An F-22 Raptor assigned to Joint base Langley-Eustis, Virginia, performs a vertical take-off.
09.13.2019
Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs
A Key Element for the Future Evolution of the Integrated Distributed Force: Evolving Remote Maritime Capabilities
10/17/2019
By Robbin Laird
In today’s world, full spectrum crisis management is not simply about escalation ladders; it is about the capability to operate tailored task forces within a crisis setting to dominate and prevail within that crisis.
If that stops the level of escalation that is one way of looking at it. But in today’s world, it is not just about that but it is about the ability to operate and prevail within a diversity of crises which might not be located on what one might consider an escalation ladder.
They are very likely to be diffuse within which the authoritarian powers are using surrogates and we and our allies are trying to prevail in a more open setting which we are required to do as liberal democracies.
This means that a core legacy from the land wars and COIN efforts needs to be jettisoned if we are to succeed – namely, the OODLA loop.
This is how the OODA loop has worked in the land wars, with the lawyers in the loop, and hence the OODLA loop.
The OODA loop is changing with the new technologies which allow distributed operators to become empowered to decide in the tactical decision-making situation.
But the legalistic approach to hierarchical approval to distributed decisions simply will take away the advantages of the new distributed approach and give the advantage to our authoritarian adversaries.
What we are seeing is a blending of technological change, with con-ops changes and which in turn affect the use and definition of relevant military geography.
In other words, the modernization of conventional forces also has an effect on geography.
As Joshua Tallis argued in his book on maritime security, the notion of what is a littoral region has undergone change over time in part due to the evolution of military technologies.
“Broadly speaking, the littoral region is the ‘area of land susceptible to military influence from the sea, and the sea area susceptible to influence from the land.’
“In military terms, ‘a littoral zone is the portion of land space that can be engaged using sea-based weapon systems, plus the adjacent sea space (surface and subsurface0 that can be engaged using land-based weapon system, and the surrounding airspace and cyberspace.’
“The littoral is therefore defined by the technological capability of a military, and as a result, the littoral is not like other geographic terms.”1
What is changing is that the force we are shaping to operate in the littorals has expansive reach beyond the presence force in the littorals themselves.
If you are not present; you are not present. We have to start by having enough platforms to be able to operate in areas of interest.
But what changes with the integrated distribute ops approach is what a presence force can now mean. Historically, what a presence force is about what organically included within that presence force; now we are looking at reach or scalability of force.
We are looking at economy of force whereby what is operating directly in the area of interest is part of distributed force.
The presence force however small needs to be well integrated but not just in terms of itself but its ability to operate via C2 or ISR connectors to an enhanced capability.
But that enhanced capability needs to be deployed in order to be tailorable to the presence force and to provide enhanced lethality and effectiveness appropriate to the political action needed to be taken.
This rests really on a significant rework of C2 in order for a distributed force to have the flexibility to operate not just within a limited geographical area but to expand its ability to operate by reaching beyond the geographical boundaries of what the organic presence force is capable of doing by itself.
This requires multi-domain SA – this is not about the intelligence community running its precious space- based assets and hoarding material. This is about looking for the coming confrontation which could trigger a crisis and the SA capabilities airborne, at sea and on the ground would provide the most usable SA monitoring. This is not “actionable intelligence.”
This is about shaping force domain knowledge about anticipation of events.
This requires tailored force packaging and takes advantage of what the new military technologies and platforms can provide in terms of multi-domain delivery by a small force rather than a large air-sea enterprise which can only fully function if unleashed in sequential waves.
In the maritime domain, an evolving capability which will operate in concert with capital ships are unmanned maritime systems or remotes.
Such systems come in two forms: underwater unmanned systems and surface unmanned systems, which when the con-ops matures will work interactively with one another to extend the reach of the manned surface fleet to provide for perimeter defense via a flexible picket fence so to speak, and to provide a significant impact to the reworking of C2 highlighted above.
In many ways, the F-35 force package is directly forcing a significant revision of where D takes place in the OODA loop. Tactical decision making at the edge needs to be worked as the F-35 pushes decision making capability to the edge.
As that is worked through, the next phase will entail how remotes can provide not just SA and remote targeting capabilities, but share in the decision making with the humans in the loop.
For the Air Forces, this will be about sorting through how loyal wingman can work with manned combat air assets; for maritime forces it will be about how above and below sea remotes can be woven into the extended reach of a capital ship and become part of a force package, and, in turn, changing the nature of what a combat fleet looks like.
In other words, there are waves of learning how to work with remotes and to incorporate them into an integrated distributed force.
Over the next five years, we will see a significant presence of maritime remotes and as operational experience is gained, the next wave of learning will go from treating these as platforms adding to the capability of the fleet, to becoming core parts of an integrated distributed force with significant changes in the concepts of operations of the combat fleets as well.
During my visit to the Chief of the Royal Australian Navy’s Seapower conference which was held in Sydney from October 8th through the 10th, 2019, I had a chance to discuss with officers of the Royal Australian Navy as well as defense industry leaders the evolving maritime remote capabilities currently available and on the horizon.
One of those industry leaders I met with was Daryl Slocum of L3HarrisTechnologies.
He has been involved with maritime remote systems since his graduate student days and as head of the OceanServer program, is based in Massachusetts at the L3Harris facility located there. He was at the conference engaging with various Navies attending the conference to discuss the capabilities which L3Harris has in the maritime remotes area.
I took advantage of his presence to discuss more generally how one might understand how maritime remotes are developing and might develop in the future, and their role and contribution to the maritime combat force.
Slocum views maritime remotes as force multipliers.
As the durability of the systems evolves and they can operate at greater range and operate with greater loiter times, the core question is what the fleet commanders want these systems to do.
This means that the focus is clearly upon payloads, and how to take the information on these remotes generated by the various payloads and to get that information in a timely manner to the users in the combat fleet.
Right now, unmanned underwater systems can operate with a variety of payloads, the most significant of which can provide remote mapping and situational awareness.
As the capabilities to do onboard processing on the remotes ramps up, information can be processed on the platform and with the aid of evolving artificial intelligence can determine provide for information parsimony.
This means that the systems onboard the platforms as their capabilities evolve will be able to send core information to users highlighting threats and opportunities for the combat fleet.
And as the ability of the remotes to work with one another evolves, surface and subsurface remotes will be able to work together so that the communication limits imposed by underwater coms can be mitigated by surface remotes working as transmitters.
We discussed the impact of these projected capabilities on capital ship design.
It is clear that new capital ships need to have onboard processing capabilities and decision tools to be able to leverage what a deployed system of remotes might be able to deliver to that capital ship.
