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Air Force Chief of Staff
Gen John P. Jumper
Commander, Air Education
and Training Command
Gen Donald G. CookCommander, Air University
Lt Gen Donald A. Lamontagne

http://www.af.milCommander, College of Aerospace
Doctrine, Research and Education
Col Bobby J. Wilkes
EditorCol Eric A. Ash

http://www.aetc.randolph.af.mil

Senior Editor
Lt Col Scott G. Wierschke
Associate Editors
Dr. Doris Sartor
Maj Donald R. Ferguson
Capt Gilles Van Nederveen
Professional Staff
Marvin W. Bassett, Contributing Editor
George C. Porter, Contributing Editor
Mary J. Moore, Editorial Assistant
Steven C. Garst, Director of Art and Production
Daniel M. Armstrong, Illustrator
L. Susan Fair, Illustrator
Mary P. Ferguson, Prepress Production Manager
Aerospace Power Chronicles
Luetwinder T. Eaves, Managing Editor

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The Aerospace Power Journal, published quarterly, isthe professional flagship publication of the UnitedStates Air Force. It is designed to serve as an open
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Winter 2001

Volume XV, No. 4

AFRP 10-1

Flight Lines
Medicinal Thoughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5

Ricochets and Replies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

6Features
Focus: Aerospace Medicine
New Millennium, New Mind-Set: The Air Force Medical Service
in the Air Expeditionary Era . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Lt Gen Paul K. Carlton Jr., USAF, MC, CFS
Challenges of Aeromedical Evacuation in the Post-Cold-War Era . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Brig Gen Bruce Green, USAF
Operational Medical Support for the Tip of the Spear: The
Heart of Air Force Special Operations Forces (AFSOF) Medicine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Col James J. Dougherty, USAF, MC, CFS, DMO
Linking Resource Allocation to Performance Management andStrategic Planning: An Air Force Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Maj Gen Stephen R. Lorenz, USAF
Lt Col James A. Hubert, USAF
Maj Keith H. Maxwell, USAF

8
14

27

34

Ira C. Eaker Award Winners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

46.....................................

47

The Cult of the Quick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dr. Thomas Hughes

57

Thinking about China and War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Dr. Jeffrey Record

69

Silver Flag: A Concept for Operational Warfare
Col Bobby J. Wilkes, USAF

Airpower versus a Fielded Army: A Construct for Air Operationsin the Twenty-First Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Lt Col Phil M. Haun, USAF

81

PIREP
C-9 Nightingale: From Dedicated Aeromedical Evacuation to
Theater Transport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Capt Gilles Van Nederveen, USAF, Retired

89

VORTICES
The War on Drugs: Two More Casualties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Lt Col Stephen P. Howard, USAF

91

Net Assessment
Military Assistance: An Operational Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
William H. Mott IV
Reviewer: Capt Clifford E. Rich, USAF

96

Pearl Harbor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Touchstone Pictures
Reviewer: Maj Gary Pounder, USAF, Retired

97

MacArthur and the American Century: A Reader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
William M. Leary
Reviewer: Lt Youssef H. Aboul-Enein, USN

99Desert Warriors: Australian P-40 Pilots at War in the Middle
East and North Africa, 1941–1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Russell Brown
Reviewer: Maj Robert F. Tate, USAFR

99

Angels Zero: P-47 Close Air Support in Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Robert V. Brulle
Reviewer: Dr. Daniel Mortensen
Ripcord: Screaming Eagles under Siege, Veitnam 1970 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Keith William Nolan
Reviewer: 1st Lt Glenn D. Leinbach, USAF
Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Grady McWhiney and Perry D. Jamieson
Reviewer: Maj James P. Gates, USAF
The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Gary W. Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan
Reviewer: Maj James P. Gates, USAF
The Cause Lost: Myths and Realities of the Confederacy
William C. Davis
Reviewer: Maj James P. Gates, USAF

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
James M. McPherson
Reviewer: Maj James P. Gates, USAF
The Korean War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Korea Institute of Military History
Reviewer: Kenneth P. Werrell
Right Backed by Might: The International Air Force Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Roger Beaumont
Reviewer: Col Phillip S. Meilinger, USAF, RetiredBlack Sheep One: The Life of Gregory “Pappy” Boyington . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Bruce Gamble
Reviewer: Lt Col Phil Bossert Jr., USAF
The Three Meter Zone: Common Sense Leadership for NCOs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
J. D. Pendry
Reviewer: CMSgt Gilbert Duenas, USAF
Winter Journey through the Ninth: The Story of Tactical Air Power as
Illustrated by the Exploits of the Ninth Air Force in Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Harry A. Franck
Reviewer: Kenneth P. Werrell
The Second-Luckiest Pilot: Adventures in Military Aviation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
D. K. Tooker
Reviewer: C1C Brooke Carr, USAF Academy
The Ultimate Terrorist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Jessica Stern
Reviewers: Col (Dr.) Jim Davis and CDR Drew Mullin, USN

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Mission Debrief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Aerospace Power Journal Board of Reviewers
For many years, we have informally used a referee process of anonymous peer review to help select articles for
publication and to enhance the content and quality of APJ. We would like to recognize the now formally es­
tablished Board of Reviewers and thank its members for the invaluable service they provide as recognized au­thors and experts in various fields of aerospace power. Along with our Editorial Board (listed on the insideback cover), the Board of Reviewers is critically important to promoting APJ as the premier forum for aero­
space power dialogue and debate.
Prof. Tami Davis Biddle
Duke University
Lt Col Price T. Bingham, USAF, Retired
Melbourne, Florida
Lt Col Matthew Caffrey, USAFR
Operations Directorate
Headquarters USAF

Dr. Tom Keaney
School of Advanced International Studies
Johns Hopkins University
Prof. Theodore Kluz
USAF Air War College
Dr. Charles Krupnick
US Army War College

Brig Gen Phillip D. Caine, USAF, Retired
Monument, Colorado

Dr. Benjamin S. Lambeth
RAND

Dr. Don D. Chipman
USAF Squadron Officer College

Lt Col David MacIsaac, USAF, Retired
Montgomery, Alabama

Dr. Clayton K. S. Chun
US Army War College

Dr. Karl P. Magyar
Montgomery, Alabama

Prof. Mark Clodfelter
National War College

Col Edward Mann, USAF, Retired
Montgomery, Alabama

Dr. James Corum
USAF School of Advanced Airpower Studies

Dr. Jerome V. Martin
Peru State College

Dr. Conrad Crane
Strategic Studies Institute
US Army War College

Col Phillip Meilinger, USAF, Retired
Science Applications International Corporation

Dr. Dik A. Daso
National Air and Space Museum
Smithsonian Institution
Dr. Lee Dowdy
Alabama State University
Col Dennis M. Drew, USAF, Retired
USAF School of Advanced Airpower Studies
Col Charles Dunlap Jr., USAF
Staff Judge Advocate
USAF Air Education and Training Command

Dr. John H. Morrow Jr.
University of Georgia
Dr. Daniel Mortensen
USAF College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education
Prof. James Mowbray
USAF Air War College
Dr. Karl Mueller
RAND
Dr. Richard R. Muller
USAF Air Command and Staff College

Dr. Stephen Fought
USAF Air War College

Col Robert Owen, USAF
Headquarters Air Mobility Command

Col David M. Glanz, USA, Retired
Journal of Slavic Military Studies

Dr. Reina J. Pennington
Norwich University

Col Thomas E. Griffith, USAF
USAF 39th Support Group
Incirlik, Turkey

Dr. James Smith
USAF Institute for National Security Studies

Dr. John F. Guilmartin Jr.
Ohio State University
Dr. Grant T. HammondCenter for Strategy and Technology
Air University
Prof. Daniel Hughes
USAF Air War College
Dr. Thomas Hughes
USAF Air War College
Lt Col Mark P. Jelonek, USAF
Space Division
USAF Weapons School

4

Col James Spencer, USAF
USAF Academy
Col Richard Szafranski, USAF, Retired
Toffler Associates
Dr. James Titus
Air University
Col Mark Wells, USAF
USAF Academy
Dr. Ken Werrell
Christianburg, Virginia
Dr. Harold R. Winton
USAF School of Advanced Airpower Studies

COL ERIC ASH, EDITOR

Medicinal ThoughtsW

E USUALLY DON’T think about
breathing until we can’t. This lit­
erally involves one of the mostimportant facets of war—medi­cine. Just as weaponry, reconnaissance, com­munications, and myriad other technologies
have experienced phenomenal advance­
ments, so too has military medicine pro­
gressed in quantum leaps of a revolutionary
nature. Far removed from the era of FlorenceNightingale during the Crimean War, military
medicine now enjoys capabilities that translate into significantly increased comfort andprospects of survival for injured combatantson the battlefield or for innocent civilian vic­
tims of terrorist attacks or natural disasters.
Despite its critical importance and the dra­
matic improvements in practices, military
medicine has remained an obscure topic inmost professional military journals, including
this one. In fact, a cursory glance at the history of Aerospace Power Journal (as well as thatof its predecessor, Airpower Journal) reveals a
paucity of attention afforded to aerospace
medicine—until now. We are focusing on thisimportant topic with several interestingpieces that suggest a new perspective on mili­tary medicine for most readers. Similar toaerospace superiority (another thing, likebreathing, not to be taken for granted), mili­tary medicine is not only essential to mission
success but can be the mission itself. Military
medicine finds itself more closely linked to
the very essence of our national policy interms of engaging globally with humanitarianand disaster assistance and connecting withforce protection—of paramount importanceto military involvement worldwide.
As military medicine becomes increasingly
involved with the total force, jointness, andcoalition efforts with other nations and vari­

ous organizations, it experiences the growing
pains of new wineskins. Global engagement
has tremendous implications for the Air
Force Medical Service, and just as airmen—
from fighter pilots to joint force air component
commanders—have to accommodate the de­mands of timely decision making, so does the
medical service find itself in an observeorient-decide-act (OODA) loop in its worldwide challenges. Basically, the challenge calls
for doing more things faster with a lighter,leaner medical force. The argument presented
by Dr. Tom Hughes in one of our articles—that quicker may not always be better—has a
perplexing application to military medicine,in which one measures the difference between life and death in seconds and heartbeats.
Threats to national security, vital national
interests, and international stability are becoming increasingly complex and unpre­
dictable. Similarly, military medicine is facing
far more complicated challenges. But as someof the articles in this issue point out, Air Forcemedicine is up to the task. The piece by Lt
Gen Paul Carlton Jr. highlights the current
shift in emphasis on patient care to quicker,
leaner, lighter, and essential-only systems thatcan react appropriately in support of the ex­peditionary Air Force. Brig Gen Bruce Green
explores the same theme by looking at thehistory and current state of aeromedical evac­
uation—not just some peripheral issue but a“line of the Air Force” concern. In another ar­
ticle, Col James Dougherty points out theunique nature and “special” challenges ofproviding medical support to special opera­
tions forces. Finally, the Vortices opinion
piece by Lt Col Stephen Howard attacks therationale behind the drug-war efforts in5

6

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

South America, a topic with important medical considerations for today’s environment.
Air Force medicine is moving from therealm of the supporting to that of the supported—from the shaft to the tip of the spear.
As such, it is increasing in its capability to re-spond and decreasing in size and response
time. Integral to the overall effort is medical
situation awareness on the part of the entire
Air Force, including this journal. Hopefully,
readers will understand this as they take theirnext breath and read on. ■We encourage your comments via letters to theeditor or comment cards. All correspondence
should be addressed to the Editor, Aerospace
Power Journal, 401 Chennault Circle, Maxwell
AFB AL 36112-6428. You can also send your com­ments by E-mail to apj@maxwell.af.mil. We reserve
the right to edit the material for overall length.

pability of airpower is a problem for airmen
too, not merely “Western politicians.”
Second, if he prefers to call these state­ments of mine “truths with asterisks” insteadof myths, that is fine. In doing so, he accepts
the point of the exercise in saying that weought not be overwhelmed with the militarytriumph without examining some of the ques­
tions about it. It is like making claims about
the best team in baseball in 1994. That was
the strike season—the division winners arelisted as of August, when the strike occurred,
but there were no play-offs, no pennant win­ners for the year, and no World Series. It is“truth with an asterisk.” That is, one needssome extra explanation to put the listing ofaccomplishments in proper perspective.
Third, a “militarily intact Iraq” does notcontrol Kuwait. While that is a truly good outcome of the Gulf War, it is not the whole story.
Iraq is largely militarily intact, and Saddam isstronger in many ways—with less domestic
opposition (from Kurds or Marsh Arabs),
even after the destruction in the war and despite the sanctions, the no-fly zones, the in­spections by the United Nations Special Com­mission, and so forth—than was the casebefore the war. Iraq’s weapons of mass de­
struction have not been destroyed, the Republican Guard has been largely reequipped,
the sanctions leak like a sieve, and regularlyscheduled Iraqi airliners fly routinely in the
supposed “no-fly zones,” as do helicopters.
And more than a decade after the Gulf War,MYTHS? OR TRUTHS WITH ASTERISKS?
Lt Col Martin Wojtysiak is to be commended
for taking the time to write his article “Another View of the Myths of the Gulf War” (Fall2001), in which he rebuts my earlier article“Myths of the Gulf War: Some ‘Lessons’ Not
to Learn” (Fall 1998). I set out to be pur­posely provocative and feared that I may havefailed in provoking a response. Apparently, I
did not.
Rather than rebut his views point by point,
which seems overly academic, let me makesome general comments about his remarks.
First, the bulk of my article was a presentation
given to the chief of staff of the Air Force’s
Airpower Symposium, a gathering of general
officers and major-command participants
held at Maxwell Air Force Base in the fall of
1992, well before most of the works Colonel
Wojtysiak cites as making some of the same ar­guments that I make. I just didn’t get aroundto publishing it outside the professional mili­tary education environment for some time.
But these arguments have been made and reiterated within the Air Force, by me and oth­ers, for some time. The overselling of the ca­

RICOCHETS

Iraq represents a threat to the region and the
US forces stationed there. I suspect that many
people expected more from a “victory.”
Fourth, Colonel Wojtysiak points to theGulf War Air Power Survey (GWAPS) and theDepartment of Defense’s (DOD) Report on the
Conduct of the Gulf War as sources of informa­tion on the Air Force’s performance in the
Gulf War. The DOD report, a major publicrelations effort, is at variance with several
other analyses, including RAND studies andGovernment Accounting Office reports, also
commissioned by the US government. The
GWAPS report—designed as an equivalent to
the United States Strategic Bombing Survey—has
an interesting history. Originally, there were
to be some 3,000 unclassified copies printed.
But some senior Air Force officers and civil­
ian officials wished to suppress it because it
was more objective and critical than they
wished. Ultimately, the print run was changed
to only 500 copies on a carefully controlled
distribution list. That does not promote truth
and trust in the Air Force.
Fifth, and most importantly from my per­spective, is the fact that Colonel Wojtysiak
fails to answer the main question of the piece.
Gen Carl A. “Tooey” Spaatz made a set ofsummative assessments about the effective­
ness of airpower in World War II that werelargely “rediscovered” in the Gulf War. I
asked, “Why did airmen not understand what
we had achieved over 50 years ago? How did
they let these insights disappear from theirunderstanding of war and the application of
airpower?” I think the late Carl Builder in­cluded a major part of the answer in his book
The Icarus Syndrome. We should not presume
airpower’s capabilities or success and should
be mindful of its limitations. That’s a healthy
attitude, not an unjust criticism. Promise only
what we can deliver, and deliver all we canpromise.
Last, I eagerly await Colonel Wojtysiak’s
reply to my more recent article “Myths of the
Air War over Serbia: Some ‘Lessons’ Not to
Learn” (Winter 2000). It reviews the same
myths—plus one—and suggests that we still
have not placed things in perspective or real­

7

ized the harm that may occur from being
overly boastful. I do this not to demean thecontributions of the Air Force or its airmen.
They are exceptionally well trained, dedi­
cated, and capable men and women who areachieving remarkable operational prowess intheir service. And the Air Force’s accomplish­
ments in the Gulf War and Kosovo were con­siderable—but not without fault. I don’t want
us to lose sight of airpower’s limitations amid
the euphoria of limited military triumphs.
My fear is that we will try to use airpower tocure all foreign ills and ask it—continually—
to do things it may not be able to do because
it is misunderstood, ill funded, or misapplied.
No degree of operational prowess can substi­
tute for a failed strategy. As I stated in the
more recent article cited above, “Airpower isa precious asset. Merely because it can beused does not necessarily mean it should be
used.” In our euphoria over the publicdemonstration of airpower’s considerable
abilities and accomplishments, we should notoversell it or lose sight of its limitations. Thatsaid, I welcome the larger debate and thecontributions of Colonel Wojtysiak.
Dr. Grant T. Hammond
Maxwell AFB, Alabama

LEADERSHIP BY WALKING AROUNDYour Summer 2001 issue contained some ex­cellent articles about leading airmen. However, I failed to find a single article on thehuman aspect of “leading” airmen. It seems
to me that Air Force leaders, especially thosein the midlevel noncommissioned officer(NCO) and officer ranks, have no concept ofwhat I will call “Leading by Walking Around”(LBWA), an adaptation of a term borrowed
from management experts—“Management
by Walking Around.” By LBWA, I mean show­
ing genuine concern for the lives and familiesof the people being led. More importantly, aleader needs to communicate genuine appreContinued on page 95

New Millennium, New Mind-Set
The Air Force Medical Service
in the Air Expeditionary Era
LT GEN PAUL K. CARLTON JR., USAF, MC, CFS*

Editorial Abstract: Diverse threats to our na­
tion’s security, both at home and abroad, chal­lenge the Air Force’s medical personnel to de­velop innovative solutions to provide medical
support for a wide range of military operations.
By using highly portable medical teams andmodularizing deployable assets, commanders
can tailor medical response to fit the uniquefeatures of each situation. Partnering withsister-service and coalition medical services
achieves synergistic effectiveness.

A

S COLD WAR scenarios fade frommemory and dozens of small-scalecontingencies around the world
challenge deployed military med­
ics, military medical services are rethinking
their readiness philosophies to fit a new par­adigm. Each service must prepare for a spec­
trum of operations much broader than the
traditional wartime role. What are the diverse
missions faced by the military medics who
must support these operations? What are thereadiness roles in these uncertain times?

*I wish to recognize the coauthors of this article: Col Richard Hersack, USAF, MC, CFS; Col Kerrie Lindberg, USAF, NC; Col Stephen
Waller, USAF, MC, FS; Col Joan C. Winters, USAFR, BSC; and Capt Melissa Ulitzsch, USAF, NC.

8

NEW MILLENNIUM, NEW MIND-SETThe National Military Strategy of the UnitedStates, Joint Vision 2020, and Air Force Vision2020 all point to continued global, proactive
engagement by Air Force people. Because
this cannot happen without effective medical
support, the Air Force Medical Service(AFMS) is transforming itself in order to de­velop the necessary expeditionary culture.
My “vision” for the AFMS emphasizes that
Air Force medical personnel must be able tosupport the Air Force mission throughout
the full continuum of military operations inwhich airpower may be employed, as described in Air Force Doctrine Document 2,
Organization and Employment of Aerospace Power,
17 February 2000. To do this, medics must beable to provide support across three broad
categories of deployment scenarios: humani­tarian and civic assistance (HCA), medical re­sponse to disasters, and support of traditional
wartime operations. These scenarios also di­rectly support Air Force Vision 2020. For exam­
ple, HCA missions demonstrate vigilance bypromoting democracy, peaceful relationships(military-to-military and military-to-civilian),and economic vitality—a sort of “preventive
medicine” against war. We demonstrate reachby responding promptly and appropriately todisasters when invited by an allied country
and when called upon to augment disaster re­sponse by civil authorities at home. BothHCA and disaster-response missions create
opportunities for our medical personnel togain valuable experience during deploy­ments that carry over to support wartime op­
erations. Thus, they support power, our tradi­tional readiness mission.
Medics face diverse and frightening chal­lenges as our military increases its participationin nontraditional roles. Potential scenarios
could involve weapons of mass destruction,
natural disasters, and complex technological/
political/natural crises. A regional or worldwide epidemic, such as the outbreak of in­fluenza in l918, could have enormous impact
on all medical personnel. None of us need tobe reminded of the recent tragic consequencesof terrorism that put medical response to asevere test. Controlling such events can avert

9

worldwide economic catastrophe and subse­
quent potential conflict.
Since each situation is unique, lessons
learned from previous disasters will not solve

Medics face diverse and frightening
challenges as our military increases its
participation in nontraditional roles.
all the problems of a new crisis. But one canlearn general lessons and apply them to thedevelopment of generic plans for responding
to different types of disasters. On the one
hand, earthquakes, for example, can result inmajor surgical casualties, particularly in thefirst three days after the event. The need forintensive care and renal dialysis may overwhelm the civilian medical system’s capabil­ity. On the other hand, a flood or hurricane
may cause few surgical casualties but increasedemand for emergency-room and publichealth services as well as ongoing basic
health-care needs, such as refilling prescrip­
tions.
This scenario, combined with the potential
loss of medical infrastructure, may overwhelm
the local civilian medical system, as recently
demonstrated when floods struck Houston,
Texas, during Tropical Storm Allison. The Air
Force deployed a 25-bed field hospital within
24 hours of receiving urgent requests from
Texas and the Federal Emergency Manage­
ment Agency. In such cases, the rapid inser­
tion of lightweight, rapidly deployable, wellequipped surgical teams and field hospitals
may prove critical to saving as many victims as
possible while decompressing the civilian
health-care system enough to give it a chance
to recover. Most disasters create chronicneeds for the local population that requirelong-term development work for full recov­
ery. As the civilian health-care sector’s ability
to respond to sudden increases in casualties
declines, senior government officials and cit­
izens more than likely will expect military
medics to assist quickly.

10

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

Medical-response missions could occur ei­
ther just outside a domestic military base oroverseas. Requests for domestic civil support
would originate from local and state govern­ments to appropriate federal agencies, which
would then route the requests to the Defense
Department. Overseas, these types of requests
would come through the State Department,
as they did after Hurricane Mitch struck
Nicaragua in l998 and floods swept throughMozambique.
Responding appropriately and rapidly—a
new paradigm for the military’s medical per­sonnel—requires the efficient use of limited
airlift so that critical medical supplies and as­
sistance reach the people who need it most.
Since moving large field hospitals may not sat­
isfy this requirement, the answer lies in light,
lean, and mobile medical teams with a small
footprint that can make modular, “tiered andtailored” responses.
This way, one can literally custom-build med­
ical support for each mission. By creating small,multifunctional teams, the medical service canprovide the on-scene commander with a flexi­
ble response tailored for the specific contin­
gency. These “medical building blocks” permit
problem-specific treatment—analogous to theflexibility available from the modern practiceof using blood components rather than the tra­ditional whole-blood treatments of the WorldWar II era. Small, portable medical teams
extend limited resources and maximize op­
tions for commanders, public-health officials,
or host-nation governments. No longer is it
necessary to task eight C-130s to haul a large
air-transportable hospital when a five-person,
backpack-portable surgical team can provide
the needed care. After hurricanes or floods, forexample, one may have a great need for publichealth and preventive-medicine assessment.
Deploying a two-person aerospace-medicine/
public-health team or several such teams may
be the ideal response, as was the case after Hur­ricane Mitch. The first tier of disaster responsecomes from local and host-nation sources, fol­
lowed by additional tiers of teams, as needed.
The availability of modular teams allows hostnations to request specific, focused medical

teams tailored to the unique disaster scenario
at hand.
Such modular-response teams take full advantage of revolutionary medical electronicequipment. Instruments formerly too large tomove are now carried in one hand. Patientmonitoring, once confined to an intensivecare unit, can now be done under field con­ditions. These improvements and careful lo­
gistics allow a small team with backpacks toprovide impressive medical care quickly in
any corner of the world. Personnel can eventravel with the 70-pound packs as normal luggage on a commercial airliner if military airlift is not available. Historically, relief workers
have experienced inevitable delays before
they could reach the site of a disaster. Yet, ateam of military medics with man-portable
medical equipment will be able to meet theinitial disaster-response needs of the commu­
nity and then pass control on to other, larger
relief agencies or sister-service medical units
when they are able to respond.
Expeditionary medical support (EMEDS)
consists of numerous modular teams ranging
in size from just two personnel with equipment
in backpacks to components of the modular
Air Force theater hospitals (AFTH). Specifi­
cally, the two-person preventive medicine/aerospace medicine (PAM) team can provide
initial medical assessment of disasters, publichealth/preventive medicine, and emergency/
flight/primary-care medicine. Ground criticalcare teams (GCCT), three-person intensivecare units based on critical-care air-transport
teams (CCATT), have performed critical careand patient transport in hundreds of realworld missions. The five-person mobile field
surgical team (MFST) provides emergency
general and orthopedic surgery to 10 patients.
Together, these teams—PAM, GCCT, and
MFST—make up the 10-person small portable
expeditionary aeromedical rapid-response(SPEARR) team, a disaster-response “force
package” that travels with backpacks only (nopallet space) or with a small trailer (one pallet–
equivalent) that can be loaded by a sling. It
does not require a forklift, and one can pull itwith a standard pickup truck or airlift it by

NEW MILLENNIUM, NEW MIND-SET

helicopter. The team provides a broad scopeof care and has intrinsic communication ca­
pability for aeromedical coordination, con­sultation, or resupply. The SPEARR team hascompleted its development process, including
successful field-validation tests in both San
Antonio, Texas, and Alaska, and has exer­
cised side by side with the international med­
ical and surgical response team, a volunteer
unit from Massachusetts General Hospitaltasked with responding to medical emergen­cies overseas. Finally, the AFTH consists of ad­
ditional modules of personnel with palletizedequipment. Building around the SPEARR,EMEDS-Basic adds two pallets with a holding
capacity of four beds. Beyond that, AFTH+10
and AFTH+25 boast 10 and 25 beds, respec­tively. Indeed, the EMEDS system is designed
to build incrementally up to AFTH+500.
One must understand that these medical
teams provide essential rather than definitive
care in the field. In high-paced scenarios, themilitary finds it more efficient to evacuate
and replace personnel who cannot be returned to duty in a reasonable period of time.
Providing definitive care at a forward loca­
tion in order to avoid evacuation requires
vast amounts of logistical support and, thus,
more airlift than is realistically available whenthe military must meet other operational
needs. Hence, the Aeromedical Evacuation
System (AES) is shifting patient-care doctrine
and reducing the holding capability in the
AFTHs. This action has two implications: (1)the AES must be able to transport critically ill
or injured patients and (2) to maintainproper patient flow, it must undergo modu­
larization to build incrementally, as do the
EMEDS modular teams. Thus, the AES has
modularized the components of the basic
mobile aeromedical staging facility (MASF)
into rapidly deployable and, in some cases,
man-portable teams.
Shifting from definitive to essential carepermits the evacuation of more patients in “sta­bilized” rather than “stable” condition. In
other words, the fact that they may require
much more than basic nursing care during
evacuation drives a requirement to provide a

11critical-care-capable patient-evacuation system.
The AES now has CCATTs that literally convert
any airframe into a flying intensive-care unit.

Modularity and global engagement arehaving a dramatic international impact.
Other nations have modeled their own
modular disaster-response capability
after that of the AFMS teams.

These teams have successfully conducted mis­sions, including transoceanic flights lasting sev­
eral hours, that have evacuated hundreds ofcritically ill and injured patients.
In support of Air Force Vision 2020, theAFMS is also focusing on global engagement.
Specifically, it has developed the interna­
tional health specialist (IHS), a new career
track and specialty code modeled after the
US Army’s foreign area officers (FAO) program. IHS team members, handpicked fromall corps and ranks for their expertise (lan­guage, culture, politics, military, economics,
medicine, and regional issues) in the area of
responsibility (AOR), are interwoven withmedical-readiness shops and platforms
through-out each commander in chief’s(CINC) AOR. Teams are specifically tasked tosupport the CINC’s theater engagement
plan, create partnerships with medical col­leagues from nations within their region, fa­
cilitate military-to-military and military-tocivilian interactions, and support medicalplanning operations and deployment execu­
tion within their AOR.
The first group of 26 IHSes is receiving
new duties within the AOR and getting up to
speed on responsibilities. Team members will
be called upon to act as advisors and advancedechelon personnel or to facilitate HCA, hu­
manitarian medical relief operations (HMRO),
or other missions into the region of their ex­pertise. IHS personnel will maintain individ­
ual clinical competency and provide regional
medical expertise throughout their careers.

12

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

This career track will become a key credential
for a successful Air Force medical career infuture years as the international role contin­
ues to expand.

In essence, the AFMS has created an exportable commodity that potentiallycould lead to the development of aworldwide, regionally focused, coalitionbased medical disaster-response system.
Modularity and global engagement arehaving a dramatic international impact.
Other nations have modeled their own mod­ular disaster-response capability after that of
the AFMS teams. For example, the Chilean
air force has created an interoperable team,the Escuadrilla de Redespliegue Sanitario Modu­lar, a 25-person complete hospital in two pallets, which can respond to disasters in Chileand neighboring countries.
In addition, US Air Force medics taught
regional disaster-response and trauma-systems
courses, sponsored by the Expanded Interna­
tional Military Education and Training Program of the Defense Security Cooperation
Agency, to nearly 700 students in Ecuador,
El Salvador, the Czech Republic, and South
Africa. Furthermore, military and civilian
medics from adjacent countries have attended
and participated in the discussion and labo­
ratory exercises. The courses emphasize re­gional (multinational) involvement, disaster
response, trauma care, leadership, civilianmilitary collaboration, resource management,
and “train-the-trainers” skills. In El Salvador,
host-nation graduates of the first course, heldin 1999, taught over 100 colleagues and com­pletely redesigned the emergency departmentof their Central Military Hospital to handle
trauma patients more efficiently. When earthquakes devastated that country in January
and February of 2001, medics and hospitals
were ready, and graduates of the Air Forcecourse from adjacent countries returned to

San Salvador to help with medical care andsave lives. Clearly, this type of partnership andtraining can benefit all nations and create re­gional political stability and economic pros­
perity, thus reducing the likelihood of future
conflict.
In essence, the AFMS has created an exportable commodity that potentially could
lead to the development of a worldwide, re­gionally focused, coalition-based medical
disaster-response system. Providing the mod­ular concept as well as the training and edu­
cation necessary to facilitate casualty care andmanagement will help ensure that deployedpersonnel receive high-quality medical care if
and when they need it, no matter where they
are or which nation responds with teams.
Military medics have now become the “tipof the spear.” For example, an Air Force HCA
deployment in Nicaragua in June l996 repre­
sented the first US military presence in thatcountry in 17 years! Two more HCA teams
followed in 1997 and 1998, and during re­covery efforts following Hurricane Mitch, theNicaraguans reported that military medical
teams had created a climate of trust that ben­efited US military civil-engineering teams.
Thus, the HCA missions provided the basis
for a mutually beneficial liaison with a newpartner nation.
As Air Force medics continue to fulfill the
global-engagement mission, we will needother international partnerships. Acting in
my capacity as the Air Force surgeon generalat last summer’s meeting of the International
Committee of Military Medicine (ICMM), I
proposed creating regional disaster-response
networks among the membership and reporting the results of this effort at the next
meeting in 2002. The membership’s develop­
ing nations, particularly those devastated bydisasters in recent years, strongly supported
this proposal. In fact, national representatives
voted unanimously to adopt the plan, open­
ing a new era of regional and worldwide co­operation among military medical services.
The upcoming ICMM meeting in South
Africa in 2002 will focus upon regionalresponse networks and some of the principles

NEW MILLENNIUM, NEW MIND-SET

for success, such as establishing and building
international coalition partnerships; building
international medical “bridges” of friendshipand cooperation; facilitating disaster pre­paredness among partner nations; and devel­
oping regional-response systems, whose value
has been proven through mutual exercises
and responses to regional disasters. Following
these principles allows successful networks
among neighboring nations’ military medical
services to support the political and economic
goals of member governments.
These successes, along with many others,
are impressive and hold great hope for the
future. After the recent earthquake in Turkey,
both Egypt and Israel responded promptlywith portable medical teams; this effort not
only saved lives but also provided military
medical personnel with valuable readinesstraining. Quick response requires good prep­
aration, planning, and execution, including
the establishment of diplomatic agreements
and the efficient packing of critically needed
supplies and equipment.
Optimal medical readiness also demands
rapid deployment of appropriate technology.
Military medics must capitalize on advance­
ments in computers and surveillance equip­
ment to ensure real-time, state-of-the-art
surveillance and monitoring for biologicalpathogens or chemical toxins. Medics must
involve themselves in scientific inquiry tomeet the needs of citizens, governments, andmilitary commanders/war-fighting CINCs. The
Air Force’s medical-readiness officers have embraced this tasking as part of the mission.
To promote the process, the Developmental
Center for Operational Medicine at Brooks Air
Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, is charged
with inserting innovative technology into readi­
ness platforms. It also serves as a liaison withcivilian disaster-response agencies, seeking to
improve the capabilities and interoperability ofboth civil and military medical teams.
Finally, to optimize disaster response,
AFMS must avoid redundancy with agenciesof the United Nations, private volunteer
groups, and nongovernmental disaster-relief

13organizations by offering “what we do best” toregional coalitions. By building on eachmember’s strengths, the regional disasterresponse network achieves synergy. Using theproper chain of command and government
channels, the AFMS must communicate withother organizations before, during, and after
each disaster response so that neighbors canbenefit from each other’s successes and fail­ures. This includes training together in realis­tic exercises so that military medics of coali­tion nations can learn to work efficiently withnew technologies and procedures shared by
medical experts from various organizations
and nations. This effort should result in a bet­
ter worldwide medical system.
It goes without saying that full implemen­tation of the AFMS vision for expeditionary
medical support and global engagement requires involvement of the Total Force. The
AFMS’s fundamental concern entails devel­
oping the capability to complete the mission,
regardless of where modular teams are assigned. In other words, whether a SPEARR,EMEDS-Basic, AFTH+10, MASF, or someother modular component is assigned toGuard, Reserve, or active duty units, it must
be able to fulfill its role according to the con­
cept of operations. Even though a particularconcept of operations may seem to make cer­tain modular teams especially well suited for
Guard and Reserve units, the emphasis mustremain on providing an overall, integrated
capability for medical support. This philoso­
phy will ensure the AFMS’s overall success in
the Air Force vision for global engagement.
Readiness remains the fundamental corecompetency of Air Force medics. Building
reliable regional coalitions through partnerships and training as well as developing interchangeable medical teams that can respondby invitation to assist each other in emergencies
are tasks that we can accomplish now. By utiliz­
ing new tools, we can fulfill our diverse readi­
ness missions and engage the full spectrum ofoperations in the new millennium. ■Challenges of Aeromedical Evacuationin the Post-Cold-War Era
BRIG GEN BRUCE GREEN, USAF*
Editorial Abstract: Arguably, aeromedical evacuation (AE) is the most important and visible aspectof aerospace medicine. In this article, General Green recounts the 80-year history of AE and discusses
current and future challenges that face this community. In order to support our war-fighting expedi­tionary forces in both peace and war, aerospace medical professionals are adopting a strategy of mainstreaming AE and employing the full spectrum of lift to support its mission.

A

IR FORCE AEROMEDICAL evacuation, the transportation of patients
under the supervision of AE crew
members on fixed-wing aircraft, enjoys a proud heritage that spans more than 80
years. The AE system has been instrumental
in saving the lives of thousands of America’s
soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines throughout every contingency in which our country

has engaged since World War I. In addition,
during both war and peace, AE has moved
thousands of family members who required
medical care beyond that available in theirlocal communities. The AE system is made up
of AE crews; command and control (C2) ele­ments; mobile/fixed patient-staging facilities;
and a multitude of communications, logistics,
and support components. Today, the AE system*I wish to recognize the coauthors of this article: Col Sheila A. W. Millette, USAF; Col Bob Brannon, USAF, retired; and CMSgt
Pamela Trammell, USAF, retired.

14

CHALLENGES OF AEROMEDICAL EVACUATION

faces new and demanding challenges. In
order to ensure the effective and efficient op­
eration of AE in the new millennium, a majortransformation of AE, led by Air Mobility
Command (AMC), is now under way. A brief
history of AE will set the stage for that transformation.

An Illustrious History
The concept of moving the wounded by air
began almost simultaneously with the con­
cept of fixed-wing aircraft flight.1 Shortly after
the Wright brothers successfully flew theirfirst airplane, two US Army medical officers,
Capt George H. R. Gosman and Lt A. L.
Rhodes, designed an airplane to transport pa­
tients. Using their own money, they built andflew the world’s first air ambulance at Fort
Barrancas, Florida, in 1910. Unfortunately,
on its first test flight, it flew only 500 yards at
an altitude of 100 feet before crashing. This
flight, followed by Captain Gosman’s unsuc­
cessful attempt to obtain official backing forthe project, proved to be only the beginningof many challenges for the new concept.
World War I Era

Air evacuation was very limited during WorldWar I; however, it was remembered most as
the time during which air-ambulance design
made significant progress by trial and error. A
French medical officer, Dr. Eugene Chas­saing, first adapted French military planes foruse as air ambulances by inserting two pa­
tients side by side into the fuselage behindthe pilot’s cockpit. The first actual evacuationof wounded in airplanes specifically equippedfor patient movement occurred in Flanders in
April 1918, using a modified Dorand II aircraft.
The United States began to use airplanes
for evacuating the injured from the battlefield in World War I but found it difficult touse planes not designed for patient airlift.
Specifically, the fuselages were too small to ac­
commodate stretchers, and the open cockpits
exposed patients to the elements. As a result,

15

the US Army Medical Corps used airplanes
primarily to transport flight surgeons to thesite of airplane accidents to assist in the
ground transportation of casualties.
By war’s end, the US Army realized theneed to transport the wounded by air. In 1918
Maj Nelson E. Driver and Capt William C.
Ocker converted a Curtiss JN-4 Jenny biplane
into an airplane ambulance by modifying therear cockpit to accommodate a standard
Army stretcher carrying an injured person ina semireclined seat. The modification allowed
the US Army to transport patients by airplane
for the first time. This success led to an orderdirecting all military airfields to have an air
ambulance.
Between the World Wars

The success of the Jenny air ambulances during
World War I paved the way for the further de­velopment of air evacuation, with several othertypes of aircraft converted successfully for thispurpose. In 1920 the DeHavilland DH-4 aircraft modification allowed it to carry a medical
attendant and two side-by-side patients in thefuselage. Shortly thereafter, the Cox-Klemmin
aircraft became the first plane built specificallyas an air ambulance, carrying two patients anda medical attendant enclosed within the fuse­lage. The building of the Curtiss Eagle in 1921
allowed the transport of four patients on littersand six ambulatory patients. Unfortunately, in
its first year of service, an Eagle crashed during
an electrical storm, killing seven people.
Despite the crash setback, aeromedicaltransportation continued to progress. In 1922
the US Army converted the largest singleengine airplane built at the time, the Fokker
F-IV, into an air ambulance designated the A-2.
In the same year, a US Army physician, Col Al­
bert E. Truby, listed the potential uses of the
airplane ambulances as follows:• Transportation of medical officers to thesite of crashes and evacuation of casualties from the crash back to hospitals.
• Transportation of patients from isolated
stations to larger hospitals, where they
could receive better treatment.

16

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

• In time of war, transportation of the se­riously wounded from the front to hos­pitals in the rear.
• Transportation of medical supplies inemergencies.
Before long, others began to recognize theneed for air transportation of patients and thespecial training that would be required for
medical attendants. Mary Beard, registerednurse (RN) and director of the American Red
Cross Nursing Service in 1930, stated, “No oneof our nursing organizations, no leading schoolof nursing, nor any other professional group,
has taken up this subject seriously and defi­
nitely tried to promote the organization of agroup of nurses who understand conditions
surrounding patients when they are travelingby air.” After a 15-year crusade, visionary Lau­
retta M. Schimmoler, RN, succeeded in estab­lishing the Aerial Nurse Corps of America.
World War II

At the beginning of World War II, the com­
mon belief was that air evacuation of the sickand wounded was dangerous, medically un­sound, and militarily impossible. The Army
Medical Department did not believe that the
airplane was a substitute for field ambulances,even when it was necessary to evacuate casu­
alties over long distances. The surgeon for
the Army Air Forces (AAF) Combat Com­
mand, Maj I. B. March, was concerned thatfield ambulances would not be sufficient tocover the aerial paths of the air forces. In re­sponse, the surgeon general of Third Air
Force, Lt Col Malcolm C. Grow, stated thatthe “chief stumbling block in the way of [air]ambulances has been the lack of interest on
the part of the [Army] Surgeon General.
Until he accepts the airplane as a vehicle [forcasualty transportation], I doubt if very muchcan be done about it.”
The war soon demonstrated the necessity of
air evacuation. The Burma Hump airlift opera­tion saw what was probably the first use of heli­
copters for combat rescue, often the first stepin the air-evacuation process. In one instance,
TSgt Ed Hladovcak of the 1st Air Commandos,

piloting an L-1 with three wounded British pas­
sengers, was forced down over 100 miles behind Japanese lines. Deep in the jungle wherean airplane could not land, unable to move because of the injured Brits, and ground-rescue
forces days away, the downed men hid fromnearby enemy soldiers. The only option was todispatch a YR-4 helicopter with its 175-horsepower engine to try a rescue. The YR-4 could
carry only one passenger at a time, straining its
engine past the redline just to lift off. Despite
these difficulties, four trips were made in andout to a sandbar, where the men could safely
transfer to an L-5. The mission was a great suc­cess. Successful combat rescues and air evacua­
tions were to continue throughout the Humpoperation.
The need to transport large numbers of ca­
sualties back from distant theaters of war wasapparent, but designated air-evacuation aircraft did not exist. AAF policy was to use transport planes for air-evacuation flights as theirsecondary mission. Transport aircraft were reconfigured for air evacuation, using removable
litter supports. In this way, aircraft that transported men and supplies to the theaters of op­
eration were utilized as air-evacuation aircrafton their return trip. By January 1942, AAF C-47
Skytrain aircraft had transported more than
10,000 casualties from Burma, New Guinea,
and Guadalcanal.
As air evacuation evolved, it became clearthat specially trained personnel were needed
to optimize casualty care during air transport.
Because there were not enough physicians to
put on every flight, Brig Gen David Grant,
AAF air surgeon, proposed establishing aflight-nurse corps. Despite opposition fromthe Army surgeon general, the designation“flight nurse” was created for specially trained
members of the Army Nurse Corps assigned
to the AAF Evacuation Service. In February
1943, the first class of flight nurses graduatedfrom Bowman Field, Kentucky. The four-weekcourse taught aeromedical physiology, aircraft-loading procedures, and survival skills.
This specialized training was the beginning oftrained medical personnel providing in-flightcare—the catalyst for the current AE system.

CHALLENGES OF AEROMEDICAL EVACUATION

Before long, regular AE routes were estab­lished, and hospitals were built along airstrips
to care for the wounded who needed to remain
overnight along the route. In early 1943, AE
aircraft began transatlantic flights from Prest­
wick, Scotland, to the United States. By theend of the same year, transpacific AE flights
were returning patients to the continental
United States (CONUS) via Hawaii. In 1944 asouthern Atlantic route to the United States,
originating in North Africa with stopovers in
the Azores and Bermuda, began serving pas­
sengers. Aircraft used for AE during the war
included the C-46 Commando, C-54 Skymas­
ter, C-64 Norseman, C-87 Liberator Express,
and the aforementioned C-47. In addition,bombers and tankers moved patients from forward battle zones during tactical AE.
The sheer number of patients transported
during World War II reflects the great impor­tance of AE. At its peak, the AAF evacuated thesick and wounded at a rate of almost 100,000
per month. A one-day record of 4,704 AE pa­tients evacuated was set in 1945. In his state­ment on 18 June 1945, Gen of the Army Dwight
D. Eisenhower said, “We evacuated almost
every one of our forward hospitals by air, and it
has unquestionably saved hundreds of lives—
thousands of lives.” General Eisenhower placed
AE in a class with sulfa drugs, penicillin, bloodplasma, and whole blood as a chief factor in
cutting the fatality rate of battle casualties.
The risk of evacuating patients by air had
been a concern since the beginning of the war.
However, as AE crews gained experience, therisk of death during AE dropped to six patientsin 100,000 by 1943. At the end of the war, therisk was down to one and one-half patients in
100,000, thus proving that AE was one of themost important medical advances in decreas­
ing the mortality rate associated with warfare.
Postwar Period and a New Service

The postwar drawdown changed the face of
the US military’s AE system. By 1946 the sys­
tem consisted of 12 aircraft at the School ofAviation Medicine and one C-47 at each of
the 12 regional US hospitals. In 1947 the US
Air Force (USAF) was established, receiving

17

orders in 1949 to provide AE for the entire
US military.
In May 1949, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS)
directed the Air Force to establish “evacuation
systems” for both the Army and Air Force. On
7 September 1947, Secretary of Defense Louis
E. Johnson made a policy announcement di­recting that the transportation of patients of
the armed services would be accomplished byaircraft when air transportation was available,
when conditions were suitable for air evacua­tion, and when there was no medical con­traindication to air transport.
The Military Air Transport Service (MATS)
had researched aircraft development in the
AE role before its formal organization. The
C-47 and C-54 were the mainstays of early
CONUS AE. MATS provided regularly sched­
uled AE missions and transported 12,369
patients within the CONUS from June
through December 1948. During this same
period, 5,151 patients were moved from loca­
tions outside the continental United States(OCONUS) (i.e., overseas) to the CONUS.
Intertheater AE from Europe began on 11
October 1949, with the C-121 Constellation(Connie). The C-121 provided a higher ser­vice ceiling, pressurized cabin, and smoothertransatlantic crossings than the C-54. Eventu­
ally, the C-121 replaced the C-54 on the twiceweekly “Benefactor” AE missions from RheinMain, Germany, to Westover Air Force Base
(AFB) Massachusetts. During this same pe­riod, C-54 aircraft serviced the Pacific theater.
On 1 June 1950, the new MATS C-97A Strato­
freighter was introduced into the AE role.
With its larger carrying capacity and pressur­
ized cabin, the weekly C-97A flight replaced
the four trips per week flown by the C-54.
The Korean War

Whereas World War II had proved the valueof AE, the Korean War established it as thepreferred method of evacuation for US casu­
alties. Although bad weather, mountains, andenemy fire hampered AE in the Korean War,Air Force rescue helicopters (C-47/C-54) still
managed to evacuate most of the war’s casu­
alties.

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WINTER 2001

Air Force H-5 rescue helicopters of the 3d
Air Rescue Squadron went into action as
frontline medical craft. C-47 transports of the315th Air Division, carrying AE crews, flew
into the most forward airstrips under enemy
fire, saving thousands of American lives. The
Air Force’s 801st Medical Air Evacuation
Squadron (one of the first units to receive a
distinguished unit citation) evacuated morethan 4,700 casualties from the Chosin Reser­voir in December 1950. This aeromedical
support enabled the embattled 1st Marine
Division to execute a successful fighting with­drawal to the port of Hungnam on the northeast coast of Korea. The Army soon set up its
own helicopter-evacuation service and, by late1951, combined AE support to enable naval
ships in-theater to serve as floating hospitals
rather than simply transports for the wounded.
Most American patients were airlifted to Japan,
Hawaii, and the United States.
MATS used C-46, C-47, C-54, and C-124 aircraft to transport 137,950 patients between
stations overseas and from OCONUS to the
CONUS during the Korean War. Additionally,
MATS provided for the movement of 215,402
patients within the CONUS. In a restatementof the USAF mission in 1953, MATS wascharged with “the provision of airlift for pa­
tients of the Department of Defense on overseas routes over which MATS operates, fromports of debarkation, and between air facili­ties serving hospitals within the zone of inte­rior.” AE was now a major mission of MATS—
no longer a corollary task limited to theforward delivery of cargo or passengers.
Specialized Aircraft for AE

The next major AE development was the in­troduction of the Convair C-131A Samaritan.
This pressurized aircraft, with a specialized in­terior for AE, offered fast service for the short
air routes of Europe and North Africa. The
C-131A, which made its debut on 26 March
1954, had a cruising speed of 235 knots; it
had room for 37 ambulatory patients or 27
litter patients plus four ambulatory patients,
as well as a medical crew of three. The aircraft
configuration accommodated specialized med­

ical equipment such as an iron lung, ortho­
pedic bed, artificial kidney machine, or infant
incubator. All Samaritans were distinctly
marked with a red cross on the tail.
In June 1966, Headquarters USAF directed
Air Force Systems Command to submit a
proposed source-selection and procurement
plan for a new AE aircraft. In July 1966, theDepartment of Defense agreed to initiate amodernization program, and in January 1967
it approved the expenditure of $34 million topurchase eight aircraft plus spares. Threecontractors responded with proposals: McDonnell-Douglas (DC-9A), British Aircraft
Corporation (BAC-111), and Boeing (B-737).
On 31 August 1967, McDonnell-Douglas re­ceived the contract, with the first aircraft delivery scheduled for August 1968, followed by
one per month for seven months. The rollout
ceremony of the C-9A Nightingale occurred
on 17 June 1968. The aircraft was tested anddelivered to Scott AFB, Illinois, on 10 August
1968. Eventually, 21 C-9As were purchased
between 1967 and 1971.
The Vietnam War

Advances in AE improved medical care dur­ing the Vietnam War. Rapid evacuation of thewounded from Vietnam’s battlefields by heli­
copters, followed by jet transports, saved
many lives. Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) oper­
ated in-country aeromedical service andtransoceanic jet service to hospitals at Clark
Air Base (AB), Philippines, as well as Yokota
AB and Tachikawa AB, Japan. Military Airlift
Command (MAC)—the successor to MATS—
helped evacuate many casualties from Viet­nam, handling all patient movement to theUnited States. Although the Air Force ac­quired its first C-9A in August 1968, C-9As did
not begin flying missions in Southeast Asia
until March 1972. Ordinary transport planes—
primarily the C-7 Caribou, C-130 Hercules,
and C-141 Starlifter—equipped with littersflew most of the war’s aeromedical missions.
PACAF’s 903d Aeromedical Evacuation Squad­ron provided the first mobile casualty-staging
facility during this war.

