The F-15E excels at strategic attack, but it has flown counter-air combat air patrols and interdiction missions, and during Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan, it also provided precision close air support. This multirole flexibility—switching from supported to supporting force—offers lessons for today’s joint forces.
Over its history, the Air Force frequently has been accused of favoring "supported force" strategic attack missions and lacking commitment to "supporting force" close air support (CAS). Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan was no exception. In September 2002, a senior Army commander complained that the Air Force inadequately supported ground troops, generating a review of Air Force performance by the service's Chief of Staff. From the Air Force perspective, the Army had failed to inform Air Force commanders of the impending operation until days before it commenced. Are the armed forces, particularly the Air Force, just repeating the same mistakes from the Korean War?
Perhaps the answer lies, in part, in that we are not quite as joint as we ought to be. Did ground forces train with Air Force aerospace expeditionary squadrons prior to combat? Had the bomber crews who flew the CAS missions done so in training? Is our doctrine sound? Why was the Army pleased with Navy/Marine Corps close air support in Operation Anaconda? These questions should be addressed by the top-level review initiated by the Air Force Chief of Staff.
Doctrinally speaking, the situation with strategic attack today is similar to the situation with close air support in 1950. Although Air Force doctrine clearly defines strategic attack, it is not defined well jointly. In fact, many in the Army and Marine Corps view strategic attack as solely an Air Force function, which should be no small surprise. Ever since Giulio Douhet, airmen have forcefully advocated strategic attack as the specialty of air power—the raison d'etre of an independent air force. Did this disconnect in joint doctrine contribute to the problems highlighted in Operation Anaconda?
Air Force Doctrine Document 1, the basic doctrine of the Air Force, defines strategic attack as "those operations intended to directly achieve strategic effects by striking at the enemy's [centers of gravity]. These operations are designed to achieve their objectives without first having to necessarily engage the adversary's fielded military forces in extended operations at the operational and tactical levels of war." This dovetails nicely with the current U.S. National Security Strategy, which seeks to "have a disabling effect" on terrorism's centers of gravity. But to accomplish this, everyone in DoD must match joint strategy, training, doctrine, and equipment to develop a truly joint, flexible, effective combat force. This is especially pertinent today, when restructuring forces and budgetary discipline are topics in Congress. To give credence to our security strategy, it is essential that all services fight from the same page. Because of the nature of terrorist organizations, disabling their centers of gravity cannot be solely an Air Force undertaking. This new enemy operates and hides in divergent terrain, which means that U.S. forces—as well as civilian targets—can unexpectedly come under direct assault and require close air support at a moment's notice. As there are not enough single-mission CAS assets for the Air Force to provide global close air support around the clock, we must rely more on multirole weapon systems.
When the Air Force began buying multirole aircraft, it was applying lessons learned during the Korean War. The most successful example is the F-15E Strike Eagle. The F-15E excels at strategic attack. Its first combat during the Gulf War was in that role. Working with special operations forces (SOF), it attacked Scud missile sites to prevent Saddam Hussein from drawing Israel into the conflict, widening the war, and threatening the allied coalition. When Iraqi troops threatened the SOF forces, the F-15E crews quickly changed from "supported" strategic attack to "supporting" CAS and protected the ground troops. Strike Eagles have flown counter-air combat air patrols and interdiction missions over Iraq, Bosnia, and Kosovo. During Operation Anaconda, F-15E crews provided precision CAS in a "danger close" environment by strafing Taliban troops. These examples show the advantages of employing multirole aircraft.
Some would argue the "F-15E, like the B-36, will prove too valuable for close air support." But could U.S. military commanders justify the casualties among ground forces that might result from hoarding these "valuable" weapon systems? One doubts that the American people, who expect minimum combat casualties, would accept such a proposal.
Like the Strike Eagles in the Gulf War, the Defense Department must be ready, trained, and equipped to switch quickly from supported force to supporting force roles, and vice versa. That is why joint forces must continue to practice together and do it right. Today's armed forces must be prepared for whatever battle an aggressor presents. For DoD to be proficient and flexible, the services must be adequately trained as one.
One problem of the "more with less" era of the 1990s was that there was not enough money to train all personnel to the requisite level of proficiency. For example, the number of Air Combat Command fighter aircraft flying hours from 1989 to 1999 decreased 53.4%, from 518,912 to 241,936. The impact on the combat aviator is reflected in the number of training sorties—in May 1989, a typical aviator flew 25 sorties per month. In May of 1999, he flew 11.
This means the crews of multirole aircraft could accomplish only limited training. F-15E crews perform counterair and counterland missions in addition to strategic attack. Counterair missions include offensive and defensive sorties. Counterland includes both close air support and interdiction. In addition, combat aircrew must conduct training in aerial refueling and night operations. Realistically, crews can combine two or three of these missions per sortie. Instead of getting a ten sorties per mission type per month, aircrews receive only about four.
Why? Lack of money for flight time and parts is a common culprit. Wear and tear from repeated overseas deployments aggravated maintenance and repair issues. And these problems were not unique to the Air Force.
The armed forces must continue quality training (coupled with sound joint doctrine) among all branches in all mission areas. In Special Operations Command (SOCom), joint doctrine, money, and training are key. As budgets shrank in the 1990s, SOCom integrated more, training, planning, and working together in joint exercises. Following this template would allow DoD to keep its experiences and corporate knowledge fresh. Joint exercises are irreplaceable learning experiences. Simple things like service-specific terminology and platform capabilities, taken for granted within a service, are obstacles to other services unless units train together and understand one another.
Because SOCom integrates goals, budget, equipment, training, and doctrine, the command is adept at changing quickly from a supported to a supporting force. Such a capabilities-based approach is essential to meeting threats in a dynamic battle space, focusing more on how an adversary might fight than on who the adversary might be or where war might occur. Such combat capability was demonstrated by F-15E crews in Desert Storm. By adopting many special operations practices, DoD could restructure and become much more efficient.
One option would be for the Department of Defense to budget more "purple" money for joint long-range goals, equipment, and exercises (guided by the combatant commanders' joint planning staffs as they anticipate potential threats). This money would be separate from the services' regular budgets. In future joint exercises, DoD periodically could link the western training airspace of the Nellis ranges, the National Training Center, and Navy Fallon to fight a joint "war" with units from all over the globe against a joint-service aggressor force. In this unique training environment, we could verify joint doctrine, technology, and respective service training prior to committing forces to battle.
Under this rubric, the new joint model for a future strategic attack mission might go like this: the Air Force inserts and extracts Army Rangers in a remote part of the world. Marine Corps AV-8 Harriers provide on-call close air support for the Ranger force. Navy aircraft suppress enemy air defenses. Air Force space assets provide technology and information support. The Ranger force executes the mission and secures the national political objective. A joint debrief at tactical, operational, and strategic levels of command cements lessons learned.
It is imperative, however, that the armed forces update their doctrines and maintain proficiency in all combat functions together. Joint training would strengthen DoD's capabilities, because each branch of the armed forces brings a unique expertise to the table. What better way to harvest that expertise than to train together routinely and help reduce the fog and friction of war. In the words of the U.S. Navy Weapons School's motto, "You Fight Like You Train."
Major Dusch is an assistant professor of military strategic studies at the Air Force Academy and director of the Cadet Aerospace Strategy and Instructor School. He has flown some 2,100 hours in the F-15E and F-4, including more than 90 combat hours, has been an air liaison officer in the Republic of Korea with the Combined Field Army, and served as a Titan II intercontinental ballistic missile crewmember.