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Are these Army Apaches elements of “aerospace power” or of a joint force commander’s maneuver power? Prospective commanders should ignore Washington’s roles-and-missions flummery1 and exercise hands-on control of assigned forces to accomplish the mission, regardless of service doctrine—in short, to fight as a team.
Congratulations, Admiral [General]! You’re going to be a joint force commander! That’s the good news. The bad news is that if you want your force to fight as a team, you must both reconcile major differences in service and joint doctrine,2 and integrate efficiently a variety of warfighting systems that the services have built, to match their doctrines and their perceived roles and missions.
Do not worry. Service roles and missions don’t matter in battle; force capabilities on hand, as built by the services, are what matter. When his mission accomplishment clashes with what is written in any operational doctrine, a joint force commander has the authority, indeed the duty, to do what he believes he must do to accomplish his mission. Taking joint and service doctrines into account, he can organize and train the forces assigned to him, and use their capabilities as he finds them, in his own way.
Here is some advice. When fighting (or when preparing to fight) use a systems approach, build respect and teamwork in your force, and focus your energies on accomplishing the mission swiftly in a way that makes sense. Tactical air,3 where many contentious issues reside and where the Air Force, Navy, and Marines all have capabilities (the Army too, if you call Apache helos tactical air), is a good place to start. Some service thought about tactical air makes little sense. The Air Force, for example, thinks of Army and Marine helicopters as “aerospace power,” which it defines as “the ability to use a platform operating in or passing through the aerospace environment for military purposes.”4 Land-formation commanders draw a fire support coordination line (FSCL) a few kilometers forward of their maneuvering troops, to define the area short of which air support (including close air support [CAS]) must be coordinated with their troops. Beyond the FSCL, tactical air can usually attack ground targets without coordination. The Air Force believes that all firepower, including missile attack, forward of the FSCL is “air interdiction.” It holds that “the theater commander should make the Joint Force Air Component Commander (JFACC5) responsible for controlling the overall interdiction effort when aerospace forces provide the preponderance of interdiction capability.”6 Its definition of aerospace forces means that when Army Apaches strike enemy reserve tanks ten kilometers beyond the FSCL they should " “come under the purview of the JFACC” and that “the same holds true of Army ATACMS (long-range-missile artillery) when employed . . . beyond the FSCL.”7 As joint force commander, you should ignore that nonsense. Use military logic and a systems approach. Tell your Army and Marine commanders that, while you think of theater fixed-wing air as a “system” to be centrally directed by your primary airman, you think of their maneuver battalions and brigades as “maneuver systems,” I and of helicopters as giving a force “maneuver power.”8 And tell your Air Force JFACC that in a systems approach the Army’s missile artillery is part of a deep-operations system that overlaps with the tactical air system—and that its use will be under your own direction.
Maneuver warfare calls for maneuver power. Fully ground-mobile armor formations are maneuver power; skilled light infantry companies on foot in terrain impassable to armor are maneuver power;9 helicopterborne [_ air assault forces are maneuver power; airborne and amphibious forces are maneuver power.10 Your maneuver r units are ultimately decisive; as the joint force comman- i der, you should have your hands directly on them. That v increases responsiveness to change; information up and f
orders down have one less headquarters to go through. 1 Tell your commanders: a
“I believe in maneuver warfare; I know how to f fight maneuver warfare." I want to have my hands di- d rectly on the major maneuver formations of this force. ii I believe I can handle two, three, or even four of them d directly. So I will double-hat myself as the land force 1' commander; that’s what has usually worked best. Op- c erations Urgent Fury, Just Cause, Provide Comfort, and 3 Desert Shield/Desert Storm are the most recent a
examples.”12 1
s
Saying that “We have a moral obligation to ensure that s military force is applied in the most effective and efficient manner in order to save lives, shorten the conflict pe- s
fiod, and achieve victory,” the Air Force recipe for war ,s an air campaign under an Air Force commander who "'ill be designated the JFACC and will “integrate the air- Power capabilities of different nations and Services. . . The Air Force says that Desert Storm, “the most successful air campaign in history. . . validated the JFACC concept.”13
The Joint Force Air Component Commander concept f°r directing a multiservice-multinational air effort did indeed pass its first test. Desert Shield/Storm was also unique ln the availability of superior base facilities, in an open desert-battlefield, and in the five and a half months it allowed the coalition force to get ready for war. Command °f the air was absolute from the first hours of combat; for 36 days the theater commander’s application of coalition air power under the JFACC was virtually uncontested. This made possible a lightning air/land campaign which Sealed the enemy’s destruction with remarkably few casualties, gained control of the land, and ended the war.
