To Bomb or Not to Bomb? Counterinsurgency, Airpower, and Dynamic Targeting

Editorial Abstract: Air strikes, independent from ground operations, are known as “dynamic targeting.” These types of strikes have typically been counterproductive in counterinsurgency campaigns due to subsequent collateral damage, whether real or perceived. However, Major Brown asserts that commanders and planners who integrate dynamic targeting into the counterinsurgency campaign using careful target selection; quick, precise employment; and solid assessment of the enemy and population will produce positive, tangible results.

Since the “banana wars” of the early twentieth century, airpower has played an important role in counterinsurgency campaigns. Armed forces have used all forms of airpower—airlift; close air support; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); and so forth—in counterinsurgency campaigns to gain advantages over insurgents. Airpower in the form of air strikes occurring independently of ground operations has proven controversial in small wars. We now call such strikes “dynamic targeting.”¹

Historically, this type of targeting has generally been counterproductive in counterinsurgencies due to real or perceived collateral damage.² Yet, the US military and others have good reasons for using airpower for these operations. First, as marines in Al-Anbar Province have seen, kinetic operations are necessary to remove determined extremists in order to conduct security, social services, and economic development.³ Thus, in certain situations our forces—like NATO’s in Afghanistan—will need the advantages airpower brings.⁴ Second, in well-publicized cases, air strikes have generated good results for government forces, such as the air campaign against Hamas leaders and the elimination of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.⁵ Third, the combination of using high-fidelity ISR feeds and guided weapons has given militaries a limited ability to distinguish insurgents from the population and strike them with precision, while mitigating collateral damage.⁶

Such reasoning carries dangers, however. Airpower capabilities may cause counterinsurgency forces to overemphasize combat operations and the elimination of high-value targets. Also, when operational-level commanders can “watch” insurgents in real time by means of ISR feeds, they tend to fall back to the tactical level, thus reinforcing the “we must do something now” mentality.⁷ This reactive approach can quickly devolve into a game of “whack a mole,” which can cause commanders to neglect other important lines of operation and lose focus on the strategic end state.⁸ Even today, traditional problems in using airpower to target insurgents can easily emerge.

To avoid these pitfalls, commanders and planners must integrate the use of airpower for dynamic targeting into the operational design of a counterinsurgency campaign.⁹ Successful conduct of the latter depends upon whether commanders and their staffs (1) determine appropriate targets during planning; (2) ensure that air strikes are quick, lethal, and precise; and (3) accurately assess the friendly action, enemy reaction, and response of the population.

Determining
Appropriate Targets

In order to link specific actions to objectives that support the strategic end state, the targeting process identifies appropriate targets and the best means of engaging them.¹⁰ Effective targeting of insurgents requires understanding the unique characteristics of insurgent networks, which reveals critical elements and nodes, and knowing how the population’s attitude and behavior affect the targeting process.

Our forces are well versed in analyzing traditional target systems such as an Integrated Air Defense System. When looking at traditional systems, we typically focus on the equipment. The basic element of the insurgent network—the human being—has mobility, flexibility, survivability, and predictability not limited by the equipment or facilities associated with traditional target systems. These characteristics make target-system analysis for insurgent networks very challenging. To overcome the difficulty of analyzing these complex, adaptive systems, we sometimes attempt to model, classify, or lump insurgencies into groups, applying labels such as “Maoist” or “modern” to them in order to frame their behavior and characteristics. Trying to make an insurgency fit a specific model is difficult. No two insurgencies are alike because the conditions to which they must adapt are never entirely the same.

Understanding that insurgencies adapt and evolve over time, we have attempted to model their evolutionary process. Mao Tse-tung believed that successful insurgencies had to pass through three phases of evolution, culminating with insurgents becoming a regular force fighting a positional war with counterinsurgency forces.¹¹ Although this concept worked for the Chinese communists in the late 1940s, there is little chance that the Taliban and Iraqi insurgencies will evolve into a regular force that can directly challenge the United States. Each insurgency takes a different evolutionary path. Insurgents will assume whatever form they believe will achieve their common political goal and adapt to the conditions that exist in their environment. That may or may not include large-scale forces and tactics. Even if we can find an appropriate model that fits an insurgency to aid in targeting, it will be short-lived because of the insurgency’s adaptability.

