REVIEW - Royal Air Force Centre for Air Power Studies

106
take down Iraq, but when you have to
stabilise Iraq and tackle the insurgency
using the same C2 constructs and
methodology, no matter how adaptable,
you have problems. From your distant
CAOC, perhaps a Falconer CAOC with
a global capability based in Arizona, but
lacking the ‘Fingerspitzengefuhl’, that
fingertip feel for the battle, or the cordite
in your nostrils – how do you resource
the Iraqi National Army Joint Terminal
Attack Controller (JTAC) and get the feel
for the precise effect he wants or needs
on a Troops in Contact (TIC)? Not only
that, but how do you slew the majesty
of theatre air power effect and bring
it to bear on one of the nastiest, most
difficult tactical problems for land forces
– countering Improvised Explosive
Devices (IEDs)? Air knows it has to
adapt, that it has to think differently and
that it just can’t fight the bang – which is
normally the start of something worse,
so it has to look upstream for patterns
of life, indicators, warning, hence the
focus on ISR, persistent overwatch and
technical countermeasures. Because of
the strategic problems created by IEDs
and their direct fixing effect on land
force mobility, countering them becomes
the joint main effort. What was initially
a Land Component problem becomes a
thoroughly Joint one and the ‘all hands
to the pumps’ imperative forces Air to
be a tactical adjunct, doing something –
anything – to help the joint fight.
Counter-IED (C-IED) is not the most
obvious territory for the most effective
application of Air capabilities, but
increased focus on this critical tactical
facet (for the right strategic reasons)
means that something else has to give
somewhere else in theatre. Simply
moving land forces by airlift surrenders
the ground to the enemy and fixes
us further, but showing willing,
airmen are contributing intellectual
and physical horsepower, innovating
through alternative use of technology
and Techniques Tactics and Procedures
(TTPs), adapting to high-tempo problem
Viewpoint
solving and showing consummate
liaison skills and nous at the point
of contact. As previously with the
problems of Air/Land integration
outlined under Project CONINGHAM-
KEYES, focus and engagement at the
front, in the contact battle is getting the
machine working clunkily – but well
enough. The majority of the gains are
at the tactical and sub-tactical levels,
built around activity in the local context,
using local resources. This puts the
monolithic JFACC/CAOC structure on
another planet in C2 terms, although
I suppose it could be claimed that
all this comes under the heading of
decentralised execution – but wouldn’t
it have been easier if all the C-IED
planning with all the players had been
integrated in the first place – rather than
mashed together?
I am not suggesting that it is time to
ditch the mantra ‘centralised control/
decentralised execution’ or the
structures that it has brought in its
wake, but I do think it is time to be more
flexible, without necessarily playing
semantic games over phrases such as
organic capability or assured support.
There are certain air power roles and
certain capabilities that require theatrelevel
C2. For instance, control of the
air, something that is now accepted as
a given by coalition land forces, but
which still has to be fought for and
maintained – in all its aspects – as the
Israeli Air Force learned to its cost at
the start of the Yom Kippur War in
1973; and what I will call ‘strategic’ ISR
platforms: Rivet Joint, AWACS and the
like. All need JFACC and CAOC C2 for
their effective use. At the other end of
the spectrum – decentralised control/
decentralised execution could see the
chopping of air capabilities to a tactical
commander in a certain area for a
certain time. This construct is routinely
applied by Special Forces, where it
works well and could have applicability
elsewhere, if the air C2 system had a
more detailed and better understanding