[PDF] Counterair Companion A Short Guide To Air Superiority For Joint Force Commanders eBook
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"The early proponents of air power believed that with control of the air, airmen would make surface operations impossible and irrelevant. In the years since they made these predictions, aircraft have gained capabilities far beyond those predicted by early advocates. However, airmen are still searching for a strategy that will guarantee the results their predecessors promised. Instead of replacing surface forces, air power has become their indispensable partner. Air power contributes to the security, mobility, and firepower of joint forces, but its primary contribution may be air superiority. For the last 40 years, United States military forces have maintained almost total control of the air. Air supremacy does not itself destroy or defeat the bulk of enemy forces, but it allows conditions in which joint military forces may do so by providing freedom of action and strategic flexibility. l role in American joint operations."--Abstract
The early proponents of air power believed that with control of the air, airmen would make surface operations impossible and irrelevant. In the years since they made these predictions, aircraft have gained capabilities far beyond those predicted by early advocates. However, airmen are still searching for a strategy that will guarantee the results their predecessors promised. Instead of replacing surface forces, air power has become their indispensable partner. Air power contributes to the security, mobility, and firepower of joint forces, but its primary contribution may be air superiority. For the last 40 years, United States military forces have maintained almost total control of the air. Air supremacy does not itself destroy or defeat the bulk of enemy forces, but it allows conditions in which joint military forces may do so by providing freedom of action and strategic flexibility. l role in American joint operations. (RWJ).
The mission of the United States Air Force is to fly, fight, and win in air, space, and cyberspace. A crucial part of achieving that mission involves obtaining and maintaining superiority in the air domain. That domain, defined for the first time in this publication, is the area, beginning at the Earth's surface, where the atmosphere has a major effect on the movement, maneuver, and employment of joint forces. Within that domain, forces exercise degrees of control or levels of influence, characterized as parity, superiority, or supremacy. The US has enjoyed at least air superiority in all conflicts since the Korean War. The US will probably retain that superiority in today's ongoing conflicts, but the prospect of near-peer competitors in the not-too-distant future raise the possibility of air parity - a condition in the air battle in which one force does not have air superiority over others - or even conceding superiority to the adversary if Air Force forces are not properly employed. Our possession of air superiority helps enable joint forces to dominate adversary operations in all domains and to achieve a wide range of cross-domain effects. Unless we can freely maneuver in the air while denying the enemy the ability to do the same, we do not have superiority. Therefore, this publication addresses how the commander of Air Force forces can best employ his assets within a joint force to achieve control in the air domain to enable the overall joint force effort. Counterair is more than just force protection or air and missile defense. It also includes offensive actions against an enemy's capabilities, allowing us to seize the initiative and force the adversary into a defensive posture. Furthermore, counterair is executed by more than just air assets. Counterair is a joint, multinational, and interagency team effort, comprising a combination of command and control systems, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems, aircraft and missile systems in air-to-air and air-to-ground roles, and surface-to-air defense weapons. The effect of air superiority is not normally an end unto itself. Air superiority provides enormous military advantages, allowing the joint force greater freedom of action to carry out its assigned missions (freedom to attack) while minimizing its vulnerability to enemy detection and attack (freedom from attack). The success of any major air, land, or maritime operation may depend on the degree of air superiority achieved. This Air Force doctrine document provides guidance for designing, planning, integrating, coordinating, executing, and assessing counterair operations. It provides operational doctrine to gain and maintain control of the air. As such, it focuses on how air forces can be organized and employed to successfully conduct counterair operations.
Air superiority will continue to be a prerequisite to military operations in future battle. Air superiority includes not only dominance over manned vehicles (fixed-wing and rotary aircraft), but unmanned threats as well (Theater Ballistic Missiles (TBMs), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), and cruise missiles). As in past conflicts, defending a joint force against a full array of potential threats will require the services of both Air Force fighter aircraft and Army surface-to-air missiles, working alongside joint C4 ISR assets. With enemy airpower becoming more diverse and lethal, Army and Air Force counterair units must become more interoperable, if they expect success in the next conflict. Current counterair forces suffer from interoperability challenges relating to systems integration and joint training difficulties. Cooperation among DCA systems within the Army and Air Force is hampered by different doctrine, priorities, and even visions concerning counterair. Better interoperability will be necessary in the future, if DCA forces are to maximize their weapons capabilities, while reducing the possibility of a fratricide incident.
"The purpose of this paper is to determine to what extent and how the Joint Force Commander (JFC) should control support from space forces. Current Air Force doctrine, as delineated in Air Force Manual (AFM) 1-1, identifies the Joint Force Air Component Commander (JFACC) as being responsible for both air and space for the theater. This statement follows the Air Force notion that air and space are an indivisible medium of warfare. On the other hand, Joint Pub 3-14 states the Operations Directorate, J-3, on the supported commander's (the JFC's) staff functions in this role. To examine this issue of in-theater control of space forces more closely, this study is divided into five chapters. Following the Introduction, Chapter 2 looks into how space forces were planned for and employed during Desert Storm. This chapter discusses who was in-charge and what planning processes were used. In Chapter 3, lessons and initiatives to improve planning and employment of support from space forces are discussed. Chapter 4 explores the possible need to have one individual in-theater clearly identified as being responsible for directing space forces. Centralized control, similar to air, may have beneficial effects that allow joint commanders to take better advantage of space forces' full potential. The study concludes by offering recommendations."--Abstract.
This study analyzes and builds on Dr. Robert Pape's framework for analyzing airpower strategies. The analysis shows the underlying value of his Targets and Timing, Mechanism, Outcomes construct as well as the considerable clarification and expansion it requires in order to perform comprehensive air strategy analysis for the broad range of strategic air and space tasks. An enhanced framework is proposed, the elaboration of which comprises the bulk of the paper. Considerable time is spent describing the structure and logic of the framework and the models it contains. The three elements of the expanded concept, called the Air Strategy Analysis Framework, are political Outcomes, a policy process model called the Mechanism, and the last element, describing airpower Actions. The new framework's principal addition is the categorization of political outcomes an air strategist should assess. They are target entity, domestic, and third party outcomes. This gives the framework the scope that allows for analysis of a wider range of airpower's political effects in addition to structuring inquiry into competing strategies. The Mechanism is the air strategist's core policy process theory flanked by threshold assumptions and an action focus. Next, there is an analysis of the components of the airpower Action element that comprises the air strategist's means for stimulating the policy process. It consists of capability assumptions, and the strategic tactics and targets of the air plan. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of the utility of the framework that proposes its use as an educational tool for structuring thought and communicating about how air strategists think about, and how air strategies work toward, the accomplishment of strategic purposes.