This means as well that maritime warriors will need to learn to work with thinking machines as decision making at sea will evolve as well.
Slocum highlighted that the Iver family of L3Harris underwater remotes were platform agnostic, which meant that they can work with a wide variety of users worldwide.
This means as well that they can focus on building a platform which is battery agnostic as well to incorporate changes in the evolution of battery capabilities, which are of course, crucial to durability, speed and range of the remotes.
We both agreed that is important to get these systems out of the labs and into the fleet to get the kind of operational experience necessary to drive innovation moving forward with essentially a software upgradeable platform.
Slocum indicated that they had this kind of relationship with the US Navy in San Diego as the US Navy gets read to tap into remotes as a key part of the counter mine mission.
As he described the goal of a remote platform which is payload agnostic:
“Today, I want to do a side scan mission; tomorrow, I might want to do an ISR mission; and the day after tomorrow, I might want to do a SiGINT mission.”
By having a small form factor platform, with a capability to operate with a diversity of payloads, the remote can be incorporated into a wide array of missions which can expand what the capital ship itself is capable of doing.
Indeed, the impact of remotes can expand what a support fleet can do.
There is no reason that a U.S. Military Sealift Command ship cannot incorporate remotes and expand the concept of what kind of support MSC ships can provide, beyond physical things such as fuel and supplies.
In other words, remotes can provide for con-ops diversification within the combat fleet, including the supply component of that fleet as well.
Clearly, such capabilities could provide significant enhancements with regard to perimeter defense in various ways, including masking what that remote actually is and what it is doing.
Currently, L3Harris has more than 300 Iver platforms operating worldwide, with 2/3 of them with military customers and 1/3 with civilian customers, including research centers as well.
We closed by discussing where the remote capabilities might be in five years’ time.
Slocum saw Iver as being able to operate for longer times, and taking onboard new payloads. He projected that onboard processing capability would take a leap forward which would lead to making more timely use of the data being collected by the remotes.
A key breakthrough point will be when remotes can make a decision about which data needs to be sent back home to the human decision maker.
Beyond the five year time line, Slocum saw that after working through operational experience in that time period, the ability of remotes to work together would become more mature.
And as that capability evolves, the entire reworking of the decision cycle will evolve as well.
In short, it is not just about remotes as a platform; they are being introduced at the same time as the military is undergoing a transformation to shape an integrated distributed force.
And for the maritime forces, remotes will provide a core capability to fleet enhancement.
Also see the following:
Call for a New Approach to Shaping an Australian Defense and Security Strategy: The Perspective of Rear Admiral (Retired) Kevin Scarce
At the 45th Essington Lewis Memorial Lecture delivered this week in Adelaide, Rear Admiral (Retired) Kevin Scarce provided his perspective of the need for Australia to shape an “integrated and wholistic approach” to the threats facing Australia.
And in so doing argued that without a broader public engagement this would not happen.
As the sponsor of the event, the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, described the lecture in the run up to the actual event:
In this year’s lecture, Kevin will consider the premise that Australia yearns for national leadership with the vision and stature of Essington Lewis, to help navigate and then unify a nation through the complex and strategic issues facing the country today.
The combative and often visceral Australian adaptation of the Westminster system, with its incredibly short electoral cycles, has seen society seemingly incapable of initiating and sustaining meaningful policy debate. Discussion on critical issues, such as international security and low carbon energy generation, drift along without a meaningful, comprehensive and non-partisan debate taking place.
Following completion of the SA Royal Commission into the Nuclear Fuel Cycle in 2016, our eminent speaker has every confidence that the electorate can make long term decisions on seemingly intractable and complex matters, if provided with the time and the opportunity to do so.
And Chris Russell in The Adelaide Advertiser in an article published on October 17, 2019 provided further details on comments made by Rear Admiral (Retired) Scarce, former Governor of South Australia, who is now Chancellor of the University of Adelaide.
Scarce argued that changes in terms of both alliance partners and in competitors in the region were changing the Australian strategic position. “These issues are fast moving and complex. Yet our leaders, both political and military, seem outwardly reluctant to engage in fulsome public debate.”
As a consequence, “there is a general air of complacency in the community about the military’s strength and the intent of our major ally.”
“It will simply not be sufficient to assume that U.S. diplomatic and military strength will always come to our aid.”
He then went on to argue that Australia to be ready to act alone in certain conditions in the region without direct U.S. support.
He underscored the need for a broader public debate and discussion about how Australia conducts its policies and deploys its military. He noted that Australian forces were deployed throughout the world but there has been “scant discussion” about why and where.
“I am critical of the rather lackadaisical approach that our political leadership has taken to address the strategic challenges facing the nation.”
He then focused on what he saw as the core need for a strategic reset.
“The time has come for the nation to bring together its separate Defence, Home Security and Foreign Affairs planning approaches into a single, integrated National security strategy.”
It should be noted that the lecture honors Essington Lewis. And the career of Lewis, certainly underscores why the presentation by Rear Admiral (Retired) Scarce certainly fits the lecture series. Lewis was Director-General of the Department of munitions during World War II.
According to an article in Wikipedia:
After joining Broken Hill Proprietary Company Ltd (BHP) (now BHP Billiton) in 1904, he rose through the company ranks to become managing director in 1926 and chairman in 1950, a position he held until his death in 1961. For the whole of his period as M.D., he had a close working relationship and personal friendship with Chairman of Directors Harold Gordon Darling (1885–1950).
During his travels to Germany and Japan in the 1930s, he realised the threat of these countries to Australia. Accordingly, he helped establish the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation and many munitions facilities meaning Australia was better prepared for industrialisation when the war started in 1939.
During World War II, he also served as Director-General of the Department of Munitions. He supported the establishment of the motor industry in Australia in 1948, being rewarded by being able to purchase the first commercially produced Holden 48/215.
He was appointed a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour on 24 September 1943 for his work as Director – Munitions & Aircraft Production in WW2.
And also see the following:
Australian Strategy at a Turning Point: Implications for the United States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Scarce
https://www.adelaide.edu.au/news/news100242.html
Re-setting Sustainment for the Royal Australian Navy Fleet (Updated)
Recently, I attended the Chief of the Royal Australian Navy’s Seapower conference being held in Sydney from October 8th through the 10th, 2019.
For five years, I have been attending the Williams Foundation Seminars and writing the reports on the transformation of the RAAF and its impact on shaping a “fifth generation ADF” or what I like to call, “building an integrated distributed force.”
The RAAF has done this over a decade and has done so by buying the best airpower platforms being built in Europe and the United States and by focusing on ways to integrate those platforms to operate as an integrated force. In my view, this has been a very cost-effective way to get a transformed force.
