This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected. Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies. Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue. The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.
The issue could not have been framed more starkly: “I think we need basically two air forces,” the Director of Plans in the Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Operations Division of the U.S. Air Force, Major General John Lorber, told some 400 people attending the Naval Institute’s “Future of Military Air Power” seminar in October 1992. “One air force would work off land, and one air force would work off sea.” General Lorber then remarked that “the Air Force seeks global reach, global power, as a proper planning framework. . . . The Air Force of the future will be even faster, more precise, more flexible, and have greater range than today’s Air Force. This Air Force will have fewer aircraft—that’s a given—and fewer people. But smaller in no way translates to less capable. In fact, we have our sights set on being even tougher and more capable.”
Rear Admiral Riley Mixson, Director of the Navy’s Air Warfare Division in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, offered a “Naval Aviation Vision” clearly grounded in the “joint” philosophy embodied in the September 1992 Navy/Ma- rine Corps strategy paper, “. . . From the Sea: Preparing the Service for the 21st Century.” Admiral Mixson envisioned a future “mix of long-range bombers, land- based interdiction aircraft, and sea-based tactical aircraft [providing] a variety of alternatives to the National Command Authority.” But, with the U.S. national military strategy focus now on operations in the world’s littorals, Admiral Mixson argued that the Navy’s and Marine Corps’ “ability to generate high-intensity power- projection sorties from the decks of our carriers and expeditionary airfields is critical. ... It is easy for me to see the United States relying on aviation at sea, even a century and more from now, as one of its key capabilities.”
Lurking just behind these issues of were hard questions about affordability. Senate Armed Services Committee Staff Director Arnold Punaro challenged the services: “Does every plane have to do everything? We can t get there on the path we’re on.”
Mr. Punaro argued that the services must look for ways to end duplicate capabilities—both the Air Force and the Navy have the capability to carry out long-range bombing missions, for example—and look for savings not only in sharing aircraft technologies but in force structure, as well: “I think it’s very unrealistic to think we’re ever going to buy the inventory goal the Air Force has established for the F-22 or that the Navy has established for its new fighters.” Mr. Punaro noted that the Air Force’s requirement for 26 tactical wings (just a few years ago the stated need was for 40 wings) is probably not supportable and that 20 or fewer might be a more reasonable target. Office of the Secretary of Defense Program Analyst Franklin Spinney commented, “We’re on the edge of an abyss at the Pentagon. If we’re going to survive the next 10 or 15 years, we had better understand the situation that we’re in domestically, because this country is on the verge of becoming a banana republic. “General Lorber responded that the Air Force would have trouble fighting two major regional contingencies—a critical planning factor in the 1991-92 Base Force calculations—with just 20 wings, especially given the fact that Desert Storm was fought with the equivalent of ten wings.
Similarly, Mr. Punaro claimed that the Navy will have to spend perhaps $8 billion annually between 1994 and 2010 to acquire sufficient numbers of aircraft to meet operational requirements based upon a force objective of 12 active large-deck aircraft carriers. Ominously, he noted that in recent years the average aircraft procurement budget hovered around $4 billion, in his mind sufficient to outfit only seven carriers—a contention dismissed by Navy officials, however.
Admiral Mixson allowed that a judicious allocation of scarce resources will allow acquisition of an adequate number of new aircraft and upgrades for existing aircraft to remain operationally useful. For example, he stated that the Navy and Marine Corps expect to decommission about 40 active squadrons through the end of the decade, eliminating some 700 tactical aircraft from the inventory. Some view this as something of a cash-flow “windfall” that will enable the naval services to correct some of the deficiencies noted during operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm and attend to warfighting upgrades in all categories.
In addressing the future of military air power—not solely Navy or Marine Corps—Mr. Punaro outlined five critical concerns of Congress regarding the Defense Department’s air power programs:
>■ It cannot afford the air power it wants.
► It has not made the difficult trade-off decisions it needs to make.
>■ Until prodded by the Hill this past summer, it had not conducted a serious review of roles and missions in the post Cold War world.
► Each service is conducting its own “build-down” it* response to declining budgets, almost without any meaningful consideration of “jointness” or inter-service efficiencies.
► It remains wedded to “high-rate production assump' tions” for current and future aircraft programs, which are
unrealistic in today’s fiscal environment.
