Second Honorable Mention, Colin L. Powell Joint Warfighting Essay Contest
In the spring of 1991, following a great victory, U.S. generals led a parade of their own in our nation's capitol. Held to honor the men and women who participated in Operation Desert Storm, the parade clearly celebrated two additional accomplishments: the American military finally had overcome the specter of the Vietnam War and the country now stood alone as the world's only superpower. The U.S. military had once again arrived at center stage and was reveling in the moment. In the din of congratulations and emotion, Rome's slave would have needed a bullhorn to issue any warnings, and as the ensuing decade unfolded, U.S. forces continued to prepare for war in a manner that largely anticipated another Desert Storm.
But the rest of the world learned that the United States should not be fought along conventional lines. Future enemies "will no more seek to confront U.S. power on U.S. terms than David would have gone out against Goliath with a sword and shield," according to a recent study. Although our next adversary may not be familiar with the Old Testament, the U.S. military ignores the comparison at its own peril, as asymmetric options may be the only method available to a foe in conflict with the United States.
Long ago, the U.S. Marine Corps rightfully claimed the title "first to fight," and few doubt the Corps' ability to project power at a moment's notice. But U.S. air power assets increasingly are the first (and sometimes only) forces that see action when decision makers opt for a military solution. In the wake of the Gulf War, there is an almost universal expectation that U.S. military action will begin with a strategic air campaign.
As a recent RAND study notes, "No other air force today appears to field the combination of platforms, weapons, and personnel—either in quantity or quality—that would be needed to defeat the U.S. Air Force nose- to-nose at 35,000 feet." As DoD continues to invest in state-of-the-art technology for a war at altitude, our enemies are likely to counter the airman's perspective with a more earthbound view. By virtue of the very technological superiority we are banking on, we may force the enemy to find nonconventional methods to even the odds.
To counter U.S. air power, our adversaries have at their disposal a multitude of asymmetric options, ranging from the presidential level to the private's. This article focuses on coalition busting, and its ability to affect virtual attrition on U.S. air power.
The Modern Coalition
In the early stages of a crisis when planning cells pick up the cards they are dealt, few are more important—and wild—as the ones dealing with coalitions. Less formal than alliances, coalitions are "forces composed of military elements of nations that have formed a temporary alliance for some specific purpose." The operative words are "temporary" and "specific purpose"—terms that defy definition in unilateral campaigns, much less in the international bazaar we frequently see assembled in post-Cold War limited-objective operations.
A recurring epiphany when studying war is confirmation of the biblical aphorism that nothing is new under the sun. The Trojan War saw both Troy and Greece involved in coalitions. Napoleon contended with a total of seven different coalitions balanced against him in 19th-century Europe, and the United States has been a coalition member in virtually all of the overseas wars it has fought. Historically, coalitions have been created to provide sufficient power to resist or carry out aggression, to make known to potential adversaries an alignment of powers as a form of deterrence, and to transform common goals to formal commitments.
These, however, are no longer the reasons America establishes coalitions. Outside of standing alliance commitments, the U.S. military needs little augmentation to deter any conventional threats or to carry out operations should deterrence fail—indeed, things probably would go much smoother without coalitions. Today, coalitions are useful for legitimacy, access, and money.
Legitimacy is of paramount importance, especially for the United States. As a 1993 article in the U.S. Army's Military Review highlights, "The question of legitimate use of force in a world conscious of the norms of international law, and more independent and layered with overlapping international organizations, will drive nations to seek allies to help justify their use of force." President Ronald Reagan followed this principle when he stated during the 1983 U.S. intervention in Grenada that "six members of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States joined by Jamaica and Barbados had sent an urgent request that we join them in a military operation to restore order and democracy to Grenada."
While legitimacy is paramount to grand strategists, access is everything for air power. The ability to strike anywhere, anytime by U.S. Air Force assets should not be discounted. For a geographic commander-in-chief with a war plan that may dictate daily sortie rates in the thousands, however, Diego Garcia and Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri, will always be very far away. The logistics, aerial refueling, divert, and overflight plans behind the launching of an intertheater strike comprise an impressive yet fragile arrangement that can easily collapse. Access means airbases, and airbases mean sorties, tempo, and parallel warfare—everything for which the Air Force is optimized.