CHALLENGES OF AEROMEDICAL EVACUATION

Subsequent to Vietnam, AE supported avariety of contingency and humanitarian op­
erations over the next two decades. The morenotable ones included Operation Homecom­
ing—the return of US prisoners of war from
Vietnam; return of the 52 American hostages
held in Iran for over 400 days; evacuation ofcasualties from the bombing of the US Em­
bassy and Marine Corps barracks in Beirut;
and evacuation of 167 casualties from Grena­da. Officially designated mobile aeromedical
staging facilities (MASF) were in the AE in­ventory and available when Operation Ur­
gent Fury in Grenada took place in October
1983 but were not used.
Operation Just Cause and the Gulf War

AE proved to be a key factor in the overall
success of Operation Just Cause in December
1989. During that short but violent conflict tooust Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega,
wounded American soldiers, sailors, airmen,
and marines received care at the joint casu­
alty collection point (JCCP) at Howard AB,
Panama. The JCCP, which included bothconventional and special-operations assets,
combined surgical and mobile aeromedical­
staging capability into one element by em­
ploying MASFs for the first time. The JCCP
treated 276 patients, stabilizing and evacuat­
ing 257 to military hospitals in San Antonio,
Texas, on nine AE missions (using eight C-141s
and one C-130). Four of the nine missions(which evacuated 192 casualties) took place
during the extremely intense first 24 hours of
the operation. The overall survivability rate
for American service members treated at the
JCCP during the operation was 99.3 percent(276 total casualties treated; only two diedfrom their wounds). Furthermore, no deaths
occurred during AE missions.
The next challenge for AE came in re­sponse to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August
1990. During the weeks preceding the start ofOperation Desert Storm, United States Cen­
tral Command predicted that as many as
15,000 Americans would be wounded in theearly stages of the allied invasion to reclaim
Kuwait. With the help of aeromedical ele­

19

ments from the Air Force and medical units
from the Army, Navy, and Air Force, a coordi­
nated, multitheater chain of evacuation was
created to evacuate potential casualties. The
Air Force AE system, totaling over 1,950 per­sonnel, included 19 AE liaison teams, 12
MASFs, 99 tactical AE crews, 46 strategic AE
crews, and 22 flight surgeons, as well as anumber of C2 and support elements. The
plan was to use medically configured C-130s
for dedicated evacuation flights within the
Persian Gulf, followed by a combination of
dedicated and retrograde C-141s evacuating
the most seriously wounded to Europe andthe CONUS.
The mobilization and deployment of Air Reserve Component (ARC) forces were essential
to the evacuation plan due to extremely highpatient-movement planning factors—up to
6,000 per day. ARC accounted for almost 97
percent of the total AE forces, serving in a
multitude of AE elements that created anelaborate evacuation chain stretching fromSouthwest Asia to the CONUS. The planning
factors for AE, predicated on a six-weekrather than six-day air war were very high.
Predictions averaged over 1,000 intratheater
patient movements per day, and intertheater
AE movements were predicted to average an
additional 900 patients per day.
Most Air Force planners did not anticipate
that the air and ground fighting during Desert
Storm would hardly tax the medical system.
Coalition casualties were so light that the staff
at Air Force contingency hospitals in Europe,
like many of their counterparts in the Arabian
Peninsula, practiced very little combat medi­cine. From August 1990 to March 1991, disease
and nonbattle injuries accounted for most of
the patients evacuated from Southwest Asia to
Europe during Desert Shield/Storm. An ag­
gressive preventive-medicine campaign was im­
plemented, proving very effective in minimiz­ing losses to disease.
During Desert Shield/Storm, several signif­
icant issues arose to challenge the AE forces,
including the lack of Kevlar protective equip­
ment for many of the Guard/Reserve person­
nel; the need for contingency training for the

20

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

ground AE elements as well as a more streamlined, coordinated process for patient regulat­
ing; and review of interface points with the
AE system. Nonetheless, the mission involved
the largest deployed AE force in history, total­
ing over 12,632 patients evacuated on 671 AE
flights with no in-flight deaths—a complete
success.
Change in the Nineties

A new era in airpower history began on 1 June
1992 with the inactivation of MAC, Strategic Air
Command, and Tactical Air Command. Two
new organizations—Air Combat Command(ACC) and AMC—developed from the ele­ments of the deactivated commands. Shortly af­
terward, AMC divested itself of infrastructureand forces not directly related to Global Reach.
Among the units affected were C-130 airlift
squadrons and AE squadrons at Rhein-Main
AB, Germany, which transferred to UnitedStates Air Forces in Europe (USAFE), and sim­
ilar squadrons at Yokota AB, Japan, which trans­ferred to PACAF. These transfers—along withthe majority of active and ARC C-130 airlift
squadrons; the active-duty AE squadron atPope AFB, North Carolina; and the 19 gained
AE squadrons from the ARC—all went to ACC
in order to align all theater (combat) support
under one command. However, in 1997 thesesame assets were transferred back to AMC.
In 1996 the Global Patient Movement Re­
quirements Center (GPMRC) was establishedwithin US Transportation Command to fa­
cilitate and streamline patient validating andregulating. Theater Patient Movement Re­
quirements Centers also stood up in US Euro­pean Command and US Pacific Command.
These centers are responsible for definition
and management of patient-movement re­quirements, patient in-transit visibility, and col­laboration with their respective theater or
joint-task-force movement-control agency tocoordinate bed and lift plans.
Because of lessons learned in Desert
Shield/Storm, an Aeromedical Evacuation
Contingency Operations Training (AECOT)
course was developed and fielded at Shep­
pard AFB, Texas, in September 1998. The

course trains AE personnel in a standardized
manner regarding general philosophy, capa­
bilities, organization, operations, C2, and support required to provide full-spectrum AE ca­pability during contingencies.
In 1999 a Critical Care Air Transport Team(CCATT) course was developed at Brooks AFB,
Texas, to prepare teams of physicians, nurses,
and technicians to provide structured en routecare for critically ill and injured patients whenever and wherever required. The course in­cludes a detailed review of the CCATT mission,equipment, and organization, as well as famil­iarization training with AE aircraft, orientation
to the stresses of flight, and refresher training
through a fundamental critical-care support
course.
Throughout the nineties, AE units contin­
ued to be engaged in a variety of contingency
operations covering multiple theaters. AMC
and AMC-gained units deployed 60 medical
personnel for 90 days in the fall of 1994 to
manage an air-transportable hospital in support of Operation Uphold Democracy. Those
medical personnel were responsible for treat­
ing and aeromedically evacuating, if neces­sary, all military personnel deployed. In addi­tion, Air Force medics deployed to austere
locations throughout Haiti to take part in thehumanitarian-assistance program.
Additionally, active duty and ARC AE
forces joined to support operations in Kenya,
Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bosnia, Soma­
lia, and Kosovo. AE evacuated many criticallyinjured Rangers and special operations forces
to Ramstein AB, Germany, after the 3 Octo­
ber 1993 “Bloody Sunday” firefights in Moga­
dishu, Somalia. AE personnel supported Op­
eration Allied Force with crews and mobile
aeromedical-staging facilities. Moreover, thosesame personnel concurrently supported Op­
eration Shining Hope, a humanitarian cause.
The first four AE missions flown out ofTirana, Albania, were on C-17 Globemaster
IIIs, demonstrating the effective use of op­
portune airlift. In each operation, the pres­ence of AE forces ensured the prompt andsafe aeromedical evacuation of military per­sonnel who needed more care than was avail-CHALLENGES OF AEROMEDICAL EVACUATION

able locally. Finally, throughout the nineties,
AE units supported humanitarian civic-action
operations in various locations throughout
Central and South America. With the adop­tion of a new casualty-replacement policy anda smaller presence in overseas contingency
theaters, AE became even more important as
the twentieth century closed.

Time for Change
By the late nineties, AE faced new anddaunting challenges. Modern conflict, rou­tinely characterized by rapid, short-duration,
high-intensity combat, has resulted in casualty
generation with very little lead time. As a result,
there is often no opportunity to set up en routecontingency hospitals, and critically ill patientsfrequently have to be evacuated long distances
to reach comprehensive medical care. This ne­
cessitates the movement of “stabilized” (rather
than fully stable) patients, who often require in­tensive care during evacuation.
In December 1998, during an internal review of current AE posture, AMC identified anumber of critical issues with significant po­
tential to affect future AE operations. These
included the Air Force’s evolution into the
expeditionary aerospace force (EAF) concept
and air expeditionary force (AEF) structure;
implementation of TRICARE; evolving doctrine and command relationships; changing
patient-movement requirements; the im­pending retirement of the core strategic AE
aircraft, the C-141, which currently performs
the majority of peacetime intertheater AE
missions; and the status of the dedicated in­tratheater AE platform, the aging C-9A, which
requires major modifications to meet bothglobal air traffic management and stage III
noise-compliance requirements. As evidenced
by the above, today’s AE system is designed
for a world that no longer exists. Today’schanging environment demands a new look.
In August 1999, Lt Gen Walter S. Hogle Jr.,AMC vice commander, directed a review ofthe entire AE mission area and established an
integrated product team chaired by AMC
Plans/Programs (XP) with the support of the21

AMC command surgeon. In September 1999,
a multicommand AE Tiger Team (AETT) was
formed to address the following areas: re­quirements, doctrine, operations, airframes,
organization, resourcing, equipment, com­munications, information management/information technology, education, training,
and awareness. This team generated a com­prehensive final report—the road map to im­
plement recommendations.
Major Findings and Key Recommendations

Requirements. Wartime casualty projections, in­cluding an added 25 percent to account for
weapons of mass destruction, were 30–55
percent lower than in 1996.2 Peacetime pa­
tient movement was greatly reduced in the
CONUS due to TRICARE, but OCONUS re­quirements remained fairly constant because
TRICARE was not as robust and quality-of-life
issues mandated the need for AE.
Doctrine, Operations, and C2. Recommenda­
tions included the following:• Insert an AE control team in the air mo­bility division (AMD) with coequal sta­tus to the existing airlift, air refueling,
and air mobility control teams.
• Align the patient-movement require­ment centers under the appropriate
mobility control centers at the unified
commands.
• Formally establish AE cells in the air
mobility control centers of the compo­
nent air commands (Tanker Airlift Con­
trol Center in AMC and Air Mobility
Operations Control Centers in USAFE
and PACAF).
• Clarify the chain of command for fielded
AE forces, with AE as a line/operations
function under the joint force air compo­
nent commander (JFACC) through the
deployed mobility wing commander andthe operations group commander.
• Change AE processes to a requirementsbased system and optimize the use oflimited airframes. Mix patients and22

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

cargo when appropriate; gain visibility,
using routine training missions for live
missions; and use space required/space
available, opportune airlift, or commer­
cial air service.
Airframes. The major recommendations in­cluded the following:• Option One—Pursue a strategic-distanceaircraft dedicated to AE.
• Option Two—If the short-term financial
constraints (acquisition costs) of such apurchase preclude option one, turn boththe peacetime and wartime intratheater
AE missions over to the C-130 fleet in adesignated role, which would require aslight increase of C-130s in each theater.
• Investigate the concept of modifying
KC-135s as an immediate, short-term in­tertheater fix for the retiring C-141s.
This would require AMC funding forelectrical modifications to a small num­
ber of KC-135s for testing and follow-on
funding for additional KC-135s, basedon test results. Pursue funds for a rollon/roll-off litter capability.
Since publication of AETT’s report, factors
such as fiscal limitations, aircraft tasking andavailability, and changing national strategy
have prompted a relook at all aircraft recom­
mendations. Further, analysis is ongoing todetermine whether a shortfall of organic AE
aircraft exists. Another focus is on mainstreaming AE into airlift operations and en­
hancing operations with the use of seats, pallet spaces, and palletized system concepts.
Organization. The team had begun toreengineer and incrementalize existing AE
flying and ground-support unit type codes(UTC) in order to eliminate the need to rou­tinely pare and tailor them to meet opera­
tional requirements. For example, the existing
50-bed MASF (which includes 39 personnel
and requires seven C-130s to move it) was
reengineered and incrementalized. The new
MASF consists of a 10-bed basic package thatcan be augmented with additional 20-bed
packages, as needed. This building-block ap­

proach provides significantly enhanced mis­sion flexibility and reduces airlift require­ments from seven to three C-130s. Anotherproposal was to form “virtual combination
units,” which would allow geographically sep­arated units the opportunity to work, train,
deploy, and fight together, thereby improving
integration and meeting ongoing Air Force
Total Force efforts for the future.
Resourcing. The team reinforced the conceptthat the Defense Health Program (DHP), op­erated and funded by the Office of the Secre­tary of Defense/Health Affairs, was responsible
for all means of peacetime patient movement.
However, Air Force aircraft may accomplishsome patient movement by using training
missions funded by operations and mainte­
nance (O&M). The program budget decisiontransferred all funding for active duty C-9A
and AE squadron operations from DHP to Air
Force O&M on 1 October 2000. The teamrecommended decentralizing DHP funds toeach theater to provide flexibility for patientmovement options. This funding would allow
the purchasing of seats or pallet spaces on ex­
isting cargo missions, AE channel missions (ifrequired), and civilian air ambulance or com­
mercial airlines (when appropriate).
Equipment, Communications, and Information
Management/Information Technology (IM/IT).
Recommendations included the following:• Fund the deployable oxygen-system ini­
tiative.
• Exercise Care in the Air (CiA), airborne
wideband, and other AE communica­tion and IM/IT initiatives during thejoint expeditionary force experiment(JEFX) 2000.
• Finalize a stopgap communication plan
to meet fiscal year 2002 joint require­ments.
• Complete redistribution of high-fre­quency communications assets.
• Continue integrating and maintaining
computer-based training for the Spitfire(PSC-5) radio.

CHALLENGES OF AEROMEDICAL EVACUATION• Continue pursuing the joint tacticalradio system.
• Publish the AE communication conceptof operations on the Air Force surgeon
general (SG) Web page.
• Update and incrementalize AE commu­
nications allowance standards.
Education, Training, and Awareness. Recom­
mendations included the following:• Create an “Aeromedical Evacuation
Center of Excellence” as a one-stop
shop for AE education and training.
• Develop a flight-qualification program tostandardize initial qualification for AE
crew members.
• Train “universal” crew members, elimi­
nating the “tactical/strategic and multiqualified crew” paradigm in use today.
Specially qualified AE crew members
will be certified in multiple airframes toprovide CiA.
Gen Charles T. Robertson Jr., AMC com­mander, approved the AETT report on 26
September 2000, and Gen Michael E. Ryan,
then the Air Force chief of staff, lauded theeffort: “Please pass on to your XP and SG
folks that they have done a yeoman’s job on
AE reengineering. General Carlton and I are
impressed with the incrementalization/re­
vamping of AE assets to better match the AEF
and the Air Force medical system’s directionof smaller, leaner, and more capable deploy­ment units.”3
Accomplishments to Date

By the end of 2000, the AETT had accumulated
an impressive list of accomplishments, begin­ning with the determination of peacetime andwartime AE requirements. In peacetime, withthe changeover to TRICARE medical coverage,
the need to move patients had declined in the
CONUS from approximately 69,700 patient
movements in 1995 to 19,500 movements in
1999, with only 1 percent classified as priority
or urgent. As mentioned earlier, in the overseas

23

theaters, because of TRICARE’s lack of robust­ness and because of quality-of-life issues, the re­quirements remained steady. This was also dueto the significant closing of OCONUS medical
facilities after the Cold War, requiring the
movement of patients to CONUS facilities.
With regard to wartime requirements, the overall wartime casualty projections were 30–55 percent less than the projections made in 1996.
The projections were based on changes in warfighting concepts, evacuation policies, theater
medical capabilities, and the smaller numbersof soldiers at risk.4
One recommendation, to insert an AE
control team into the Air Operations Center,
was approved and articulated in Air Force
Doctrine Document (AFDD) 2, Organizationand Employment of Aerospace Power, February
2000. In addition, a decision brief presented
in January 2001 defined the roles and respon­
sibilities of the unified/component command.
Also, the Tanker Airlift Control Center (TACC)
and GPMRC finalized a memorandum ofagreement that addressed communication
flow and responsibilities. The AE “Tactics,
Techniques, and Procedures” was publishedthrough the Doctrine Center in June 2001, fol­
lowed by approval of the AE Doctrine Templateby the AMC commander in July 2001. The useof the approved template in updating various
joint and allied publications resolved longstanding joint and service doctrinal issues.
Another key factor in aligning the AE or­
ganizational structure took effect 1 October
2000, when the TACC stood up an AE cell
designated TACC/XOGA. Major benefits inscheduling, improved response time, and decreased cost were realized almost immedi­
ately as the cell implemented various recom­
mendations. The cell began working mixedcargo and AE missions on Atlantic Express C17s and used air-refueling missions, when ap­
propriate, as well as Patriot Express passenger
missions for patient movement. These mixed
missions resulted in an overall increase in AE
mission reliability. C-141 AE missions contin­
ued to be scheduled, but their reliability re­mained an issue. In the Pacific, mixed mis­sions continued using C-17s and KC-135s

24

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

while exploring other options. For example,
an August 2000 mission involved a C-17 reconfigured after a repatriation mission from

The vision represents a shift fromthe way we do business today and calls
for the military community to
refocus its view of AE from what
was suitable in the past to whatis necessary for the future.
Pyongyang, Korea, in an urgent attempt tosave a five-day-old baby girl. The AE crew,
made up of active duty and Reserve person­nel, flew the 14-hour return leg from Yokota
AB, Japan, to the United States, refueling inflight from a KC-10 Extender, which was also
carrying an urgent-care patient. In anotherexample, a C-17 cargo mission moved a litterpatient from the Pacific to the CONUS. In
the past, this would have resulted in the initi­
ation of an AE channel mission costing ap­
proximately $81,000. In this case, purchasing
space for a cost of $1,415 resulted in a savingsof $79,585. These are just two examples of thebenefits of TACC and AE cell interface andtheir efforts to embrace the changing AE
process and to continue working with the the­aters to meet their patient-movement needs.5
Other efforts under way include transition­
ing AE personnel and functions from AMC/SGto AMC/director of operations (DO) and
AMC/XP, reengineering the aeromedical stag­
ing facilities, integrating CCATTs, funding warreserve material, defining a homeland defense
mission, and sponsoring a regional Total Forcevirtual-group pilot study.

A New Vision for AE
In addition to the AETT final report, sev­
eral other factors—maturing TRICARE re­gionalization, the imminent C-141 and C-9A
retirements, recently validated planning factors
increasing the wartime casualty stream by 25
percent, fiscal realities of AE modernizationcompeting with other Air Force moderniza­tion programs, and recognition of the inevi­
table continuing evolution of AE—prompted
AMC to redefine basic AE constructs. Brig
Gen Jim Roudebush, AMC surgeon, drafted
a concept known as “A Vision for Aeromed­
ical Evacuation: Supporting Global Reach,
Vigilance and Power into the New Millen­
nium,” November 2000, which outlined sev­
eral precepts for AE in the future.6 The vi­
sion represents a shift from the way we dobusiness today and calls for the military com­munity to refocus its view of AE from what
was suitable in the past to what is necessary
for the future.
The military has evolved from a strategy ofcontainment to a strategy of engagement.
We have moved from a monolithic threat en­
vironment with a heavily forward medical in­
frastructure to the present environment
characterized by complex asymmetric threats,a light forward medical presence, and a heavy
reliance on AE to transport more critically ill
and injured forces and their families.
In May 2001, this vision evolved further dur­ing preparation for a briefing at CORONA.7
The AE system is now in a period of transi­tion from an “outlier” process with separate
funding, scheduling, and flying to “mainstreaming” into operational airlift processes.
The vision incorporated the AETT analysis
and road map and includes the following key
precepts necessary to mainstream and mod­ernize AE:• View AE as a specific medical-airlift mis­sion capable of supporting patients on
any appropriate airlift platform.
• Adapt AE to fully capitalize on the useof current organic-lift platforms.
• Develop light, modularized, and independently operable AE equip­
ment.
• Design an adaptable, multiairframe­
capable, palletized litter/seat sys­tem.
• Capitalize on contract lift opportuni­
ties—Patriot Express, commercial air-

CHALLENGES OF AEROMEDICAL EVACUATION

lines, and civilian air ambulance—
where the use of these modalities is ap­
propriate and cost-effective.
• Establish AE qualification training designed to support AE on all appropriate
platforms.
• Address the critical interface between the aircraft crew and the AE
crew.
• Focus on two fundamental concepts:
a crew is a crew and CiA.
• Develop a universal checklist that AE
crew members could use on any AEcapable airframe.
• Acknowledge the continued require­ment for mobilization of the AE Civil
Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) in wartime.
• Design AE capability into all appropri­ate future airframes.
• For example, multirole mobility platforms, KC-X (the future tanker andreplacement for the KC-135) mission
needs statement (MNS), and C-130J/
X upgrades.
• Recognize that as the C-9A and C-141
retire; as AE is assimilated into organic
lift, to the extent possible; and as contract-lift modalities are utilized, . . .
analysis indicates a residual shortfall in
AE lift to meet echelons three and four
wartime requirements.
• The AE MNS identifies AE integral
requirements for future mobility airframes and addresses that shortfall
between the AE wartime require­ment and available lift in the mostdemanding scenarios.
The strategy for AE of the future was vetted
by key stakeholders, including commanders
in chief (CINC), Air Staff, major commands,
and the Reserve/Guard. Their feedback in­cluded many positive and supportive com­ments, the major concerns centering on as­
suring availability of lift for the AE mission

25

and training AE crew members for the flexi­
ble use of the organic-lift platforms. AMC lead­ership is committed and fully engaged to support the following:• Assuring space in the airlift flow for AE
requirements.
• Adapting AE to all appropriate airframes.
• Aggressively pursuing the full spectrumof airlift options for AE.
• Standardizing and enhancing training
requirements.
• Planning and programming to assurethat the AE mission is fully supported.
Consistent with this new vision, as the C-9A
nears the end of its distinguished role in the
Air Force, it will continue its service in a des­ignated versus dedicated capacity. In February
2001, the Air Force chief of staff directed theremoval of the red cross markings from the C9A AE fleet.8 The C-9A will continue to be a
primary AE asset; however, the new decision
will permit flexible use of the aircraft in transporting duty and space-available passengers,
as well as nonmedical supplies and equip­
ment—without risking violation of domestic
or international law. In concert with the deci­sion, AMC/Logistics (LG) designed and ac­quired a nonpermanent, quick-application
red cross for use during times of war, contin­
gency operations, or other instances in which
the display of the red cross would be both de­sirable and appropriate. This capability willallow the quick application of the red cross toany aircraft specifically dedicated for AE. This
provides protection for patients, while allow­
ing both AMC/TACC and theater air mobility
operations control centers (AMOCC) addi­
tional flexibility in selecting from all available
AE-capable aircraft for such missions.9 The
reengineered AE system will focus on re­quirements-based scheduled support by pur­chasing seats and pallet spaces on the mostappropriate aircraft rather than paying for
entire airplanes. Government-contracted com­
mercial augmentation use, complemented by

26

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

scheduled routes based upon CINC-driven the­ater requirements, form the construct. Within
the construct, a variety of aircraft will be available to support AE. Moreover, during contin­
gencies, the staging of AE crew members anden route ground-support UTCs at any airhead
where AE requirements may be generated,rather than tying them to specific aircraft beddown locations, will allow increased flexibility.10
With the institutionalization of this new AE
vision, changes to AE aircrew training andqualification become imperative. Unlike mostcrew members, AE crews will not be limited
by qualification on specific airframes. The
new vision will drive the need for a broadbased flight-qualification program, using sim­
ulators to train and qualify AE crew memberson all potential airframes. In keeping withthe flexible and expeditionary approach of

the Line of the Air Force, AE will be a part of themission portfolio of all appropriate aircraft,either integrally or by maximizing the use of
portable AE equipment suited to all airframes. AE crews will be as flexible as the aircraft they use.
The new vision has taken the initial defini­tive step to ensure that the AE system is able
to support the entire spectrum of AE require­ments, from peacetime/steady-state to thefull-scale casualty flow of two simultaneous
major theater wars. The strategy of mainstreaming AE and employing the full spectrum oflift to support the AE mission will assure thatAE will be capable of supporting our warfighting expeditionary forces in peacetime
and war. AE will be here for our forces andfamilies, now and in the future. ■Notes
1. This section draws upon Anything, Anywhere, Anytime: An Il­
lustrated History of the Military Airlift Command, 1941–1991 (Scott
AFB, Ill.: Headquarters Military Airlift Command, Command His­
torical Office, May 1991).
2. This section draws upon “Aeromedical Evacuation Tiger
Team Final Report” (U), AMC/Medical Readiness and Aeromed­
ical Evacuation Division (SGX) and AMC/Plans and Programs
Studies and Analysis Flight (XPY), September 2000.
3. Message, 181630Z Jul 00, Air Force chief of staff (CSAF),
to AMC commander, 18 July 2000.
4. Briefing, Col Sheila A. W. Millette, AMC/SGX, subject:
Aeromedical Evacuation (AE) 2000: Supporting Our Expedi­tionary Forces, 15 November 2000, in “Aeromedical Evacuation
Tiger Team Final Report,” September 2000.
5. Background paper, subject: Aeromedical Evacuation Tiger
Team, AMC/XPY, 25 October 2000; briefing, AE 2000: Support­
ing Our Expeditionary Forces; and plan, subject: Air Mobility
Command Concept of Operations for Aeromedical Evacuation,

AMC/SGX, Scott AFB, Ill., 14 July 2000, in “Aeromedical Evacu­
ation Tiger Team Final Report,” September 2000.
6. Brig Gen James G. Roudebush, briefing, subject: A Vision
for Aeromedical Evacuation: Supporting Global Reach, Vigi­
lance, and Power into the New Millennium, November 2000.
7. Brig Gen James G. Roudebush, AMC, Scott AFB, Ill., talk­ing paper, subject: Aeromedical Evacuation: Supporting Global
Reach, Vigilance, and Power into the New Millennium, 21 May
2001.
8. “Emblem Removed on C-9 Aircraft,” Air Force News Service,
February 2001, on-line, Internet, 30 October 2001, available fromhttp://www.af.mil/news/Feb2001/n20010212_0204.shtml.
9. Col Sheila A. W. Millette, AMC, Scott AFB Ill., talking
paper, subject: Red-Cross Marked Aircraft, April 2001.
10. For more information on the AE reengineering, integra­tion, and modernization effort, see Air Mobility Command/SG,
on-line, Internet, 30 October 2001, available from https://amc.
scott.af.mil/sg/sg.cfm.

Treaties are observed as long as they are in harmony with in­terests.
––Napoléon

Operational Medical Support for the
Tip of the Spear
The Heart of Air Force Special Operations Forces(AFSOF) Medicine
COL JAMES J. DOUGHERTY, USAF, MC, CFS, DMO

Editorial Abstract: The war on terrorism has focused the attention of the military establish­
ment on special operations forces (SOF), which will become the “tip of the spear” in this con­flict. But how will aerospace medicine support these “light, lean, and lethal” units? Colonel
Dougherty explains how SOF’s unique operational environment shapes the training andtechnology required by SOF medical teams and what advances are needed to ensure support.
According to Colonel Dougherty, “SOF medicine is operational medicine.”T

HE TERRORIST ATTACKS on 11
September 2001 in New York andWashington, D.C., as well as thecrash of the hijacked aircraft in
Pennsylvania, reminded Americans of thetraumatic necessity of providing medical as­
sistance to the injured, especially in time ofwar. Prior to the attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon, the fact that theUnited States had suffered relatively few
friendly casualties in recent conflicts (e.g.,
the Gulf War and Kosovo) may have createdthe impression that we could fight relatively
unscathed. Though understandable, suchexpectations are extremely naive, especiallywhen one considers the dangerous world ofspecial operations. United States Special
Operations Command (USSOCOM), as estab­lished by Title 10, section 167 of the UnitedStates Code, has principal missions, including“combating terrorism” and taking “direct ac­tion,” that involve inherently dangerous activi­
ties. Consequently, as USSOCOM’s air com­ponent, Air Force Special Operations
Command (AFSOC) must ensure effective
medical support for its people—a huge27

28

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

challenge for a force designed to be “light,
lean, and lethal.”In the decades prior to 1990, one could
not distinguish the Air Force’s medical support to special operations forces (SOF) fromthat provided to conventional forces. The airtransportable clinic provided conventional
aviation medical support as well as disease
and injury prevention to deployed bases. Designed to support a system of echelons that
met theater and strategic-planning models
during the Cold War, the clinic proved suc­cessful with conventional forces. A squadron
medical element, consisting of three person­nel (including one physician), could take asingle pallet of medical equipment and supplies to a fixed base and provide routine med­
ical care with some limited trauma support
for 30 days to a fighter squadron–sized unit ofapproximately 500 personnel.
But this process could not accommodate
SOF. First, medical personnel often foundthemselves supporting other units; occasionally, the Air Force physician was the only med­
ical officer deployed in support of a joint operation.1 Flight surgeons faced a scope of
responsibility broader than their medical
skills could support. Second, they foundthemselves on unfamiliar ground since mostsquadron flight physicians were in their first
operational assignment, had never worked
with SEAL and special forces units, and had
no experience with medical issues related tosuch matters as diving gas mixtures and highaltitude, low-opening jump operations. Third,
airlift for medical equipment was almost nonexistent. Organic aircraft had no space for apalletized clinic, and nesting boxes and backpacks became the mode du jour, each medic
deciding what to take on any given occasion.
Replacements for items left behind were pur­chased locally with little consideration of suitability and standardization. Thus, over time,each unit accumulated different—sometimes
incompatible—medical equipment.
The word special in special operations does
not imply a rejection of conventional Air
Force processes in search of independence.
Rather, it refers to unique missions driving

different tools and training that require
unique medical support as well. This raises
certain questions: How much “medical” capa­
bility is needed and supportable? Why should
it be different? What does it need to do? What
tools are necessary? What are the desired
characteristics of the interface with the rest of
the medical system? This article describes ef­
forts to develop operational support for SOF
that have taken place during the last decade.
In addition, it outlines current initiatives toimprove the conduct of that support, includ­ing the interface of SOF medicine with con­ventional theater support and the aeromed­
ical-evacuation system. Finally, it suggests
future improvements for SOF medical support. The paramount message for successful
medical support is simply that SOF medicine
must be operational medicine.2

The Focus on Operations
SOF medicine must be operational medi­cine because a preponderance of SOF activi­
ties are not associated with fixed-base opera­
tions. AFSOC owns only one base, and it has
only an outpatient medical facility. All otherspecial operators are in AFSOC tenant units
that regularly deploy to fixed-base or beyondfixed-base locations, where they often are not
the lead units and where the logistical tail andlinks to higher levels of medical care do notexist. In some cases, the presence or absenceof higher-level care is irrelevant since, for se­curity reasons, one cannot establish linkage
to aeromedical evacuation or deployed mili­tary hospitals. In sum, the medical-support
plan may assume an isolated capability fromthe start. If casualty transfer is possible, itwould probably move rearward to interface
with the aeromedical-evacuation system or
hospital, using opportunistic airlift and or­
ganic medical personnel for en route care.
The constraints of far-forward medicalcare drive a set of challenging, unique med­
ical requirements for personnel, equipment,
and training. As codified by joint doctrine,
special operations rely on “adaptability, im­provisation, innovation, and self-reliance,”

OPERATIONAL MEDICAL SUPPORT

emphasizing “small size, unique capabilities,
and self-sufficiency (for short periods oftime).”3 The challenge has always been to
take these characteristics and determine theright mix of medics, medical equipment, andmedical training to provide the best possible
support to the special operator.
The conundrum is that the demand forflexible capability and self-sufficiency flies in
the face of the necessity of remaining small andlight. Obviously, all medical-support planningmust deal with this dilemma, but not to theextreme that SOF does. For example, in timecritical rescue and disaster-response scenar­
ios, SOF forces must determine what (andhow much) needs to go on the first aircraft,the number of Security Forces assets to secure
the area against further damage and injury,
and the types of medical assets to treat exist­
ing casualties. Unfortunately, such decisions
are sometimes made during highly vocal, lastminute flight-line discussions.4

How Much Organic Medical
Capability Does AFSOF Need?
The answer to that question starts with rec­ognizing that special operations are hazardous.
According to some sources, SOF accounted for
31 percent (71/228) of total US combat deaths(killed in action) from Desert One through
Allied Force.5 This percentage, disproportion­
ately high for such a small fraction of the total
force, argues for a robust medical-support ca­
pability that caters to the dangerous missions
these units undertake.
Again, the challenge lies in being robust andlight/lean at the same time. In the past, opera­
tional medics received training in basic lifesav­
ing skills, used basic splints and bandages, andaccepted the fact that they could do little for ca­
sualties until they arrived at a fixed medicaltreatment area. “Acceptable” loss then becomes a planning factor but an abhorrent one,
especially when medical science can accom­
plish so much more if provided immediately(i.e., far forward). An alternative process in­volves seeking trade-offs, alternatives, and sub­stitutions that maintain a flexible medical capa­

29bility but reduce the footprint and support tail.
A third option calls for maintaining a substan­tial off-the-shelf capability but modularizing thecontents so that their usage depends upon thespecifics of the individual mission.
In practice, both the second and third strate­
gies have proved successful. They abjure large
power supplies and equipment items for lightweight pieces such as hand-powered water pu­
rifiers and suction pumps. Using solar power
panels for certain items remains an option, buthigh cost, inadequate durability, and low
charge rates limit their utility. In addition, lightweight materials and minisized devices havebeen substituted wherever possible, a process
not unique to special operations since the Air
Force Medical Service as a whole seeks oppor­
tunities to reduce size, number, and weight.
Seminal efforts of this service have transformed the traditional echelons (levels) of care
into an expeditionary medical-support system
more capable of meeting the needs of our
expeditionary Air Force. For example, tradi­tional medical-support packages like the airtransportable hospital and the contingency
hospital have given way to integrated building
blocks that one can use to establish any levelof capability, from mere initial response tothat provided by a major fixed facility—andto transfer that capability to other medical
assets, such as a civilian medical community,
host nation, or nongovernmental agency. Thisapproach is very similar to the one taken by
special operations.
Keying on the third process of modulariza­
tion, special operations is focusing on modu­
larizing unit type code (UTC) equipment andpersonnel packages. For example, AFSOC’s
rapid-response deployment kit and the consoli­
dated SOF medical element are representativeof this strategy. Conceived in 1992–93 andbrought on-line the following two years, the
new UTCs paralleled similar efforts of the con­ventional side of the medical service to streamline the medical-support “piece” of operations:in Europe, the United States Air Forces in
Europe command surgeon had developed
small surgical packages (mobile field-surgicalteam) and, subsequently at Air Education and30

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

Training Command, critical-care teams forcasualty movement (critical-care aeromedical­
transport team). That beginning, as well as the
cross-fertilization of ideas that occurred between the mobile field-surgical team and thecritical-care aeromedical-transport team on the
one hand and the rapid-response deployment
kit and air-transportable treatment unit on theother, laid the groundwork for development ofexpeditionary medical support. “Lighter andleaner” began to catch on.
The rapid-response deployment kit repre­
sents one step up from man-portable medical
equipment.6 The kit weighs 790 pounds andconsists of four nesting boxes organized alongfunctional lines: cardiac, trauma, environmen­
tal, and medical. Three kits fit on a single pallet, and one can mix and match the compo­
nents to suit mission requirements. The kit canbe augmented with a laboratory module, and,in those instances in which airlift limitations
are not as critical or the mission is of long du­ration, other options are available.7 If all mod­ules are deployed, the assemblage and person­nel can provide medical care for a populationof 600–800 for up to 30 days. In practice, thesmaller configurations are the most useful.
The strength and power of this arrange­
ment lies in modularity—providing lightweight, highly mobile capability for austereenvironments in a building-block approachand increasing or decreasing this capability
as the mission evolves. Medical personnel caneither hand-carry or store their medical equip­
ment in containers small enough to add toavailable space on board an aircraft or groundvehicle. This parallels the core philosophy of
expeditionary medical support and supports
the Air Force Medical Service’s doctrine at aneven lighter/leaner level.
In addition, adopting this process helps an­
swer how far and how much medical care one
can take into the field. Defining limitations onwhat one can treat allows planners to anticipate
situations that will exceed the capability of de­ployed medical forces. In this context, deci­
sions that recognize supportable medical skill
levels and plan to keep losses acceptable canmake claim to moral authority. To the extent

that the mission commander must balance mis­sion accomplishment with casualty survival in
the context of limited medical assets, a strategy
that gives that commander information on how
much delay he or she can tolerate prior totreatment by different categories of casualties
will be of great use.
Toward that end, USSOCOM’s Biomedical
Initiatives Steering Committee, with compo­
nent sponsorship, has undertaken a study to es­
tablish protocols for commanders in the fieldthat do just that. For instance, one could define
the risk of limb loss over time for injuries that
disrupt blood supply to the limb. In otherwords, once this type of casualty occurs, howmuch more time does a commander have tocomplete the mission before the risk of perma­
nent disability and death becomes too great?
Until we develop this tool, however, missioncommanders must develop medical go/no-goplans in consultation with their deployed sur­geons, theater medical planners, or Joint Spe­cial Operations Task Force surgeons.8

What Does It Take to
Use That Capability?
The truism that “knowledge has minimal
weight and cube” is important in the pursuit oflight and lean. The training necessary to provide the best medical care possible continues togrow. Medical technology is not static, and thespecial operator deserves the same care offered
to any service member or citizen. In special op­
erations, whose missions may occur in remoteand hostile locations, the level of training mustremain as high as one can possibly sustain since
medical technicians or physicians, who operatealone and without backup, have correspond­
ingly greater responsibility.
As mentioned above, the SOF medical offi­
cer often becomes the consultant for medical
aspects of dive, jump, and aerospace operations
for which standard flight-surgeon training is inadequate. Second, SOF medical officers andenlisted medics find themselves closer to com­
bat operations than is typical for Air Forcemedical personnel. Thus, they need training insurvival/escape and response to terrorism, asOPERATIONAL MEDICAL SUPPORT

well as tropical-medicine courses. In addition,
one cannot meet the often-encountered chal­lenge of working with host-nation forces orcivilian organizations just with enthusiasm andno training. The newly created position of in­
ternational health specialist can fill this gap.
The enlisted medic in AFSOC frequently op­
erates independently in providing patient careand casualty management, at least in the initialstages. Some casualty-evacuation missions may
occur in proximity to ground combat and ne­
cessitate the same preparatory training as thatreceived by officers.9 Doctrinally, the medical
training necessary to operate independently inthis environment is designated emergency
medical technician-paramedic (EMT-P), with
Air Force independent-duty medical techni­
cian (IDMT) certification. In addition, formal

31

aeromedical-evacuation training is necessary to
conduct the casualty-evacuation mission. In
total, this formidable and unique level of capa­
bility makes the AFSOC medical technician
one of the most highly trained medics in the
Air Force. Even the pararescueman, also an
EMT-P, is not trained or expected to provide
nonrescue medical care.
Historically, the AFSOC unit commander’sgreatest dissatisfaction with medical support
is the fact that the unparalleled training(table 1) necessary to bring the SOF medic tomission-ready status takes up to half a tour ofduty. Therefore, a training pipeline for
AFSOC medics—something the other ser­vices have always had—is long overdue. An
enterprise philosophy of interchangeable

Table 1Higher Headquarters Requirements for AFSOC Medical Training
Flight Surgeon

Enlisted Medic

1 week
1 week
1 week
1 week
1 week

ISOC
DIT
ACLS
ATLS
Water Survival School

1 week
1 week
1 week
1 week
1 week

1 week2 weeks

2 weeks
2 weeks
2 weeks

Treatment of Chemical and/or
Biological Casualties
Trauma Rotation
Aircraft Mishap Investigation
C4

2 weeks

Global Medicine

ISOC
DIT
ACLS
ATLS
C4
*

12 weeks
12 weeks
6 weeks

ISOC
DIT
ATLS
Water Survival School
Treatment of Chemical and/or
Biological Casualties
Trauma Rotation
IDMT School
EMT Paramedic*
Air Evacuation Technical
SchoolIntroduction to Special Operations Course
Dynamics of International Terrorism Course
Advanced Cardiac Life Support
Advanced Trauma Life Support
Combat Casualty Care Course
EMT paramedic training time will increase up to a total of 20–24 weeks, based onstandard curriculum changes as of January 2002.

____________
Sources: Air Force TTP 3-42.6, USAF Medical Support for Special Operations Forces (SOF), 5 September 2001, 28; USSOCOM 402, Medical Services: Organizational and Operational Alignment of Joint Special Operations Medical Training Center, 6 March 1997, 2,
par. i; and AFSOC Instruction 48-101, Special Operations Aerospace Medical Operations, 1 August 2000, 10–12, pars. 10–11.

32

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

medical personnel among the major com­mands is the wrong answer for AFSOC.

Dedicated But
Nonorganic Capability
Occasionally, AFSOF has medical require­ments beyond those of the aviation-support
packages discussed so far—an area that stillneeds work. The air-transportable hospital
may have great capability, but it alone is larger
than most AFSOC mission packages. Therefore, the answer lies in expeditionary medical
support. The fact that its configurations remain pallet-bound suggests the need to graft
the modularization idea onto an AFSOCassigned expeditionary medical-support
package that would tailor an already opti­
mized UTC to SOF limitations.

Critical Interface with
Conventional Medical Support
The interface between SOF and conven­tional medical care is fluid, occurring farther
forward on some occasions but still avoiding
potential exposure to ground combat. SOF
medics, on the other hand, must operate inproximity to ground combat, with the poten­
tial for direct exposure if dedicated rescueand-recovery forces are not available.10
Where should we draw the lines?
As the Air Force Medical Service attempts tobring technology and expertise ever closer tothe casualty-causing event, it should think out
policy guidelines and make them available tothe commander. This won’t be easy because itgoes against Geneva conventions concerning
combat status and involves debates about gen­der equity and opportunity. In the sister ser­vices, the SOF medic is a combat medic, ex­pected to shoulder a weapon as a primary
combatant—an asset for “reconstitution” inthe event of severe loss of ground-combatantstrength. Air Force medical personnel, however, are protected under the Geneva conven­tions and entitled to use weapons under thatcategory only to defend themselves and theirpatients against brigandage.
For this reason, conventional aeromedical­
evacuation personnel usually have not received
sufficient training in combat skills to reasonably ensure survivability on, or in proximity of,
the battlefield. Further, they require a fixed location to prepare casualties for further move­
ment, whereas SOF may frequently relocate,making the lifeline for casualty evacuation ten­uous. Hence, although ad hoc decision making
may have served reasonably well in the past, it
is no longer acceptable. We must have doctri­
nal and procedural adjustments to guide pro­gramming and planning for the delivery of op­
erational medical support.

The Future of AFSOF Medicine
AFSOC has accomplished a great deal since
it stood up as a major command in 1990. The
Air Force Medical Service has transformed alarge, static, slow-responding capability into alight and lean force, but today’s success has a fi­nite life span. The future of AFSOF medicine
calls for visionary thinking and dynamic adap­
tation along three paths: (1) modernization ofequipment, (2) enhancement of diagnostic
sensory inputs, and (3) further efforts to mod­ularize and tailor medical equipment to mis­sion requirements.
Modernizing equipment is an ongoingprocess, not only for the Air Force Medical Ser­vice but also for the entire Department of De­
fense. Medics must advocate improvement inlifesaving, with an emphasis on the opera­
tional-support piece of health care and themodernization needed throughout the force.
In that endeavor, special operations must become a partner. The Biomedical Initiatives
Steering Committee, mentioned above, has acharter that considers only the physiologicalenhancement, not medical care, of war fight­
ers. Yet, modernization of SOF medical capa­
bility, as a treatment and prevention activity inoperations, must proceed along service lines.
The second opportunity for the future, di­agnostic sensory input, comes from personalobservation of treating casualties—on board

OPERATIONAL MEDICAL SUPPORT

an aircraft maneuvering at low level and atnight, blacked out on night-vision goggles, andmarked by extreme noise and vibration. Much
equipment is available to assess and stabilize ca­
sualties, if only the environment were more co­operative. But it won’t be. Medical skills would
dramatically improve if one could performbasic techniques of observation, inspection,
palpation, and percussion (not to mention
probing, injecting, and the like) reliably under
extreme adversity. For instance, a glovemounted scanner transmitting an image to aheads-up display and using vibration-cancelingtechnology would fit part of the bill. No theo­
retical impediment to such devices exists. To
accurately assess and stabilize a life-threaten­
ing, intra-abdominal injury without requiringtransport to a secure area would be a boon. But
training will have to keep pace with technology
if such a capability becomes reality.
Finally, as regards becoming lighter andleaner by modularizing the medical-support
package for any given mission, the current testof success is limited to backpacks and nestingboxes. Given state-of-the-art computer systems
and automated inventory management, one
has no difficulty imagining clinical guidelines
for mission scenarios that would link to thetypes of casualties expected and the medical
equipment needed. It should be possible toconfigure in minutes a medical-equipment

33

The V-22 Osprey can be used for medical evacuation.

package that focuses on the scenario andwastes nothing. Or telemetry may permit themonitoring of an inbound casualty in enoughdetail to configure a real-time treatment kit
ready to use immediately upon arrival. Someof this already occurs through voice communi­
cation but with a limited degree of anticipa­tion. In SOF, the need is acute. SOF medical
support must seek opportunities to carry allthat is needed and, at the same time, only whatis needed to do the job.
In the struggle against terrorism and otherthreats to national security, the demand forlight, lean, and capable medical care will con­tinue since the nation is likely to call upon SOF
as the force of choice. This challenge focuseson technology and training to provide the nec­
essary medical support when and where it isneeded. ■Notes
1. To progress from intern or first-postgraduate-year trainee
to Joint Special Operations Task Force surgeon can overwhelm
the abilities of even the most talented physician. Imagine gradu­
ating from pilot training and immediately becoming a deployed
mission commander.
2. One need not address each principal and collateral spe­cial operations mission and define the medical support neededfor each type of mission since it matters little to a casualty’s future
whether a penetrating chest wound, for example, occurred in di­rect action or special reconnaissance.
3. Joint Publication 3-05, Doctrine for Joint Special Operations,
17 April 1998, vii.
4. This happened in response to the Dar Es Salaam andNairobi Embassy bombings in 1998.
5. Although the total number of combat deaths is small by
world-war standards, many people have argued that low casualty
rates will become more likely in combat scenarios for the foreseeable future. The data presented were collected from service
sources by the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides scholarships and counseling tosurviving children of SOF personnel killed in the line of duty.
6. Each flight surgeon and medical technician carries a 70pound vest and backpack SOF medical kit that provides for shortnotice, first-responder support.
7. The air-transportable treatment unit—an AFSOC UTC—
includes a trailer, tentage, power, and climate control but weighs
6,000 pounds.
8. The theater special operations commanders are autho­
rized an international health specialist on their staffs to conduct
medical-planning activities. This new Air Force specialty offers
extra utility for SOF.
9. The term casualty evacuation describes a mode of move­
ment that occurs prior to aeromedical evacuation, a convenient—rather than doctrinal—term.
10. Air Force pararescuemen, though not primarily medics,
have paramedic skills. They deploy frequently and sometimes
find themselves stretched thin. In their absence, commanders
have had to decide whether to send medical personnel on rescueand-recovery missions in proximity to ground combat.

Linking Resource Allocation
to Performance Management
and Strategic Planning
An Air Force Challenge
MAJ GEN STEPHEN R. LORENZ, USAFÄ
LT COL JAMES A. HUBERT, USAFÄ
MAJ KEITH H. MAXWELL, USAFÄ

Editorial Abstract: As a service, the Air Force fights much better than it buys things. In fact,
our service—the world’s most powerful and capable air force—would probably fail quickly as
a business corporation. We must do better, and this article raises some thought-provoking
ideas about how to improve.

I

N LATE 2000, the service chiefs testified
before Congress that the US military re­quired upwards of $100 billion per yearof additional spending (a 30 percent increase) to maintain readiness and modernize
the force. But the recent tax cut, a slow econ­omy, and spending increases needed for nonmilitary priorities make a 30 percent increasein defense spending unlikely. Without theneeded funds, the military will face many dif­ficult decisions concerning allocation of theremaining resources. The question is and al­ways has been, What is the best way to allocate
those limited resources?
The approach to allocating resources
throughout the Department of Defense(DOD) at the beginning of the twenty-first
century has several deficiencies. It doesn’t
provide a connection among where we are(performance), where we want to go (strat­egy), and how we get there (resources). In
addition, the process identifies shortfalls but
not the sources to pay for them. It rewards ad­
vocates who are the most adept at articulating
increases in spending but sometimes pun34

LINKING RESOURCE ALLOCATION

ishes programs that can produce savings.
Even worse, it lacks fundamental measures ofvalue on which to base decisions. Eliminatingthese deficiencies may not solve the shortfall
in resources, but it can ensure that we spend
the money we have more wisely.
The key to enabling Air Force leaders tomake better resource decisions lies in imple­
menting three major changes in the way we dobusiness. First, we must link resource allocation
to performance management and strategicplanning. These three management functions
must work in unison to ensure consistent di­rection. Second, we need a process that is sim­ple, transparent, and reproducible. It must be
simple enough to be implemented quickly andimproved upon; it must be transparent to iden­
tify the trade-offs and provide incentives forcost reduction; and it must be reproducible
through a structured planning framework that
relates capability to cost. Third, we must deliver
the best value to the war fighter over time andwith the resources available. This requires
measuring Air Force capabilities and relatingthem to resources and operational effective­
ness for the near, mid, and long terms.
Such changes are within reach; however,getting there requires a cultural change. The
Air Force management processes currently inplace provide little incentive to reduce costs
and only limited accountability for thosecosts. Gen Gregory S. Martin, commander ofUnited States Air Forces in Europe (USAFE),
recently observed that “the only way we’regoing to get anywhere in the Air Force today
is to develop the tools and performancemeasures which will allow our people to havecontrol and accountability for their resource
and mission performance. And then we canpush decisions hard and fast to the lowest
level possible. . . . That’s the only way we’ll really make major progress in the future.”1
The Air Force has recognized the need forchange and is making the transition. Under
the leadership of F. Whitten Peters, the for­mer secretary of the Air Force, and Gen
Michael E. Ryan, the former chief of staff,
Headquarters Air Force created a team toreengineer the Air Force Resource Allocation

35

Process (AFRAP).2 Led by Maj Gen Danny A.
Hogan, the AFRAP team recommended a ca­pabilities-based process for allocating resources.3 As a result, Headquarters Air Forcechose a new approach for building thebudget for fiscal year 2003 (FY03) as an initial
step to implementing the AFRAP recommen­
dations. Each major command received a topline dollar amount along with the direction topresent a balanced, capabilities-based input
to the Amended Program Objective Memo­randum for FY03.
The USAFE team responded by develop­
ing a Resource Allocation Model (RAM) that
produced a balanced program and at thesame time provided tremendous insight into
the command’s capabilities. The purpose
here is not to wave the USAFE flag but to use
its experience as a case study. The USAFERAM not only works for an operations andmaintenance command but also offers prom­
ise towards improving resource allocation for
the entire Air Force.

