The Role and Limit of Airpower

Presentation Objective

• Present an integrated approach to guide the thinking, planning, development, and execution of Airpower capabilities across the range of military operations• Effective deterrence and escalation control is dependent on such a strategy

Overview

• What is Airpower?

• The greatest limit to the effective application of Airpower

• Role of Airpower: an integrated approach

• Conclusion

Overview

• What is Airpower?

• The greatest limit to the effective application of Airpower

• Role of Airpower: an integrated approach

• Conclusion

What is Airpower

• Airpower: is defined as “the ability to project military power or influence through the control and exploitation of air, space, and cyberspace to achieve strategic, operational, or tactical objectives.” (U.S. Air Force Doctrine)

Role of Airpower

• Is to conduct prompt and sustained combat operations, military engagement, and security cooperation in defense of a Nation, and to support the other Military Services and joint forces

• Possesses the capacity to deter aggression and violence by state, non-state, and individual actors to prevent conflict, and, should deterrence fail, prosecute the full range of military operations in support of national interests

What limits Airpower’s ability to fulfill its role in support of national objectives?

Overview

• What is Airpower?

• The greatest limit to the effective application of Airpower

• Role of Airpower: an integrated approach

• Conclusion

Greatest Limit to the Effective Application of Airpower

• “Vision of Airpower should not focus on the lethality of its weaponry but rather on that weaponry’s effectiveness as a political instrument.” (The Limits of Air Power; The American Bombing of North Vietnam, Mark Clodfelter)

• Vision of Airpower should not focus on the lethality of its capabilities but rather on the capabilities effectiveness as a political instrument

• Airpower’s political effectiveness varies according to many diverse elements and no specific formula guarantees success

• A mismatch of airpower application to political ends can lead to unwanted issues ranging from conflict escalation to national defeat

How do users of Airpower overcome this limitation?

Overview

• What is Airpower?

• The greatest limit to the effective application of Airpower

• Roles of Airpower: an integrated approach

• Conclusion

Airpower Application

• The application of airpower is not an independent endeavor

• The effective use requires a strategy that integrates all instruments of national power to achieve national objectives

• Is dependent on a strategy that captures and guides the thinking, planning, development, and execution of the integrated whole of Airpower

• Application must focus on how Airpower capabilities creates effects in any domain-air, space, cyberspace, land, sea, and from the global to tactical levels

Airpower Application

• Determining Airpower’s contribution to this integrated strategy• Use Strategic Design Methodology to identify a desired end state and align

military to political objectives

• Use Airpower’s three core concepts as a lens to evaluate the objectives and desired end state in order to develop specific ways and means for achieving the aligned objectives

• Airpower’s core concepts are made up of• Fundamental Elements

• Foundational Ideas

• Enduring Contributions

Environments are Dynamic

PMESII

CulturalEnvironment

Other Actors(Friendly/Adversary)

HistoricalContext

AdversariesDesired Political

End State

Instruments of Power

DIME

Elements of Power- Geography- Population…

Barriers

Time

Desired Political

End State

Tension

Understand the Environment

1

3

AdversariesDesired

Political End State

Desired Political

End State

Tension

RegimeSurvival

NuclearWeapons

RegionalStability

DefineProblem

Sets

2

Barriers

Time

Other Actors(Friendly/Adversary)

Strategic Guidance

Trends and Shocks- Demographics- Climate- Geopolitical Realignments- Energy- Disruptive Technology

Strategic Design Framework

Strategic design is a multidisciplinary framework that assesses systemic linkages within a macro-level environment, identifies problem sets, and formulates the vision necessary for strategy implementation.

Environments are Dynamic 3

AdversariesDesired

Political End State

Desired Political

End State

Tension

RegimeSurvival

NuclearWeapons

RegionalStability

DefineProblem

Sets

2

Barriers

Time

Other Actors(Friendly/Adversary)

Strategic Design Framework

EnduringContributions

FoundationalIdeas

FundamentalElements

Airpower’s Core Concepts

PMESII

CulturalEnvironment

Other Actors(Friendly/Adversary)

HistoricalContext

AdversariesDesired Political

End State

Instruments of Power

DIME

Elements of Power- Geography- Population…

Barriers

Time

Desired Political

End State

Tension

Understand the Environment

1

Trends and Shocks- Demographics- Climate- Geopolitical Realignments- Energy- Disruptive Technology

Strategic Guidance

Strategic design is a multidisciplinary framework that assesses systemic linkages within a macro-level environment, identifies problem sets, and formulates the vision necessary for strategy implementation.

