The Role of Airpower and Its Challenges in Irregular Wars

Introduction

In modern day traditional warfare, it has become increasingly common to use non-traditional soldiers, weapons and tactics to counter the conventional military.Unconventional and irregular methods of warfare may be employed by our adversariesto attack us. What is the role of airpower in this new era of conflict? While theconventional air force is organized, equipped and trained to conduct conventionaloperations, we need to ask if it is structured to deal with irregular threats and what couldits challenges be? This essay will first provide the definition of airpower, and its role.

The essay will then further define what is Irregular Warfare (IW), the role airpowerplayed, how has airpower shaped the operations operating under IW, and the challengesthat were encountered. With facts presented, the essay will conclude and presentplausible recommendations in an effort to ensure that militaries retain a robust capabilityto conduct traditional warfare while maintaining a sharp edged IW capability to flex itsairpower should these wars arise.

Airpower in laymen terms is simply the military strength of a nation's air force. Overthe course of history and the many horrid wars that have since taken place, the definitionof Airpower has varied and evolved. A quick online search for airpower would bring upquotes from Sir Winston Churchill such as “Air power may either end war or endcivilization” and, “Airpower is the most difficult of all forms of military force tomeasure, or even press in precise terms.” In the years to come after World War II (WWII), air forces and militaries realized the importance of airpower and how it shapedtheir campaigns. The US Army Air Force defined airpower as “the total ability of anation to fly, to act through air space, to use controlled flight.” With these defining quotes on how airpower influenced the outcome of wars, we see the importance ofAirpower not simply being a measure of a nation's military ability to fight, but as a toolto flex its military dominance over the adversaries to shape the outcome of wars.

What is the role of Airpower then? General 'Hap' Arnold, Commanding General of theUS Army Air Forces during WWII, drew parallelism between the importance ofairpower and how the battlefield can be shaped when he said, “Air Power includes anation's ability to deliver cargo, people, destructive missiles and war-making potentialthrough the air to a desired destination to accomplish a desired purpose.” With AirPower, or more precisely with Air Supremacy, the highest level of dominance in the air, we will be able to shape the outcome of the war against our adversaries, flex our will aswe deem, and be able to meet our campaign objectives in a timeframe that we choose to.

However, we also need to take a close look at what our military campaign objectives arebefore deciding on what role does Airpower play in these operations. We need to take into account the state of environment broken into three distinct phases. Firstly, in a hotwar context, the goal of Airpower would be to Fight and Win. In this case, the strike andkill element in Airpower would be the predominant role undertaken.

Next, would be anenvironment of conflict. The goal would then be to Deter War and Resolve Conflict.Military operations would then entail that the strike component would be scaled downand the flying of fighter aircraft would be more of a deterrence factor than to belaunched as a targeting campaign.

Last but not least, in a peacetime environment. Operations would include Operations Other Than War (OOTW), Peace Stability Operations (PSO) and Peacekeeping missions such as those of the United Nations (UN). The role of Airpower is to then promote peace by flying in a supportive role in effortssuch as air mobility, air lift and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR).

In the early years, aircraft were mainly used for reconnaissance. Forwarding time tocurrent day operations, we are seeing modern F-35 Lightning II stealth fightersconducting strikes against Iranian targets in the Syrian capital of Damascus. How did wego from unarmed aircrafts to the modern day fighter with strike capabilities? Men sawthe need to evolve Airpower post World War I (WWI). There is a need to dominate from3the air so that we can carry out operations such as strike and reconnaissance. Airpowerplay a huge role in shaping wars. Seventy three years on, after the first aerial combat ofWWII, militaries around the world have developed and continue to invest heavily to ensure that they have state of the art equipment. They also spare no effort in training their personnel and operators so that if they are called upon for war, they would have the assurance that their air force would have the edge over their adversaries.

There are varying definitions of irregular war or warfare in publications, doctrines, and dictionaries. The one that most would reference would be from the latest United States (US) Department of Defense (DoD) Joint Publication 1-02 and it defines IW as: “Aviolent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over therelevant population(s).” The 2013 Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 3-2 explainsthe differences between traditional and irregular war. It states that “Both IrregularWarfare and traditional warfare seek to resolve conflict by compelling change inadversarial behavior. However, they differ significantly in both strategy and conduct.

Traditional warfare focuses on dominance over an adversary's ability to sustain its warfighting capability. Irregular Warfare focuses on population-centric approaches thataffect actors, behaviors, relationships, and stability in the area or region of interest. Therefore, Irregular Warfare requires a different level of operational through and threat4comprehension.” Hence, no longer are we just lining up our armies on the battlefield tosee who has the last men standing, it is now a battle at both a strategic and socio-levelwhere our adversaries can exploit to win battles.

In the span of military history, men has seen the many forms of IW such as guerrillawarfare and small wars. These wars now operate under the umbrella of Irregular War. According to the IW Joint Operating Concept, the following activities are included inthe range operations considered to be part of IW; Counterterrorism (CT), Unconventional Warfare (UW), Foreign Internal Defense (FID), Counterinsurgency(COIN), and Stability Operations. This list is not exhaustive but in my opinion, coverthe five major operations of IW. This section of the paper aims to present summarizedaccounts of these IW activities and how airpower was being employed in these wars.

In both CT and COIN, the strike lethality of Airpower continues to be the key player inthese operations. While Airpower can be employed to take out key installations andnodes of these non-state actors in the opening blow of the campaign, the followingoperations exemplifies other roles of Airpower and how it can affect the mission'soutcome. Firstly, the CT operation most often brought up by many would be the raid to5capture Osama bin Laden. This was the aftermath of the devastating terrorist act against United States on September 11 and he was the identified perpetrator. This highlyclassified mission was carried out by Special Operations Forces (SF) using two Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks for means of executing heli-borne air assault and for data gatheringefforts prior and during the raid. The role of Airpower in this instance was primarilyused for air mobility, and for ISR.

How successful was this operation? To accomplishthis mission, the helicopters which were used during the raid had to remain undetectedand were heavily modified for quieter operations, and employing stealth technology toreduce their radar pick-up signatures. With these modifications, they were able to safelytransport their troops into and out of the area of operations (AO) without encounteringany hostile resistance from the adversaries. Airpower met its intent and was effective inits role of providing air mobility, and ISR efforts.

What about COIN? Abstracted fromthe U.S. DoD Joint Publications 3-24, COIN is the blend of comprehensive civilian andmilitary efforts designed to simultaneously defeat and contain insurgency and address itsroot causes. To illustrate COIN operations, I extracted the key points of the U.S. leddominated Coalition victory over Saddam's forces in 2003.9 There was dissent amongstthe Saddam's regime, the people were oppressed and were seeking change from the ruleof Saddam. Riding on the conception that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, theU.S. Military launched a campaign to 'de-arm' Iraq and to rid Saddam of his dictatorship.

Challenges faced post the campaign was to return the regime to normalcy. The people6were poor and with Operations Other Than War (OOTW) lasting more than a decade, there was a lot of resentment against this COIN operation. The role of airpower in thissense was for its strike capabilities and ability to pin point specific targets forsuppression and destruction. However, a challenge in this aspect would be thatinsurgents are no longer identified as just being in a military outfit holding a weapon.Insurgency and terrorist acts can be carried out by a housewife or even a teenager asseen in the battle against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

How effective will Airpower be then in such situations? Proper identification and study of the AO, coupledwith timely and accurate information from ISR efforts is ever more critical in both CTand COIN operations so as to minimize civilian casualties.

DoD defines FID as the act of participation by civilian and military agencies of agovernment in any of the actions programs taken by another government to free andprotect its society from subversion, lawlessness, and insurgency. This definitionillustrates the magnitude of how diversified these threats are, and how it can underminethe internal stability of developing countries. Appropriate employment of Airpower istherefore key to meet FID objectives. One such example would be the deployment ofJoint Task Force 510 (JTF-510) who were deployed to the Philippines operating underthe ambit of Operation Enduring Freedom Philippines (OEF-P). The task force included Army Special Forces, personnel from Civil Affairs, Naval ConstructionBrigade engineers and Navy SEALs who provided Close Air Support (CAS) and airlift of medical teams and supplies for Humanitarian and Disaster Relief (HADR) operations.In addition, JTF-510 provided ISR and advisory support to the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). The role of Airpower in this FID example would be military support in the form of CAS and for air mobility transportation for HADR efforts. FID operations gear towards intervention by another government to support the recovery andprotection of the affected nation. Hence, in FID operations, we see mission types leaningtowards Operations Other Than War (OOTW) and the strike role of Airpower beingdownplayed. The utility of Airpower is then to lend a hand in a more supportive role andwhere conflicts do occur, to apply airpower judiciously for support, mobility, andfirepower.

Dictionaries, U.S. DoD and even google searches do not provide a definitive descriptionof what stability operation is. It was only in one of the article that I found online thataddresses what stability operations entails and I quote: “Stability Operations encompassvarious military missions, tasks, and activities conducted in coordination with otherinstruments of national power to maintain or re-establish a safe and secure environment, provide essential governmental services, emergency infrastructure reconstruction, and humanitarian assistance and disaster response on the non-violent end of the operation spectrum to COIN at the opposite end. Another word commonly used to describe Stability Operations, would be OOTW. Unlike the previous examples of CT, COIN andFID where there are elements of strike when it comes to employing Airpower, the role has changed in stability operations (OOTW). OOTW mentioned here does not just include operations such as Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) in 2003 or Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) since 2001. Other OOTW examples are the Peacekeeping missions by the United Nations (UN) and HADR efforts that are currently ongoing aswell. In these operations, Airpower takes on a different role from the usual strike andAir-to-Air (A/A) fight to a more supportive role of air lift, air mobility, and ISR.

Conclusion

Irregular Warfare has evolved and endured through the centuries. In my paper, I havedefined what airpower is and its role. I further elaborated on the different roles thatairpower take on in the various activities operating under the arm of IW. US President John F. Kennedy once said “This is another type of war, new in its intensity, ancient inits origin – war by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins, war by ambush insteadof by combat; by infiltration, instead of aggression, seeking victory by eroding and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him. It requires in those situations where wemust counter it. A whole new kind of strategy, a wholly different kind of force, and9therefore a new and wholly different kind of military training.” While IW and our adversaries have continued to evolve over the centuries, our militaries need to be doingthe same. In order for our militaries to retain a robust capability, we need to beintegrated across the services. While this paper focuses on the role of airpower, we cannot neglect and ignore that it takes an entire nation's resources and effort to battle IW. As the employment of Airpower varies from mission to mission, proper integration across the services of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and the Civil entities will provide astrong line of defense and capability that exceeds any single Service's ability. I believe that Airpower alone cannot win the war. Be it in a conventional war (state against state) or in IW (state against state or non-state), the role of Airpower varies depending on what the mission objectives are. While we see the full spectrum of Airpower in full up hotwar in terms of being able to strike and take out our adversaries, we also see the softer aspects of Airpower in other operations such as FID and OOTW. While Airpower's utility is limited in OOTW, we see its value and what it brings to the AO to drive theoutcome of these missions.

In summary, we need to continue to leverage on the current technological and personnel capabilities. The end result will be a united military andcivilian forefront where we can not only conduct traditional warfare with a robust capability but also maintain a sharp edged IW capability to flex our airpower should any of these wars arise.