PIREP - The Paradox of Irregular Airpower

Editor’s Note: PIREP is aviation shorthand for pilot report. It’s a means for one pilot to pass on current, potentially useful information to other pilots. In the same fashion, we use this department to let readers know about items of interest.

The United States Air Force entered the twenty-first century as the most capable purveyor of airpower in history. Following the success of the air campaign in Operation Desert Storm, airpower seemed likely to become a dominant force in all future conflicts.¹ Yet, recent operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have called that assertion into question. Today, technologically superior air assets face significant challenges in engaging dispersed and oftentimes unseen opponents. The Department of Defense has directed the creation of an “irregular warfare” capability to operate within the scope of contemporary conflict.² The Air Force must determine how modern airpower can successfully engage an irregular opponent.

One finds a paradox inherent in conceptualizing irregular airpower. Modern airpower relies upon using complex weapons systems to precisely engage designated objectives to produce effects; in short, it literally involves hitting the bull’s-eye. In contrast, irregular warfare pertains to operations against nonstate actors and opponents that blur the distinction between combatants and innocents. This type of warfare involves finding the bull’s-eye. This article argues that whereas technologically advanced airpower fosters an inwardly focused perspective of optimizing weapons-system operation to achieve objectives, the challenges of irregular warfare require an outwardly focused perspective that seeks to engage the very definition of an opponent’s existence. The paradox lies in combining these two contradictory concepts into an integrated perspective of irregular airpower.

Defining Irregular Warfare

To conceptualize irregular airpower, one must first examine irregular warfare as a whole. According to the Quadrennial Defense Review Report of 2006, “Irregular warfare has emerged as the dominant form of warfare confronting the United States, its allies and its partners; accordingly, guidance must account for distributed, long-duration operations, including unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and stabilization and reconstruction operations.”³ The report’s mandate to foster an irregular-warfare capability defines this type of conflict as “operations in which the enemy is not a regular military force of a nation-state.”⁴ Thus, irregular warfare exists as a certain definition only inasmuch as it resides outside the “conventions” of conventional warfare. Irregular opponents, as seen in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, utilize guerrilla warfare, insurgency, and terrorism to engage American and allied forces.⁵ A review of related terms and their definitions will facilitate a discussion of irregular warfare:

Though these terms exist as valid, independent concepts, they contain inherent commonalities that define the basic premise of irregular warfare: a struggle for control of an established population, by coercion and/or support, in a specified area—be it a nation or an otherwise defined geopolitical region. When describing such warfare as a fundamental struggle for control, and thus for existence, one must realize that its military dimension exists as part of the whole conflict, not as a sole definition. As stated by a former staff member of the US Commission on National Security, “One of the few areas of consensus among military analysts is that we are sure to see the further blurring of warfare categories.”⁷ Irregular warfare is more than an operational methodology; it is a perspective of conflict as a whole.

How then does such warfare differ from a conventional perspective? Political-military theorist Edward Luttwak has explored the contrasting relationship between the two views, contending that the essence of armed conflict consists of two distinct concepts: attrition and relational maneuver.⁸ By definition, a force that uses attrition seeks to defeat an opponent by means of its numerical or qualitative superiority. It follows that an attrition-oriented force will strive to maximize its internal administration and procedures in order to most efficiently conduct operations on the battlefield. One can consider the perspective of attrition inwardly focused in that it maximizes internal processes and minimizes adaptation to external factors because any large-scale modifications will hamper efficiency, decrease force advantage, and increase risk.⁹

In contrast, relational maneuver espouses adaptive capabilities in response to the external environment. Since a force reliant on relational maneuver has insufficient resources to prevail in direct armed confrontation with the enemy, it must instead strive to modify its capabilities within the operational context, exploiting any weaknesses the environment imposes upon the opponent. The concept of relational maneuver is inherently innovative in fostering an adaptive structure. One can consider such maneuver outwardly focused in the endeavor to ascertain the opponent’s weaknesses within the environment. Forces postured in this manner then adapt their own capabilities to compensate for quantitative inferiority.¹⁰

Though all armed forces incorporate elements of attrition and relational maneuver, the extent to which they favor one or the other is driven largely by their societal context. Powerful nations, such as the United States, gravitate towards the attrition end of the spectrum simply because they have the resources to engage in open battle with an opponent. Lesser opponents, including insurgents and terrorists, favor relational maneuver because they cannot afford to engage the enemy on the open battlefield.¹¹ Instead, they must engage the larger foe indirectly and strike where least expected, using methods that exist outside conventional military operations. Irregular opponents, whether guerrillas, insurgents, or terrorists, don’t fight unconventionally because they want to but because to do so conventionally would literally lead to self-destruction.

