Published Airpower Journal - Fall 1997
Officers of the army are apt in general to write like kitchen maids.
—Lord Palmersto
OUR HERITAGE WAS written by heroes, both sung and unsung. We honor them with our clichés, but they deserve much more. They deserve to be remembered as they were—with their humanity intact, so we can appreciate their triumphs even more. Their humanity led to mistakes, some of monumental proportions, but they triumphed over all. Briefly then, this is their story.
We trace our heritage to the Wright brothers—Orville and Wilbur—who began this symbiosis of man and machine. Others, such as Octave Chanute and Samuel Langley, were oh-so-close but missed the acclaim. Few people recognized the military potential of this technological wonder. The Army’s first permanently assigned pilot was Lt Benjamin Foulois, who learned to fly by correspondence with the Wrights. The mission was reconnaissance, although there were early experiments with machine guns. The fledgling 1st Aero Squadron’s initial tactical tasking was to support Gen John “Black Jack” Pershing’s expedition to Mexico. Foulois was in command of 10 pilots, 84 enlisted men, and eight planes. Operating in the high winds of the mountain passes of northern Mexico, the squadron’s handful of battered JN-1 Jennies never had a chance.
Our first heroes were those daring young men in their flying machines of World War I. The camaraderie of unarmed reconnaissance planes on both sides quickly gave way to pistol shots and handheld bombs. Edward “Eddie” Rickenbacker captured the imagination of the nation, becoming our ace of aces. Raoul Lufbery and Frank Luke, the “Arizona Balloon Buster,” also made headlines with their daring exploits. But the public’s romance with open cockpits, leather helmets, and silk scarves became the airmen’s reality of bitter cold, unreliable engines, and no parachutes. In spite of the hardships, soaring above the earth produced an almost indescribable feeling—captured by a young airman at the beginning of the next war in words yet to be surpassed: “Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth/and danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings. . . ./put out my hand, and touched the face of God.”
After the war to end all wars, the country returned to isolationism, and the military returned to the back burner. From the beginning, airmen recognized the need for an independent air arm. After the war, their quest began in earnest. William “Billy” Mitchell was their outspoken advocate, and his vehicle was publicity. Mitchell challenged the Army and Navy on their most cherished doctrines and beat them at their own game. He sank the captured German battleship Ostfriesland after the Navy said it couldn’t be done. Mitchell’s combative nature and refusal to compromise eventually brought matters to a head, and he sacrificed his career in the battle for an independent air arm.
While Mitchell literally assaulted the system, another man worked from within to consolidate what few gains were made. Maj Gen Mason Patrick was appointed chief of the Air Service to bring discipline to the free-spirited flyers. Instead, he quickly earned his wings and adopted their cause. Patrick was a West Point classmate of General Pershing, and his credibility with the Army and Congress was such that they at least had to listen to these new ideas.
Meanwhile, young men such as Frank Andrews, Henry “Hap” Arnold, and Ira Eaker “expanded the envelope” by flying higher, farther, and faster in a never-ending quest for increased capabilities. They experienced both failure (flying the mail) and success (Carl “Tooey” Spaatz setting an endurance record in the Question Mark). The theories of Mitchell and other airpower advocates at the Air Corps Tactical School evolved into the dogma of unescorted daylight precision bombing conducted by “battleships of the air,” even though we had no such battleships. This concept, espousing as it did an independent mission, dovetailed neatly with the drive for an independent service. By 1934 the concept was reality, as the XB-17 set speed and endurance records, outstripping any pursuit aircraft then possessed by the United States. When the B-17 survived the doctrinal fight with the Army and the funding fight with Congress, most airmen felt that the next war would be won from the air. At the same time, Claire Chennault remained a voice crying in the wilderness for the development of long-range fighter escorts.
War began again, but before we could put theory into practice, production had to catch up. The United States found itself unprepared, as always, and Britain would stand alone for many months before we made a significant contribution.
