Proliferation of missile technology and the development of inexpensive, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) allow even the poorest countries to acquire a flexible, survivable, and highly lethal air and missile attack capability."1 To counter this threat we must synchronize and integrate joint counterair systems. Unfortunately, however, the armed forces do not share the same vision of the roles, responsibilities, and procedures conveyed in theater counterair doctrine.
The Evolution
The Cold War counterair doctrine of the 1970s sought to stop a massive Soviet fixed-wing attack in Europe, using a mobile defense to trade ground for time to gather reserve reinforcements.2 In the 1980s, the Air Force and Army developed the Air-Land Battle doctrine, to use their combined strengths to take the offensive at the beginning of hostilities. With the passage of the Goldwater- Nichols legislation, Congress sought to capitalize further on joint war fighting by directing the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop and implement joint doctrine. Lacking the needed resources and staff, the Chairman subcontracted the writing of most doctrine to the services.3 The Air Force was designated as lead agent for developing theater counterair doctrine.
Written in 1986, this joint counterair doctrine was employed extensively in the 1991 Gulf War. A single commander with centralized planning and direction authority for theater-level air war—the joint force air component commander—synchronized the Coalition’s offensive counterair operations to neutralize Iraq’s integrated air defense systems. Although it met with great success, this doctrine still “was anathema to the Navy, which had its own painfully developed procedures for waging air war. . . . The Navy only reluctantly bought into the Air Force vision in Desert Storm because it was offered a Hobson’s choice: either play by these rules, or don’t play.”4
The congressionally chartered Commission on Roles and Missions of the Armed Forces—tasked with improving efficiency by restructuring the military—examined theater air defense closely, because the Navy, Air Force, and Army all were developing theater-anti-ballistic-missile weapons. It noted that the services, though “individually superb,” did not function as a team.5 The commission attributed this problem to a lack of central vision, which causes each service to perceive its own mission as the most critical—supported by the other services, and recommended improving interservice cooperation. The development and use of joint doctrine are crucial to the success of multiservice operations.
Joint Counterair Doctrine
The main function of joint counterair doctrine is to clarify force- and component-commander responsibilities at the operational level of war. Because the unified commanders-in-chief (CinCs) are in charge of multiservice theater operations, it is written primarily for them. Joint publications also provide standardized tactics, techniques, and procedures for the tactical level of war. Interservice friction usually occurs when there is a difference in interpretation or when service procedures clash.
After two U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopters were shot down over northern Iraq in 1994, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Shalikashvili took a strong stance on the application of joint doctrine. He directed that all joint publications include the following statement: “The guidance in this publication is authoritative; as such, this doctrine will be followed except when, in the judgment of the commander, exceptional circumstances dictate otherwise.”6 The shoot-down tragedy highlighted the importance of codifying not only responsibilities and procedures for theater counterair operations but also their implementation.
Joint doctrine provides the joint force commander with guidance on assigning counterair responsibilities. It states that the joint force commander “will normally assign [joint force air component commander (JFACC)] responsibilities to the component commander having the preponderance of air assets and the capability to plan, task, and control joint air operations.”7 It goes on to explain that the JFACC typically is the supported commander for counterair operations. Normally, the JFACC also serves as the area air defense commander and the airspace control authority, because these duties are closely interrelated.8
The concept of the JFACC as a supported commander with authority over all theater-level air defense systems and air assets is a controversial topic within the military. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps counterair philosophies differ from those of the Air Force and joint doctrine.
Army Perspective. Army doctrine presents counterair operations as a subset of theater air defense operations. (The other subset is theater missile defense.) They are defined as protecting the force from manned fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft and UAVs. Using joint doctrine, the Air Force has argued against this separation. The Air Force’s JFACC primer states: “Air and missile threats have theater range; defeating enemy air and missile threats with limited resources requires theater-level organization, planning, and control. Currently, theater air and missile defense operations fall within established [Air Force] roles and missions; missile defense is a part of counterair.”9
Asserting that “equipment and training differences make it difficult for a joint force commander to integrate a near leak-proof theater missile defense without risking fratricide,” the Air Force proposed consolidating all theater counterair assets under one service. This would standardize training and equipment and eliminate redundant systems. The Army saw the Air Force as wanting control of theater missile defense, to maintain its freedom to maneuver in the air at the expense of the land component commander’s ability to maneuver and defend soldiers. If decisive victory is to be achieved on land, the Army argued, it must control the land battle and have the weapons to protect its soldiers. This controversy strengthens the assessment that without a central vision, each service will continue to surmise that its mission is the supported mission.10
Navy and Marine Corps Perspective. Naval counterair doctrine, based on the composite warfare commander concept, has a unique lexicon and service-specific procedures. The conflict between naval and joint doctrine is in the interpretation of the JFACC’s authority. The JFACC is a functional component commander. The Air Force defines a functional component by the medium in which the forces operate—air, land, or sea. The Navy and Marine Corps define a functional component by its assigned mission or warfare area. For them, the JFACC is analogous to the composite warfare commander’s air resources element coordinator. In addition, the Air Force advocates operational control of all theater air assets for the JFACC, to execute seamless air operations. To accomplish their missions and protect their forces, the Marine Corps and Navy maintain that they must retain operational control of service air assets for direct-support sorties.
