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Between the two World Wars, in the continuum of fighting [he next war with the lessons learned from the last one, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris crafted an air power strategy to take war out of the trenches and put it
the enemy’s doorstep. Strategic bombing would enable the Boyal Air Force’s Bomber Command to deter the next one— or win it. As a counter—should others adopt the idea—Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding built Fighter Command around Hur- ncanes and Spitfires to defend the island kingdom.
Across the channel, the German General Staff structured a combined arms game plan—the blitzkrieg that overran Poland and France in 1939-40. When the channel stopped the German Kampkraft, Dowding’s few beat the Luftwaffe’s many, and the tide turned.
In Europe, when the Allies brought the fight back to the continent, they came as a combined arms juggernaut; the Yanks brought the P-51, which made a difference, and provided the lrst multi-role tactical aviation capability to the battlefield. As John Terraine describes in A Time for Courage, the lesson earned from all of this is that air- ground cooperation is the key to win- n'ng in modern combat.
The Pacific island-hopping campaigns were by definition cooperative, although air power enthusiasts cited the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as proof that strategic bombing worked—and could deter, if the bomb Were big enough and collateral damage could be accepted.
Half a century later, the Cold War strategies of massive retaliation and mutual assured destruction have receded into the oackground. We are back to modern conventional munitions c°mbat as the preferred alternative for Clausewitz’s concept °1 war as a continuation of politics by other means; and the concomitant realization that a combined arms, cooperative, blitzkrieg approach is the most efficient way to fight.
Operation Desert Storm—and October’s deployments to an Unstable Middle East—reaffirm Terraine’s findings. The high- technology tactical aviation capability developed during the Cold war made a very big difference in a combined-arms campaign Where air-ground cooperation was a paramount element of the Battle strategy.
The big difference between the Vietnam War and Desert Storm was that, in the latter, the troops came to annihilate the °Pposition—not to assume a strategic defensive—and they came With a devastating blitzkrieg. Air power was used to destroy the enemy’s offensive and counter-air capability, to gain air supremacy, and to support the ground campaign.
But, in 1994, as we try to downsize and streamline our armed forces to reflect the new realities and threats of a New World Order, the ghost of “Bomber” Harris is back roaming the Pentagon's corridors—and he has developed some amazing alliances ln support of his new credo of Global Reach-Global Power with the B-2 as the centerpiece. U.S. Air Force cousins of Dowd- lng’s few support the concept as long as they are free to develop their 21st century Spitfire, the F-22, not to defend the homeland, but rather to deploy to some in-theater local base
structure, somewhere, and gain air supremacy against some to-be-determined enemy.
The F-22 is a technological marvel, albeit costly, with unquestioned performance improvements; but its single-mission focus restricts its reach and utility. Even limited efforts to give it a multi-role capability will be expensive. The modern blitzkrieg demands air supremacy and today’s technology allows us to field an affordable stable of multi-role platforms useful in both air-to-air and cooperative air-to-ground missions without sacrificing effectiveness. The U.S. Air Force, however, sees its air-power interests best served by developing separate, very expensive, F-22s and B-2s rather than adopting a joint-service systems acquisition approach based on the lesson of air- ground cooperation learned over the last half century.
With some reluctance, the U.S. Army poses no objection to the “Bomber” Harris approach—so long as future procurement of Comanche attack helicopters and the Army tactical missile system (ATACMS) is not impeded. Neither does the U.S. Marine Corps protest—as long as Marines can buy the V-22, upgrade their AV-8B Harrier fleet, and protect their investment in the advanced short- take-off-and-vertical-landing (ASTOVL) development effort.
The Navy, surprisingly, has no problem with the “Bomber” Harris concept—as long as it can maintain a base-line Trident force and build Seawolves and new nuclear-powered attack submarines (NSSNs) to launch Tomahawks and new-generation cruise missiles as its contribution to the Global Reach- Global Power strategy; and by so doing protect the nuclear propulsion and associated shipbuilding industrial base.
Carrier aviation, however, for so long the centerpiece of Navy forces, has been cast adrift in this new found multiservice alliance to further “Bomber” Harris’s air-power principles. Artificial budget priorities have kept naval aviation from obtaining the new-generation survivable, multi-role aircraft necessary to make the carriers a major player in the 21st Century.
~ As we move into the serious examination of our Defense posture in the second year of the Clinton administration, the perennial issue of the relative value of long-range bombers versus the sea-based alternative of large, nuclear-powered aircraft carriers will probably move to center stage. Given the perceived lack of survivable and effective blitzkrieg firepower on the carrier decks, “Bomber” Harris’s disciples, maybe with flawed premises, appear to have the high ground, the institutional support and the votes to make Global Reach-Global Power the central strategic theme and reality.
A more enlightened approach might be to expand the Army’s novel and farsighted Louisiana Maneuvers campaign analysis as the basis for a combined arms procurement process to establish coherent justification criteria to evaluate the joint advanced strike technology (JAST) investments scheduled over the next several years. If this were done, the proponents of a balanced, joint and cooperative strategy might prevail and carrier aviation could be given a new charter. The approach would foster a top-down perspective and allow production and replacement decisions to be based on national needs within affordable boundaries—not on service-unique priorities.
Admiral Hogan, a fighter pilot and carrier skipper, directed the Navy’s Office of Legislative Assistance prior to his retirement.
The Navy, surprisingly, has no problem with the "Bomber" Harris concept...