Although it is a work in progress, the challenge posed by rebuilding the Australian Navy is of a different scale and magnitude and the government and the Australian Navy are taking a very different course to force transformation.
The Navy and the government have in mind building a national infrastructure for “continuous shipbuilding” which when translated into non-defense English means building infrastructure to build, upgrade, maintain and support naval forces on a continuous basis.
This means building new facilities, shaping new workforces and keeping them regularly employed to sustain as well as build.
This is a costly and significant challenge, the magnitude of which significantly exceeds what has been done for the largely professional Air Force focused transformation.
This is about engaging the wider society and certainly taps into the national challenge of rebuilding national infrastructure to defend the nation against 21st century authoritarian powers.
In a session which focused on shaping a new sustainment approach for naval forces, Rear Admiral Wendy Malcolm, Head of Maritime Systems Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group, highlighted the importance of ensuring that a new sustainment strategy be built into the build out of the next generation Australian navy.
She argued that the Australian government has committed itself to a step change in naval capability. Australia will be engaged in the most significant recapitalization of its Navy since the Second World War.
“We need to reshape the way we sustain our fleet as we go about a significant change in how we are doing Naval acquisition.”
“As a result, we need to future proof our Navy so that it is capable and lethal and available when and where they are needed.
“We need to build a sustainment model which ensures that we can do this as well.”
Sustainment has been largely thought of as the afterthought to acquisition of a new platform. She argued that with the new “continuous shipbuilding approach” being worked, sustainment needs to be built in from the start into this process approach.
“We should from the outset to consider the best ways to sustain the force and to do so with engagement with industry in the solutions from the outset.”
She noted that the acquisition budget is roughly equivalent to the sustainment budget, and this means that a new approach to sustainment needs to accompany the new acquisition approach from the outset to ensure the delivery and operations of the most lethal and capable combat fleet which Australia can provide.
“There are serious external and internal forces that are forcing change in our thinking about how we will use our fleet…. A major investment in shipyards, work force, and in new ships requires an appropriate sustainment approach to deliver the capability to do the tasks our navy is and will be required to do.”
The shift to “continuous ship building” entails a major shift in how Australia needs to think about sustainment as well. She argued that a number of technologies had emerged which allow from a more flexible and adaptative way not only to build but to sustain ships as well.
“We need to take a fleet view and to shape a continuous approach to sustainment as well.”
Rear Admiral Malcolm dubbed the new approach of a continuous sustainment approach or environment as Plan Galileo.
Similar to what the RAAF has termed Plan Jericho as suggesting that discontinuity was as important as continuity, she has argued that there is a need for significant relaunch of thinking and build out of sustainment.
Plan Galileo is built around three key efforts.
The first is an improved approach to capability life cycle management.
The second is the establishment of regional maintenance centers.
The third is associated with the first two. Industrial engagement is crucial to driving regional hubs with true sovereign capability that is complementary to the national shipbuilding effort.
She underscored the importance of shaping a sustainment capability which can provide for redundancy and to do damage battle repair in crisis situations.
And she added that the Australian navy will need to focus as well on sustainment away from Australian territory as well.
She argued that the rebuilt dockyards and work force need to become multi-mission competent rather than single platform focused.
In this regard, she highlighted the importance of building regional support centers which could support a wide variety of vessels and systems.
In short, Rear Admiral Malcom provided a significant cautionary warning – if a shift in the sustainment model does not occur, the capability of even a newly built navy will be undercut in the conflictual world into which we have entered.
She made a vigorous case that the “continuous shipbuilding” approach needed to have a sustainment approach built in as well.
Indeed, given the dynamics of change associated within each class of ships associated with dynamics such as software upgradeability and in terms of building an integrated force within which the Navy will operate, the cross-domain operational requirements will require a modernization approach that becomes part of what one might consider to be sustainability.
And with the return of the significance of national and regional geography, the last thirty years reliance on a globalization process in which 21st century authoritarian powers have been key participants needs to be rethought, modified and reconfigured.
Rear Admiral Malcolm and her staff have kindly provided her briefing for our readers.
Pacific 2019_RADM Malcolm Presentation
Naval Formations During UNITAS LX i
10/16/2019Naval ships from Brazil, Peru, Argentina and the United States conduct naval formations during a training exercise for UNITAS LX in Brazil Aug. 24, 2019.
The exercise was done to test interoperability and communication between the partner nations. UNITAS is the world’s longest-running, annual exercise and brings together multinational forces from 11 countries to include Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay, Mexico, Great Britain and the United States.
The exercise focuses in strengthening the existing regional partnerships and encourages establishing new relationships through the exchange of maritime mission-focused knowledge and expertise during multinational training operations.
ILHA DA MARAMBIA, RJ, BRAZIL
08.24.2019
Video by Sgt. Daniel Barrios
U.S. Marine Corps Forces, South
21st Century Authoritarians Carve Up Syria
10/15/2019
By Robbin Laird
Syria is being controlled by Russia and Turkey, two elements of the rise of 21st century authoritarianism.
While the EU discusses and while the United States retreats or whatever it is doing, Turkey and Russia are shaping the territory from which the migration crisis is holding Europe at risk.
And let us be clear — Erdogan is blackmailing Europe over migration with the clear support of the Russians as well.
Earlier, I have published two pieces which looked at the way ahead for both Turkey and Russia in the region, and are reposting them in this article to highlight that the nature of what 21st century authoritarianism is all about.
While the US, the European Union and the UK go deeper into their constitutional crises, the 21st century authoritarian powers are increasingly collaborating with one another, and leveraging one another’s actions to shape a better national outcome for themselves.
The Turkish Dynamic
Turkey has been a bulwark of NATO’s Southern Flank during the Cold War and a key player afterwards in terms of shaping security and defense capabilities for NATO and the European Union over the past two decades. This has changed dramatically as President Erdogan came to power and has navigated the Turkish political system to shape a sharp break from the secular Turkey and pro-Western power that was set in motion by the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Erdogan has served as the President of Turkey since 2014 and is a key part of the strategic shift affecting European defense and security in the post-2014 strategic shift. Erdogan has worked to create greater Turkish independence and to do so by leveraging more fundamentalist Islamic forces in what has been for decades a strongly secular society. And he has looked to shape a foreign and defense policy which would expand the flexibility of Turkish partnerships and allies and embracing ways to restore in some 21stcentury manner a version of what he sees as modern Ottoman state.
The Turks under Erdogan have expanded their military reach into Africa and in the Middle East, and he has pursued a policy of expanded arms industrial autonomy as well.