Current joint doctrine is a compromise between the Navy and Marine Corps’ concept of the JFACC as a coordinator and the Air Force’s desire for total theater air operational control: the joint force commander is the only one who can reallocate a service's direct-support sorties for joint air operations. Services retain operational control of direct-support sorties, but they must make excess sorties available for JFACC control. The JFACC then uses those air assets to execute the joint force commander's theater-wide objectives. Of course, the Marine air-ground task force (MAGTF) is a light expeditionary force that by design does not contain "excess." Navy carrier battle groups and MAGTFs train and work as combined, tightly integrated forces; any change in the force structure could disrupt or lessen their warfighting capabilities.
Theory Meets Practice
Many Navy and Marine Corps concerns about apportionment and command are not dependent on joint doctrine but on the joint force commander's concept of operations—the combination of unique theater and operational requirements with commander's intent. Joint doctrine and the commander's concept of operations are critical in deciding the outcome of multiservice operations.
Field Training Exercises. Joint field training exercises help to build a joint service culture. They also provide a forum to test joint operational theory and to evaluate how the services interact to defeat a threat on a mock battlefield. Ocean Venture and Roving Sands are two joint field training exercises that have provided significant lessons learned from joint counterair operations. A primary objective of Ocean Venture '92 and '93 was to explore the roles and responsibilities of the JFACC. Roving Sands, billed as the largest joint exercise in America, stressed counterair operations as essential to a joint integrated air defense system.
Ocean Venture '92 evaluated the Commander-in-Chief (CinCLant's) JFACC concept-of-operations policy. CinCLant required all components participating in the exercise to staff the JFACC with officers who had formal Joint air operations training. The Commander, Twelfth Air Force, was double-hatted, acting as the commander of Air Force forces and as JFACC. CinCLant’s JFACC policy specified that a joint organization be involved in planning air operations, but it did not specify the procedures to plan those operations. As a result, Air Force procedures were used.
An Air Force-heavy organization, Ocean Venture ’92’s JFACC had an existing staff infrastructure that trained together regularly. Other service augmentees had to figure out how to fit in. Navy and Marine Corps augmentees were far fewer in number and lower in rank than the Air Force officers on the staff.
Because Air Force forces issued the messages, the JFACC message system confused the other services. For example, “AFFOR did not submit target nominations to the JFACC as the other services were required to do.”11 This erroneously implied to the other services that Air Force targets were the foundation for the joint integrated prioritized target list. The Center for Naval Analyses summarized the exercise as follows:
Ocean Venture demonstrated, as did Operation Desert Storm, that whenever guidance—be it joint doctrine or a theater-specific concept of operations—is too vague, it is susceptible to invention. And the invention will be that of the service acting as the JFACC: that service component commander acting as the JFACC probably will implement service-specific procedures to compensate for a lack of guidance. This leaves the joint force at a disadvantage because the other services are unfamiliar with and lack training in those service-specific procedures.12
Ocean Venture ’93 took a different approach. The JFACC was an independent commander, rather than a double-hatted service component commander. The JFACC exercised tactical, not operational, control of air assets offered by the service component commanders for non-direct-support sorties. Theater service components filled specific JFACC staff billets to ensure equal representation of all theater air defense assets. This approach allowed the JFACC to “operate in an evenhanded way with respect to the service component commanders” and accentuated joint—not parochial—counterair operations.13
Roving Sands post-exercise reports emphasized the problems with joint counterair doctrine. There were two recurring problems in the 1992 and 1993 exercises:
- Joint terms were not used frequently by exercise participants.
- When joint doctrine conflicted with service doctrine, the operators followed service doctrine.