We’re on a Journey
Throughout history, military spending has
been based on available resources that the cit­
izens of a country were willing to spend inpeacetime and war. At the macrolevel, we won
the Cold War by engaging in a long-term ex­penditure of resources while maintaining alarge standing military. Today, with our visionof Global Vigilance, Reach, and Power, signif­
icant technological advantages have changed
this equation. Vigilance has progressed fromscouts and spies taking days or weeks to provide information, to satellites and unmanned
aerial vehicles producing results in minutes.
Reach has progressed from the walking paceof horse-drawn wagons to moving millions of
ton-miles-per-day (thousands of tons halfway
around the world every day). Technologicaladvances in precision and stealth have signifi­
cantly changed the nature of power in battle
from using numerous, large munitions to de­stroy a target, to using fewer, more precise
weapons to achieve desired effects. Beginningwith Operation Desert Storm and progressing

36

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

further during the air war over Serbia under
the leadership of Gen John P. Jumper, thenthe commander of USAFE, the goal has now
become “effects-based” operations.4 Technol­
ogy has enabled us to pick and choose whichof the enemy’s centers of gravity to affect andto strike them with crippling speed.
In the past, military spending drove thepace of technology. Militaries were bothtechnology- and resource-limited. Over time,
technology became profitable enough so thatthe private sector now takes the lead in many
areas. As a result, we are faced with more
technological choices than we can pursue
with our available resources. Being resourceconstrained puts a premium on planning thatis compounded by a rapid increase in systemcomplexity. Automation and computers haveresulted in systems-of-systems interdependent
with other systems-of-systems. For example,
satellite navigation, radio communications,precision weapons, and aircraft form com­plex systems-of-systems used to perform many
attack missions.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Secretaryof Defense Robert McNamara and his “whizkids” responded to the increasing difficulty inallocating resources with the Planning, Pro­
gramming, and Budgeting System (PPBS).5
Until that time, each department received fis­cal spending limits along with direction on
how to spend the resources. Today, the major
force programs and associated program ele­ments provide the PPBS framework. Each
program element is programmed with funds
for five to six years in advance of the current
budget. DOD went from little involvement in
how the services spent their resources to detailed programmatic insight.
At the time of PPBS development, the mil­itary planning system was considered the best
ever. But we have since realized that militaryplanning has two broad categories: opera­
tional planning and force planning.6 Al­
though military operational planning and theassociated logistical planning have proven ex­tremely capable, force planning has neverbeen highly developed. Even today, the Qua­
drennial Defense Review is part of an infor­

mal process used by DOD to establish force
structure.7
In 1993 Congress passed the Government
Performance and Results Act, which requires
government agencies to take responsibility
for effectively allocating and expending resources through strategic planning and per­formance management.8 It also spawned the
National Partnership for Reinventing Gov­
ernment, which, over the last eight years, has
fostered numerous studies, experiments, andreforms in government planning and management.9 In response to the Government
Performance and Results Act, DOD pub­lished its performance plan and captured its
strategic plan through the Quadrennial De­
fense Review. Until recently, DOD and Air
Force reforms have failed to address the key
deficiencies in the PPBS process.
In 2000, the AFRAP process reengineering
team developed a capabilities-based approachfor resource allocation, reviewing PPBS and therelated processes in place to establish require­ments, make acquisition decisions, manage ex­ecution, and perform analysis. The recommen­
dations included significant enhancements tothe planning portion of PPBS by combining
programming and budgeting and adding exe­
cution management.10
The fundamental key to implementing
AFRAP is development of an Air Force capa­
bilities framework to tie the elements of resource allocation together and serve as a basis
for making decisions. Once the capability rela­tionships are established, the AFRAP solution
develops numerical capability objectives andprojects them over time. These objectives arevalidated through the rest of the process byplanning the capability solutions and associ­ated resources over an 18-year time frame. Fi­
nally, accounting and performance-manage­
ment systems provide feedback directly to thecapabilities assessment in order to judge prog­ress.

But We Have Miles to Go
DOD and the Air Force have transformed
themselves in many ways recently, but until

LINKING RESOURCE ALLOCATIONAFRAP, neither adequately addressed theoverarching issue of affordability. As a result,
we still don’t really know whether we are
spending our resources effectively and effi­
ciently. A recent acquisition-reform effort first
identified affordability as the missing link. In
1995 Dr. Paul G. Kaminski, undersecretary ofdefense for acquisition and technology, cre­ated an initiative called “Cost as an Indepen­
dent Variable.”11 A team, formed with the ob­jective of treating cost as importantly as
performance, concluded that the key lay inestablishing “affordable cost targets” for ac­
quisition programs.
Since one can define “affordable” only in
relation to the total budget, the solution lies
not in acquisition reform but in improving theresource-allocation process. Our entire culture
focuses on stovepiped portions of resource al­
location, producing a system that sometimes
encourages self-serving resource-allocation be­haviors instead of a cross-functional capabilities
approach.
The root cause of this behavior within our
process is that we manage by shortfall. Dr.
James G. Roche, secretary of the Air Force,
said, “Given the demands on the forces, . . .
the demands for situational awareness, and agreat deal of technology, . . . you can’t do thestovepipe game the way you used to.”12 In
our current process, we direct the partici­
pants to identify their shortfalls and bringthem to the table. The result is a process designed to spend more money. Those who are
successful in funding their shortfalls are thewinners. In addition, since everything we doin the military is very important—life ordeath issues—cutting back or canceling a
program is extremely hard to do. A processof managing by shortfall provides no infor­
mation on where we can afford to makethose cuts. A lack of information increases
the impact of opinions. In other words, per­sonalities fill the vacuum.
Management by shortfall also leads to atremendously inefficient process for resource allocation. Because individual shortfalls tend to differ each year, the majority of
the information needed by the process must37

be generated anew. Also contributing to thisbusywork is the fact that the relative priorityof the shortfalls changes as well. Adding a
30–50 percent turnover in personnel every
year to these conditions has the potential
for disaster.
Ultimately, we are trying to determine
how much of each capability to invest in re­lation to maintaining readiness of the forces
we have. But how can we do this without
knowing the relative value of each capabil­
ity? All the new business practices coming
out of for-profit industry could help the Air
Force if it weren’t for one detail—we don’t
make a profit! As Secretary Roche has said,“We recognize this is not a business. We
don’t have a product, as in the open mar­ket.”13 All tough business decisions are
based on the relative value of the choices.
The new process improvements comingfrom the commercial sector are designed tohelp industry leaders find a balance between short-term profitability and sustained
health of the business. Without profit as avalue measure, the military must develop
standards of value to improve resource allo­
cation.

Building a Balanced Program
In August 2000, USAFE began creating its
RAM in response to the Air Staff’s direction
to develop a balanced, capabilities-based
input to the Amended Program Objective
Memorandum for FY03. USAFE’s approachentailed dividing the initial top line into
groups of capability by assigning each program element to a cross-functional capabili­ties group. Formation of the groups was
based on the relationships between the com­mand’s mission-essential tasks and goals, withthe scope of responsibility defined by the syn­ergies between the products of these tasks,
their relationships to the command’s goals,
and efforts to minimize the resources thatcross group boundaries.
Because USAFE is an operations and main­
tenance command, management of day-today resources drove the definition of capabil-

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

ity groups. The command created fivegroups—Information Superiority, Aerospace
Operations, Logistics Support and Infrastruc­ture, People, and Medical—tasked with assessing the capability provided by each program element and developing a balanced
capability within the assigned top line. Eachgroup also had to provide information for
USAFE’s leadership to balance resources
across the groups.
A simple rating system facilitated comparisons among diverse capabilities. Each program-element monitor was tasked to quantify
the capability provided by his or her program
element. The maximum usable and minimum acceptable capabilities were definedand assigned scores of 1.00 and 0.70, respectively (fig. 1).14 Each monitor was also tasked
to assign a dollar amount to the maximum
and minimum capabilities and define what
the resources would purchase. Once the scale
was established, the monitor was then tasked
to assign a capability rating to the initial top
line (fig. 2). Although in many cases data
were not available to assign a truly objective
rating, each program-element monitor had to
defend his or her assessment under the
scrutiny of peers and to the group.

1.1 = Exceeds maximum mission
capabilities
Low Risk

Moderate Risk

High Risk
Very High Risk

1.0 = Maximum usable
capability
0.9 = Fully mission capable, withminor shortfalls
0.8 = Mission capable, withsignificant shortfalls
0.7 = Minimum acceptable capability
Below 0.7 = Not mission capable/
unexecutable program

Figure 1. Capability Rating Scale

1.1
Maximum Usable
1.0
Capability Rating

38

0.9
0.8

Top-Line Performance

0.7
Minimum Acceptable
0.6
200

300

400
500
600
Program Resources ($Million)

700

Figure 2. Capability versus Resources
Although the capability ratings provided ameans for portraying the health of each program, they did not form the basis for decision
making. Balancing resources within a group or
between groups is a process of making trades—taking from one program to help another.
To facilitate balancing resources, programelement monitors were tasked to identify tradeups and trade-offs of capability with the associ­ated resources for their programs. In this way,
the group could compare the value of a given
trade-up for one program with a trade-off foranother and develop an understanding of
where the balance lay. Each group identified
trades that achieved improved balance acrossits programs and then prioritized trade-ups andtrade-offs for the group as a whole. The groups
presented this information to the USAFE lead­ership, who used it to balance capabilities andresources among the groups. Assuming thatthe overall command is capable of performing
its mission beyond the bare minimum, the goalof making trades was to ensure that each ele­ment of capability had enough resources toearn a rating greater than 0.70.
This simple methodology resulted in vastly
improved understanding of the capabilities
and needs within the command. During the
trading process, over $50 million moved
among programs to correct imbalances. This
amount represented only 2 percent of the com­mand’s total resources, but the movement rep­resented 65 percent of those resources within
USAFE’s control, indicating how unbalanced

LINKING RESOURCE ALLOCATION

the program had become without meaningful
participation from the major commands.15 Im­
plementing this process also highlighted sev­
eral improvements needed within USAFE,
along with information the command required
from the Air Force to improve the balance fur­ther. The command used these lessons learned
to make improvements for the next cycle.

Doing It Again—Only Better
One key to successfully implementing aprocess change is to include continual pro­
cess improvement in the design. A good example of preplanned improvement comesfrom software developers as they actually define processes. In the software industry, theincremental approach for continual improve­
ment is called spiral development, whereby aspiral includes the development and fieldingof operational code.16 The first spiral mightfield 60 percent of the desired functions, withsucceeding spirals learning from the previous
one and fielding increased functionality. In
this light, USAFE’s RAM for the Amended
Program Objective Memorandum of FY03 is
Spiral 1, and the command’s approach for
the Program Objective Memorandum of FY04
is Spiral 2. The improved RAM/Spiral 2 is theresult of lessons learned during the FY03
Amended Program Objective Memorandum
and the desire to tie the model to strategicplanning and performance management.
One lesson learned was that managing fivegroups requires too much manpower fromheadquarters. In addition, several changes to
the group structure were needed to aligncomplementary capabilities, resulting inthree groups: Command and Control, Aero­space Operations and Logistics, and People
and Infrastructure. The realignment added
logistics to aerospace operations, where it isneeded most. It also put medical and people
together with the infrastructure that supports
them and operations.
Another lesson was simply that more time,
more training, and a more rigorous process
were needed to better implement USAFE’s
RAM. Following the submission of the39

Amended Program Objective Memorandum
for FY03, the process was refined, with detailed work sheets provided to the programelement monitors. They were tasked withdefining the capabilities and supporting
measures for each of their programs during
summer 2001 in advance of the command’s ef­
fort to balance resources. These definitions
were documented and available for continual
improvement during each cycle of theprocess. In addition, USAFE held a capabili­ties workshop with Air Force Materiel Com­
mand personnel who were involved in per­formance-based budgeting. The workshop
also received support from the Air Force Stud­ies and Analysis Agency, which shared tech­niques for assessing programs and tieing theirperformance to higher-level capabilities.
A major change implemented for Spiral 2
came from aligning the processes for strategicplanning and performance management with
USAFE’s RAM. During a two-day workshop in
March 2001, the command’s senior leaders cre­ated the integrated-management construct for
the USAFE Strategic Vision Process (fig. 3), intended to define where USAFE is through per­formance management, where it wants to go
through strategic planning, and how it is goingto get there through resource allocation.

MissionVisionGoals

Capabilities

Mission-Essential
Tasks

Programs

Resource
Allocation

Strategic
Planning

Performance
Management

Objectives

Milestones

Performance Measures

Figure 3. Integrated Management Con­
struct for the USAFE Strategic Vision
Process40

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

The integrated-management construct links
the three process elements and ties them di­
rectly to resources; links capabilities to resources by defining the command’s total mis­sion capability within three capability areas;
and then breaks those three capabilities into 14
subelements defined as new mission-essential
tasks of the command. Assigning each program
element to a mission-essential task aligns allcommand resources with the capabilities. The
construct aligns strategic planning and resource allocation by identifying a command
goal for each of the three capability areas. One
achieves linkage between performance man­agement and resource allocation by aligning
the performance measures directly to themission-essential tasks. The result is a simple
framework for aligning strategic planningand performance management with resource
allocation.
In addition to aligning resources to take
USAFE from where it is to where it wants to

USAFE Mission
Capability

go, the new construct will directly improve
the resource-allocation process. Dividing thecapability groups into 14 mission-essential
tasks increases the fidelity for making trades.
The new capability groups and their missionessential tasks used in Spiral 2 align the com­mand’s 124 program elements (fig. 4). The
approach for the FY04 Program Objective
Memorandum involves balancing the resources within each program element, bal­ancing the program elements assigned toeach mission-essential task, and then balanc­
ing those tasks within each group. The ap­
proach is simple, but experience during Spi­ral 1 proved that establishing capability
measures and requirements is challenging.
Few programs have useful measures of what is
expected from the resources allocated. Com­
paring the health of each program element
and its contribution to total capability requires measures of that capability that cas­cade down to the program-element level.
$2.6 Billion
Top Line

Three Capability Groups
C1. Command
and Control

C2. Aerospace
Operationsand Logistics

C3. People
and Installations

M1.1. Information
Infrastructure

M2.1.
Air Superiority

M3.1. Protecting
the Force

M1.2. Battle-Space
PictureM2.2. Mobility

M1.3. Decision
Superiority

M2.3. Global Attack

M3.3. Installation
Readiness

M2.4. Agile Combat
SupportM3.4. Quality
Housing

M2.5. Developing
and Maintaining
RelationsM3.5. Medical
Operations

M3.2. Quality
People14 Mission-Essential Tasks

124
Program Elements

Figure 4. USAFE’s RAM

M3.6. Support
Operations

LINKING RESOURCE ALLOCATION

Another significant change during Spiral 2
involves integrating the wings’ financial andmanpower planning into USAFE’s RAM. The
wings were tasked to create a capabilities-based
financial plan for FY02. The groups reviewed
the results of the plan along with manpower as­
sessments to refine their understanding ofcommand capabilities. For FY03, the wings areusing Spiral 2 of the RAM to develop an im­proved capabilities-based financial plan andmanpower assessment. Each subsequent spiralwill iterate between the wings and command
headquarters to develop affordable standardsof performance across the command. Thosestandards will improve USAFE’s ability to provide balanced inputs to the Air Force’s Program Objective Memorandum.
The biggest change needed for full imple­
mentation of USAFE’s RAM will not occur
until Spiral 3 or beyond and must come from
implementation of AFRAP. The required bal­ance among capabilities within the command
ultimately depends on having an Air Forcedefinition of the relative value of each capa­
bility. As an operations and maintenancecommand, USAFE receives forces based onhigher-level decisions on what capability each
weapon system should have, how many sys­
tems to purchase, and whether to place themin-theater or deploy them from the continen­
tal United States. Implicit in these decisions
are value judgements based on each system’s
contribution to national security. An opera­
tions and maintenance command has neither
the resources nor the information to makesuch judgements. For this reason, USAFE is
working to define what is required from the
Air Force to enable the command’s resource
allocation.

Application to the Air ForceDevelopment of an Air Force RAM is con­sistent with the direction being taken by
AFRAP and would enable the Air Force tobalance its resources, based on capabilities.
Building an Air Force RAM requires threecrucial steps: dividing the resources amongcapabilities, determining the value of those41

capabilities, and implementing a process tobalance them over time. Dividing our resources in a meaningful way requires devel­
opment of a planning framework to catego­
rize capabilities. Setting the values for thosecapabilities demands analysis coupled with
continual process improvement. Balancing
our capabilities over time means adding another dimension to the RAM.
Henry Ford taught us that managing anything requires breaking it down into defin­
able pieces. The key lies in making the pieces
meaningful and useful for resource alloca­
tion. Over the last 20 years, DOD, the Joint
Staff, and the Air Force have developed many
excellent planning frameworks (table 1).
These frameworks were developed for manydifferent purposes but not specifically for resource allocation. Consequently, they don’t
include all resources, don’t adequately address support functions, and don’t provide
distinct categories meaningful to operations.
These characteristics are fairly easy toachieve, but none of the existing planning
frameworks has them all.
Table 1
Existing Planning Frameworks
US/DOD/Joint Planning Frameworks• 13 Title 10 functions• 2 DOD goals• 8 tasks in the Universal Joint Task List
• 6 elements in Joint Vision 2020• 12 areas for the Joint War-Fighting Capabilities
Assessment• 8 areas for the Joint Monthly Readiness Review
Air Force Planning Frameworks• 3 aspects of the vision• 6 core competencies• 7 Air Force tasks• 14 critical future capabilities• 6 mission areas in CONOPS 2020
• 7 elements and 5 capabilities in the strategic
concept• 4 elements in the Expeditionary Aerospace Forces
construct• 7 focus areas in the Vision Force• 3 Air Force goals

42

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

Since the purpose of the framework is toallocate resources, one must include all resources. Existing frameworks for visions or

The Air Force’s core competencies
provide an excellent list of theservice’s unique functions, but thefact that they are unique keeps
them from being complete.
concepts of operations address operational
functions, but they leave out the significant
peacetime roles assigned by Title 10, UnitedStates Code. Balancing only a part of thebudget will fail to provide the informationthat decision makers need.
Dividing the whole into manageablepieces is particularly important. Joint and Air
Force task lists provide definition for opera­
tional tasks but combine all Title 10 functions
under a single category. Title 10 breaks “or­ganize, train, and equip” into 13 functions,
showing that greater detail is required to describe the roles. However, Title 10 does notaddress the operational roles of our forces.
Our customers are the joint operations weare tasked to support. Since the customer es­
tablishes value, the framework must relate
our resources distinctly to operational effects.
The Air Force’s core competencies provide
an excellent list of the service’s unique func­
tions, but the fact that they are unique keeps
them from being complete. Resources cannot be cleanly divided between precision en­
gagement and global attack. One approachputs weapons under precision engagement
and platforms under global attack. But bothare usually needed to engage targets, and theoperational customer cannot possibly choose
between them.
The Air Force Task List describes all the ac­tivities performed by our service.17 A thor­
ough review of this list, along with applica­tion of the above characteristics, leads to apossible Air Force RAM intended to relate di­rectly to effects-based operations:• Global Power is the key combat capabil­
ity—the capacity to destroy or disable
desired targets.
• Global Reach is the capacity to moveforces—an enabling capability for engaging targets and a primary capability
for humanitarian missions.
• Global Vigilance is the capacity to use in­formation—an enabling capability forboth Reach and Power and a primarycapability for deterrence.
These three areas encompass the capabilities
that directly contribute to operational effects.
The proposed RAM also provides coverageof all the Air Force’s Title 10 resources in suf­
ficient detail:• Agile Combat Support is the capacity tosupport forces, whether deployed ornot.
• Quality People provides a category for all
our people programs.
• Enterprise Management allows insight into
the resources we spend on our im­mense management task.
• Innovation and Modernization groups
those capabilities used to transform ourforce and keep it viable into the future.
Each of these four capability areas includes assets that deploy to support operations, alongwith many used only for Title 10 functions.
All seven of the proposed areas need tohave direct costs allocated as much as possi­
ble. For example, if hangars are needed for
global-attack platforms, the cost of construc­tion and use should be captured underglobal attack. The costs of acquiring, operat­
ing, and maintaining the platforms and asso­
ciated equipment need to be allocated aswell. In addition, manpower and any special­ized training attributable to global attack
must be accounted for. This is the key to im­
plementing activity-based costing. As Secre­tary Roche said, “We start really hampered by
the fact there’s not an activity-based costing
system.”18 Accounting for costs of the prod-

LINKING RESOURCE ALLOCATION

ucts we deliver is the only way to assess theirvalue.
Once a planning framework is established,
the hard part becomes determining the valueof the individual capabilities. To do so, onemust define the optimum capability measuresand associated requirements, which necessi­
tates defining standardized or generic effects
applicable to different operational scenarios.
For example, we successfully use the “tonmiles-per-day” unit to help describe our abil­
ity to move materiel. Similarly, we need to address the number of meaningful targets-perday of power. Then we must do the same forvigilance and the other capability areas. Fi­
nally, we must apply these effects to a variety
of standardized operational scenarios to de­termine the driving requirements.
Repeated use of capability measures forallocating resources will result in standardsof performance, some of which we canadapt from measures already available, suchas C-ratings for combat and support sys­tems. We already apply C-ratings to our fa­
cilities. Over time, expectations will be gen­erated for other peacetime services as well.
As standards are developed and adjusted,
the process of allocating resources will become simpler. These standards will flow di­
rectly down to the major command and unit
levels through the capabilities framework.
The three USAFE capability groups in Spi­ral 2 map onto the proposed Air ForceRAM.
The step not yet addressed in USAFE’s Spi­ral 2—which must be addressed for Air Force
implementation—is addition of the time di­mension. Today’s modernization-planning
process is easily adaptable to AFRAP planning.
After developing capability measures and val­ues, one can then establish near-, mid-, andlong-term objectives. Current imbalances,the environment, and the affordability of po­
tential solutions will drive these capability ob­jectives. Capability options will be estab­lished, and a robust set of options will befunded to ensure a reasonable level of risk.
Gen Larry D. Welch said, “It’s all about bal­ancing modernization, readiness, people, and43

infrastructure: balancing our readiness todaywith our readiness tomorrow.”19 Achieving thisbalance requires implementation of the plan-

The problem we are dealing with inallocating 10s of billions of dollars
every year across a nearly infinite seriesof needs is complex.

ning portion of AFRAP. The proposed Air
Force RAM enables this implementation by
providing the capabilities-based planning
framework and the value of those capabilities.
Finally, if the Air Force integrates strategicplanning, performance management, and resource allocation through a RAM, the result
would be a truly “balanced scorecard”20 ap­
proach to management.

Summary and Conclusion
Making the “billion dollar” decisions that
we need to operate efficiently and effectively
in the twenty-first century requires three key
changes in the way the Air Force does busi­
ness. The first involves linking resource allo­
cation to performance management andstrategic planning. We developed the current
processes without a unifying construct. Our
experience shows that a management con­struct relating capabilities to mission-essential
tasks and to programs provides the needed
linkage. The strategic goals align with each ca­
pability, and the organizational-performancemeasures align with each mission-essentialtask.
The second key change is to create aprocess that is simple, transparent, and repro­
ducible. The new process must be simple—
both to implement and to use. The problem
we are dealing with in allocating 10s of bil­lions of dollars every year across a nearly infi­
nite series of needs is complex. We can’t af­
ford to wait while sophisticated techniques
for decision making are developed. We have

44

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

to get started by tackling the whole budget,not just shortfalls. To do so, we will need to
implement an approach based on continual“Whoever can manage his own house
well can also manage an estate,
whoever can keep ten men in order inaccordance with conditions may
be given a thousand.”

improvement. Our current promotion system
serves as a good example of a simple processthat is subject to continual improvement; it isalso transparent and reproducible. As withany new process, it was not as good when first
introduced as it is today. Over the years, im­provements have made it a highly rated andfair promotion process.
To be successful, a resource-allocation
process must also be transparent. Discussing the
new DOD management councils for improv­
ing business practices, Secretary Roche said,“We are going to be extraordinarily transpar­ent, and so when monies are saved in one area,
those monies will then be . . . applied to another area. . . . This is the incentive that is
healthy; it’s a win-win for everyone.”21 The
process has to reveal the total capability pro­vided by every program and lay the facts on thetable for all to see. By defining both the tradeups and the trade-offs, one can establish therelative value of each choice despite a lack ofperfect knowledge. Only then can we agree on
what is affordable and reward people for tak­ing cuts for the good of the service.
Reproducibility, the key to the new process’s
survival, must be based on standards of valuethat can be established, reused, and improved
over time. A single planning framework will
help develop the standards, record them as
they are established, and clarify the links
among programs and their intended opera­
tional effects. This framework is actually a cat­egorization scheme. Genghis Khan used adecimal system to manage his armies ingroups of 10,000 (called a “tuman”): “Whoever can manage his own house well can also
manage an estate, whoever can keep ten men
in order in accordance with conditions may
be given a thousand and a tuman and he will
also keep them in order.”22
The third key change entails developing
capability measures that allow Air Force deci­sion makers to deliver the best value to thewar fighter over time. Gregory S. Martin, thena lieutenant general and principal deputy as­
sistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisi­
tion, said, “Tying our resources to our capa­
bilities is the single most-important issue
facing the Air Force today.”23 We have shownthat in order to determine value, capabilities
must be related to resources on the one hand
and to operational effects on the other. Afterthese relationships are established, we can as­
sess the value of our investments over short-,
mid-, and long-term planning horizons. Esti­
mating the value of capabilities and invest­
ment options will require analysis, but, in theend, the proposed RAM is a tool for the deci­sion maker—not the analyst.
Our warriors can embrace this particularrevolution. It is based on the fundamental
principles of establishing teamwork, ensuring
capability for the war fighter, and following
the money! The improved decision making
that results will lead directly to real savings
and increased performance by spending theresources where they are most needed. In ad­
dition to these direct savings, aligning our ef­
forts will enhance the productivity of the entire Air Force. The biggest obstacle tomotivation occurs when people don’t knowwhat is expected of them. Sun Tzu said, “He
will win whose army is animated by the same
spirit throughout all its ranks. . . . But when
the army is restless and distrustful, trouble issure to come.”24 The ultimate improvementin the Air Force will come when our people
can be rewarded for providing the war fighter
the most “bang for the buck.” ■LINKING RESOURCE ALLOCATION

45

Notes
1. USAFE council meeting, Ramstein Air Base, Germany, 20
April 2001.
2. AFRAP was created in January 2000 under Headquarters
Air Force 2002, a major process-reengineering effort led by Lt
Gen Joseph H. Wehrle, deputy chief of staff for plans and programs (AF/XP), and guided by Mr. William A. Davidson, admin­
istrative assistant to the secretary (SAF/AA).
3. General Hogan was the mobilization assistant to AF/XP(see note 2).
4. Col John A. Warden III, “The Enemy as a System,” Airpower Journal 9, no. 1 (Spring 1995): 40–55, on-line, Internet,
available from http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchroni­
cles/apj/warden.html; and James A. Kitfield, “Another Look at
the Air War That Was,” Air Force Magazine 82, no. 10 (October1999), on-line, Internet, available from http://www.afa.org/maga­zine/1099eaker. html.
5. Department of Defense Directive (DODD) 7045.14, The
Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System, 22 May 1984.
6. Joint Publication 5-0, Doctrine for Planning Joint Operations,
13 April 1995, I-1.
7. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction (CJCSI)
3100.01A, Joint Strategic Planning System, 1 September 1999, E-5.
8. Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, Public Law
103-62.
9. “Vice President Gore’s National Partnership for Reinvent­ing Government,” on-line, Internet, 2 October 2001, available
from http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/npr/default.html.
10. The AFRAP process design consisted of four key subprocesses: Determine Capability Objectives, Develop Capability
Options, Allocate Resources, and Assess Performance. The entire
process was to be supported by end-to-end analysis.
11. Office of the Secretary of Defense (Acquisition and Tech­
nology), memorandum, subject: Reducing Life Cycle Costs for
New and Fielded Systems, 4 December 1995, attachment 2, Cost
as an Independent Variable (CAIV) Working Group Paper.

12. DOD news briefing, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul
Wolfowitz and service secretaries, 18 June 2001, on-line, Internet,
available from http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2001/
t06182001_t618dsda.html.
13. Ibid.
14. Any scale could have been used, including green-yellowred or A-B-C. However, allocation of resources favors a numericalsystem because the next step calls for relating the capability rat­
ing to dollars.
15. Dollars moved internally totaled $52 million. Total
USAFE resources for the Amended Program Objective Memo­randum of FY03 were $2.6 billion. A $76 million trade space wascalculated by subtracting the estimated discretionary funds re­quired for minimum acceptable performance ($1,376 million)
from the top-line discretionary funding ($1,452 million).
16. George Wilkie, Object-Oriented Software Engineering: The
Professional Developer’s Guide (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Pub­lishing Co., 1993), 111.
17. Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 1-1, Air Force Task
List, 12 August 1998.
18. DOD news briefing.
19. Meeting, Headquarters USAFE, Ramstein Air Base, Ger­
many, 2 July 2001.
20. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action (Boston, Mass.: Harvard Busi­
ness School Press, 1996).
21. DOD news briefing.
22. H. G. Wells, The Outline of History (Garden City, N.Y.: Garden City Publishing Co., 1925), 61; and Valentin A. Riasanovsky,
Fundamental Principles of Mongol Law (Bloomington: Indiana Uni­
versity, 1965), 200.
23. Tiger Team meeting, subject: Future Modernization Pri­orities and Process, Arlington, Va., September 1999.
24. Lionel Giles, The Art of War: The Oldest Military Treatise in
the World (Harrisburg, Pa.: Military Service Publishing Co., 1944).

It is better to see and communicate the difficulties and dangers
of an enterprise, and to endeavor to overcome them, than to beblind to everything but success till the moment of difficulty
comes, and to despond.
––Duke of Wellington

Ira C. Eaker Award Winners
for the 2000–2001 Academic YearFirst Place
Lt Col Paul C. Strickland, USAF
“USAF Aerospace-Power Doctrine:
Decisive or Coercive?”(Fall 2000)

Second Place
Lt Col Peter Hays, USAF,
and Dr. Karl Mueller“Going Boldly—Where? Aerospace Integra­tion, the Space Commission, and the Air
Force’s Vision for Space”(Spring 2001)

Third PlaceCharles Tustin Kamps“The JCS 94-Target List: A Vietnam MythThat Still Distorts Military Thought”(Spring 2001)

46

Silver Flag
A Concept for Operational Warfare
COL BOBBY J.WILKES, USAF

Editorial Abstract: Wargaming is like deterrence. It has to be credible, believable, andclearly communicated. Red Flag exercises have internalized this concept very well ina training context, but as Colonel Wilkes points out in this article, Air Force wargam­
ing would improve if it incorporated the Red Flag approach. Just as Red Flag exer­
cises the tactical level of war, so would Silver Flag wargaming steer to the operational
level. In doing so, our wargaming could rally back to a valuable use of the humandimension of gaming and better organize its processes and infrastructure by capital­
izing on available assets.

W

ITH THE WAR on terrorism andhomeland defense in full swing,along with many other nationaldefense challenges, the urgent
but continuing need for effective educationand training is enormous. Wargaming canand should play an important role in thatprocess.1 Red Flag has become a monumen­tal success in “training as we fight” at the tac­tical level, and we should capture the same vi­
sionary approach by using wargaming in
education and training at the operational
level of war (OPWAR). A Silver Flag, based onan effective use of wargaming, could comple­
ment our present Blue Flag exercises toround out an overall systemic approach to
OPWAR. For nearly two centuries, wargames
have proven vital in teaching military leadership how to think better—how to ask theright questions, how to anticipate, and how toadapt.2 Wargaming promotes understandingof the “operational art” of war. It provides ex­perience in decision making. It makes booklearning and classroom study come alive, re­inforcing the lessons of history and illuminat47

WINTER 2001

Issues developed from wargaming benefit war fight­
ers via education, training, and analysis.

Analysis

The Basis for
Good Decision Making

Operations

ing the theories behind effective planningand execution. These tremendous benefits
from wargaming, however, do not come without an investment that starts with recognitionof the value of wargaming to professional mil­itary education (PME) and training as well as
to military operations. This article promotes
wargaming as an innovative tool for achieving
successful war-fighting strategies. It shows
how wargaming is an integral part of the “or­ganize, train, and equip” mission of the ser­vice. It argues for a back-to-the-future focus
on the human aspects of wargaming to en­
hance greater effectiveness in how the Air
Force approaches wargaming today. Finally, it
recognizes the need for improved organiza­
tional efficiencies in the service’s wargaming
infrastructure to better meet current and fu­
ture national-security needs.3 Historically andpragmatically, strong reasons exist for refocusing and refining our use of this invaluable
tool in order to better plan and execute war.
One should not argue about whether
wargaming represents education or training—or whether it is operational or analytical.
It is all-inclusive. All tenets are instrumental inproducing issues that prepare war fighters andplanners to be good decision makers (fig. 1).
Along with its supporting tools of modelingand simulation, wargaming teaches people toprocess issues more effectively in making gooddecisions. In that sense, the professional application of wargaming can span a broad spectrum of times, scenarios, and circumstances.
No doubt, professional wargaming is a misnomer in that it reflects a very serious business. Considering it a luxury is foolish. Our
military personnel and organizations must be
well prepared, and wargaming can make thedifference, in terms of decisive training andeducation, in leaders’ competence (or incompetence) in the heat of battle.
One finds many historical examples ofwargaming’s contribution to successful strategies, operations, or tactics, and it is tempting
to try to prove the value of gaming by pointing to direct causality between wargames andsuccess in war. But that ploy, which constitutes
an abuse or misuse of history, is not the pur-

Education

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Training

48

Wargaming
Force Structure, Scenarios, Adjudication,
Methodology, Modeling, and Simulation

Figure 1. The Foundation of Decision
Makingpose here.4 For one thing, historians can only
guess as to how frequently and substantiallyprevious wargaming experiences may have in­fluenced wartime commanders’ decisions.
The unrecorded continuity between wargam­
ing and the thoughts of war-fighting com­manders is immense. Nevertheless, one finds
value in recognizing that wargaming has had
a historically important influence on the op­
erational art of war.
For example, the famous German offen­
sive plan to envelop France at the start of theFirst World War was a fatally modified versionof the so-called Schlieffen Plan, one originallyinfluenced to a great extent by Prussian
wargaming under Chief of the General Staff
Alfred Graf von Schlieffen.5 Later in thatsame war, military-member representatives to
the Allied Supreme War Council at Versailles,
France, participated in a wargame, trying toanticipate the level of German success. Players representing the enemy (German) side
wore their hats backwards as they accurately
predicted the timing and location of Ger­
many’s final major offensive.6 These exam­
ples were operationally oriented games designed to predict outcomes based on various
strategies and force structures.

SILVER FLAGOne may find another example, this one in­volving wargaming in an educational context,
by examining the US Naval War College(NWC), where gaming became part of theschool curriculum only three years after theschool was founded at Newport, Rhode Island,in 1887. Lt (later Capt) William McCarty Little
was the primary initiator of wargames at the
NWC, but, for the most part, the institution’s
leadership also enthusiastically embraced themas valuable educational tools and made them
integral to the course of study. In particular,
during his second term as college president,
from 1918 to 1922, Adm William S. Sims be­lieved that the primary purpose of the NWC
was to provide realistic education—more prac­
tical than theoretical. The goal was to have stu­
dents leave with the ability to command at
sea—so they needed decision-making experience.7 Wargames helped provide exactly that.
As a result, the college did not conduct just one
capstone game a year to reinforce classroom
teaching. It did lots of wargaming!
For example, between the First and Sec­ond World Wars, the NWC conducted morethan 300 games, mostly with scenarios of blue
versus orange fleets that usually involved con­flict with Japan. Admittedly, people havemade too much of the apocryphal remark at­tributed to Adm Chester Nimitz that no sur­prises occurred in the Second World War in
the Pacific except the kamikazes.8 Obviously,
disastrous “surprises” at Pearl Harbor and thePhilippines, for example, did not speak wellfor the fact that NWC wargaming had indeed
explored such contingencies. On the other
hand, that same NWC wargaming had notbeen intended for predictive purposes but toteach decision making. In that respect, amore important point becomes the NWC
wargames’ direct influence upon the evolu­tion of War Plan Orange, used to defeat Japan
during the war. Although much of that influ­
ence was indirect and could never be provenhistorically, it was likely due to the fact thatpeople like Nimitz and Adm Ernest King had
played those wargames. In particular, thefleet-exercise experience of “carrier admi­
rals,” such as William “Bull” Halsey, Frank49

Fletcher, and Marc Mitscher most likely had
an impact on their ability to fight decisive car­rier battles. Not only the admirals but also
their staffs learned through human interac­tion to improve adaptive decision-making
abilities. They gained experience, learned to
ask the right questions, and learned to antici­
pate the enemy and fog of war.
Wargaming during the interwar period was
not unique to the Navy, of course. At the Air
Corps Tactical School (ACTS) at Langley
Field, Virginia, and then Maxwell Field, Al­
abama, faculty members such as Maj Claire L.
Chennault and Capt George Kenney devel­
oped and conducted games, exercises, and“illustrative problems” to explore tactical andoperational uses of airpower for attack, bom­bardment, pursuit, and observation—often
using methods other than those traditionallyenvisioned by the Navy and Army.9 No doubt,
this activity had enormous subsequent impact
on American aviation during the Second
World War. But the actual gaming and exer­
cise process at ACTS was less than optimallyeffective due to arbitrary restrictions andrules to ensure, for example, that bombers
would always succeed and that pursuit would
always support bombardment in a prescribedmanner.10 By contrast, NWC wargaming had abetter approach.
In large part, the reason for NWC wargam­
ing’s success lay in its balanced approach tothe process of learning itself. In wargames,
the learning process is usually more impor­tant than the outcome of the gaming battle.
Whether one conducts analytical or manual
wargames, it is imperative not to “cook” thedata to try to “prove” a desired outcome. In
other words, one cannot allow the tools todominate the process.11 In addition, the more
we develop machine-centered analytical tools,
the more we must strive to maintain a bal­
anced state of wargaming that continues torecognize the value of human interaction.12
Alarmingly, however, the present trend is
to move away from that vital characteristic of
human involvement in decisions. There is an
insatiable appetite for detailed simulations,empowered by the exponential increase in

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WINTER 2001

computational power of the last 20 years, inpursuit of the unattainable—predicting a cer­tain outcome. By reinvigorating the old empha­
sis on the human dimension of wargaming,
we can tap its power to illuminate pertinent issues in the complex national-security envi­
ronment of the twenty-first century. Wargam­
ing could thus regain its utility as a thoughtprovoking tool that leads the way to military
understanding and innovation.
We are no longer in a static national-security
environment characterized by well-defined ad­
versaries and expected conflict. Admittedly, inthe context of the cold war, in which potentiallydecisive combat would occur between the large
armored and mechanized forces of two superpowers and their allies on the central German
plains, precise numbers really did matter.
Against an opponent with 10,000 tanks, an at­trition rate of 29 percent rather than 30 percent equates to 100 more enemy tanks in therear area. Thus, wargaming models appropri­
ately clashed large armored forces in areas
where terrain was of little consequence andwhere minor differences in projected attrition
rates were more important than human interaction and decision making. With attrition as
the key issue, the explosive increase in compu­
tational power during the latter half of thetwentieth century enabled the development ofmodels and simulations that were highly detailed in their representation of such attrition.
But such increased modeling and simulation
complexity, addressing ever-increasing force
levels and attrition rates, led to large, mono­
lithic events requiring sizable investments insupporting technological infrastructures andextended periods of preparation time.
As a result, the thought processes of opera­
tional art degrade while the inflexibility of themodels under development increases. This, inturn, leads to the types of doctrinal voids in the
Air Force so well articulated in Carl Builder’sbook The Icarus Syndrome.13 When much of the
Air Force initially approached Operation
Desert Storm with a doctrinal mind-set of AirLand Battle, our wargaming correspondingly
depicted airpower’s principal function as thedelivery of “fires” to support the ground

scheme of maneuver. Thus, wargaming, which
could have been an effective support tool for
exploratory campaign planning, was not nearlyas significant a contributor to planning for the
Gulf War as it could have been. Not much haschanged in the last decade to improve the flex­
ibility of databases and models.
In the quest for Jominian prescriptive
answers, quantitative mathematical analyses
clearly have their advantages. Yet, they havedisadvantages as well (fig. 2). Reproducibility
can make mathematical simulations very use­
ful from an analytical perspective, but theirabstractness, by definition, produces only anapproximation of reality. Consequently, they
are less than perfect for future leaders trying
to grapple with the chaos of war. But arguingfor one type instead of the other misses the point.
Wargaming should not be a zero-sum “game” between mutually exclusive types; rather, these types
are mutually complementary. Just as we should notdiscredit the value of analytical simulations, soshould we not allow machine-centered analysis toeclipse computer-assisted gaming that takes advan­
tage of human interaction in exploring the com­
plexities of warfare that cannot be precisely modeled
mathematically.
Part of the reason wargaming has ebbed
and flowed with inconsistent popularity, wan­ing support, and erratic integration into PME,
as well as the nonacademic military environ­ment, lies within the wargaming process itself.
It has a flaw that can prove fatal. This flaw, as
depicted in figure 2, has to do with conven­ience, flexibility, and—correspondingly—time­liness. As one of the world’s first wargamers,
Baron von Reisswitz learned in the early nine­
teenth century that the king did not appreci­
ate waiting a year for a wargame to be ready.14
A dose of reality is that to be effective, wargaming
must be timely and flexible enough to accommodate
the desired objectives of the game sponsor. Many
wargames have gone the way of the dinosaurs.
They lacked organizational commitment, took
too long to spin up, did not adapt to changing
needs of the sponsor, and failed to produce
valuable learning. The Air Force is now expe­
ditionary, light, lean, and lethal—and wargam­
ing must adjust accordingly.

SILVER FLAG

Military
Field Exercises
andExperiments

ManualWargames

Computer-Assisted
Wargames

Interactive
Computer
Simulations

No
Man-in-the-Loop
Computer
Simulations

51

Pure
Mathematical
AnalysesMore

Human-Decision Impact and Operational Realism

Less

Less

Degree of Abstraction

More

Less

Outcome Reproducibility, More Generality

More

More

Convenience and Flexibility

Less

Figure 2. Spectrum of Gaming and Analysis

More specifically, successful wargaming
must effectively address key questions involv­
ing the interaction of the principal actors in
the wargaming process (fig. 3). The sponsor’s
desires in fulfillment of the intended purposeof the game must drive the overall process to
produce a valuable experience for partici­
pants and sponsor. This requires good plan­ning; an ad hoc approach will certainly fail.

Game
Controller

SponsorPlayers
Capability
IssuesForce-Structure
IssuesCampaign
Insights
Key
IssuesAnalyses• Objectives• Measures of Merit• Issues• Analyses

Figure 3. Game Process

With a good plan that drives an adaptable but
timely process, the goal of zero disconnects
between each acting agency in the designand-execution loop is achievable.
As the service continues to organize, train,
and equip, wargaming can spearhead thoughtprocesses. To maximize the benefits of its investment in wargames, the Air Force must inte­
grate efforts with exercises, battle labs, experi­mentation, and analysis offices (fig. 4). The
insights provided by wargaming help drive an“innovation battle space” and can take the formof issues requiring further exploration in dif­ferent areas: command and control proce­dures, quantitative system or force-structure
trade-offs, or basic system capabilities that ap­
pear highly attractive but need a feasibility
check from a battle lab or an advanced concept
technology demonstration (ACTD) effort.
Getting down to pragmatics, wargaming
simply must relate more closely to the fightand become more relevant for war fighters. A
mistaken impression exists that educational
wargames, in particular, are just for students
in PME courses. Not so. All war fighters canand should benefit greatly from experience
with wargaming. Currently, however, users
complain about the artificiality of wargames.
Unfortunately, they are often correct. War-52

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

Organize

Air Force
VisionuipqEStrategic
Plan

Tra
in

Air ForceStudiesand Analyses
AgencyDoctrine

Small
BusinessInnovation
Research

Professional
Military
Education

Concept ofOperations

AnnualPlanning andProgramming
Guidance

Professional
andContinuing
Education

Wargames
Advanced
Technology
Demonstration

Experiments
Air Force
Research
Laboratory

BattleLabs

Joint
WarriorInteroperability
Demonstration

Joint
Test andEvaluation

Figure 4. OPWAR/Wargaming Nexus (Adapted from Air Force Policy Directive 10-23, “Innovation Program,” draft, 30 August 2001, 2)

games are a waste of time and effort if they
don’t reflect reality and if they are artificiallyengineered toward a “desired” outcome.
Wargaming students, whether from num­
bered air forces or PME schools, are nofools—they expect legitimacy. Tremendous
potential value lies in the legitimate intellec­
tual exploration of doctrinal issues, new con­cepts of operations, aspects of information
warfare, ways of apportioning and allocating
high-demand/low-density assets, and otherleading-edge concerns that wargaming canaddress. However, playing the same tired sce­narios, based on outdated attrition algo­rithms, year after year negates the very utilityof wargaming. But the opportunity to address
new concerns with new gaming is immense.
For example, the Air Force sees the air op­
erations center (AOC) as a weapon system. As
such, it needs capable people there to help
plan and execute the air portion of the cam­paign. Yet, many personnel arrive at AOCs
with insufficient knowledge, experience, ordecision-making ability. AOC strategy andplans divisions do not have longer-range
wargaming efforts. Therefore, gaming centersshould work this problem with realistic scenar­
ios and facilities that can accurately depict andSILVER FLAG

exercise the process from objectives to assess­ment. Although wargaming is certainly not aweapon system, it can help portray one accu­
rately. Again, the human element is key. The
AOC uses machines, but it depends upon
people as decision makers.
Critics will still try to argue that this confuses training with education. Certainly, as­pects of learning how to operate in an AOC
are purely a matter of training. But such train­
ing does not have to isolate itself from educa­
tional needs. In other words, we must ask
such important questions as, What role does
wargaming play in the education and training
of AOC personnel? Our wargaming centersshould then execute the process involved
with that answer.
Today, the most notable wargames in the
Department of Defense are the services’ Title
X games, which, unsurprisingly, the Navy ini­
tiated in 1981.15 The Air Force entered thisTitle X gaming arena when Gen Ronald
Fogleman, as chief of staff, recognized thevalue of the NWC games and the need to es­
tablish a level playing field for all the services.
The resultant Air Force Title X effort was
based upon a game-design concept then in
use for the Aerospace Power Symposium’s
wargame conducted annually at Maxwell Air
Force Base, Alabama, which involved corpo­
rate and senior civic leaders in an attempt toincrease their understanding of the issues fac­
ing the military services. General Fogleman,
however, changed the audience to senior
members of joint war-fighter staffs and refo­cused their purpose to address near-term, op­erational-level, war-fighting issues.
The initial game took place in 1996 under
the title “Strategic Force ’96” and has subse­
quently evolved into the Global Engagement(GE) series. More recently, the Air Force has
added two more games: an Air Force Future
Capabilities game, which looks at a more dis­tant time period, and a Space wargame, dedi­
cated to examining future issues related tothe military use of space.
Developing these wargames has been apositive step for the Air Force; unfortunately,
the wargaming problems identified earlier

53

still haunt the process. Analytic tools focusedon attrition require painstaking efforts to refocus them on different geographic areas orforce structures.16 Their inflexibility in addressing present and near-future war-fighting
issues in wargames produces large, expensive
games that are equally inflexible and require
excessively long lead times. In fact, prepara­tion for the various service Title X wargames
and capstone games supporting PME schools
takes longer than many real-world operations.17 Even the games’ seemingly impressive
analytic capability often comes up short in
shedding light on important nonattrition,
nonkinetic war-fighting issues of the day.
In addition, a review of recent Title X
games shows a definite tendency to posit con­flict with adversaries committing large force
structures to the conflict, oftentimes in lessthan optimal geographic locations. Clearly,
such force levels can be assembled within thenext 10–20 years, but that is not the trend intoday’s national-security environment.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld re­cently stated, “Our current national security
environment is dynamic with limited forecast­ing visibility.”18 In the Quadrennial Defense Review Report, he notes that “it is not enough toplan for large conventional wars in distanttheaters. Instead, the United States must
identify the capabilities required to deter anddefeat adversaries who will rely on surprise,
deception, and asymmetric warfare to achieve
their objectives.”19 Again, the message is clear.
Wargaming must have greater agility in addressing smaller-scale scenarios with multiple
branches and sequels.
In short, we risk losing the wargaming vi­
sion and lesson from Newport. Wargaming
must meet the educational and training
needs of war fighters and students in terms oftimeliness, flexibility, realism, and focus. It isa mistake to demand definitive answers tocomplex issues from a tool best used to raisequestions. Again, the strength of wargaming
lies in exploring alternatives and enhancing
insights into likely courses of action, not inproviding quantitative results.

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For example, one of the most enlightening
and helpful wargames in some time was theSouth Asia game conducted concurrently
with the 1999 Global game at Newport. The
former provided a forum for exploring theoperational aspects involved with the aftermath of a nuclear exchange. It allowed for ex­
ploration of US interagency coordination as
well as coalition-government cooperation
with nongovernment organizations and pri­vate volunteer organizations in a military op­
eration other than war. Aside from some ballpark casualty estimates for the detonation of
the nuclear weapons, it required no directmodel support. This might be the kind ofgame that is exceedingly relevant and timely,
given current national-security concerns ofterrorist attacks on the continental UnitedStates.
Turning toward suggestions for the future,
the services’ Title X efforts have identified
some important war-fighter issues but not tothe depth required. For example, we needmore work on coalition relationships—espe­
cially exploration of command, control, com­munications, and computer capabilities re­quired for allies—as well as on technologicaland doctrinal gaps. After GE IV, althoughsome parties expressed solid support for agame on key coalition issues, budgetary limi­
tations precluded a game focused solely on
this critical topic. Other examples of poten­
tially key issues for the Title X series include
exploring improved employment concepts
for the air expeditionary force; better understanding of escalation-control measures; un­derstanding the trade-offs between air, space,and surface intelligence, surveillance, and re­connaissance (ISR) capabilities; and examin­
ing numerous issues regarding both policy
and technology of information operations.
The human-centered, qualitative nature of
wargaming can and should make great con­tributions to furthering our understanding ofoperational art, specifically in the emerging
areas of information operations, homeland
defense, and effects-based operations. In ad­
dition, we can improve in the area of gaming
economic and political realities of militaryforce application. To make this happen, however, assessors must be able to adjudicate ap­
plicable factors with effective support materi­als. Otherwise, they have to rely exclusively on
personal judgment—both for attrition andnonattrition phenomena—which does notmeet the mark. Some of the hypothetical
campaigns developed during recent games
suggest a singular inability to understand thecomplex interaction of these factors.
Representation of the protagonist is another area that requires examination. Have
we consciously decided that having a profes­
sional red team is not a good investment? Ef­
fective wargames cannot constrain the oppo­
sition to the extent that the moves do notreflect the adversary’s operational art. Simi­
larly, we can improve our common treatmentof logistics, whose critical limiting factors are
frequently overlooked to prevent them frominterfering with the unfolding of the opera­
tional plan.
A deliberate effort to refine investment in
Air Force wargaming could dramatically im­
prove synergistic effects across all aspects of
the innovation battlefield. Without getting
too much into the weeds, this funneled effort
could lead the way to a more efficient study of
OPWAR (table 1) and could produce resultsfor OPWAR similar to those produced by Red
Flag for the tactical level of war.
Table 1
Potential Initiatives
for a Silver Flag OPWAR• “Train as we fight” at the OPWAR—a
Silver Flag.
• Link the fields of doctrine, concepts ofoperations, research, education, andgaming—synergy through wargaming.
• Better address the key issues for whichgames are sponsored, going beyond sur­face concepts—detailed analysis.
• Improve assessment methodology, ex­ploring a “building block” approach byusing in-depth, pregame analysis of arange of likely interactions selected andSILVER FLAG

assembled during game execution—building blocks.
• Shift the emphasis from the large, cul­minating event to multiple, intensely fo­
cused events—smaller games.
• Dramatically shorten wargame develop­
ment time—improved models.
• Design game-assessment methodologies
that better reflect the shift from attri­
tion warfare to effects-based warfare—better modeling and simulation.
• Develop a campaign-planning-level wargaming capability that can be brought
to war fighters; tailored to their scenarios,
areas of responsibility, and issues of in­terest; and integrated into home-station
staff education and training—a suitcase
wargame.
• Develop a cadre of experts equippedwith appropriate resources—in-house
red-team expertise.
• Build a state-of-the-art Silver Flag facility
rivaling those at Carlisle Barracks,
Pennsylvania, and Newport to educate
and train leaders, generate ideas, anddevelop issues, making it the source of
OPWAR thinking—a Silver Flag home.
The challenge is to reinvigorate the support thatwargaming provides to developing the operationalart of war by refocusing the objectives of Title X
wargaming toward addressing the uncertainties ofthe future—a challenge laid out by the secretary ofdefense in the “terms of reference” for the Quadren­
nial Defense Review. Capitalizing on the signifi­
cant investments in game-preparation materi­als made for Title X wargames and couplingthat with a transportable gaming capability,
one could provide the essential tools for thestaffs of the numbered air forces and thecommanders in chief to begin exploring theirunderstanding of adversary options as well as
branches and sequels.
Just as the US Army is currently wargamingits “transformation” at Carlisle Barracks, so
might the Air Force capitalize on the benefitof a Silver Flag center’s exploration of new

55

concerns. For example, in addition to the
AOC issue already discussed, numerous as­
pects of weaponizing space relate to homeland defense and pose viable challenges.
A key ingredient to the success of NWC
wargaming was the Navy’s opinion that the“opportunity to pit one intellect and willagainst another was seen as an essential ele­ment in the education of a naval officer.”20 To
promote this concept, service variety in theranks of senior game assessors and “higher
authority” players seems to make good sense.
Again, the goal is to examine ideas and ex­
plore concepts descriptively rather than pre­scriptively. Therefore, we must build a game
construct and atmosphere that intensify rather thandilute the competition of ideas. Accordingly, an Air
Force–only assessment of Air Force–centered con­cepts may prove shortsighted. Air Force members
better understand the attributes of airpower
when they confront competing arguments—
not when they insulate themselves from con­trary concepts.
Finally, we can streamline some of thewargaming preparatory process. Under current game-design constructs, participants
often spend most of their time deciding how
to deploy, employ, and (hopefully) sustain
forces—typically, not the major objectives of
the wargame but definitely part of their task­
ing. Certainly, the requirement to develop a
campaign plan may be the primary purposeof wargames run in the operational or PME
environment, where the learning experienceis paramount. On the other hand, briefings
by game-control teams on some of the more
fundamental matters of force employment
and campaign planning, based on limited inputs from key players, could free players to focus
primarily on the key issues identified by the gamesponsor without undermining player buy-in to thegame. Typically, however, the Title X games
are run to develop a better understanding of afew key issues. Freeing Title X players from thedeployment and employment issues allows
them to focus on cutting-edge policy issues.
The Newport wargaming that contributed
to War Plan Orange involved more than asingle game; similarly, our PME institutions

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WINTER 2001

could benefit from increased integration of
wargaming (not just capstone experiences)
into curricula. The challenge, of course, islimited budgets and limited time. Thus, thecoupling of Title X resources for analysis support with PME wargaming, as well as the link­ing of wargaming assets across the Air Forceand Department of Defense, should be a win­ning combination. The Air Force could bene­
fit from an overall review of its sizable invest­
ment in Title X wargaming, modeling, andsimulation, keeping in mind the value inusing gaming to reach as many of the rightpeople in critical positions as possible.
The main value of wargaming lies in ex­
ploring operational art to develop insights

into issues and concepts of current and future
operations. It does not reside in trying to pre­dict or prove outcomes, such as for budgetaryand force-structure justification. The GE ex­perience shows that games can reveal fruitful
areas for subsequent in-depth analysis. Issues
developed from wargames could serve as aroad map to focus the efforts of battle labs,
war-fighting centers, joint-experimentation
projects, and expeditionary-force initiatives.
This map would promote a coherent, efficient,and economical wargaming effort. Just as airmen have learned the most effective ways toapply aerospace power, so should we explore
the most productive uses of wargaming. ■Notes
1. Although wargaming is distinct from modeling and simu­
lation, for simplicity’s sake, this article uses the terms inclusively
to focus primarily on seminar-style educational wargames con­ducted to explore operational-/strategic-level issues, for the en­lightenment of either the sponsor or the participants.
2. Eliot A. Cohen and John Gooch, Military Misfortunes: The
Anatomy of Failure in War (New York: Vintage Books, 1991), 26. In
On the Psychology of Military Incompetence (New York: Basic Books,
Inc., 1976), 27–35, Norman Dixon discusses the difficulty ofhuman decision making in the two basic activities of war—deliv­
ering energy and communicating information.
3. The purpose is definitely not to argue for wargaming overmodeling and simulation. They are complementary tools, eachserving a unique and vitally important function for our service.
4. Wargaming literature often omits incidents concerning
wargaming’s deleterious effects on decision making in war. Al­
though this article touches on just a few historical examples forpurposes of illustration, for a more comprehensive look at thehistory of wargaming, see Matthew Caffrey Jr.’s “Toward a HistoryBased Doctrine for Wargaming,” Aerospace Power Journal 14, no. 3(Fall 2000): 33–56; and Peter P. Perla III, The Art of Wargaming: A
Guide for Professionals and Hobbyists (Annapolis: Naval InstitutePress, 1990), 1–160.
5. Perla, 41.
6. Eric Ash, Sir Frederick Sykes and the Air Revolution,
1912–1918 (London: Frank Cass, 1999), 99.
7. Perla, 70.
8. Ibid., 73.
9. See course text titled The Air Force (Langley Field, Va.: Air
Corps Tactical School, 1930), 19; and Caffrey, 42.
10. The Air Force, 59. It is interesting to ponder whether
Chennault himself, or perhaps one of his disciples at ACTS, scrib­
bled “OUT ! ! ! !” in the margin of a copy of the course text, re­ferring to an underlined passage mandating how pursuit aircraft
had to follow a prescribed rendezvous with bombardment air-craft, thereby restricting their freedom of action. See also Robert
T. Finney, History of the Air Corps Tactical School, 1920–1940 (1955;
reprint, Washington, D.C.: Center for Air Force History, 1992),
63–68.
11. Perla, 8.
12. Ibid., 163–67. Throughout his book, Perla implies thatthe principal discriminator between wargames and closed-form,
simulation-based analyses is the ability to accommodate thehuman-decision element.
13. Carl H. Builder, The Icarus Syndrome: The Role of Air Power
Theory in the Evolution and Fate of the U.S. Air Force (New Brunswick,
N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1994), 3–37.
14. Perla, 24.
15. The Global Wargame series started in 1981 as a summer
activity for students arriving to attend the Naval War College.
Over time the game grew to be the largest and best-known
wargame within the Department of Defense. Although early par­ticipants were known to have “proven it at Newport” and at least
one game culminated with the NWC president thanking thegamers for having “proven” the maritime strategy, game design­
ers have had considerable license to experiment, both with na­
tional-strategy issues and with wargaming methodologies. As a re­sult, the game has been a major contributor to the advancement of
the wargaming art form.
16. Such tools generally involve complex, computer-driven
algorithmic equations.
17. GE IV took 15 months of preparation. Allied Force took
78 days. The trend is not encouraging: GE VI will take over 24months.
18. Donald H. Rumsfeld, “Terms of Reference for Quadren­
nial Defense Review,” pamphlet, 22 June 2001, 9.
19. Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, 30 September 2001, iv, on-line, Internet, 5 November 2001,
available from http://www.comw.org/qdr/qdr2001.pdf.
20. Perla, 68.

The Cultof the Quick
DR.ThOMAS HUGHES
cult: great or excessive devotion or dedication
to some person, idea, or thing . . . such de­votion regarded as a literary or intellectual
fad or fetish.
––Webster’s Third New
International Dictionary

Editorial Abstract: Speed is the mantra of the
Air Force. We seek rapid aerospace dominanceand push to cow enemies quickly with shock
and awe. But does fast always mean success­ful? The doctrinal “cult of the offensive” inWorld War I championed quick victory in the­ory but experienced disastrous stalemate inpractice. Suggesting the relative newness of
our worship of speed, Dr. Hughes uses histor­
ical precedent to show that a more gradual ap­
proach to warfare can achieve military objec­
tives as well as the quick strike.

I

N OCTOBER 1999, the US Senate
Armed Services Committee heard
testimony from American leadersof the North Atlantic Treaty Organiza­
tion’s (NATO) air war over Kosovo the pre­vious spring. In his remarks, Lt Gen
Michael Short, US Air Force, found
fault with the targeting and paceof Operation Allied Force (OAF).
Had he been in charge, he told
the senators, “I’d have gone
for the head of the snake on
the first night. I’d have dropped
the bridges across the Danube[River]. I’d have hit five or six political andmilitary headquarters in downtown Belgrade.
[Serbian president Slobodan] Milosevic andhis cronies would have waked up the firstmorning asking what the hell was going on.”Throughout OAF, Short had clashed with his
superior, the US Army’s Gen Wesley Clark,
NATO commander, on a score of issues––tothe point that some staff officers for bothmen believed Clark should have relieved
Short. However, on the matter of the proper
pace of military operations, Clark agreed withhis aggressive subordinate. “I think one of thelessons that comes out of Allied Force,” Clark
testified, “is the need that once you cross thethreshold to move as rapidly as possible to thedecisive use of force.”1
Like the relationship between Clark andShort, the one among US military services isoften marked bydifferences, particu­
larly on issues relating
to the nature, prepara­tion, and conduct of warfare. These dif­ferences, manifest to even casual ob­
servers, make Department of Defense(DOD) efforts such as the Quadrennial Defense
Review and the process of writing joint doctrine difficult and often acrimonious. But
also, like Clark and Short, Pentagon officials
appear to speak with one voice on the matterof speed in war. Universally, across all services,among military officers and civilian staffers,
and from the chairman’s office to the enlisted
57

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corps, those charged with the stewardship ofnational defense view speed as an inherent
advantage in warfare. In their view, speed has
intrinsic value in the strategic, operational,

Current DOD orthodoxy, however,makes no adequate distinction between time and speed. Rather,military thinkers prescribe rapidity ofaction as the only way to leveragetime in the conduct of war.
and tactical conduct of war. With increasing
unanimity, professionals and pundits alikeextol the virtues of velocity. They link it inex­
orably with the decisive use of force andjudge any suggestion or effort to restrain thepace of military operations as anathema to
the sound principles and long experience of
warfare.
War is far too variable and local circum­
stances are far too diverse to sustain any suchhoary maxim. Time, as distinct from speed, isof course an essential element of war; one
keen observer believes it “will rule tacticallyand operationally” and is “undoubtedly theleast forgiving of error among strategy’s di­mensions.”2 Current DOD orthodoxy, however, makes no adequate distinction between
time and speed. Rather, military thinkers prescribe rapidity of action as the only way toleverage time in the conduct of war. But theutility of time across all levels of warfare also
requires the willingness and ability to reduce
the pace of military operations, as any careful
examination of military experience demon­
strates. Ironically, without tolerance for thegradual and incremental conduct of war, theAmerican military has undercut the value ofits vaunted capacity for speed. It is the will­
ingness to modulate operations over time, farmore than a simpleminded pressure on thethrottle, that makes speed an advantage in
war and best defends against enemies who
may employ patience––time of a different
sort––as a weapon.

Of Doctrine and Dictate
References to speed are everywhere in the
DOD. Service doctrine is full of it. “The mili­tary’s ability to respond quickly and decisively,”asserts the Army’s basic manual on operations,
Army Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Operations, “isfundamental to Army operations doctrine.”3
For its part, the Navy’s capstone doctrine
claims that the forward presence of its ships
and aircraft is “essential to permit the UnitedStates to act quickly in meeting any crises that
affect our security.”4 Beyond this, the Navy be­lieves that “rapid high tempo actions” areamong the best ways to exploit the dynamics of
war and that “tempo is more than a means toemploy weapons better; it is a weapon itself.”5 The Marine Corps, sometimes self-described as the nation’s 911 force, agrees. “Of all
the consistent patterns we can discern in war,”
Marine Corps Doctrine Publication (MCDP) 1,
Warfighting, explains, “there are two conceptsof universal significance in generating combat
power: speed and focus. Speed is rapidity of ac­tion. It applies to both time and space. Speedover time is tempo—the consistent ability tooperate quickly. Speed over distance, or space,is the ability to move rapidly. Both forms are
genuine sources of combat power. In otherwords, speed is a weapon” (emphasis in origi­nal).6The Air Force, the fastest of the services,
also extols speed. Its slender 85-page Air
Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 1, Air Force
Basic Doctrine, contains at least 22 references
to speed as an advantage in war.7 Elsewhere,
Air Force doctrine asserts a “new American
Way of War” that “uses the rapid employmentof sophisticated military capabilities to engage a broad array of targets simultaneously,
strongly, and quickly, with discriminate appli­
cation, to decisively shape the conflict andavoid the results of previous wars of attrition
and annihilation.”8
DOD joint doctrine mirrors service pro­nouncements. Joint Publication (Pub) 1, Joint
Operations of the Armed Forces of the United States,
proclaims, “American arms seek rapid decisionin simultaneous application of all appropriate
dimensions of combat power.”9 Moreover, theTHE CULT OF THE QUICK

basic goal in all war operations is a “rapid” de­cision, and “arriving first with the most capabil­
ity clearly remains the objective.”10 The basic
joint manual for operations goes a step further,mandating that objectives in war “must directly,
quickly, and economically contribute to the
purpose of the operation.”11 Clearly, at a time
when disputes among the services have com­pelled some Pentagon observers to liken the
DOD to a schizophrenic as it tries to relate ser­vice and joint doctrine, the entire military pays
uniform homage to the important element ofspeed in war.12
This reverence for rapidity is not limited to
doctrine. From the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s(JCS) Joint Vision 2010 to Marine Corps Strategy
21 to an Air Force booklet titled 10 Proposi­tions Regarding Air Power, official publications
revel in speed.13 Gen Eric Shinseki, Army
chief of staff, promises to convert the Armyfrom a plodding, cold-war behemoth to aswift, new-world dynamo in a series of shifts
known inside the Army as the “Transforma­tion.”14 Gen John Jumper, Air Force chief ofstaff, has a similar initiative. His Global Strike
Task Force “is a rapid-reaction, leading-edge,
power-projection concept that will deliver
massive around-the-clock firepower” in a bid
to become the nation’s “kick down the door
force.” Through something called “predictive
battle-space awareness,” Jumper believes that
the Air Force should strive not merely forswift reaction but also for fast preemption in
the conduct of war.15 For its part, the Joint
Staff’s professional journal, Joint Forces Quar­
terly (JFQ), regularly trumpets the virtue ofquickness. The Summer 1998 issue, dedi­
cated to “a look back at the best of JFQ,” un­derscored the value of speed. One article
claimed that “the need to identify, target, andattack in near real-time is now a fact of life”
and that “the commander can no longer af­
ford the luxury of thinking in terms of days,
weeks, or months to phase campaigns or moveforces.”16 Another article, which grandly iden­tified time as the fourth dimension of war
alongside air, land, and sea, insisted thatspeed was the only way to exploit time.17 Pres­
ident George W. Bush reflects all this stress on

59

speed. “Military power,” he has asserted, is“increasingly defined not by size and mass but
by mobility and swiftness.”18
Perhaps commentary about the 1999 air war
over Kosovo best reveals this ingrained dictate
for speed. Dozens if not hundreds of news ac­
counts as well as many academic, scholastic,
and professional articles added weight to Gen­
eral Short’s carping about the pace of OAF.19
The Air Force, the service with the preponder­
ant responsibility in Kosovo, loudly criticized
the conduct of the campaign. A leading Air
Force surrogate complained, “Allied Forcebegan as an attempt to signal Milosevic that
NATO was serious about using force rather
than as a decisive military operation designed
to achieve victory.” As a result, “it took NATO30 days to do what General Norman Schwarz­
kopf did in about three days in the Gulf War.”20
An official Air Force report, while careful toclaim the “decisiveness of airpower,” also decried the gradual approach of the war. “Admit­
tedly, the campaign did not begin the way that
America would normally apply airpower—mas­sively,” the report’s authors wrote. But as soon
as the “air campaign grew in intensity,” it“achieved its desired outcome.” The authors
then set out to undercut whatever precedentmight exist in OAF for the gradual applicationof force:
Because air power offers the potential for great
destruction while ordering relatively few war­riors into harm’s way, its use becomes an attrac­
tive political option. By default then, it becomes
acceptable to commit incrementally to military
operations calibrated by the success or failureof the previous increment of military action.
The attraction is obvious, in that one can avoid
a commitment to the intensity and violence re­quired by a decisive and rapid military victory.
The risk is failure.21

In isolation and at a glance, the DOD’s glo­rification of speed appears reasonable. Strate­
gic circumstances certainly exist in which ra­
pidity of action could be valuable—even
critical. However, this bias for speed ignores
local conditions. Surely, speed’s legitimate advantage in warfare under some circumstances
does not ensure its value under all circum-

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stances. Kosovo is not the entire Balkans,
Persian Gulf, Korean Peninsula, or Chinese
mainland, which in turn is not the new topog­
raphy of international terrorism. At a time
when the American military has global com­mitments arrayed at variable threats, both
real and potential, the Pentagon’s singleminded view of speed leaves the nation’s defenders poorly prepared for the range of mil­itary opposition and enemies they may face.

The Journey to Speed
The DOD’s love affair with speed is neither
ageless nor inevitable. Emerging over time, itis the product of larger cultural trends as wellas the Pentagon’s perceived lessons of past
warfare and its assessment of present threats.
Military institutions are part of larger soci­eties, and since the Enlightenment, Western
populations have generally pursued the ca­
pacity for quickness as an intrinsic good. Thispattern, especially prevalent in industrial so­cieties like the United States, has fostered ahost of scholastic and popular commentary.
The modern computer age has acted as akind of steroid in this process, elevating speed
to a virtual theology.22
Larger cultural trends are not the only in­fluences that condition martial ideas, however.23 Well-developed military institutions
are marked by a high degree of internal co­hesion. Morever, they maintain rigid entry re­quirements and provide internal training andeducation. In other words, they are capable ofinternal intellectual trends. Within the DOD,
then, the quest for speed stems also from be­liefs about past military experience and pres­ent assessments of future threats.
Rapidity was not always a touchstone inAmerican military thought, despite positivereferences to it in many of the strategic analy­
ses favored by the Pentagon. In the War of Independence, George Washington’s Continen­
tal Army leveraged a patient, incremental,
and modulated campaign against the world’s
greatest military force. Eventually, the British
Empire decided that further hostilities in the
New World were not in its interests. During

the Civil War, the Anaconda Plan reflected
the Union Army’s strategic preference to defeat the Confederacy through a slow and deliberate squeezing; it was the South, theweaker military power, that sought a swift outcome on the battlefield. Throughout thefrontier wars, which stretched from well before independence to shortly before 1900,
the American Army marched westward no
faster than expanding white settlement de­manded and required.
The desire for speed gathered momentum
in the twentieth century as America’s strategic
obligations broadened across the globe. Afterthe Spanish-American War, the United Statesneeded to provide a naval defense in the At­
lantic and Pacific Oceans using a navy ade­quate for the protection of only one ocean at
a time, a condition that stressed mobility andspeed. The Navy’s Great White Fleet voyage of1907–8 was designed to test the nation’s abil­
ity to reach Earth’s four corners, and the
Panama Canal was built in large part to ensure a speedy transfer of fighting ships fromthe Atlantic to the Pacific. Before World War
I, War Plan Orange, the Navy’s operational
plan for combat with Japan, stressed the needto project power quickly across the vast Pa­
cific to protect the nation’s new colony in thePhilippine Islands. In the interwar years, Or­ange was also a powerful impetus to the de­velopment of aircraft carriers, increasingly
seen as a means of rapid movement. In fact,from the genesis of Orange in 1904 until
World War II, the speed of a fleet movement
across the ocean was the central determinantof the war plan’s many variations.24
Land-based military aviation furthered thisspeed-mindedness. In the 1920s, airplane theo­rists and advocates like Brig Gen William
Mitchell trumpeted aviation’s capacity to cul­minate war quickly, an attractive proposition toa generation soured by the memory of long,deadly, and seemingly indecisive trench com­bat during World War I. In the 1930s, America’s
growing strategic interests around the world,the memory of the Great War, and the promiseof a quicker war next time encouraged a con­centration on rapidity among war planners. As

THE CULT OF THE QUICK

a result, by the eve of World War II, no one se­riously questioned the dictum of Gen George
Marshall, Army chief of staff, that no democ­racy could endure a 10-year war.25
For good reason, the atomic age further ac­
cented the virtues of velocity. During the cold
war, the United States, for the first time in its
history, stood vulnerable to widespread de­struction at a moment’s notice. As a result,
America’s strategic deterrence rested on thetactical ability to deliver a nuclear strike of its
own in a matter of hours, even minutes. The
military organization first entrusted with thisdeterrent mission, the Air Force’s Strategic Air
Command, came to dominate both the fiscal
and cultural dimensions of the DOD by the late
1950s. At the same time, the nation’s strategic
posture in Europe and the Pacific mandated
the capacity to fight two major regional con­flicts simultaneously. This caused the position­
ing of vast amounts of war materiel and service
members around the globe, hair-triggered tospring into action—a condition that survives
today. By the beginning of the Vietnam War,American military organizations had come tovalue both speed in war and speedy wars as in­trinsic goods, preferences not obvious in ear­lier eras.
These beliefs banged against the reality oflimited war in Indochina. American militaryleaders had hoped to wage a fast, massive air
campaign against North Vietnam, but politicalfears of a wider war with China, or perhaps theSoviet Union, compelled an incremental ap­
proach to the war. Operation Rolling Thunder,
a gradual escalation of bombing to coerce
North Vietnam into surrender, raised hackles
among military leaders. The senior Americancommander for much of the war, Adm U. S.
Grant Sharp, labeled this slow campaign a “retreat from reality” that avoided the difficult de­cisions and “treaded the mushy middle
ground.” In his view, this incremental approach
to war not only betrayed a weak resolve but also
emboldened enemies; it was “guaranteed to
produce a true strategy for defeat.”26
After the Vietnam War, the vast majority of
military officers and Pentagon observers
adopted Sharp’s criticism of a gradual ap­

61

proach to warfare.27 By the 1980s, this view ofVietnam had become conventional wisdom. It
was enshrined in Secretary of Defense Caspar
Weinberger’s famous tests for military involve­
ment abroad as well as in the dictum of Gen
Colin Powell, chairman of the JCS, to employ
overwhelming force in military operations. Be­
yond their advocacy of massive force linked toclear objectives, the Weinberger Doctrine and
the Powell Corollary also embodied a strong
bias toward speed in war. “Decisive means andresults are always to be preferred,” Powell once
explained, “so you bet I get nervous when socalled experts suggest that all we need is a little
surgical bombing or a limited attack. When thedesired result isn’t obtained, a new set of ex­
perts then comes forward with talk of a little es­calation. History has not been kind to this ap­
proach.”28 Drawing on his memory of theVietnam War, Powell later told the New YorkTimes, “As soon as they tell me it is limited, itmeans they do not care whether you achieve a
result or not.”29

Of Speed and Decision
The short Gulf War of 1990–91 appeared tovalidate the wisdom of massive force appliedwith lightning speed. At about the same time,
the Pentagon’s exultation of a contentious per­sonality reflected an increasingly codified belief in speed. Since the 1960s, Col John Boyd,a maverick Air Force officer, had conducted alonely campaign to champion his OODA Loop(the observe, orient, decide, and act decision
cycle). A fighter pilot, Boyd had derived thisschematic from his experiences dogfighting
North Korean MiGs, during which he hadlearned that quicker decisions often led to vic­
tory in aerial combat. After the Korean War,
Boyd extrapolated this concept from the tacti­
cal level of war to a new principle for everything from procurement to national strategic
behavior.30
For years, the DOD was hostile toward
Boyd’s ideas, in part because the imperatives ofcombat at the tactical level of fighting did noteasily translate as guidelines for the operationalor strategic conduct of war. In the 1990s, how-

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ever, an appreciation for war’s complexity was
combined with the growing potency of tactical
weapons to compress and sometimes to oblit­
erate the analytical boundaries between the tac­tical, operational, and strategic levels of war. In
an influential booklet published in 1995, Col
David Deptula (now a major general), US Air
Force, described how new precision-guided
munitions might profitably be used in “parallelwar” to “exploit three dimensions—time, space,and levels of war.” Using the Gulf War as an example, he exhorted his colleagues to “focus on
systematic effects rather than individual target
destruction” and argued that new weapon sys­
tems could simultaneously shape each level ofwar.31 That same year the Pentagon’s Joint Pub
3, Doctrine for Joint Operations, proclaimed that
“advances in technology, information age
media reporting, and the compression of timespace relationships contribute to the growinginterrelationships between the levels of war.
Commanders at every level must be aware thatin a world of constant, immediate communica­
tions, any single event may cut across the threelevels [tactical, operational, and strategic].”32
Deptula and others were advocating more
careful thought about compelling enemy be­havior. However, this exhortation also served
to diminish the analytic utility that had buttressed the levels-of-war paradigm for at leasta century. As a result, Boyd’s ideas of war weremore likely to meet acceptance in the na­
tion’s military. Before this development,
strategists often believed that the factors
which shaped speed’s value in war varied
across the levels of conflict, as Carl vonClausewitz had suggested in On War.33 But
with the growing inconsequence of these lev­els of war, the way was clearer to proclaim
speed an intrinsic, inherent advantage in
war—in all conditions and at every level.34
The Marine Corps was the first to warm toBoyd, and its capstone Warfighting doctrine
now revels in the idea of the OODA Loop. For
marines today, warfare is necessarily a functionof decision making, and “whoever can makeand implement decisions consistently faster
gains a tremendous, often decisive advantage.
Decision making in execution thus becomes atime-competitive process, and timeliness of de­cisions becomes essential to generating
tempo.”35 Boyd’s own service, the Air Force,
which had earlier been belligerent to him andhis ideas, now praises the OODA Loop. But inthe process, the service confuses speed andtime. As explained by one Air Force booklet
recommended to all incoming officers,
Air power increases speed of movement by or­ders of magnitude. This conquest of time by air
power provides surprise, and surprise in turn af­
fects the mind, causing confusion and disorien­
tation. John Boyd’s entire theory of the OODA
Loop . . . is based on the premise that telescop­
ing time—arriving at decisions or locations rap­
idly—is the decisive element in war because of
the enormous psychological strain it places onan enemy.36

Concurrent with this development, swift mil­itary operations became officially identified
with the decisive use of force, which has consti­
tuted the Holy Grail of military strategy since atleast the Battle of Waterloo.37 For the American
military, this quest for decisive action has fueledsome of the great intramural service squabbles.
The Army Air Forces’ (AAF) assertion of avia­
tion’s decisive effect in World War II drives anongoing debate, and today each combat arm
carefully lays claim to decisive ability in official
statements of doctrine and strategy. Throughmost of the twentieth century, however, thesearch for and debate about decisive force
rested on traditional concepts of decisiveness,classically defined as the ability or capacity to
decide some issue or compel some decision on
the battlefield.38 The AAF did not claim to havewon World War II quickly, after all; it merely
claimed it was the most important element indeciding the contest.
All this changed in the 1980s and 1990s.
Speed became, if not synonymous with deci­
siveness, at least an indispensable adjunct tothe concept, a link seen in the 1992 iterationof the National Military Strategy:
Once a decision for military action has been
made, half-measures and confused objectives
exact a severe price in the form of a protracted
conflict which can cause needless waste ofhuman lives and material resources, a divided

THE CULT OF THE QUICK
nation at home, and defeat. Therefore, one of
the essential elements of our national military
strategy is the ability to rapidly assemble theforces needed to win—the concept of applying
decisive force to overwhelm our adversaries andthereby terminate conflicts swiftly and withminimum loss of life.39

Subsequent versions of the National Mili­tary Strategy rooted the bond between decisive
force and speed deeper into the military lexi­con. Today, each service routinely appends
the concepts together. Soldiers believe “it is
the Army’s ability to react promptly and to
conduct sustained land operations that makeit decisive” (emphasis in original).40 Sailors
stress the forward presence of ships aroundthe world as a means to attain a “rapid, favorable end to hostilities,” while criticizing
slower attrition warfare as “frequently indeci­sive and inherently costly in terms of person­nel, resources, and time.”41 For their part, fly­ers boldly assert that “decisive maneuver
requires rapidly deployable, highly mobile
joint forces that can outpace and outmaneu­
ver opposing forces.”42 All this finds reflec­tion in joint doctrine, which holds that “themost important” characteristic of American
arms is “the visible ability to act rapidly and deci­
sively in regions of U. S. interests” (emphasis
in original).43
For those in charge of the nation’s military
strategy, then, a patient approach to war has
become antithetical to the decisive use offorce. Speeding, already embedded into themilitary’s worldview, had now appropriatedthe strategic high ground of decisive effectand was no longer the sort of cultural prefer­ence all militaries, and societies, exhibit. The
demand for speed in war had now become adecree, to be pursued without regard to local
circumstance, strategic condition, or enemy
character. The quest for speed had become
cultish.

Speeding Is Dangerous
This dangerous dictate rests on a facile,even contrived, sense of military experience.
Recent history demonstrates the value of ra­

63

pidity in both combat and war, but it alsoteaches patience and perseverance. In WorldWar II, both Japan and Germany based theirtactical, operational, and strategic war planson speed; when compelled into longer fights,
they lost. In the Korean War, the combatantthat struck first and fast eventually lost. In the
Vietnam War, the combatant with persever­ance and a modulated campaign won the day.
Although it is too early to derive sound con­clusions, this past decade’s fights in the
Balkans also seem to buttress incremental
war. In 1995, for instance, Operation Deliber­
ate Force saw NATO jets dropping bombs onjust 12 of the campaign’s 22 days with at least
one pause of five days.44
A different view of the past also challenges
the positive correlation between speed anddecision so prevalent in doctrine and strate­
gic thought. When the abrupt end of WorldWar I fuelled theories of conspiracy between
the German government and Western pow­
ers, discontents like Adolf Hitler seized upon
the war’s swift conclusion to rise to power andhelp make the Great War an indecisive con­flict. In World War II, despite great emphasison the Battle of Midway as a turning point
and the atomic missions as the culminating
point, the basic outcome of the Pacific War
turned more on the attrition of combat in theSouth and Southwest Pacific theaters and thesustained submarine assault on Japanese shipping. Likewise, the incredible crucible of theeastern front, played out over four years, con­tributed more to the basic decision of the Eu­
ropean war than any lightning attack con­ducted by any combatant.45
More recently, the swift pace of the Gulf War
may well have worked against its potential for
decisive effect by catalyzing a strategic momenton the highway to Basra before military com­manders and political leaders could properlyinterpret plans and modify objectives. Instead,the coalition led by the United States simply
stopped the war, which allowed Iraqi president
Saddam Hussein to survive and badger the re­gion. Beyond these hot wars, the modulated,patient, and half-century-long cold war was perhaps the most decisive war in American history.

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In the 1990s, the quest for swift war, repletewith exit strategies and premature cease-fires,has led to less, not more, decisive war, as Edward Luttwak argues. For him, wars nowadays
rarely “run their natural course” to “burn themselves out and establish the preconditions for alasting settlement.” Instead, they “become en­
demic conflicts that never end because thetransformative effects of both decisive victoryand exhaustion are blocked.” The present
struggle against terrorism may well prove anacid test for Luttwak’s point.46
These thumbnail assessments of America’s
recent wars are not infallible. They do assert,
however, an alternative view of military history in which the value of speed and its link todecisive effect are not uniform. The past is adangerous lover. It promiscuously proclaims
lessons to please a variety of insights and in­terests and seduces suitors according to cul­tural preference and institutional faction.
The Pentagon’s insistence that slower wars
are necessarily less effective and intrinsicallymore expensive in material and lives may beintuitively plain to American officers, for instance, but it is not an inherent truth basedon military experience or possibility. Only ina society obsessed with speed and only withina military sensitive to civilian restraint, for instance, could the lesson from the Vietnam
War be to conduct faster operations next
time. A more balanced assessment would cer­tainly include an appreciation for the patient
approach, a weapon deployed with great suc­cess by North Vietnam. Moreover, nuclear
war, certainly swift war by any measure, is ma­
terially expensive to prepare and would be
immeasurably expensive in lives to conduct.
For the future, the American military’s sim­ple view of the temporal dimensions of strategy
leaves it vulnerable to adversaries who mayplace different measures and different values
on time. In the physical world, scientists are un­sure of time’s consistency, and Albert Einstein’s
theory of relativity rests on time’s elasticity.47 In
the political world, cultures use discrepant mea­sures of time. Western societies tend to marktime by constant velocity in standard ways:
minute, hour, day, month, and year; this is apattern especially true of colder-climate soci­eties with large populations and prominent ur­
banization. However, societies elsewhere may
reference time not to clocks but to events; inthis worldview, time is less discrete and morevariant.48 Certain languages, moreover, containno functional analogue to the word time, andthe conjugation of verb tense is not universal.49
Surveying the variety of time, one keen ob­
server notes that “some Mediterranean andArab cultures define only three sets of time: notime at all, now (which is of varying duration),and forever (too long).”50 Clearly, different cul­tures approach time with different attitudes.
This potential mismatch is evident between Eastern and Western cultures. The preeminent pieces of strategic writing in each
culture, Clausewitz’s On War and Sun Tzu’s
The Art of War, approach time differently. One
scholar argues that “differences in worldview
and in concept of time” make for distinct
strategic precepts in these books. Sun Tzu
conceived strategy over a longer period oftime than did Clausewitz, and each marked
his own time in the tactical and strategic conduct of war. Sun Tzu characterized time inprolonged, cyclical, and integrated units
while Clausewitz measured time in distinct,
short, and linear increments.51 These writings
do not correspond directly to strategic
choices made by nations in the contemporary
world, of course, but their continuing influ­
ence indicates enduring national preferencein the business of strategy making. At a time
when the Pentagon increasingly looks to theEast, to strife in the Arab world, and to strate­
gic competition on the Asian landmass, thesepotential differences in time ought to matter.
Evidence of time’s physical and cultural
determinants should worry those responsible
for the nation’s defense. The Pentagon’s de­cree for speed across all levels of war commits
a cardinal sin of strategy by assuming a con­sistent value of velocity between ally and ad­
versary. This decree ignores cultural variety
regarding time, and in the process, strategists
dismiss their own exhortations of the dangers
of mirror-imaging enemies. In making speed
a mandated weapon in its repertoire, the Pen-

THE CULT OF THE QUICK

tagon makes patience an asymmetric threat
in the quivers of those who would wait out an
impulsive America.

A Way Forward
As with most cults, the range of military
thought contains within it the path to reform.
Although not numerous, there are skeptics ofthis demand for speed. Two civilian analysts
argue that “the fast, overwhelming and decisive
application of maximum force in the minimum
time . . . may produce effective, short term re­sults [but it may] be irrelevant, probably evencounterproductive, when matched against thevery difficult internal problems that form theunderlying problems in target countries.”52 A
small contingent of officers concurs and be­lieves that the crux of this potential mismatch isa doctrine that prescribes quick and massive
force. One experienced pilot, for instance, ar­gues that Air Force doctrine “provides the na­tion with one and only one way to prosecute an
air campaign.” This doctrine “prepares airmen
quite well to fight their political masters over
the right way to prosecute war, but leaves themempty-handed when forced to fight an adver­sary in a politically constrained environment.”53
Gen Joseph Ralston, NATO supreme com­mander, believes that while massive applicationof force may be more efficient and popularthan an incremental strategy, “whether or not
we like it, measured and steadily increasing use
of air power against an opponent may be oneof the options for future wars.”54 Although Ral­ston and others view incremental war as a pos­sible political necessity, instead of as a poten­
tially positive way to conduct operations, they
do point to doctrine as one place to remedy theobsession with swift, overwhelming force.55
The relationship between doctrine and strat­
egy is close and complex with no one model ofinteraction adequately describing or explain­
ing their respective orbits. Yet, they undoubt­
edly influence each other. Doctrine, derived
from the Latin verb doctrina (to teach), does indeed offer alternatives for the conduct of con­flict. Doctrine for military operations otherthan war (MOOTW), sometimes called simply

65

operations other than war or small-scale con­tingencies, does not demand speed in war.
While it does not openly advocate a patient ap­
proach, MOOTW doctrine does recognize con­ditions under which an incremental approach
might work best. Joint Pub 3-07, Joint Doctrine
for Military Operations other than War, describes
MOOTW as actions “more sensitive to politicalconsiderations,” which are conducted within“more restrictive rules of engagement” thanwar proper.56 Often designed to “keep the dayto-day tensions between nations below thethreshold of armed conflict or war,” operations
short of war “may last for an extended period oftime.”57 This approach to operations is re­flected in service doctrine, especially that of the
Air Force. AFDD 2-3, Military Operations otherthan War, defines MOOTW as “those military
actions not associated with sustained, largescale combat operations” and “as a result, theobjectives of MOOTW usually do not include
overwhelming a military opponent.”58
Because of perceived differences from war,
joint MOOTW precepts promulgate a distinct
set of principles to guide commanders in op­
erations short of war. Among these are re­straint to “apply appropriate military capabil­
ity prudently” and perseverance to “prepare
for the measured, protracted application of
military capability in support of strategic
aims. Some MOOTW may require years toachieve the desired results.”59 For its part, theAir Force extols its commanders to use only
“appropriate ‘tailored’ force” to attain andmaintain legitimacy while pursuing “the pa­
tient, resolute, and persistent pursuit of na­
tional goals and objectives,” which “is paramount” in MOOTW.60 Moreover, compared
to its war-fighting doctrine, the Pentagon’s
pronouncements on MOOTW are more sen­sitive to contextual influences on strategy:
these pronouncements advise commanders
to understand local conditions, especially re­ligion, through effective interaction withother government agencies and private or­
ganizations via an “international civil-military
operations center.”61
Doctrinal publications on MOOTW could
moderate the military’s love affair with speed in

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WINTER 2001

war. But this reformation faces obstacles. Al­
though many observers view MOOTW as far
more likely than war in the near term, military
professionals have long been ambivalent toward operations short of war. In their doctrine,
they have sought to fire-wall MOOTW from war
by espousing very different principles for each;
war is guided by offensive, surprise, and mass,
while MOOTW relies on restraint, persever­ance, and legitimacy.
As a result, military professionals tend toview any action through the prism of war,
whether or not those operations fit the defini­tional parameters of war. Commentary on OAF
reveals best this hesitancy toward MOOTW: vir­tually every professional critique of the opera­tion sprang from a conception that OAF con­stituted war, when it may have more closely
resembled MOOTW. Allied Force was an oper­
ation sensitive to issues of legitimacy, designed
to keep a smaller problem from becoming alarger one, and conducted within political andcoalition constraints. Disputes among Balkan
states were not, and are not, ripe for any ma­ture political settlement, and OAF (as well as
Operation Deliberate Force, for that matter)
was designed to manage, not solve or decide,
contention in the region. Seen through thelens of MOOTW, the conduct of OAF becomesless objectionable, if not quite yet a textbook
case of the use of coercive force.
If reform through MOOTW doctrine is im­probable, it is not impossible. But whether
through greater appreciation of MOOTW
and its doctrine or by some other mechanism,
the DOD should temper its obsession withspeed and decisive effect. Speed has not the
intrinsic value claimed for it, and its relationship to decisive effect is unclear. Undoubtedly
appropriate under some conditions, the idealof swift, decisive action may not always squarewith broader geopolitics. The very quest for
decision on the battlefield is misplaced in an
era when combat is used to manage, shape,
and adjust ongoing conflict and tension.
Graduated and moderated military cam­paigns, for instance, might well prove more
effective than swift, decisive strikes in the
Balkans, the Middle East, and the fightagainst terrorism.62 Many military officers be­lieve that in war today, “a commander can nolonger afford the luxury of thinking in termsof days, weeks, or months to phase campaigns
or move forces.”63 Actually, the opposite will
sometimes be true. War will sometimes value
thought stretching beyond the horizon evenas the technical capacity for rapid movement
pulls the mind in another direction. In con­ventional or nonconventional war, the ability
to think counterintuitively just might be acommander’s greatest asset in the future.
Obsession with speed denies the fundamen­
tal truth that in strategy, everything is contex­
tual, and circumstance is paramount. It transforms doctrine into dogma, a condition that
undercuts careful, clear, and nuanced thought
about the relationship between power andpurpose—the nexus of strategy. When themodern experience of war and its contempo­
rary tools eroded the analytic utility of the lev­els of war, officers and pundits alike wrongly as­
sumed a uniform value for speed across alllevels and in all kinds of conflict. The Air
Force’s advocacy of preemptive military opera­
tions, for example, may well deliver great tacti­
cal and operational advantages in the context
of war, but their costs at the strategic level ofconflict may well be prohibitive, and theireffects counterproductive. At a time when theAmerican military faces state, substate, andinterstate threats and challenges across theglobe, devotion to speed is akin to a dan­gerous one-kind-fits-all mentality. The Penta­
gon rightly strives for the capacity to conduct
war quickly, but it should not allow that capac­
ity to drive all planning and execution as, forexample, the cult of the offensive did at thestart of World War I.
In the end, current military thinking about
speed mistakes an important and expensive
capacity for an inherent and intrinsic advan­
tage. This thinking also brokers little toler­ance for competing views that may point theway to success under some of the conditions
America may face. To be sure, this cult of thequick is partly the result of broad cultural
trends. Some might even argue that today’s
constant news cycle requires the military’s de-THE CULT OF THE QUICK

votion to speed. But this devotion also comesfrom trends and pressures internal to thePentagon, as well as its own assessments ofmilitary history and future threats. Having
had a hand in creating it, the Pentagon is not
impotent to curb this cult of speed.
Gen Charles Krulak, former Marine Corps
commandant, believed that John Boyd’s
OODA Loop taught officers how to use “time67

as an ally.”64 This is true only if they appreci­
ate that timeliness may be slow as well as
quick. Instead of leveraging time, devotion to
speed shackles military professionals to asimple view. Time becomes the master, andsoldiers, sailors, and pilots are enslaved to ad­
versaries who might make a different use of
strategy’s temporal dimension. ■Notes
1. Senate, testimony before the US Senate Armed Services
Committee, 21 October 1999 (Federal Document Clearing
House [FDCH] Political Transcripts). In his recent book Waging
Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat (New York:
Public Affairs, 2001), General Clark seems to moderate this belief
slightly, going so far as to say that the classic principles of war may
not be well suited to modern conflict. However, he could not let
go of speed: “In US military thinking, we seek to be as decisive as
possible once we begin to use force. This meant that the sooner
we could strike the most sensitive targets, the greater the coercive
leverage against the Serbs” (449).
2. Colin Gray, Modern Strategy (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1999), 43.
3. Army Field Manual (FM) 100-5, Operations, April 1995, 1.
4. Naval Doctrine Publication (NDP) 1, Naval Warfare, 28March 1994, 20.
5. Ibid., 40–41.
6. Marine Corps Doctrine Publication (MCDP) 1, Warfight­
ing, 20 June 1997, 40.
7. See Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD)1, Air Force
Basic Doctrine, 1 September 1997.
8. AFDD 2, Organization and Employment of Aerospace Power, 17
February 2000, ix.
9. Joint Publication (Pub) 1, Joint Warfare of the Armed Forces of
the United States, 14 November 2000, III-2.
10. Ibid., IV-8. See also Joint Pub 3-0, Doctrine for Joint Opera­
tions, 10 September 2001, vii.
11. Joint Pub 3-0, A-1.
12. See, for example, Alan Zimm, “Desert Storm, Kosovo,and ‘Doctrinal Schizophrenia,’” Strategic Review, Winter 2000,
32–39.
13. See, for example, Marine Corps Strategy 21 (Washington,
D.C.: Department of the Navy, 3 November 2000). The last decade
has seen literally dozens of books published on the virtues of
speed in war. For an edited work reflecting this development
among senior military officials, see Harlan Ullman et al., Shockand Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance (Washington, D.C.: Center
for Advanced Concepts and Technology, 1996).
14. For a popular assessment of this transformation, see USA
TODAY, 16 January 2001, 1A; and a more careful analysis can befound in Brian Dunn, “The Path to the Future Army,” Military Review, September/October 2000, 91–95.
15. Gen John P. Jumper, “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience,” Aerospace Power Journal
15, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 24–33.
16. Frederick Strain, “The New Joint Warfighter,” Joint Forces
Quarterly, Summer 1998, 39 (originally published Autumn 1993).

17. Ajay Singh, “Time: The New Dimension in War,” Joint
Forces Quarterly, Summer 1998, 124–29 (originally published Win­ter 1995).
18. President George W. Bush, cited in USA TODAY, 16 Janu­ary 2001, 2A.
19. For an example of the former, see William Matthews,“Military Analysts Say Air War Is Lost, Send in the Troops,” Navy
Times, 3 May 1999, 18. For an example of the latter, see Andrew
Bacevich, “Target: Belgrade,” National Review, 3 May 1999, 29–31.
20. Stephen P. Aubin, “Operation Allied Force: War or ‘Co­
ercive Diplomacy’?” Strategic Review, Summer 1999, 4–12.
21. Brig Gen John D. W. Corley, Initial Report: The Air War
over Serbia: Aerospace Power in Operation Allied Force (Washington,
D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 2000), 33, 36.
22. See, for example, James Gleick, Faster: The Acceleration of
Just About Everything (New York: Pantheon Books, 1999).
23. For a good case study of culture’s influence on military
doctrine, see Elizabeth Kier, Imagining War: French and Military
Doctrine between the Wars (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1997). See also Gray, 28–29.
24. For a masterful analysis of War Plan Orange, see Nathan
Miller, War Plan Orange: The U.S. Strategy to Defeat Japan,
1897–1945 (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1991). Miller
identifies planners who advocated a quick strike across the Pacificas “Thrusters,” while planners who supported a more method­
ological fleet movement to the western Pacific were “Cautionar­ies.”
25. For a good account of the influence exerted by war plan­ning on the valuation of speed, see Colin Gray, “Defense Plan­ning and the Duration of War,” Defense Analysis 1, no. 1 (1985):
21–36.
26. U. S. Grant Sharp, Strategy for Defeat: Vietnam in Retrospect(Novato, Calif.: Presidio Press, 1993), 105, 131.
27. James Kitfield, Prodigal Soldiers (Washington, D.C.:
Brassey’s, 1997), describes the officer corps’s general vilificationof the gradual approach in Vietnam.
28. Colin Powell, “U. S. Forces: Challenges Ahead,” Foreign
Affairs, Winter 1992–1993, 40.
29. Editorial, “At Least Slow the Slaughter,” New York Times, 4October 1992, E16.
30. The best exploration of Boyd is Grant T. Hammond, The
Mind of War: John Boyd and American Security (Washington, D.C.:
Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001).
31. Gen David Deptula, Firing for Effect: Change in the Nature of
Warfare (Arlington, Va.: Aerospace Education Foundation, 1995), 5.
32. Joint Pub 3-0, II-2.