The Syrian crisis has been a multi-headed forcing function for Erdogan as well. On the one hand, the outpouring of refugees has provided both opportunities and challenges to his increasingly authoritarian rule. On the other hand, after leveraging NATO contributions to defend Turkey against enhanced threats posed by the Russians operating in Syria, he is now pursuing an expanded working relationship with the Russians to enhance Turkey’s arms options to defend itself.
Erdogan has operated under the umbrella neither the European Union nor NATO posing a direct threat to his expanded authoritarian rule. He has leveraged having no threat at his back to focus on the dynamics East and South of Turkey to expand his options.
A “coup attempt” against Erdogan in 2016 has been a very useful event in Erdogan’s efforts to expand his power base. Notably, he used the failed coup attempt to go after the Turkish military, notably the Air Force, and to reduce its political impact and significantly reduced its fighting competence and capabilities as well.
The Turkish leader has been involved in constant conflict with the European leaders about a range of issues, notably those involving migrations. And his shift from Turkish interest in joining the European Union to playing off the Europeans for more global influence is simply the more obvious shift in the President of Turkey’s approach to shape in effect a more Islamic state which can provide for leadership in the Middle East and work with other global powers outside of Europe to enhance his position in the region.
In a period where the global impact of the various strands of Islam are clearly providing significant global impact, the President of Turkey has focused on emphasizing the Islamic side of Turkey, not its secular tradition and its role as a leader in the Middle East shaping a more effective democratic path forward in a troubled region. In place of Ataturk’s vision, we have the Erdogan vision of a partial restoration of the Ottoman Empire with an expanded role of Turkey as a leading Islamic state operating in Africa and the Middle East. He has also overseen the significant economic decline of Turkey, which means that the focus on the restoration of Turkish “glory” is not going to be funded by a dynamic Turkish economy closely integrated with the West.
In a critical but insightful article by Alon Ben-Meir on Erdogan , the author hihglights the psedo-Ottoaman approach being followed by the President.
“With little or no opposition at home, Erdogan moved to promote his Ottoman penchant to establish military bases in Qatar and Somalia, and military ties with Tunisia. Now he is scheming to build another military installation on the strategically located Sudanese Island of Suakin. Erdogan intends to utilize the island as a military outpost, as it had been during the Ottoman era. Egypt and Saudi Arabia believe that Erdogan’s military adventure will upset the regional balance of power, which is the recipe for instability and incessant violence.”2
Erdogan has acted if his membership in NATO is a birthright which allows him significant room for maneuver to expand South and East. The time is fast approaching when he needs to learn that he has significantly less room for maneuver if he continues to stab the West in the back.
An excellent example of how Erdogan is operating is his recent exploitation of the horrific slaying of Muslims in New Zealand. During his 2018 electoral campaign, he thought it acceptable to threaten the ANZAC community if they did not do whatever he thought was appropriate.
Ataturk was a brilliant Turkish military leader who defeated the allies in World War I when the attack was made on Turkey; he was respected because of his combat brilliance and because he went on to make Turkey a great nation. Erdogan who has no such pedigree seems to think that standing on the dead bodies of World War I soldiers and threatening their descendants will have no consequences.
In the summer of 2019 a key flashpoint was reached with the U.S. and NATO whereby the Trump Administration decided to terminate the Turkish involvement in the coalition-based global F-35 program.
The Turks are part of the F-16 European community and as such joined F-35. The issue which triggered this U.S. decision was the pursuit of the S-400 air defense system with the Russians.
This would mean that in an era where the U.S. and its allies are looking to shape greater integration of defensive and offensive systems and to enhance their ability to work together, the Turks proceeded down the path of not only not participating in such an approach, but are bringing the Russians directly into the air defense effort within Turkey and thereby NATO itself.
This is a key turning point and raises fundamental questions about the future of Turkey not only in NATO but more generally to how it will operate to defend itself and if whether in pursuing its independent course will leave the Southern Tier of Europe and the Southern Flank of NATO open to increasing conventional and hybrid war threats.
In other words, rather than Turkey being part of a comprehensive solution to sorting through the way ahead with regard to Southern Tier security and Southern Flank defense, Turkey is putting in motion the dynamics of change which could well change for a generation how Europe and the United States approach Mediterranean defense and security, and how to deter a growing range of authoritarian powers, of which clearly Erdogan is on the path to join the global trend.
Whether in NATO or not or whether allied with the European Union or not, Turkey is geographical located as it has always been at the critical juncture between the Middle East and Europe. This means that the European Union has worked and will continue to work with Turkey on the question of migrants as part of a broader security challenge.3
With more than three million Syrian refugees in Turkey, these expats have become important potential supporters of the new authoritarianism and also useful currency to negotiate with European nations and the European Union about as well.
Erdogan has openly embraced an agenda based on the greatness of the Ottoman Empire, a mix of religious and nationalist elements. His agenda has met with less than open enthusiasm by players in the region. As Zvi Mazel put it in an op-ed published in the JerusalemPost on August 1, 2019:
Dubbed neo-Ottomanism, a mix of religious and nationalist elements, this agenda led the president to embark on an aggressive foreign policy to assert Turkish domination in the Middle East on the basis of Islam, the common denominator of the region. It failed dismally. Only Qatar, which supports the Brotherhood, is still on friendly terms with him. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies, as well as Iraq, mistrust him, and Syria sees him as an enemy. Relations with Egypt were cut following the ouster of Muslim Brotherhood’s President Mohamed Morsi.4
The response of Erdogan to his strategic shift has not been to go back to the previous Turkish strategy of siding with the West, but rather seeking new ways to enhance his flexibility and to leverage that flexibility to tighten his grip on Turkey itself. Combining his policy of leveraging the migrant crisis with deepening his military relationships with 21stcentury authoritarian powers has been his next round of policy innovation.
This approach puts the alliance structures in play in a very significant manner, not just the European Union and NATO but the Gulf Cooperation Council as well. Erdogan is unhinging Turkey to give himself greater strategic flexibility and to find ways to enhance his own control within his own society.
The Russians clearly see an opportunity here. 5
And this Russian challenge is the latest one to operate within NATO Europe itself, but also builds off the gains made by militarily engaging in Syria and building out a permanent military presence in the Eastern Mediterranean.
In his significant book on Erdogan, fittingly entitled The New Sultan, Soner Cagaptay provided an overview of the rise of Erdogan and the significance of that rise to power and his shaping of power in driving a fundamental shift within Turkey itself. And because of fundamental shifts in Turkey, clearly the alliances with which Turkey has historically been part and have been important to the domestic evolution of Turkey itself are in the process of significant change as well.