Rather than looking to preset models to find appropriate targets in an insurgent network, analysts could better understand how insurgents adapt and evolve by using the concepts of sociobiology. Jeffrey White, a former Defense Intelligence Agency executive, identifies traits, adaptation, selection/environmental pressure, fitness, reproduction, competition, cooperation, and survival as useful concepts that can illuminate behavior and the prospects for insurgency.¹² An insurgent network’s function, evolution, and success are tied to these factors. When conducting operational design, commanders and planners should determine the best method to influence these elements—directly, indirectly, kinetically, nonkinetically, and so forth. Targets appropriate for kinetic engagement with airpower are tangible and distinguishable, which means we can likely find them in the traits of the network, such as the ones White identifies as important to the success of an insurgency:

Every insurgency places different importance on each of these traits. The ones that the insurgency values most are likely critical elements and nodes that offer the greatest potential for targeting. Valued, tangible traits offer the best opportunities for targeting with airpower. For example, if an insurgent group uses a centralized command structure, its leaders would serve as critical nodes—potentially ideal targets for air strikes.

The criticality of leadership nodes depends entirely on structural centralization—not standard for all insurgencies. We tend to assume the appropriateness of targeting an insurgent network’s structure through a “leadership attrition” or “[high-value target] strategy.”¹⁴ Martin J. Muckian argues that the structure of the Iraqi insurgency differs from that of Maoist insurgencies, the former so disparate that targeting leadership would not have the same effect. Its critical nodes are function- rather than leadership-based. Individuals with the most importance and least amount of redundancy have rare skills, such as bomb making, or serve as the only links between insurgent organizations.¹⁵ Their elimination would have a greater disruptive effect than the loss of a leader.

Counterinsurgency forces also need to assess the population’s attitude toward the insurgency, which may prove hard to do. The bulk of a population falls somewhere along a spectrum defined by support for the insurgency at one end and support for the government at the other, with a neutral zone in between.¹⁶ Military leaders should understand where the population falls on that spectrum. An insurgency receiving significant support from the population can disperse, duplicate, and potentially decentralize critical elements and nodes, thus making it more survivable. Hezbollah insurgents, for example, evolved in this manner and became integrated into the population.

Israel has experienced both success and failure in determining appropriate targets during its small wars with Hamas and Hezbollah. The Israelis succeeded in disrupting Hamas in the Palestinian territories from 2003 to 2004. Israel’s high-tempo air campaign against Hamas leadership and other targets incapacitated the organization, but the Israelis learned the wrong lessons from their success when they decided to engage Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006. Hezbollah had spent the previous six years preparing, dispersing, and decentralizing its logistics and command and control (C2). Furthermore, Israel certainly did not have the same quality of human intelligence in southern Lebanon that it enjoyed in the Palestinian territories. Israel’s limited capacity for assessing the effects of the air strikes impaired its ability to adapt to Hezbollah’s countertargeting techniques.

These examples show how the effectiveness of air strikes relates to understanding the insurgents’ network structure and integration with the population. The hierarchical structure of Hamas made it vulnerable to air strikes, whereas the decentralized structure of Hezbollah enabled it to remain combat effective despite the destruction of many fighters and much equipment.¹⁷ Israel’s experience shows that, much like treating a cancer, combat operations prove more effective on an immature and isolated insurgency.

In a counterinsurgency campaign, understanding what targets to hit represents just the first step. The second involves the way we strike them—arguably a more vital process in irregular than in regular warfare. Because insurgents operate within a population, they are difficult to distinguish from innocent civilians and can disappear quickly. When targeting them, counterinsurgency forces cannot afford delays, multiple attacks, and occasional misses. Attacking insurgents requires speed, lethality, and precision.

Speed, Lethality, and Precision

In 2004 the presence of a few Marine snipers, reacting quickly and using deadly accuracy, wreaked havoc on insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq.¹⁸ Airpower cannot match the speed, lethality, and precision of a sniper, but the sniper example shows the importance of these factors in engaging insurgents kinetically. Historically, airpower has fallen short with regard to these criteria when engaging insurgents on its own. Beginning in the 1980s, however, the Israelis developed tactics using unmanned aerial vehicles and precision-guided munitions to counter mobile surface-to-air-missile systems.¹⁹ They eventually adapted these tactics to target terrorist leaders in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, giving airpower a new role in counterinsurgency warfare. Although technology has made airpower more viable in targeting insurgents and terrorists, we must improve our processes to achieve the level of speed, lethality, and precision needed to fight them.