Thus, the affordability issue has implications for practically all of America’s military aircraft programs: the Navy’s A-6E replacement stealth attack aircraft, AX, or the proposed strike-fighter version, AFX; the joint Navy/Air Force stealth fighter, F-22; the Navy’s enhanced Hornet fighter-attack aircraft, F/A-18E/F; an advanced short takeoff/vertical landing aircraft, the STOVL Strike Fighter (SSF), to replace the Marines’ AV-8B Harrier II and perhaps to complement Navy carrier-based operations; and the Air Force’s Multi-Role Fighter and upgrades to Us B-1B bomber to improve its capabilities in conventional roles. Army aviation programs, including upgrades to the Apache attack helicopter to enhance its capabilities in close-air-support (CAS) roles and future attack helicopters, will also come under scrutiny. Even electronic intelligence, aerial refueling, and pilot training aircraft will not escape the debate. Billions of dollars and thousands °f jobs throughout the United States are at stake.
With this stark reality in mind, John Capellupo, President of McDonnell Douglas’ Aircraft Division, told a luncheon audience that the aerospace industry is working to cut back its excess capacity. “By 1995 our industry will he 60% of what it was in 1990, or roughly a decrease from 1-3 million personnel to 700,000 in those five years: 600,000 [people] in the defense aerospace industry out of Work and looking for work which they are apt not to find, at least in the same quality.”
Two Air Forces?
The potential impacts are therefore enormous for each branch of the armed services and its supporting industries, depending upon the outcome of the internal and external debates and the mandate for change that President Bill Clinton brings to Washington.
Based upon the reality of declining budgets and chang- 'ng strategies and policies, some cynics would conclude that at most only two “air forces” would be needed in the post-Cold War era: the Air Force and Navy. Marine fixed-wing aviators (perhaps still wearing Marine flight- suits) would round out Navy carrier air wings, while both Nlarine and Army attack helicopter pilots could retire and Put their rotary-wing aircraft into mothballs as the Air Force and Navy focus on close-air-support missions. General Lorber offered a vision of even greater restructur- 'Ug, if overseas basing were assured—something he hastened to add was not the case today and would not be the case in the future: “If we had full choice of overseas hasing, then of course we could have one air force.” This prospect—however overstated—offers to some observers the chance for the nation to reap the vast Peace dividend that U.S. politicians have elevated into something of a Holy Grail. Yet it holds the seeds for a rancorous debate and controversy about who does what in the new environment, and how much resources they will command.
In this vein former Navy aviator and astronaut Vice Admiral Richard Truly warned the Air Power Seminar about the dangers inherent in the roles-and missions-debate: “The worst possible thing—something that I do not believe the American people will accept—is a roles and missions ‘war’ among the services as this gets straightened out.” Admiral Truly noted that a principal need was to provide “a better articulation of the threat to the United States ... if that is not forthcoming—not only from the Joint Chiefs but all the services—we all are going to lose our shirts in the environment that I see in the next few years, in the money battle; it’s going to get worse before it gets better.” Admiral Truly’s concern was underscored later in the day when retired Major General Michael P. Sullivan, former deputy Commander, Fleet Marine Force Atlantic, warned, . . you’ve got to keep the service that has the best capability to do it. Everybody has a role here. . . . But it has to be affordable ... if it isn’t affordable the American people are not going to buy it.”
Indeed, the potential for a roles-and- missions cat fight had begun to grow well before Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) challenged the armed services to rationalize redundant elements. The Air Force was in the van, publishing its “Global Reach—Global Power” paper in June 1990 and its “Bomber Roadmap” two years later. These seemed to be attempts to capture the high ground in what might still—despite Admiral Truly’s admonition—become a no-holds-barred, bruising interservice battle reminiscent of the post-World War II controversies regarding strategic bombers and nuclear strike aircraft operating from large-deck aircraft carriers. The Navy and Marine Corps also began their own ruminations, leading to the 1991-1992 Naval Forces Capability Planning Evaluation and the “joint” strategy paper, “... From the Sea.” The Army, stung by criticism of its round-out brigades and friendly-fire incidents during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, hunkered down, continuing to refine air-land operations concepts and extend them to novel situations, worried that calls to bring the forces home from Western Europe and South Korea would leave the Army little more than a continental United States-based garrison force. Finally, the Joint Chiefs of Staff Base Force assessments led to an across- the-board reduction in total force structure.
