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Published Airpower Power Journal - Summer 1998

We encourage your comments via letters to the editor or comment cards.  All correspondence should be addressed to the Editor, Airpower Journal, 401 Chennault Circle, Maxwell AFB AL 36112--6428. You can also send your comments by E--mail to aspj@maxwell.af.mil. We reserve the right to edit the material for overall length.

WHERE ARE THE MITCHELLS?

I am an Air Force Academy graduate and a new captain. This gives me two things relative to Col Timothy Kline, USAF, Retired ("Where Have All the Mitchells Gone?" Fall 1997): limited experience but a fresh perspective. General Mitchell was a military visionary who saw a usefulness for airpower that few others of his era understood. He also possessed the clarity of purpose and tenacity to pursue his vision. What he lacked was the tact and negotiation skills necessary to persuade the establishment to change. His outspokenness limited his effectiveness, and I would contend that the establishment did what it felt necessary to protect itself. Fortunately, men like Hap Arnold, Carl Spaatz, and Ira Eaker adopted Mitchell's vision and possessed the skills necessary to cause airpower to evolve into the Air Force.

Although rigid and slow to change, the Air Force establishment provides stability by minimizing chaos, maximizing resources, and providing discipline. One cannot expect a system to be both stable and completely open to change. Giulio Douhet said that "flexibility is the key to air power," but stability provides the direction necessary to develop practical uses for constantly evolving technologies. At the rate technology is changing warfare, we do not need Mitchells who can see the future but cannot implement the change. We need Arnolds and Eakers who can "play nice with others” and work within the system to stretch the boundaries of the establishment.

Finally, I think Colonel Kline is implying that a lack of leadership exists in the Air Force. Gen Ronald Fogleman was an excellent leader, and history may one day honor his sacrifice. The Air Force will always develop a few great leaders like him. What it is lacking is clarity of purpose and consistency in leadership that will provide the stability to carry our service into the next millennium.

Capt Kelley Vanderbilt, USAF
Kadena AB, Japan

THEY’RE GONE

I agree totally with the letter by Col Terry Paasch, USAF, Retired (Spring 1998), concerning what I and other dismayed professional officers call the “careerist Air Force.” Unfortunately, from my experience, the Air Force officer corps at all levels is completely dominated by careerists—as opposed to professionals—whose main concern is to advance to the next grade. Indeed, the level of careerism in the Air Force now is sickening.

What caused this steep decline of mission-oriented professionals who garnered promotions because of leadership accomplishments? What caused the ascent of the careerists? Was it the great reduction in force of 1992 and the associated post-cold-war drawdown that generated the “my career first” mentality that dominates the officer corps? Or has this mentality always been inherent in military society?

I can only rejoice that I have guaranteed retirement benefits as a former enlisted offi-cer, because if I ever advance to the senior-officer ranks, it will be because I did my best as a professional. Then, perhaps, people will ride on my coattails as “careerist crushers.”

Capt Timothy J. Hall, USAF
Goodfellow AFB, Texas

AIR OPERATIONS, LOW INTENSITY CONFLICT, AND CHECHNYA

At the narrative level, Timothy L. Thomas’s article “Air Operations in Low Intensity Conflict: The Case of Chechnya” (Winter 1997) was a thorough and informative description of the poor strategy, dismal materiel situation, and unskilled employment of Russian air forces during their intervention into Chechnya from December 1994 to August 1996. Clearly, were it not for its strategic nuclear forces and residual reputation from its Soviet days, the Russian air force would be classed as a third-rate institution and a first-rate example of how not to exploit airpower.

At the theoretical level, in contrast, Thomas’s assessment of the meaning of the Russian air force experience in Chechnya is flawed. His description of that experience hardly would suggest that it could form a foundation for making comprehensive assessments about the limited utility of airpower in low intensity conflict (LIC), but that is just what Thomas tries to do. Through the linkage of quotes by Benjamin Lambeth and his own evidence from Chechnya, Thomas implies that the failures of the Russian air force demonstrate a general case that airpower doesn’t work well in LIC. “The air force,” Thomas quotes Lambeth as having said, “had a golden opportunity in Chechnya to see that air power cannot invariably work its reputed magic in circumstances where the target set is elusive, problems predominate in target location and identification, and there is ever-present danger of unintentional harm to combatants.”