In 1943 the fledgling Eighth Air Force sent its first B-17s to England and made its first bombing raid just across the English Channel to Rouen, France. The effort grew until it seemed Britain would surely sink under the weight of American men and materiel. In the North African campaign, the Army took one more shot at letting ground commanders control tactical air support. It didn’t work—airmen had won. At last, they were independent in fact, if not in name. Unbearable losses at Ploesti, Schweinfurt, and Regensburg drove home the great doctrinal error of unaccompanied bombers. The British advocated nighttime area bombing, but we waited for long-range escorts to continue the task. At first we had only P-47s with cardboard drop tanks—quickly replaced by metal tanks—but then came the magnificent P-51. Round-the-clock bombing ensued, and raids by a thousand bombers on Cologne and Dresden caused firestorms and tens of thousands of civilian deaths—a portent of things to come.
The Pacific war began on a shoestring, defending the lines of communication between Hawaii and Australia. “Germany first” insured that the European theater got first crack at the B-17s, B-25s, and B-26s coming off the assembly lines in ever-increasing numbers. Japanese Zeros, which could outmaneuver anything the United States had to offer, shot American chauvinism from the skies. James “Jimmy” Doolittle and an intrepid band lifted B-25s from the pitching deck of the carrier Hornet and struck Tokyo. The physical damage to the Japanese was negligible, but the psychological damage proved incalculable. The first piece of real estate wrested from the Japanese was Guadalcanal, and the Air Force followed the Marines to the island. Daily missions and nightly bombardments from Japanese ships coming down the “Slot” soon wore our planes, pilots, and ground crews to the bone. The effort expanded, and soon George Kenney’s Fifth Air Force became an integral part of Douglas MacArthur’s island-hopping campaign.
Strategic bombardment played its role in the Pacific as well as in Europe. Twentieth Air Force began inauspiciously, flying missions from China, using B-17s to fly fuel from India to China, and then returning to ferry the bombs over. The investment far outweighed the return. After engineers manufactured bases from jungle coral on Guam and Saipan and B-29s arrived fresh from the factories, the effort began in earnest.
Again we adapted doctrine to reality when high-altitude precision bombing proved ineffective. Gen Curtis LeMay initiated low-level incendiary attacks whose firestorms destroyed the hearts of Japanese cities. Waiting in the wings was the 509th Bombardment Group, Col Paul Tibbets, and a very special weapon—one that caused its creator, Robert Oppenheimer, to murmur a line from the Bhagavad Gita: “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
For every famous name—Chennault, LeMay, Richard Bong—there were millions more who were not famous. The courage of the nation was boundless and took many forms: flying a straight-and-level bomb run into the teeth of German flak, scrambling fighters against overwhelming odds over Port Moresby, and nursing unarmed “Gooney Birds” over the “Hump.” The scenes in the movie Twelve O’Clock High say it all—ground crews working all night and silently waiting all day to count the Flying Fortresses as they landed. Hap Arnold bought hundreds of B-29s before the test model was ever flown. “Rosie the Riveter” sent her man off to war and then built the planes he flew—and Jacqueline “Jackie” Cochran and the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots flew them where they were needed. Innovation became the hallmark of the day, from scientists on the Manhattan Project, to developers of the Norden bombsight; from ground crews who put so many guns on a B-26 that it became an A-26, to people who used a railroad rail to repair a broken main spar in a B-17; from aircrews who countered new enemy tactics and capabilities as they arose, to a crew who used salad oil as an engine lubricant to bring a stricken C-47 home.
Inevitably, the weight of numbers issuing from the “arsenal of democracy” overwhelmed the battered enemies, and demobilization couldn’t happen fast enough to suit Americans. Millions came home, while thoughtful people, in and out of government, pondered the changes wrought at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For airmen, fact became reality when the Air Force became an independent service at last. In 1948 people who were our enemies three years earlier became allies, and vice versa, as the Soviets cut off Berlin from the outside world. “LeMay’s Coal and Feed Company” supplied the city as Gen William Tunner organized “Operation Vittles”—airlift on an unprecedented scale. C-47s and C-54s took off every three minutes, flying with five hundred feet of vertical separation through some of the worst weather imaginable. A lieutenant named Halverson dropped candy on miniature parachutes to children at the end of the runway. Men died in peacetime, but the blockade was broken—the fledgling Air Force had its first triumph and first lessons learned.
