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By 1979, Army concerns with Active Defense coincided with the
growing dissatisfaction of many airmen with the muddled, bureaucratic
focus of Air Force doctrine. When the 1979 edition of AFM 1-1
regenerated debate over the proper employment of airpower, the Army s
evolving AirLand Battle doctrine provided a framework for that debate.
AirLand Battle s central tenets of deep attack, second echelon
interdiction and joint air-land operations were readily accepted by
airpower thinkers hungry for an expanded role for conventional airpower
and a common conceptual framework to analyze airpower doctrine. This
was no accident. Since June 1975, Tactical Air Command and TRADOC had
worked jointly through ALFA to develop second echelon interdiction
concepts and resolve procedural differences.
However, because the Army s doctrinal decision to extend the
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battlefield in space and time made interdiction, especially battlefield
air interdiction (BAI), the key instrument of deep attack, corps
commanders now had an operational requirement to control target
selection and allocation of Air Force deep strike and tactical
reconnaissance assets. This violated strongly held Air Force beliefs
that only centralized control allowed the effective employment of
limited air assets. The ensuing debate in the literature indicated that
airmen in both services were reexamining the nature of airpower, its
inherent characteristics and the possible impact of rapidly advancing
computer processing, sensor and target acquisition technology on future
airpower employment.
Although Army Aviation s mission remained focused on enhancing
ground force combat effectiveness, Army commanders now saw airpower
playing a major role in seizing the initiative. Air assets could guard
the flanks of armored/mechanized forces, assist in creating deeper
penetrations, interdict enemy reserves, and provide force protection and
aerial fire support in the event of enemy counterattack. For the Air
Force, AirLand Battle also represented a welcome shift to a more
flexible method of airpower employment if it could retain centralized
control. Thus, the near-term, underlying effect of AirLand Battle
doctrine was to shift airpower thinking from front-line CAS toward a
more flexible, and for the Air Force, traditional emphasis on
interdiction. In effect, the Army doctrinally raised its sights and
recognized that what happened in enemy rear areas was important to
success on the front lines.
The AirLand Battle debate also appeared to have a long-term
influence on airpower thinking and doctrine within both services.
First, the AirLand Battle debate developed among Army airpower advocates
a growing awareness that the speed, range, firepower and flexibility of
airpower made the Air Force s concept of centralized control desirable.
This is evidenced by an ensuing trend to centralize control of Army air
assets, first at the division, then the corps level. Simultaneously,
the Army recognized that a theater-wide, centralized and highly
coordinated air-land effort was essential to cope with the increasing
tempo, mobility and lethality of the modern battlefield. The 1986
revision of FM 100-5 represented a significant in Army thinking from
tactical levels to the operational level of war.
For the Air Force, AirLand Battle debate coincided with a movement
in the early 1980 s to take a critical look at the application of
airpower in World War II, Korea, and especially Vietnam. These studies
evoked a growing awareness that "strategic" and "tactical" divisions of
airpower were artificial and limiting. As a result, by 1985, the Air
Force was actively involved in training programs designed to expand the
utility of traditionally "strategic" aircraft, such as the B-52, in
conventional conflicts. Senior Air Force leadership also decided in the
early 1980s that a "warfighting" approach to airpower thinking and
employment was needed rather than the bureaucratic approach reflected in
the 1979 "comic book" version of Air Force doctrine, and instituted the
Project Warrior program to encourage this perspective among Air Force
officers and enlisted personnel. The 1984 edition of AFM 1-1 codified
this significant shift toward a warfighting philosophy.
The spark that brought evolving Air Force warfighting doctrine,
conventional strategic bombardment; and long-range tactical interdiction
concepts together appears to have been generated in part by the flood of
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articles on the operational level of warfare that appeared in Army
literature following the publication of the 1986 version of FM 100-5. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]