Unlike previous Turkish leaders, such as Ozal, who saw himself as a conservative Muslim and a Westerner, Erdogan views himself as a conservative Muslim but not a Westerner. Accordingly, he no longer regards NATO as central, seeing it not as a club of nations with shared values, but rather as an outlet where he can purchase security through transactional deals. Whether or not the Turkish leader is the partner that the United States and the EU want, he is the ally they have been dealt at a critical juncture.6
In blunt terms, this means that alliance relationships are in flux in the most vulnerable region within Europe and which poses the most significant challenges to shaping an effective defense and security approach as the challenges of direct defense return to Europe. And unlike during the Soviet period, Turkey is not a stalwart barrier to Russian advances into the region; but at best an interlocutor with the Russians with regard to what and how effective those advances might be in the coming years.
As Cagaptay adds:
In any case, Erdogan’s transactional view of the NATO alliance will limit US ties with Turkey. Erdogan’s dim view of the EU and its liberal-democratic values will endow the EU with even less influence in Turkey. At best, Turkey’s Western allies can hope that the security they provide to Turkey against ISIS, Russia, and the Assad regime will be enough to keep Erdogan on their side. They can also dream that, in Erdogan’s wake, liberals will run Turkey one day, pivoting the country toward its traditional allies in the West—a long-term vision and hope.7
The Russian Dynamic
With the Western reactions to the seizure of Crimea, Putin was blocked from further incorporation of the “near abroad” directly in the Russian republic.
He certainly has generated continued pressure on the “near abroad” states and is leveraging the turn to the right in new member states in the European Union, like Hungary to position himself for ways to enhance his ability to pressure the European Union states, more generally.
But the major moves after Ukraine in 2014, clearly has been the intervention in the Syrian Civil War.
Here he has backed a long time Soviet ally, the Syrian government, and used various military means to punish the opponents of Syria having painted the intervention as Russia’s contribution to the war on terrorism.
Given that the Russian intervention in Chechnya was characterized the same way, the Syrian intervention fitted into a long-standing Putin narrative about Russia and its legitimate role in the world.
As part of the payment for the Russian intervention, Russia now has a permanent air and naval base in the Eastern Mediterranean which provides an important access point into the region, and as European dynamics unfold in the Western Mediterranean,
Putin is looking to establish more Russian presence there, with the possibility of Russia becoming a major player in the fate of the Mediterranean region.
We argued at the time of the initial intervention that this was a significant strategic turning point for Putin’s approach to global engagement.
The Russian intervention in Syria crosses a strategic threshold. Russia has used a small but decisive air and naval force to side with Assad to protect his regime and specifically Damascus.
So far the introduction of a relatively small number of combat aircraft in comparison to U.S. and Allied airpower has operationally secured a new air base –Hemeimeem — and equally important bolstered their ability to expand the Syrian naval port of Tartus in the Eastern Mediterranean.
In doing so, they have used airpower decisively in a way the U.S. has not, and have expanded their ability to influence outcomes in the region. While the Russians are delivering a relatively high tempo of air sorties from a small force and delivered weapons against targets, the U.S. tempo of sorties and weapons delivered against targets has been reduced to a trickle.
The Russians are backing a sovereign government, with that government’s approval.
This means that U.S. actions prior to the Russian engagement, whereby aiding “rebels” and inserting special forces was part of the effort takes on a new meaning. U.S. actions now face the threat of Syrian government or Russian attacks protected by international law, custom and practice. In other words, the Russians are in a military partnership with Syria their joint forces have every legal right to direct combat action against all enemies including the U.S. military…..
Significantly under-appreciated Russian diplomatic and political initiative is a new agreement with Israel. Putin invited the Obama-shunned Israeli leader Prime Minister Netanyahu to Moscow in September to forge a deconfliction agreement between Israel and the Russians. The Israeli diplomatic mission to Moscow included senior Israeli military officials. Consequently, both political and military issues were on the table from the start and the agreement has provided the basis for Israel expanding its capability to defend its interests in Lebanon.
Since then Jordan, America’s closest ally behind Israel has also signed such an agreement.
And during this Russian Israel strategic and military process President Obama pulled Secretary Kerry and Ambassador Power out of the UN Speech being given by Prime Minister Netanyahu.
It appears that the legacy of President Kennedy is long gone “Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”
In other words, decisive Russian military actions is more in line with 21st century insertion forces then the ever evolving Counter-Insurgency (COIN) nation building military mantra. Since the Powell characterization of the “if you break it you fix it doctrine,” the U.S. military has been on the path of operations on the ground to reshape political and economic systems, regardless of the inability of an outside power to do so.
In contrast, regardless of the size it is the intangible of combat decisiveness that forms the basis for the Russians expanding their diplomatic role in the region. Russia is being recognized by the key players in the region as a force to contend with….
Putin clearly has looked at the limited air campaign in Libya, the no-reaction to the Benghazi strikes, and our slow motion air campaign against ISIS and has concluded that a much shorter, decisive and brutal air campaign will get the kind of political diplomatic results he wants.
Put in other terms, while the Obama Administration and the neo-cons remain wedded to the COIN and slow-motion air campaign approaches of the past, the Russians are breaking out a new approach to achieve diplomatic power to reassert Russia’s role in the region.8
Of course, the Syrian conflict has led to an outpouring of refugees into the Mediterranean region and into the European Union.
And there is little doubt that the migratory pressures from North Africa and Middle East have been accelerated by the results of Russian action sin Syria, something which provides an indirect contribution to ramping up the direct defense challenge to Europe as well.
In a 2018 published book by the Russian analyst, and head of the Carnegie Center in Moscow, Dmitri Trenin, the author provides an insightful assessment of what Putin is up to in the Middle East with the Syrian intervention.
Trenin underscored the core significance of the Russian military intervention in Syria in terms of what it meant for the Russian military as a tool of Russian foreign and security policy.
“The Russian military operation in Syria is not only the biggest combat employment of Russia’s armed forces abroad since the Afghan war; it represents a very different kind of warfare in comparison to anything Russia had practiced before.
“First, this is an expeditionary war: Russia is fighting in a country with which it has no common border.
“Second, this is predominantly an air war: Russian ground forces are not fighting, though the navy is occasionally engaged.
“Third, this is a coalition war: in order to achieve the war’s aims, Russian airstrikes have to be exploited by the non-Russian forces operating on the ground.
“Fourth, this is a limited war very closely tied to the diplomatic process.”9
Put in other words, the intervention places Russia into the diplomatic game in a volatile region where Russian interests are clearly involved, not the least of which in terms of Russia’s energy business.