When North Korea invaded South Korea in 1950, we were as unprepared as ever. The United Nations “police action” was a war by any other name, and the United States had the leading role. The Air Force counted as its missions interdiction, close air support, and air superiority. The aerial duel became higher, farther, and faster as jet fighters entered the combat arena. F-86s amassed a 15-to-one kill ratio against Chinese MiG-15s, whose only recourse was flight across the Yalu River.
The hot war ended, but the cold one continued. Strategic Air Command came into its own with B-52s on continuous airborne alert, and KC-97s and the new KC-135s provided global capability. Sputnik I launched the space age, and intercontinental ballistic missiles brought terms like mutual assured destruction and strategic deterrence into vogue. As crisis followed crisis—the downing of the U-2 piloted by Francis Gary Powers and the discovery of Russian missiles in Cuba—the people of the world built bomb shelters in their backyards. Charles “Chuck” Yeager broke the sound barrier in a stubby little airplane, and seven young Mercury astronauts became instant heroes.
In contrast to our previous wars, Vietnam sucked us in so gradually we hardly knew it. We conducted the air war against an enemy who was everywhere—and nowhere. The leaders in Washington selected the targets, and operations called Rolling Thunder and Bullet Shot achieved next to nothing. Vietnam became a war of cynics. “Puff the Magic Dragon” killed trucks, and “BUFFs” brought “death from above.” Hanoi became the most heavily defended real estate in the world. Wild Weasels suppressed surface-to-air missiles in front of the strike missions. Linebacker I and II flew B-52s in trail at such regular altitudes and intervals that even the most inept shooters could have downed them. Steve Ritchey, Chuck DeBellevue, and Jeffrey Feinstein became aces. Other airmen became prisoners of war—with no inkling of when the end would come. After enduring unspeakable horrors, men like Robinson Risner and Jeremiah Denton came home with honor and dignity. A captain screamed at his tormentors, “My name is Lance Peter Sijan!” and said no more. We gave him a medal and named a building for him—posthumously.
Peace came, finally. Austerity and the all-volunteer force meant doing more with less. As Vietnam slowly faded into history, the military healed itself and its relationship with the nation. Massive rebuilding followed the lean years—the F-15, F-16, B-1, B-2, F-117, and C-17 entered the inventory, while veterans like the B-52, KC-135, and C-141 continued to fly.
We all rejoiced when the Berlin Wall came down—and turned our attention to lesser bullies. Saddam Hussein decided to test our resolve and found himself facing the full fury of the most capable air force on earth. The Air Force team provided a textbook illustration of “Global Reach, Global Power” in action. Air Mobility Command helped move the equivalent of the city of Abilene—people, household goods, and vehicles—to the desert. After plans came together from Col John Warden’s Checkmate directorate, as well as from Ninth Air Force and the “Black Hole,” Gen Charles “Chuck” Horner and Gen Buster Glosson put them into action. In the end, a hundred-hour ground war followed 40 days of pounding from the air—and the world was astonished at the scope and apparent ease of the victory.
War fighters quickly returned to peacetime duties of unprecedented range, from enforcing no-fly zones, to conducting precision strikes designed to keep the peace, to delivering relief supplies to the far reaches of the globe. We don’t know what the future holds, but we’ll be there—doing the mission.
What, then, do we say of our heritage? What have Foulois, Mitchell, Eaker, Sijan, and those nameless others given us? An ideal? No—they were not ideal; they were imperfect, as we are. They’ve given us a history of hope, courage, and innovation. They’ve given us a heritage to be proud of—to celebrate and live up to. They’ve given us a realization that even though we exist only through technology, the technology is not enough. It takes us—poor, fallible human beings—to make the force a reality. They’ve given us this incongruous joining of flight and its awesome, destructive capabilities. They’ve given us freedom to dream and think—in peace.