EffectiveAirpower

Application

Aligned Political and Military Objectives

Situation

Enduring Contributions

Foundational Ideas

•Speed•Geographic Range•Persistence•Payload

FundamentalElements

• Control in Air, Space, andCyberspace Domains

• Responsive Full Spectrum ISR• Rapid Global Transport• Hold Targets at Risk• Air Diplomacy

• Global (Regional) Reach• Global (Regional) Power• Global (Regional) Vigilance

Fundamental Elements of Airpower

• SPEED• Enables the compression of time• “Quickly” is defined as hours for air, minutes for space, or nanoseconds for cyber

• GEOGRAPHIC RANGE• Range gives Airpower capabilities the ability to react quickly and refocus both

globally and across a theater to changing demands

• PERSISTENCE• The ability to deliver and maintain the desired effect at the time, place, and

duration required by the joint force commander

• PAYLOAD• The purpose for Airpowers existence• The payload is the “load” that consists of anything carried by an

air, space, or cyberspace vehicle that delivers effectsEnduringContributions

FoundationalIdeas

FundamentalElements

Foundational Ideas

• GLOBAL REACH• Provides operational access that allows the use of Airpower’s capabilities to project

power and enhance presence in a short time, regardless of mission type or location

• GLOBAL POWER• Produces effects through the integrated use of its capabilities during missions

ranging from humanitarian relief to nuclear deterrence

• GLOBAL VIGILANCE• Provides awareness for understanding both the necessity for action and the types

of effects needed to produce the set of conditions demanded by the commander’s objective

• Showing the ability to find can be as important in deterrence as showing the willingness to strike

EnduringContributions

FoundationalIdeas

FundamentalElements

Enduring Contributions

• CONTROL IN AIR, SPACE, AND CYBERSPACE • Allows for global (regional) reach, power, and vigilance, enabling the successful

accomplishment of all the enduring contributions

• RESPONSIVE FULL SPECTRUM ISR• Responsive, full-spectrum ISR affords leaders an unparalleled decision-making

advantage

• RAPID GLOBAL TRANSPORT• Provides decision-makers with options to deter and defeat aggression, project power,

provide a stabilizing presence, conduct stability operations

• HOLDING TARGETS AT RISK• It involves conventional, nuclear, and cyberspace capabilities with the ability to

launch from within a country’s borders or from a forward area

• AIR DIPLOMACY (Building Regional Influence)• Occurs when global reach, power, and vigilance are used to strengthen security

partners and relationshipsEnduringContributions

FoundationalIdeas

FundamentalElements

Airpower Application: SERVICE CORE FUNCTIONS

• Core functions describe in greater detail the ways a military Service carry out the Enduring Contributions

• Core function application is guided by a strategy built through the integration of Airpowers fundamental elements, enduring contributions, and foundational ideas matched to military and a political objectives

• Core function examples:• Nuclear Operations in support of deterrence• Offensive and defensive action to gain and maintain air and space

superiority/supremacy as required• Global precision attack• Agile Combat support• Integrated command and control for air and space operations• Airlift• Personnel recovery

EnduringContributions

FoundationalIdeas

FundamentalElements

Application

Escalation Control Considerations

• Current challenge is determining how nations will react to attacks in space or cyberspace

• Escalation control is achieved through the interplay between the application of Airpower capabilities and the other instruments of power

• Actions are more credible if they are proportionate with and connected to the actions they are intended to control

• Requires that countries interpret military actions and reprisals similarly

• The absence of a shared framework in space and cyberspace undermines deterrence and increases the potential for miscalculation

• Need to establish a shared framework between adversaries based upon assessing effects and formulation of appropriate responses

Escalation Control Considerations

• Without a framework, it is difficult to distinguish between proportional and escalatory attacks and reprisals that cross from space and cyberspace into traditional strategic domains

• A nation might threaten to respond to an attack in space or cyberspace by employing capabilities against different targets in other domains

• Such threats, might not seem credible to an adversaries if they do not understand a nation’s assumptions about how domains are linked and why a response is a logical and proportional reaction to the initial attack

Overview

• What is Airpower?

• The greatest limit to the effective application of Airpower

• Role of Airpower: an integrated approach

• Conclusion

Conclusion

• Holding potential adversaries combat power and critical infrastructure at risk requires a holistic approach that captures and guides the thinking, planning, development, and execution of the integrated whole of Airpower

• The integrated approach provides an effective means to apply Airpower capabilities to deter aggression and should deterrence fail, prosecute the full range of military operations in support of national interests

• The integrated approach starts with a National Strategic Design Framework

• Airpower application supports military and national strategy through the integration of Airpower’s Fundamental Elements, Foundational Ideas, and Enduring Contributions

Questions?