red Flag’s transformation has decreased the exercise’s realism and diluted its training focus. For example, decisions to include the Nellis CAOC and C2ISR, space, and information-warfare capabilities in Red Flags did not come with additional staff authorizations or increased funding to pursue much-needed range improvements that would provide these new participants a realistic training environment. The other simple truth is that the Red Flag staff has neither the training nor the resources to conduct a comprehensive review of the exercise’s training transformation.

In order to guarantee correct management of the Red Flag transformation, the Air Staff and ACC should send a tiger team to Nellis to review the exercise and recommend ways of improving realistic training. The team should understand Secretary Rumsfeld’s vision for training transformation and should have the support of both the ACC commander and the Air Force chief of staff. It must help the Red Flag staff identify new training objectives, document resource requirements, and guide the transformation into a realistic and truly integrated joint air-combat exercise. Only by formalizing requirements and having them validated by senior Air Force and DOD leaders can we institutionalize future initiatives and obtain resources to sustain an improved exercise. More importantly, planners must be willing to abandon initiatives if leadership decides not to invest the resources to make them work.

Conclusion

As with the original exercise, today’s Red Flag continues to give inexperienced Airmen their first 10 combat missions in a challenging and realistic training environment. The exercises go even further by affording senior aircrews—package and mission commanders—a chance to employ a large-force execution mission synergistically against a diverse mix of threats and targets. Red Flag has even succeeded in incorporating a variety of joint and coalition participants, just as envisioned by its originators. From the start, Red Flag was designed to be modular, scalable, and joint.

But it is also clear that the current changes in Red Flag, if not properly managed, will detract from its realism and training value. Without additional resources and better prioritization of training objectives, Red Flag will provide either limited training to all participants or outstanding training to a limited number of participants. To take realistic training to the next level, the Air Force must invest time, money, and thought into fixing the significant challenges that currently hamper realistic training at Red Flag.

Through Red Flag and other training initiatives, the Air Force has an opportunity to foster a new era of realistic training that focuses on integrating joint war-fighting capabilities, conducting networkcentric warfare, and properly incorporating the new generation of kinetic and nonkinetic capabilities that the Air Force presents the joint force commander. But taking Red Flag to this new level of training will not come cheaply, as did the original exercise, which simply combined preexisting aggressor capabilities and training ranges. The transformation of Red Flag will not occur without the active involvement of the operational community and the unwavering support of senior Air Force and DOD leaders. If it is to succeed, such transformation needs planning and guidance. The measure of success will come only when the next generation of aircrews returns safely from their first combat missions praising Red Flag for preparing them for air combat.

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 Notes

1. Michael Skinner, Red Flag: Air Combat for the ‘80’s (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1984), 23–25; and Walter J. Boyne, “Red Flag,” Air Force Magazine, November 2000, 47.

2. Concept briefing, subject: Red Flag Employment, 15 July 1975, US Air Force Historical Research Agency (hereafter AFHRA), Maxwell AFB, AL.

3. Benjamin S. Lambeth, The Transformation of American Air Power (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), 65.

4. Project Red Baron II: Air to Air Encounters in Southeast Asia, vol. 1 (Nellis AFB, NV: USAF Tactical Fighter Weapons Center, January 1973), 21.

5. Message, 101600ZJUL75, vice-commander, Tactical Air Command, to Tactical Air Command units, 10 July 1975.

6. History, Tactical Air Command, 1975, vol. 1, 107, AFHRA, K417.01—75/12/31.

7. Concept briefing.

8. Message, 151310ZDEC76, commander, Tactical Air Command, to chief of staff of the Air Force, 15 December 1976.

9. C. R. Anderegg, Sierra Hotel: Flying Air Force Fighters in the Decade after Vietnam (Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2001), 100.

10. Gen Wilbur L. Creech, interview by Hugh Ahmann, June 1992, transcript, 192, AFHRA, K239.0512-2050.

11. Ibid., 212.

12. Message, 061200ZJUL00, chief of staff of the Air Force to commander, Air Combat Command, 6 July 2000.

13. Headquarters Air Combat Command, Tenets of Red Flag, https://do.acc.af.mil/doj/flags/tenets of rf.doc.

14. Briefing, Joint Forces Command, subject: Should Red Flag Be a Joint Exercise? 6 June 2001.

15. Message, 271700ZDEC75, commander, 4440th Tactical Training Group (Red Flag), to deputy director of operations, Tactical Air Command, 27 December 1975.

16. Briefing, Tactical Air Command, subject: Red Flag—Its Purpose, n.d.

17. House Subcommittee on Military Readiness, Statement by Maj Gen L. D. Johnston, Commander, Air Warfare Center, 107th Cong., 2nd sess., 8 March 2002, http://armed services.house.gov/openingstatementsandpressreleases/ 107thcongress/02-03-08johnston.html.

18. Department of Defense, Transformation Planning Guidance, April 2003, 20–21, http://www.defenselink.mil/ brac/docs/transformationplanningapr03.pdf.

19. Deputy Secretary of Defense, Department of Defense Training Transformation Implementation Plan, 10 June 2003, 10, http://www.oft.osd.mil/library/library_files/document_ 214_Training%20Transformation%20Implementation% 20Plan.pdf.

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Contributor

Maj Alexander Berger (BA, University of New Hampshire; MS, Troy State University; MA, US Naval Postgraduate School) is chief of the Intelligence Plans and Resources Division, Directorate of Intelligence, Air Mobility Command, Scott AFB, Illinois. He previously served as Red Flag intelligence flight commander, 547th Intelligence Squadron, Nellis AFB, Nevada; Latin American regional analyst, Defense Intelligence Agency, Bolling AFB, Washington, DC; director, Joint PSYOP Course, USAF Special Operations School, Hurlburt Field, Florida; and chief of Intelligence, 55th Fighter Squadron, Bitburg Air Base, Germany. Major Berger is a distinguished graduate of both Air Command and Staff College and the US Naval Postgraduate School.

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Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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