Emphasizing the Air Force’s “Global Reach” concept, General Lorber acknowledged that domestic fiscal constraints and tactical/ campaign-level considerations in future conflicts mean that air power must be centrally controlled and not dispersed—more reasons why only two air forces are needed, otherwise it would be too difficult to mass the required killing power to ensure success on future battlefields: “Air power, to be used properly, is not to be used like a rain shower, sprinkled
all over the battlefield. Air power has to be thunderstorms, hitting various spots hard.”
“Global Reach” thus seemed to represent for General Lorber and the Air Force a conviction that the United States must maintain versatile combat forces for theater operations and the belief that long-range conventional bombers based only in a few U.S. and overseas locations can have a significant impact on the outcome of future conflicts. Operating under the unified command of the Joint Force Air Combat Command structure, these aircraft—the B-1B and B-2 “stealth” bombers—in concert with tactical aircraft operating from forward bases made available as a result of the inevitable U.S. coalition strategy will be capable of carrying out the full range of offensive missions, from deep strike to close air support of ground forces.
General Lorber recognized that the conventional bomber long-range mission concept is somewhat controversial, and that the impact on combat effectiveness of pilot fatigue during 35-hour missions must be addressed and understood. Also, the ability to detect, identify, target, and engage in real-time mobile tactical targets— whether Scud missiles or Saddam Hussein’s mobile command camper, in the Desert Storm experience—remains a critical aspect of such missions. And a constrained future force structure of at most 20 B-2s and no more than 96 of the problem-riddled B-lBs may make it difficult to carry out sustained, around-the-clock operations in future conflicts.
Still, General Lorber was bullish on the future health and contributions of the Air Force to U.S. security. In terms usually reserved for naval forces, he reminded the audience that the “Air Force of the future must be prepared to provide an open hand as well as a clenched fist. Its inherent flexibility as an instrument of national power, its ability to respond quickly with the right assets, and its ability to save lives both in peace and war defines the Air Force as a critical national asset.” Specifically addressing the need for global reach, General Lorber outlined the enhanced conventional strike role of today’s and tomorrow’s Air Force: “From [continental U.S.] locations, bombers can hold any potential adversary at risk, or they can attack the enemy’s war-making potential as well as their time-critical targets. That’s true global power. We need to help theater CinCs [Commanders-in-Chief] think more about what bombers can do for them in the early hours of conflict.”
Admiral Mixson’s “Naval Vision” was firmly rooted in the precepts of “.. . From the Sea”: Naval aviation—Navy and Marine air power—is a full partner in joint and combined operations and offers unique capabilities for the ambiguous international environment of the 1990s and 21st century. With the naval service’s new doctrine emphasizing excellence in littoral warfare, power projection, and joint operations, Admiral Mixson stated categorically that carrier aviation remains a pivotal force because of its capability to generate “high-intensity, power-projection sorties. ... In the U.S. Navy, power projection is our core competency. It’s a competency that separates us from other navies.”
Focusing on aircraft procurement issues, Admiral Mix- son reviewed the major air-power-related programs for the naval services. Regarding the F/A-18E/F, he listed a series of areas in which the E/F is significantly better than the C/D version, including: 33% more fuel capacity; 40% more range; 80% more endurance; and 300% more ord- nance/fuel bring-back capacity.
On the question of the AX, Admiral Mixson noted that “the jury is out on what degree of stealth it will have, but, whatever degree, it must be balanced by speed, strength, and agility.” He gave $75-85 billion as a “ballpark” figure for the total cost of the AX program, an estimate that proved to be a lightning-rod for additional debate. Regarding future aircraft carriers, specifically CVN-76, he emphasized the importance of the carrier to U.S. power-projection capabilities. With the reduction of land bases available to the United States around the world, aircraft carriers will become even more important in the future.
Admiral Mixson closed by reemphasizing the team effort behind the “naval vision,” highlighting the recent integration of Navy and Marine Corps squadrons on board aircraft carriers. (This has proved to be somewhat controversial, with some observers questioning the Navy’s commitment to Marine aviation integration. That being said, however, such real-world players as Navy Captain Bill Moore, commanding officer of Carrier Air Wing 8 on board the USS Theodore Roosevelt [CVN-71]—the first air wing to receive Marine F/A-18 Hornets under the new program—commented on the benefits of integration: “I have more capability to do close-air support. ... I have more fighters than I had six months ago.”) Admiral Mix- son also underscored the needed integration with the other services, as seen in the Navy Department’s new primary focus on joint operations and its commitment to the nascent Naval Doctrine Command.