Travis AFB, California
The means of destruction are approaching perfection with frightful rapidity.
—Henri de Jomini
“A NEW ERA is upon us. The Cold War is over. The dissolution of the Soviet empire has radically transformed the security environment facing the United States and our allies. Yet there remains a complex array of new and old security challenges America must meet as we approach a new century.”1
These timely words should sound familiar since they are part of the cornerstone of the future national security strategy of the United States, which finds itself in a world that has recently undergone staggering political and military upheaval. No longer is the United States faced with a Soviet threat based on a Fulda Gap scenario or a bolt-out-of-the-blue attack. Instead, our challenges will become regional concerns—oftentimes started by daft rulers with hegemonic desires—or smaller clashes involving civil wars and ethnic rivalries. “Little wars,” such as the Bosnian conflict, are on the rise, often threatening to spill over borders and endanger the peace and stability of an entire area. The National Defense Council Foundation, the agency tasked with monitoring world confrontations, recorded 71 such conflicts last year—more than double the number in 1989.2
The US military needs a weapon system that can counter such aggression and neatly fill in the gaps between our current posture of overseas presence and power projection. One of the most prominent gaps in our military posture is the ability to put conventional bombs on target, globally, within minutes. Specifically, this discriminatory weapon with global reach, based in the continental United States (CONUS), must counter two areas of concern facing our new national military objectives: proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and regional instability. The time has come for a conventionally armed intercontinental ballistic missile (CICBM).
Granted, strategic deterrence remains our nation’s highest priority, and today’s force structure can provide conventional deterrence in many circumstances. Yet, some scenarios may very well require a capability that currently does not exist. As it stands today, the United States has “virtually no response to the use of WMD,” cites one Joint Staff official. “In fact,” the officer goes on to say, “it is unclear whether even nuclear weapons could provide a deterrent, unless the U.S. was willing to take the difficult moral step of destroying entire cities” (emphasis added).3
As the United States contemplates its future conflicts, it must consider a gamut of factors ranging from ethnic warfare, shifting international power cores, and state-sponsored terrorism. Previous foes, once thought to be eliminated, continue to press hard against the United States. Iraq may still represent one of the largest menaces to America because current intelligence estimates suggest that eliminating that country’s development of nuclear weapons may prove harder than most analysts thought.4Neighboring Iran has continued to pursue a chemical weapons capability and has Scud missiles to deliver them. China, with its army of 3.2 million soldiers, has nuclear warheads aimed at the United States and might be developing biological warfare agents. More than a dozen countries have operational ballistic missiles, and many more have missile development programs.5 Intelligence and security professionals from the former Soviet Union are now peddling their wares to terrorist organizations. Islamic extremists have established infrastructures in Latin America and are forging links with prominent drug cartels. The list grows.
The United States should counter such contingencies by fortifying its means of conventional deterrence and now has the opportunity to study the possibilities of the first-ever, unmanned, CONUS-based, standoff weapon system. The US land-based nuclear missile fleet is currently undergoing a 50 percent reduction in size, due to the end of the cold war. The mothballing of 450 Minuteman II (MMII) ICBM boosters has given the United States the necessary hardware to reshape conventional forces by building an impressive standoff system.
Several factors argue in favor of acquiring such a system. These include readiness, accuracy, threat, and mobility.
Readiness
Depending upon the operational status of a CICBM, it could hit a target anywhere in the world within minutes—not the hours or days currently needed by such weapon systems as cruise missiles or bombers. From the time a theater commander in chief (CINC) requests target neutralization, a CICBM could put a high-yield reentry vehicle (RV) on target in less than an hour. Because of relatively low costs, a CICBM system—like nuclear ICBMs—could remain on alert daily. However, should rising costs or other factors so dictate, one could attain a reduced level of readiness by powering down the system to a “dormant” stage.