But it also provides a learning event for sorting through how to interactively use new and older Russian military capabilities to support Russia’s version of crisis management, which is a key element of what direct defense for Europe entails as well.
The political objective of the Russian intervention was clear from the outset. According to Trenin:
“Although the Russian military operation in Syria was billed from the start as “anti-terrorist,” it was mostly directed against Assad’s various armed opponents rather than the Islamic State group. This was fully consistent with the immediate objective of the Russian military operation in Syria: to stabilize the Assad regime, which was besieged by the forces of the opposition, not those of IS.10
The intervention has cleaerly placed Putin in a more central position within the region, which has reach outside of the Middle East as well.
According to Trenin:
“Moscow also emerged from its military engagement in Syria as the player with the most connections in the region. During the war, President Putin stayed in close touch with virtually all regional leaders, including those of Turkey, Iran, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, and Lebanon.
“Russia managed to avoid the risk of falling into the cracks of Middle Eastern divides: Shia versus Sunni; Saudi versus Iran; Iran versus Israel; Turkey versus the Kurds, and so on.
“It is this ability to promote one’s interest in a conflict-infested environment that is particularly useful for a country aiming to be a global player. It is negotiating those divides that would test Russia’s ability not only to promote its own interests, but also to deliver public goods—a mark of a true great power in the twenty-first century.”11
Trenin’s interpretation of Putin’s engagement in Syria is in part that the crisis allowed him a chance to breakout from European stalemate to reassert Russian flexibility in political-miiltirary-diploamtic activity through the venue of the Syrian crisis.
As Trenin put it:
“It is not just a return to an important region, but a comeback to the global scene after a twenty-five-year absence. This breakthrough for Russia’s foreign policy has contributed to the ongoing change of the global order—away from U.S. dominance and back to some sort of a balance of power among several major players, including Russia.
“Moscow has demonstrated that a combination of a clear sense of objective, strong political will, area expertise and experience, resourceful diplomacy, a capable military, plus an ability to coordinate one’s actions with partners and situational allies in a very diverse and highly complex region can go a long way to help project power onto the top level. This was exactly what Putin was aiming for.
“His main foreign policy objective has been to bring Russia back to the top level of global politics, and he chose the Middle East as the area for that breakthrough.”12
The featured photo shows Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosting in Ankara his Iranian and Russian counterparts Hassan Rouhani and Vladimir Putin, April 4, 2018. (Photo: Anadolu Agency)
Looking Back at the COIN-Oriented US Military Transformation
By Robbin Laird
In my lifetime, the U.S. military has gone through three major phases of development.
The first was the shaping of the force in the 1980s to deal with the Soviet threat to Europe and encompassed air-land battle. Hardwired networking was introduced and working ways to integrate forces more effectively was the hallmark of this effort.
And the approach was battle tested in the first Iraq War.
The second was the significant redesign of the US military from a power projection force to a primary focus on the land wars, and lower end of the conflict spectrum.
Here the United States shifted its resources, and combat innovations to fighting COIN wars and engaging in stability operations.
The third is the dramatic refocus from the land wars to sorting through what a 21st century high intensity warfare approach can be with the legacy of COIN, on the one hand, and the introduction of new technologies, such as the F-35, on the other hand.
In a very thoughtful book by Brig. Gen. Jason Q, Bohm, USMC, the author provides a solid look at the second phase of U.S. military development and ends the book by highlighting the nature of the challenge of facing the third phase of military development.
“America finds itself having to relearn many of the skills needed to succeed on the high end of the spectrum of conflict after predominantly focusing on fighting terrorist’s conducting counterinsurgencies and performing other tasks on the low end for nearly two decades.
“Many of these critical skills have atrophied and are now made more difficult by the rapid proliferation of technology and the establishment of two new warfighting domains – cyber and space.”13
The book provides a look at Bohm’s journey from the end of the Cold War through COIN and on the border of the new historical epoch.
His book provides a rich look at the kinds of innovation the USMC and the joint force underwent to deal with the global war on terrorism, COIN and stability operations.
One innovation which I had the opportunity to watch closely when visiting the USMC over the years, was the Osprey driven version of the crisis management force.
We visited 2nd MAW as well as the Marine Corps in Spain to have a chance to watch the standup of the SP-MAGTF.
According to Bohm: “The operational lift provided by the MV-22 Osprey, combined with the KC-130 refueling aircraft, was a game changer.” 14
The book is a highly recommended read to understand what this evolution of the US military to deal with the land wars meant to the military undergoing and executing the change.
It is also helpful in understanding how dramatic the shift back to hi-intensity operations is going to be.
Bohm highlights the key point about the USMC and innovation – they adapt, innovate and can take their combat experience from past phases of development forward into the next phase of development to deal with the new challenges.
“America’s armed forces met, and will continue to meet, the many challenges of adjusting to this changing world. They succeeded across the entire spectrum of conflict…”15
Operation Rapid Forge: Highlighting the Challenge To Shape a Sustainment Capability to Enable an Integrated Distributed Force.
10/14/2019
By Robbin Laird
To deal with the challenge posed by the 21st century authoritarian powers, the United States military and its allies are rebuilding their combat approach.
The strategic trajectory is to shape a force which can prevail in an area of interest with a coordinated or integrated dispersed or distributed force.
A recently completed exercise, Operation Rapid Forge, is a step in this direction.
Here the focus was upon how to generate sufficient force to defend the Baltic States in a crisis, and to do so by inserting a force which had reach back to a broader and more powerful integrated force.
At the conclusion of the exercise, Airman 1st Class Kyle Cope, 52nd Fighter Wing Public Affairs, provided an overview on the exercise in an article published July 28, 2019.
The 10-day operation helped ensure U.S. forces’ ability to fulfill the European Deterrence Initiative, a policy to assure and defend NATO allies, while promoting deterrence in an increasingly complex security environment.
Members of the 4th Fighter Wing, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina, set up a mobile command and control facility in a simulated austere environment. The 4th FW and the 421st Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, Hill AFB, Utah, used the C2 node throughout the operation for sorties as the U.S. forces practiced interoperability with NATO partners.
“Rapid Forge is assuring our NATO partners,” said U.S. Air Force Col. Donn Yates, 4th FW commander. “Rapid Forge is developing interoperability between 4th and 5th generation aircraft, F-35A (Lightning II) and F-15E (Strike Eagle) and it is also rapidly projecting airpower into the theater using amazing capabilities that we have and then being able to test and experiment with command and control, in accordance with a flexible mindset.”
The operation was a collaborative effort between European and U.S. Forces.