Well, I guess so! But given all the mitigating circumstances Thomas lays out, one could make the same judgement about the use of land and sea forces in LIC as well. In other words, Lambeth’s caveats make his conclusion, or at least Thomas’s use of it, not very useful in a general sense. To imply that botched operations in the specific case of Chechnya proves the general ineffectiveness of airpower is logically not supportable. As a logical case, Thomas’s argument is akin to finding that heart surgery is proven ineffective by the failed operation of a nearsighted surgeon who operated with dirty instruments and without the help of trained nurses, and who carved on the liver instead of the heart. LIC is too broad a category of warfare and too complex in its tactical, operational, and strategic details to be summarized in any authoritative way on the basis of one case study.

Moreover, in places as diverse as southern Africa, Oman, Malaya, and even the in-country US war in Vietnam, one finds plenty of examples of how intelligently and effectively applied airpower has contributed to the successful attainment of end-state or at least intermediate military objectives in LIC. In these cases, one should add, airpower achieved those results only when coordinated with effective political support, strategies, and objectives. Further, airpower usually achieved its successes when employed in coordination with intelligently and effectively applied surface power. In short, LIC is joint.

The bottom line is that, to be useful, any effort to link a case study to a broad assessment of the utility of airpower (or anything else) must incorporate appropriate assessments of the relevant political and military factors. One should use appropriate caution and tentativeness to express any broad assessments springing from a single case study. The airpower debate, in short, needs analyses that stay within the supporting data—not ones that try to build general arguments from the actions of demonstrable amateurs, such as the Russian air force in Chechnya.

Col Rob Owen, USAF
Maxwell AFB, Alabama

MAD AGAIN

I read with great interest Col Alan J. Parrington’s “Mutually Assured Destruction Revisited: Strategic Doctrine in Question” (Winter 1997). After finishing it, I had a night- marish vision of the USAF’s future—one populated with senior officers who, like the author, apparently believe that airpower is best used in a supporting role for the land- and maritime-component commanders. I’ve found so many points of contention over such a wide variety of issues that I cannot adequately cover them all in the confines of a letter to the editor.

First, what is the exact subject of this article? It certainly is not strictly about mutually assured destruction. Is it about strategic bombing in the classic sense of the term? Strategic attack as used in the Gulf War? Or the nonutility of nuclear weapons? All of these subjects are present, but their link to the title is often tenuous at best. In the opening of his article, the author discounts the “nuclear peace” provided by the cold war, basically saying that nuclear weapons did not prevent war—only nuclear war. One must be very careful when making sweeping generalizations. Any change in the past would be to a dynamic system that would respond to the change. The author could be right. On the other hand, in a nonnuclear world, an equally likely outcome of conflicts such as the 1967 and 1973 Arab-Israeli wars, Vietnam, or Korea could be a conventional World War III between Soviet and American forces. What the cold war does show is that nuclear weapons did not prevent conflict between nuclear have-nots nor between nuclear haves and have-nots. It did prevent open conflict, both nuclear and conventional, between nuclear haves, for fear of escalation.

The statement that strategic bombardment is counterproductive because it enflames the population of the target nation also deserves a look. After 55 years, the jury is still out on how strategic bombing affects a population. The Dutch capitulated quickly after the terror bombing of Rotterdam in May 1940, and the British showed a “stiff upper lip” in the blitz. These attacks, however, were of relatively short duration. The campaigns against Germany and Japan were different. Sources I have read do not talk of the passionate resistance which the author mentions but of an acceptance or resignation to the numbing effect of the bombing. The population carried out its usual routine of work because that was what it was used to; work provided some order in a world that was becoming more and more chaotic. The notion that strategic attack will categorically arouse a nation’s “passions” and dramatically increase resistance is therefore, at best, situational.

The strategic bombing of Japan has a somewhat different story line than the one presented in the article. The author misses the key point that regardless of what the emperor and his political aides wanted, the Japanese army was in complete charge of the war effort. Political leaders opposing the army did so at great peril to themselves; their assassination by junior and midlevel army officers had been in vogue for 20 years in Japan (see John Toland’s The Rising Sun). ULTRA intercepts indicated that Japan would fight to the finish. The Allied high command got mixed signals about Japanese intentions. In Truman and the Hiroshima Cult, Robert Newman points out that the emperor was not “running for his life”; rather, he used the opportunity created, sequentially, by Hiroshima, the Russian invasion, and Nagasaki to end the war in spite of the army. Had the emperor not intervened at this point, the war would have continued. Newman’s review of the interviews of the top two hundred Japanese military and political leaders, contained in the US Strategic Bombing Survey, supports the position that it took all three events to bring about the surrender conditions, the bombings probably being the biggest factor. The author’s almost sole reliance on David Bergamini’s aged Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy as the basis of his argument is unfortunate. There are several other far more accurate works about the end of the war in the Pacific. Collectively, they discredit the portions of Bergamini used to support this article.