Modern warfare is incredibly expensive. The Gulf War cost an estimated $61 billion. While F-117s and Abrams tanks represent an enduring image of the conflict, a less publicized picture is the one of Uncle Sam with his hat in hand asking for contributions. Nevertheless, our fundraising efforts were effective, with the United States "only" picking up seven billion dollars worth of the tab (Japan and Germany contributed a total of $16 billion.) What if we were able to raise only half of that amount, or none? Would politicians really be willing to fund such a bill for a war with very limited objectives? If the war turns bloody, will American citizens tolerate their soldiers dying as mercenaries for well-paying but nonfighting partners in Japan and Germany? Coalitions sometimes can provide the transfusion of money the United States needs to fight in limited wars; if for no other reason, they are high-payoff targets for our adversaries.
Since coalitions are central to making modern military strategies work, what can an enemy do to take one apart? Unfortunately, an example is readily available. In Challenging the United States Symmetrically and Asymmetrically, Stephen C. Pelletiere describes events in the winter of 1997-98 when Iraq reduced a powerful coalition into just the United States acting as a largely unilateral "aggressor."
During October 1997, Saddam Hussein banned further U.N. weapons inspections. As the United States prepared for a confrontation, Saddam backed away from the brink in December. Victory for the United States? Only a superficial one because the United States stood at the brink without a coalition. Russia, China, and France—fellow U.N. Security Council members—disassociated themselves, and only Kuwait joined the United States from the Arab world.
Iraq could teach Vietnam a refresher course in propaganda. In a textbook example of selecting the facts it chose to expose, and placing its interpretations on them to support preconceived bias, Iraq "loaded" the image of the United States in the eyes of the coalition once arrayed against it.
As the world's sole superpower, the United States takes pride in its role as a benevolent pillar of stability and CEO of the world's economy. The rest of the world is not always as enthusiastic. Iraq's view of the United States is that of a bullying hegemon intent on maintaining a sphere of economic and political influence in the Middle East—at the expense of the rest of the world. To add substance to this image, Iraq encouraged trade with other states and entered into lucrative international contracts against the day the embargo was lifted. These nations now had a vested interest in seeing America lift its embargo, and saw themselves being hurt by U.S. policies.
Next, Iraq turned to its Arab neighbors and began to work on the "Israeli double standard," arguing that "if Israel has an estimated 200 atomic bombs, why is Iraq being embargoed on the chances we have one? Why has the UN allowed Israel to occupy southern Lebanon since 1978? Because the U.S. defends Israel and bullies the UN into defending it as well while requiring the UN to deal harshly with Iraq."
As Pelletiere emphasizes, the double standard theme resonates in the Arab world. Many of these countries are barely legitimate, and "all are under constant assault by centrifugal forces ranging from ethnic and religious tensions to Islamic fundamentalism to Pan-Arabism." The double standard theme can also work against them. "Across the Arab world, as demonstrations started gearing up, Iraq was portrayed as the courageous party, standing up to western imperialism and Zionism; while by implication, the moderate Arab leaders were traitors." Unbelievably, the United States had virtually lost access to the Persian Gulf. There was no overt action by Iraq, but moderate Arabs, "fearful of a popular backlash, refused permission to use their bases for combat missions, and in some cases even denied overflight rights."
How would the inevitable U.S. attack have looked had Iraq not stepped down? Operation Desert Fox of December 1998 provides an answer. While details remain classified, the manner in which the four-day strike was orchestrated seems to verify Pelletiere's coalition-busting hypothesis. B-52s, which truly have global reach, probably made the most of this capability to deliver their munitions, while carrier aircraft and naval ships operated in nearby waters. With this mix of assets delivering the preponderance of striking power, where were the rest of the platforms that performed yeoman service during Operation Desert Storm? They were not absent by design—most nations in close proximity to Iraq were reluctant to grant basing rights for offensive action.