“European forces from NATO member nations of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland participated alongside Airmen from U.S. Air Forces in Europe, F-15E Strike Eagles from the 4th FW and F-35A Lightning II from the 421st EFS,” said U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Maxwell Cover, 421st EFS F-35A pilot.
A key part of Operation Rapid Forge was testing the U.S. Air Force’s ability to operate in an austere environment.
“The U.S. Air Force had been looking to explore its ability to deploy a light and lean force to rapidly stand up a C2 facility anywhere in the world,” Yates said. “This ability prevents U.S. forces from being restricted to a fixed site, while demonstrating we are a credible and capable competitor with any adversary.”
Operating this way has resulted in the concept of the multifunctional Airman, an Airman who is trained to perform a variety of tasks, not just those within their specific specialty.
Cover said the 421st EFS had a team of highly trained maintenance personnel at each training location for Operation Rapid Forge. Airmen were cross-trained into all the different F-35A maintenance functional areas. Instead of having seven to nine personnel to operate all the functional areas, two personnel can do all the F-35A servicing.
The 4th FW also discovered the concept of the multifunctional Airman to be beneficial.
Yates said his base built their team towards the multifunctional Airman concept prior deploying to Operation Rapid Forge. He said for his team, the concept involved training Airmen to fuel jets, marshal aircraft, provide security and lead troops, among other skills.
This concept makes expeditionary operations like Rapid Forge possible.
“The multifunctional Airman concept is key to operating in an austere environment,” Cover said. “We want to minimize our footprint and change the calculus of where a potential adversary thinks we can operate. To do that, we are going to need to cut down the number of people we need to accomplish the mission and have more of a middleweight fighting force that is highly capable.”
The continued change in strategy and policy during Operation Rapid Forge was intended to strengthen the deterrence effect of U.S. forces.
Cover said it is important the U.S. Air Force maintains a strategy that seeks a continuing advantage to deter aggression and assure NATO allies. Operation Rapid Forge was built upon a strategy that allows the U.S. to promote deterrence of possible aggressors by operating in remote locations with a minimal footprint, while still maintaining the strength of our fighting force.
The lessons and skills learned from Operation Rapid Forge resulted in a successful operation.
“We came here to accomplish three objectives,” Yates said. “Get the team here in a very quick timeline, establish our air expeditionary wing and achieve training, and get everyone home safe. We have accomplished the first two objectives and are working on the third, so I consider Rapid Forge to be a huge success.”
This sentence “Operation Rapid Forge was built upon a strategy that allows the U.S. to promote deterrence of possible aggressors by operating in remote locations with a minimal footprint, while still maintaining the strength of our fighting force” highlights the heart of a strategy for the operation of an integrated distributed force.
To do so requires, an operational base, however temporary, to generate combat operations.
To operate, you need fuel and weapons which means that you need to operate dispersed FARPs or forward arming and refueling points which are viable enough to do the job. Which almost certainly means having capabilities to be defended even if mobile or temporary.
Earlier this year, the USAF exercised its FARP capabilities in Arizona. According to an article by Airman 1st Class Kristine Legate, 355th Wing Public Affairs in an article published on February 19, 2019:
DAVIS-MONTHAN AIR FORCE BASE, Ariz.(AFNS) — In the darkness of night, forward area refueling point team members wait for a HC-130J Combat King II to land – marking the start of training.
FARP, a specialty within the petroleum, oils and lubrication career field, trains Airmen to effectively refuel aircraft in remote locations when air-to-air refueling is not possible or when fueling stations are not accessible.
Davis-Monthan is one of seven bases which can provide FARP capabilities. Of the entire U.S. Air Force, there are a total of 63 qualified FARP team members – nine for each base.
“We come in with everything we need to deliver fuel from one aircraft to another,” said Staff Sgt. Drake Burch, 355th Logistics Readiness Squadron FARP operator. “So that others have enough fuel to complete their missions and make it back home safe.”
FARP plays a role in the U.S. military’s adaptive basing abilities to deliver airpower lethality more effectively and efficiently anywhere in the world by being able to provide a mobile refueling point anywhere an aircraft can land.
“With the ability to set up a refueling site with both minimal equipment and personnel, we are able to provide versatility while leaving a low footprint” Burch said.
To maintain readiness in adverse conditions, FARP training can take place anytime, day or night, and consists of members wearing roughly 60 pounds of gear, to include: a rifle, vest, magazines, night-vision goggles, a helmet and survival gear, while performing refueling tasks to simulate encounters they may face downrange.
“We practice how we play,” said Staff Sgt. Matthew Lara, 355th LRS FARP operator. “It helps us prepare for real-world situations. Downrange we could have scenarios where we have to land, refuel and leave in under an hour.”
Training can be strenuous and demanding. To even qualify for FARP, Airmen must pass Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) school and go through an altitude chamber. In training situations, which can sometimes take place in pitch black darkness, FARP members must show they can refuel aircraft even in the most austere environments. Training in less-than-ideal conditions allow Airmen to hone their skills which will, in turn, allow them to support the mission in any situation.
“It’s demanding – both physically and mentally. On the job, exhaustion can easily creep up on you and thoughts of wanting to quit start to cross your mind, but you don’t quit,” Lara said. “In a real-world situation you can’t just stop, you have to keep going to complete the mission.”
The force needs a common operating picture and a C2 system which provide a backbone for the combat mass necessary to achieve combat success. The distributed force package however small needs to be well integrated but not just in terms of itself but its ability to operate via C2 or ISR connectors to an enhanced capability.
But that enhanced capability needs to be deployed in order to be tailorable to the distributed operational force operating almost like a lego block and to provide enhanced lethality and effectiveness appropriate to the political action needed to be taken.
This rests really on a significant rework of C2 in order for a distributed force to have the flexibility to operate not just within a limited geographical area but to expand its ability to operate by reaching beyond the geographical boundaries of what the organic presence force is capable of doing by itself.
This requires multi-domain SA – this is not about the intelligence community running its precious space- based assets and hoarding material. This is about looking for the coming confrontation which could trigger a crisis and the SA capabilities airborne, at sea and on the ground would provide the most usable SA monitoring. This is not “actionable intelligence.” This is about shaping force domain knowledge about anticipation of events.
For an integrated distributed force able to operate over an extended period of time, a key challenge will be to build a sustainment capability to enable an integrated distributed force.
If one took the kind of capability exercised in Operation Rapid Forge as a foundational one to deal with the peer competitors, how would you sustain such an approach over a period of time necessary to prevail?
It is clear that to do so would require effective, integrated and globally integratable support structures. And this requirement runs straight into the legacy system which the US has used for force support for the entire post-Cold War period.