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WINTER 2001

33. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael
Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1976), 209.
34. Boyd’s theories of time were more complex than mostpeople believed; he stressed speed not as some absolute objective
but as a relative measure of time, and he allowed for the modu­
lation of speed across time. However, this nuance fell on deaf ears
in a sound-bite era, and even today, the DOD “finds it easier toaddress Boyd’s complex truisms with simple models rather thanlengthy discourses in their capstone and derivative manuals.”(Robert Polk, “A Critique of the Boyd Theory—Is It Relevant to
the Army?” Defense Analysis 16 [2000]: 272.)
35. MCDP 1, 85.
36. Phillip S. Meilinger, 10 Propositions Regarding Air Power(Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program,
1995), 31–32. Like other defense publications, this booklet
equates decision with action, which of course is not the case. It
also misstates the OODA Loop’s basic thrust; the real object forBoyd was to think more rapidly than the opponent, which is dif­ferent from an absolute devotion to speed.
37. See Russell F. Weigley, The Age of Battles: The Quest for De­
cisive Warfare from Breitenfeld to Waterloo (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1991), for a history of this most elusive militarygoal.
38. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary defines decisive
as something “having the power or quality of deciding.”
39. Colin Powell, National Military Strategy of the United States(Washington, D.C.: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 1992), 8–9. Although
this document used several standard principles to guide strategic
behavior (forward presence, collective security, and technologi­
cal superiority), its emphasis on decisive force stood out. For fur­ther reading on decisive force as both a phrase and an analytic
construct, see F. G. Hoffman, Decisive Force: The New American Way
of War (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1996).
40. FM 100-5, chaps. 1 and 2.
41. NDP 1, 9, 33.
42. AFDD 2-1, Air Warfare, 22 January 2000, 4.
43. Joint Pub 1, III-1.
44. For the Air Force’s tortured assessment of Deliberate
Force, see Robert Owen, ed., Deliberate Force: A Case Study in Effec­
tive Campaign Planning (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press,
2000). Owen acknowledged Deliberate Force’s success, but heworried that the campaign might encourage “half-hearted or incomplete air operations,” which “would be indecisive” (476).
Lacking any appreciation or framework for the potential of a
graduated air campaign, another author of the study wrote in be­
wilderment of “Deliberate Force’s remarkable success, which waslargely unpremeditated and resulted from the unforeseen impactof the stopping and restarting of the air campaign” (127). In fact,
the study devotes an entire chapter to an excellent counterfac­
tual scenario that explores the possibility that another, more ro­bust, operation would have worked better. See Lt Col Robert D.
Pollock, “Roads Not Taken: Theoretical Approaches to Opera­tion Deliberate Force,” in Deliberate Force, 431–53. This fine intro­
spection stands alone in the annals of official air surveys; other reports on air operations more closely aligned with preconceived
ideas do not benefit from similar questions, though the inquiry
has validity independent of individual cases. See, for instance,
The United States Strategic Bombing Survey (New York: Garland Pub­lishing, 1976) (World War II); and Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot

A. Cohen, Gulf War Air Power Survey, 5 vols. (Washington, D.C.:
Department of the Air Force, 1993).
45. For World War II’s strategic contours, see Gerhard Wein­berg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1994).
46. Edward Luttwak, “Give War a Chance,” Foreign Affairs,
July/August 1999, 36, 45.
47. For a short description of the physical qualities of time,
see Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time (New York: Bantam
Books, 1988).
48. Robert Levine, A Geography of Time: The Temporal Misad­ventures of a Social Psychologist (New York: Basic Books, 1997).
49. The Sioux language, for example, has no word to express
time, lateness, or waiting.
50. Grant Hammond, “Time, Elasticity, Tempos, and Rhythms,”
unpublished manuscript in author’s possession. I acknowledge adebt to Hammond for pointing out the cultural determinants oftime. For a published view of similar matters, see Robert Bathurst,
Intelligence and the Mirror: On Creating an Enemy (New York: Sage
Publications, 1993).
51. Laure Paquette, “Strategy and Time in Clausewitz’s On
War and in Sun Tzu’s The Art of War,” Comparative Strategy 10(1991): 37, 48.
52. Donald Snow, From Lexington to Desert Storm: War and Pol­
itics in the American Experience (Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2000),
325–26.
53. Ellwood Hinman IV, “Airpower’s Political-Military Gap,”
Strategic Review, Fall 2000, 26.
54. General Ralston, cited in Elaine Grossman, “Ralston Sees
Potential for More Wars of Gradual Escalation,” Inside the Penta­gon, 16 September 1999, 1.
55. For supporting commentary, see Lt Col Paul Strickland,“USAF Aerospace-Power Doctrine: Decisive or Coercive?” Aero­space Power Journal 14, no. 3 (Fall 2000): 13–25; and David Tucker,“The RMA and the Interagency: Knowledge and Speed vs. Igno­
rance and Sloth?” Parameters, Autumn 2000, 66–76.
56. Joint Pub 3-07, Joint Doctrine for Military Operations otherthan War, 16 June 1995, vii, I-1.
57. Ibid., viii, I-7.
58. AFDD 2-3, Military Operations other than War, 3 July 2000, 1.
59. Joint Pub 3-07, II-4.
60. AFDD 2-3, 1.
61. Ibid., 5. Air Force exhortations on religion reflect an un­derstanding of the importance of circumstance in strategic
choice: religion “will often play a major role in the lives of local
inhabitants. An understanding of host nation or regional reli­gious beliefs is vital to the success of many types of MOOTW”(47). For Air Force experience in MOOTW and its future possi­
bilities, see James Corum, “Airpower and Peace Enforcement,”
Airpower Journal 10, no. 4 (Winter 1996): 10–25; and Carl Builder,“Doctrinal Frontiers,” Airpower Journal 9, no. 4 (Winter 1995):
6–13.
62. For insight into the nature of decisive war, see Michael
Howard, “When Are Wars Decisive?” Survival 41, no. 1 (Spring1999): 126–35. After 40 years of patience, the Korean Peninsula
may be one place increasingly ripe for some kind of decision to
be found on a battlefield.
63. Strain, 39.
64. Krulak, quoted in Hammond, 3.

The hurrier I go, the behinder I get.
––folk saying

Thinking about China and War
DR. JEFFREY RECORD

Editorial Abstract: The current focus on international terrorism does not mean that China
has gone away. This thought-provoking piece by Dr. Record not only reminds us that China
remains an area of potential future conflict but also uses the perspective of past conflict topaint a picture of what a future war with China might look like. China’s leaders aren’t asnaïve as Saddam Hussein in their appreciation of America’s high-tech capabilities.

C

HINA’S XENOPHOBIC AND in­
creasingly strident nationalism reinforces the argument that it is des­tined to become America’s next
great strategic rival and, therefore, that
the United States should begin tothink seriously about the possibility of
war with that country.1 The combina­
tion of continued autocracy in Bei­
jing, China’s militant assertivenessacross the Taiwan Strait and in theSouth China Sea, and the growing influ­
ence of the People’s Liberation Army
(PLA) “in the development of China’s na­
tional identity and security policy” all point
to a determination to displace American
power in East Asia and the Western Pacific.2
The new Bush administration is certainly
prepared to take a harder line than its prede­cessor on the noneconomic dimensions of
the Sino-American relationship, including
Beijing’s myriad human-rights abuses andmilitary bullying of its neighbors. The admin­
istration has rejected the illusion of strategic
partnership with China, has been explicit on
US protection of Taiwan against an attackfrom the mainland, and is openly reorienting
America’s primary strategic focus from Eu­
rope to Asia. It is, in short, moving to contain
China even while it embraces expanded tradewith that country. Indeed, for the Bush administration, trade serves as a means of con­tainment; trade promotes economic democ­

ratization, which, in turn—or so it is believed—
will undermine the very autocracy that hasembraced extreme nationalism as a legiti­
mizing substitute for failed communist ideol­ogy. The Bush administration sees eye to eyewith its predecessor on the attractiveness of attempting to subvert China politically via tradeassisted economic democratization.
A policy of containing Communist Chinese
expansionism is hardly new. It began in 1950,
when the Truman administration ordered theinterposition of the Seventh Fleet between
69

70

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

the mainland and what was then known as
Formosa as a means of preventing Mao Ze­
dong’s takeover of that island. The adminis­
tration subsequently fought Chinese forces toa standstill in Korea. Containment continued
during the 1960s, when the Kennedy andJohnson administrations escalated US mili­tary intervention against the advance of Viet­namese communism, which they believed wasa stalking-horse for Chinese imperialism inSoutheast Asia. Even during the era of SinoAmerican tacit strategic alignment against theSoviet Union in the 1970s and early 1980s,
the United States insisted on a nonviolent res­olution of Taiwan’s relationship with themainland.
But the China that the United States sought
to contain during the Cold War was poor andpreindustrial and, under Mao Ze-dong, period­
ically plunged into domestic political upheaval.
For Mao, political purification was always more
important than wealth creation, and his no­tions of industrialization were idiotic. Accord­
ingly, the Chinese economy remained a sham­bles until the late 1980s. Moreover, for most of
the Cold War’s last two decades, China’s mili­tary posture was defensive and focused northward on the Soviet Union.
Although the emergence of China as aqualified strategic rival is far from inevitable,
it is time to think about a future war with
China. Beijing’s core political values are hos­tile to everything America stands for; China is
territorially unsatisfied; its military potential isimpressive if only slowly mobilizable; andSino-American flash points are present in the
Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea. Moreover, history teaches that the relative power
and influence the United States enjoys
around the world today will inevitably decline
at some point. That point may be 50 or even
200 years away, but it will come—because no
great power remains so forever.
The history of both China and the interna­
tional political system as a whole also suggeststhat an emergent Chinese hegemon is unlikely
to be a cooperative state willing to accept a con­tinued American-dominated international
order.3 For most of its long history, the Middle

Kingdom was the dominant power in its world;
only recently, beginning with the Opium Warsof the midnineteenth century, did China fallvictim to over a century of Western and, later,
Japanese intrusion and humiliation. China,
notes Henry Kissinger, “has rarely had the ex­perience of dealing with other societies on thebasis of equality.”4 Even unburdened of its profound sense of victimization by the West, China
as a rising power is likely to insist on an international order that reflects its power growth
relative to that of the United States.
Precautionary thinking about a war with
China must address at least four issues: theeconomic, political, military, and foreignpolicy ingredients of China as a qualified
strategic rival; the likely causes of a SinoAmerican war; the strengths and weaknesses
each side would bring to the conflict; andthe likely scope of combat. Thinking about
a war with China also profits from an exam­
ination of the Korean War—the one andonly Sino-American war to date and a
marathon of mutual incomprehension andmiscalculation.

China as the Next Strategic Rival
Postulation of China as the next functional
equivalent of the Soviet Union rests on several
necessarily speculative assumptions. The first isthat China will continue to sustain high growth
rates in gross national product. China’s eco­nomic growth in the late 1980s and 1990s was
impressive, to be sure, although it has slowed
over the past several years. But the economic
boom started from a very low base and has
been jarringly uneven between the coastal
provinces and the still-backward interior.5
Much of China’s industrial production remains
economically worthless, state-owned goods.
Corruption is rampant throughout the econ­omy, and levels of unemployment and underemployment are staggering and potentiallydestabilizing.6 Even if China’s official statistics
were reliable, no basis exists for a simple ex­
trapolation of past growth rates into the future.
Nonetheless, even the most conservatively
estimated growth rates still significantly surpass

THINKING ABOUT CHINA AND WAR

those of the United States and reaffirm thestrategic wisdom of Deng Xiaoping’s momen­
tous decision to unleash capitalism in China.
Unlike his politically dreamy and romantic
predecessor, the realist Deng understood that
security could not be had without power andthat the foundation of national power was
wealth creation. Economic success remains a
prerequisite for China’s military competitive­
ness. The Soviet Union lost the Cold War because it became a one-dimensional superpower
whose declining economic performance could
not sustain its imperial ambitions.
A second assumption is continued autoc­
racy in Beijing. During the past two decades,
dictatorial rule has taken a beating aroundthe world, including East Asia, and both thehistory of Europe and recent political change
in Taiwan and South Korea suggest that eco­nomic democratization can indeed exert apowerful and ultimately irresistible pressure
for political democratization. Thus, prospects
for a democratic China cannot be dismissed,
and the evidence suggests that democracies
are much less warlike toward one anotherthan are autocracies to each other and todemocracies. (This certainly does not mean apeaceful transition; more often than not, theroad from autocracy to democracy is a violent
one because autocrats are not disposed to re­linquishing power without a fight.)
Yet, even if Adam Smith and James Madi­
son beat Lenin in China, the question remains whether a democratic China would beless fervently nationalist. The present regime
in Beijing has both excited and curbed theexpression of popular nationalist passions:witness the encouragement of street demon­
strations after the accidental US bombing of
the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and the subsequent suppression of such demonstrations
following the Chinese ramming of a US elec­
tronic-surveillance aircraft. Could not a dem­
ocratic regime become more a prisoner of na­
tionalist passions than a dictatorial one?
A third assumption is that China remains
unified. Its long history has been one of cyclicalalternation between effective central politicalcontrol and degeneration into warlordism.7

71

Though ethnically homogeneous (except
along its northern and western peripheries),
China has always been difficult to govern, evenin the absence of significant social and eco­nomic change. Post-Marxist China, however,has invited enormous change; never before has
any regime tried to move so many people soquickly into economic modernity, and it is far
from certain that Beijing’s rulers can pull it off
without revolutionary upheaval, which was thenorm for China in the twentieth century. The
ongoing crackdown on the seemingly harmless
Falun Gong spiritual movement underscores
the regime’s insecurity and its preoccupation
with preserving its own legitimacy, which in the
post-Marxist period has rested heavily on eco­nomic progress as well as nationalism. Richard
Betts and Thomas Christensen properly cau­tion that “before one laments the rise of Chi­nese power, one should consider an even more
uncertain alternative: Chinese weakness andcollapse. Nothing ordains that China’s march
to great power status cannot be derailed.”8
A fourth assumption is that China has impe­
rial ambitions whose realization would com­
promise fundamental American security inter­ests. Unlike the Soviet Union, China has nopretensions to a global imperium. Its ambitions
are neither global nor ideological but nationaland regional in scope, including the assertionof sovereignty over Taiwan and the South
China Sea. The real issue is whether China isprepared to act on those ambitions in a waythat would elicit a violent US response. The
United States could hardly object to a peacefulincorporation of Taiwan on terms satisfactory
to both the Chinese and Taiwanese, eventhough it would significantly increase China’s
economic and latent military power. Americaninterest lies in the manner—not the fact—ofChina’s reunification. As for the South China
Sea, China has seized small bits of disputed
rock there, but it has not challenged interna­
tional freedom of navigation through the sea.
Beyond Taiwan and the South China Sea
are those territories over which Imperial
China held sway at one time or another. They
include much of Central Asia and the Russian
Far East (RFE) as well as northern and central

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Vietnam (which China ruled for a millen­nium). Will China seek to recover these “lost”
territories, and will it be prepared to use force
to do so? Or has it come to understand, as domost modern industrial and postindustrial
states, that extent of territory per se is not a
key ingredient of modern national power?
The scope of China’s ultimate territorial andother ambitions in Asia is simply not evident
at this juncture in history—probably not evento China itself.
US security interests in East Asia are also
subject to change. Indeed, they could evolve
over the coming decade to the point where
one could come to regard the present robust,forward American military presence as un­necessary. The bottom-line justifications forthat presence today are deterrence of North
Korean aggression against South Korea, any
attack on Japan, and a Chinese invasion of
Taiwan. Yet, these justifications would be hardto sustain in the event of Korean reunifica­tion, a Sino-Japanese rapprochement, or Tai­
wan’s willing return to governance by mainland China. Even in the absence of such
events, there remains the possible emergenceof irresistible domestic political pressure for
US military retrenchment overseas. The
American people have never lusted for the
costly burdens of being a great power.

War Starters
The most obvious war starter would be amainland assault on Taiwan in the form of ei­
ther an overt military invasion or an attempt
to wreck Taiwan’s economy by blockade andother acts of intimidation of the kind Beijing
employed in 1996 to influence Taiwan’s first
genuine presidential election. A forcible takeover of a democratic and economically vi­
brant Taiwan would be strategically unaccept­
able to the United States. Another casus belliwould be Chinese attempts to challenge free­
dom of navigation in the South China Sea (oranywhere else in the western Pacific). Free­dom of navigation is a bedrock principle ofAmerican statecraft, and through the South
China Sea move oil and other commerce crit­

ical to the economies of Japan and other US
allies and friends.
Chinese military action against Asian mainland states not allied with the United States
probably would not occasion a direct, armed
US response. Sino-Russian, -Indian, and -Viet­namese war scenarios of the kind that tran­spired in 1962, 1969, and 1979, respectively,
would not directly engage the vital interests of
the United States—unless they spilled over
into attacks on US forces and allies. Why
would the United States intervene in suchconflicts? To be sure, it has a general interestin peace and stability on the Asian mainland
and a specific interest in deterring nuclear
war between other states. But would it go to
war to prevent a nuclear exchange between,
say, Russia and China? It was certainly not prepared to do so to deter an Indo-Pakistani exchange during the South Asian nuclear-war
scare of 1999.
What if China began absorbing the RFE?
This prospect is certainly plausible. Moscow’s
control over the RFE has steadily weakened
since the Soviet Union’s demise; the RFE’s
economy is fast becoming a subsidiary of
China’s; and Chinese demographic infiltra­tion of the RFE could eventually raise theissue of the RFE’s self-determination in
China’s favor.
Yet, on what basis would the United Statesintervene against even an overt Chinese inva­
sion of the RFE, and could it intervene effec­
tively? To be sure, China’s assumption of con­trol over the RFE’s littoral and Siberia’s vast,
if hard to extract, resources would call for a
fundamental reassessment of Chinese inten­
tions and capabilities in Asia—perhaps lead­ing to the creation of new security alliances inSouth and Southeast Asia and major increases
in defense expenditure. But it is difficult toimagine an American war on behalf of Russian
attempts to hold on to nineteenth-century
czarist territorial gains in the Far East. But for
its long-range nuclear missiles, one could
consider Russia finished as a great power; inany event, it is highly doubtful that US airpower alone could overturn a Chinese inva­
sion of the RFE. During the Cold War, theTHINKING ABOUT CHINA AND WAR

United States and its Pacific allies lived with ahostile East Asian mainland littoral stretchingfrom the Bering Sea to the South China Sea.
Why should the United States fear Chinese
nuclear missiles in the RFE more than it did
Soviet missiles there?
A Sino-Indian war, which for reasons of ge­
ography would be waged largely in the air(and potentially in space) and perhaps at sea,also would not engage US war-fighting inter­ests. The same may be said of Chinese aggres­sion against Vietnam, which has recurred
throughout Vietnam’s history—most recently
in 1979.
Obviously, a Chinese attack on Japan (orany other US treaty ally) would be an auto­
matic war starter. Such an attack could be pre­ventive, aimed at thwarting the resurrectionof a militarist Japan. China is hardly the only
victim of past Japanese aggression that is
upset by a still unalterably racist Japan whose
leaders and citizen inhabitants are in an in­creasingly disturbing state of denial of theirnation’s behavior in Asia from 1895 to 1945.
In a Sino-American crisis, Japan might also in­vite attack, or at least armed intimidation, because of the access it provides US military
power in Northeast Asia. Attempted coalition
busting is a must for most American adver­saries because the United States relies heavily
on coalitions for political legitimacy and lo­
gistical access. Peeling off Japan from theUnited States in the middle of a Sino-American
military confrontation in Asia would be anenormous coup for Beijing.
One should not forget that the emergenceof Japan as a great power in the first half of thetwentieth century came largely at China’s ex­pense: first, the extraction of economic conces­
sions, then the conversion of Manchuria into aJapanese puppet state, and finally the invasion
and brutal occupation of much of China
proper. Although China has only minor terri­torial disputes with Japan, the emergence ofChina as a great power will inevitably come inpart at Japan’s expense in terms of its economic
and political clout in Asia. This will be espe­
cially the case if Japan’s economic and demographic stagnation continues.

73

Comparative Advantages
and Disadvantages
Primary Sino-American war starters seemto be Chinese aggression against Taiwan andin the South China Sea. Yet, a US defense of
Taiwan and of freedom of navigation in thewestern Pacific would play greatly to Amer­
ica’s traditional military strengths while at thesame time exploit long-standing Chinese
weaknesses.
Historically, China’s sole strategically im­pressive war-fighting suit has been the quantityof its ground forces, which counts for little in
the pursuit of offshore imperial ambitions. As­
serting and maintaining dominance over Tai­wan and the South China Sea require masteryof air and naval power—arenas in which theUnited States is peerless and likely to remain sofor decades (assuming no retreat to isolationism plus a determination to maintain both con­ventional military supremacy and a forward
military presence in East Asia—neither to betaken for granted). Chinese naval and airforces are rudimentary by US standards, but
perhaps an even greater deficiency is the ab­sence of any modern combat experience.
China has not fought a major war since Korea(where US airpower pummeled the PLA),
whereas the United States has had a virtual cor­
nucopia of such experience since the end of
the Cold War. Practice may not make perfect,
but it is surely better than sitting on the militarybench for almost half a century. (China’s brief
and highly restricted invasion of Vietnam in1979 pitted masses of poorly armed and trained
Chinese troops against better-equipped North
Vietnamese combat veterans.)
Crucial to sound thinking about war with
China is recognition that to shift America’s
primary strategic focus from Europe to Asia is
to shift from a predominantly ground-air to a
predominantly air-sea theater of operations.
Why? Because of the asymmetrical distribu­
tions of wealth and power between the two re­gions. Most of Asia’s wealth and power stilllies in offshore and peninsular states, whereas
in Europe it is concentrated ashore. Thus,
maintaining a balance of power in Europe

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(i.e., preventing Europe’s domination by ahostile power) mandated a willingness andcapacity to wage ground warfare deeply inland. In contrast, maintaining an Asian bal­ance of power requires performing the sim­pler task of keeping offshore and peninsular
Asia outside a continental hegemon’s grasp.9
Large land-warfare operations in the Asian in­terior are not just unnecessary; they are to be
avoided at all costs because they would pit US
weaknesses against a continental hegemon’s
strengths. Even Gen Douglas MacArthur, whoin 1951 wanted to expand the Korean War
into an air and sea assault on China, declaredthat “it would be a master folly to contem­
plate the use of United States ground troops
in China,” adding that “I can conceive of no
strategic or tactical position where I would
put in . . . units of American ground troops incontinental China.”10
In addition to naval and air inferiority,
China would approach war with the UnitedStates with significant strategic disadvantages.
Regionwide suspicion of China’s imperial am­
bitions has deprived Beijing of significant al­lies and even friends in East Asia, whereas theUnited States is rich in both. India remains a
strategic competitor, and Chinese behavior in
the South China Sea has alienated most ofSoutheast Asia. The post–Cold War rap­
prochement between China and Russia has
not eliminated centuries-old national andracial animosities between the two countries,
animosities that can be heightened only by
the growth of Chinese economic influenceand demographic “aggression” in the RFE. In
any event, Russian military power has virtually
evaporated in Asia. A robust, land-based
strategic nuclear deterrent is the only real
asset that Moscow could make available to
China in a Sino-American war, but it staggers
the mind to imagine that Russia would invite
its own destruction on behalf of promoting
Chinese interests in East Asia.
Finally, a war with the United States could
be economically and even politically cata­strophic for the communist rulers in Beijing.
Unlike the defunct Soviet Union, China hasan enormous stake in the international capi­

talist trading order. Indeed, China’s whopping annual trade surpluses with the UnitedStates have been indispensable to sustaining
China’s remarkable economic growth andhave provided large amounts of hard cur­rency with which to finance its selective mili­tary modernization. A war with the UnitedStates would destroy Sino-American com­
merce (as well as China’s lucrative trade withand investment from Taiwan). China’s attrac­
tiveness as a magnet for foreign capital wouldcease. The consequent effects of collapsed
growth would not be just economic. Because
the post-Marxist regime in Beijing has staked
so much of its legitimacy on its ability to deliver higher living standards, a war-caused
economic depression could topple the gov­
ernment itself.
Over time, of course, China’s stake in the in­ternational trading order could diminish if
China shifted its primary focus from expanding
its export markets to developing internal mar­kets. The historic Middle Kingdom was moreor less economically self-sufficient, and a fu­
ture China bent on displacing an Americandominated international political and eco­nomic system would have a powerful interest in
reducing its dependence on that system. Indeed, it is critical to distinguish between eco­nomic growth as an end in itself and eco­nomic growth as a means to a political end.
Clearly, China has opted in the near term andmidterm for the primacy of economic growthand its attendant dependency on the Americandominated international economic order.
But to what end? For its own sake? Or for the
purpose of putting China in a position somedecades hence to assert political and militaryprimacy in Asia?
A recent RAND Corporation assessment ofthese questions concludes that a policy of as­
sertiveness is likely for two reasons: “First, theunique and long-standing Chinese experienceof geopolitical primacy and the association ofthat primacy with good order, civilization,
virtue, and justice, may make the pursuit ofgeopolitical centrality through assertive behav­
ior again attractive.” Second, “an assertive
China is likely to appear over the long haul . . .

THINKING ABOUT CHINA AND WAR

precisely because the United States, the estab­lished hegemon, will—if the historical record
pertaining to previous declining hegemonsholds—prepare to arrest its own gradual loss ofrelative power and influence.”11 Both history
and ideology inform the Chinese that theUnited States cannot avoid decline, and many
people involved in managing Chinese security
believe that the United States is already in mili­tary decline—a recipe for miscalculation if
there ever was one.12
Hope that China’s participation in a glob­
alizing economy will alter its approach to se­curity issues may be misplaced. David Lampton believes that while “it is easy to assume
that globalization will slowly erode Beijing’s
dedication to its narrow national interest andpractice of realpolitik” and while “there isplenty of evidence of increasing Chinese co­operation and conformity with international
norms, there is little evidence that considera­
tions of national interest and realpolitik fig­
ure any less prominently in Chinese thinking
than they always have.”13
To be sure, by any rational calculation ofinterest, China—now and for the foreseeable
future—would be foolish to risk war with theUnited States over the future of Taiwan and
the South China Sea. Yet, states are motivatedby fear and honor as well as by calculations ofinterest, and China’s hypernationalism could
easily become an enemy of strategic pru­dence. The Chinese are exceptionally touchy
about righting real and imagined wrongs vis­
ited upon them by Western, Japanese, andRusso-Soviet imperialism during the century
stretching from the outbreak of the firstOpium War to the consolidation of the Chi­nese Communist revolution. Betts and Chris­tensen believe “there is little reason to assume
that sober economic interest will necessarily
override national honor in a crisis.”14 Were acrisis to occur, Beijing’s leaders could lose
control of popular nationalist passions andfind themselves facing the stark choice ofmaking strategically reckless decisions or risk­
ing their own domestic political survival.15
Moreover, China would bring to war some
important advantages over the United States

75

Chinese Dong Feng-31 transporter-erector launcher onparade.

that might encourage a decision for war in a
Sino-American crisis. First and foremost ofthem, especially in a fight over Taiwan, would
be a greater strength of interest and, therefore, a willingness to sacrifice. The future of
Taiwan can never be as important to theUnited States as it is to China, and China
could be expected—as was the case in Korea,
where it felt directly threatened by MacArthur’s advance to the Yalu River—to display
a much higher tolerance of casualties thanwould the United States. The analogy most
relevant here is the Vietnam War, in which su­
perior American firepower and technology
was defeated by an enemy whose greater
strength of will to win manifested itself in aremarkable strategic patience and willingness
to accept horrendous manpower losses.
The Chinese are not afraid to threaten or
use force, even in circumstances in which theobjective military balance is weighted heavily
against them, as it was in Korea in 1950 and
the Taiwan Strait in 1996. Indeed, the Chi­nese appear to believe that military weakness
requires a superior will to use force. John
Garver argues that “Chinese strategic think­ing has often concluded that periods of weak­ness required forceful policies precisely because the enemy may be tempted to exploit
China’s vulnerability.” Examples of this inverse relationship between bellicosity andstrength in Chinese foreign policy include“the decision for war with the United States in
October 1950; the decision to launch an intense political struggle against Khrushchev in
1960 just as China’s economy was collapsing;

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the 1962 decision for war with India when
China was experiencing mass famine and its
alliance with Moscow had collapsed; and the1969 decision for military confrontation with
the Soviets on the Ussuri River as the PLA was
preoccupied with the chaos of the Cultural
Revolution.”16
Nor do the Chinese confuse military suc­cess with casualty minimization. China has anexcessive population and a long history ofsubordinating individual human lives to theimperatives of statecraft. Communist China
has used force in Korea and Tibet; against islands held by the Nationalist Chinese off themainland coast; and against India, Vietnam,
and Soviet forces along the Ussuri River.
China also accepts war as a continuation ofpolitics rather than as a substitute for politics,
and force as an indispensable companion to
diplomacy with unfriendly states.
China’s geographic proximity to Taiwan and
the South China Sea also works to its advan­
tage. Chinese lines of communication are shortcompared to those separating East Asia fromthe United States. Even though Chinese naval
and air forces would be no match for their
American counterparts for the foreseeable fu­
ture, China has an expanding missile force ca­
pable of striking Taiwan and targets in theSouth China Sea directly from mainland
launch positions. Bringing Taiwan under sus­
tained missile strikes could wreck Taiwan’s
economy, to say nothing of complicating the island’s defense.
A third advantage is the high probability
that the Chinese would avoid challenging
American military power on its own terms. The
Chinese have learned from the Gulf War thattrying to beat the Americans at their own gameis a recipe for disaster. The Chinese almost cer­tainly would pursue an asymmetric war against
the United States involving attempted preemp­tion of US military access to the region; disrup­tion of US sea and air lines of communication;
and attacks on US command, control, andcommunications, possibly including satellites.
The Jominian American military would be confronted with the deceptive warfare of Sun Tzu.
The Chinese recognize their technological—

including informational—inferiority, but theyalso represent a military tradition, as Gerald
Segal points out, that places an “unusual em­
phasis” on “cunning stratagems” and “minimiz­ing brute force.”17 They also have reoriented
their strategic focus from continental defense
to preparation for “local, limited war underhigh-tech conditions” (i.e., precisely the Amer­ican threat they perceive).18

Limited War by Default?
Assuming the absence of mindless escala­tion to a general nuclear exchange, a war between China and the United States would beconstrained by limited military capacity andpolitical objectives. For openers, neither
China nor the United States is capable of in­vading and subjugating the other, and even if
the United States had the ability to do so,
avoidance of a land war on the Asian mainland has long been an injunction of American
strategy. The objectives of a Sino-American
war over Taiwan or freedom of navigation in
the South China Sea would be limited—justas they were in the Sino-American war in
Korea. And since the outcome in either casewould be decided by naval and air forces, withregular ground forces relegated to a distinctly
secondary role, a war over Taiwan or theSouth China Sea would also be limited interms of the type of force employed. This was
not the case in the Korean War, in which
ground combat dominated. (To be sure, theUS position on the ground would have been
untenable without air dominance.)
During the Korean War, however, theUnited States refrained from attacking targets
in China. (The Truman administration was
feverishly rearming the United States and did
not wish to escalate a war in Asia at a time
when Europe remained defenseless against a
possible Soviet invasion. Thus, it rejected
MacArthur’s call for what amounted to a lim­
ited war against China itself in place of thelimited war being waged against Chinese forcesin Korea.) Could an effective defense of Tai­wan or freedom of navigation be mounted
without attacks on mainland targets? Obvi-THINKING ABOUT CHINA AND WAR

ously, Chinese naval and air units approach­ing Taiwan or operating in the South China
Sea could be attacked separately. But what
about their operating bases on the mainland?
And what about missile launch sites, espe­
cially in the absence of effective Taiwanesetheater missile defenses? In circumstances of
air and missile attacks on Taiwan, military andpolitical pressures for counterattacks against
associated targets on the mainland would
likely prove irresistible. But such counterat­tacks, in turn, would invite Chinese escalation
against US bases in the western Pacific andperhaps even terrorist assaults on population
targets in the United States itself. How would
an American president respond to a Chinesesuspected-but-not-provable biological or chem­
ical attack on an American city?

The Last Sino-American War
China and the United States last warred in
Korea from 1950 to 1953, and although eachcountry’s knowledge of the other has greatly
expanded since then, cultural and historicalbarriers to effective communication remain
formidable enough to provide grist for war
via miscalculation. Henry Kissinger’s depic­
tion of the two countries’ differing ap­
proaches to policy bears quoting at length:
China’s approach to policy is skeptical and pru­dent, America’s optimistic and missionary.
China’s sense of time beats to a different
rhythm from America’s. When an American is
asked to date a historical event, he refers to a
specific day on the calendar; when a Chinese
describes an event, he places it within a dynasty.
And of the fourteen imperial dynasties, ten
have lasted longer than the entire history of theUnited States.
Americans think in terms of concrete solutions
to specific problems. The Chinese think interms of stages in a process that has no precise
culmination. Americans believe that interna­
tional disputes result either from misunder­
standings or ill will; the remedy for the former
is persuasion—occasionally quite insistent—
and, for the latter, defeat or destruction for theevildoer. The Chinese approach is impersonal,
patient, and aloof; the Middle Kingdom has a77horror of appearing to be a supplicant. Where
Washington looks to good faith and good will as
the lubricant of international relations, Beijing
assumes that statesmen have done their homework and will understand subtle indirections;insistence is therefore treated as a sign of weak­
ness, and good personal relations are not themselves considered a lubricant of serious dia­logue. To Americans, Chinese leaders seempolite but aloof and condescending. To the Chi­nese, Americans appear erratic and somewhat
frivolous.19

The Korean War stands as a case study inmiscalculation by both Washington and Bei­
jing, notwithstanding repeated attempts byboth sides to signal intentions to each other.
The United States grossly underestimatedChina’s willingness and ability to defend its
strategic interests in Korea; indeed, the Tru­
man administration had difficulty accepting
the very presence of such interests. Max Has­
tings observes that because the “United States
was convinced that its policies . . . presented
no threat to any legitimate Chinese inter­
est[,] Washington therefore persuaded itself
that Peking would reach the same conclu­
sion.”20 As MacArthur’s forces crossed the38th parallel and advanced toward the Yalu,
the administration believed it sufficient sim­ply to declare that it had no designs on Chi­nese territory; it apparently never occurred to
President Truman or Secretary of State Dean
Acheson that Beijing might regard the estab­lishment of a reunified, anticommunist Korea
adjacent to China’s industrial heartland as a
strategic threat. (After all, had not the Japa­
nese used Korea as a jumping-off point for
their conquest of Manchuria?) This lack ofimagination contributed in turn to the administration’s virtual deafness to Beijing’s nu­
merous warnings that it was prepared to enter
the war rather than accept an American client
state along the Yalu. Even when first contact
was made with Chinese forces, the adminis­
tration refused to believe that it represented
anything more than political posturing, atoken intervention.21
The administration’s incomprehension ofChina’s motives—specifically, its failure to
grasp that country’s strength of interest in

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Korea—was attended by disdain for China’s
military capacity. MacArthur and the rest of
the American military had nothing but contempt for Chinese fighting power; indeed,
MacArthur assured Truman that he would
make short work of the Chinese if they tried
to intervene. At his meeting with Truman on
Wake Island, he said there was “very little”
chance of Chinese intervention. “They haveno air force. Now that we have bases for our
Air Force in Korea, if the Chinese tried to get
down to Pyongyang, there would be the great­
est slaughter.”22 From an American perspec­
tive, an army of simple peasants armed withbolt-action rifles and lacking air cover was nomatch for US forces, and if this fact was selfevident to the Americans, then obviously it
would also be to the Chinese. MacArthur’s
pet corps commander, Gen Edward Almond,exhorted his Yalu-bound troops, “Don’t let abunch of Chinese laundrymen stop you.”23
There was no appreciation of the strengths of
the PLA—its superb discipline, tenacity, andcapacity to endure hardship—or the degree
to which terrain in northern Korea could be
exploited by guerrilla tactics at the expense of
a conventional, roadbound army.
Yet, if the Americans miscalculated in
Korea, so did the Chinese leadership. Mao Ze­
dong not only believed that Chinese inter­
vention was imperative, he also believed that
the PLA could sweep the Americans off thepeninsula—a conviction strengthened after
the PLA routed the Americans along the
Yalu.24 If the Americans placed excessive faithin material superiority, Mao believed thathuman factors—superior will, discipline, andfighting skills—and, above all, a superiorcause could defeat firepower-rich US forces.
He regarded US troops as roadbound, creaturecomforted softies who were fighting for the evil
cause of imperialism—and, therefore, wereincapable of mustering the capacity for sacri­
fice characteristic of seasoned PLA forces.25
The PLA’s actual performance against US
forces was impressive, especially the massive
surprise assault in late November 1950, which
inflicted upon MacArthur the longest retreat in
American military history. In this and in subse­

quent operations, the PLA displayed a masteryof march discipline, night-infiltration tactics,
concealment, and camouflage that partially offset the US advantage in firepower. PLA com­manders also displayed an insensitivity to casu­
alties relative to that of their Americancounterparts. Yet, the PLA’s initial successalong the Yalu owed much to MacArthur’s own
recklessness and the Truman administration’s
inability to control its vain Far Eastern com­mander. Moreover, US firepower, while unable
to crush the Chinese, proved more than ade­quate to block any chance of a Chinese expul­
sion of US forces from Korea (only MacArthur
was panicked into believing that US forces were
headed for an Asian Dunkirk). By the spring of1951, the combination of ceaseless aerial
pounding of lengthy Chinese supply lines andthe savage application of firepower against
massed frontline Chinese forces had severely
restricted the PLA’s ability to sustain offensive
operations over both space and time. Unfortu­
nately for many PLA soldiers, the Chinese com­mander in Korea recognized this unpleasantfact well before Mao, who continued to believethat will alone was the key to victory and or­dered yet additional—and doomed—offen­
sives aimed at sweeping the Eighth Army into
the sea. US troops, especially with the arrival of
Gen Matthew Ridgway as Eighth Army com­mander, also fought with a degree of skill anddetermination that belied Mao’s preinterven­tion assumptions about the Americans’ fight­
ing qualities.
Because the Korean War was fought to amilitary stalemate, neither side could claim adecisive victory. The United States restored
South Korea’s territorial integrity but failed toreunite the Korean peninsula under an anticommunist government. Likewise, China
saved North Korea but failed to reunite thepeninsula under communist auspices. But
China, by far the weaker side, was nonethelessthe relative winner of the conflict. That the
Chinese David had even stalemated the Amer­ican Goliath greatly elevated Chinese prestige
throughout Asia and emboldened communist
revolutionary movements everywhere. The
war established China as a tough risk-takerTHINKING ABOUT CHINA AND WAR

and a force henceforth to be reckoned with,quite a contrast to China’s prewar image as an
object of contempt and a soft punching bag
for the imperial powers. There would be no
more talk of Chinese laundrymen.
China’s intervention and military perfor­
mance in Korea also exerted a chilling effecton subsequent US military intervention in the
Vietnam War. For fear of provoking a repeti­tion of Chinese intervention, the Johnson administration limited the US war aim to thepreservation of a noncommunist South Viet­nam and placed significant restrictions on air
operations against North Vietnam. As Premier

79

Chou En-lai noted to President Nixon in 1972,“America [was] more careful about China inthe Vietnam War than it had been in Korea.”26
The idiosyncrasies of the Korean War tell us
nothing about how a future Sino-American war
would come about and play out. But as distantas that war is, it remains an object lesson in cul­tural incomprehension and consequent politi­
cal and military miscalculation. And while
thinking about war with China is hardly predic­
tive—China’s emergence as America’s next
qualified strategic rival is not inevitable—ignor­
ing the possibility of war would be a profes­
sional dereliction of duty. ■Notes
1. See, for example, Steven W. Mosher, Hegemon: China’s Plan
to Dominate Asia and the World (San Francisco,: Encounter Books,
2001); Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, The Coming Conflictwith China (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1997); and Robert Kagan,“What China Knows That We Don’t,” The Weekly Standard, 20 Jan­uary 1997. For a more benign view of an emergent China’s im­
plications for US security, see Andrew J. Nathan and Robert S.
Ross, The Great Wall and the Empty Fortress: China’s Search for Security(New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1997); Gerald Segal, “Does
China Matter?” Foreign Affairs, September/October 1999, 24–36;
and Nicholas Berry, “China Is Not an Imperialist Power,” Strategic
Review, Winter 2001, 4–10.
2. Nan Li, From Revolutionary Internationalism to Conservative
Nationalism: The Chinese Military’s Discourse on National Security and
Identity in the Post-Mao Era (Washington, D.C.: United States Insti­
tute for Peace, 2001), 12. See also Koro Bessho, Identities and Se­
curity in East Asia, Adelphi Paper 325 (London: International In­
stitute for Strategic Studies, 1999), 27–37.
3. See Michael D. Swaine and Ashley J. Tellis, Interpreting
China’s Grand Strategy: Past, Present, and Future (Santa Monica,
Calif.: RAND Corporation, 2000), especially pages 151–241.
4. Henry Kissinger, Does America Need a Foreign Policy? Toward
a Diplomacy for the 21st Century (New York: Simon and Schuster,2001), 139.
5. In 1997 gross domestic product per capita (in yuan)
ranged from 25,750 in Shanghai Province to 2,215 in Guizhou
Province. See Peter T. Y. Cheung and James T. H. Tang, “The Ex­
ternal Relations of China’s Provinces,” in The Making of Chinese
Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform, 1978–2000, ed. David
M. Lampton (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001),
95.
6. See Bruce Gilley, “People’s Republic of Cheats,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 21 June 2001, 59–60.
7. The “Chinese state has been united as a single entity
under Chinese rule for only approximately one-half of the period
since the end of the Han Dynasty in 220 A.D. During the otherhalf of this period, China has been embroiled in domestic con­flict, divided between Chinese and non-Chinese regimes, or en­
tirely ruled by non-Han Chinese invaders.” Swaine and Tellis, 13.

8. Richard K. Betts and Thomas J. Christensen, “China: Get­ting the Questions Right,” The National Interest, Winter2000/2001, 29.
9. Imperial Japan’s conquest of Manchuria and of coastal
China proper did not pose a direct threat to core US security in­terests in Asia. That threat emerged only when Japan expanded
its aggressive focus to offshore and peninsular Asia.
10. Senate, Testimony of General Douglas MacArthur before theArmed Services and Foreign Relations Committees of the United States
Senate, 82d Cong., 1st sess., 103, 108 (3–5 May 1951; reprint, Pat­erson, N.J.: Hour-Glass Publishers, 1966).
11. Swaine and Tellis, 231, 233.
12. See Michael Pillsbury, China Debates the Future Security En­
vironment (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press,
2000), 63–105.
13. David M. Lampton, “China’s Foreign and National Secu­
rity Policy-Making Process: Is It Changing and Does It Matter?” in
Lampton, 25.
14. Betts and Christensen, 22.
15. See James Miles, “Chinese Nationalism, U.S. Policy andAsian Security,” Survival, Winter 2000–2001, 51–57; and Joseph
Fewsmith and Stanley Rosen, “The Domestic Context of Chinese
Foreign Policy: Does ‘Public Opinion’ Matter?” in Lampton,
151–87.
16. John W. Garver, Face Off: China, the United States, and Tai­
wan’s Democratization (Seattle: University of Washington Press,
1997), 62–63.
17. Gerald Segal, Defending China (Oxford: Oxford Univer­sity Press, 1985), 40.
18. See Paul H. B. Godwin, “The PLA Faces the Twenty-First
Century: Reflections on Technology, Doctrine, Strategy, and Op­
erations,” in China’s Military Faces the Future, ed. James R. Lilley
and David L. Shambaugh (Washington, D.C.: American Enter­
prise Institute, 1999), 39–63.
19. Kissinger, 137–38.
20. Max Hastings, The Korean War (New York: Simon andSchuster, 1987), 135.
21. Assessments of Chinese behavior and American miscal­
culations in the fall of 1950 appear in Allen S. Whiting, China

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WINTER 2001

Crosses the Yalu: The Decision to Enter the Korean War (New York:
Macmillan, 1960); Chien Jian, China’s Road to the Korean War: The
Making of the Sino-American Confrontation (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1994); Hao Yufan and Zhai Zhihai, “China’s De­
cision to Enter the Korean War: History Revisited,” The China
Quarterly, March 1990, 94–115; Thomas J. Christensen, “Threats,
Assurances, and the Last Chance for Peace: The Lessons of Mao’s
Korean War Telegrams,” International Security, Summer 1992,
122–54; Michael H. Hunt, “Beijing and the Korean Crisis, June
1950–June 1951,” Political Science Quarterly, Fall 1992, 453–78; H.
A. DeWeerd, “Strategic Surprise in the Korean War,” Orbis, Fall
1962, 435–52; David S. McLellan, “Dean Acheson and the Korean
War,” Political Science Quarterly, March 1968, 16–39; Eliot A.
Cohen, “ ‘Only Half the Battle’: American Intelligence and theChinese Intervention in Korea, 1950,” Intelligence and National Se­
curity, January 1990, 129–49; Alexander L. George and Richard
Smoke, Deterrence in American Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice(New York: Columbia University Press, 1974), 140–234; and John
Lewis Gaddis, We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History (NewYork: Clarendon Press, 1997), 54–84.

22. Quoted in Clay Blair, The Forgotten War: America in Korea,
1950–1953 (New York: Times Books, 1988), 348.
23. Quoted in Russell Spurr, Enter the Dragon: China’s Unde­clared War against the U.S. in Korea, 1950–51 (New York: Newmar­
ket Press, 1988), 260.
24. Ibid., 239.
25. For the best work on Mao’s excessive confidence in the
PLA and incomprehension of the fighting power of American
forces in Korea, see Shu Guang Zhang, Mao’s Military Romanti­
cism: China and the Korean War, 1950–1953 (Lawrence, Kans.: Uni­
versity Press of Kansas, 1995). See also Memoirs of a Chinese Mar­shal: The Autobiographical Notes of Peng Dehuai (1898–1974), trans.
Zheng Longpu, ed. Sara Grimes (English text) (Beijing: Foreign
Languages Press, 1984); Bin Yu, “What China Learned from Its‘Forgotten War’ in Korea,” Strategic Review, Summer 1998, 4–16;
and Xiaoming Zhang, “China and the Air War in Korea,
1950–1953,” Journal of Military History, April 1998, 335–70.
26. Quoted in James Mann, About Face: A History of America’s
Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton (New York:
Vintage Books, 2000), 45.

Airpower versus a Fielded Army
A Construct for Air Operations in the
Twenty-First Century
LT COL PHIL M. HAUN, USAF
Editorial Abstract: Most readers are familiar with Col John Warden’s five-ring theory andthe reticence of Air Force commanders to use aerospace power to attack fielded ground forces.
However, political realities will likely dictate that we do so in future, as evidenced by Opera­tion Allied Force. Colonel Haun feels that we must learn from Kosovo and prepare to support an air-first strategy. The services need to organize, train, and equip for such operations,especially in the areas of target location, identification, and battle damage assessment.

S

INCE OPERATION DESERT Storm,
Air Force strategic planners have been
enamored with Col John Warden’s fiveconcentric rings and the underlying assumption that enemy military forces are oflimited importance compared to enemy leadership. However, Warden’s attractive paradigm reduces airpower’s flexibility when a de-emphasis on attacking military forces servesto atrophy the Air Force’s ability to strikeground forces. The joint force air component
commander (JFACC) is tasked with attacking
centers of gravity identified by the objectivesof the National Command Authorities (NCA)and the joint force commander. Recent shifts
in policy and strategy have favored airpower81

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as the military instrument of choice to attack
not only traditional strategic targets but also
fielded forces, independent of friendly
ground operations. As air operations in bothBosnia and Kosovo illustrate, political leaders
are seeking to coerce opponents by ordering
direct attacks on fielded forces, conductedprimarily—if not solely—by airpower.
Although people still debate over whether
such attacks represent the most effective use of
airpower, events over the last decade havemade this strategy a reality. During that time,
America’s leaders have directed the Air Force
to attack an enemy’s fielded forces, so our ser­vice should prepare itself to do so again when
the next call comes. Valuable lessons from theexperience in Operation Allied Force point to
a new, systemic, operational, and tactical framework for more efficiently conducting air opera­
tions against fielded forces.

Operation Allied Force: Attacking
the Serbian Third Army
For anyone who believed that one could
attack fielded forces only on a flat, open
desert, Allied Force demonstrated otherwise.
During that operation, a combination of context, policy, and overall military strategy com­pelled airmen to apply airpower in direct attack of a fielded army. The much-publicizedcaveat that the Serbian army would face nothreat from North Atlantic Treaty Organiza­tion (NATO) ground forces further compli­
cated the situation.1
Planning for possible air operations
against Serbia began in earnest in May 1998.
By July, Gen Wesley Clark, supreme alliedcommander Europe, was focusing NATO’s
military actions around a phased air operation.2 However, during negotiations at Ram­bouillet, France, General Clark ordered the
Air Force’s combined force air component
commander, Lt Gen Michael Short, to increase the scope of planned attacks frompunitive strikes against fixed targets to attacks
on the Serbian Third Army deployed in
Kosovo (fig. 1), even though General Shortwas not convinced that direct attacks consti­

tuted the best use of airpower.3 However,
NATO drove the planning, and its stated mil­itary objectives included two that dealt di­
rectly with the Serbian fielded forces: deterring further Serbian action against the
Kosovar Albanians and reducing the ability of
the Serbian military to continue offensive op­
erations against them.4
This was no easy task! Concealed within
the verdant, cloud-covered valley of Kosovo
roamed 40,000 soldiers of the Serbian Third
Army equipped with hundreds of tanks, ar­mored personnel carriers (APC), and ar­tillery pieces—interspersed with over a million Kosovar Albanians. In addition, a wall ofmobile, radar-guided surface-to-air missiles;
man-portable missiles; and antiaircraft pieces,
as well as a squadron of MiG-21 fighters, pro­tected Third Army from NATO air forces.5
In developing plans to use against the Ser­bian Third Army, US air planners relied on
suppression of enemy air defenses and elec­
tronic jamming assets to confuse and degrade
the Serbs’ integrated air defense system. But
after strike aircraft could safely enter Kosovo,
two tactical problems remained: how to locate
and identify the targets and how to successfully
attack them while limiting collateral damage.
A-10 and F-16CG (Block 40) forward air controllers airborne (FACA) trained in visual re­connaissance and air-strike control would
identify targets and limit collateral damage.6
FACAs would search out targets identified ei­
ther from intelligence, surveillance, and re­connaissance (ISR) assets during premission
planning or real time from joint surveillance,
target attack radar system (JSTARS) aircraft.
After the targets were identified, the FACAs
would control strikes, using available NATOaircraft.
Air attacks against targets in Serbia andKosovo were conducted under strict rules ofengagement (ROE), part of which included
an above-ground-level altitude restriction of
15,000 feet (later lowered to 10,000 feet for
FACAs) to protect NATO aircraft from hostile
ground fire.7 As Allied Force progressed, theROE underwent continual adjustment to restrict the types of targets for attack. By early

AIRPOWER VERSUS A FIELDED ARMY

Figure 1. Kosovo

83

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A-10 FACAs provided visual reconnaissance and airstrike control during Operation Allied Force.

