Sharpening the eagle's talons: assessing air base defense

Air & Space Power Journal, Fall, 2004 by David P. Briar

Editorial Abstract: The Air Force has invested little in securing an air base beyond the maximum effective range of security forces' heavy-weapons teams that operate inside the base's legal perimeter. Thus, a gap exists from which our adversaries can launch standoff attacks with little fear of reprisal. This article reviews the history of such attacks and makes recommendations in the areas of organizational structure and manpower for dealing with future threats to our air bases.

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WRITING ABOUT ALLIED convoys sailing the cold, wind-swept seas of the Central Atlantic during World War II, Williamson Murray and Allan Millett note that "the crews' biggest worry was the large gap ... where Allied air cover could not reach." (1) The German navy quickly exploited that gap, sinking many a vessel there. Even though the Allies could have shrunk or eliminated the gap by using long-range aircraft such as the B-24, they decided against using these bombers in an anti-submarine role, thus giving the Germans a fleeting chance to "crush the Allied convoy system." (2) That decision cost many lives and much treasure.

Just as the Allies left the door open for Adm Karl Donitz's U-boats, so has the Air Force left a gap outside our air bases that its security forces, for the most part, cannot reach. Even though the service has taken great pains to develop a coherent base-defense doctrine, the latter considers the security forces capable of controlling only those areas out to the maximum effective range of the heaviest weapons system available to the defense force commander. According to Air Force doctrine, security forces should consider threats emanating from sources outside that range but let other forces, such as those of the host nation or sister services, handle them. Even though this door is not as wide open as the one in the Central Atlantic during World War II, the Air Force needs to review its doctrine and organizational structure carefully to insure that it can meet future threats.

To that end, this article examines the postulated threat to air bases, especially those outside the continental United States (CONUS), and the adequacy of the service's force-protection and base-defense doctrines in order to determine what the Air Force needs to do to resolve the problem. In order to make such a review viable, the article makes certain assumptions. First, it considers only a narrow range of potential threats against air bases--specifically, attacks from surface-bound adversaries using mortars, bombs, rockets or rocket-propelled grenades, surface-to-air missiles (SAM), or long-range rifles. It does not consider operational-level threats such as theater ballistic missiles or nuclear weapons. Second, the article considers threats according to the manner in which they would attack an installation as opposed to the size of the adversary or the force dispatched to deal with the threat. Third, because the article deals with existing doctrine and the operational practice of force protection and base defense, many topics--such as physical security, sensors, and technology--remain outside its scope. Finally, this article leaves the reader with some open-ended questions, such as how we should go about finding the resources necessary for change.

The Threat to Air Bases

On 1 November 1964, the Vietcong attacked Bien Hoa Air Base, South Vietnam, with 81 mm mortars, killing four people, destroying 20 aircraft, and marking the beginning of a campaign by the Vietcong and North Vietnamese army that would include over 400 additional attacks, claim many more lives, and destroy valuable resources. (3) The attack on Bien Hoa sent a message that air bases are vulnerable to attack and that a fairly unsophisticated enemy could disrupt air operations for at least a short time and inflict substantial casualties. Without acknowledging such lessons from our military history and their implications for the future, we cannot evaluate the adequacy of current security-forces doctrine. Furthermore, attacks such as those on the Pentagon and World Trade Center on 11 September 2001 should prompt the Air Force to question whether its doctrine meets the needs of a world in which enemies use asymmetric means of attack. Finally, history gives us the starting point for all our doctrine, allowing us to determine past trends, extrapolate them in some imperfect fashion, and decide what the future may hold.

Regarding the environment in which US forces are likely to find themselves, Dennis Drew comments that "insurgencies, protracted revolutionary warfare in the underdeveloped and developing world, appear to be the most likely, if not the most threatening, kinds of conflict the US will face in the future." (4) Additionally, Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 2-4.1, Force Protection, asserts that "the post-Cold War period is characterized by a significant shift in the Air Force functions and an increased exposure of its resources to the worldwide enemy threat. Today, potential opponents are more unpredictable, and US assets are more at risk to enemy attack. Additionally, there is an increase in the availability of high and low technology weapons and weapons of mass destruction (WMD). US aerospace power requires protection from these threats at home station and abroad." (5)