The section on the Gulf War deserves some comment. Soon after the war’s end, the last edition of Air Force Manual 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force, was released, and the term strategic attack replaced strategic bombing. The key difference is that “bombing” implies strikes by aircraft or missiles; “attack” is not medium-specific. Strategic attack can be accomplished by air, land, or maritime forces and may or may not require actual physical destruction of the target. The intent behind selecting a specific target determines whether it would be a strategic attack or some other function (to use the terminology of Air Force Doctrine Document 1, Air Force Basic Doctrine). How does that apply here?

Quantifying the effects of a strategic attack, short of the out-and-out capitulation of the enemy, is difficult. Since airpower did not force Saddam to leave Kuwait and since he was not overthrown and did not surrender, strategic attack did not work. Although the precise impact of the strategic attacks may never be fully known, the coalition saw no coordinated movement of any Iraqi land element larger than a division. The Iraqi movements were autonomous, with no guidance from corps, army, or national headquarters, the result of a series of what I call mostly strategic attacks.

The author’s praise for TACAIR is noteworthy. It played the “decisive role . . . in every major war of this century.” What about World War I, Korea, and Vietnam? If TACAIR was so decisive, why do we have two Koreas and one Vietnam today? In Operation Desert Storm, the coalition had such an asymmetric dominance in the air that we could afford to pursue attrition warfare and strike strategic targets simultaneously (a key attribute of airpower). Our next foe will probably not be nearly as cooperative as Saddam, and we will not have the force structure we had then. For the joint force commander (JFC) today, it should not be an “either-or” decision for airpower functions. The JFC will likely need all of them at the proper time and place—and in the proper mix.

The lasting impression this article made on me is probably not what the author intended, though he certainly implied it: “Airpower has never been and will never be decisive by itself. It achieves decisiveness only when used to support other services.” What a bitter pill for air advocates to swallow.

One last thought: Airpower, in all its facets, can be decisive and can accomplish national objectives by itself—not in every case, certainly, but no single service can. To be decisive, it must be understood and applied in a manner fitting the situation, objectives, and strategy. It must be focused on appropriate centers of gravity. When used in this manner, airpower offers the JFC its best attributes, whether in a supported or supporting role.

Lt Col Dave Howard, USAF
Maxwell AFB, Alabama

I was both surprised and disappointed to read Col Alan J. Parrington’s article on mutually assured destruction. I was surprised that APJ would lead off the issue with this article when such superior efforts as Col Charles M. Westenhoff’s “Airpower and Political Culture” (same issue) were available.

The author’s vision of airpower is an intellectual step backward to a world of 30 or 40 years ago, when airmen believed that the “strategic” use of airpower meant attempts to coerce civilian populations to surrender through indiscriminate city bombing. He correctly points out that such bombing never succeeded in breaking the will of any nation’s population. He is also right in saying that this theory became entrenched in Air Force thinking because of nuclear weapons and that it was the wrong paradigm with which to fight brushfire wars like Vietnam.

The author seems to advocate, as does Richard Pape in Bombing to Win, that airpower can never be useful in war except as an adjunct to surface warfare. Both men imply that efforts to achieve decisive results through airpower alone have never worked; therefore, airmen should stick to what they do well: providing flying artillery for the Army and Marines. This and counterair functions constitute what the author calls “tactical” airpower, which, he says, “did play the decisive role . . . in every major war of this century.” This is wrong outright, but it is also an old notion of how airpower works.

The distinctions between tactical, operational, and strategic are becoming blurred. We are moving away from wars centered on the battlefield toward warfare in which a whole enemy state can be paralyzed and its battlefield forces bypassed or easily dealt with, through systemic attacks of several types, including air attack. This was the vision of early airpower advocates like Giulio Douhet, Billy Mitchell, and Hap Arnold. They wanted to break the stalemate of land attrition warfare by going “straight to the vital centers” of an enemy (the same thing, in a way, that the blitzkrieg theorists were trying to do on the surface). They lacked the technology and doctrine necessary to see this vision realized in their lifetimes, but their vision is being vindicated in the way we fight today. It is irrelevant that their vision was perverted into terror bombing and mutually assured destruction during the intervening years.

Terms like strategic paralysis, cascading effects, and synergy have become buzzwords, but they are more than that. They embody a new philosophy of air warfare and are akin to ground-warfare theories of dislocation and exploitation embodied in blitzkrieg and AirLand Battle. This new form of air warfare complements other military instruments but also transcends them. It may be decisive in and of itself in a particular conflict, but that’s irrelevant. It has its most decisive effect when used synergistically with the other instruments of power. Fighting a war with this instrument alone is justified only when other forms of power aren’t available. The problem is that we likely will have to fight future conflicts (at least in their initial stages) with airpower alone because airpower, in some form, is usually “Johnny-on-the-spot.” With diminishing resources, we probably won’t have a choice, even though we know this is not the best way of doing business. We must therefore continue to research and improve our ability to be decisive, independent of significant surface forces.

In this article, the author is mainly against nuclear-deterrent strategy, which he says dangerously destabilized the world, was ineffective, and (paradoxically) was unnecessary anyway. He consistently confuses nuclear and strategic. Concerning destabilization, he says that “nuclear weapons have only deterred nuclear war and, ironically, very nearly caused one in the process” (he refers to the Cuban missile crisis). In the absence of nuclear weapons, the Cuban crisis would never have happened, of course. But some sort of Agadir incident or, worse, a Sarajevo would still have taken place as we faced off the Soviet bloc. Twice before in this century such face-offs led to war. Why didn’t this one? America’s nuclear deterrent, perhaps? The world would probably have gone to war during the Mideast crisis of 1973—after purely “conventional” provocation—had it not been, again, for America’s nuclear deterrent.

Colonel Parrington further contends that, while it’s “impossible . . . to calculate the cost of the strategic arms race,” the monetary cost alone was “staggering, not to mention the environmental, psychological, and opportunity cost factors.” Does the author really think it would have been cheaper to match the Soviets in conventional arms, or does he think that no deterrent was ever really necessary?

An article like this, by such a prominent officer, makes me wonder about where we’re headed. Are such ideas to be the future of the Air Force? If we follow the author’s understanding of airpower, one that denies air’s independent role, we will be doomed forever to refight this century’s bloody industrial meat grinders, facing our enemies toe-to-toe, rifle-for-rifle. I, for one, want no part of such a future.

Maj J. P. Hunerwadel, USAF
Maxwell AFB, Alabama

WHAT IS TRUTH?

I just finished Maj Carl Rehberg’s article “Is Character Still an Issue?” (Spring 1998) and feel compelled to respond. I heartily agree with the author’s assessment of the Air Force’s core values program, particularly his discussion of the importance of the spiritual dimension in character development.

There is one aspect I’d like to add to the discussion of character in the military today. The notion that we need a program to foster development of (positive) character in our membership trumpets to me that the battle is already lost! Furthermore, it seems that character issues, as with the quality movement, need to be lived out before us by our leaders. Those of us who are followers by position become jaded and even resentful at the implication that there is something lacking in us which only another highbrow program can remedy.

I’ve read the Little Blue Book—and then filed it in the back of a desk drawer. Until our leaders (both civil and military) demonstrate consistently the type of character traits they wish to develop in us, they have little credibility with me.

TSgt William Campbell
Washington Air National Guard
Fairchild AFB, Washington

Maj Carl Rehberg begins his arguments for increased character development and chaplain involvement in the core values initiative by arguing that “throughout history, people who have served in the military have always known that effectiveness and success rest far more on the moral quality of officers and other personnel than on technical expertise.” Victors may make such a claim, but it simply isn’t true. History is filled with the victories of immoral technical experts, and the world’s battlefields are fertilized with the blood of people who relied upon morality and prayer over training and technique.

The article seems to judge the core values program solely on its religious content. If the program is to “acknowledge the spiritual dimension,” it must either take the stance that the specifics of the soldier’s spiritual dimension are irrelevant or that some faith systems are better than others. There are significant moral conflicts between the many religions represented in the military. When these are stripped away and common religious, moral principles are compared to common secular, moral principles, they line up like soldiers on a parade field. It is both divisive and unnecessary to include spiritual training as part of Air Force core values.