Accuracy
Recent improvements in terminal guidance technology, satellite telemetry applications, and advanced RVs will soon allow strikes within 10 feet of the intended target,6 anywhere in the world, from a sortie launched in the CONUS. Depending upon the weapon’s yield, current intelligence sources indicate that this may be enough to destroy most hardened targets. Another important advantage is the high probability of kill, since no defense exists against such a threat. The small radar cross section and the extreme velocities of an incoming RV ensure penetration of any futile attempts at defense. Even with the advent of venerable Russian antiballistic missile (ABM) technology, no plausible capability today—or in the near future—could defeat such a strike.7 This compares favorably even to air-breathing Navy Tomahawk land attack missiles (TLAM), which are somewhat precarious due to their relatively slow speed. The cruise missile strike against targets outside Baghdad in January 1993 highlighted the vulnerabilities of cruise missiles to antiaircraft artillery (AAA) when some missiles missed their targets, and at least one was knocked off course by hostile fire, hitting a high-visibility civilian target.8 No AAA battery is going to hit an incoming RV traveling at Mach 15.
Threat
No US soldier, sailor, airman, or marine falls into harm’s way during a CICBM attack. No other vehicle can deliver such clout without the least bit of harm to the weapon’s operators. Existing concepts of employment for weapon systems require the involvement of practically hundreds of individuals during offensive actions. This is not true with CICBMs. A handful of trained military professionals can deliver a knockout blow safely from within the confines of US borders.
Mobility
Operation Desert Storm stretched our airlift and sea lift capabilities to the limit. The Pentagon expects the aggressor in a typical major regional conflict (MRC) of the future to have up to 750,000 troops, four thousand tanks, and one thousand combat aircraft.9 A single MRC requires 10 fighter wings, 80 heavy bombers, three aircraft carriers, and 90 percent of current US airlift. A second MRC would require significant shuttling and shifting.10 Gen Joseph P. Hoar, a recent CINC of US Central Command, said that “airlift in this country is broken right now. I’m not sure it’s workable for one major regional contingency, much less two.”11 CICBMs would require no mobilization and no deployment; instead, they would be ready and able when called upon. In a recent issue of Parameters, Col David Jablonsky sums up the situation neatly by saying, “If U.S. forces require future theater ballistic missile support in Asia, why send small theater missiles when ICBMs with conventional warheads with zero CEP [circular error of probability] can do the job without tying up strategic lift?”12
No weapon is without flaws or a potential downside. The same is true of CICBMs.
Cost
We have procured research and development funds to examine the feasibility of building such a system, and studies are under way to determine the best types of launchers, munitions, and force size. However, in these days of military budget cuts and force drawdowns, a proposed weapon system is usually the first item eliminated when funds dry up.13 Clearly, getting full funding for such a system—especially one that’s not as “sexy” to the Air Force as a B-2 or an F-117—will be an uphill fight.14
Collateral Damage
The first two stages of an MMII consist of solid-fuel rocket motors that fall into the ocean after they burn out. Because the third stage carries the RVs to their final destination, it is relatively close to the third target (on a payload consisting of three multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles [MIRV]) programmed in the “bus.”15 Unless modified, this third stage is not likely to fall harmlessly into a body of water but may cause collateral damage—perhaps to a friendly nation. This is exactly what a CICBM should not do. Perhaps the best way of solving this problem would entail building a small self-destruct mechanism on board to destroy the bus after it releases the third RV. The United States needs to be concerned about disposing of the missile’s third stage—something it didn’t have to worry about in its previous nuclear role. A high-explosive on board might be the solution.
Intelligence
Without superior intelligence, we will waste our effort, costs will rise, and—most likely—the conflict will last longer. As Charles de Gaulle once observed, “A general with an excellent army no matter how carefully deployed, will eventually be defeated if insufficiently informed about his enemy.”16
To do the greatest damage to our enemy with the least exposure to ourselves, is a military axiom lost sight of only by ignorance of the true ends of victory.