One lesson learned was that “service-unique terminology and acronyms caused confusion and delayed coordination and communications between . . . participants.”14 Because they have not replaced service terminology, joint terms add an additional language that sometimes contributes to the confusion. Joint terminology should bridge service and joint procedures, providing a common reference for complex ideas and principles. To facilitate this, the services need to employ joint terminology in their publications whenever possible.
A Roving Sands ’93 participant noted that because of “differences in doctrine, efforts between Army, Marine, and Air Force air defense periodically lacked coordination. The resulting confusion detracted from the overall Integrated Air Defense System.”15 This quote points to two needs: a central vision at the operational level and joint training at the tactical level. The military must establish one set of unified procedures for both joint and service doctrine and increase joint training opportunities, to prepare the services to fight as a joint force.
Conclusions and Recommendations
The roles-and-missions debate over control of theater air-defense systems and the differences in doctrine are evidence that the armed forces still do not share a central vision. The Roles and Missions Commission addressed this problem by recommending an increased emphasis on joint doctrine and training and the establishment of a “new unified command to oversee joint training and command forces within the continental United States.”16
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff needs to distance joint doctrine from service parochialism by getting rid of the “lead agent” concept. He should identify a joint agency to forge a central vision and to develop all joint doctrine. The Joint Warfighting Center in Norfolk, Virginia, is an ideal choice. Developing joint doctrine already is part of its charter and the Navy, Army, and Air Force doctrine commands all are located in the Norfolk-Hamp- ton Roads area.
The JFACC normally is the supported commander for theater counterair operations; therefore, it is important that the JFACC staff have equal service representation. A joint JFACC staff helps ensure integration of all air defense capabilities and communication among the component staffs. To accomplish this, the theater CinCs should:
- Create a theater JFACC staff, using personnel identified by billet from component staffs.
- Ensure that service components staff JFACC billets with personnel that have air defense experience and training in joint operations.
- Train the JFACC staff as a team annually, during theater field training exercises and command post exercises.
- Rotate service responsibility for JFACC during exercises, to develop theater expertise and to expose the JFACC staff to a variety of leadership styles.
Joint defense offers the best solution for providing the United States with the decisive combat power it needs to defeat future air and missile threats. Ten years of discord among the services on theater air and missile defense is too long. It is time for a change.
1 Kevin Silvia, “New ADA Doctrine,” Air Defense Artillery, November-December 1994, p. 6.
2 John H. Little, “ADA at 25,” 1993 Air Defense Artillery Yearbook, p. 4.
3 Robert B. Adolph, et al., “Why Goldwater-Nichols Didn’t Go Far Enough,” Joint Forces Quarterly, no. 7, Spring 1995, p. 49.
4 Cdr. Thomas A. Parker, USN, “The Navy Got It—Desert Storm’s Wake-up Call,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, September 1994, p. 33.
5 John T. Correll, “Washington Watch: Surprise Package on Roles and Missions,” Air Force Magazine 78, August 1995, p. 17.
6 LGen. John H. Cushman, USA (Ret.), “In Joint Doctrine: What Are Exceptional Circumstances?” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, April 1995, pp. 46-50.
7 U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Command and Control for Joint Air Operations, Joint Pub 3-56.1 (Washington: 14 November 1994), p. 11-2.
8 Ibid., p. II-3.
9 U.S. Department of the Air Force, USAF JFACC Primer, 2d ed. (Washington: February 1994), p. 34.
10 Steven M. Brouse, “Congress Revives Roles & Mission Debate,” Air Defense Artillery, November-December 1994, p. 22.
11 Center for Naval Analyses, Strategy and Forces Division, The Joint Force Air Component Commander: Theory and Practice, p. 25.
12 Ibid., p. 26.
13 Center for Naval Analyses, Analysis of Joint Force Air Component Commander and Joint Targeting in Exercise Ocean Venture 93, CRM 94-104 (Alexandria, VA: June 1995), p. 59.
14 U.S. Department of Defense, “Interservice Terminology,” JM 95-2/JULLS no. 71540-30712, Joint Universal Lessons Learned System, 15 July 1992.
15 U.S. Department of Defense, “Joint Air Defense Doctrine Requirement,” JM 95-2/JULLS no. 53137-03164, Joint Universal Lessons Learned Systems, 31 May 1993.
16 Dennis Steele, “Front & Center: Roles and Missions Report Bolsters Joint Approach,” Army 45, July 1995, p. 9.
Commander Beaumont is stationed at Joint Theater Missile Defense Attack Operations, Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico.