US Air Force's Counter-Insurgency Plan

By SHAUN WATERMAN,
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
Published: June 17, 2008 at 12:02 PM
Courtesy Of United Press International

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 (UPI) -- The new U.S. Air Force doctrine on insurgency and irregular warfare was fast-tracked to completion so the service could get a seat at the table for discussions about an overarching policy on the topic for the U.S. military as a whole. But critics say the new Air Force approach takes insufficient account of the need to win hearts and minds in such fighting.

A senior Air Force official said last week that planning had begun over the summer for the so-called joint doctrine on insurgency -- policy for all three services and the Marine Corps.

“In order to have a voice at that table,” Maj. Gen Allen Peck told the Air Force Association conference in Washington, “We had to have doctrine written down … so we fast-tracked (it).”

The Air Force wants a voice because the way the joint doctrine is written “appears likely to affect service budgets, programs, and more,” observed Robert Dudney, editor in chief of the association’s magazine.

The new Air Force policy document was published in August. Peck, who runs the Air Force Doctrine Center at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., said it aimed to leverage the “asymmetric advantages” that U.S. airpower produced.

Insurgents have “dedicated and experienced ground forces,” but “they don’t have our access to air and space,” he said.

U.S. air dominance gave its forces strategic advantages that were “almost like cheating,” he said.

The doctrine defines irregular warfare as “a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations.”

But Peck cautioned this was not necessarily the same as a battle for hearts and minds.

“It doesn’t have to be kinder and gentler,” he said, citing the Viet Cong, who he charged had “won influence over the population how? Not by going in and immunizing the kids and building schools. … They’d go in and they’d grab a couple of the tribal elders and hang them.”

The doctrine also emphasized that counterinsurgency could not be won with military power alone, said Peck, enumerating the so-called DIME concept -- Diplomacy, Information operations, Military force and Economic power -- of a four-pronged approach to the problem.

Critics in Afghanistan have charged that increasing U.S. reliance on airpower has led to a growing number of civilian casualties -- and increasing alienation of The Local population from the international military presence in the country -- undermining the U.S. mission.

Peck acknowledged that the Air Force was now much more active in Afghanistan. “It’s become much more kinetic over there,” he said. But he added that airpower often got the rap unfairly, when it was essentially acting in a support role to the ground forces.

“Rarely does the ground commander ask for a weapon to be delivered and then we miss. Normally the weapon goes there and then due to poor intelligence or something else” it turns out the target was wrong.

Nonetheless, “We end up reading about ‘airstrike kills’” in such situations, Peck said. “The airman takes the blame.”

He rejected criticism that the new doctrine took too little account of the potentially negative effects of employing powerful explosives from the air.

“If there’s a troop in a contact event … that’s where you gotta do what you gotta do to save (the personnel) on the ground.”

But for operations that don't involve immediate danger to U.S. forces, he said, “We have a pretty strict matrix that we have to run through” before the use of certain kinds of weapons is approved. “We’re restricting ourselves.”

It was “flat not true” that lawyers were in the decision-making process, he said, but they were advising the commanders who were.

“The bottom line is,” he said earlier, “I don’t think airpower is being used to its full potential capabilities in either Iraq or Afghanistan.”

A longtime critic of U.S. strategy, retired Air Force Col. Chester Richards told UPI that airpower was inherently unsuited to counterinsurgency.

“When you blow things up from the air, there’s a good chance that you’ll kill civilians,” he said. “Almost any kinetic application of airpower is bound to be counterproductive” in counterinsurgency conflicts.

“Shooting at people from airplanes (makes) you look like a physical and moral coward,” he said, adding that he was not impugning the character of any U.S. personnel, but rather emphasizing the propaganda value of an enemy narrative about U.S. airpower.

The storyline that “They are afraid to fight us face-to-face but not to bomb us from the air and kill our women and children” is “a good recruiting tool for the enemy,” he said.

“I don’t even know how to respond to that,” said Peck, when a reporter put Richards’ views to him.

“I take great pride in the fact that we Can Do these things without putting our forces at risk -- to me that’s the goal. We don’t want to fight a fair fight.”

Part 1

WASHINGTON, June 17 (UPI) -- The veteran military officials picked by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to take over the Air Force face a tough job redefining the service's role in what many see as the key kind of combat the U.S. military will face in the immediate future: counterinsurgency.

The problem, say many who have studied the topic, is that the things the U.S. Air Force has made its priority capabilities -- establishing air supremacy over the enemy and perfecting the timely and pinpoint delivery of high explosives -- tend to be less useful in irregular or asymmetric conflicts like those in which the U.S. military is currently engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In particular, critics have singled out an over-reliance on air strikes in Afghanistan as a significant barrier to the success of a "hearts and minds" strategy on the ground, given the inevitability of "collateral damage" -- the accidental killing of civilians.

"From an Air Force perspective, we were told to plan for a different kind of war," Lt. Col. Michael Pietrucha told United Press International, commenting on the general direction of post-Cold War strategic thinking, which emphasized the potential for conventional conflicts with strategic competitors or regional powers like China or Iran.

Pietrucha, a specialist in irregular combat who until recently worked at the Air Force Warfare Center, stressed he did not speak for the service.

He added it was appropriate the Air Force had different priorities, because of its strategic roles in assuring "force projection" -- the ability of the U.S. military to strike anywhere in the world -- and in operating the nation's nuclear strike capabilities.

"We have a set of global responsibilities that require us to keep a slightly different focus," he said, adding that while counterinsurgency might be the most common kind of conflict the military would face in the immediate future, "The most common conflicts are not necessarily the most dangerous."

Other observers agree that, if the Air Force has been slow to meet the counterinsurgency challenge, they have other priorities, too.

"They have always put their emphasis on air supremacy," said a senior congressional staffer, "on the basis that unless you have that, your troops on the ground are at risk."

"The question," he added, "is whether they have overemphasized it."

One suggestion of an answer comes from the Air Force's now infamous congressional "whispering campaign" -- behind the backs of the Pentagon leadership and the administration -- to get more money for its hugely expensive new planes, the F-22 Raptor and the still-in-development F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

In picking Gen. Norton Schwartz, the first ever non-fighter or bomber pilot to head the service, Gates has ensured that, in future, that question will be answered from a different perspective.

Gates told reporters he chose Schwartz as the new chief of staff because he "brings fresh eyes to these (procurement) issues."

"It was mobility, jointness, special operations and being very, very smart" that led him to pick Schwartz, Gates said.

Observers say the choice of Schwartz, a veteran of special operations who most recently headed the Air Force's Transport Command -- in charge of mobility and lift -- is significant given the service's culture.

"It's not something I ever expected to see in my lifetime," retired Air Force Col. Chester Richards told UPI. Richards, a strategist who has studied and written about military power for three decades, said the nomination represented a chance for the service to "reinvent itself" and "shift away from being a force that just kills people on the ground" to one that brings other capabilities to the table, more relevant to the hearts and minds mission.

The Air Force itself says it already provides those capabilities, such as surveillance and lift, the ability to move troops and materiel around the combat theater.

"No one in the world can replicate the speed, volume and flexibility of the United States' air mobility team," USAF spokeswoman Maj. Olivia Nelson told UPI. She said that, on average, an Air Force mobility aircraft was launched somewhere every 90 seconds, and that in Iraq, Air Mobility Command was flying more than 200 sorties a day.

Pietrucha noted that lift, which can move relief supplies or drop packaged humanitarian rations as easily as it can ship troops and weapons, is a key capability in hearts and minds missions.

"There are lots of ways air (power) can help from a hearts and minds standpoint," said Pietrucha. "Jet noise is a great non-lethal effect … an indicator of presence," which tells friends and foes alike on the ground that the U.S. military is there.

But he added that "kinetics" or "fires" -- striking with bombs or other ordinance -- is a central part of any combat situation.

"The delivery of weapons in a counterinsurgency environment is still a very useful capacity," said Pietrucha, "especially if you are on the ground and in contact with the enemy," he added, in a reference to "close air support" -- the use of air power to win firefights on the ground.

The problem, said Richards, is that "When you fly over and you look down, everyone pretty much looks the same," which can easily lead to errors, like the recent friendly fire killing of 11 Pakistani troops, reportedly by a U.S. airstrike.

In a study last year, Brian Glyn Williams, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, found allied forces in Afghanistan were hampered in their hearts and minds mission by an over-reliance on air power.

The inevitable collateral damage from close air support actions was "the main complaint from Pashtuns" who had been displaced by the fighting, and one of the major factors fueling anger at foreign military forces, and thus potentially generating support for the insurgency.

Pietrucha said the propaganda value of reports about civilian casualties probably outweighed their truth value. "Because the adversary is the only presence on the ground, they can get their story out first -- whether it is true or not."

"We may know it's not the case (that an air strike hit a wedding party or a school), but we can't prove it, or at least not quickly enough."

Part 2

WASHINGTON, June 18 (UPI) -- To make the U.S. Air Force more relevant to the military's new counterinsurgency mission, experts say, the new leadership of the service has to "reinvent itself," look for alternatives to high-cost, high-tech, fuel-guzzling aircraft, and break out of its decades-long planning and procurement cycle to become a more agile, diverse force.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates last week broke the mold in at least one regard by naming as USAF chief of staff a transport pilot -- the first non-fighter, non-bomber pilot ever to head the service -- after firing the incumbent, along with the Air Force secretary, earlier this month.

Gates recently chastised all the services for what he called "Next-war-itis" -- "the propensity of much of the defense establishment to be in favor of (acquiring) what might be needed in a future conflict" rather than focusing on what is required to win the war they are actually fighting now and are most likely to face in the coming years.

"To remain viable," he said, the military's major weapons programs "will have to show some utility and relevance to the kind of irregular campaigns that … are most likely to engage America's military in the coming decades."

The Air Force's defenders say purchasing now for the next conflict is a necessity when new aircraft can take more than a decade to plan, develop and produce.

"Secretary Gates has accused the Air Force … of planning for the next war, but that is what you have to do with air forces because you cannot produce the aircraft needed when you need them," said retired Air Force Gen. Michael Dunn, president of the Air Force Association.

Retired Air Force Col. Chester Richards, who has studied and written about military strategy for three decades, told UPI the leadership changes were an opportunity for the service to "reinvent itself … to stay relevant in those kinds of (irregular and asymmetric) conflicts."

"They have been trying," he said, noting the service's forays into non-conventional areas such as cyberwarfare. But he said the new leadership will "inherit these huge procurement programs (like the F-22 Raptor and the yet-to-be built F-35 Joint Strike Fighter) … with their own momentum."

Richards believes the service will have a hard time justifying the cost in terms of counterinsurgency capabilities, and other observers say the Air Force -- and the military as a whole -- may face a budgetary crunch when the practice of funding through special emergency supplemental appropriations ends next year.

"The procurement priorities of the department are not well orientated towards the current conflict," a senior congressional staffer told UPI. "Does that mean some of the things that have been (USAF procurement) priorities will not get funded? Probably so."

But he added that the Air Force historically has been successful at getting Congress to fund its priorities and "has done a lot better (on the F-22 and F-35) than the Army has with (its huge-ticket procurement program, the Future Combat System, or) FCS."

Lt. Col Michael Pietrucha, a specialist in irregular combat who until recently worked at the Air Force Warfare Center, told UPI that, in 1965, when the North Vietnamese army began using surface-to-air missiles against U.S. aircraft, the Air Force was able to field a newly configured aircraft, fitted with electronic countermeasures and seating for an operator, within months.

"In the past, we adapted quicker," said Pietrucha, who stressed he did not speak for the service. He blamed "a much smaller, less diverse force" and the proliferation of acquisition regulations for the loss of flexibility.

"Not everything needs to take 20 years," he said. "We need to depart from the plan," he said, and break out of the planning and budget cycle that created "such long lead times" in procurement.

It is "a legitimate criticism" to say the Air Force, like most large organizations, has "not adapted quickly enough to the new challenges" of counterinsurgency.

Air Force spokeswoman Maj. Olivia Nelson told UPI the service was "focused and proactive in acquiring and using new systems that are needed in our fight now," giving as an example the new Wide Area Airborne Surveillance System and other high-technology tools being developed for the collection and analysis of intelligence.

Pietrucha cautioned that in the future, the Air Force would "need to think right-tech rather than high-tech," pointing to the enormous success of the A-10 -- a gunship considered lumbering and inelegant by some.

Skyrocketing fuel prices are imposing "a huge logistics penalty" on the service, Pietrucha said, noting relatively low-tech solutions like the A-10 are "cheaper to build and more economical to employ."

"You need a high-low mix" of technology, he said, adding, "Our capabilities are really in our people."

He said the service also needed to "better utilize our unconventional thinkers." At the moment, he said, it was "too easy to be slapped down and spoil your career" by thinking "out of the box."

Nurturing such mavericks would be "sometimes a bit painful and sometimes a bit embarrassing, but we can take a little of that at the individual level to help us avoid it at the national one."