The first criterion, speed, is especially critical in counterinsurgency because of insurgents’ mobility and ability to melt away quickly into the population. We have only fleeting opportunities to strike them. If a commander decides to engage an insurgent target, he or she usually does so when the target is distinguishable, stationary, and vulnerable to attack with low risk of collateral damage. The target situation can change very rapidly, however, especially in an urban environment. Insurgents can move, and civilians can become a factor at any time. When commanders see an opportunity to strike, their forces must do so in seconds or minutes, not hours.

Col John Boyd argued that the individual who observes, orients, decides, and acts (OODA) at a faster tempo than his enemy will succeed in combat. This notion is just as relevant in irregular warfare as it is in regular warfare. The OODA loop deals not only with combat success but also with adapting to survive.²⁰ Therefore, insurgents must make every effort to keep their loop short. In looking for ways to accelerate our loop, we tend to focus on technical, logistical, and tactical improvements. These can improve aspects of the observe, orient, and act phases, but the decide portion consists of cognitive processes and comprises the nexus of “Clausewitzian friction.”²¹ This makes the decision phase the most time-consuming process during the dynamic targeting of insurgents with airpower. In 1928 Wing Cdr R. H. Peck of the Royal Air Force discussed his experience in dealing with decision-making delays while fighting insurgents in Iraq:

To increase the tempo of dynamic-targeting operations, commanders should focus on improving processes tied to decision making and collaboration. Decision making for targeting insurgents with airpower is a joint process, which creates unique challenges when multiple components operate in the same nonlinear battlespace. Unfortunately, doctrine does not give us a consistent picture of how the targeting process should work in these cases.

Published in June 2006, Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 2-1.9, Targeting, recognizes the problems that “stability operations” create for the targeting process, but they are not reflected in the dynamic-targeting methodology. The document defines a six-step dynamic-targeting “kill chain” consisting of finding, fixing, tracking, targeting, engaging, and assessing (F2T2EA).²³ Unfortunately, deciding is not a major step but a subset of targeting, which focuses on finding a targeting solution, reviewing restrictions, and validating the target. Combining multiple, disparate processes into one can result in the air component’s focusing on getting the right weapons and platforms in place to strike but glossing over the critical validation step.

The dynamic-targeting process illustrates the Air Force’s tendency to favor technical rather than human solutions to problems. When Gen John Jumper, former Air Force chief of staff, established the goal of “single-digit minutes” for dynamic-targeting timelines, the Air Force focused on finding technical (“machine-to-machine”), tactical, and logistical solutions.²⁴ Even if coordination, logistics, and target-development timelines improve, the political sensitivity of combat operations and the ambiguous nature of targets in counterinsurgency campaigns will cause decision-making timelines to extend well beyond single-digit minutes. In a counterinsurgency effort, we should concentrate on refining decision making and using an F2T2DEA kill chain, thus emphasizing the importance of the decide step in these operations.²⁵

Field Manual (FM) 3-60.1, Multi-Service Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Targeting Time-Sensitive Targets addresses many of the challenges involved in dynamic-targeting operations. It adopts the Air Force’s F2T2EA kill chain but also discusses many joint C2 and decision-making processes applicable to counterinsurgency operations, such as understanding the capabilities and limitations of the joint force, decentralizing and simplifying C2, and anticipating requirements in order to conduct processes in parallel. Written for a regular, linear type of warfare, however, FM 3-60.1 does not discuss the unique dynamic-targeting challenges that insurgencies present to decision makers.²⁶

The new FM 3-24/Marine Corps Warfighting Publication (MCWP) 3-33.5, Counterinsurgency, treats the decide step as a major part of the targeting process (decide, detect, deliver, and assess) but includes only a very limited discussion of targeting. It erroneously states that “the targeting process occurs in the targeting cell of the appropriate command post.”²⁷ When we target insurgents with airpower, multiple cells collaborating from multiple command posts—including the air and space operations center—conduct the targeting process. FM 3-24/ MCWP 3-33.5 simply refers readers to Joint Publication (JP) 3-60, Joint Doctrine for Targeting, for the joint targeting process. However, that publication, updated in April 2007, has only fleeting references to insurgency and does not get to the level of detail one would find in a field manual, which is the level needed for this discussion.

