Range and persistence: the keys to global strike

Air & Space Power Journal, Spring, 2008 by Phillip S. Meilinger

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EVEN BEFORE THE invention of the airplane, visionaries had debated what effect it would have on warfare; indeed, novelists wrote of aerial armadas that would defeat the tyranny of terrain. Aircraft would fly over seas, mountains, and fortresses that hindered armies and navies. From the airy heights, aircraft could devastate an enemy's defenses.

At the same time, we also noted the airplane's limitations--technical challenges that we needed to address and overcome. In the decades since, we have aggressively attacked all of these challenges and made dramatic improvements. We have effectively dealt with the issues of speed, payload, navigation/accuracy, self-defense, safety/reliability, all-environment operations, and connectivity/responsiveness through technology and operational solutions. One technical problem, however, has not so readily lent itself to fixing--range and the associated factor of persistence.

Global attack is one of the US Air Force's six distinctive capabilities, as defined in its doctrine. (1) "Global" means "range." To neutralize or hold at risk targets thousands of miles distant, we need strike assets that can put ordnance precisely on target at great range--a tremendous challenge. The distance an aircraft can travel (range) and its time on station (persistence) are functions of fuel and human endurance. The Air Force has tried to meet these two requirements through forward basing, air refueling, and long-range strike platforms (bombers). Today, those first two options are becoming increasingly problematic.

We may not have access to air bases close to a conflict for political reasons, or they may be vulnerable to attack. Air refueling carries risks in an era of long-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems. Long-range strike platforms, perhaps mated with standoff weapons, offer the logical solution to the global-strike mandate. (2)

Forward Basing

The United States requires access to overseas bases near a crisis area. In operation Iraqi freedom, the Air Force used 36 air bases, many of which it had to hastily construct or upgrade. This is not a new problem. Air operations at the beginning of both the Korean and vietnam Wars were constrained by a shortage of air bases having the requisite runways, ramp space, utilities access, and maintenance facilities. (3)

Air Base Politics

As mentioned above, we may not have assured access in future crises for two reasons. The first is political: a country may prove unwilling to allow US military forces to use its soil or overfly its territory. It may wish to help but nonetheless demur due to disagreements over US objectives, domestic concerns, or fear of reprisal. (4) We witnessed a demonstration of the first case during Iraqi freedom when france and Germany did not agree that an invasion of Iraq was necessary and lent no support to the US-led effort. Similarly, after operation Desert Storm, Saudi Arabia was reluctant to allow US aircraft to use its bases for strikes against Iraq because of domestic opinion. Furthermore, Spain's withdrawal from Iraq in 2004 after a terrorist attack on the Madrid train system showed how reprisals can dictate government policy. (5)

Operational flexibility and foreign-policy initiatives can mitigate these concerns. Thus, despite the denial of airfields in Saudi Arabia, facilities in Kuwait, bahrain,Qatar, Pakistan, and elsewhere proved sufficient. Yet, the coalition air commander in Iraqi freedom--T. Michael "buzz" Moseley, then a lieutenant general--warned that the United States could not count on such bases: "In the future, we will require deep strike capabilities to penetrate and engage high-value targets during the first minutes of hostilities anywhere in the battlespace." (6)

In short, we have assumed that if a country is in trouble and requests our help, then it will make bases available for our use. Now, however, the United States finds itself in need. We require bases in order to prosecute the war on terrorism. Will they be available?

Air Base Vulnerability

The greatest utility of overseas bases is their proximity to potential crisis areas. The greatest limitation of overseas bases is their proximity to potential crisis areas. The issue involves vulnerability--an old problem. Following World War II, Strategic Air Command deployed most of its bombers to forward bases in Europe, theMiddle East, and Asia--within unrefueled striking distance of their targets in the Soviet Union. (7) In 1954, however, a rAnD study concluded that these bases were vulnerable to a Soviet strike. This report had enormous impact--within a year, the Air Force ordered its first KC-135 tanker. (8) The new strategy called for launching bombers from bases in the United States--air refueling would get the strike aircraft to their targets and back. Strategic Air Command then pulled its bases back to the periphery for use as staging areas in the event of war.

US fighters remained at European bases--north Atlantic treaty organization (NATO) airfields that had dispersed facilities, hardening, air defense systems, stocks of spare parts, and pre-positioned fuel and ordnance. We believed that these semihardened bases would survive a Soviet strike--at least until the Air force ran an exercise called Salty Demo at Spangdahlem Airbase, Germany, in 1985, which measured an air base's ability to survive conventional as well as chemical attacks and then generate sorties afterward. The scenario envisioned simulated air strikes by Soviet aircraft and ground attacks by Spetsnaz commando units, subjecting Spangdahlem to simulated destruction. Personnel built an Alternate Launch and recovery System (ALRS)--a temporary runway--and then deliberately blew it up. (9) buildings or systems designated as "destroyed" by enemy attacks were out of play for the remainder of the exercise. Personnel judged as injured received "treatment" in the hospital and, if appropriate, returned to duty. those "killed in action" were out of the exercise. Combat engineers repaired craters made in the ALRS, and crews launched and recovered aircraft on the repaired surface.