Applying the concepts of attrition and relational maneuver to a spectrum of conflict intensity illustrates the advantages of relational maneuver in irregular warfare. As war becomes less “intense,” the number of fielded forces declines, thereby making targets less defined, more dispersed, and harder to quantify.¹² The chances of decisively employing superior firepower become increasingly remote, while the enemy’s opportunities to exploit the structural weaknesses of the established authority become more pronounced. As the nature of the conflict trends away from conventional warfare, the advantage continuously shifts towards the irregular opponent, for “not even the most accurate of our precision-guided munitions can be aimed at an atmosphere of terror or at a climate of subversion.”¹³

It would appear that conducting a different form of warfare is a simple matter of adaptation. Yet, historically, this has not been the case, as demonstrated by an initially rigid adherence to internalized perspectives of American airpower during operations in Vietnam. “Following independence in 1947, U.S. Air Force leaders inculcated what amounted to an absolute model of airpower in warfare. . . . But in their new orthodoxy, American airmen resisted any adaptation of the central tenets of airpower theory as they understood it in order to respond to novel demands, such as limited and guerrilla war.”¹⁴ A conventional, attrition-minded organization requires an inwardly focused perspective that incorporates complex structures to optimize processes and efficiencies. Such structures inherently inhibit innovation because the latter leads to change, which in turn challenges the fundamental premises of the organizational structure itself.¹⁵ The same logic that limits innovation in complex structures applies to complex technologies, a large measure of which defines Air Force capabilities. The very nature of technologically superior assets requires an inwardly focused operator. That nature exists in contrast to the outwardly focused perspective of irregular warfare.

Exploring Modern Airpower

The Air Force has taken significant steps to orient its posture in view of dynamic developments in world affairs. The service’s foundational doctrine illustrates the evolution of airpower doctrine over the past 60 years: “The ‘American way of war’ has long been described as warfare based on either a strategy of annihilation or of attrition and focused on engaging the enemy in close combat to achieve a decisive battle. Air and space power, if properly focused, offers our national leadership alternatives to the annihilation and attrition options.”¹⁶ The evolution of doctrine serves to shape the airpower perspective of the men and women in the Air Force. Given the shifting nature of modern conflict towards the arena of irregular warfare, what then are the relevant characteristics of the modern military aviator?

The concept of “airmanship” allows aviators to go beyond simply flying an aircraft to effectively employing it towards a desired objective. A multifaceted idea, airmanship combines cognitive and physical skills in a fundamentally alien (people don’t have wings) environment. As both a personal quality and an acquired ability, airmanship can be defined as

One can assume that any military professional needs “good judgment” as well as “skill acquisition and proficiency.” Though these concepts have specific applications when it comes to operating aircraft, the term flight discipline is unique to the aviator and plays an important role in the context of modern airpower.

Flight discipline consists of vigilance in complying with an aircraft’s flight characteristics, operating limits, and the acceptable flight envelope. The aviator applies it through self-awareness and reinforces it by compliance with operational and regulatory policy.¹⁸ These variables are particularly applicable in their relationship to the successful operation of modern, technologically advanced aircraft. Complex systems require complex methods, and the aircrew checklist serves as an easily recognizable example of procedural methodology. During the raid on the Son Tay prison camp in North Vietnam on 21 November 1970, “out of necessity, [the pilots] had developed a comprehensive, one-of-a-kind raid checklist. By running it airborne, [they] made sure all the aircraft systems and equipment were properly set, functioning, and available for instant use any time during the flight’s demanding needs.”¹⁹ The more complex and advanced the aircraft and missions, the more structured and methodical the associated operational procedures.

Aviators are inwardly focused on optimizing aircraft performance to accomplish a particular mission. The successful conduct of irregular warfare requires an outward focus to allow adaptation to the operating environment. The United States in particular has an illustrative background in applying airpower in an irregular context. As previously mentioned, at the outset of US involvement in Southeast Asia during the late 1950s and into the ensuing decades, the focus of American airpower was firmly grounded in a Cold War perspective: the strategic application of strike platforms against a well-defined opponent. “U.S. Air Force thinking about airpower outside of strategic attack was decidedly lacking.”²⁰ Initially, the military services tended to regard the conflict in Vietnam as a conventional war executed on a smaller scale, while retaining traditional means of weapons employment.

Those same means faced significant challenges in the irregular arena, “where the unique juxtaposition of political and operational constraints invariably plays a major role in the application of airpower.”²¹ The protracted nature of the Vietnam War allowed for graduated efforts to realign airpower employment in response to developments on the battlefield. The predisposition to rely on strategic bombing to force the North into submission was in part supplanted by focused tactical applications of close air support and interdiction operations, both within South Vietnam and along the border with Laos and Cambodia. To the extent that efforts of individual Airmen allowed for adaptation to the battlespace, those aviators succeeded and overcame an inherent “checklist mentality.” Yet, such adjustments proved varied and localized; still absent was a servicewide “agreement on how airpower was to be employed, its relationship to other instruments of counter-insurgency, and what practical steps were necessary for airpower to contribute to ultimate victory.”²² This situation produced the paradox (which still exists) identified at the outset of this article: the elusive integration of the contradictory variables of modern airpower and irregular warfare.

Similar challenges face the combat aviator in current conflicts. Adaptive mission employment in Iraq includes the use of fighter aircraft for nontraditional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance while operating in conjunction and communication with ground units.²³ Yet, the term nontraditional does not equate to irregular. Air operations continue to focus on optimized systems employment to better accomplish the detection, tracking, and destruction of opposition forces. The means of employing airpower may be adaptive, yet the underlying perspective remains internally focused. We need to understand that irregular warfare, and airpower by association, differs fundamentally from conventional operations.

Beyond the Paradox

In common usage, one associates the term situational awareness (SA) with an understanding of one’s surroundings. In flying, SA concerns the extent to which an aviator can process outside information while maintaining routine tasks necessary for continued flight. Aviation literature suggests that “the most important aspect of understanding situational awareness . . . is the list of steps to take to safely return home in the event of an episode of lost SA.”²⁴ According to this definition, SA exists primarily as a feedback process to correct flight deviations. Yet, one can also expand the concept to ensure compliance with an entire operational context:

In highlighting how people function within an environment, these remarks describe how SA applies to the irregular-warfare perspective. They come not from literature on irregular warfare but from a definition of the flying instinct discussed in Wolfgang Langewiesche’s Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying, published in 1944. Clearly, then, the expanded role of SA as encompassing more than the immediate vicinity of an aircraft is not a novel concept. One can enhance SA to allow for an irregular-warfare perspective in modern airpower.

Fostering an expanded definition of SA is not as simple as adding a few checklist items in combat aviation. Doing so would negate the fundamental premise of irregular airpower as a conceptual perspective, as opposed to another step in a set of tasks to be accomplished in order to employ air assets successfully. The process of cultivating SA and airmanship in an irregular-warfare context must continuously occur during a military aviator’s career. It lies beyond the scope of this article to prescribe a systemic process for creating irregular airpower, not to mention an “irregular Air Force.” Nor is such an outcome desirable because the creation of a new capability does not automatically negate the requirement for an established one. Yet, ongoing operations in the global war on terrorism have demonstrated that the Air Force faces future challenges within itself, particularly in the arena of irregular warfare. Two basic concepts serve to instill a perspective of irregular airpower within the Air Force.

First, the foundation of irregular airpower must remain firmly grounded in aeronautical proficiency. Regardless of how well one conceives an irregular perspective, any iteration of irregular airpower will fail unless Airmen can effectively operate their equipment. The focus of training is the operation of modern weapons systems; aircrews must have familiarity not only with the aircraft themselves but also with the technological capabilities that define those assets. The modern aviator must also be familiar with the operating environment. To that extent, there really is “no substitute for being there.” Multilateral exercises, overseas deployments, and foreign-exchange assignments all offer Airmen the exposure necessary to expand an operational perspective from theoretical boundaries to the realities of the global environment.