Here is what you tell your commanders about the essential air power lessons both from the Gulf War and from
the history of war since World War II:
“If freedom of air and naval action is not already present in any future employment of our air/land/sea forces, the first order of business must be to achieve them both. Air supremacy like that of Desert Storm may not be there when our land forces go in, but that is what we should strive for. Desirably, land forces (other than special operations forces) should not be committed into combat until air supremacy is gained, the enemy’s command and control is beaten down, his intelligence assets are neutralized, and the battlefield is prepared through precision air and missile attack. But air alone will never solve the problem; land forces in a war of both firepower and maneuver (and other means as well) are required to achieve the victory and to bring about the end-condition that is sought.”
As you drive on to that end-condition, your theater-level
Taking Responsibility Means Taking Charge
Can a joint force commander direct his land maneuver formations at the same time he commands his air and naval efforts? Not only can he do it; he must. He is responsible, and personally accountable in the event of failure; he must take charge of the critical mission-decisive elements of his force. His authority will be ample. His capacity will depend on his own development, his organization for exercising command, and his ability to place his personal imprint on force.
A soldier or a Marine who has commanded a division will find such command easier than will a sailorman or airman who has not. Either of the latter will need to have spent some time studying and being exposed to fighting on land, which sailors and airmen do not usually do, so he will need an Army or Marine deputy commander. The force chief of staff, whatever his service, must be knowledgeable in all-service operations. His J-3 (operations staff officer) should be Army or Marine. Maps must show the land situation, by battalion.
Small cells in the command center should handle intelligence, logistics, electronic warfare, and so on—each under central control.
Whoever the commander is, he will have to understand maneuver warfare, tenets of which have long been part of German operational doctrine. Auf- tragstaktik means “mission-type orders” and indicates a command-wide understanding of the mission, current situation, and concept of operations, plus a mutually understood way of operating that permits orders to be short and commanders to act as they see fit. Schwerpunkt signifies the “decisive point” to which the command’s effort is to be focused; all commanders understand that this is where the outcome of the battle will be determined. Fin- gerspitzengefuehl, “fingertip touch,” means that masterful hands-on sensing of the moving tactical situation with its risks and opportunities that leads the commander almost by instinct to the right battle decision and orders.
In the best of worlds, the joint force commander will be given time to train his force as a team; next best, his force’s element will come to him already imbued with the tenets of maneuver warfare. Absent that, he must, through his own personality, place his maneuver warfare stamp on his force in the time available to him.
J. H. Cushman
deep operations will influence the front-line battle; their conduct is crucial to the success of close-in fighting. But “deep operations” is not in the Air Force lexicon; the Air Force, viewing the deep battle as mostly air attack, uses the word “interdiction.”
You will find that the Marines use the term “interdiction” much as does the Air Force; they say that a Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) commander (presumably on the scale of the Gulf War’s two-division force) “can use the inherent reach of his organic aviation to see and shape the course of the campaign well in advance of the close combat of ground forces [including] attempting to ascertain the enemy’s operational intentions; delaying enemy reinforcements by interdiction [emphasis supplied]; degrading enemy functions or capabilities such as command and control, offensive air support, or logistics; and manipulating the enemy’s perceptions.”14
The term in joint doctrine is also “interdiction,” which is defined, however, as “action to divert, disrupt, delay or destroy the enemy’s surface military potential before it can be used effectively against friendly forces.”15
In the same vein, the Army says that “deep operations include: deception; deep surveillance and target acquisition; command, control, and communications countermeasures; and interdiction (by around or air fires, around or air maneuver special operating forces, or any combination of these)’’ [emphasis supplied].
The Army also says:
“Not all activities conducted forward of the line of contact are deep operations. Counterfire [against enemy artillery positions] becomes an integral part of ongoing operations, even though the targets attacked may be located at great distances from the forward line of own troops. Keeping the enemy’s artillery off the backs of our battalion commanders is key to the success of close operations. Similarly, electronic warfare efforts to disrupt the enemy’s command and control are part of close operations, even though the targeted emitters may be deep in the enemy’s rear.”16
Because air attack beyond the fire support coordination line is so vital a part of its operations, the Army once used the term “battlefield air interdiction” (BAI) to describe tactical air’s attack of those targets beyond the FSCL that were of immediate concern to corps and division commanders. The land-formation commanders would prescribe BAI targets. The Air Force never warmed to that idea;
BAI has disappeared from its vocabulary. But because the Marines insisted on a way, in joint operations, to employ MAGTF fixed-wing air beyond the FSCL, the battlefield air interdiction idea is resurfacing in a joint term, the “maneuver targeting zone.”