June, FACAs had to receive permission fromthe combined air operations center (CAOC)
for any targets attacked.
NATO’s first air missions against Serbian
fielded forces occurred on 30 March.8 FACAs
circled overhead, searching for Serbian Third
Army units that kept their military vehicles off
the roads as hundreds of thousands of Kosovar
Albanian refugees streamed out of Kosovo.
Problems quickly surfaced for FACAs facing astatic enemy. Intelligence support and imagery
provided to aircrews proved insufficient to ac­complish the mission. Tactical imagery of the
Serbian Third Army was inadequate, both inquantity and timeliness of dissemination. Poor
weather over Kosovo during late March andearly April prevented reconnaissance assets
from producing imagery, and the products re­ceived were outdated. Even with good weather,requests for tactical imagery had to compete at
the NCA level for priority. Aircrews often re­ceived timely photographs of refugees hidingin the hills but no accompanying imagery of
the Serbian armor that had driven them

there.9 In-theater tactical-reconnaissance assets
were available; however, dissemination of theinformation proved inadequate.
Serbian soldiers sitting still on the sides of
the roads during strike windows limited theusefulness of JSTARS and its ground movingtarget indicator.10 But the real limitation of
JSTARS was the lack of a viable, onboard targetidentification capability. Even when JSTARS
could see vehicles moving around Kosovo, it
still could not distinguish a tank from a trac­
tor pulling a trailer loaded with refugees.
Eventually, JSTARS crews did develop tactics in
an attempt to overcome this deficiency and,on occasion, were able to correlate vehicleidentification data supplied by unmanned aer­ial vehicles (UAV) to provide real-time target­
ing information to FACAs. For example, thePredator UAV could identify targets through its
real-time video output. Yet, UAVs also experi­
enced efficiency limitations during Allied
Force, due mostly to the lack of integration
with operational forces. UAVs had never been
integrated into the air tasking order with strikepackages, and the lack of training between
UAVs and FACAs made tasks such as altitudedeconfliction and target talk-ons difficult. Evenso, the ability of UAVs to locate and identify
Serbian forces was a much-needed capability,
and operational techniques were patched to­gether as quickly as possible. In the end, UAV­
FACA employment techniques were still in
their infancy as Allied Force drew to a close,
and they had yet to produce a significant num­
ber of target engagements.
NATO’s in-theater intelligence organiza­
tions at the joint analysis center in Molesworth,England, and at the CAOC in Vicenza, Italy,
monitored the Serbian Third Army. Neither fa­
cility was fully prepared for the enormous de­mand for tactical imagery that aircrews needed
to attack fielded forces efficiently. In particular,lack of a strong Army intelligence presence at
the CAOC was part of the problem.11 This overall weakness in intelligence capability existed
throughout the operation, but arrival of the
Army’s Task Force Hawk in Tirana, Albania,
and construction of a flexible targeting cellwithin the CAOC improved matters somewhat.

AIRPOWER VERSUS A FIELDED ARMY

Given the limited support from intelli­gence, imagery, JSTARS, and UAVs, the FACA
had to independently locate and identify the
Serbian army. Specifically, FACAs had to posi­
tively identify all targets prior to attack. Visualtarget identification proved difficult during
the day and virtually impossible at night, evenwith the use of night-vision goggles and tar­geting pods. On the other hand, despite thedifficulty of locating and identifying targets,
destroying them was relatively easy after they
were identified. Precision-guided munitions
proved effective against Serbian armor, as didcluster bomb units and general-purpose
bombs dropped by aircraft with computed delivery systems. For the most part, once FACAs
identified a target, aircraft could kill it.
Despite this capability, results against
Third Army were mixed and merit some explanation. Measuring the effectiveness of air
strikes proved as problematic as locating andidentifying Serbian armor. Unlike Desert
Storm, whose mission objectives called for 50
percent attrition of Iraq’s armor, no such
quantitative objective was ever set for Allied
Force. Furthermore, total numbers of Ser­bian armored vehicles in Kosovo were neverwell tracked, leaving no way for NATO intelli­gence to adequately assess attrition rates,
even if that had been an objective. When
asked in a NATO news conference of Sep­
tember 1999 how much of Third Army had
been destroyed, General Clark replied,“Enough.”12 The measurement of success lay
not in counting the number of vehicles de­stroyed but in how well air attacks prevented
the Serbs from conducting offensive opera­
tions and deterred them from acting against
the Kosovar Albanians.
Obviously, battle damage assessment (BDA)
is critical because war fighters need to knowwhether they have met objectives and airmen
need to know whether they have to fly inharm’s way once again to meet those objectives.
Unfortunately, controversy has clouded Allied
Force’s BDA ever since the air strikes in Kosovo
ended. But that controversy has concerned adiscrepancy in numbers reported from several
sources (table 1). Regardless of which numbers

85

approximate reality, however, an accurate num­
ber/percentage of vehicles destroyed remains
meaningless without some yardstick to measure
overall effectiveness.13
Table 1
Tactical BDA Estimates from Allied ForceBDA Source

Tanks

APCs

Artillery

Gen Henry Shelton(10 June 1999)

120

220

450

Serbian army

13

6

27

Newsweek(15 May 2000)

14

18

20

NATO
(16 September 1999)

93

153

389

Architecture for Attacking
Fielded Forces
Allied Force demonstrated that target location, identification, and BDA are three ofthe most important and challenging aspectsof applying airpower. Easily located and iden­tified fixed-target sets tended to be politicallysensitive, and the targets most politically ac­
ceptable for attack—namely, the Serbian
Third Army in Kosovo—were much more dif­ficult to locate and identify. Yet, how were ourairmen trained going into this war? They
were trained, prepared, and organized to attack exactly the types of fixed targets that
ended up being off limits! And they were rel­
atively untrained and ill prepared to attack amobile army in the field. The challenge of attacking fielded forces from the air is not lim­
ited to the Air Force but requires a joint/
combined approach. The Air Force has nomonopoly on the requisite ISR assets and in­telligence expertise; furthermore, given therealities of the joint/combined command
structure, an airman might not make key airpower decisions.
Therefore, the argument presented here
does not call for the Air Force to abandon its

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capabilities for strategic attack, based on thepolitically sensitive nature of its target set.
Rather, it urges acknowledgment and accept­
ance of the reality that enemy fielded forces
will continue to be viable targets and that the
Air Force will continue to attack these forces
prior to the onset of, or in the absence of,friendly ground operations.
Again, the key to future success lies withtarget identification and BDA. The JFACC
must contend with the unique challenge andspecial requirements of attacking an army
from the air without the helpful, clarifying
presence of friendly ground forces.
When attacking fielded forces, one must in­tegrate a unique set of capabilities into a sys­
tem designed for the rigorous, fast-paced na­
ture of war against a reactive and mobile
enemy. At the operational level, the JFACC
must have a joint air operations center (JAOC)
with an intelligence shop (J-2) capable ofmaintaining an up-to-date ground order ofbattle while simultaneously processing applica­
ble ISR products for real-time or near-real-time
use by combat operations—a monumental
task. Intelligence should use an Allied
Force–styled flex-targeting cell to receive andintegrate BDA to continuously update the bat­tle-space picture for the JFACC. At the tacticallevel, a mixture of national- and tactical-level
ISR assets should be used to locate, identify,
and track fielded forces in real or near-realtime. Joint assets such as the US Navy’s tacticalreconnaissance pods or the US Army’s coun­terbattery radar may be required to provide ca­pabilities not available from Air Force assets.
Terminal-attack-control assets capable of final
target identification and collateral damage as­
sessment will remain critical, as will strikers
trained to attack mobile targets and accurately
deliver a variety of munitions.
It is at the tactical level that targets are
physically destroyed, and the JFACC influ­
ences these attacks by designating terminalcontrol authority14 as necessary to address thenature of the conflict and the types of mis­sions conducted. During close air support(CAS) missions in proximity to and coordina­tion with friendly ground forces, terminal-

control authority resides with a terminal-attack
controller.15 Likewise, when attacking fielded
forces without the help of friendly groundforces, the JFACC may assign terminal-control
authority to an airborne terminal-attack controller in order to limit the potential for col­lateral damage and to accept responsibility
for the difficult task of locating and identify­
ing mobile targets.
Terminal-attack controllers must first beable to develop and maintain situational aware­ness in order to orchestrate successful attacks.
This means surviving within the battle space inorder to observe and maneuver to identify not
only targets but also threats and the potential
for collateral damage. Second, controllers musthave onboard target-identification capability.
Third, they must be trained in attacking fielded
forces, which entails recognizing enemy armor
and understanding how to direct strikers onto
targets. Controllers must also be familiar withstrikers’ capabilities and limitations as well astactics. In short, controllers are key tacticians
who determine what targets will be attacked
and how.
Terminal air controllers have responsibility
for final identification and prioritization oftargets, but the striker delivers the firepower.16
In determining the suitability of a striker, onemust consider three critical characteristics:
the aircrew’s training, the platform, and themunitions available. During Vietnam, the entire Air Force fighter community was wellversed in CAS procedures. With the introduc­tion of the A-10 in the late 1970s, however, CAS
became the specialty of one airframe, while
the remainder of the fighter force gravitatedtowards interdiction, strategic attack, and airsuperiority missions. Today, most fighter aircrews no longer receive training in CAS. Al­
though, by definition, attacking fielded forces
without the presence of friendly groundtroops is not CAS, the fundamental skills remain the same.17 These skills include an un­derstanding of terminology and coordination
procedures, target marking and talk-on proce­dures, restrictions, and final control proce­dures. Aircrews performing striker missions
must also have proficiency in weapons deliv-

AIRPOWER VERSUS A FIELDED ARMY

ery. Only direct hits kill armor, particularly
armor that is dug in or on the move. The po­tential for collateral damage may further restrict attack headings or delivery options,making successful attack more difficult.
Strikers must also have a survivable plat­form—a factor the JFACC needs to weighagainst the risk of shootdown. The platform
must also have a compatible secure-commu­
nications suite. Otherwise, strikers may degrade communications security, which, inturn, degrades survivability. Further, the platform should be able to accurately deliver a va­
riety of munitions, whether precision-guided
or free-fall weapons delivered from the alti­
tude dictated by the ROE. The best possible
aircrew proficiency imaginable cannot makeup for a platform that cannot deliver muni­
tions with requisite accuracy.18
Finally, munitions must be able to destroy
the target without causing undue collateral
damage. The munition of choice depends
upon the situation, but a combination of pre­cision and nonprecision weapons normallyprovides the flexibility needed for successful
aerial attack.19
Obviously, this architecture for attacking
fielded forces is systemic, relying on the ex­
isting JAOC structure and modifications at
the operational and tactical levels to promote
time-critical targeting required to attack mo­bile targets successfully. The flex-targetingcell becomes the central location for process­ing ISR inputs and for developing and dis­tributing targeting products, as well as main­taining the enemy’s order of battle.
Operations (J-3) then becomes responsible
for the command and control of assets, en­suring the translation of the commander’s intent into appropriate action. At the tacticallevel, terminal air controllers are responsiblefor identifying and prioritizing targets as well
as determining attack restrictions, based on
criteria such as potential collateral damage orROE. Finally, with inputs and guidance fromthe terminal air controller, the striker com­pletes the attack.

87

Over Kosovo, UAVs like the Predator provided real-timetargeting information to FACAs.

Conclusion
Given US policy makers’ current prefer­ence for using airpower in crisis situations,the US military should prepare to support an
air-first strategy. Its services need to organize,train, and equip for such operations. Airpower can destroy what it finds; however, an
enemy under air attack quickly adapts, using
dispersal and deception to conceal his loca­
tion. Based on the experience of Allied Force,a systems approach helps to efficiently locate
and attack such an enemy. At the operational
level, the JAOC’s J-2 requires a flex-targeting
cell, manned by Air Force and Army intelli­gence personnel, to build and maintain situ­
ational awareness on enemy ground forces
and to process ISR products for near-realtime targeting and BDA. Intelligence musthave immediate access to a variety of ISR assets, and it must be able to process the infor­
mation quickly. This includes not only Air
Force and national assets but also joint andcombined assets, such as Army and coalition
UAVs, counterbattery radar, and Navy andcoalition tactical-reconnaissance platforms.
This systems approach will be effective
only if one can prosecute the targeting infor­
mation at the tactical level. Terminal air controllers, such as FACAs, must have the capa­
bility to locate and identify targets on thebattlefield. Advances in optics and infrared
targeting systems continue to increase the ca­pability of medium-altitude target identifica­tion during day-and-night operations. Likewise, developing tactics, techniques, andprocedures during peacetime to more fully

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integrate UAVs into operations will improve
the target-marking or talk-on ability of theseaircraft. Finally, strikers must train with
FACAs to attack mobile targets and become
familiar with the unique and flexible natureof attacking fielded forces.
The Air Force needs to adjust its training
and tactics. The adage of “train the way you
fight” has validity. It makes sense to take into
combat time-tested tactics and techniques
honed during peacetime training. In the heatof battle, military forces have no option otherthan fighting the way they have trained.
Training develops the tactical skills and mindset that define a combat force’s capabilities.
Major exercises such as Red Flag and Air War­rior should incorporate attacks on fielded
forces without the presence of friendly
ground forces as a primary mission. Given
this mission’s unique challenges, if the Air
Force fails to develop adequate training or ef­
fective tactics, it will likely fail to meet the
combat expectations of either the theatercommander in chief or the NCA. ■Notes

1. This article uses the terms Serbia and Serbian to refer to theFederal Republic of Yugoslavia and its forces, respectively.
2. Air War over Serbia: Initial Report (Ramstein Air Base, Ger­
many: United States Air Forces in Europe, Studies and Analysis
Directorate, April 2000), 8.
3. General Short believed that the key to meeting NATO’s
objectives lay in attacking the political leadership in Belgrade. Lt
Gen Michael Short, USAF, retired, lecture, School of Advanced
Airpower Studies, Maxwell AFB, Ala., 21 November 2000.
4. Air War over Serbia, 9.
5. R. Jeffrey Smith and William Drozdiak, “Anatomy of a
Purge,” Washington Post, 11 April 1999, A1.
6. Lt Col Phil M. Haun, unpublished A-10 war diary,
March–June 1999. Eventually, FACAs expanded to include US
Navy F-14s and Marine F/A-18D Hornets.
7. Ibid. Later, further modifications to the ROE allowed
strike aircraft to fly as low as 8,000 feet above ground level during
diving deliveries of weapons. This altitude restriction was further
reduced to 5,000 feet after the bombing of a Kosovar refugee col­umn by F-16CG FACAs on 14 April 1999.
8. Due to poor weather over Kosovo, the first strikes against
mobile targets did not take place until 6 April.
9. Lt Steven Smith, intelligence officer, 81st Fighter
Squadron, discussions with author, April 1999.
10. JSTARS is a long-range, air-to-ground surveillance system
aboard the E-8C (a modified Boeing 707) consisting of (1) a syn­thetic-aperture radar capable of producing an image of a selectedarea and (2) a moving-target indicator designed to locate slowmoving ground targets.
11. Unlike Air Force intelligence, Army intelligence assesses
the capabilities of the enemy army. Its familiarity with the ISR assets best suited for observing enemy ground forces adds a wealthof expertise to the CAOC in this area.
12. Gen Wesley Clark, USA, and Brig Gen John Corley,
USAF, NATO press conference, Brussels, Belgium, 16 September
1999, on-line, Internet, 18 September 2001, available fromhttp://www.nato.int/kosovo/press/p990916a.htm.
13. Briefing, Secretary of Defense William Cohen and Gen
Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, subject: Ini­
tial BDA Assessment, Washington, D.C., 10 June 1999, on-line, In­
ternet, October 2000, available from http://www.defenselink.
mil/news/Jun1999/t06101999_t0610asd.html. On 16 June 1999,

Lt Gen Nebojsa Pavkovic of the Serb army refuted the numbers
offered by Cohen and Shelton, citing a much lower total. Re­
becca Grant, “True Blue: The Real Story behind the Kosovo Num­bers Game,” AFA Issue Brief, 1 June 2000, on-line, Internet, October
2000, available from http://www.afa.org/library/issues/trueblue.
html. By mid-July, General Clark had ordered an Air Force mis­sion-effectiveness analysis team to go see what was on the ground.
On 16 September, General Clark presented NATO’s BDA—similar
to Cohen and Shelton’s but with slightly lower numbers, based on
multiple strikes that had previously been double-counted. Clark
and Corley, NATO press conference.
14. Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 2-1.3, Counterland, 27 August 1999, 98. Terminal control, a type of air control,
is the authority to direct the maneuver of aircraft delivering ord­nance to a specific target.
15. Ibid. A terminal-attack controller is a qualified officer orenlisted member who, from a forward ground or airborne posi­tion, provides terminal control to aircraft performing CAS toground forces.
16. This does not mean that controllers with inherent kill ca­
pability may not perform both controller and striker functions.
17. AFDD 2-1.3, 92. CAS involves air action by fixed- and ro­tary-wing aircraft against hostile targets in proximity to friendly
forces, requiring detailed integration of each air mission with thefire and movement of those forces.
18. An excellent example is use of the British GR-7 during
Allied Force. Although Royal Air Force pilots were some of themost professional and well trained available, at medium altitude
the GR-7 delivered the BL-755 cluster bomb unit extremely inac­
curately due to the absence of a computed delivery solution forthis munition. Thus, the pilots had to perform a modified man­ual delivery from medium altitude with the aid of an electro­
optical targeting pod. The first canister impacts were recorded as
far away as one to two kilometers from the target. Haun diary.
19. A common misunderstanding is that the use of precision
munitions lowers the potential for collateral damage. Although
precision munitions such as laser-guided bombs or Maverick mis­siles are more accurate than free-fall munitions, if precision
weapons do not guide properly, they can miss their targets by
miles. Compare this to free-fall general-purpose bombs deliveredfrom a dive, which might miss by meters but never by miles.

Editor’s Note: PIREP is aviation shorthand for pilot report. It’s a means for one pilot to passon current, potentially useful information to other pilots. In the same fashion, we intend to use
this department to let readers know about aerospace-power items of interest.

C-9 Nightingale
From Dedicated Aeromedical Evacuation
to Theater Transport
CAPT GILLES VAN NEDERVEEN, USAF, RETIRED*I

N ORDER TO provide specialized aero­
medical evacuation, the Air Forcebought 24 variants of the commercial
DC-9 series 30 model in 1968. Twenty C-9A
Nightingales—the only dedicated medicalairlift aircraft in the world—continue to servewith the 86th Airlift Wing at Ramstein Air
Base, Germany; the 374th Airlift Wing at
Yokota Air Base, Japan; and the 375th Airlift
Wing at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois. In 2000
the C-9As based in the continental UnitedStates (CONUS) transported over 30,000 pa­
tients in 1,300 missions to military, Depart­
ment of Veterans Affairs, and civilian hospi­
tals. Aircraft at the overseas locations moved
more than 10,600 patients in Europe and another 1,000 in the Pacific theater, helping ensure that those patients received the special­ized care they needed. Additionally, three
VC-9Cs configured as VIP transports operatefrom Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, aspart of the 89th Airlift Wing. (The remaining
aircraft crashed in a fatal accident.)
Capable of carrying a mix of litter or ambu­
latory patients, the C-9A has numerous modifi­

cations—including oxygen outlets, a medical
refrigerator, a separate ventilation system, anda folding ramp—designed to provide for thecare and comfort of 40 patients. In peacetime,patients are stabilized prior to transport, but
equipment on board the aircraft allows med­
ical personnel to stabilize patients in flight.

C-9A

VC-9C

*Capt Gilles Van Nederveen, a former associate editor of Aerospace Power Journal, is a career intelligence officer who flew on RC-135,
EC-130, and E-8 aircraft. He has worked in both national and joint intelligence assignments.

89

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WINTER 2001

However, age is quickly catching up to theseairframes, which have noisy, inefficient en­gines; an older cockpit layout; and outdated
navigational aids. Although the Air Force has
recently updated some of the avionics, it stillneeds to replace the aircraft between fiscal
years 2004 and 2010. In the interim, Air Mobil­
ity Command (AMC) is working on roll-on/
roll-off pallets so it can use other aircraft in the
aeromedical role. These pallets will allow
aeroevacuation nurses to stabilize patients, but
most of the other AMC airframes, such as the
C-21, cannot transport patients until they havebeen stabilized. Furthermore, in an attempt to
cut costs for dedicated platforms, the Air Forceis conducting an ongoing analysis of AMC aircraft, looking for aeromedical-evacuation alternatives. Like the C-141 before it, the C-17 al­
ready flies long-distance aeromedical flightsfrom overseas theaters to the CONUS. Boththe elimination of the C-141 in active-dutysquadrons and the small number of C-17s haveforced airlift planners to look at other airframes for theater-evacuation missions, includ­ing the use of Civil Reserve Air Fleet aircraft
such as the Boeing 767.
Meanwhile, downsizing of the US military
overseas has proved stressful for intratheater
airlift. As the need to move large numbers ofpatients has declined, C-9s have been pressed
into service for nonmedical airlift duties. Con­
sequently, in order to comply with the Geneva
convention covering the use of the Red Cross
symbol, the Air Force is removing the crossfrom the T-tails of the C-9 fleet so that it can use
these aircraft for other airlift missions.
Current service planning has not identi­
fied a replacement for the C-9 Nightingale.
Part of the answer may involve the 89th Airlift
Wing’s three VC-9Cs, which a VIP/special air
mission (SAM) fleet review found lacking interms of range and carrying capacity. Specifi­
cally, the VC-9C can transport 22 passengers
for only 2,150 nautical miles—too short a dis­
tance for medium VIP airlift. Thus, AMC has
recommended the purchase of three C-40Bs
to replace the VC-9C airframes.
Indeed, according to an announcement byBoeing, the company “is being awarded a con-tract worth up to $800 million from the U.S. Air
Force to supply as many as seven C-40B and
C-40C aircraft and 10 years of logistics support.
The aircraft are based on the Boeing Business
Jet and will be used to support the needs of Air
Force commanders-in-chief and the Air Na­
tional Guard. The firm order for one C-40B
makes it the second such aircraft procured by
the Air Force.”1 The first C-40Bs will be based
at Andrews Air Force Base, where they will replace the C-22 (Boeing 727) transports used by
Headquarters Air National Guard.

C-40

The US Navy also is currently buying the
C-40—a Boeing 737-700—to replace its C-9
cargo/passenger fleet. The C-40’s range of
3,700 nautical miles; glass cockpit; and newer,
quieter, and more efficient engines make it
attractive to the US military. The Navy version
comes equipped with a seven-by-11-foot door,
which facilitates the loading not only of cargopallets but also litter patients if the C-40 isused as an aeromedical-evacuation aircraft.
Thus, the US military is taking steps—includ­ing the updating of existing airframes andthe purchasing of new aircraft—to ensurethat the vital mission of medical airlift con­tinues uninterrupted. ■Note
1. “U.S. Air Force to Award C-40B Contract,” Forum,on-line, Internet, 24 September 2001, available fromhttp://www.boeing.com/commercial/forum/issues/
0301/htm/a06.htm.

The art of war is divided between art and stratagem. What cannot be done byforce must be done by stratagem.
—Frederick the Great

The War on Drugs
Two More Casualties
LT COL STEPHEN P. HOWARD, USAF*W

E MUST ADD two more names to the casualty list of
America’s so-called war on drugs. On 20 April 2001, a
Peruvian military aircraft shot down a civilian Cessna 185,
killing American Christian missionary Roni Bowers and her
seven-month-old daughter Charity:
A CIA-contracted American crew aboard a US drug interdiction aircraft tried tostop Peruvian authorities from shooting at a plane that turned out to be carrying
American missionaries. . . .
Three Americans contracted by the Central Intelligence Agency, and a Peruvian
air force officer, were aboard the Cessna Citation 2, about one mile (1.6 km)
from where the missionaries’ plane was flying, the official said. . . .
The two-engine US Department of Defense aircraft was providing tracking anddetection information as part of joint US-Peruvian efforts to stem drugtrafficking.1

Incidents like this give us the opportunity to reflect upon the broader
implications of policies that have gone awry.
The facts and miscalculations of this incident will probably never receive
full disclosure. News reporters, commentators, and others will “spin” theepisode into a “terrible tragedy,” “careless accident,” or “unfortunate
incident.” We will have difficulty uncovering the truth because too many
special interests have a hand in this war on drugs. Each of these groups
tries to push its own agenda instead of promoting what is best for solving
America’s illegal-drug dilemma.
Political transitions such as the one currently under way in Washington,
D.C., provide the opportunity to look at previous policies from a new*Colonel Howard is chief of the Training Branch of the Operations, Plans, and Policy Center at Headquarters UnitedStates Special Operations Command, MacDill Air Force Base, Florida.

91

perspective. On the one hand, the course of action followed by the UnitedStates for over a decade to counter the “supply side” has not yielded theresults hoped for by the American people. Supply-side advocates say that
the US surveillance flights (like the one that tipped off the Peruvian air
force, which ultimately shot down the Bowers’ plane) play a vital role instopping the spread of illegal drugs in America. What they will fail to say isthat such interdiction efforts have failed miserably for over 10 years.
On the other hand, “demand side” advocates point to this incident as
another example of overzealous law enforcement and of military officials
trampling the rights of average citizens. They suggest that full funding oftreatment programs for addictive behavior would do more good thanshooting down civilian aircraft.
Neither view is completely correct. The most important point at stake inthis issue is that the US military is the wrong tool for stopping the use ofillegal drugs in America. We should not involve military force in domestic
law-enforcement issues either inside or outside the borders of the UnitedStates. Rather, we should train, equip, and prepare our military forces to fightthe nation’s “real” wars. Because of ignorance and self-serving agendas, many
people have lost sight of the intended use of the US military.
Uninformed individuals support counterdrug interdiction operations by
the military (such as the Peruvian aircraft shootdown) because they havelittle understanding of what military force can or should do. To them, themilitary is an expensive burden that should find gainful employment.
Counterdrug interdiction operations sound like just the right sort of
employment for the military. Although such operations squander
America’s military capability, some advocates are willing to misuse ournational-defense assets in return for drug-seizure headlines and costly, yetineffective, surveillance and interdiction operations.
Furthermore, some special interests prosper financially or philosophicallyby using America’s military personnel to fight a war that doesn’t exist. The
Nixon administration transformed America’s perspective on illegal drugs
from “concern” to “war” in 1971, when the president first proclaimed a war
on drugs. Like the war on poverty, it was a catchy phrase. In their haste to dosomething, well-intentioned government leaders could say, “We’re taking
action.” Sadly, a great deal of misguided “action” has also taken place while
presidential administrations have tried to figure out how to deal with the
problem of illegal drugs in the United States.
But this problem is so complex and profitable that it defies dissection andanalysis. Each administration since 1971 has looked for a quick fix to stem
the tide of illegal drugs flowing over our borders. For national-defense crises,
the nation’s “911” capability lies within the Department of Defense. Because
drug trafficking had become a transnational problem, it seemed logical topass the responsibility for battling illegal drugs to the military.
Until 1990, US generals and admirals had opposed such a tasking. They
knew of the huge physical and philosophical differences that existed between
92

law enforcement and military operations. However, after America won theCold War, those same generals and admirals feared losing their market sharein the New World Order. Without the Soviet Union to fight (or at least to
prepare to fight), senior military leaders sought missions that would maintaintheir relevancy in the minds of the American people. The “peace dividend”
represented an alarming concept to the military-industrial apparatus (bothcivilian and military) that had staked its future on the Cold War. When that
war ended, it sought any mission that would maintain the US military’s Cold
War infrastructure. Whether the military was the correct tool or not, senior
military leaders reversed themselves and embraced an active military role incounterdrug interdiction operations. But at what cost?
According to the US Department of Justice, the federal government has
spent more than $179.5 billion over the last two decades combating theimportation and illegal use of drugs in the United States. Yet, according tothose same statistics, the supply and purity of illegal drugs have increased.
At the same time, the price of illegal drugs has decreased. What have wepurchased with those billions of tax dollars?
For one thing, military readiness has steadily declined during the past
10 years. The war on drugs isn’t solely responsible, but it has contributed.
Likewise, military recruitment and retention are falling. This decade has
seen sharp declines in the numbers of men and women willing to serve inthe military. Again, counterdrug operations are not the sole cause here
but do contribute to the problem.
The reliability of military equipment and hardware is also on a steadydecline. Interdiction operations tend to create shortages of spare parts,
reduce the time devoted to routine maintenance, push weapon systems
beyond their reasonable life cycles, and add to the wear and tear on
personnel—all of these effects reduce military capability. We cannot
entirely blame counterdrug operations for the military’s decline, but they
are a factor. And the US taxpayer receives little benefit from thisconsiderable expenditure of funds and manpower.
If America continues to wage a war on drugs, more lives will be lost andmore costs will be incurred. What if the downed Cessna aircraft had carried aload of cocaine? Would it have mattered? Would the price of cocaine in New
York City, Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles have risen? US government
statistics clearly show that one airplane full of drugs has no impact on the
total quantity or retail price of cocaine on the streets of America. What pricedid we pay over the jungles of Peru? And for what purpose?
Today, according to Roger Rumrill, a Peruvian author and expert on the
drug trade, “more than 70 percent of the drug traffic between Peru andColombia now moves by sea along the Pacific coast, not by air.”2 Since theair-interdiction effort has forced drug traffickers to change their businesspractices, should we launch submarines from Hawaii or San Diego tointerdict and sink boats suspected of carrying illegal drugs? Is this the next
logical step in the war on drugs?
93Illegal drug use in the United States is a terrible dilemma that requires
serious thought and action. However, military action is not the answer.
Instead, perhaps it is time to transfer responsibility for the war on drugs
from the military generals and pass it to the surgeon general. Using
America’s soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines is not the solution to this“war.” Instead, we should continue to prepare them for the wars they aremeant to fight. ■MacDill Air Force Base, Florida
Notes
1. “Official: CIA Crew Opposed Peru Plane Attack,” China Daily, 23 April 2001, on-line, Internet, 4 October 2001,
available from http://www1.chinadaily.com.cn/highlights/docs/2001-04-30/3357.html.
2. Quoted in Kevin G. Hall, “Peru Is Fighting Drugs—And Itself,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 24 April 2001, on-line,
Internet, 24 September 2001, available from http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n719/a06.html.

“Feedback and Discussion”
In the Summer 2001 edition of Aerospace Power Journal, we introduced the CGO Voices
Web page, which has received favorable feedback. Lt Jeff Mustin leads the discussion of ourJuly/August topic, “The Future of Pilots in the Cockpit,” declaring that “humans, notmachines, fought Desert Storm, and their training in the technology, not the technology
itself, won the war.” In “To UAV or Not to UAV: That Is the Question: Here Is One Answer,”Capt Patrick Eberle responds to Mustin by arguing that contemporary advancements in
weapons are seldom revolutionary, but failure to look to such advances in technology andwarfare will lead to service stagnation and demise. He further notes that lack of diversity
and poor strategy rather than reliance on technology are the causes of technology failures.
We encourage you to join this good discussion by submitting articles and/or ideas for
topics and comments to CGO Voices at apj@maxwell.af.mil.
In our Contributor’s Corner section, 2d Lt Katrine M. Waterman discusses whether
women are capable of being successful in military flying careers. Her article “The
Aviatrix in Military Aviation” observes that achieving such success requires motivation,
dedication, and knowledge. Visit our Web site at http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil tocheck out these articles or E-mail the editor at apj@maxwell.af.mil.
Security measures imposed as a result of the recent terrorist attacks haveintermittently prevented access to our site from locations outside the Department of
Defense. We regret the inconvenience to our readers and appreciate everyone’s
patience. Please continue to check Chronicles for access.
Luetwinder T. Eaves
Managing Editor
Aerospace Power Chronicles

94

RICOCHETS

95

Ricochets and Replies
Continued from page 7

LEADERSHIP ISSUE APPRECIATED

ciation for the work airmen accomplish.
Everyone has a need for feedback to varying
degrees, but regardless of one’s generation—
whether boomer or Generation Xer—a little
positive reinforcement and the tried-and-true“pat on the back” go a long way toward re­cruiting and maintaining a quality force.
I am the father and father-in-law of two
active-duty Air Force E-4s (Generation Xers).
Guess what aspect of the Air Force displeases
them most? (Hint: it isn’t the pay, the de­ployments, or the home-station operationalreadiness exercises or 12-hour shifts.) It is very
simply the lack of positive feedback from im­
mediate and midlevel supervisors. To a lesser
degree, senior NCOs and squadron and wingcommanders who purport to lead airmen are
also among the guilty. The focus of these socalled leaders is merely production, to thedetriment of a motivated workforce that looks
forward to reenlisting and providing service
above self. To me, LBWA is the real “passion
for the responsibility of command” and is theway leaders “inspire airmen to continue tomove forward,” as stated by Gen Michael
Ryan in his introduction to APJ’s Summer issue.
In my 27-year Air Force career as a follower
and a leader, I have seen the best and theworst. Now that I am more of a leader, col­leagues often ask me how I recruit and retain
hardworking NCOs and officers who always
maintain a positive attitude and work ethic.
LBWA is the answer.

I was very impressed with the Summer 2001
issue of APJ, which featured articles on leadership. Every one of them contained information
I can use. Although APJ’s principal audienceis the officer corps, I feel that this journal
should be in every office, back shop, and or­
ganization on base. Thank you for the inspi­
ration that you provide.

Lt Col Gregory Miller, USAF
Texas Air National Guard
Lackland AFB, Texas

TSgt Matthew W. Denslow
Biloxi, Mississippi

BOOK REVIEW REVIEWED
I commend Col Eric Ash for his insightful review of the long-awaited biography of John
Boyd The Mind of War: John Boyd and American
Security by Grant Tedrick Hammond in theFall 2001 issue of APJ. I take issue with only
one of Ash’s statements: “Counterfactual
speculation is ahistorical and antischolarly.”
Recent counterfactual scholarship by Niall
Ferguson, Philip Tetlock, Richard N. Lebow,
and others firmly refutes this proposition. Vir­tual History, a collection of essays edited by
Ferguson, is particularly compelling. The
forthcoming collection Unmaking the West:Counterfactual Thought Experiments in History,edited by Tetlock, Lebow, and Geoffrey
Parker (with some chapters already available
in draft form on the Internet), holds thesame promise.
Lt Col Ralph Hitchens, USAFR, Retired
Washington, D.C.

War is a science which depends on art
for its application.
––B. H. Liddell Hart
Military Assistance: An Operational Perspective by
William H. Mott IV. Greenwood PublishingGroup (http://www.greenwood.com), 88 Post
Road West, Westport, Connecticut 06881, 1999,
384 pages, $65.00.
This work provides readers a comprehensive
study of the dynamics that affect wartime militaryassistance programs. Although most of the author’s
eight case studies address American experienceswith assistance programs from the twentieth cen­tury, he includes examples of French and British
assistance from the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. Mott’s premise is that successful assis­
tance programs have certain uniformities that increase the potential for meeting donor aims, while
programs that lack these uniformities—what Mott
terms “lawlike regularities”—are more likely to fail.
For policy makers, Mott provides a touchstone for
judging if a given assistance program has the rightpolicy mix to meet its goals. For the operator who
is personally involved in military-assistance programs, Mott provides a rich, historical reference
that may shed light on why particular initiatives are
destined to succeed and others to fail. Personnel
involved in the process of providing military assis­
tance in any service branch and at any level will
benefit from reading this book.
Prior to delving into the case studies, Mott, apolitical scientist at heart, takes time to address thehistory behind military assistance and the different
methodologies commonly employed to analyze
such assistance. Authors dealing with the social sci­
ences sometimes attempt to quantify historic data
to make their work appear more “scientific.” But
Mott manages to address the military-assistanceissue through qualitative analysis and does a fabu­
lous job of meeting the multidisciplinary challenge
posed by the subject. His paradigm of lawlike reg­ularities between donor and recipient nations is re­inforced by the parallels he draws among the casestudies.
96

Mott advances his argument of uniformities
among the case studies by asserting that “relevant
components of the donor and recipient relationship . . . coalesce in four prominent features thatseem holistically associated with achieving donor
aims” (p. 21). The following briefly summarizes
those features: convergence of donor and recipient
goals, control by the donor, commitment of donor
combat forces, and coherence or suitable integrationof donor military assistance with other donor poli­cies and strategy. Mott later points out that “thepresence of all four features . . . provides high con­fidence that military assistance can be expected toachieve donor aims” (p. 266). Simply put, themore features present in a given donor-recipient
relationship, the greater the odds of donor success.
One of two observations I found of interest, as re­gards the author’s analysis of American assistance,
was the tendency for policy makers to recommend
greater amounts of economic aid and military assis­
tance even though such assistance, by itself, might
not achieve their aims. For example, Mott states that
“simply increasing aid and expecting the Vietnameseto help themselves, had not produced results” (p.
196). It follows that, without tying assistance to spe­cific aims, it is unrealistic for donors to assume that
increasing the funding for a program will ensure its
success. The second flaw, often present in US assis­
tance programs, is the tendency to focus aid efforts
on only one group of indigenous elements in a re­cipient country. In postwar China, “American diplo­
macy had no means readily available to influence theCommunists” (p. 152). In Vietnam, advisors told
President Kennedy, “We have virtually no contact
with meaningful opposition elements and we havemade no attempt to maintain a U.S. position inde­
pendent of [President Ngo Dinh] Diem” (p. 195).
These quotations illustrate how the tendency tofocus assistance efforts on one actor limits the abilityof donor nations to exert pressure on aid recipients,
which may ultimately result in a failure to meet
donor aims.
The aforementioned remarks about donor expe­
riences as regards America’s past roles only scratch
the surface of the lessons Mott shares with his read­ers. Assuming that his audience consists primarily of
Americans, I have one complaint about the chapterthat addresses US involvement in Vietnam. Knowing

NET ASSESSMENT
the different phases of American involvement in
Vietnam, the author appropriately divides analysis of
US military assistance into three studies. However,
he could have included a case study that addressed
either Soviet or Chinese military assistance to North
Vietnam. Such a juxtaposition would have betterbalanced the latter part of the book and given read­ers an opportunity to see Mott’s paradigm fit an example other than American military assistance in thetwentieth century.
Mott includes nine appendices that containquantitative analysis, tables of assistance funding,and topics ranging from the Strategic Hamlet program to the impact of National Security Council di­rectives on the evolution of US military-assistanceprograms. Much of the data in the appendicesdoesn’t fit the case-study paradigm but is essential tofurther study of variables that tend to affect militaryassistance programs.
Military Assistance should be required reading for
all personnel involved in military-assistance programs. Mott illustrates aspects of donor-recipient re­lationships that may indeed lend themselves to lawlike regularities or uniformities, which form the basis
for a policy paradigm. Such a paradigm should help
policy makers determine if the correct policy mix isbeing applied to a given relationship, which should
increase the chance of attaining donor aims. At aminimum, readers will gain a better understandingof what dynamics are involved in military-assistanceprograms and how we can avoid the mistakes of ourpredecessors.
Capt Clifford E. Rich, USAF
F. E. Warren AFB, Wyoming

Pearl Harbor by Touchstone Pictures. Starring Ben
Affleck, Josh Hartnett, Kate Beckinsale, Cuba
Gooding Jr., Tom Sizemore, Jon Voight, Dan
Aykroyd, and Alec Baldwin. Produced by Jerry
Bruckheimer and Michael Bay, written by Ran­dall Wallace and directed by Michael Bay, 183
minutes, rated PG-13 (mild profanity and sani­
tized violence).
Adm Thomas Fargo, commander of the US Pa­
cific Fleet, said it best: “No single event is more
central to our concept of national tragedy andconviction than the events of December 7, 1941.”
Indeed, the shock of Japan’s surprise attack against
Pearl Harbor still resonates in the American psyche,almost 60 years after that fateful Sunday morning.
Pearl Harbor has provided the grist for more than

97

100 books and at least seven motion pictures—
evidence of our lasting fascination with America’s
worst wartime disaster.
Although many of the books about Pearl Har­bor have been outstanding (Walter Lord’s Day of
Infamy, Gordon Prange’s At Dawn We Slept, andRobert Stinnett’s recent Day of Deceit), the battle’s
record on the silver screen is less than impressive.
Realistic films on Pearl Harbor (such as 1970’s
Tora, Tora, Tora) proved ponderous and dull, whilesome of the better movies about that era (e.g.,
From Here to Eternity) use the Japanese attack as acounterpoint for other story lines. So far, the de­finitive movie about what happened on 7 Decem­ber 1941 exceeds Hollywood’s grasp.
Perhaps that’s why Pearl Harbor, the latest film todepict this epic event, generated such anticipation.
In tackling the project, producer Jerry Bruck­
heimer (Top Gun) and director Michael Bay (TheRock, Armageddon) vowed to make a Pearl Harbor
movie “by which all other films are measured.”
Pledging to honor the service and sacrifice of
those who served at Pearl Harbor, they told the US
Naval Institute, “Our goal is to stage the event withutmost realism.”
Sadly, their film fails to deliver on any of its
promises. Instead, Bruckheimer and Bay offer up arather conventional (and dull) love story, castagainst an improbable series of events that lead up
to the attack on Pearl Harbor. The plot features apair of Tennessee crop dusters turned Army Air
Corps pilots—Rafe and Danny (played by Ben Af­
fleck and newcomer Josh Hartnett, respectively).
While assigned to a training unit on Long Island—commanded by Lt Col Jimmy Doolittle—Rafe falls
in love with a Navy nurse named Evelyn (KateBeckinsale). Unfortunately, their romance is cut
short when Rafe is transferred to England, where
he participates in the Battle of Britain as a sort of“combat exchange officer” with the Royal Air
Force (RAF).
By this time, even the most casual viewer real­izes that Bay and screenwriter Randall Wallace(Braveheart) are quite willing to suspend historicalfacts in the interest of plot development. The real­
ity that Doolittle wasn’t on active duty in early 1941
and that American volunteer pilots resigned theircommissions before joining the RAF becomes lessimportant than getting Rafe off the screen—atleast for a while—so Danny can fall in love with
Evelyn. Predictably, their love affair blossoms after
both are transferred to (surprise!) Pearl Harbor,just months before the Japanese attack.

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If this concept of “romance against the backdrop of disaster” sounds familiar, it should. Bay
and Wallace have borrowed heavily from director
James Cameron’s playbook, creating a sort of Ti­
tanic meets World War II and meshing a rather
pedestrian love story with eye-popping special ef­
fects. Unfortunately, Wallace’s screenplay seems
less inspired by Titanic than by every B movie pro­
duced by Warner Brothers during World War II.
Rafe, Danny, and Evelyn are little more than stock
characters, mouthing lines that are trite and unin­
tentionally funny. When Rafe told Evelyn, “If I only
had one more night to spend, I’d spend it withyou,” there were more than a few groans in the the­ater, and rightly so. It is odd—and disappointing—that such twaddle came from an Oscar-winningscreenwriter. Wallace is clearly off his game in
Pearl Harbor.
Likewise, director Bay devotes too much time tothe love story and not enough to events leading
up to the attack. By the time enemy aircraft arrive
over Diamond Head (roughly 80 minutes into thefilm), many viewers will be rooting for the Japanese,
hoping for anything that might enliven such leaden
proceedings. Fortunately, the battle sequences
don’t disappoint, thanks (in part) to impressive
visual effects from George Lucas’s Industrial Lightand Magic organization. Scenes of exploding bat­
tleships, sailors trapped in capsized vessels, andhundreds of dead bodies floating in the harbor arequite stunning, adding a gritty realism that is sooften missing from this picture.
Regrettably, Bay dilutes the impact and power ofthe battle sequences by placing his cardboard char­acters squarely in the middle of the action. Not content to let Rafe and Danny get off the ground andengage Japanese fighters in their P-40s, Bay also hasthem play a game of aerial “chicken,” causing four
Zeros to collide in midair. Moments later, these in­trepid pilots even stage an ambush of the attacking
Japanese, luring more enemy aircraft past the base’scontrol tower, where their colleagues blast them witha .50-caliber machine gun.
Still unsatisfied, Bay and Bruckheimer devote
the final minutes of their film to a further distor­
tion of historical fact. Anxious to avenge Pearl Har­bor, President Roosevelt approves a plan to attack
Japan, using B-25 bombers launched from an aircraft carrier—the famous Doolittle raid. And
whom does Doolittle recruit for his daring mis­
sion? Why, none other than Rafe, Danny, and theirfellow pilots from Pearl Harbor. It doesn’t take agenius to figure out that one of our heroes will die

during the raid, allowing final resolution of thelove triangle between the pilots and Evelyn.
There is much to dislike in this movie. Histori­
ans and military buffs will cringe at the ersatz mix
of fact and fiction. At one point, Jon Voight’s
FDR—looking like he just came from Madame
Tussaud’s Wax Museum—rises unaided from hiswheelchair, trying to inspire a timid staff. A detailed re-creation of Pearl Harbor’s battleship row
is spoiled by the sight of modern warships, somehow augmented into the 1941 fleet. And a prewar
sequence on the USS Arizona was clearly filmed on
the USS Missouri, a poor substitute for a World War
I–era dreadnought.
From a cinematic standpoint, Pearl Harborproves equally disappointing. Affleck, Hartnett,
and Beckinsale’s cutout characters do little morethan occupy the screen between battle scenes. Al­
though Bay’s action sequences represent a highpoint in the film, even those segments seem oddly
disjointed. For example, when casualties begin
streaming into Beckinsale’s naval hospital, Bayshoots the entire sequence in gauzy, soft focus,
thereby losing an opportunity to underscore theharsh reality of Pearl Harbor and its aftermath.
In all fairness, the film has its moments—al­though they are decidedly few and far between.
The aerial sequences involving Affleck in the Bat­
tle of Britain are quite good, and Cuba Gooding Jr.
delivers a fine performance as Dorie Miller, theNavy mess steward who became the first AfricanAmerican to win the Navy Cross for shooting down
two Japanese planes at Pearl Harbor. In less than
10 minutes of screen time, Gooding creates acharacter that is far more compelling than anything concocted by Wallace, Bay, or the other actors.
Perhaps one day Hollywood will get it right: a his­
torically accurate film about Pearl Harbor that’s
equally entertaining. Pearl Harbor clearly falls short ofthat mark. Despite a lavish production—and the as­sociated hype—Pearl Harbor is a tedious film with ab­solutely no historical value. Audiences looking for a
realistic account of events at Pearl Harbor would bewell advised to read Gordon Prange’s book or rent a
copy of director John Ford’s award-winning docu­
mentary December 7th. Comparatively speaking, thisnewest Pearl Harbor film lives up to its advancebilling in only one sense. By releasing Pearl Harbor,
Bruckheimer and Bay have produced a disaster ri­
valed only by the real Japanese attack in 1941.
Maj Gary Pounder, USAF, Retired
Oxford, Mississippi

NET ASSESSMENT
MacArthur and the American Century: A Reader
edited by William M. Leary. University of Ne­
braska Press (http://www.nebraskapress.unl.
edu), 233 North 8th Street, Lincoln, Nebraska
68588-0255, 2001, 538 pages, $40.00.
Gen Douglas MacArthur is one of a handful ofadmirals and generals to be given five-star rank
(admiral of the fleet or general of the army).
MacArthur was complex, controversial, and bril­liant; right or wrong, he ranks among the most im­
portant military figures in US military history.
Many books have been written about him, andscholars still debate aspects of his career. The latest
volume, MacArthur and the American Century, con­tains 36 essays and accounts. Some of the essays
were written by MacArthur himself; others were
penned by distinguished historians like Stephen
Ambrose and Clark Reynolds.
Most Americans remember the flamboyant gen­eral wading through the shores of Leyte in thePhilippines in 1944. This fulfilled a promise hemade in 1942 to return to the islands, where heserved as field marshal to President Manuel Que­zon. But had MacArthur not participated in WorldWar II, he would be remembered as a hero ofWorld War I, an innovative superintendent of the
US Military Academy, and Army chief of staff (theArmy’s equivalent to the Navy’s chief of naval op­
erations). But controversy was not far behind.
For example, MacArthur was instrumental inclearing out the Bonus Expeditionary Force
camped in makeshift shacks around the nation’s
capital in 1932. These World War I veterans were
demanding bonuses appropriated by Congress for
future payment. President Hoover authorized the
US Army to clear the marchers and burn theshacks. This blunder would cost Hoover his presi­
dency and would mar General MacArthur’s repu­
tation. Even at the end of his life, the generalmaintained that Communist insurgents had infil­
trated these marchers.
The book’s essays cover these topics as well as
explore the reasons why MacArthur would survive(politically) the Japanese invasion of the Philippines while Adm Husband Kimmel and British flag
officers in Singapore and Malaya would be rooted
out of their respective armies and navies. In his
essay, Clark Reynolds highlights a General
MacArthur who looks beyond terrain into a mar­itime strategy of defeating Japan’s Imperial Army.
The general’s lessons learned, which called forusing combined air, land, and sea forces, would be
repeated at Inchon, Korea, in 1950. The final es­

99

says deal with MacArthur’s open insubordinationand contempt for President Harry Truman, which
led to his being relieved of command. This conflict
further strengthened our constitutional democ­racy and cemented the importance of the subordi­
nation of military leaders to their commander inchief. MacArthur and the American Century provides
a fascinating look at a general who made an in­delible mark on American history.
Lt Youssef H. Aboul-Enein, USN
Washington, D.C.

