America's Air Force: the nation's guardian

Joint Force Quarterly, April, 2008 by T. Michael Moseley

The war on terror has highlighted the importance of specialized airpower (special operations forces). We will continue to provide aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, agile combat support, and trained personnel to meet combatant commanders' special operations requirements. Air Force Special Operations Command is establishing a new base with world-class training ranges and facilities to accommodate its growth. In addition, the Air Force continues to refine tactics, techniques, and procedures to enhance the synergies between airpower and joint special operations forces.

An enduring element of our national security strategy is to engage forward in peace, crisis, and war. Accordingly, we must maintain a sufficient rotational base to sustain our forward-deployed and forward-based posture, as well as enhance our ability to project and protect those forces--a moral imperative as well as a military necessity. The Air Force will work with combatant commanders and partner air forces to secure basing and counter potential antiaccess strategies. We must continue to develop new ways of projecting power without projecting vulnerabilities and design systems that facilitate reachback, thus maximizing effects while minimizing forward presence.

Risk: Failure to Anticipate, Learn, and Adapt. All strategic planning is based on a set of assumptions. Surprise occurs when core assumptions are proven wrong. To succeed, we must continually validate our strategy across the ends/means/ways/risk equation. We should not assume that future conflicts will resemble the current fight in Iraq or Afghanistan lest we lose the ability to project global power, inflict strategic paralysis, deter nation-states, destroy their fielded forces, and defend our homeland, its allies, and friends.

For a nation whose security is predicated on an enduring strategy of deterrence and dissuasion, the most fundamental risk is failure of deterrence. Insofar as deterrence is a function of capability, will, and credibility, and is thus in the eye of the beholder, its success--or failure--is measured only in the breech. To mitigate the risk, we must retain a modern, secure, and well-trained force and evolve new deterrence concepts. In particular, it behooves us to rethink such concepts as extended deterrence and conceive new ways to deal with actors who might be deemed "undeterrable" in the traditional Cold War construct.

Strategic risk can also mount through the accumulation of shortfalls in recapitalization and modernization, stale operational concepts, and failure to revitalize the warrior ethos. Recapitalization is about more than replacing aging aircraft; it is about ensuring the combat effectiveness of all forces. The success of the Air Force and the joint team depends upon the ability of our people and organizations to adopt new, relevant operational concepts suitable to the dynamics of the strategic environment. Cross-domain dominance is essential to victory.

From Heritage to Horizons

Complacency breeds failure. In the 1920s and 1930s, when our political and military leaders assured the Nation that we were appropriately postured for the future, we failed to anticipate the coming crucible. Despite the vocal objections of a few, we entered World War II unprepared for the demands of total war. Likewise, we engaged in both Korea and Vietnam unprepared for the challenges of limited war. America paid a heavy price in blood and treasure for this strategic myopia. Through determination, ingenuity, and innovation--as well as our industrial might--we learned from mistakes. We adapted in the midst of these fights to win decisively in World War II, restore the status quo ante bellum in Korea, terminate the conflict in Southeast Asia, and, having exorcised the ghosts of Vietnam, deliver a swift victory in Operation Desert Storm.