Creech Blue: Gen Bill Creech and the Reformation of the Tactical Air Forces, 1978–1984 by Lt Col James C. Slife. College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education (CADRE) in collaboration with Air University Press (http://aupress. maxwell.af.mil), 131 West Shumacher Avenue, Maxwell AFB, Alabama 36112-6615, 2004, 162 pages (softcover). http://aupress.maxwell.af. mil/Books/Creech/Creech.pdf.
Lt Col James
Slife’s book about Gen Bill Creech is a combination of biography and the
history of airpower, with much of the two woven together to present a coherent
picture of what influenced General Creech’s priorities and the challenges of
satisfying those priorities. The author describes in some detail the general’s
contribution to the development of tactical airpower and to the transformation
of the broader Air Force, doing so with laudable authority and accuracy. That
aspect of the work by itself would be well worth the reader’s attention. Slife
singles out and illustrates the key attributes of General Creech’s philosophy
of management and leadership—explicit goals based on a certain grasp of what
is important; clear standards; individual accountability; reward for success;
and no reward for failure. He also captures the general’s dedication to the
principle that leaders can expect professional performance at all levels only if
they provide a proper environment and full commitment to teaching, teaching, and
teaching. This portrayal, however, would have benefited from a more compelling
presentation of the intense focus that General Creech brought to each task. By
any standard, he was the most demanding boss that I worked for in 37 years in
the Air Force, although he managed to be demanding and supportive in the right
balance.
Colonel Slife’s
tendency to paint the general as an apostle of decentralized management is
justified but incomplete. He did indeed believe that accountability demands
decentralized authority and responsibility, but he also believed in strongly
centralized standards and the education of leaders. In some respects,
decentralized authority had such a strong basis in common education that after
the latter had time to take root, there was little risk of making a serious
mistake in exercising such authority. By the second year of his tenure as
commander of Tactical Air Command (TAC), we had schools for wing commanders, for
deputy commanders for operations, for deputy commanders for maintenance, for
combat support group commanders, and others—personally taught by General
Creech and his principal deputies. Those who failed to benefit from the
education did not last long in senior positions.
The book’s
description of the major airpower issues that shaped the general’s thinking
and the development of tactical airpower, although less authoritative, is still
valuable and of interest to readers. It is not surprising that the author had
somewhat more difficulty with sources for this treatment, which are often
decades-old memories of a period of intensely conflicting perceptions and rapid
change. Specifically, the airpower-history approach overplays the significance
of the strategic-versus-tactical argument on the outcome for Air Force combat
capabilities and performance. It also spends more time on the Defense Reform
Movement (DRM) than is warranted by its influence on outcomes.
As to the
strategic-tactical matter, senior airpower leaders of the 1980s had decided that
it was not worth that much attention. Fighter aircraft had been attacking
“strategic” targets, and bomber aircraft had focused conventional attacks on
“tactical” targets for decades, so it was not an equipment issue. As to the
doctrinal aspect, there was growing awareness that the focus in the battlespace
needed to be on the joint campaign with priorities set by the joint
commander—not on an air or ground campaign—tactical or strategic.
Regarding the DRM, I
was TAC’s deputy chief of staff for operations, commander of Ninth Air Force,
Air Force component commander for the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force, deputy
chief of staff for programs and resources, and vice-chief of staff during the
period covered in this book. -Although the DRM succeeded in extending the
workday of people who had better things to do, the Air Force was never in danger
of being overrun by this movement. Col John Boyd, often cited as a leader of the
DRM, was more than a little conflicted by some of the issues. As the principal
architect of the requirements for the F-15, he helped describe the need for
range, weapons payload, and sensors for this aircraft. He also drove the
acceleration and maneuvering demands on the design, which met requirements that
grew out of his pioneering energy-maneuverability analyses. Later, he expanded
the fog-of-war argument into a thesis that only simple systems will work well on
the battlefield. The Air Force made a forceful case that complexity in the
battlespace comes from the need to integrate large numbers of low-capability
entities rather than from the mechanical complexity of those entities—a clear
lesson from the strategic campaign/interdiction effort in Vietnam. Air Force
leadership, which stayed solidly on course in the face of the DRM, carried the
day in virtually every case.
The conclusions in
chapter seven place both the issues and General Creech’s contributions in
perspective. Creech Blue is well worth the time and attention
that readers must invest to absorb its rele-vance to today’s events and
those of the future.
Gen Larry D. Welch, USAF, Retired
Alexandria, Virginia
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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