REVIEW - Royal Air Force Centre for Air Power Studies

of the local commander’s requirements
and priorities. All very well if you have
the connectivity and the appropriately
placed liaison personnel, but witnessing
the arguments over the C2 of Harriers
in Afghanistan on airborne alert (Al
Udeid CAOC-controlled) gives the lie
to the willingness of the C2 system to
entertain such proposals. At the end of
the day, having the flexibility to slide up
and down the continuum of centralised/
decentralised control to service pressing
local requirements is the direction in
which we need to go – without falling
prey to fears of other components
misusing air to put up umbrellas over
their own.
Much of what I have outlined so far is
part of the difficulty of operating jointly,
perhaps borne of oversensitivity to
the need to be seen to be ‘being joint’.
After all, agreement and acquiescence
to the great joint project means having
to accept the supported/supporting
argument, which at its current worst,
means commanders hijacking the ‘I’m
on the main effort’ to mean ‘I’m the
main event, so you deconflict with me’
– hardly conducive, or contributing
to the most effective use of assets or
capabilities in the joint endeavour. I
might add that this is equally matched
by the infuriating Air Component’s
assertion that we would really like to
help, but we’re rather busy shaping the
battlespace at the moment – echoes of
Normandy in 1944, but a live argument
from Allied Force to Op Mar Karadad in
Afghanistan last December.
So what can we do? We all talk about
integrated air operations, but what does
that mean?
It means understanding how you want
to fight, what the strategy is, what the
context is, what you are trying to do
and most importantly – why and to
what end? Sun Tsu said that strategy
without tactics was the long road to
victory, but that tactics without strategy
Viewpoint
was the noise before defeat. As Brits we
have an aversion to strategy, preferring
often to make the unfolding of a series
of operations or their resultant, our
‘strategy’ – you may take your own
views on operations over the last
few years. But we need to have that
comprehensive, cross-government,
jointly agreed meandering road (a
strategy) to underpin all that we do,
or integrating effects or operations
will be at best fortuitous, or a rather
serendipitous outcome. Integration
means integrated planning and that
means components working together
right from the beginning, being in
each other’s minds, understanding the
context, limitations and cultural foibles
of the other. Ideally – and I stress the
word ideally – it means putting an
integrated plan together, with all its
psychological and physical, kinetic and
non-kinetic, symmetric and asymmetric
facets, working out the spatial
ramifications of all the various activities
and setting up appropriate command
and control behaviours and organisation
to support the whole – rather than
vice versa. Better communications
and connectivity and command
direction of that C2 enabler to provide
what is actually required, rather than
unfocussed information will help; as will
effective and honest recognition of the
reach of capabilities in play, for instance
Attack Helicopter, Army Tactical Missile
System (ATACMS), or Nimrod MR2,
rather than individual component
aspirations for their possible use and
therefore the battlespace needed – just in
case. And don’t worry; I’m not going to
open up the Fire Support Coordination
Line (FSCL) argument now!
But above all, what we need is a change
in thinking and attitudes. Air power
does not need defending, nor does it
lack relevance. Air is here to stay, so
airmen should be self-confident enough
to promote their views, to allow for
flexibility in application, according to
other component requirements where
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