Since doctrine lacks comprehensive guidance for joint targeting in counterinsurgencies, commanders must determine which aspects of current doctrine apply and find other ways to reduce friction and improve decision-making timelines. By improving the capabilities and processes of their staffs, commanders can improve decision-making efficiency considerably. They can have their personnel in intelligence and those with the staff judge advocate develop and work through realistic scenarios that cause dilemmas for decision makers. For example, should our forces strike a house occupied by a high-level insurgent leader and other unknown occupants or attack a funeral attended by large numbers of insurgents?²⁸ (Both of these scenarios have actually occurred.) Commanders should prepare themselves and their staffs for these common dilemmas.

They should also have their targeting personnel continually develop targets appropriate for air strikes and anticipate how they will detect and identify them. Most importantly, commanders should encourage their staffs to build relationships with staffs at higher headquarters and other components in order to facilitate the cross flow of information during dynamic-targeting operations. Ultimately, the artistry of commanders and their understanding of the enemy and themselves will have the greatest effect on the decision process.

If airpower can get to the target in time, it needs to strike with lethal force. Although this shouldn’t seem much of a concern, terrorists and insurgents frequently survive air strikes.²⁹ Since insurgents can occupy various types of structures and move away at any time, weaponeering and flexibility will determine the lethality of the strike.

The weaponeering process determines the number and types of weapons we need to obtain the desired effect when our forces attack a target.³⁰ Particularly challenging, weaponeering for insurgent targets requires a great deal of artistry. Insurgents survive air strikes for several reasons. First, targeteers often underestimate the strength of the houses occupied by the adversary. Weaponeering programs and methods model military targets and functions but do not account for attacking typical insurgent targets, such as individuals hiding in a safe house or rural compound. Second, targeteers often focus on destroying the facility instead of killing the insurgents inside. Finally, commanders may automatically favor smaller weapons in order to avoid collateral damage.³¹ This article does not argue that we should bomb insurgents into oblivion to ensure their death; rather, it illustrates the commander’s dilemma of approving enough force to kill the target yet limit collateral damage. Ultimately, the plethora of potential target scenarios and weapons available requires experienced targeting “artists” to confidently produce a solution that will result in the insurgents’ (not the facility’s) destruction while minimizing collateral damage. Otherwise, commanders must either exercise restraint or risk the political price of an air strike with nothing to show for it.

As mentioned, because of humans’ unpredictable movements, we require a great deal of operational flexibility to make airpower consistently lethal. Despite the ability of tactical-level personnel to conduct targeting functions reliably with current technologies in many situations, the target-development process typically remains time-consuming, inflexible, and centralized at the operational level.³² Decentralizing these processes has the potential to shrink our OODA loop considerably and could eventually improve both the flexibility and lethality of airpower, especially against mobile targets. Of course, commanders will always have to balance these advantages with their ability to mitigate collateral damage and hit the right target precisely.

Precision is perhaps the most important factor in executing an air strike against insurgents. FM 3-24/MCWP 3-33.5 warns that “needlessly harming innocents can turn the populace against the counterinsurgency (COIN) effort. Discriminating use of fires and calculated, disciplined response should characterize COIN operations. Showing kindness and compassion can often become as important as killing and capturing insurgents.”³³ If the population believes that we care more about killing insurgents than about the safety of civilians, it may support the insurgency. Therefore, we should consider precision engagement of paramount importance.

Precision does not simply entail a calculation of weapons’ capabilities although this is certainly an important factor. Rather, it involves many variables that go into the positive identification of an insurgent target. Insurgent signatures often appear ambiguous, even to snipers on the ground. Dynamic targeting with airpower presents even more ambiguity and uncertainty, requiring high confidence in the intelligence sources and analysis used to pinpoint an insurgent target’s location. Many intelligence sources have target-location errors so large that we cannot confidently determine an insurgent’s position. Intelligence personnel should avoid overreliance on a single source to ascertain positive identification. Using multiple sources can refine target-location errors and increase precision. Recognizing insurgent signatures through old-fashioned analytical techniques can have the same effect as well.