The Future is .. . Close Air Support?
The seminar’s roundtable discussion was to focus on the role of military air power in future conflicts, and moderator David Hartman, former host of television’s “Good Morning America,” had his work cut out for him. In many respects the discussion strayed into the requirements for and shortcomings of the close-air-support mission alone- Army Major General Rudolph Ostovich, Vice Director of the Joint Staff, did provide an overarching framework with
his review of the global strategic environment, emphasizing the uncertainty of the post-Cold War era and the dissolution of the once-monolithic Soviet threat. While acknowledging that “yes, the Cold War is over,” he stated that “Certainly, war is not over. The face of war has changed, but the risk of war at different levels of conflict is apparent to everyone.”
Major General William Eshelman, Director of Opsra- tions at Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, extended Os- tovich’s analysis by focusing on regional threats. He also responded to General Lorber’s earlier remark about the need for just two air forces, stating unequivocally that the United States required a third, “enabling and transitionary force” to secure the sea-land interface, thus “enabling” the introduction—if required—of heavy Army ground and land-based air forces. A Marine Air-Ground Task Force is this third air force.
More to the point for the future, Marine tactical aviation is perhaps the most efficient provider of air Power at the local level, according to Defense Department sources with access to the out-year fiscal Plans: the Marines will provide 15% of the nation's tactical air power at just 9% of acquisition and op- erations/maintenance costs. To reduce or eliminate Marine tactical air, as some have suggested, would emasculate the service's ability to conduct such en- ’ abling operations.
Marine aviation and ground forces Work together as an integrated, self-contained team, at a i level of proficiency and effectiveness : unparalleled elsewhere in the U.S. military. Marine infantry and armor
depend on air NORTHROP
Power to be their force multiplier. (As one Marine aviator in attendance put it, “Quick and lethal, expeditionary air power directly equates to fewer Marine fatalities on the battlefield.” Another Marine expressed it more elegantly: “Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight! Air power— the ‘gun’—is essential to future naval and joint operations.”) General Eshelman underscored that judgment when he noted that the “most important” factor is “air power response time ... a battlefield commander measures response time in terms of human lives.”
Air Force Colonel John Warden, Commanding General °f the Air Command and Staff College—and chief architect of the Desert Storm Air War—stated that there has been a revolution in air war, “but old ways still exist. He noted that up until the Gulf War, U.S. conventional air Power could engage the enemy only tactically. Now, however, it is possible to attack the enemy’s support systems, strategic command-and-control nodes, and his strategies through the precise application of firepower. When asked
about close air support, Colonel Warden emphasized that the United States should conduct conflicts so that it does not need much close air support, focusing on softening up the enemy’s support capabilities and disrupting his command, control, and communications so that our ground forces do not encounter strong or sustained resistance.
That statement caused a fundamental shift in the focus of the seminar’s debate, away from “air power” per se to a discussion of the importance and role of close air support and response times in future crises and conflicts. Colonel Warden described close air support as air action against hostile ground targets in close proximity to friendly forces. It is thus different from air interdiction which focuses on air action against targets not in close proximity to friendly forces and is largely an Air Force and Navy mission intended to delay, disrupt, and destroy an adversary’s military potential before it can be brought to bear on the battlefield.
When pressed about what he would give up as the funding constraints got tighter, Colonel Warden admitted that each of the services would have to concentrate on their particular capabilities. “If you have only one dollar, you’ve got to spend it to do something that no one else can do.” For the Air Force—“or a long-range air power which also includes the Navy”—Colonel Warden opted for deep strike, “to get out there well back behind the front lines and do significant damage to the enemy.”
In this vein, General Ostovich told the Naval Institute symposium that technology made the close-air-support distinction among the services obsolete: “I suspect that most of us here today would agree that an Apache attack helicopter blowing up an enemy tank within direct-fire range of friendly forces would be something that looks like, smells like, and is defined as ‘close air support.’”