—Alfred Thayer Mahan
Undoubtedly, the most important question for any new proposal becomes, “Is it feasible?” In other words, “Will it be suitable and worthwhile, given the means the nation has to do it?” I believe that the answer to those questions is a resounding “yes.” The United States, now more than ever, needs to acquire a weapon system that can execute fast, long-range, limited strikes against heavily defended targets. A CICBM force would fill in that “global-coverage-in-minutes” gap mentioned earlier.
As the United States moves away from the cold war, when our primary foe was the Soviet Union, one thing remains certain: future threats will be less defined—and less understood—than they were in the bipolar arena. Current measures may or may not deter emerging powers. We need new methods to preempt or interdict the use of WMD. Delivering weapons globally with speed and precision will provide the National Command Authorities, war-fighting CINCs, and theater commanders a unique capability to strike targets regardless of location, weather, or defenses—with little risk to US forces.
Therefore, if it is at all possible, future systems must provide a resolute show of force, absolute precision, low collateral damage, high probability of kill, and minimum response time, while placing no strain on thinly stretched mobility requirements.
It is possible now—with CICBMs.
Arlington, Virginia
Notes
1. William J. Clinton, A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1995), 1.
2. “Conflicts on the Rise across the Globe, Group Says,” Newport [Rhode Island] Daily News, 3 January 1996.
3. Robert Holzer, “Wargame Increases DoD Focus on Biological Weapons,” Defense News, 3 September 1995, 18. The article goes on to say, “On the other hand, if the U.S. did launch a nuclear attack no country would use those weapons for the next 100 years” (page 18). However, overriding arguments of an international furor and the ethical dilemma of a nuclear response may well prevent the use of such horrific weapons.
4. Les Aspin, “An Approach to Sizing American Conventional Forces for the Post-Soviet Era,” National Security Decision Making Publication, 25 February 1992, 563.
5. “Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction,” in Strategic Assessment 1996: Instruments of U.S. Power (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University, Institute for National Strategic Studies, 1996), 200.
6. Briefing, Christopher Sharp, Peterson AFB, Colo., subject: Conventional ICBM Concept of Operations, December 1993.
7. Michael J. Morgan, Franklin R. Fish, and David A. Goller, “Conventionally Armed Strategic Missile,” point paper (Peterson AFB, Colo.: Headquarters Air Force Space Command, 1 December 1992), 16. Depending upon the munitions package and final angle of attack, most RVs will enter the target area with speeds in excess of Mach 15.
8. George C. Wilson, “Cruise Missiles Fast Becoming Irresistible Weapon,” Air Force Times, 8 February 1993, 27.
9. John T. Correll, “The High Risk Military Strategy,” Air Force Magazine 77, no. 9 (September 1994): 37.
10. Ibid.
11. Quoted in ibid.
12. Col David Jablonsky, “U.S. Military Doctrine and the Revolution in Military Affairs,” Parameters 24, no. 3 (Autumn 1994): 27.
13. “The Economic and Budget Outlook: Fiscal Years 1995–1999,” in Report to the Senate and House Committees on the Budget (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, January 1994), 92. Military planners must understand the nature of the budget dilemma. Discretionary spending, which includes defense spending, is taking up a progressively smaller portion of the federal budget. Such spending has fallen from 70 percent of the budget in 1962 to less than 37 percent in 1994, and it continues to decline.
14. However, unlike these outrageously expensive stealth aircraft, a CICBM doesn’t need a plethora of vulnerable personnel to put bombs on target. A B-2 currently lists for nearly $2 billion a copy, and an F-117 sets the defense budget back just over $70 million. With existing rocket motors, launchers, and infrastructure, some estimates suggest that a CICBM force on both coasts could be funded for less than the cost of one B-2.
15. The first two stages of an ICBM are usually spent during the first 33 percent of the flight to the target. After being ejected by the second stage, the third stage actually carries the RVs to the target zone by kinetic energy only and maneuvers with very small rocket motors to drop the RVs off one at a time. The location of each RV depends upon the “footprint” of the three targets.
16. Charles de Gaulle, The Edge of the Sword (New York: Criterion Books, 1960), 80.
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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