To bomb or not to bomb? Counterinsurgency, airpower, and dynamic targeting

Air & Space Power Journal, Winter, 2007 by Jason M. Brown

Editorial Abstract: Air strikes, independent from ground operations, are known as "dynamic targeting." These types of strikes have typically been counterproductive in counterinsurgency campaigns due to subsequent collateral damage, whether real or perceived. However, Major Brown asserts that commanders and planners who integrate dynamic targeting into the counterinsurgency campaign using careful target selection; quick, precise employment; and solid assessment of the enemy and population will produce positive, tangible results.

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SINCE THE "BANANA wars" of the early twentieth century, airpower has played an important role in counterinsurgency campaigns. Armed forces have used all forms of airpower--airlift; close air support; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); and so forth--in counterinsurgency campaigns to gain advantages over insurgents. Airpower in the form of air strikes occurring independently of ground operations has proven controversial in small wars. We now call such strikes "dynamic targeting." (1)

Historically, this type of targeting has generally been counterproductive in counter-insurgencies due to real or perceived collateral damage. (2) Yet, the US military and others have good reasons for using airpower for these operations. First, as marines in Al-Anbar Province have seen, kinetic operations are necessary to remove determined extremists in order to conduct security, social services, and economic development. (3) Thus, in certain situations our forces--like NATO's in Afghanistan--will need the advantages airpower brings. (40) Second, in well-publicized cases, air strikes have generated good results for government forces, such as the air campaign against Hamas leaders and the elimination of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. (5) Third, the combination of using high-fidelity ISR feeds and guided weapons has given militaries a limited ability to distinguish insurgents from the population and strike them with precision, while mitigating collateral damage. (6)

Such reasoning carries dangers, however. airpower capabilities may cause counterinsurgency forces to overemphasize combat operations and the elimination of high-value targets. Also, when operational-level commanders can "watch" insurgents in real time by means of iSR feeds, they tend to fall back to the tactical level, thus reinforcing the "we must do something now" mentality. (7) This reactive approach can quickly devolve into a game of "whack a mole," which can cause commanders to neglect other important lines of operation and lose focus on the strategic end state. (8) Even today, traditional problems in using airpower to target insurgents can easily emerge.

To avoid these pitfalls, commanders and planners must integrate the use of airpower for dynamic targeting into the operational design of a counterinsurgency campaign. (9) Successful conduct of the latter depends upon whether commanders and their staffs (1) determine appropriate targets during planning; (2) ensure that air strikes are quick, lethal, and precise; and (3) accurately assess the friendly action, enemy reaction, and response of the population.

Determining Appropriate Targets

In order to link specific actions to objectives that support the strategic end state, the targeting process identifies appropriate targets and the best means of engaging them. (10) Effective targeting of insurgents requires understanding the unique characteristics of insurgent networks, which reveals critical elements and nodes, and knowing how the population's attitude and behavior affect the targeting process.

Our forces are well versed in analyzing traditional target systems such as an integrated Air Defense System. When looking at traditional systems, we typically focus on the equipment. The basic element of the insurgent network--the human being--has mobility, flexibility, survivability, and predictability not limited by the equipment or facilities associated with traditional target systems. These characteristics make target-system analysis for insurgent networks very challenging. To overcome the difficulty of analyzing these complex, adaptive systems, we sometimes attempt to model, classify, or lump insurgencies into groups, applying labels such as "Maoist" or "modern" to them in order to frame their behavior and characteristics. Trying to make an insurgency fit a specific model is difficult. No two insurgencies are alike because the conditions to which they must adapt are never entirely the same.

Understanding that insurgencies adapt and evolve over time, we have attempted to model their evolutionary process. Mao Tse-tung believed that successful insurgencies had to pass through three phases of evolution, culminating with insurgents becoming a regular force fighting a positional war with counterinsurgency forces. (11) Although this concept worked for the chinese communists in the late 1940s, there is little chance that the Taliban and Iraqi insurgencies will evolve into a regular force that can directly challenge the United States. Each insurgency takes a different evolutionary path. Insurgents will assume whatever form they believe will achieve their common political goal and adapt to the conditions that exist in their environment. That may or may not include large-scale forces and tactics. Even if we can find an appropriate model that fits an insurgency to aid in targeting, it will be short-lived because of the insurgency's adaptability. Rather than looking to preset models to find appropriate targets in an insurgent network, analysts could better understand how insurgents adapt and evolve by using the concepts of sociobiology. Jeffrey White, a former Defense intelligence agency executive, identifies traits, adaptation, selection/environmental pressure, fitness, reproduction, competition, cooperation, and survival as useful concepts that can illuminate behavior and the prospects for insurgency. (12) An insurgent network's function, evolution, and success are tied to these factors. When conducting operational design, commanders and planners should determine the best method to influence these elements--directly, indirectly, kinetically, nonkinetically, and so forth. Targets appropriate for kinetic engagement with airpower are tangible and distinguishable, which means we can likely find them in the traits of the network, such as the ones White identifies as important to the success of an insurgency: