Published: 1 December 2008
Air & Space Power Journal - Winter 2008
Beyond Close Air Support: Forging a New Air-Ground Partnership by
Bruce R. Pirnie et al. RAND (http://www.rand.org/publications/index.html), 1776
Main Street, P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, California 90407-2138, 2005, 214
pages, $25.00 (softcover). Available free from http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2005/RAND_MG301.pdf.
The US Air Force contracted with RAND’s Project Air Force, a federally funded research and development center, to study and recommend ways to improve the relationship between airpower and land power. Specifically, the authors address three questions concerning close air support and its relevance for the future battlefield: (1) How should air attack and ground maneuver be integrated? (2) How should the terminal attack control function be executed? (3) How should ground maneuver/fires and air attack be deconflicted? To answer these questions, the authors effectively use three case studies to formulate their observations and make recommendations for the Air Force and Army to improve their air-ground partnership.
The study is balanced and comprehensive, underpinned by three assumptions. First, experiences in Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan indicate an anemic air-ground partnership. Second, the Army’s transformation plan correctly recognizes the changing nature of warfare, and the Air Force agrees in principle with the plan, provided that the tenets of airpower are maintained. Third, enemy land forces (regular or irregular) constitute the critical target set. To defeat those forces, we need to improve the air-land partnership to field a more flexible and capable air-ground team that leverages each other’s unique capabilities. If the reader accepts these assumptions, the study expertly reveals significant issues that both services must address through new doctrine, organization, tactics, and procedures to ensure the successful implementation of the Army’s transformation plan.
By detailing recent battlefield trends, the study reveals the parochial seams that exist between the Army and Air Force, which, if not corrected, will inhibit the Army’s plan. Placement and use of the fire support coordination line during Operation Iraqi Freedom represents just one example of this seam. The authors correctly argue for replacing this antiquated line with an area concept such as kill-box interdiction, and their description of the latter as practiced during Operation Allied Force and Iraqi Freedom aptly explains why this method of coordinating air and ground operations is superior to traditional control measures.
The authors use the Operation Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom case studies to address organizational and doctrinal issues that inhibited mutually enabling air-ground operations. However, they should have delved deeper into the Iraqi Freedom case study. The air-ground architecture of I Marine Expeditionary Force’s area of responsibility (AOR) demonstrated a potential way ahead for such operations. The study as written leaves readers to draw their own conclusions. In my case, I identified lack of trust as the most critical element inhibiting mutually enabling air-ground operations in V Corps’ AOR. The study’s description of why kill-box interdiction proved difficult there but succeeded in I Marine Expeditionary Force’s AOR is compelling. The authors expose the organizational seams between the two services that, if not corrected, will inhibit them from achieving a joint, interdependent force. This example should prompt readers and, more importantly, leaders of the Army / Air Force to ask more probing questions about why this disparity existed. However, the US Navy and its significant contribution of carrier-based aviation and surface fires are not examined. This capability must be considered in order for ground forces to fully leverage airpower dominance in conventional and irregular warfare.
Beyond Close Air Support succinctly addresses the hole left in battlefield command and control (C2) but falls short in recommendations to fill this critical gap. Concepts such as joint air-ground command and control are a tremendous first step to fill the joint C2 void; however, more can be done to extend redundant, tactical-level C2 throughout the battlefield. As part of their training, US Navy forward air controllers (airborne) (FAC[A]) crews earn qualifications as ground joint terminal attack controllers (JTAC). This critical skill can be leveraged through opening Army air liaison officer tours for these officers. Why not explore the potential for Strike Eagle crews to operate as airborne FACs and air-ground battle managers who operate as an extension of the air support operations center? As FAC(A)s, F-15E crews can leverage their two-man crew, tremendous weapons load, and time on station while simultaneously operating as natural extensions of Air Force JTACs and Army joint fires observers (JFO). This would further ease the burden on these high-demand, low-density career fields and complement single-seat capability currently employed in the F-16 and A-10 communities.
The study comprehensively addresses shortfalls in sourcing current JTAC requirements and accurately predicts problems with sourcing JTACs needed by the Air Force to support the Army’s brigade modular construct. The authors are on the mark by recommending disaggregating some JTAC functions to qualified soldiers. The Army–Air Force JFO program is maturing and will address this finding as long as it is properly networked and coordinated. Qualifying Army AH-64 pilots as FAC(A)s in the same way as Marine Corps AH-1W pilots will force a closer integration of rotary-wing aircraft, and fixed-wing aircraft will also help disaggregate JTAC functions—applicable in conventional as well as irregular warfare.
The leadership of the Army, Air Force, and Navy should study Beyond Close Air Support and use it as the basis for meaningful discussion to address current challenges in air-ground integration. Even if only a few of the study’s recommendations are adopted in the form of joint manning and doctrine, our land and air forces will take a step in the right direction towards building mutually enabling air-ground operations. However, institutionalizing habitual working relationships between ground forces and air forces of all four services instead of the often ad hoc associations offers the solution to achieving joint interdependence and regaining trust. The authors of this book got it right. The real question is, will the Army and Air Force?
Col Lawrence R. Roberts, USMC
Eglin AFB, Florida
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