Or put another way, without significant legal and security changes in the sustainment system for US forces, effective global performance for an integrated distributed force will simply not be sustainable for an extended period of combat.
This means that rather than looking at logistics as the tail for global power projection, sustainment for an integrated distributed force is the tail wagging the dog.
This means that the core new programs the U.S. is fielding, notably the F-35 and the P-8, to mention two, need to leverage their global presence and allies who are in the program to have sustainable and protected supply and repair centers close to the area of interest from which the allies and the U.S. can work interchangeably.
I have argued that in the case of the US and Australia one could stand up over the next five years a sustained engagement strategy. As Australia looks to enhance its own sustainment capabilities and to expand the use of its Northern geography, and the US looks to reshape its deterrence in depth capabilities with allies in the Pacific, reshaping the logistics support approach could be a key building block for crafting an integrated distributed force in the Pacific.
As I argued in an earlier article:
As the Aussies work out their sustainment approach on the various airbases where the F-35s will operate in normal times as well as crisis times, the F-35 partners of Australia have a significant strategic opportunity — namely, to learn how to do sustained engagement operations working with the RAAF in supporting regional deterrence operations.
The Aussies are standing up a significant support structure in Australia for regional support. As they do so, allies such as the US and Japan can shape an approach to what I would call sustained engagement.
With crises to come in which the F-35s will play a key role, the Australians can provide operating locations for allies, without having to base those allies on a long term basis. This allows Australia its sovereignty but also allows allies like the United States and Japan to gain operational depth, which will be crucial for deterrence in the region.
Because they are flying virtually the same aircraft, stockpiling parts and leveraging an expanded sustainment base with the Australian maintainers leading the way for the USAF to move to a new approach to operations which does not require them to operate like Fed Ex flying in resources to then stand up support in a crisis.
The USAF or the Japanese could fly to Australia and be supported by Australian based supplies and maintainers supplemented by Japanese and US maintainers and could operate rapidly in a crisis, rather than engaging in a significant airlift and tanking support set of missions to stand up aircraft in Australia on a case by case basis.
It is not about just showing up; it is about being able to do sustained engagement with a very light expeditionary support structure to establish and operate from a solid operational footprint.
Lt. Col. David Beaumont, an Australian logistics officer and expert, provided his perspective on how he saw this aspect of the potential for the F-35 program.
“This is the beauty of the program – it supports what we might also call ‘theatre setting’, or creating logistics (sustainment) and other arrangement s we could conceivably operate in.
“In coalition, we’ll effectively be operating a strategic ‘hub and spoke’ support network for the aircraft where a range of coalition bases (countries) offer hubs for operations, with supply chains between them the spokes. The other advantage is considerable redundancy if the supply chains are interdicted in one area.
This inherent capability within the F-35 global enterprise “makes interoperability among allies a fundamental issue for immediate attention.”
For the sea services, this means as well bolstering and reshaping its capabilities for at sea support as well.
Notably, in the new USMC Commandant’s guidance, he highlighted how he saw the USN-USMC team reworking its capabilities to provide combat blocs within what I am calling an integrated distributed force. He highlighted the importance of distributed combat blocs or perhaps small task forces to operate against adversary positions within an area of interest and to do so for sustained periods of time.
While there has been much discussion of the capital fleet and of the weaponization of that fleet, what is missing is a clear commitment and investment in the logistics support fleet that can make any of this happen. In fact, the littoral combat ship was bought with scant regard to the Military Sealift Command and its inability to support a forward deployed LCS and as a result, LCSs are now being attached to task forces.
This means that the slow, steady and perhaps irreversible decline of U.S. and allied merchant marines will make support to an integrated distributed fleet very difficult indeed. Not only do we need merchant mariners but a significant upsurge in the supply ships necessary to tank, arm and generally support the fleet, and if distributed this demand signal goes up significantly,
This is not simply a U.S. problem but an allied problem as well.
Innovations are clearly underway that will allow the supply challenge for a distributed force to be improved. An ability to do 3D printing for parts onboard ships is one example. Directed energy weapons supplementing or supplanting today’s kinetic weapons is another.
An ability to leverage remote basing as well as new forms of supply via unmanned vessels can provide new tool sets as well.
But the point can be put bluntly – the tail is going to wag the dog on this one.
Without a significant commitment to sourcing, reworking, and investing in new approaches and strategies for the US to work with allies for distributed support, the promise inherent in a shift to an integrated distributed force will not be met.
The original version of this article was published in Front Line Defence, Issue 3, 2019.
The article is entitled: “An Integrated Distributed Force” and starts on page 18 in the magazine.
Coda: The Basing Challenge
Under the latest National Defense Strategy, the Air Force is questioning the resiliency of its established bases and putting thought into how the service could establish a makeshift airfield or use partner nations’ bases to distribute assets should war break out.
“It is about combat-credible forward forces; that is, forces that are or can rapidly get forward, survive a withering Chinese or Russian assault, and blunt the adversary’s aggression,” Elbridge Colby, who co-led development of the National Defense Strategy, wrote in January 2019 testimony to Congress. “And it is about bases, operating locations and logistic networks that can perform their missions in support of these goals, even under heavy and sustained enemy attacks.”
Simply put, the Air Force can’t count on its installations to withstand the type of prolonged attacks that Russia and China could mount, and the service must be able to swiftly regenerate air power from alternate sites should its primary bases became unusable.
That problem was on the mind of Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein during a July trip to Finland.
The Finnish Air Force disperses its aircraft among four bases inside the country, but all its aircraft can operate from Finland’s many “road bases”— basically a highway strip that is equipped to function as a runway. The service trains its personnel to secure and stand up road bases, and it regularly demonstrates its ability to operate from the bases during exercises.
The U.S. Air Force could learn from that, Goldfein told Defense News after the visit.
“While we do have a lot of bases, I don’t know which of those are going to be available for the time I need it,” he said.
“So I’ve got to be more agile than that, and it might be that I’m setting up a base that doesn’t actually exist. I have a long enough track of concrete, some source of water, and that’s all I’ve got, and now I have to rapidly stand it up and do all those key tasks,” he added. “Stand up a base, defend the base, receive forces, be able to connect into the command and control, and then be able to operate in a contested environment. They’re already thinking about that.”
One means of doing this involves pre-positioning equipment in Europe, as well as making key investments to partner nations’ bases to fund things like runway repairs and new hangars. Last year, the U.S. Air Force conducted a proof of concept for “deployable air bases,” demonstrating that airmen could transfer shipping containers full of equipment to Poland’s 31st Air Base in Krzesiny and set up a camp and airfield infrastructure needed to launch planes.