Desert Warriors: Australian P-40 Pilots at War in
the Middle East and North Africa, 1941–1943
by Russell Brown. Banner Books (http://www.
banner-books.com.au), 122 Walker Street,
Maryborough, Queensland, 4650 Australia,
2000, 320 pages, approximately $49.00 (US).
It is always refreshing to see a book come alongthat has the ability to drastically change one’s per­ception of a significant historical event. Finally,
there is a book dealing with the contributions ofAustralian pilots in North Africa during the middle
stages of the Second World War. Although there
have been many books dealing with this largely forgotten episode of military history, most of them
deal with either a general explanation of thedesert air war or, more likely, simply discuss it
through either German or British eyes. This story
of Australian aviators has certainly been decades in
the making.
Russell Brown is a relative newcomer to thewriting of aviation history. Although he has au­
thored several magazine articles, with this book he
has hit the proverbial home run at his first appear­
ance at the plate. A retired schoolteacher from
Australia, the author has completed a wonderfully
researched and masterfully presented book that iscertain to make an impact in the area of the desert
air war. Desert Warriors deals primarily with theRoyal Australian Air Force’s 3 and 450 fighter
squadrons and with other Australian pilots flyingin Royal Air Force fighter squadrons in North
Africa and the Middle East. For those readers fa­
miliar with Fighters over the Desert, Hans Ring andChristopher Shores’s definitive work on the desert
air war, Desert Warriors, follows a similar chronolog­
ical format. Since Brown focuses strictly on theAustralian contributions, however, there is under­
standably less information reported on a daily
basis. This in no way detracts from the book but

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bolsters the author’s thesis by concentrating onAustralian contributions. This, in turn, allows
Brown to shed light on aspects of the desert air
war, about which most people will likely have little
or no knowledge.
In order to capture the spirit and intensity ofthis conflict, the author uses many primarysources, including original squadron operational
records and pilot interviews. Very few original doc­
uments other than combat reports can give areader the timely flavor of actual warfare, andBrown successfully uses these to great advantage
throughout the book. Having studied the desert
air war for years, primarily from the German side,
I found it both refreshing and enlightening to see
combat reports from Australian pilots in actual
combat with the Luftwaffe. In addition to so much
valuable primary reference material, the author
has included 166 superb photographs. Comingfrom private collections, most of these have neverbefore been published and are a wonderful tes­tament to the Australian commitment in North
Africa. Finally to be able to put faces to the namesof men who fought in the desert is something that,in itself, makes this book a worthwhile study. Desert
Warriors is also replete with 14 appendixes thatcover aspects such as Australian aces, decorations,victory claims from each of the Australiansquadrons, short biographies of some notable pilots, and 16 impressive P-40 color profiles painted
by artist Juanita Franzi.
Perhaps the true significance of this book is
Brown’s detailed and scholarly research, coupledwith its excellent presentation. In many books andarticles on the desert air war, pilots of the desert air
forces, primarily Australian and South African, areoften considered second rate. When we view themthrough our typical ethnocentric American eyes,
we often want to downgrade their abilities in orderto justify the apparent kills of their German coun­terparts. It is apparent that the Australian pilots
had their fair share of “Stuka parties” and drew
blood against the Luftwaffe on a regular basis.
However, they are often incorrectly portrayed as
hapless pilots forced to cower for safety in the de­fensive Lufbery Circle while hotshot Luftwaffe pilots had their way with them, shooting them downin droves time and time again. In our minds, howelse could the top Luftwaffe aces have achieved thevictories they claimed if their opponents were anything but substandard? Not only does this bookdemonstrate the quality, professionalism, andtenacity of pilots within the Royal Australian Air
Force, but also it debunks the myth of natural Ger­man superiority. Although the Germans did havevery successful pilots in North Africa, the author isable to compare some German claims to actual
losses on several occasions, demonstrating the nottoo-uncommon habit of German overclaiming.
The author does this not to imply that German
claims were widely distorted, admitting that overclaiming occurred on both sides, but to suggest
that, on occasion, things were not as they neces­sarily seemed.
Without a doubt, Desert Warriors is a valuable
contribution to the history of the North African
campaign. It is by far the most important book
written in years on this aspect of the Second World
War. Although Brown is an Australian, there ap­
pears to be little or no bias in his reporting, and, asa student of the Luftwaffe in North Africa, I believe
I would have spotted any unfair or critical bias im­
mediately. It is about time this aspect of the desert
war was brought to light, and the author has done
an excellent job in presenting objective informa­tion. Because of this book, my respect for Aus­
tralian aviators in the Second World War has
grown immensely, and my hope is that, somewhere
in South Africa, some writer is doing the samething for the contributions of the South African air
force pilots in this theater.
I highly recommend this book to anybody in­terested in the air war in North Africa and the Mid­dle East. It is rare for me to stress something as a“must have” book, but Desert Warriors is just that. It
would indeed be almost impossible to have a fulland balanced understanding of the desert air war
without this book as an indispensable reference.
Since Desert Warriors is published in Australia, one
can order it directly from the publisher’s Web site(see above) or from the only US distributor, Paul
Gaudette Books in Tucson, Arizona, telephone(602) 791-3868.
Maj Robert F. Tate, USAFR
Maxwell AFB, AlabamaAngels Zero: P-47 Close Air Support in Europe by
Robert V. Brulle. Smithsonian Institution Press(http://www.si.edu/sipress), 470 L’Enfant Plaza,
Suite 7100, Washington, D.C. 20560, 2000, 176
pages, $29.95 (hardcover).
Robert Brulle’s book is an interesting cross between a firsthand memoir and an operational ac­
count of the air war in Europe from the pilot’s per­spective. The author served with the 390th

NET ASSESSMENT
Squadron in the 366th Fighter Group, flying P-47s
in the tactical-air-support role and completing 70
combat missions. During this time, he destroyed agreat deal of German war materiel. He saw Ger­
man aircraft in the air only once, during the strikes
on various American airfields on 1 January 1945,
when he shot down one FW-190. Although the subtitle includes the phrase Close Air Support, a great
many of Brulle’s missions were armed reconnais­
sance or interdiction sorties, while frontline support made up a smaller percentage.
The greatest strength of Angels Zero is the com­bination of firsthand recollections mixed with an
overall perspective of events. Brulle relies on his
own memory and a diary he kept during the war togive the usual memoir feel of “I did this” and “I felt
like this” that one would expect. He uses his active
membership in the 366th Fighter Group Veterans’
Association to include other pilots’ firsthand ac­
counts to broaden his study. He also did a fairamount of secondary research to give an opera­
tional perspective of the various campaigns. The
result is a balanced narrative that relates the indi­vidual’s perspective while keeping the reader informed of the overall flow of events. Because nei­
ther aspect is so detailed or overwhelming that it
becomes tedious, this creates a uniquely readable,
informative book. The pilot’s view of the entire war
experience is foremost throughout the book.
Brulle includes two short chapters on his pilot
training that remind us how long it took to prepare a combat pilot. He began on 30 January 1943
and did not finish until 8 June 1944. Even then, he
had to undergo an additional 26 hours of intheater training before he was assigned to theFighter Group.
Brulle’s account shows that the pilots foundcolumn-cover missions during the drive acrossFrance very satisfying. Results of their attacks wereeasy to determine, and the panels displayed to in­
dicate American units were easy to identify. Unfor­
tunately, this period of high morale soon gave way
as the Battle of Hürtgen Forest began. Brulle
shows us that infantrymen were not the only ones
to suffer during this protracted battle of attrition.
His group lost more pilots here than at any othertime. The static lines allowed German flak to con­centrate on likely targets, creating a hazardous en­
vironment for low-flying aircraft. Group moralealso declined due to the monotony of the missions,lack of observable targets, and indeterminate re­sults. In addition to the dangers of flying low-levelmissions, landing on the airfields was often equally
dangerous. The pierced-steel planking used to101

cover the ground was prone to pull up, become ir­
regular due to wet ground, or become very slip­
pery and coated with ice during the winter.
Missions flown during the Battle of the Bulge
were still very dangerous but had greater rewards
than previous ones. Brulle states that the pilots
were less concerned over the seriousness of the attack since they felt that once clear weather returned, they would severely pummel the attacking
German columns. Despite living in tents for theduration and facing overcasts that made taking off,
forming up, and landing exceedingly dangerous,
the Fighter Group flew as often as possible to aid
the ground units. Oftentimes they attacked
through very narrow holes in the clouds into theteeth of intense German flak. Although losses werestill heavy, pilot morale was higher during this pe­
riod. The fact that the Army greatly needed their
help and that they had discernable targets, includ­ing several columns hit while the Germans weretraveling in the open under what they thought wassafe cloud cover, contributed to the heightened
morale.
Brulle finishes with the final battles into Ger­
many. During this time, he took his turn as an
air/ground controller for two weeks. Although heagreed that having pilots direct their squadronmates onto targets was desirable and that two weeks
was too short to adequately learn the duty and carryit out, he did not enjoy the time on the ground. The
Germans were obviously beaten, but flak in the Ruhr
Valley continued to be dangerous up to the end.
Angels Zero is an excellent account that gives apilot’s unique perspective of the war. Instead of recounting endless dogfights or mission recaps,
Brulle shows the attitudes and viewpoints of themen who were primarily engaged in tactical air
support. He places the Fighter Group’s efforts inthe larger picture without losing that personal per­spective. Anyone interested in World War II airpower would be well advised to read this book.
Dr. Daniel Mortensen
Maxwell AFB, Alabama

Ripcord: Screaming Eagles under Siege, Vietnam
1970 by Keith William Nolan. Presidio Press(http://www.presidiopress.com), P.O. Box 1764,
Novato, California 94948, 2000, 480 pages,$29.95 (hardcover).
At first glance, Keith Nolan’s Ripcord seems tohave little to do with the Air Force other than to102

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serve as a reminder of the importance the F-4
played in close air support and the B-52 played in
the bombing campaign in Southeast Asia. After all,this is the story of Fire-Support Base Ripcord, an
Army installation. The fight in the hills around
Ripcord was an infantryman’s fight, holding little
or no interest for an Air Force audience.
Although this is true, members of the Air Force,
especially its leadership, would do well to read
Nolan’s book. What it chronicles, beyond the hor­rific scenes of battle, is the story of several hundred
men fighting a battle they have already lost. It tells
how these troops, faced with an impossible mis­sion, begin to mistrust their leadership and how
their anger begins to spread.
Fire-Support Base Ripcord was established as
the first part of a campaign to push the North Viet­namese Army (NVA) out of the A Shau Valley, an
operation that never really came to fruition as orig­
inally conceived. The ridge on which Ripcord
would be built was seized in April 1970 but re­verted to the NVA only three months later, on 23
July. Because of political considerations, writes
Nolan, “division headquarters proved reluctant tobe drawn into the kind of bloody slugging matchthat would have been required to push the enemy
out of their entrenchments around Ripcord” (p. 11).
Ripcord is especially powerful when it examines
leadership, from the platoon all the way up to divi­
sion level. Nolan expertly and evenhandedly dis­sects eyewitness accounts of both good and badleadership in the field. The grunts who followed
their leaders into battle often did so reluctantly,
largely because of the overwhelming nature of the
obstacles before them. In the interviews and letters
Nolan presents, these soldiers’ impressions of pla­
toon and company leadership are mostly positive.
The questions surrounding leadership arise mostly
at the battalion level and above, starting with Lt
Col Andre Lucas, the battalion commander tasked
with the defense of Ripcord, and with Brig Gen
Sidney Berry, acting commander of the 101st Airborne Division. Each of their subordinates has adifferent opinion, and Nolan is careful to let readers
make up their own minds about each man’s lead­ership qualities. Again and again, the book returns
to the issue of leadership: what proved effective
and what did not; whether a commander could
have done more or less; who had responsibility;
and what leadership could have done differently.
Beyond this case study in leadership is the fasci­
nating story of several battalions of men who faced
the horrors of war every day. Nolan takes his read­ers on patrol with the ranging platoons as theyprobe the jungles around Ripcord to test enemy
strength. He follows them up nearby Hill 1000,
from which the NVA pounded Ripcord with mor­
tar and 55 mm fire. Nolan tells of the men on Ripcord who provide suppressing fire for the men in
the field around the camp, and he walks with themen in the field who try in vain to knock out mor­
tar and gun emplacements that threaten Ripcord.
Finally, he follows the men off Ripcord as theyevacuate the base while NVA troops victoriously
swarm the hilltop.
Although the besieged men were happy to evac­uate their living hell, they questioned the reasons forestablishing the base if it was to be abandoned soquickly. Chris Straub, a retired lieutenant colonel
who saw action during the Ripcord siege, wrote toNolan, noting that the evacuation “confirms my viewthat from the start the 101st’s push into the Ripcord
AO [area of operations] was not in consonance withwhat the U.S. was trying to accomplish in Vietnam in1970” (p. 411). If Ripcord did not mesh with overall
US objectives, one wonders why so many men died
before it was abandoned. Again, the question ofleadership raises its head.
Ripcord is a quality piece of investigating, andNolan deserves credit for his dedication to reveal­
ing as many sides of the story as he can. His ability
to humanize the men who fought is commendable. Most importantly, however, Nolan is able toprovide present military leadership with a casestudy in effective battle management. We owe it to
future conflicts to read and internalize the lessons
Ripcord presents.
1st Lt Glenn D. Leinbach, USAF
Osan AB, South Korea

Attack and Die: Civil War Military Tactics and theSouthern Heritage by Grady McWhiney andPerry D. Jamieson. University of Alabama Press(http://www.uapress.ua.edu), Box 870380,
Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380, 1982, 232
pages, $15.95.
The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History
edited by Gary W. Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan.
Indiana University Press (http://www.indi­ana.edu/~iupress), 601 N. Morton Street,
Bloomington, Indiana 47404, 2000, 256 pages,$29.95.

NET ASSESSMENT
The Cause Lost: Myths and Realities of the Con­federacy by William C. Davis. University Press of
Kansas (http://www.kansaspress.ku.edu), 2501
West 15th Street, Lawrence, Kansas 66049, 1996,
240 pages, $24.95.
Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the Ameri­
can Civil War by James M. McPherson. Oxford
University Press (http://www.oup-usa.org), 198
Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016,
1996, 272 pages, $27.50 (hardcover), $14.95(softcover).
Perhaps no other subject of American history
has more written about it than the US Civil War.
There seems to be no end to the interpretations,
reinterpretations, and re-reinterpretations. Just
when an author writes the definitive biography ofsome general or of some battle, new information
becomes available that destroys long-held convic­
tions. Most historians strive to be accurate and to
explain “what happened,” but a few deliberately
bend the truth for personal or political reasons.
The “lost cause” myth is one example of bending
the truth. These four histories, which attempt to
set the record straight, are a must for any person
interested in the Civil War and the lost cause.
As Alan Nolan eloquently states in his essay in
The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History,
there are two versions of the history of the Civil
War. First, there is the truth—the account of what
actually happened, when, why, and how. Then
there is the Southern interpretation of the truth.
The editors have assembled a superb cast of lead­ing historians to write essays that persuasively de­molish the elements of the lost-cause myth. Nolancertainly sets the tone of the book and attempts toknock the Southern apologists’ collective noses
out of joint. Space does not permit a recounting ofeach argument. Quite frankly, some are stronger
than others. Suffice it to say that Nolan debunks
the myths that slavery was not the issue that caused
the war, that the South would have given up slavery
eventually, that slaves were happy, and that Southern war leaders were without fault. Each of thebook’s nine chapters tackles a different aspect of
the lost cause. Perhaps the most interesting are
Gary Gallagher’s assessment of Gen Jubal Early
and his contributions to the creation of the myth;
Jeffry D. Wert’s examination of the vilification ofJames Longstreet for daring to criticize Robert E.
Lee in writing; and Brooks D. Simpson’s summary

103

of historical distortions of Ulysses S. Grant in order
to explain away his victory over Lee.
James McPherson’s Drawn with the Sword is a col­lection of previously published works. On the one
hand, it has no true unifying theme. On the other
hand, McPherson has synthesized over a decade ofscholarship into one compact volume. The author
divides the 15 chapters into five parts or themes. The
first section, “Origins of the Civil War,” contains
three chapters, “The War of Southern Aggression”
perhaps being the most enlightening. McPherson
outlines the steps taken by the South in general andSouth Carolina in particular that led to the war. Al­
though it is still popular in the South to call the Civil
War the “War of Northern Aggression,” McPherson
turns that phrase on its head when he quotes candi­date Abraham Lincoln replying in 1860 to Southernclaims that a Republican administration would leadto war: “You say you will destroy the Union and then,you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be
upon us! . . . A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear,and mutters . . . ‘Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you,and then you will be a murderer!’ ” McPherson in­cludes a section of four chapters on why the Northwon. Ultimately, the South lost not out of loss of will,more Yankees, or weak central government but because Union armies defeated Confederate armies
and because the North’s first string of leaders was
better than the South’s first string. Other themes inthe book include “The War and American Society,”“The Enduring Lincoln,” and “Historians and Their
Audiences.” Each chapter in the book is thoughtprovoking and sometimes directly, sometimes indi­
rectly, destroys an aspect of the lost-cause myth.
William Davis’s The Cause Lost, like The Myth of
the Lost Cause and Drawn with the Sword, is a collec­
tion of the author’s thoughts about the Civil War.
However, unlike McPherson, Gallagher, andNolan, Davis writes from a more Southern-centric
point of view. In fact, several of the chapters deal
more with the strategy and tactics of the war thanwith lost-cause topics. The Cause Lost’s four sections
deal with Jefferson Davis, war on the periphery, ex­cuses for losing, and the Confederacy in myth andmemory. By far the two most interesting chapters
concerning the lost cause are the one on theSouth’s lost will to fight and the one that describes
the myth and reality of the Confederacy. In thelost-will chapter, Davis argues that the Union suc­ceeded because, even in defeat, it had a stronger
sense of nationhood than did the Confederacy.
When the South started losing, the will to fight andresist slowly but irrevocably declined. In the chap­ter on myth and reality, Davis shows that, despite

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the revisionists’ best efforts to argue that the war
was not about slavery, that the North was responsi­
ble for causing the war, or, incredibly, that theSouth simply withdrew from the war, a careful read­ing of history and an examination of the facts eas­
ily bring out the truth.
Attack and Die, although not a lost-cause book,nevertheless supports many of the arguments of
the other three books. Its basic theme is that
Confederate leaders wasted their chances to win
by throwing away their troops in suicidal offen­
sives. All Southern leaders, from Lee on down,
receive criticism for not understanding how warfare had changed since the end of the MexicanAmerican War. Rifles had rendered the massed
charge obsolete, and Lee realized too late thathe could not compete with the North when it
came to manpower. Although conventional wis­
dom says that the Southern soldier was better because the South suffered fewer casualties, the au­thors dispel this myth. In a series of very
enlightening tables, McWhiney and Jamieson
support debunkers of the lost-cause myth, show­
ing that while Lee might have inflicted 134,000
Union casualties while suffering only 121,000, he
crippled his own army in doing so. For all his tac­tical genius, Lee suffered 20 percent casualties
while inflicting only 15 percent on his enemy.
Grant, on the other hand, suffered 18 percent ca­
sualties but inflicted 30 percent on his enemy.
The authors argue that the South should haveadopted the tactical defensive, forcing the Unionarmies to attack. After all, one man in a trench
was worth three or four attackers.
These four entertaining books are a joy to read.
They shed new light—at least for this reader—on
many of the sacred truths of the US Civil War thatwere not true after all. They deserve a place on the
shelf of every Civil War buff and every academic.

The Korean War by the Korea Institute of Military
History, introduction by Allan R. Millett. 3 vols.
University of Nebraska Press (http://www.
nebraskapress.unl.edu), 233 North 8th Street,
Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-0255, 2001, 2,621
pages, $95.00 (paper).

from an American viewpoint. Not only do we havelittle material on our former enemies (with thepossible exception of the Germans), but also wehave precious little on our allies. In some cases,
however—Vietnam, for example—we have moreon the Vietcong and North Vietnamese than on
our South Vietnamese allies. This bold effort by
the Korea Institute of Military History attempts tocome to grips with this situation regarding the Ko­rean War.
The series consists of three huge volumes (vol­ume one is over 900 pages, and volumes two andthree are each over 800 pages). They are updated
and condensed versions of an earlier 11-volume
study begun in 1967. The study makes use of US
and Republic of Korea (ROK) sources as well asCommunist documents. The first volume relates
the conflict from its beginnings to the Chinese in­tervention in late November 1950; the second
traces the story up to the stalemate and armisticeof June 1951; and the third follows the final courseof the war.
On the positive side, these books offer a detailed and candid view of the war from an ROK
perspective. The English is fairly fluid although
not altogether smooth in places. Language prob­
lems and frequent typographical errors are sometimes annoying but not serious—readers will haveno trouble overlooking them. The tone is rather
flat and devoid of hyperbole, reflecting both theprofessionalism of the authors and the 50-year per­spective. Numerous maps helped this reader con­siderably.
On the negative side, the books are very longand dense. They spend an inordinate amount oftime on US forces and thus place too much re­liance on US sources. Frequently, the reader fol­lows units day by day and place by place with seem­
ingly little purpose. In short, we have muchnarrative but little analysis.
Clearly, all students of the Korean War—andtwentieth-century warfare, for that matter—should
be aware of this series. For that reason, major li­
braries should include it in their collections. Per­sonally, I much prefer the less detailed and shorter(thus narrower) From Pusan to Panmunjom (Dulles,
Va.: Brassey’s, 1992) by Paik Sun Yup. It is shorter,
much better written (and perhaps translated), andmore clearly gives the ROK view. The Korean War is
an important contribution to military history, but
is not for the everyday reader.

One of the enduring problems of American
military history is that operational history is written

Kenneth P. Werrell
Maxwell AFB, Alabama

Maj James P. Gates, USAF
Los Angeles AFB, California

NET ASSESSMENT
Right Backed by Might: The International Air Force
Concept by Roger Beaumont. Praeger Publishers(http://www.greenwood.com/imprints/index.
asp?ImprintID=I8), 88 Post Road West, Westport, Connecticut 06881-5007, 2001, 216 pages,$64.00.
This is a challenging book both to read and tounderstand. Part of the problem is the inherent
difficulty in attempting to write the history of anonevent—an international air force has never ex­
isted. Writing the history of an idea has special
problems and requires a deft hand. The author
does not help matters by employing convoluted
and leaden prose, continually mixing the chronol­
ogy, and writing vaguely about precisely what he isexamining.
Widespread attempts to abolish war have oc­
curred for more than a century. A variety of peacegroups and pacifists, as well as sober statesmen
who understand the cost of war, has sprung up in
various times and places, advancing schemes topromote world peace—usually through some sortof international government. Paradoxically, manyof the people who promote such ideas have been
willing to use force to keep the peace. Airpower
would play a key role in that enforcement. Roger
Beaumont, a military historian with several books
to his credit, attempts to tell this complex story,emphasizing the role of airpower and the ways it
would be used.
Regrettably, Beaumont quickly descends into asemantic morass from which he never emerges.
Terms such as disarmament, isolation, collective secu­
rity, pacifism, internationalism, and appeasement, al­though related to some degree, are not the samething. But Beaumont too often treats them as if
they were. People who advocated these concepts
generally had varying goals, methods, and levels of
support. An “America firster” like Charles Lind­
bergh, for example, was unquestionably both astrong believer in airpower and a staunch isola­tionist. He was not, however, an advocate of disar­mament—much less pacifism.
The author’s failure to define clearly these terms
and movements makes for a confusing melange thatnever comes into focus. Thus, he tends to combine
the idea of a notional international police force(IPF), which would encompass land, sea, and airforces, with that of an international air force (IAF),
which constitutes only one component of that police
force. Because an IAF has never existed, however, heresorts to concentrating on the numerous, thoughstill mostly unsuccessful, attempts to form an IPF. In

105

addition, he spends much time covering the Leagueof Nations, collective security arrangements, and var­ious disarmament initiatives during the interwar pe­riod, but this tends only to confuse the issue. In fact,
there were more attempts to abolish airpower between the wars than there were to turn it into a co­ercive instrument of world peace.
His coverage of World War II and the five
decades since is similarly unfocused and meander­ing. Ironically, as the new century dawns, somepeople see a movement towards an IPF composedlargely of a powerful IAF. Conflicts in the Persian
Gulf and the Balkans were marked by broad international support and were dominated by airpower.
Yet, the real story of the past decade has been thegreatly expanded role of the United Nations inpeacekeeping (as opposed to peacemaking) oper­
ations around the world. However, peacekeeping
forces tend to be composed largely of groundtroops, not always armed, who are relegated topolice and humanitarian functions. These opera­
tions have principally used airpower’s airlift andintelligence-gathering capabilities—subjects barely
touched upon in this book.
The numerous factual errors throughout thiswork are surprising, given the credentials of the au­thor and publisher. Some of them are relatively
minor (though still inexcusable), such as giving er­roneous dates for the Casablanca Conference andthe duration of the Rolling Thunder air campaign,and promoting Carl Spaatz to five-star rank. Others
are a bit more serious—placing Dienbienphu [sic] in
Laos rather than Vietnam and basing USAF B-52s in
the Philippines. Still other mistakes, however, callinto question the author’s credibility and basic
knowledge of the subject: he misses the date whenthe Air Force began receiving the largest share of the
US defense budget by nearly a decade; President
Eisenhower threatened China, not North Korea,
with nuclear weapons in 1953; and air operations
over Serbia in 1999 were not more intense thanthose in Operation Desert Storm—they were far lessintense (an average of around 300 combat sorties
per day versus over 1,700). Indeed, the profusion oferrors dealing with easily verifiable facts makes one
wonder about the accuracy of his major premises.
Right Backed by Might does have utility, however.
Beaumont has done an enormous amount of research on the diverse topics he discusses. His footnotes (there is no bibliography), therefore, con­tain a wealth of contemporary sources that should
prove a useful starting point for other researchers.
Col Phillip S. Meilinger, USAF, Retired
McLean, Virginia

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WINTER 2001

Black Sheep One: The Life of Gregory “Pappy”
Boyington by Bruce Gamble. Presidio Press(http://www.presidiopress.com), P.O. Box
1764, Novato, California 94948, 2000, 384
pages, $29.95.
Black Sheep One is an engaging, informative, andat times shocking biography of the leading Marine
Corps ace of World War II, Medal of Honor winner,and former prisoner of war (POW). Through detailed research, Gamble weaves an in-depth pictureof a very unconventional hero who was dogged
throughout life by horrendous personal problems.
Written chronologically, the book thoroughly
describes Boyington’s early years growing up in
Idaho and Washington State. These years marked
the themes that would dominate his life: a dys­functional family, alcoholism, financial hardship, aneed to find acceptance, perseverance, and a loveof flying. His alcoholic father—who, he would later
discover, was really his stepfather—moved fromjob to job because of his drinking, causing con­stant money woes for the family. Despite these
problems, Gregory managed to do well in highschool and then entered the University of Wash­
ington to study engineering. He joined the Reserve
Officer Training Corps, earned a degree in aero­
nautical engineering in 1934, got hired by Boeing,
and then entered the first of four marriages.
While working as a draftsman on the XB-15, a
test bed for the B-17, he dreamed of flying, butduring the Great Depression there was little op­
portunity to do so. In April 1935, however, Con­
gress passed the Aviation Cadet Act, designed totrain thousands of new pilots. He applied via the
Marine Corps Reserve program but lied about his
marital status (applicants had to be single); he was
accepted and went off to Naval Air Station Pen­sacola, leaving his wife and a newborn back home.
Forty percent of the people who started flightschool washed out; surprisingly, the future ace (28kills) almost did just that on more than one occa­sion. In fact, he busted nine check rides and met
three review boards during his training. From there
he went to Quantico, Virginia, to fly the UF-9M. He
immediately got in trouble by entering an unau­
thorized dogfight directly over the base just threedays after he arrived. He finally brought his familywith him but did not advertise the fact that he wasmarried. Debt problems began to pile up, alongwith a drinking habit he had developed in flightschool. From Quantico he went to Coronado, Cali­
fornia, where he began to cheat on his wife as hefurther developed his reputation as a skilled fighter

pilot whose professionalism on the ground was in­versely related to his flying skills. One event at
Coronado indicates his moral bankruptcy—he got
a woman pregnant but resolved the “problem” bymaking a quick trip with her to Mexico.
After a deployment on the famed aircraft car­rier Yorktown, Boyington was barely promoted to
first lieutenant because of his mounting personal
problems and sent back to Pensacola, Florida, tobe an instructor pilot. Here his problems came toa head. His wife—now an alcoholic, like him—
filed for divorce, and a judgment for $4,000 from28 debts in five states finally caught up with him.
After he met a recruiter for the famed Flying
Tigers, he signed up with them to make the big
bucks so he could get out of debt. His pay withthem was two to three times more than he earnedin the Marine Corps, and he received a bonus forevery Japanese plane shot down. He resigned from
the Marines, and the corps made sure his prob­
lems were adequately documented in his person­nel records so he couldn’t rejoin.
While with the Flying Tigers, Boyington contin­
ued his streak of impressive flying and personal irre­sponsibility. He flew P-40s out of bases in Burma andracked up six supposed Japanese kills, although only
two were ever confirmed. After getting into continu­
ous trouble with Claire Chennault and the staff of
the American Volunteer Group, and after the entryof the United States into World War II, he left the
Tigers, earning a dishonorable discharge because hebroke his contract with them.
The highlight of Black Sheep One occurs in theSouth Pacific after he was barely allowed back into
the Marines. The corps needed pilots, especiallythose with combat time. Flying Corsairs and later
the F4U from airfields in Guadalcanal, Bougain­
ville, Turtle Bay, and others, he racked up a total of
22 more kills—several questionable—earned theMedal of Honor for making five kills in one day,became a squadron commander, and finally got
shot down by a Zero. He was picked up by a Japa­
nese sub—sunk just 13 days later—and spent thenext 20 months in three prison camps. The de­scription of his POW experiences was the mostmoving and poignant account in the entire book.
Throughout his exploits as a Flying Tiger andBlack Sheep, he received enormous press coverage, and by the time he was shot down, he had become a media sensation. Initially, the public knew
little about his drinking, unprofessional conduct,and sorry personal life, but all of this came out
after the war, when he went on a tour promoting
the Marine Corps but began appearing at func-

NET ASSESSMENT
tions drunk. By August 1947, the Marine Corps
had had enough and medically retired him.
For the rest of his life, Boyington struggled
through three more marriages; frequent periodsof destitution; struggles with alcohol (including
long periods of sobriety but also relapses involving
driving under the influence [DUI]); and the pub­lication of two books, including Baa Baa Black
Sheep in 1958 (a big best-seller) and a novel thatmocked Chennault, for which he was heavily criti­
cized. In the 1970s, his famed squadron became
the only military flying unit used as the subject ofa TV series; Robert Conrad starred as Boyington.
The following are some interesting facts I
learned about Boyington from Black Sheep One:• He was an absentee father to his three chil­dren. One daughter committed suicide, andone son graduated from the first Air Force
Academy class in 1959.
• He suffered from cancer twice—lung andprostate—but continued to smoke anddrink. I was surprised that he lived as long as
he did (75 years).
• He often flew either drunk or with a hangover,frequently endangering both himself and his
squadron mates. Later in life, he was arrested
for DUIs but was never busted for flying under
the influence (FUI) while on active duty.
• The original name for his famous squadronwas “Boyington’s Bastards,” but the unit’s
public-affairs officer made them change it to“Black Sheep.” He was the commander only
four months before getting shot down.
• He often embellished his accomplishments,
especially his accounts to the media andthose in his autobiography; several of his
kills were never fully confirmed.
• The Black Sheep Squadron did not house abunch of misfits, as depicted in the TV series
and popular lore. Actually, the squadron—unlike Boyington—was very disciplined. The
unit’s alumni association ostracized him because of the way he depicted its members.
He died of cancer and was buried in Arlington
National Cemetery with great fanfare. At the end ofBlack Sheep One, I felt a sense of emptiness for Boy­
ington. Despite his heroic contributions—which in­cluded surviving 20 months as a POW in horrificJapanese prison camps and earning the Medal of

107

Honor—his moral and ethical bankruptcy overshad­owed his accomplishments.
I recommend this book to readers interested inmilitary history and matters of character. The only
criticisms I have of Black Sheep One are that it is too
detailed at times; it occasionally offers inferential
analysis; and it includes some trite phrases. Despite
these minor flaws, the book is well worth a reader’stime.
Lt Col Phil Bossert Jr., USAF
McGuire AFB, New Jersey

The Three Meter Zone: Common Sense Leadership for NCOs by J. D. Pendry. Presidio Press(http://www.presidiopress.com), P.O. Box
1764, Novato, California 94948, 2000, 256
pages, $24.95.
The Three Meter Zone provides a comprehensive
yet easy to follow review of several fundamental
leadership principles for noncommissioned offi­
cers (NCO). Not only is the book a work of art, butalso it has functional value for today’s NCO. The
author addresses the principles of NCO leadership
via personal and professional experiences, quota­
tions from political and military leaders, historicalmilitary accounts, and extracts from US Army fieldmanuals. Command Sergeant Major Pendry, USA,
presents the material in such a way that NCOs in
any military service can easily use it to take care of
their people and accomplish the mission.
The book is essential reading for the junior, midlevel, and senior NCO, offering a practical pre­scription for tackling leadership issues in thetwenty-first century. The author candidly discloses
personal experiences—each striking anecdotelends clarity and realism to leadership concepts
such as selfless service, integrity, trust, and confi­
dence. In a sense, Pendry invites the reader into avery natural discussion about leadership philoso­phy, one that underlies the NCO’s role as mentor,
disciplinarian, motivator, and communicator. He
declares that an NCO’s influence is indispensable
to the character and growth of the military organ­
ization, insisting that the NCO is the backbone of
the US armed forces.
A second key strategy of the author involves thefrequent use of probing questions to challenge thereader to carefully examine the implications of lead­ership decisions. This in-depth exploration of lead­ership issues suggests that the NCO may often confront situations which require more than a

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AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

superficial solution. More importantly, NCOs mayneed to use a holistic approach to fully understandall facets of a leadership challenge prior to advocat­
ing or implementing a decision. Similarly, Pendry
suggests that yesterday’s leadership solutions are notnecessarily appropriate for today’s peacekeeping,humanitarian, or combat-superiority missions. Such
constant questioning is not only welcome, but alsoessential to the continued physical, mental, andemotional development of the NCO.
A third element that distinguishes this text
from other books is the author’s unique writing
style. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Pendry
tells us what he truly feels about NCO leadership!
He candidly discloses his personal and profes­
sional perspective on leadership and the role of
the NCO: accomplish the mission and ensure thewelfare of the soldier. These convictions reflect
years of military tradition, tutelage under both
good and bad leaders, and training in one of thenation’s finest military branches of service. Fur­thermore, end-of-chapter summaries effectively
encapsulate the principles under discussion, giving
today’s NCO the knowledge and motivation tolead, discipline, communicate, and motivate.
The Three Meter Zone is an excellent book that willcapture its readers’ attention and challenge them to
examine their long-held leadership beliefs and prac­
tices. I encourage NCOs in any military service to invest a few hours of leadership-development time inreading this text. In turn, I challenge my fellow
NCOs to test his ideas and instill fundamental pre­cepts of leadership and followership. In the final
analysis, our subordinates, our military profession ofarms, and our great nation ask for nothing less!
CMSgt Gilbert Duenas, USAF
Maxwell AFB, Alabama

Winter Journey through the Ninth: The Story of
Tactical Air Power as Illustrated by the Exploitsof the Ninth Air Force in Europe by Harry A.
Franck. Prince of the Road Press (http://www.
p-ndesigns.com), 8987 E. Tanque Verde, no.
309-155, Tucson, Arizona 85749-9399, 2001, 305
pages, $21.95.
In November 1944, the Army Air Forces (AAF)
had Harry Franck write the story of its Ninth Air
Force, the tactical air force supporting US troops
in the European campaign. The author was un­
usual: in his 60s, he had served 19 months inWorld War I and earned his living writing travelbooks about his extensive journeys. His experi­ence, writing skills, and language abilities madehim a natural to turn this book out quickly. The
military granted Franck exceptional latitude by al­
lowing him to interview its top leaders—the nu­
merous air and ground generals in the theater—aswell as many group and squadron commanders
and aces. The book was finished by May 1945 but
was not published. Franck’s grandson and wife annotated the book and published it in 2001.
Winter Journey is a narrative of the author’s ex­perience from the time he departed the UnitedStates in the fall of 1944 to his service in newly de­feated Germany in May 1945. It does have pictures,a name index, explanations of the origins of thebook, and an epilogue written 50 years later byFranck’s subordinate and traveling companion.
The body of the book consists of vignettes of theauthor’s experiences during his travels across western Europe and conversations with both the fa­
mous and those “who also served.” Franck was atrue adventurer, flying on one medium-bomber
mission and suffering a slight wound in the lastdays of the war as he watched a tank-artillery duelin a German town. Writing in a journalist style that
includes long quotations from GIs and generals,
he notes the varied background of AAF officers
and their youth, especially relative to their rank.
Throughout the book, he displays his language
skills by using French and German phrases. Con­
cerning the language issue, Franck is critical of
Americans, decrying their inability to speak for­eign tongues: “Evidently even worse taught now in
the United States than they were back in the daysof World War I.” He also deplores Americans who
speak French “with a sophomoric ineptitude thatemphasizes our provincialism” (p. 81).
The result is a unique work because of its can­dor, detail, and viewpoint. Franck is candid andcritical in describing a number of American prob­lems, attitudes, and failures. He details poor AAF
bombing accuracy and instances of US aircraftbombing friendly forces; he also mentions an
American study which found that the claims of ve­
hicle destruction in the famous Falaise-Argentan
pocket were only 10 percent accurate. Also notedis the callous talk of American pilots who believedthat “any living thing east of the Rhine was fairgame” (p. 150). In Franck’s words, “Most fighterbomber pilots reminded me . . . of high schoolboys, basketball players more than anything else;naïve and uncultured, even a little ill at ease, likemost American kids outside their own business—
which is flying—but at that were superbly con-

NET ASSESSMENT
scious of their competency” (p. 151). One Army
general lived quite well, in “almost barbarian
splendor,” while others’ accommodations weremore spartan. Another commander had “a Lincol­
nesque gentleness or sweetness . . . which is all too
rare among regular Army officers” (p. 63).
Franck includes details seldom mentioned inother accounts, such as the AAF’s lack of training,fear of flying, and less than admirable officers. The
author also mentions German and American
atrocities, as well as American looting. He repeats
the views of aircrews about fighting and flying, to­gether with the virtues and vices of various AAF tac­tical (medium) bombers and fighters. The bookmakes clear that AAF losses seemed both substan­tial and almost arbitrary: one B-26 unit lost only 13
men in 11 months of action but also had 61 men
missing in one day.
The book and story are not above reproach,however. Winter Journey’s oftentimes heavy prose
and richness of detail may prove slow going forsome readers. Some of the author’s feelings,
words, and attitudes may strike a sour note with amodern audience since they occasionally betrayhis “ugly American” views. But one must keep inmind that this annotated, unedited (uncensored)
publication is the product of a 62-year-old man
writing 55 years ago.
In sum, this book is a firsthand account of theAmerican tactical air war in France during the lastmonths of World War II by a careful, experienced,
nonflying observer. The author conveys both thespirit of the day and details available nowhere else,
giving us feelings and facts about the last monthsof the war from an American perspective. Al­
though overly long and tedious at times, Winter
Journey offers refreshing and often critical views onsome familiar subjects while adding a number ofinteresting details. As such, students of tactical airpower in World War II should consider this book a“must” addition to their libraries.
Kenneth P. Werrell
Maxwell AFB, Alabama

The Second-Luckiest Pilot: Adventures in Military
Aviation by D. K. Tooker. Naval Institute Press(http://www.usni.org/cgi-bin/SoftCart.exe/press/press.html?E+scstore), 2062 Generals
Highway, Annapolis, Maryland 21401, 2000, 216
pages, $27.95.

109

D. K. Tooker, a pilot who flew nearly 150 com­
bat missions over Korea and retired as a Marine
Corps lieutenant colonel in 1968, describes his
personal experiences along with those of his fellow
pilots in The Second-Luckiest Pilot, an exhilaratingbook. Each chapter is dedicated to a different,
true-life incident concerning survival. Most of theaccounts describe surrealistic events that usually
involve cheating death—but not always. Some ofthe events are heartbreaking instances of lives lost.
The title refers to Tooker’s personal story, describing the time he ejects from his aircraft, landsin the sea, and is luckily rescued by a Navy de­stroyer. Although some accounts are autobio­
graphical, most of them relate other pilots’ bonechilling encounters.
Tooker’s narrative extends from World War II
to the 1990s. In one example, an F-8 Crusader
pilot falls 15,000 feet with an unopened chute but
survives, suffering two broken ankles, a severed
tendon in his left foot, a fractured right pelvis, afractured vertebra, a partially collapsed left lung,and completely inactive kidneys and intestines. In
one account, however, Lady Luck is not so forgiv­
ing. Trapped in a burning Corsair, Ensign Jesse
Brown has no choice other than sending his help
away and facing death alone. Tooker offers that “itis only for God to know whether the fire, the cold,or the enemy stilled Jesse Brown’s heart forever.”The men involved in the rescue attempt cannot
forget this haunting event.
With the exception of Jesse Brown, Tooker
knew each person he writes about; for that reason,
he is able to bring his own insights into play. Thus,
he conveys to his readers not only the details of theincidents, but also the victims’ thought processes
and emotional experiences.
Photographs scattered throughout the bookcomplement the stories, imbuing them with realism and personality. They capture the camaraderie
and dedication exemplified by these men
throughout their careers.
The book is heavy with emotion, evoking laugh­
ter in one chapter, disbelief in the next, and tears
in yet another. Obviously not a scholarly study, The
Second-Luckiest Pilot concerns itself with people andemotions rather than wars and politics. Anyone
who appreciates the dangers of military aviation
should read this delightful book and be prepared
for an unforgettable, touching experience.
C1C Brooke Carr, USAF
USAF Academy, Colorado

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WINTER 2001

The Ultimate Terrorist by Jessica Stern. Harvard
University Press (http://www.hup.harvard.
edu), 79 Garden Street, Cambridge, Massachu­
setts 02138, 1999, 214 pages, $24.00 (cloth).
This book immediately catches the reader’s at­
tention with a sobering fictional vignette that por­trays the effect of a small, one-kiloton nuclear device
detonated in New York City. The device would killthousands and devastate the infrastructure for miles.
Stern’s book continues in an orderly overview ofnearly every conceivable weapon-of-mass-destruction(WMD) issue in today’s world. She explores the em­
ployment of chemical, biological, radiological, or
nuclear weapons by terrorists against the UnitedStates. She finishes her work with a reasonable but
brief list of recommendations on how the UnitedStates should proceed if it is to thwart the efforts of“the ultimate terrorist.” This book is a superb primer
for any individual who is serious about wanting tounderstand this emerging threat––it is factual, com­pelling, and easy to read.
Starting with a brief history of terrorism datingback to the first century zealot, Sicarrii, Stern explains how some consider terrorism moral while itis repugnant to others. This contrasting of ideals
provides a deeper understanding for the reader.
Stern does an excellent job in describing why theuse of WMD is more attractive than ever before to
the modern terrorist. She makes a particularly
sobering point—one terrorist may be all it takes tocarry out an effective and devastating WMD eventin the United States. Stern makes good use of
three recent situations—the Aum Shinrikyo cult,the relative ease of obtaining WMD in the formerSoviet states, and the ongoing issue of WMD in
Iraq—and builds a solid basis for her conclusion
and recommendations.
Criticisms, though minor indeed, are that areader well versed with WMD issues might find it a
bit too basic and repetitious. On the other hand,the book is an overview, and the repetition pro­vides positive reinforcement during the learning
process to the nascent student of WMD terrorism.
Additionally, Stern’s remarks regarding funding
and missile defense might seem to be confusing—if not incorrect.
For example, Stern’s point that the United Statesneeds to put more funding toward deterring thethreat of WMD terrorism is well taken, but her belief
that building five fewer Stealth bombers would savean estimated $10 billion is somewhat of a non se­
quitur. Currently, there are no plans to build addi­
tional Stealth bombers. Perhaps a better comparison
would be the cost savings resulting from anotherround of military base closings against the proposedcost of a nationwide antiterrorism program.
Additionally, her belief that “WMD terrorists willprobably not use ballistic missiles” is likely correct,
but her inference that the current administrationand the Department of Defense have a misguided
emphasis toward ballistic-missile defense is somewhat off the mark. Obviously, the current president’s
proposal for a missile defense system targets “rogue
nations” such as North Korea and Iraq—not terror­
ists. In reality, both a missile-defense system and arobust antiterrorism program are necessary.
In addition to being a superb overview of many of
the WMD threats facing our nation, the 33 pages ofcitations fortify the credibility of the many interest­ing vignettes Stern uses. Readers wanting to do moreadvanced study into this subject will certainly findthe references a rich source of material.
The Ultimate Terrorist is recommended readingfor both the beginner who needs a good introduc­tion to the current WMD threat as well as the moreseasoned reader for its detailed citations.
Col (Dr.) Jim Davis
Maxwell AFB, Alabama
CDR Drew Mullin, USN
Norfolk, Virginia

NET ASSESSMENT

111

In this section of “Net Assessment,” you will find additional reviews of aviation-related books and CDROMs but in a considerably briefer format than our usual offerings. We certainly don’t mean to imply thatthese items are less worthy of your attention. On the contrary, our intention is to give you as many reviewsof notable books and electronic publications as possible in a limited amount of space. Unless otherwise in­dicated, the reviews have been written by an APJ staff member.
Intelligence and the War against Japan: Britain,
America and the Politics of Secret Service byRichard J. Aldrich. Cambridge University Press(http://www.cup.org), 40 West 20th Street,
New York, New York 10011-4221, 2000, 524
pages, $34.95.
Using recently declassified documents from
American and British archives, Richard Aldrich
looks at Anglo-American secret-service activities
against the Japanese during World War II in the In­dian and Chinese theaters. He quickly touches on
the pre–Pearl Harbor years from the British andAmerican perspectives, refuting the claim that
Britain did not warn the United States about theJapanese plans to attack Pearl Harbor. He divides
the Far East into four areas: India, whose citizens
resented the strong British colonial presence;
China, involved in an internal three-way struggle
in addition to the war with Japan; the Southwest
Pacific, isolated from the secret services by General
MacArthur; and Southeast Asia. Aldrich focuses on
how the secret services worked in India and China,
setting up overlapping divisions and units. Intelli­gence and the War against Japan is an excellent
choice for anyone who wants to understand thebyzantine workings of the American and British se­cret-service elements in India and China.
Defending America: The Case for Limited Na­
tional Missile Defense by James M. Lindsay andMichael E. O’Hanlon. Brookings Institution
Press (http://www.brook.edu/press/press_hp.
htm), 1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Wash­

ington, D.C. 20036-2188, 2001, 200 pages,$24.95.
Few current defense topics spark as much con­troversy as national missile defense (NMD). Lind­
say and O’Hanlon cut through the rhetoric of boththe left and the right to give us the unadulterated
facts about this important issue. They meticulously
analyze current and future ballistic-missile threatsat all levels, from the future of the Russian ICBM
arsenal down to Iraq’s potential for deploying
ICBMs in the next 20 years. This analysis includes
discussion of the types of weapons of mass destruc­tion (WMD) practically deployable on missiles
likely to be used by so-called rogue states. The au­thors also eloquently scrutinize the likelihood ofalternative methods of WMD employment by thesestates (e.g., they expose the myth of the “suitcasenuke” as an exaggeration). After concluding thatthe threat of ICBM proliferation to nations hostile
to US interests is limited but real, Lindsay andO’Hanlon proceed to explore the political impli­
cations of various strategies for NMD and theater
missile defense (TMD), especially with respect to
US-Sino-Russian relations. Defending America also
examines the status of the technologies required
to make TMD and NMD realities, again parting
the veil of rhetoric that has surrounded the reporting of missile-defense tests. The book’s appen­
dices contain the full text of the ABM Treaty andpertinent excerpts from the Rumsfeld Commission
report and national intelligence estimates. This
important book provides the most balanced treat­ment of this difficult topic to date. ■AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL Volume XVAUTHOR INDEX
Ash, Col Eric. “Medicinal Thoughts” (editorial), no. 4(Winter 2001): 5.
———. “Precision Doctrine” (editorial), no. 1 (Spring2001): 3–4.
––––––. “Propositions Concerning the Aerial RMA” (edi­torial), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 3–4.
––––––. “Purple Virtues: A Leadership Cure for Un­
healthy Rivalry,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 32–39.
Ash, Lt Col Eric A., Dr. Kenneth P. Werrell, Col Allan W.
Howey, and Maj Thomas S. Szvetecz. “Global Dy­
namic Operations” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
101–7.
Bingham, Lt Col Price T. “Transforming Warfare with Ef­
fects-Based Joint Operations,” no. 1 (Spring 2001):
58–66.
Butterworth, Dr. Robert L. “Out of Balance: Will Con­ventional ICBMs Destroy Deterrence?” no. 3 (Fall2001): 74–84.
Carlton, Lt Gen Paul K., Jr. “New Millennium, New MindSet: The Air Force Medical Service in the Air Expedi­tionary Era,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 8–13.
Costanzo, Lt Col Charles E. “Shades of Sentinel? Na­tional Missile Defense, Then and Now,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 60–65.
da Rocha, Dr. Alexandre S. “The Ethical Problem in Plu­ralistic Societies and Dr. Toner’s ‘Mistakes,’ ” no. 1(Spring 2001): 81–94.
Deptula, Maj Gen David A. “Air Force Transformation:
Past, Present, and Future” (pirep), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
85–91.
Dietrick, Capt Robert. “Casualty Sensitivity and the Indi­
rect Approach” (vortices), no. 1 (Spring 2001):
106–9.
Dougherty, Col James J. “Operational Medical Support
for the Tip of the Spear: The Heart of Air Force Spe­cial Operations Forces (AFSOF) Medicine,” no. 4(Winter 2001): 27–33.
Drew, Col Dennis M. “The Essence of Aerospace Power:
What Leaders Need to Know,” no. 2 (Summer 2001):
23–31.
Drohan, Col Tom, and Col Doug Murray. “Responding tothe ‘Developing Aerospace Leaders’ Initiative: A Mas­
ter Attack Plan for Reforming Undergraduate Profes­
sional Development,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 13–22.
Eikmeier, Col Dale C., USA. “Organizing for Success:
Theater Missile Defense in Korea,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
66–73.
Endersby, Lt Col Gary, Col Edward Mann, and Tom
Searle. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Opera­
tions” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.
Erbschloe, Col Donald R., and Dr. Louis S. Metzger.
“Who’s Got the Big Picture?” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 6–11.
Fawcett, Lt Col John M., Jr. “Leadership and Reorganiza­
tion: A New Model for the Air Force,” no. 2 (Summer
2001): 65–77.

112

Garrard, Col Mark. “War Termination in the Persian
Gulf: Problems and Prospects,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
42–50.
Gray, Group Captain Peter W. “The Myths of Air Control
and the Realities of Imperial Policing,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 21–31.
Green, Brig Gen Bruce. “Challenges of Aeromedical
Evacuation in the Post-Cold-War Era,” no. 4 (Winter2001): 14–26.
Hall, Col Tom. “ ‘I’d Rather Be Flying’: The Ethos of the
Air Force Officer Corps” (vortices), no. 2 (Summer
2001): 82–85.
Haun, Lt Col Phil M. “Airpower versus a Fielded Army: A
Construct for Air Operations in the Twenty-First Cen­tury,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 81–88.
Hays, Lt Col Peter, and Dr. Karl Mueller. “Going Boldly—
Where? Aerospace Integration, the Space Commis­
sion, and the Air Force’s Vision for Space,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 34–49.
Howard, Lt Col Stephen P. “The War on Drugs: TwoMore Casualties” (vortices), no. 4 (Winter 2001):
91–94.
Howey, Col Allan W., Dr. Kenneth P. Werrell, Lt Col Eric
A. Ash, and Maj Thomas S. Szvetecz. “Global Dynamic
Operations” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 101–7.
Hubert, Lt Col James A., Maj Gen Stephen R. Lorenz,
and Maj Keith H. Maxwell. “Linking Resource Alloca­
tion to Performance Management and Strategic
Planning: An Air Force Challenge,” no. 4 (Winter2001): 34–45.
Hughes, Dr. Thomas. “The Cult of the Quick,” no. 4(Winter 2001): 57–68.
Iversen, Capt Alisen. “Professional Military Education for
Company Grade Officers: Targeting for ‘Affect,’ ” no.
2 (Summer 2001): 58–64.
Johnson, Kent D. “Political-Military Engagement Policy:
Casualty Avoidance and the American Public” (vor­tices), no. 1 (Spring 2001): 98–105.
Johnson, Dr. Wray R. “Airpower and Restraint in Small
Wars: Marine Corps Aviation in the Second
Nicaraguan Campaign, 1927–33,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
32–41.
Jumper, Gen John P. “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 24–33.
Kamps, Charles Tustin. “The JCS 94-Target List: A Viet­nam Myth That Still Distorts Military Thought,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 67–80.
Kohn, Dr. Richard H., ed. “The Early Retirement of Gen
Ronald R. Fogleman, Chief of Staff, United States Air
Force,” no. 1 (Spring 2001): 6–23.
Leinbach, 1st Lt Glenn. “For Lieutenants Only!” (vor­tices), no. 2 (Summer 2001): 90–92.
Link, Maj Gen Charles D. “Leading Airmen,” no. 2 (Sum­mer 2001): 7–12.

