Sharpening the eagle's talons: assessing air base defense

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

Another salient point that bears directly on current base-defense doctrine is the role of Air Force personnel who are not in the security forces. In its discussion of survivability, AFDD 2-4 states that "at a minimum, successful air base defense requires basic weapons and tactics training for all deployed Air Force personnel." (32) It seems that the Air Force is placing its future not in a large, dedicated organization of security forces but in each and every Airman assigned to the expeditionary wing. This point raises questions about the level of risk the Air Force is willing to accept and whether or not that risk assessment is appropriate in today's operating environment.

Recommendations

The Air Force is an expeditionary service, so its security forces should be equally expeditionary. Making them so will require a new mind-set, increased risk, and reorganization. The new mind-set will entail shifting a major portion of these forces from law enforcement, entry control, and administration in the CONUS to new expeditionary units based on the 820th model. This mind-set is new because it requires each installation to adopt a contract security force to handle those functions that Air Force security forces need to give up. Although increased risk is inherent in this approach, modifications to Title 10, Armed Forces, occasioned by the Defense Appropriations Act of 2003, make such an approach legal. The risk goes beyond this, however, in terms of uneven training, lack of control, and the possible existence of a greater criminal threat on our installations. Nevertheless, radical times call for radical changes. With regard to organization, this particular change is huge.

CONUS security-forces squadrons would relinquish to a contractor such functions as law enforcement, resource protection, crime prevention, administration, personnel and information security, and entry control. Those manpower positions would move to new expeditionary squadrons. Moreover, the old squadrons would retain a core of military manpower under the leadership of competent officers and senior NCOs to perform vital weapons-system security for resources at priority-level three and above. Moving these "bill-paying" positions from conventional to expeditionary squadrons is certainly revolutionary. Other changes are equally radical.

An expeditionary unit needs to focus on training and deploying to fight. For example, when the 23d Fighter Squadron is at home in Spangdahlem, Germany, its members are training to fight for the next war. However, the 52d Security Forces Squadron, also based at Spangdahlem, is trying to squeeze training into a schedule that includes registering cars and making sure that base organizations properly secure their classified documents. The organizational change mentioned above addresses the need to divest these functions and transform security forces into an expeditionary force while leaving only a precious few members behind to provide close-in security and response capability for key war-fighting resources. As a result, as additional groups of security-forces squadrons form, they can focus on training in the way the Air Force now fights--as part of an air and space expeditionary task force. Organization and training are not the only changes that have to be made. Air Force leaders must change their minds about what risks they are willing to take.