This limitation on assets and sortie generation helps explain the "time-clock" nature of the operation as well. Desert Storm witnessed air power striking across the entire spectrum of Iraqi targets, 24 hours a day, for weeks. Yet anyone watching the Cable News Network could plainly see that Desert Fox action was limited to hours of darkness only, for four days. By breaking the coalition, Iraq had effected "virtual attrition" on U.S. air power's capability to strike.
As noted, the United States looks to coalitions for legitimacy, access, and money. By virtue of Saddam's coalition castration, it seems that Desert Fox was run with greatly reduced access, and the United States paid the most. As for legitimacy, Pelletiere notes, "How could Washington claim to be acting in the interests of the international community, when practically the whole of the community had abandoned it?" Whether out of ineptness or calculation, Iraq's lack of military response seemed to play on the legitimacy angle as well. By allowing massive media coverage from Baghdad, and absorbing U.S. attacks with essentially no resistance, several audiences—especially Arab ones—probably felt pangs of sympathy for yet another country being mercilessly bombed by the United States.
Returning to the access aspect of coalitions, naval enthusiasts will point to the aircraft carrier as the trump card for denied basing rights. With 90,000 tons of diplomacy parked in international waters, the carrier operates in a venue free of status-of forces agreements and foreign runways. Alas, the strongest suit of aircraft carriers in the "Forward . . . from the Sea" role is more the threat of force than force application. Carrier battle groups (CVBGs) pack a wallop, but sustained combat operations exhaust ordnance and crews rapidly. Although the carriers may be nuclear powered, jets burn fossil fuel in staggering quantities. In addition, a single carrier cannot conduct indefinitely around-the-clock operations—for that capability the Joint Force Commander (JFC) needs two carriers, and a cautious JFC would probably want three as a casualty plan. Carriers deploy with an entourage of other ships as well; suddenly, a significant portion of the U.S. Navy may find itself together in a distant corner of the world.
Once in theater, the logistical requirements of the carrier battle groups are enormous. The USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72) CVBG, deployed in June 1999 with the USS Essex (LHD-2) Amphibious Ready Group, had in the neighborhood of twelve ships and more than 16,000 sailors and Marines embarked. Simply getting the mail to that many people is a logistical challenge; supplying them with food, fuel, parts, and ordnance without the benefit of a friendly port or airfield is a nightmare. Like the Air Force, the U.S. Navy requires local land-based access to conduct sustained combat operations effectively.
Saddam Hussein tore apart a coalition that was put together skillfully almost a decade ago. In so doing, he capitalized on generic coalition weaknesses, while homing in on the ones that applied specifically to the United States. Coalition vulnerabilities are not limited to the confines of the Persian Gulf, however, and the techniques we witnessed recently are by no means all encompassing.
In the post-Cold War world, the anticommunist glue that has held U.S. alliances and coalitions together has weakened. The urge to go it alone among independent nations is much easier to act on. Of course, there is always the anti-American tendency for adversaries to leverage. As Stephen J. Blank writes, "Our insistence on unilateral leadership and our ethnocentric disdain for foreign insights, interests, capabilities, experiences, and skills . . . suffice to make coalition forming a process replete with friction and fog." And this is with no one shooting at us.
Geography plays a deciding role in coalition composition, and the United States frequently must choose between the lesser of two evils in wooing coalition partners. In our haste to find a friendly face, we often choose poorly and ultimately give our enemies a coalition with seams vulnerable to attack. In South Vietnam, the United States backed several corrupt and incompetent governments; in Somalia the United States chose one warlord over another. Our Turkish allies are fighting the Kurdish cousins of the Kurds we are protecting in northern Iraq, and in the Balkans today any group we side with is not likely to be innocent.
For U.S. air power, coalitions are much like the weather. We have to work with what we are given, and, while rarely afforded a chance to make things better, we have ample opportunity to make them worse. Nevertheless, coalitions will remain a vital requirement in virtually any foreseeable conflict. If our enemies can degrade the legitimacy, access, and money coalitions provide, air power's ability to contribute will be greatly reduced.
Colonel O’Halloran is a 1999 graduate of the U.S. Air Force School of Advanced Airpower Studies, and currently assigned to the Marine Air-Ground Task Force staff training program, Quantico, Virginia.