Flere is what you say to your commanders about deep operations and the FSCL:
“Maneuver warfare uses both the combined arms and tactical air. It is both deep and close-in and is a seamless web. It calls for mission-type orders, teamwork, formation commanders who have a sure hand on all their means, close integration of mobile firepower and maneuver, and swiftly seizing opportunities for decisive action. I want my major maneuver formation commanders to conduct maneuver warfare within their boundaries in a zone of maneuver beyond the FSCL, to a line set by me. The JFACC will cooperate as these commanders form their concepts of maneuver, and with available air will support those concepts in execution.”
eral aircraft of more than one type (as in an attack on a deep target in which air-defense-suppression aircraft accompany the attacking fighters). It can use part of one aircraft’s capabilities for a limited time (e.g., a jamming mission by an airborne jammer against a particular target at a specific time).
The totality of all the missions executed over a period of time (say 24 hours) comprises the tactical air effort for that period. But to require land-formation commanders to request air-to-ground missions one by one—even one full day in advance of that period—asks more than they can possibly do intelligently; when they attempt to do so they inject into their conduct of battle the virus of inflexibility. In maneuver warfare, writing each mission, or even
“I will direct deep operations beyond the zone of maneuver myself. The JFACC will execute deep air and missile attack there according to my guidance. We will not call those attacks interdiction (the JFACC may call them air interdiction if he likes) because interdiction has a broader scope; it includes the deep intelligence effort, attack of the enemy’s command and control by all available means; special operations; deception; and deep amphibious and airborne/air assault operations.”
“Using air allocated to them, maneuver formation commanders will designate air attack targets in their zones of maneuver and, coordinating with the JFACC, will establish the FSCL. Forward of the FSCL, the formation commander should tell the airman the specific effect to be achieved and let the airman, working with the artilleryman and using shared intelligence, find and hit the targets to achieve that effect. The formation air liaison officer has a key role here.”
“Complying with my guidance, the JFACC will do the targeting beyond the zone of maneuver and will determine the timing of target attack.”
Whether flown by an Air Force, Navy, Marine, or allied squadron, the basic tactical air element is the mission. ^ mission can be one aircraft (a reconnaissance mission), it can be two to four aircraft (an attack of an enemy formation called for by a battalion in contact). It can be sev- most missions, into a single air tasking order (ATO) is a huge mistake.
As joint force commander, you have to simplify the ATO and streamline the way it is prepared. Here’s what you say to your commanders:
“Late every afternoon I want my major maneuver formation commanders to send me and the JFACC a general-requirements message that says how much of the JFACC’s air they want in the 24 hours beginning 0600 the next day in their zones of maneuver, including close air support. I will want to know why they need that air, and what kind of targets they expect to strike with it—the latter is essential for ordnance selection, which is not easy to change on short notice. The JFACC, knowing my concept of operations and my priorities, will tell me what he thinks I should do with the air he directs—how much should go deep and how much should go to each maneuver formation commander. I will give him and the maneuver commanders my decision. He and they will work out strike planning in their zones, and he will put in the strikes, adjusting them as requested by maneuver commanders when their changed situations so require.”
“The JFACC will issue the ATO about midnight. It will set up a stream of air support—which is armed by good planning with suitable ordnance and surging as needed according to the concept of operations—to be
Rewriting the functions paper—i.e., roles and missions—to reassign responsibility for systems and their elements is an exercise in futility. It will create turmoil in the institutions that now build and sustain workable systems and will set up unfamiliar new interfaces to be contrived as technology and ingenuity change the dimensions of war.
controlled, and diverted as necessary, by the AOC, the air support operations center (ASOC), and air liaison officers responsive to commanders at the front end. Tactical air control parties will put in CAS; the JFACC will put in strikes beyond the FSCL (often with airborne forward air controllers). The ATO will specify targets only as required, as, for example, when it needs to put together force packages for escort, air defense suppression, and so on.”
“To get tactical air in unforeseen emergencies or opportunities during the ATO day, maneuver formation commanders will send me and the JFACC—or call in— a “special requirements message” that describes the emergency or opportunity and asks for tactical air to meet the situation. The JFACC, knowing his air situation and my concept of operations, will have my authority to respond.”'7
What does all this mean for roles and missions, for the great rewrite of the Department of Defense functions paper (DoD Directive 5100.1) that is being called for?
It means that theater warfare is a very complex proposition, that however one organizes for the waging of it, one confronts the need to integrate systems and to solve interfaces. It means that the National Security Act of 1947 reasonably framed what each service would provide to a joint force. Some systems will come to the joint force commander essentially assembled; examples are the Army and Marine Corps artillery fire-support systems; very much alike, they work well together in battle. Others need to be put together in the field, from elements possessed by each service’s force on the scene and by outsiders as well; intelligence, electronic warfare, and logistics systems—each of which must be an integral part of the fighting force that each service provides—are of this nature.
Rewriting the functions paper—i.e., roles and missions—to reassign responsibility for systems and their elements is an exercise in futility. It will create turmoil in the institutions that now build and sustain workable systems and will set up unfamiliar new interfaces to be contrived as technology and ingenuity change the dimensions of war.