Is character still an issue? Of course it is. “Integrity first, service before self, and excellence in all we do” are essential elements of the character we want in all Air Force personnel. Like most philosophical laundry lists, these elements are somewhat arbitrary. Unlike many lists, though, these elements are the result of years of serious thought and conscientious effort. In spite of William Bennett’s wholly insupportable assertion that lack of religious belief has dire circumstances (page 83), religious faith, belief in God(s), or even acknowledgment of the spiritual dimension cannot be considered core values in the Air Force. Right now, there are officers and airmen with strong moral character who are Buddhist, agnostic, Muslim, Jewish, Catholic, atheist, Protestant, and so on and on and on. The Little Blue Book is correct to say that “the Core Values Strategy attempts no explanation of the origin of the Values except to say that all of us, regardless of our religious views, must recognize their functional importance.”

Major Rehberg appears to believe that character without overt spirituality is impossible. Is character, then, achievable only through his particular spirituality, or will any spirituality do? Over time, the Air Force has wisely separated partisan religious principles from military ethics training as the importance of religious tolerance in a pluralistic society has become increasingly clear. In order to maximize combat effectiveness, we must foster technical competence and ethical behavior, including the necessary tolerance to work with and trust people with different faiths.

Maj Bill Gray, USAF
Edwards AFB, California

THE AUTHOR RESPONDS

I am happy to respond to Major Gray’s several criticisms of my article “Is Character Still an Issue?” I welcome the interest. First, Major Gray takes exception to a statement that I made regarding the importance of the moral quality of officers versus their technical expertise. The theme in this section was the importance of character and its rightful place as a foundation for officers, noncommissioned officers (NCO), and other leaders. Certainly, one can argue with this point, but once it is placed in the context of the book To Serve with Honor, one would understand the full meaning of the term moral.

The moral quality of personnel does not mean the lack of technical expertise or competence. Quite the contrary, for an officer or NCO, the technical expertise that is integral with competence is the sine qua non of being moral. Gen Mal Wakin, USAF, Retired, has made the case at the Air Force Academy (since its inception) that one’s competence lies at the very core of being a military professional. There is no disputing that there are instances throughout history of immoral technical experts achieving victory. The real question is, What do we want for our Air Force of the twenty-first century? I can find numerous historical examples of victories having gone to the side with lesser technology. Does that mean we should eliminate high-tech weapons, based on those historical facts? I think not.

Second, criticism that I have judged Air Force values solely on religious content is preposterous. First of all there is no religious content in the core values program. Somehow, I find that the statements about religion certainly do not stem from tolerance. The two main points of my article address (1) a move away from character development (philosophical) and (2) a lack of chaplain involvement (primarily a policy issue). On those points, I see no response. The disagreement seems to be over my reasons and my supporting arguments. Ironically, the Army is enhancing chaplain involvement (since Aberdeen), while the Navy and Marine Corps still have their chaplains involved in their core values program.

The premise that the “soldier’s spiritual dimension [is] irrelevant or that some faith systems are better than others” sets up a false argument. Even in today’s environment, public schools are allowed to talk about religion. I would encourage readers to examine California School Board policy on teaching religion. Additionally, I would encourage Major Gray to examine the numerous chaplain programs that the Air Force has to offer.

Major Gray asserts that “spiritual training” (which I did not recommend) is both divisive and unnecessary, yet he provides no supporting arguments or documentation. He also states that “there are significant moral conflicts between the many religions represented”—again, with no examples or supporting documentation.

“Is character still an issue? Of course it is.” The mere statement that “it is” does not create reality or reflect a tautology. The policies that I quoted assert otherwise. Major Gray is right when he states that the core values are essential elements. Essential elements, yes; character education, no!

According to Major Gray, “Major Rehberg appears to believe that character without overt spirituality is impossible.” I do not assert that concept anywhere. In fact, I claim that it is possible. I would encourage Major Gray to read note 22 of my article.

Finally, I may agree with Major Gray’s last statement. My only question concerns what definition of “tolerance” he is talking about. Tolerance would respect the legitimate role of character and the use of chaplains. If he means the tolerance of postmodernism and political correctness, then we disagree.

Maj Carl D. Rehberg, USAF
Washington, D.C.

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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