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Published Airpower Power Journal - Summer 1998

MAJ M. J. PETERSEN, SENIOR EDITOR

WITH THIS EDITION, we welcome to our ranks our newest associate editor, Maj Pete Osika. Unfortunately, we also bid adieu to both our editor, Col Bill Spencer, and our editorial board chairman, Col Robert Hylton. They have departed for other adventures.

In many respects, this issue could have taken the subjects of its articles straight from recent headlines. We look at the controversy over air and space, airpower and theater warfare, the war in El Salvador, the teaching of integrity and ethics, weather as an arrow in our quiver, the problem of foreign-language capability, the enlargement of NATO, and a United States beset by biological terrorism.

We lead off with an article by RAND researcher Benjamin Lambeth, who explores space as a new medium of operations and considers its increasing integration with classic airpower. Is space really a separate area of responsibility? Read the article and let us know what you think. I’m certain we all have our own ideas about where the Air Force should go with the folks who are clamoring for recognition at the many space detachments around the world. Are we really an air force, an air and space force, or an aerospace force? Should we even consider space a separate area of responsibility when it is still firmly wedded to this ball of mud we call Earth? Can there be such a thing as a space force when it still relies upon command and control and support from the ground?

Historically, most military professionals see airpower playing a permanently supporting role in theater warfare when the objective requires the defeat of an enemy army. Price Bingham looks at theater warfare, movement, and airpower in the context of JSTARS and the dramatic results produced by that platform during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

Employing airpower in a counterinsurgency campaign is the subject of Dr. James Corum’s probing examination of the 12-year war in El Salvador. How effective was the training provided by the United States to members of the El Salvadoran air force? Was the doctrine and its employment appropriate to the situation? This subject is all the more relevant in light of our increased involvement around the globe. We need to expand the dialogue and closely examine the employment of airpower in such actions. Is there a better way?

Ethics, integrity, authority, and propriety all are in the news. We can hardly have a con- versation or read a periodical without some ethical question staring us in the face. Ethical behavior is the binder in the foundation of military culture. Dr. James Toner examines how we teach ethics and asks some hard questions. Whose ethics will we teach? Should we advocate one understanding of ethics even though we are a multicultural country? Do human beings generally know right from wrong, honor from shame, virtue from vice? Or must they be taught?

Lt Col John Lanicci asks whether the United States has become so technologically sophisticated that we have forgotten some commonsense principles of warfare. Is it possible that our increasing reliance upon precision weaponry could combine with a CONUS-based force strategy and restrictive rules of engagement to make us vulnerable to a potential adversary? Lieutenant Colonel Lanicci then outlines a strategy for developing innovative ways of exploiting terrestrial and space weather in battle.

In every war in its history, the US Army turned to native speakers to meet its language needs but did so as a last-minute expedient. Desert Storm was no different. Col Gunther Mueller and Lt Col Carl Daubach examine the foreign-language and area-expertise capabilities of the Department of Defense and find both appalling.

A serious debate within the Atlantic Alliance about the merits of NATO enlargement is now over. NATO will enlarge. Col Samuel Grier and 2d Lt Jason Arnold carefully examine such questions as the purpose of enlargement, what the Alliance will look like afterwards, and Russia’s outspoken opposition to and possible membership in NATO.

In a twist of coincidence, Captains Fred Kennedy, Rory Welch, and Bryon Fessler suggest something straight out of recent headlines—decapitation of the United States by a small plane spreading “inhalation anthrax” over the capital. Their article raises some serious questions about domestic terrorism, especially in view of the recent arrests of two men suspected of transporting anthrax.

Clearly, our authors have addressed issues that deserve considered, informed debate. Respond to their positions in a letter to the editor or in a way point or an article of your own.

As an aside, we would like to see your airpower photograph in Airpower Journal, either on the cover or inside. Please submit a glossy color photo for the cover and color or black-and-white photos for articles. In either case, the photo must not be copyrighted; we will credit the photographer. We can return unused photos only if you enclose a mailer stamped with appropriate postage. If we choose your photo, we will request that you sign a release for publication. Please be aware that because we are in the public domain, anything published in Airpower Journal can be duplicated without our permission.

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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