Retired Vice Admiral Robert Dunn, former Assistant Chief of Naval operations for Air Warfare, stressed that close air support for the naval forces encompasses more than just Marine tactical aviation. “The Navy can attack the enemy at its command, control, and communication sites and in deep to lighten the attack closer in, in the littorals.” Responding to that, Newsweek correspondent re-
81
tired Army Colonel David Hackworth—who has either fought in or reported on eight wars, and has been bombed accidentally by the Air Force, Navy, and Marines in most of them—said that he did not see a lot of good close air support in Korea or in Vietnam. He emphasized that good close air support requires pilots who are able to work closely with the ground troops to understand how they operate and where they most need help. Colonel Hackworth observed that warfare will increasingly be of the low-intensity variety, where most of the emphasis is placed on the “grunts.” “To the grunt in trouble there ain’t no ‘bad air’,” he acknowledged. “But there ain’t a lot of ‘good air,’ either!” That being said, Hackworth still saw the need to “punch the eyes” out—i.e. , destroy strategic targets— of an industrialized enemy, thereby seconding Colonel Warden’s preferred emphasis for the Air Force of the future.
Taking Colonel Hackworth’s cue, program analyst Spinney noted that close air support response times have grown worse since World War II. (Some independent analysts noted that Mr. Spinney largely ignored the Desert Storm experience: there was so much air support available around the clock that commanders did not know what to do with it all. The Marines, alone, had two dedicated aircraft checking in every seven minutes.) He emphasized the importance of finding a replacement for the A-10 Warthog, which—along with Army attack helicopters—played an important role in close-air-support during the Persian Gulf conflict. Chuck Myers, former Director of Air Warfare in the office of the Secretary of Defense, added that man will be less essential in the deep-strike mission than in the close-air-support mission. He said that the United States does not need to pursue a multimission deep-strike air capability. He also criticized the Navy’s AX program, saying that its total unit cost will not be even close to Admiral Mixson’s estimate of $75-85 billion; rather, he said it would cost some $125-150 billion by the time it is finished.
In an attempt to bring the debate to a higher plane, Navy Rear Admiral Arthur Cebrowski, Commander of Carrier Group Six, encouraged the participants to discuss the fundamental requirements for air power in the future. He said the nature of warfare has changed from a fight for terrain to a fight to deny the opponent strategic choices. While air power will be there to support ground troops in the future, Admiral Cebrowski stated that the military will have to find ways to accomplish the task with other than manned aircraft. “The fact of the matter is that 35% of the aircraft shot down in the last engagement [Desert Storm] were doing something either in close air support or closely akin to close air support,” according to Admiral Cebrowski- “And that was a disproportionate share of the losses. When talking about aircraft that cost as much as they do and an inventory as small as it can get, those are pretty darn precious commodities and they’re not going to be squandered just because some fellow calls for fire and wants to see that particular aircraft doing a profile that he read about in some book years ago.”
In this regard, Admiral Cebrowski emphasized the promise of technology to support the troops on the ground, to develop and field weapons that will permit “close” air support beyond the engagement envelope of threat weapons. For instance, he argued that the United States needs to keep its technological edge by advancing the capabilities of its new bomb family and command, control, and communication systems. Regarding the possible interservice competition for aircraft budgets, he commented that the U.S. armed forces “can get more bang for its buck from how we procure our aircraft and train our people than from whatever number of airplanes we buy.”
Even these suggestions proved controversial. General Sullivan, for one, argued against those who put too much trust on “. . . standoff weapons because we can’t afford to lose the airplanes because they’re too expensive. But you know, war is hazardous to your health. That’s why I’m for an inexpensive airplane that we all can fly.”
Why Not “Five” Air Forces?
The Naval Institute’s “Future of Military Air Power” seminar raised more issues than it resolved, and the central question—why four air forces?—remained controversial and without broad consensus at the close of the discussions. Perhaps the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s roles-and- missions study will provide insight and guidance for the future. Perhaps. As General Ostovich observed, “many rice bowls are going to be broken; there is nothing fun about dividing roles and missions.” Interestingly, the analysis and deliberations did not include the nation’s fifth air force—the aircraft and helicopters operated by men and women of the U.S. Coast Guard in its national security roles and missions. For now, the picture for military aviation promises to remain obscured and proposals for the future incomplete.
Dr. Truver is the Director, Studies and Analysis, TECHMATICS, Inc., Arlington, VA, and also supports the Naval Institute as Special Assistant for Seminar Programs. He thanks two members of his technical staff, Ed Feege and Jim Devlin, for their assistance to this discussion.
Editor’s Note: Transcripts of Mr. Punaro’s, General Lober’s, and Admiral Mixson’s addresses are available for $10.00 each and a transcript of the Roundtable Discussion is available for $15.00. (Charges include postage.) Because of technical difficulties, a transcript of Mr. Capellupo ’s address is not available.