Part 3

WASHINGTON, June 23 (UPI) -- U.S. Air Force policy states, and experts agree, that two of the most important ways in which the service can contribute to the military's new mission in irregular warfare are through surveillance and partnership -- building the air power of U.S. allies.

"Using a forest fire analogy," Lt. Col. Michael Pietrucha told United Press International, "our allies can be the smoke-jumpers" who can more quickly be mobilized to react to emerging insurgent threats in the regions where they are based.

Pietrucha, a specialist in irregular combat who until recently worked at the Air Force Warfare Center, and stressed he did not speak for the service, added the U.S. Air Force needed to be a "big brother to other, smaller air forces" as a way of "helping other (allied) nations threatened by irregular warfare problems."

In both Iraq and Afghanistan, military officials say, the USAF is working to train and help equip air forces, and is making good progress.

According to Col. Maryellen Jadick, a spokeswoman for the air component of U.S. Central Command which is prosecuting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Iraqi air force's "operational capabilities" currently comprise pilot training, battlefield mobility, surveillance and reconnaissance, and command and control.

Figures from the U.S. military's Combined Air Forces Training Team show that, in April, the Iraqi air force flew a record 383 sorties in one week and that, during the continuing Iraqi-led operations in Basra that began in March this year, the force airlifted 287 tons of cargo, transported 3,449 passengers, evacuated 111 patients and flew 76 surveillance missions for a total of 136 hours on-station, all with what the team called "minimal coalition support."

But the figures also note the force's 60-odd helicopters and fixed-wing planes include no ground attack or air combat craft.

And Jadick acknowledged the Iraqis' ability to use their own air power directly to strike insurgent forces was still some way off, since they "just began their initial development of ... ground attack and counter-terrorism capabilities, which will advance over the next two years."

She gave no dates as to when the Iraqi air force would be able to operate independently, controlling and defending its own airspace. "The ability to provide airspace control and air defense will follow in subsequent years," she told UPI in an e-mailed statement.

Similarly, the Afghan National Army Air Corps includes just four ground attack helicopters and no air combat planes in its roster of 26 aircraft, according to figures from the U.S. Combined Air Power Transition Force in Kabul. The transition force says an "ambitious expansion program" the Afghans have embarked upon will see that number grow to 67 by 2011 -- but the 40-odd new aircraft include just six more helicopter gunships and no combat airplanes.

On the surveillance front, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced earlier this year he had set up a special Pentagon task force to increase the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance -- ISR in military parlance -- capabilities available to U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"My concern is that our services are still not moving aggressively," he said, adding he had "been wrestling for months to get more intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets into the theater."

"Because people were stuck in old ways of doing business, it's been like pulling teeth," he concluded.

For critics of the Air Force, one example of those "old ways" has been the service's attitude to the new generation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or UAVs, remotely piloted aircraft like the Predator.

Gates said the service was slow to embrace UAVs, but the Air Force's defenders say that reluctance is gone.

"It is unfair to say we have not embraced UAVs," said Pietrucha, noting the Air Force recently announced it had already exceeded its target of having 21 Predator combat air patrols by 2010.

"We're at 25 (combat air patrols) now and growing to over 30 by year's end," said Air Force spokeswoman Maj. Olivia Nelson, adding the service was also maximizing its use of the high-altitude Global Hawk UAV. "We are flying our Global Hawks at maximum capacity, and buying them as fast as they can be built," she said.

Nelson also defended the service's practice of allowing only fully qualified pilots to fly some of its UAVs, which critics have compared unfavorably with the practice of other services, such as the Army, which allow trained operators who are not pilots to fly them.

A PowerPoint presentation she e-mailed to UPI argued the level of responsibility and difficulty in operating medium- or high-altitude UAVs like as the Predator, Reaper and Global Hawk -- especially when armed with missiles and laser-guided bombs and operating alongside manned aircraft -- was little different than that for regular combat aircraft.

"It is backwards thinking to suggest that we provide a less-skilled operator to employ those systems as we place more and more responsibility upon them," says the presentation, adding that Army and other non-pilot operators generally are only allowed to operate in certain restricted areas. "This prohibits the employment of airpower's greatest tenet: flexibility," concludes the presentation.

Nelson also noted smaller Air Force UAVs, without the large weapons payload of the Predator, for instance, often are flown by non-pilot Air Force personnel.

However, Gates has said maximizing the potential of UAVs "may require rethinking long-standing service assumptions and priorities about which missions require certified pilots and which do not."