A far better approach would be to live with the systems we have, to work out procedures and operational doctrine for their integrated use in battle, to train commanders and staffs in their employment, to learn from experience, and to use intelligently Joint Staff and OSD mechanisms so as to define the new materiel that the services seek to meet their statutory responsibilities—namely, within assigned spheres to provide and sustain the forces that the same law charges joint commanders to employ.
'An October 1992 “issue brief’ by the Business Executives for National Security, Washington, D.C., titled “Shaping Military Roles and Missions to Secure the Newly Won Peace,” echoes and expands on themes of “wasteful redundancy” that have been recently sounded by Senator Sam Nunn and others in Congress and that were picked up by Governor Bill Clinton in an August 1992 address to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council: “It is time to take a fresh look at the basic organization of our armed forces. . . . While respecting each service’s unique capabilities, we can reduce redundancies, save billions of dollars, and get better teamwork.” 2For example, Air Force Manual 1-1, Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force, Department of the Air Force, March 1992, spells out the primacy of “aerospace power.” . . . From the Sea; Preparing the Naval Service for the 21st Century, a Navy/Marine Corps White Paper of September 1992, foreshadows new Sea Services operational themes. A preliminary draft of Field Manual 100-5, Operations, circulated 30 August 1992 by Headquarters, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, Fort Monroe, VA, has its own content on force projection and jointness.
’The Air Force no longer calls it tactical air; “tactical” and “strategic” air are now one: “combat air.”
1 AFM 1-1, op cit, Vol. 11, p. 71.
5A US joint force commander can designate a single air authority known as the JFACC (joint force air component commander), for the “planning, coordination, allocation and tasking” of all air assets in the force. Joint Pub 1-02, p. J97.
’The quote is from AFM 1-1, op cit, Vol 11, p 163.
7JFACC Primer, Deputy Chief of Staff, Plans and Operations, Headquarters, United States Air Force, August 1992, p. 11. The only time Apaches were tasked by the JFACC in Desert Storm was in the first hours of the air war, when Apaches of the 101st Airborne Division along with special operations air knocked out crucial Iraqi radar installations, thereby making possible deep F-l 17 stealth fighter attacks on Baghdad, undetected.
*Use such terms very carefully! They smack of an industrial approach to war. A soldier or Marine will fight and die for his squad, for B Company, for the 101st Airborne Division or the Marine Corps, but don’t ask him to fight and die for a maneuver system.
'See Erwin Rommel’s Infantry Attacks for maneuver power in mountain troops, World War 1.
"’In this sentence, “can be” might better be used than “are.” When one formation has maneuver power while another with an identical TO&E does not, that is because maneuver power depends on the minds and energies that activate it. "Everybody nowadays believes in maneuver warfare. Understanding it, and then practicing it, is a different matter. Before you make this fine speech, be sure that you do indeed know how to fight maneuver warfare. It requires a certain state of mind, in you and in all your subordinates.
"Holding, even today, to 1943’s War Department Field Manual 100-20 which gave it virtual independence and said “[the theater commander] will exercise command of tactical air through the air force commander and of ground forces through the ground forces commander,” Air Force doctrine calls for a separate Land Force Commander. The 1943 model came about when General Eisenhower, commanding allied forces in North Africa, placed allied air under Air Chief Marshall Tedder and the allied armies under General Alexander, British Army. It is out of date; in recent decades (as in the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam; Allied Forces Central Europe; Korea’s Combined Forces Command; and Desert Storm) the joint commander has uniformly been double-hatted as the land force commander. (Interestingly, a Marine Air Ground Task Force [MAGTF] of any size resembles a small theater as the Air Force would organize one. The first thing I Marine Expeditionary Force did when MAGTFs arrived in Saudi Arabia was to strip out their air, helicopters included, and place it all under one Marine Aircraft Wing.)
’The JFACC Primer, op cit, p. 2.
l4Fleet Marine Force Manual 1-1, Campaigning, Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, January 25, 1990, pp. 62-63. This manual does not use the term “deep operations.” ’'Joint Pub 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, Office of the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, December 1, 1989, p. 187. "Draft FM 100-5, Operations, op cit, pp. 7-17.
17When I commanded, in 1976-78, 1 Corps (ROK/US) Group—a field army-size formation of three ROK corps, a ROK Marine Brigade, and the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division defending the Western Sector of Korea’s DMZ—I worked with Air Forces Korea, commanded by Major General Bob Taylor, USAF, to arrive at procedures identical to those described here (except that I called my air support CAS, but used it also in BAI). We used these procedures in a series of “Caper Crown” warfare simulation exercises. They worked.
General Cushman, a frequent contributor to Proceedings, is writing a Joint Commander’s Handbook on Maneuver Warfare.