Obviously, we face many challenges in achieving speed, lethality, and precision for airpower as we fight insurgents. Although the capabilities and limitations of technology play a role in each of these aspects, they are not the deciding factor in success or failure. Because success depends more on targeting processes than on technology, we must strive to improve them continuously.

US forces improved coordination processes and response timelines during their three-year hunt for Zarqawi, ultimately achieving success. Following a quick, lethal, and precise dynamic-targeting operation, ground forces immediately occupied Zarqawi’s safe house to assess damage and exploit intelligence, leading to more raids against al-Qaeda in Iraq.³⁴ Beyond showing the necessity for a quick, lethal, and precise strike, the operation demonstrated the vital role assessment plays in conducting a successful air attack.

Assessing the Strike

Until recently, any Airman asked to define the assessment process would focus on traditional battle damage assessment (BDA), a reductionist process that calls for acquiring imagery of targets attacked by aircraft. Airmen have also attempted to consistently find technological ways to get “real-time BDA” to their commanders.³⁵ Although latter phases of BDA focus on analyzing effects on the target system, this is a long, often-ignored process centralized at the level of Combined Forces Command.³⁶ These approaches to assessment are simply inadequate in a counterinsurgency campaign. Assessment should focus on all aspects of friendly action, not just the performance of weapons. It should address the adaptation of the insurgents—not simply their initial reaction, destruction, or survival.³⁷ Finally, it should place most of its emphasis on the response of the population affected by the air strike.

An air strike against a dynamic target is always a complicated process that needs thorough debriefing and assessment after execution. Knowing how a weapon performed against a target certainly remains important, especially before approaching other aspects of assessment. However, to avoid the traditional BDA paradigm when considering the friendly action, commanders and their staffs should look at all aspects of the OODA process, paying close attention to timelines. Criteria for operational assessment may include logistical, coordination, and C2 aspects. Most importantly, commanders should identify both the amount of time they spent on deciding to strike and any causes of delay.

An air strike will likely cause the insurgent network to react by adapting in some fashion to the loss of a critical element or node. We cannot easily anticipate how or when this adaptation will occur, but our counterinsurgency forces should attempt to observe and understand it. Posturing ISR before, during, and after the strike can assist in this process. Again, analysts should not limit this effort to BDA but watch how the other links and nodes adjust over time. Noting how quickly the adversary replaces these leaders or other critical nodes will provide insight into the adaptability of the insurgency.

A successful air strike can cause insurgents to change their emphasis on certain traits, decentralize their leadership, or expand their operations in order to become more survivable. Writing in 1929 about his experiences fighting “bandits” in Nicaragua, Marine Corps aviation pioneer Rusty Rowell said, “Occasionally the enemy may establish a large stronghold that would be a suitable target for bombardment. It is certain, however, that he would never make that mistake twice.”³⁸

Targeting planners must constantly watch for changing links and nodes of an insurgent network and avoid reductionist approaches in their targeting methods. Of course, the insurgents may not adapt at all, especially if a high-tempo counterinsurgency operation does not allow them time to do so. Not all insurgencies have proven as adaptable as the current ones in Iraq and Afghanistan, but counterinsurgency forces should always assume they are until they conduct a thorough assessment.

A very adaptive insurgent network will react to air strikes by quickly dispersing and integrating into the population. Assessing the population’s response can help determine the success of insurgents at adapting. We must observe how the population may have shifted in its support of the insurgents or the government after an air strike. Most importantly, we must understand the impact of collateral damage.

For either political or practical reasons, the United States has avoided incorporating civilian casualties into its assessment processes.³⁹ This seems logical in large wars, but in small wars counterinsurgency forces need this information if they want to prevent insurgents from gaining further support of the population. Heavy reliance on airpower, as in Afghanistan, will inevitably lead to (real or perceived) collateral damage and can quickly undermine a government.⁴⁰ If such damage occurs, counterinsurgency forces need to be on the ground, assessing the facts to challenge false claims of the insurgents and addressing the needs of the victims. Although extremely difficult, this mission has proven successful in rebuilding relationships with people whom we otherwise would have lost to the insurgent cause.⁴¹