The second concept rests upon effectively educating the aviator. To conduct irregular warfare, the modern aviator must be able to perceive actions and operations within the overall context of conflict. Such knowledge results from an education that includes regional studies, analysis of historical uses of airpower in irregular conflict, and exposure to sociopolitical debates that define today’s dynamic global arena. Education in the varied context that defines modern conflict allows the military aviator to optimally assess those contingencies for which training alone cannot prescribe a solution. Knowledge of the underlying “why” of a situation will allow the successful application of “how” in unforeseen circumstances.²⁶

Ongoing efforts in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom have demonstrated a need for all aspects of airpower in combating irregular opponents. “Hitting the bull’s-eye” first requires being able to find it. Within the prevailing era of asymmetric engagements and elusive adversaries, finding the opposition necessitates an understanding of what defines it. Modern airpower requires an inward focus to operate technologically advanced air and space assets, but irregular warfare calls for an outward perspective that identifies the true nature of an irregular opponent. The paradox of irregular airpower requires today’s Air Force to expand its horizons beyond the instrument panel if it wishes to successfully engage the enemies of tomorrow.

1. “Summary: The Future of the U.S. Air Force” (see “Panel One: The Air Force in U.S. Military Strategy”), American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 11 October 2005, http://www.aei.org/events/filter.,eventID .1153/summary.asp (accessed 1 February 2007).

2. See Quadrennial Defense Review Report (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 6 February 2006), http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/dod/qdr-2006-report.pdf.

4. Ibid., 11. The Department of Defense is currently developing an irregular-warfare joint operating concept that further defines the term. One should note that the underlying premise of the document is descriptive, rather than prescriptive, in nature.

6. Joint Publication 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, 12 April 2001 (as amended through 5 January 2007), 229, 263, 558. Though the term UW serves to illustrate the concept of irregular warfare (IW), UW does not equal IW. UW is waged by support of an indigenous force; IW includes UW and counterinsurgency as an overall form of conflict.

7. Frank G. Hoffman, “Complex Irregular Warfare: The Next Revolution in Military Affairs,” Orbis 50, no. 3 (Summer 2006): 398, http://www.fpri.org/orbis/5003/hoffman.complexirregularwarfare.pdf.

8. Edward N. Luttwak, “Notes on Low-Intensity Warfare,” in Dimensions of Military Strategy, ed. George E. Thibault (Washington, DC: National Defense University, 1987), 336.

9. Ibid. Perhaps the ultimate expression of “attrition” warfare occurred on the western front in World War I. This conflict involved several “advanced” technologies, including the first large-scale uses of machine guns, self-propelled armor, and the submarine.

10. Ibid., 337. The extent to which technological advantage substitutes for quantitative superiority is in this case a moot point since the opponent, dependent upon relational maneuver, is likely to have neither.

14. James S. Corum and Wray R. Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars: Fighting Insurgents and Terrorists (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003), 270.

15. Hy S. Rothstein, Afghanistan and the Troubled Future of Unconventional Warfare (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2006), 3.

16. Air Force Doctrine Document 1, Air Force Basic Doctrine, 17 November 2003, ix, https://www.doctrine.af.mil/afdcprivateweb/AFDD_Page_HTML/Doctrine_Docs/afdd1.pdf.

17. Tony Kern, Darker Shades of Blue: The Rogue Pilot (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999), 212, fig. 11-1.

18. Louise Ebbage and Phil D. Spencer, Airmanship Training for Modern Aircrew (Bristol, UK: BAE Systems Advanced Technology Centre, 2004), 6, http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?&verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA428471 (see “handle/proxy URL”) (accessed 14 March 2007).

19. William A. Guenon Jr., Secret and Dangerous: Night of the Son Tay POW Raid (Framingham, MA: Freedom Digital Printing, 2002), 31.

23. John A. Tirpak, “Eyes of the Fighter,” Air Force Magazine 89, no. 1 (January 2006): 40–44, http://www.afa .org/magazine/Jan2006/0106fighters.pdf.

25. Wolfgang Langewiesche, Stick and Rudder: An Explanation of the Art of Flying (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1944), 72.

26. US Senate Committee on Appropriations, Defense Subcommittee Hearing on FY05 Army Budget: Testimony of the Honorable R. L. Brownlee, Acting Secretary of the Army, and General Peter J. Schoomaker, Chief of Staff, Department of the Army, 108th Cong., 2d sess., 3 March 2004, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/2004_hr/040303-brownlee-schoomaker.htm (accessed 14 March 2007).

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