Without a vigorous attempt at assessment, commanders can find themselves caught in the trap of attrition warfare—something not feasible for the United States in counterinsurgency campaigns. During the buildup to the second battle of Fallujah in late 2004, we used airpower repeatedly to strike insurgent safe houses throughout the city. The strikes began in June 2004 and steadily increased over the next several months. Although Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez, the outgoing commander of the joint task force in Iraq, believed in July 2004 that only massive force, not precision strikes, could win in Fallujah—a politically unacceptable concept at the time—the strikes continued.⁴² Since we had no forces on the ground in the city, we could conduct only traditional BDA. The insurgents continued to tighten their grip on Fallujah and its population during this time. In Fallujah’s dense urban environment, collateral damage occurred frequently. Rather than dissuading the insurgents, the air strikes created a sense of paranoia. The insurgents responded to this situation by executing civilians as well as increasing their concealment and dispersal efforts to avoid air strikes.⁴³ Although the strikes took out several insurgent targets, they generally proved ineffective in achieving lasting results that made a difference to the marines who attacked the city in November 2004.

Understanding the limitations of traditional BDA, the Air Force has adopted a new, comprehensive approach to assessment in AFDD 2-1.9 that goes beyond the tactical level. The doctrine even recognizes the challenges of assessment in counterinsurgencies by stating that “these operations will require analytical skills ranging far beyond weapons effects into political, socio-economic, cultural-ideological, psychological and international arenas. It will also require coordination with analytical and academic centers outside the [Department of Defense].”⁴⁴ Unfortunately, the discussion stops there, and despite the attempt to distance itself from traditional BDA, the US military has found it difficult to move on.

Conclusion

Although kinetic operations alone will not win the war, they can slow down or suppress the insurgency while political efforts gain strength and momentum. Thus, we should make combat operations persistent enough to eliminate insurgents’ critical nodes and elements faster than they can replace them.⁴⁵ Airpower can play an important role in this effort through dynamic targeting; however, we have often employed it in these operations without understanding the consequences of incorrect planning, execution, or assessment. We tend to call on airpower hastily in an effort to take out the bad guys we see on a Predator’s video feed. Commanders and their staffs should resist the temptation to do something simply because they can. They first need to determine if they are hitting the right target in the correct manner and if they have postured themselves to learn from their effort so they can adapt faster than the enemy.

They could do this more effectively if the US military implemented the following proposals. First, targeting is a joint process, yet no comprehensive joint doctrine exists for conducting it in a counterinsurgency. Because of the lengthy timeline for updating joint doctrine, the Air Land Sea Application Center should develop multiservice tactics, techniques, and procedures for targeting time-sensitive targets specific to counterinsurgency in the short term; it should focus on C2 processes to speed up decision making; and, recognizing that the air strike is just the beginning of the engagement, it should concentrate on flexible tactics to engage fleeing targets and on efforts to conduct a comprehensive assessment.

Second, we should provide targeteers the tools and education they need to make effects-based weaponeering predictions in counterinsurgency environments. The Joint Technical Coordinating Group for Munitions Effectiveness should update weaponeering models with regional information that includes typical residential structures as well as other potential insurgent facilities and provide a tool that calculates probabilities of killing the personnel inside these structures. Until we develop these tools, the Air Force should design a short targeting top-off course that can educate targeteers deploying into theater on the art of killing insurgents with the multitude of weapons now available. It should also teach them to balance the requirements of avoiding collateral damage, becoming aware of the population and its culture, and making assessments.

Finally, our forces need to understand what the insurgents value and determine whether or not kinetic airpower can affect it without alienating the local population. The solution to this complicated problem requires input from several disparate groups, many of them isolated from each other in both doctrine and practice. They include air component strategists, planners, targeteers, and ISR personnel as well as human-intelligence experts, counterterrorist/counterinsurgent analysts, and ground forces. Such a problem requires the kind of constant discourse that personal, face-to-face relationships can promote. This currently exists in the air support operations group (ASOG) construct, but its staff does not have the manning, experience, or expertise to serve as all-encompassing airpower advocates.46 In order to achieve the kind of relationships and decentralized execution of dynamic targeting described in this article, the air component should establish robust planning and targeting nodes at the level of an Army division, piggybacking on the ASOG organization. We should staff these nodes with graduates of the USAF Weapons School, targeteers, and ISR experts who could develop the kinds of relationships needed for comprehensive planning, decentralized execution, and thorough assessment.

1. Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 2-1.9, Targeting, 8 June 2006, 114, https://www.doctrine.af.mil/afdc
privateweb/AFDD_Page_HTML/Doctrine_Docs/afdd 2-1-%209.pdf.

2. James S. Corum and Wray R. Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars: Fighting Insurgents and Terrorists (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003), 428–30.

3. Field Manual (FM) 3-24 / Marine Corps Warfighting Publication (MCWP) 3-33.5, Counterinsurgency, December 2006, 4-7, http://usacac.army.mil/cac/repository/materials/coin-fm3-24.pdf.

4. David S. Cloud, “The Reach of War: U.S. Airstrikes on Increase to Aid NATO in Afghanistan,” New York Times, 17 November 2006.

6. These include the AGM-114P Hellfire missiles, the 250-pound GBU-39 small-diameter bomb, or the venerable AC-130 gunship with its suite of direct-fire cannons.

7. Benjamin Lambeth, Air Power against Terror: America’s Conduct of Operation Enduring Freedom (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2005), 350.

8. Senator John McCain defines “whack a mole” in the context of Iraq. “Transcript for Aug. 20: John McCain, Barry McCaffrey, Vali Nasr, John Harwood,” Meet the Press, 20 August 2006, http://www.msnbc.msn.com /id/14390980 (accessed 20 February 2007).

9. Commanders and planners who influence and/or direct dynamic targeting in counterinsurgency operations are often located in multiple components at the operational or tactical level—or both. This article does not argue for specific command relationships in these situations, but it does argue for the importance of effective collaboration. It also does not explore which level—operational or tactical—is more appropriate to conduct these operations. Overall, we must often carry out many functions at the operational level, but commanders should delegate as many of them as practical to the tactical level in order to attain the necessary operational tempo needed to fight insurgents.

11. Thomas X. Hammes, “The Evolution of War: The Fourth Generation,” Marine Corps Gazette 78, no. 9 (September 1994): 37.

12. Jeffrey White, An Adaptive Insurgency: Confronting Adversary Networks in Iraq, Policy Focus no. 58 (Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2006), 2–3, http://www.washingtoninstitute. org/templateC04.php?CID=249 (accessed 20 February 2007).

15. Martin J. Muckian, “Structural Vulnerabilities of Networked Insurgencies: Adapting to the New Adversary,” Parameters 36, no. 4 (Winter 2006–7): 19, http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ usawc/Parameters/06winter /muckian.pdf.

16. Christopher M. Ford, “Speak No Evil: Targeting a Population’s Neutrality to Defeat an Insurgency,” Parameters 35, no. 2 (Summer 2005): 53, http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/ Parameters/05summer/ ford.pdf.

17. Anthony H. Cordesman, “Preliminary ‘Lessons’ of the Israeli-Hezbollah War,” working draft (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2006), 2–23, http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/ 060911_isr_hez_lessons.pdf (accessed 20 February 2007).

18. Jason Keyser, “Snipers Keep Fallujah under Shroud of Terror,” San Diego Union-Tribune, 19 April 2004, http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040419/news_1n19snipers.html (accessed 20 February 2007).

19. Rebecca Grant, “The Bekaa Valley War,” Air Force Magazine 85, no. 6 (June 2002): 58–62, http://www.afa.org/magazine/june2002/0602bekaa.pdf.

20. Grant T. Hammond, The Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001), 15.

21. Barry D. Watts, Clausewitzian Friction and Future War, McNair Paper no. 52 (Washington, DC: Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, October 1996), http://www.ndu.edu/inss/McNair/
mcnair52/mcnair52.pdf (accessed 20 February 2007).

22. R. H. Peck, “Aircraft in Small Wars,” Journal of the Royal United Services Institution 73, no. 491 (August 1928): 537.

24. Adam J. Hebert, “Building Battlespace Awareness,” Air Force Magazine, 87 no. 9 (September 2004): 66–71, http://www.afa.org/magazine/sept2004/0904Isr.pdf (accessed 21 February 2007).

26. The manual mentions neither insurgencies nor small wars. Many techniques recommended in the document to aid in decision making such as time-sensitive-targeting matrixes and lists are infeasible due to the changing and ambiguous nature of insurgent targets. See FM 3-60.1, Multi-Service Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Targeting Time-Sensitive Targets, 20 April 2004.

28. US forces decided not to strike a group of over 100 members of the Taliban, including several high-value targets, because of their location in a cemetery, considered a “culturally sensitive area.” Yet, they bombed the house where Zarqawi was hiding even though the other occupants were unknown (three women died in the air strike). See NBC News and News Services, “U.S. Passes Up Chance to Strike Taliban,” 13 September 2006, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14823099 (accessed 21 February 2007).

29. During multiple dynamic-targeting operations, the author has seen insurgents crawl out of half-destroyed buildings and others move away seconds before impact, escaping certain death.

30. For the definition of “weaponeering,” see Joint Publication 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, 12 April 2001 (as amended through 13 June 2007), 579, http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/new_pubs/jp1_02.pdf.

31. Counterinsurgency forces may develop a bias toward smaller munitions such as the AGM-114 Hellfire or the GBU-39 small-diameter bomb, which limit collateral damage but may not pack enough punch to obtain desired effects in certain scenarios.

32. According to Maj Kasandra Traweek, USAF, PhD, a “field collateral damage estimation” is an alternative occasionally available to tactical-level commanders when they can determine with available resources that the estimation is mitigated in accordance with the rules of engagement. Major Traweek, to author, e-mail, 19 February 2007. One option calls for allowing aircraft to derive their own “Joint Direct Attack Munition–quality coordinates,” currently possible with advanced targeting pods. See Lockheed Martin, “Sniper: The World’s Most Advanced Targeting Pod,” 2005, http://www.lockheedmartin.com/data/assets/7820.pdf (accessed 21 February 2007).

34. Sean D. Naylor, “Inside the Zarqawi Takedown: Persistent Surveillance Helps End 3-Year Manhunt,” DefenseNews.com, 12 June 2006, http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=1861193&C=landwar (accessed 17 February 2007).

35. Lt Col John T. Rauch Jr., “Assessing Airpower’s Effects: Capabilities and Limitations of Real-Time Battle Damage Assessment” (thesis, School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Maxwell AFB, AL, 2004), passim, http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/aul/aupress/saas_Theses/Rauch/Rauch.pdf (accessed 21 February 2007).

37. Maj Lee K. Grubbs and Maj Michael J. Forsyth, “Is There a Deep Fight in a Counterinsurgency?” Military Review 85, no. 4 (July–August 2005): 29, http://calldp.leavenworth.army.mil/eng_mr/
2006080808030243 /2005/Jul_Aug/06grubbs.pdf#xml=/scripts/cqcgi.exe/@ss_prod.env?CQ_ SESSION_KEY=WVYLNZTSQ FEQ&CQ_QH=125432&CQDC=5&CQ_PDF_HIGHLIGHT=YES& CQ_ CUR_ DOCUMENT=1.

38. Ross E. “Rusty” Rowell, “Aircraft in Bush Warfare,” Marine Corps Gazette 14, no. 3 (September 1929): 186.

39. Mark Garlasco, interviewed for “What’s in a Number?” This American Life, WBEZ Chicago, 28 October 2005.

40. Rachel Morarjee, “Air War Costs NATO Afghan Supporters,” Christian Science Monitor, 18 December 2006, http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1218/p01s02-wosc.html (accessed 20 February 2007).

41. CPT Ryan Gist, USA, interviewed for “What’s in a Number?” This American Life, WBEZ Chicago, 28 October 2005.

42. Bing West, No True Glory: A Frontline Account of the Battle for Fallujah (New York: Bantam Books, 2005), 234.

46. The ASOG has tactical air control parties throughout the Army corps structure, consisting of air liaison officers (ALO) and/or enlisted joint terminal attack controllers (JTAC) whose primary expertise is close air support (CAS). Dynamic targeting in counterinsurgency is being mistakenly used as a form of CAS because of the nonlinear nature of the battlefield, thus placing a considerable burden on the ALOs and JTACs to provide more sophisticated targeting advice than their area of expertise normally requires. To better understand the new roles expected of ALOs and JTACs in counterinsurgency, see Col Howard D. Belote, “Counterinsurgency Airpower: Air-Ground Integration for the Long War,” Air and Space Power Journal 20, no. 3 (Fall 2006): 55–64, http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj06/fal06/Fal06.pdf.

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