INDEX
Lorenz, Maj Gen Stephen R., Lt Col James A. Hubert, and
Maj Keith H. Maxwell. “Linking Resource Allocation to
Performance Management and Strategic Planning: An
Air Force Challenge,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 34–45.
McNamara, Maj Louis E., Jr. “Riding the InformationRevolution Tiger” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 108–16.
Mann, Col Edward, Lt Col Gary Endersby, and Tom
Searle. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Opera­
tions” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.
Maxwell, Maj Keith H., Maj Gen Stephen R. Lorenz, and Lt
Col James A. Hubert. “Linking Resource Allocation to
Performance Management and Strategic Planning: An
Air Force Challenge,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 34–45.
Meilinger, Col Phillip S. “Precision Aerospace Power, Dis­crimination, and the Future of War,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
12–20.
Mets, Dr. David R. “In Search of a Twenty-First-Century
Air-Leadership Model: Fodder for Your Professional
Reading,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 40–51.
Metzger, Dr. Louis S., and Col Donald R. Erbschloe.
“Who’s Got the Big Picture?” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 6–11.
Michael, Maj Steve. “Air Force Doctrine and Leadership”(vortices), no. 2 (Summer 2001): 86–89.
Mueller, Dr. Karl, and Lt Col Peter Hays. “Going Boldly—
Where? Aerospace Integration, the Space Commis­
sion, and the Air Force’s Vision for Space,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 34–49.
Murray, Col Doug, and Col Tom Drohan. “Responding tothe ‘Developing Aerospace Leaders’ Initiative: A Mas­
ter Attack Plan for Reforming Undergraduate Profes­
sional Development,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 13–22.

113

Record, Dr. Jeffrey. “Thinking about China and War,” no.
4 (Winter 2001): 69–80.
Ryan, Gen Michael E. “A Word from the Chief: Transfor­
mational Leaders,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 4–5.
Searle, Tom, Col Edward Mann, and Lt Col Gary Endersby.
“Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Operations”(vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.
Szvetecz, Maj Thomas S., Dr. Kenneth P. Werrell, Col Allan
W. Howey, and Lt Col Eric A. Ash. “Global Dynamic Op­
erations” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 101–7.
Thirtle, Dr. Mike. “Developing Aerospace Leaders for the
Twenty-First Century: A Historical Context for the
DAL Concept,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 52–57.
Van Nederveen, Capt Gilles. “C-9 Nightingale: From Ded­icated Aeromedical Evacuation to Theater Transport”(pirep), no. 4 (Winter 2001): 89–90.
———. “A Light Dawns: The Airborne Laser” (pirep),
no. 1 (Spring 2001): 95–97.
––––––. “Technology for the Future Leader: Interna­
tional Command and Control Enhancements”(pirep), no. 2 (Summer 2001): 78–80.
Werrell, Dr. Kenneth P., Col Allan W. Howey, Lt Col Eric
A. Ash, and Maj Thomas S. Szvetecz. “Global Dynamic
Operations” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 101–7.
Wilkes, Col Bobby J. “Silver Flag: A Concept for Opera­
tional Warfare,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 47–56.
Wojtysiak, Lt Col Martin. “Another View of the Myths of
the Gulf War,” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 51–59.
Worden, Brig Gen Simon Peter. “The Air Force and Fu­
ture Space Directions: Are We Good Stewards?” no. 1(Spring 2001): 50–55.

TITLE INDEX“Air Force Doctrine and Leadership” (vortices), Maj
Steve Michael, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 86–89.
“Air Force and Future Space Directions, The: Are We
Good Stewards?” Brig Gen Simon Peter Worden, no.
1 (Spring 2001): 50–55.
“Air Force Transformation: Past, Present, and Future”(pirep), Maj Gen David A. Deptula, no. 3 (Fall 2001):
85–91.
“Airpower versus a Fielded Army: A Construct for Air Op­
erations in the Twenty-First Century,” Lt Col Phil M.
Haun, no. 4 (Winter 2001): 81–88.
“Airpower and Restraint in Small Wars: Marine Corps
Aviation in the Second Nicaraguan Campaign,
1927–33,” Dr. Wray R. Johnson, no. 3 (Fall 2001):
32–41.
“Another View of the Myths of the Gulf War,” Lt Col Martin Wojtysiak, no. 3 (Fall 2001): 51–59.
“Out of Balance: Will Conventional ICBMs Destroy De­
terrence?” Dr. Robert L. Butterworth, no. 3 (Fall2001): 74–84.
“C-9 Nightingale: From Dedicated Aeromedical Evacua­tion to Theater Transport” (pirep), Capt Gilles Van
Nederveen, no. 4 (Winter 2001): 89–90.

“Casualty Sensitivity and the Indirect Approach” (vor­tices), Capt Robert Dietrick, no. 1 (Spring 2001):
106–9.
“Challenges of Aeromedical Evacuation in the Post-ColdWar Era,” Brig Gen Bruce Green, no. 4 (Winter2001): 14–26.
“Cult of the Quick, The,” Dr. Thomas Hughes, no. 4(Winter 2001): 57–68.
“Developing Aerospace Leaders for the Twenty-First Cen­tury: A Historical Context for the DAL Concept,” Dr.
Mike Thirtle, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 52–57.
“Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Operations” (vor­tices), Col Edward Mann, Lt Col Gary Endersby, andTom Searle, no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.
“Early Retirement of Gen Ronald R. Fogleman, Chief ofStaff, United States Air Force, The,” Dr. Richard H.
Kohn, ed., no. 1 (Spring 2001): 6–23.
“Essence of Aerospace Power, The: What Leaders Needto Know,” Col Dennis M. Drew, no. 2 (Summer 2001):
23–31.
“Ethical Problem in Pluralistic Societies and Dr. Toner’s‘Mistakes,’ The,” Dr. Alexandre S. da Rocha, no. 1(Spring 2001): 81–94.

114

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

“Global Dynamic Operations” (vortices), Dr. Kenneth P.
Werrell, Col Allan W. Howey, Lt Col Eric A. Ash, and
Maj Thomas S. Szvetecz, no. 3 (Fall 2001): 101–7.
“Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept,
Forged by Experience,” Gen John P. Jumper, no. 1(Spring 2001): 24–33.
“Going Boldly—Where? Aerospace Integration, theSpace Commission, and the Air Force’s Vision forSpace,” Lt Col Peter Hays and Dr. Karl Mueller, no. 1(Spring 2001): 34–49.
“ ‘I’d Rather Be Flying’: The Ethos of the Air Force Offi­
cer Corps” (vortices), Col Tom Hall, no. 2 (Summer
2001): 82–85.
“JCS 94-Target List, The: A Vietnam Myth That Still Dis­
torts Military Thought,” Charles Tustin Kamps, no. 1(Spring 2001): 67–80.
“Leadership and Reorganization: A New Model for the
Air Force,” Lt Col John M. Fawcett Jr., no. 2 (Summer
2001): 65–77.
“Leading Airmen,” Maj Gen Charles D. Link, no. 2 (Sum­mer 2001): 7–12.
“For Lieutenants Only!” (vortices), 1st Lt Glenn Lein­bach, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 90–92.
“Light Dawns, A: The Airborne Laser” (pirep), no. 1(Spring 2001): 95–97.
“Linking Resource Allocation to Performance Manage­
ment and Strategic Planning: An Air Force Chal­lenge,” Maj Gen Stephen R. Lorenz, Lt Col James A.
Hubert, and Maj Keith H. Maxwell, no. 4 (Winter2001): 34–45.
“Medicinal Thoughts” (editorial), Col Eric Ash, no. 4(Winter 2001): 5.
“Myths of Air Control and the Realities of Imperial Polic­ing, The,” Group Captain Peter W. Gray, no. 3 (Fall2001): 21–31.
“New Millennium, New Mind-Set: The Air Force Medical
Service in the Air Expeditionary Era,” Lt Gen Paul K.
Carlton Jr., no. 4 (Winter 2001): 8–13.
“Operational Medical Support for the Tip of the Spear:
The Heart of Air Force Special Operations Forces(AFSOF) Medicine,” Col James J. Dougherty, no. 4(Winter 2001): 27–33.
“Organizing for Success: Theater Missile Defense in
Korea,” Col Dale C. Eikmeier, USA, no. 3 (Fall 2001):
66–73.

“Political-Military Engagement Policy: Casualty Avoid­ance and the American Public” (vortices), Kent D.
Johnson, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 98–105.
“Precision Aerospace Power, Discrimination, and the Fu­
ture of War,” Col Phillip S. Meilinger, no. 3 (Fall2001): 12–20.
“Precision Doctrine” (editorial), Lt Col Eric Ash, no. 1(Spring 2001): 3–4.
“Professional Military Education for Company Grade Of­
ficers: Targeting for ‘Affect,’” Capt Alisen Iversen, no.
2 (Summer 2001): 58–64.
“Propositions Concerning the Aerial RMA” (editorial),
Lt Col Eric Ash, no. 3 (Fall 2001): 3–4.
“Purple Virtues: A Leadership Cure for Unhealthy Ri­
valry,” Lt Col Eric Ash, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 32–39.
“Responding to the ‘Developing Aerospace Leaders’ Initia­
tive: A Master Attack Plan for Reforming Undergradu­
ate Professional Development,” Col Tom Drohan and
Col Doug Murray, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 13–22.
“Riding the Information-Revolution Tiger” (vortices),
Maj Louis E. McNamara Jr., no. 3 (Fall 2001): 108–16.
“In Search of a Twenty-First-Century Air-Leadership
Model: Fodder for Your Professional Reading,” Dr.
David R. Mets, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 40–51.
“Shades of Sentinel? National Missile Defense, Then andNow,” Lt Col Charles E. Costanzo, no. 3 (Fall 2001):
60–65.
“Silver Flag: A Concept for Operational Warfare,” Col
Bobby J. Wilkes, no. 4 (Winter 2001): 91–95.
“Technology for the Future Leader: International Com­
mand and Control Enhancements” (pirep), Capt
Gilles Van Nederveen, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 78–80.
“Thinking about China and War,” Dr. Jeffrey Record, no.
4 (Winter 2001): 69–80.
“Transforming Warfare with Effects-Based Joint Opera­
tions,” Lt Col Price T. Bingham, no. 1 (Spring 2001):
58–66.
“War on Drugs, The: Two More Casualties” (vortices), Lt
Col Stephen P. Howard, no. 4 (Winter 2001): 91–94.
“War Termination in the Persian Gulf: Problems andProspects,” Col Mark Garrard, no. 3 (Fall 2001): 42–50.
“Who’s Got the Big Picture?” Dr. Louis S. Metzger and
Col Donald R. Erbschloe, no. 3 (Fall 2001): 6–11.
“Word from the Chief, A: Transformational Leaders,”
Gen Michael E. Ryan, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 4–5.

SUBJECT INDEX
Aerospace Expeditionary Force/Expeditionary Aero­space Force
Deptula, Maj Gen David A. “Air Force Transformation:
Past, Present, and Future” (pirep), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
85–91.
Jumper, Gen John P. “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 24–33.
Aerospace Power
Bingham, Lt Col Price T. “Transforming Warfare with Ef­
fects-Based Joint Operations,” no. 1 (Spring 2001):
58–66.

Deptula, Maj Gen David A. “Air Force Transformation:
Past, Present, and Future” (pirep), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
85–91.
Drew, Col Dennis M. “The Essence of Aerospace Power:
What Leaders Need to Know,” no. 2 (Summer 2001):
23–31.
Gray, Group Captain Peter W. “The Myths of Air Control
and the Realities of Imperial Policing,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 21–31.
Haun, Lt Col Phil M. “Airpower versus a Fielded Army: A
Construct for Air Operations in the Twenty-First Cen­tury,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 81–88.

INDEX

115

Hays, Lt Col Peter, and Dr. Karl Mueller. “Going Boldly—
Where? Aerospace Integration, the Space Commis­
sion, and the Air Force’s Vision for Space,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 34–49.
Johnson, Dr. Wray R. “Airpower and Restraint in Small
Wars: Marine Corps Aviation in the Second
Nicaraguan Campaign, 1927–33,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
32–41.
Jumper, Gen John P. “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 24–33.
Kamps, Charles Tustin. “The JCS 94-Target List: A Viet­nam Myth That Still Distorts Military Thought,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 67–80.
Lorenz, Maj Gen Stephen R., Lt Col James A. Hubert,
and Maj Keith H. Maxwell. “Linking Resource Alloca­
tion to Performance Management and Strategic Plan­ning: An Air Force Challenge,” no. 4 (Winter 2001):
34–45.
Mann, Col Edward, Lt Col Gary Endersby, and Tom
Searle. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Opera­
tions” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.
Meilinger, Col Phillip S. “Precision Aerospace Power, Dis­crimination, and the Future of War,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 12–20.
Metzger, Dr. Louis S., and Col Donald R. Erbschloe.
“Who’s Got the Big Picture?” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 6–11.
Werrell, Dr. Kenneth P., Col Allan W. Howey, Lt Col Eric
A. Ash, and Maj Thomas S. Szvetecz. “Global Dynamic
Operations” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 101–7.
Wojtysiak, Lt Col Martin. “Another View of the Myths of
the Gulf War,” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 51–59.
Worden, Brig Gen Simon Peter. “The Air Force and Fu­
ture Space Directions: Are We Good Stewards?” no. 1(Spring 2001): 50–55.

Air Campaign
Bingham, Lt Col Price T. “Transforming Warfare with Ef­
fects-Based Joint Operations,” no. 1 (Spring 2001):
58–66.
Deptula, Maj Gen David A. “Air Force Transformation:
Past, Present, and Future” (pirep), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
85–91.
Garrard, Col Mark. “War Termination in the Persian
Gulf: Problems and Prospects,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
42–50.
Haun, Lt Col Phil M. “Airpower versus a Fielded Army: A
Construct for Air Operations in the Twenty-First Cen­tury,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 81–88.
Hughes, Dr. Thomas. “The Cult of the Quick,” no. 4(Winter 2001): 57–68.
Jumper, Gen John P. “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 24–33.
Kamps, Charles Tustin. “The JCS 94-Target List: A Viet­nam Myth That Still Distorts Military Thought,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 67–80.
Mann, Col Edward, Lt Col Gary Endersby, and Tom
Searle. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Opera­
tions” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.
Meilinger, Col Phillip S. “Precision Aerospace Power, Dis­crimination, and the Future of War,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 12–20.
Metzger, Dr. Louis S., and Col Donald R. Erbschloe.
“Who’s Got the Big Picture?” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 6–11.
Wojtysiak, Lt Col Martin. “Another View of the Myths of
the Gulf War,” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 51–59.

Aerospace Power History
Drew, Col Dennis M. “The Essence of Aerospace Power:
What Leaders Need to Know,” no. 2 (Summer 2001):
23–31.
Garrard, Col Mark. “War Termination in the Persian
Gulf: Problems and Prospects,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
42–50.
Johnson, Dr. Wray R. “Airpower and Restraint in Small
Wars: Marine Corps Aviation in the Second
Nicaraguan Campaign, 1927–33,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
32–41.
Kamps, Charles Tustin. “The JCS 94-Target List: A Viet­nam Myth That Still Distorts Military Thought,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 67–80.
Kohn, Dr. Richard H., ed. “The Early Retirement of Gen
Ronald R. Fogleman, Chief of Staff, United States Air
Force,” no. 1 (Spring 2001): 6–23.
Meilinger, Col Phillip S. “Precision Aerospace Power, Dis­crimination, and the Future of War,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 12–20.
Mets, Dr. David R. “In Search of a Twenty-First-Century
Air-Leadership Model: Fodder for Your Professional
Reading,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 40–51.

Air Superiority
Bingham, Lt Col Price T. “Transforming Warfare with Ef­
fects-Based Joint Operations,” no. 1 (Spring 2001):
58–66.
Gray, Group Captain Peter W. “The Myths of Air Control
and the Realities of Imperial Policing,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 21–31.
Johnson, Dr. Wray R. “Airpower and Restraint in Small
Wars: Marine Corps Aviation in the Second
Nicaraguan Campaign, 1927–33,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
32–41.
Jumper, Gen John P. “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 24–33.
Meilinger, Col Phillip S. “Precision Aerospace Power, Dis­crimination, and the Future of War,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 12–20.
Metzger, Dr. Louis S., and Col Donald R. Erbschloe.
“Who’s Got the Big Picture?” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 6–11.

Airpower History
Green, Brig Gen Bruce. “Challenges of Aeromedical
Evacuation in the Post-Cold-War Era,” no. 4 (Winter2001): 14–26.

Arms Control
Butterworth, Dr. Robert L. “Out of Balance: Will Con­ventional ICBMs Destroy Deterrence?” no. 3 (Fall2001): 74–84.

116

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL WINTER 2001

Asian Region
Record, Dr. Jeffrey. “Thinking about China and War,” no.
4 (Winter 2001): 69–80.
Aviation Technology
Metzger, Dr. Louis S., and Col Donald R. Erbschloe.
“Who’s Got the Big Picture?” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 6–11.
Van Nederveen, Capt Gilles. “C-9 Nightingale: From Ded­icated Aeromedical Evacuation to Theater Transport”(pirep), no. 4 (Winter 2001): 89–90.
———. “A Light Dawns: The Airborne Laser” (pirep),
no. 1 (Spring 2001): 95–97.
———. “Technology for the Future Leader: Interna­
tional Command and Control Enhancements”(pirep), no. 2 (Summer 2001): 78–80.
Worden, Brig Gen Simon Peter. “The Air Force and Fu­
ture Space Directions: Are We Good Stewards?” no. 1(Spring 2001): 50–55.
Balkans ConflictHaun, Lt Col Phil M. “Airpower versus a Fielded Army: A
Construct for Air Operations in the Twenty-First Cen­tury,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 81–88.
Ballistic Missile Defense
Costanzo, Lt Col Charles E. “Shades of Sentinel? Na­tional Missile Defense, Then and Now,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 60–65.
Eikmeier, Col Dale C., USA. “Organizing for Success:
Theater Missile Defense in Korea,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
66–73.
Van Nederveen, Capt Gilles. “A Light Dawns: The Airborne Laser” (pirep), no. 1 (Spring 2001): 95–97.
Bibliographic Essays
Mets, Dr. David R. “In Search of a Twenty-First-Century
Air-Leadership Model: Fodder for Your Professional
Reading,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 40–51.
Book Reviews
Air Force History and Museums Program, Steadfast and
Courageous: FEAF Bomber Command and the Air War in
Korea, 1950–1953, reviewed by Kenneth P. Werrell, no.
1 (Spring 2001): 121–22.
Aldrich, Richard J. Intelligence and the War against Japan:
Britain, America and the Politics of Secret Service (touchand go), no. 4 (Winter 2001): 111.
Beaumont, Roger. The Nazis’ March to Chaos: The Hitler Era
through the Lenses of Chaos-Complexity Theory, reviewed
by James S. Corum, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 105–6.
———. Right Backed by Might: The International Air Force
Concept, reviewed by Col Phillip S. Meilinger, no. 4(Winter 2001): 105.
Bergström, Christer, and Andrey Mikhailov. Black
Cross/Red Star: The Air War over the Eastern Front, reviewed by James S. Corum, no. 2 (Summer 2001):
120–21.
Bracken, Paul. Fire in the East: The Rise of Asian Military
Power and the Second Nuclear Age, reviewed by Carmel
Davis, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 111–12.

Bradley, James, with Ron Powers. Flags of Our Fathers, reviewed by Maj Gary Pounder, no. 1 (Spring 2001):
112–13.
Brown, Russell. Desert Warriors: Australian P-40 Pilots at War
in the Middle East and North Africa, 1941–1943, reviewed
by Maj Robert F. Tate, no. 4 (Winter 2001): 99–100.
Brulle, Robert V. Angels Zero: P-47 Close Air Support in Eu­rope, reviewed by Dr. Daniel Mortensen, no. 4 (Winter2001): 100–101.
Chinnery, Phillip D. Korean Atrocity! Forgotten War Crimes,
1950–1953, reviewed by Kenneth P. Werrell, no. 2(Summer 2001): 110–11.
Clark, Gen Wesley K. Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo,and the Future of Combat, reviewed by William M. Arkin,no. 3 (Fall 2001): 123–25.
Cooper, Belton Y. Death Traps: The Survival of an American
Armored Division in World War II, reviewed by Maj Gary
Pounder, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 112–14.
Crouch, Tom D. et al. The Genesis of Flight: The Aeronauti­
cal History Collection of Colonel Richard Gimbel, reviewed
by Lt Col Eric A. Ash, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 110–11.
Dando, Malcolm. The New Biological Weapons: Threat, Pro­
liferation, and Control (touch and go), reviewed by APJ
staff, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 124–25.
Davis, William C. The Cause Lost: Myths and Realities of theConfederacy, reviewed by Maj James P. Gates, no. 4(Winter 2001): 103–4.
Duffner, Robert W. Science and Technology: The Making of
the Air Force Research Laboratory (touch and go), reviewed by APJ staff, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 123–24.
Dunar, Andrew J., and Stephan P. Waring. Power to Ex­
plore: A History of Marshall Space Flight Center,
1960–1990, reviewed by Col Jon Campbell, no. 2(Summer 2001): 106–8.
Echevarria, Antulio J., II. After Clausewitz: German MilitaryThinkers before the Great War, reviewed by Harold R.
Winton, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 104–5.
Edwards, Lee, ed. The Collapse of Communism, reviewed by
1st Lt Glenn Leinbach, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 113–14.
Fehrenbach, T. R. This Kind of War: The Classic Korean War
History, reviewed by Kenneth P. Werrell, no. 2 (Sum­mer 2001): 121.
Franck, Harry A. Winter Journey through the Ninth: The Storyof Tactical Air Power as Illustrated by the Exploits of theNinth Air Force in Europe, reviewed by Kenneth P. Wer­rell, no. 4 (Winter 2001): 108–9.
Funabashi, Yoichi. Alliance Adrift, reviewed by John H.
Barnhill, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 114–15.
Gallagher, Gary W., and Alan T. Nolan, eds. The Myth of
the Lost Cause and Civil War History, reviewed by Maj
James P. Gates, no. 4 (Winter 2001): 102–3.
Gamble, Bruce. Black Sheep One: The Life of Gergory“Pappy” Boyington, reviewed by Lt Col Phil Bossert Jr.,
no. 4 (Winter 2001): 106–7.
Gentile, Gian P. How Effective Is Strategic Bombing? Lessons
Learned from World War II to Kosovo, reviewed by Lt Col
Eric Ash, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 123.
Guelff, Richard, and Adam Roberts, eds. Documents on theLaws of War, reviewed by Dr. Marcus Hanke, no. 1(Spring 2001): 124–25.

INDEX
Hammond, Grant Tedrick. The Mind of War: John Boydand American Security, reviewed by Lt Col Eric Ash, no.
3 (Fall 2001): 122–23.
Hays, Peter L., et al. Spacepower for a New Millennium: Spaceand U.S. National Security (touch and go), reviewed by
APJ staff, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 125.
Jackson, Kathi. They Called Them Angels: American Military
Nurses of World War II, reviewed by C1C Brooke Carr,
no. 3 (Fall 2001): 123.
Johnston, A. M. “Tex,” with Charles Burton. Tex Johnston:Jet-Age Test Pilot, reviewed by John H. Barnhill, no. 1(Spring 2001): 115–16.
Kaplan, Robert D. Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the
Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus, reviewed byMichael R. Hickok, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 114–15.
Keegan, John, ed. The Book of War: 25 Centuries of Great
War Writing, reviewed by Maj Jeffrey C. Alfier, no. 1(Spring 2001): 116.
Korea Institute of Military History. The Korean War, reviewed by Kenneth P. Werrell, no. 4 (Winter 2001):
104.
Lambeth, Benjamin S. The Transformation of American Airpower, reviewed by Maj Mustafa “Kujo” Koprucu, no. 2(Summer 2001): 116–20.
Leary William M. Anything, Anywhere, Anytime: Combat
Cargo in the Korean War, reviewed by Kenneth P. Wer­rell, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 121–22.
———, ed. MacArthur and the American Century: A Reader,reviewed by Lt Youssef H. Aboul-Enein, no. 4 (Winter2001): 99.
Lindsay, James M., and Michael E. O’Hanlon. Defending
America: The Case for Limited National Missile Defense(touch and go), no. 4 (Winter 2001): 111.
McGuire, William C., II. After the Liberators: A Father’s Last
Mission, A Son’s Lifelong Journey (touch and go), reviewed by Dr. Daniel Mortensen, no. 2 (Summer
2001): 125.
McPherson, James M. Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on
the American Civil War, reviewed by Maj James P. Gates,
no. 4 (Winter 2001): 103.
McWhiney, Grady, and Perry D. Jamieson. Attack and Die:
Civil War Military Tactics and the Southern Heritage, reviewed by Maj James P. Gates, no. 4 (Winter 2001):
102, 104.
Mallmann-Showell, Jak P. U-Boats at War: Landings on Hos­tile Shores, reviewed by Lt Youssef H. Aboul-Enein, no.
2 (Summer 2001): 121–22.
Messimer, Dwight R. Escape from Villingen, 1918, reviewed
by 1st Lt Glenn Leinbach, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 108.
Mets, David R., and Harold R. Winton. The Challenge of
Change: Military Institutions and New Realities,
1918–1941, reviewed by Capt Barry H. Crane, no. 1(Spring 2001): 117–18.
Mikhailov, Andrey, and Christer Bergstrom. Black Cross/Red
Star: The Air War over the Eastern Front, reviewed by James
S. Corum, no. 2 (Spring 2001): 120–21.
Mott, William H., IV. Military Assistance: An Operational
Perspective, reviewed by Capt Clifford E. Rich, no. 4(Winter 2001): 96–97.

117

Nalty, Bernard, and Wayne Thompson. Within Limits: The
United States Air Force and the Korean War, reviewed by
Kenneth P. Werrell, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 121–22.
Nolan, Keith William. Ripcord: Screaming Eagles under Siege,
Vietnam 1970, reviewed by 1st Lt Glenn D. Leinbach,no. 4 (Winter 2001): 101–2.
Owens, Adm Bill, with Ed Offley. Lifting the Fog of War, reviewed by Maj Peter W. Huggins, no. 2 (Summer
2001): 108–9.
Pagedas, Constantine A. Anglo-American Strategic Relations
and the French Problem, 1960–1963: A Troubled Partnership, reviewed by Capt Sam Grable, no. 2 (Summer
2001): 109–10.
Pendry, J. D. The Three Meter Zone: Common Sense Leadershipfor NCOs, reviewed by CMSgt Gilbert Duenas, no. 4(Winter 2001): 107–8.
Pocock, Charles L. Viper-7: Forward Air Controlling in South
Vietnam in 1966, reviewed by Col James E. Roper, no.
2 (Summer 2001): 111–12.
Roberts, Adam, and Richard Guelff, eds. Documents on theLaws of War, 3d ed., reviewed by Dr. Marcus Hanke,
no. 1 (Spring 2001): 124–25.
Roe, Patrick C. The Dragon Strikes: China and the Korean
War, June–December 1950 (touch and go), reviewed by
Kenneth P. Werrell, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 124.
Rubin, Barry. Revolution until Victory: The Politics and History of the PLO, reviewed by Lt Youssef H. Aboul-Enein,
no. 2 (Summer 2001): 122.
Stern, Jessica. The Ultimate Terrorist, reviewed by Col (Dr.)
Jim Davis and CDR Drew Mullin, no. 4 (Winter 2001):
110.
Tal, Israel (trans. Martin Kett), National Security: The Is­
raeli Experience, reviewed by Lt Youssef H. AboulEnein, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 123–24.
TalonSoft. The Operational Art of War: Century of Warfare(CD-ROM), reviewed by Lt Col J. P. Hunerwadel, no.
1 (Spring 2001): 118–21.
Tangredi, Sam J. All Possible Wars? Toward a Consensus Viewof the Future Security Environment, 2001–2025 (touchand go), reviewed by Dr. Karl P. Magyar, no. 2 (Sum­mer 2001): 124.
Thompson, Wayne. To Hanoi and Back: The U.S. Air Forceand North Vietnam, 1966–1973, reviewed by Maj Mustafa“Kujo” Koprucu, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 115–20.
Thompson, Wayne, and Bernard Nalty. Within Limits: The
United States Air Force and the Korean War, reviewed by
Kenneth P. Werrell, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 121–22.
Tooker, D. K. The Second-Luckiest Pilot: Adventures in Mili­tary Aviation, reviewed by C1C Brooke Carr, no. 4(Winter 2001): 109.
Touchstone Pictures. Pearl Harbor, reviewed by Maj Gary
Pounder, no. 4 (Winter 2001): 97–98.
Wakin, Malham M. Integrity First: Reflections of a Military
Philosopher, reviewed by Lt Col Eric Ash, no. 2 (Sum­mer 2001): 112.
Waring, Stephan P., and Andrew J. Dunar. Power to Ex­
plore: A History of Marshall Space Flight Center,
1960–1990, reviewed by Col Jon Campbell, no. 2(Summer 2001): 106–8.

118

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

Warnock, A. Timothy, ed. The USAF in Korea: A Chronology,
1950–1953, reviewed by Kenneth P. Werrell, no. 1(Spring 2001): 122–23.
Weland, Gerald. Words of War: From Antiquity to Modern
Times, reviewed by Maj Jeffrey C. Alfier, no. 1 (Spring2001): 117.
Winton, Harold R., and David R. Mets. The Challenge of
Change: Military Institutions and New Realities,
1918–1941, reviewed by Capt Barry H. Crane, no. 1(Spring 2001): 117–18.
Y’Blood, William T. MiG Alley: The Fight for Air Superiority,
reviewed by Kenneth P. Werrell, no. 1 (Spring 2001):
122–23.
Budget/Planning Process
Lorenz, Maj Gen Stephen R., Lt Col James A. Hubert,
and Maj Keith H. Maxwell. “Linking Resource Alloca­
tion to Performance Management and Strategic Plan­ning: An Air Force Challenge,” no. 4 (Winter 2001):
34–45.
China
Record, Dr. Jeffrey. “Thinking about China and War,” no.
4 (Winter 2001): 69–80.
Civil-Military Relations
Dietrick, Capt Robert. “Casualty Sensitivity and the Indi­
rect Approach” (vortices), no. 1 (Spring 2001):
106–9.
Garrard, Col Mark. “War Termination in the Persian
Gulf: Problems and Prospects,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
42–50.
Howard, Lt Col Stephen P. “The War on Drugs: TwoMore Casualties” (vortices), no. 4 (Winter 2001):
91–94.
Johnson, Kent D. “Political-Military Engagement Policy:
Casualty Avoidance and the American Public” (vor­tices), no. 1 (Spring 2001): 98–105.

Hays, Lt Col Peter, and Dr. Karl Mueller. “Going Boldly—
Where? Aerospace Integration, the Space Commis­
sion, and the Air Force’s Vision for Space,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 34–49.
McNamara, Maj Louis E., Jr. “Riding the InformationRevolution Tiger” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
108–16.
Metzger, Dr. Louis S., and Col Donald R. Erbschloe.
“Who’s Got the Big Picture?” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 6–11.
Van Nederveen, Capt Gilles. “Technology for the Future
Leader: International Command and Control En­
hancements” (pirep), no. 2 (Summer 2001): 78–80.
Werrell, Dr. Kenneth P., Col Allan W. Howey, Lt Col Eric
A. Ash, and Maj Thomas S. Szvetecz. “Global Dynamic
Operations” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 101–7.
Worden, Brig Gen Simon Peter. “The Air Force and Fu­
ture Space Directions: Are We Good Stewards?” no. 1(Spring 2001): 50–55.
Company Grade Officer Issues
Iversen, Capt Alisen. “Professional Military Education for
Company Grade Officers: Targeting for ‘Affect,’ ” no.
2 (Summer 2001): 58–64.
Leinbach, 1st Lt Glenn. “For Lieutenants Only!” (vor­tices), no. 2 (Summer 2001): 90–92.
Counterinsurgency
Gray, Group Captain Peter W. “The Myths of Air Control
and the Realities of Imperial Policing,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 21–31.
Johnson, Dr. Wray R. “Airpower and Restraint in Small
Wars: Marine Corps Aviation in the Second
Nicaraguan Campaign, 1927–33,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
32–41.

Cold War
Butterworth, Dr. Robert L. “Out of Balance: Will Con­ventional ICBMs Destroy Deterrence?” no. 3 (Fall2001): 74–84.

Defense Reform
Deptula, Maj Gen David A. “Air Force Transformation:
Past, Present, and Future” (pirep), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
85–91.
Eikmeier, Col Dale C., USA. “Organizing for Success:
Theater Missile Defense in Korea,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
66–73.
Fawcett, Lt Col John M., Jr. “Leadership and Reorganiza­
tion: A New Model for the Air Force,” no. 2 (Summer
2001): 65–77.
Jumper, Gen John P. “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 24–33.
Ryan, Gen Michael E. “A Word from the Chief: Transfor­
mational Leaders,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 4–5.
Werrell, Dr. Kenneth P., Col Allan W. Howey, Lt Col Eric
A. Ash, and Maj Thomas S. Szvetecz. “Global Dynamic
Operations” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 101–7.

Command and Control
Bingham, Lt Col Price T. “Transforming Warfare with Ef­
fects-Based Joint Operations,” no. 1 (Spring 2001):
58–66.
Eikmeier, Col Dale C., USA. “Organizing for Success:
Theater Missile Defense in Korea,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
66–73.

Desert Shield/Storm
Dietrick, Capt Robert. “Casualty Sensitivity and the Indi­
rect Approach” (vortices), no. 1 (Spring 2001):
106–9.
Garrard, Col Mark. “War Termination in the Persian
Gulf: Problems and Prospects,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
42–50.

Close Air Support
Haun, Lt Col Phil M. “Airpower versus a Fielded Army: A
Construct for Air Operations in the Twenty-First Cen­tury,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 81–88.
Jumper, Gen John P. “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 24–33.
Meilinger, Col Phillip S. “Precision Aerospace Power, Dis­crimination, and the Future of War,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 12–20.

INDEX
Wojtysiak, Lt Col Martin. “Another View of the Myths of
the Gulf War,” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 51–59.
Deterrence
Butterworth, Dr. Robert L. “Out of Balance: Will Con­ventional ICBMs Destroy Deterrence?” no. 3 (Fall2001): 74–84.
Costanzo, Lt Col Charles E. “Shades of Sentinel? Na­tional Missile Defense, Then and Now,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 60–65.
Eikmeier, Col Dale C., USA. “Organizing for Success:
Theater Missile Defense in Korea,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
66–73.
Doctrine
Ash, Lt Col Eric. “Precision Doctrine” (editorial), no. 1(Spring 2001): 3–4.
Bingham, Lt Col Price T. “Transforming Warfare with Ef­
fects-Based Joint Operations,” no. 1 (Spring 2001):
58–66.
Carlton, Lt Gen Paul K., Jr. “New Millennium, New
Mind-Set: The Air Force Medical Service in the Air
Expeditionary Era,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 8–13.
Deptula, Maj Gen David A. “Air Force Transformation:
Past, Present, and Future” (pirep), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
85–91.
Drew, Col Dennis M. “The Essence of Aerospace Power:
What Leaders Need to Know,” no. 2 (Summer 2001):
23–31.
Eikmeier, Col Dale C., USA. “Organizing for Success:
Theater Missile Defense in Korea,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
66–73.
Garrard, Col Mark. “War Termination in the Persian
Gulf: Problems and Prospects,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
42–50.
Haun, Lt Col Phil M. “Airpower versus a Fielded Army: A
Construct for Air Operations in the Twenty-First Cen­tury,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 81–88.
Hays, Lt Col Peter, and Dr. Karl Mueller. “Going Boldly—
Where? Aerospace Integration, the Space Commis­
sion, and the Air Force’s Vision for Space,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 34–49.
Hughes, Dr. Thomas. “The Cult of the Quick,” no. 4(Winter 2001): 57–68.
Jumper, Gen John P. “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 24–33.
Mann, Col Edward, Lt Col Gary Endersby, and Tom
Searle. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Opera­
tions” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.
Meilinger, Col Phillip S. “Precision Aerospace Power, Dis­crimination, and the Future of War,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 12–20.
Michael, Maj Steve. “Air Force Doctrine and Leadership”(vortices), no. 2 (Summer 2001): 86–89.
Werrell, Dr. Kenneth P., Col Allan W. Howey, Lt Col Eric
A. Ash, and Maj Thomas S. Szvetecz. “Global Dynamic
Operations” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 101–7.
Wilkes, Col Bobby J. “Silver Flag: A Concept for Opera­
tional Warfare,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 47–56.

119

Wojtysiak, Lt Col Martin. “Another View of the Myths of
the Gulf War,” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 51–59.
Worden, Brig Gen Simon Peter. “The Air Force and Fu­
ture Space Directions: Are We Good Stewards?” no. 1(Spring 2001): 50–55.
Editorials
Ash, Col Eric. “Medicinal Thoughts,” no. 4 (Winter2001): 5.
———. “Precision Doctrine,” no. 1 (Spring 2001): 3–4.
––––––. “Propositions Concerning the Aerial RMA,” no. 3(Fall 2001): 3–4.
Ryan, Gen Michael E. “A Word from the Chief: Transfor­
mational Leaders,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 4–5.
Effects-Based Operations (EBO)
Bingham, Lt Col Price T. “Transforming Warfare with Ef­
fects-Based Joint Operations,” no. 1 (Spring 2001):
58–66.
Deptula, Maj Gen David A. “Air Force Transformation:
Past, Present, and Future” (pirep), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
85–91.
Jumper, Gen John P. “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 24–33.
Mann, Col Edward, Lt Col Gary Endersby, and Tom
Searle. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Opera­
tions” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.
Meilinger, Col Phillip S. “Precision Aerospace Power, Dis­crimination, and the Future of War,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 12–20.
Electronic Warfare
Bingham, Lt Col Price T. “Transforming Warfare with Ef­
fects-Based Joint Operations,” no. 1 (Spring 2001):
58–66.
Deptula, Maj Gen David A. “Air Force Transformation:
Past, Present, and Future” (pirep), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
85–91.
McNamara, Maj Louis E., Jr. “Riding the InformationRevolution Tiger” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 108–16.
Mann, Col Edward, Lt Col Gary Endersby, and Tom
Searle. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Opera­
tions” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.
Metzger, Dr. Louis S., and Col Donald R. Erbschloe.
“Who’s Got the Big Picture?” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 6–11.
Van Nederveen, Capt Gilles. “Technology for the Future
Leader: International Command and Control En­
hancements” (pirep), no. 2 (Summer 2001): 78–80.
Ethics/Values/Virtues
Ash, Lt Col Eric. “Purple Virtues: A Leadership Cure for
Unhealthy Rivalry,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 32–39.
da Rocha, Dr. Alexandre S. “The Ethical Problem in Plu­ralistic Societies and Dr. Toner’s ‘Mistakes,’ ” no. 1(Spring 2001): 81–94.
Hall, Col Tom, “ ‘I’d Rather Be Flying’: The Ethos of the
Air Force Officer Corps” (vortices), no. 2 (Summer
2001): 82–85.
Kohn, Dr. Richard H., ed. “The Early Retirement of Gen
Ronald R. Fogleman, Chief of Staff, United States Air
Force,” no. 1 (Spring 2001): 6–23.

120

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

European Region
Lorenz, Maj Gen Stephen R., Lt Col James A. Hubert, and
Maj Keith H. Maxwell. “Linking Resource Allocation to
Performance Management and Strategic Planning: An
Air Force Challenge,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 34–45.
Geopolitics
Record, Dr. Jeffrey. “Thinking about China and War,” no.
4 (Winter 2001): 69–80.
Global Dynamic Operations
Werrell, Dr. Kenneth P., Col Allan W. Howey, Lt Col Eric
A. Ash, and Maj Thomas S. Szvetecz. “Global Dynamic
Operations” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 101–7.
Humanitarian Operations
Carlton, Lt Gen Paul K., Jr. “New Millennium, New MindSet: The Air Force Medical Service in the Air Expedi­tionary Era,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 8–13.
Dietrick, Capt Robert. “Casualty Sensitivity and the Indi­
rect Approach” (vortices), no. 1 (Spring 2001):
106–9.
Dougherty, Col James J. “Operational Medical Support
for the Tip of the Spear: The Heart of Air Force Spe­cial Operations Forces (AFSOF) Medicine,” no. 4(Winter 2001): 27–33.
Green, Brig Gen Bruce. “Challenges of Aeromedical
Evacuation in the Post-Cold-War Era,” no. 4 (Winter2001): 14–26.
Johnson, Kent D. “Political-Military Engagement Policy:
Casualty Avoidance and the American Public” (vor­tices), no. 1 (Spring 2001): 98–105.
Information Warfare
Bingham, Lt Col Price T. “Transforming Warfare with Ef­
fects-Based Joint Operations,” no. 1 (Spring 2001):
58–66.
Deptula, Maj Gen David A. “Air Force Transformation:
Past, Present, and Future” (pirep), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
85–91.
McNamara, Maj Louis E., Jr. “Riding the InformationRevolution Tiger” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
108–16.
Mann, Col Edward, Lt Col Gary Endersby, and Tom
Searle. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Opera­
tions” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.
Metzger, Dr. Louis S., and Col Donald R. Erbschloe.
“Who’s Got the Big Picture?” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 6–11.
Van Nederveen, Capt Gilles. “Technology for the Future
Leader: International Command and Control En­
hancements” (pirep), no. 2 (Summer 2001): 78–80.
Intelligence
McNamara, Maj Louis E., Jr. “Riding the InformationRevolution Tiger” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
108–16.
Metzger, Dr. Louis S., and Col Donald R. Erbschloe.
“Who’s Got the Big Picture?” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 6–11.
Interdiction
Bingham, Lt Col Price T. “Transforming Warfare with Ef­
fects-Based Joint Operations,” no. 1 (Spring 2001):
58–66.

Jumper, Gen John P. “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 24–33.
International Relations
Howard, Lt Col Stephen P. “The War on Drugs: TwoMore Casualties” (vortices), no. 4 (Winter 2001):
91–94.
Interservice ConflictAsh, Lt Col Eric. “Purple Virtues: A Leadership Cure for
Unhealthy Rivalry,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 32–39.
Joint Force Air Component Commander
Bingham, Lt Col Price T. “Transforming Warfare with Ef­
fects-Based Joint Operations,” no. 1 (Spring 2001):
58–66.
Deptula, Maj Gen David A. “Air Force Transformation:
Past, Present, and Future” (pirep), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
85–91.
Jumper, Gen John P. “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 24–33.
Mann, Col Edward, Lt Col Gary Endersby, and Tom
Searle. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Opera­
tions” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.
Meilinger, Col Phillip S. “Precision Aerospace Power, Dis­crimination, and the Future of War,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 12–20.
Ryan, Gen Michael E. “A Word from the Chief: Transfor­
mational Leaders,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 4–5.
Werrell, Dr. Kenneth P., Col Allan W. Howey, Lt Col Eric
A. Ash, and Maj Thomas S. Szvetecz. “Global Dynamic
Operations” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 101–7.
Joint Operations
Bingham, Lt Col Price T. “Transforming Warfare with Ef­
fects-Based Joint Operations,” no. 1 (Spring 2001):
58–66.
Carlton, Lt Gen Paul K., Jr. “New Millennium, New
Mind-Set: The Air Force Medical Service in the Air
Expeditionary Era,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 8–13.
Deptula, Maj Gen David A. “Air Force Transformation:
Past, Present, and Future” (pirep), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
85–91.
Dougherty, Col James J. “Operational Medical Support
for the Tip of the Spear: The Heart of Air Force Spe­cial Operations Forces (AFSOF) Medicine,” no. 4(Winter 2001): 27–33.
Green, Brig Gen Bruce. “Challenges of Aeromedical
Evacuation in the Post-Cold-War Era,” no. 4 (Winter2001): 14–26.
Hughes, Dr. Thomas. “The Cult of the Quick” no. 4(Winter 2001): 57–68.
Mann, Col Edward, Lt Col Gary Endersby, and Tom
Searle. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Opera­
tions” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.
Metzger, Dr. Louis S., and Col Donald R. Erbschloe.
“Who’s Got the Big Picture?” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 6–11.
Werrell, Dr. Kenneth P., Col Allan W. Howey, Lt Col Eric
A. Ash, and Maj Thomas S. Szvetecz. “Global Dynamic
Operations” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 101–7.

INDEX
KosovoHaun, Lt Col Phil M. “Airpower versus a Fielded Army: A
Construct for Air Operations in the Twenty-First Cen­tury,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 81–88.
Latin American Region
Howard, Lt Col Stephen P. “The War on Drugs: Two More
Casualties” (vortices), no. 4 (Winter 2001): 91–94.
Johnson, Dr. Wray R. “Airpower and Restraint in Small
Wars: Marine Corps Aviation in the Second Nicaraguan
Campaign, 1927–33,” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 32–41.
Leadership/Management
Ash, Lt Col Eric. “Purple Virtues: A Leadership Cure for
Unhealthy Rivalry,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 32–39.
Drew, Col Dennis M. “The Essence of Aerospace Power:
What Leaders Need to Know,” no. 2 (Summer 2001):
23–31.
Drohan, Col Tom, and Col Doug Murray. “Responding tothe ‘Developing Aerospace Leaders’ Initiative: A Mas­
ter Attack Plan for Reforming Undergraduate Profes­
sional Development,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 13–22.
Fawcett, Lt Col John M., Jr. “Leadership and Reorganiza­
tion: A New Model for the Air Force,” no. 2 (Summer
2001): 65–77.
Hall, Col Tom. “ ‘I’d Rather Be Flying’: The Ethos of the
Air Force Officer Corps” (vortices), no. 2 (Summer
2001): 82–85.
Iversen, Capt Alisen. “Professional Military Education for
Company Grade Officers: Targeting for ‘Affect,’ ” no.
2 (Summer 2001): 58–64.
Kohn, Dr. Richard H., ed. “The Early Retirement of Gen
Ronald R. Fogleman, Chief of Staff, United States Air
Force,” no. 1 (Spring 2001): 6–23.
Leinbach, 1st Lt Glenn. “For Lieutenants Only!” (vor­tices), no. 2 (Summer 2001): 90–92.
Link, Maj Gen Charles D. “Leading Airmen,” no. 2 (Sum­mer 2001): 7–12.
Mets, Dr. David R. “In Search of a Twenty-First-Century
Air-Leadership Model: Fodder for Your Professional
Reading,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 40–51.
Michael, Maj Steve. “Air Force Doctrine and Leadership”(vortices), no. 2 (Summer 2001): 86–89.
Ryan, Gen Michael E. “A Word from the Chief: Transfor­
mational Leaders,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 4–5.
Thirtle, Dr. Mike. “Developing Aerospace Leaders for the
Twenty-First Century: A Historical Context for the
DAL Concept,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 52–57.
Van Nederveen, Capt Gilles. “Technology for the Future
Leader: International Command and Control En­
hancements” (pirep), no. 2 (Summer 2001): 78–80.
Low-Intensity Conflict
Bingham, Lt Col Price T. “Transforming Warfare with Ef­
fects-Based Joint Operations,” no. 1 (Spring 2001):
58–66.
Gray, Group Captain Peter W. “The Myths of Air Control
and the Realities of Imperial Policing,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 21–31.
Johnson, Dr. Wray R. “Airpower and Restraint in Small
Wars: Marine Corps Aviation in the Second Nicaraguan
Campaign, 1927–33,” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 32–41.

121

Jumper, Gen John P. “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 24–33.
Management/Organization
Carlton, Lt Gen Paul K., Jr. “New Millennium, New
Mind-Set: The Air Force Medical Service in the Air
Expeditionary Era,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 8–13.
Deptula, Maj Gen David A. “Air Force Transformation:
Past, Present, and Future” (pirep), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
85–91.
Dougherty, Col James J. “Operational Medical Support
for the Tip of the Spear: The Heart of Air Force Spe­cial Operations Forces (AFSOF) Medicine,” no. 4(Winter 2001): 27–33.
Eikmeier, Col Dale C., USA. “Organizing for Success:
Theater Missile Defense in Korea,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
66–73.
Fawcett, Lt Col John M., Jr. “Leadership and Reorganiza­
tion: A New Model for the Air Force,” no. 2 (Summer
2001): 65–77.
Green, Brig Gen Bruce. “Challenges of Aeromedical
Evacuation in the Post-Cold-War Era,” no. 4 (Winter2001): 14–26.
Jumper, Gen John P. “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 24–33.
Lorenz, Maj Gen Stephen R., Lt Col James A. Hubert, and
Maj Keith H. Maxwell. “Linking Resource Allocation to
Performance Management and Strategic Planning: An
Air Force Challenge,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 34–45.
Mann, Col Edward, Lt Col Gary Endersby, and Tom
Searle. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Opera­
tions” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.
Werrell, Dr. Kenneth P., Col Allan W. Howey, Lt Col Eric
A. Ash, and Maj Thomas S. Szvetecz. “Global Dynamic
Operations” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 101–7.
Medical Forces/Issues
Ash, Col Eric. “Medicinal Thoughts” (editorial), no. 4(Winter 2001): 5.
Carlton, Lt Gen Paul K., Jr. “New Millennium, New
Mind-Set: The Air Force Medical Service in the Air
Expeditionary Era,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 8–13.
Dougherty, Col James J. “Operational Medical Support
for the Tip of the Spear: The Heart of Air Force Spe­cial Operations Forces (AFSOF) Medicine,” no. 4(Winter 2001): 27–33.
Green, Brig Gen Bruce. “Challenges of Aeromedical
Evacuation in the Post-Cold-War Era,” no. 4 (Winter2001): 14–26.
Van Nederveen, Capt Gilles. “C-9 Nightingale: From Ded­icated Aeromedical Evacuation to Theater Transport”(pirep), no. 4 (Winter 2001): 89–90.
Middle East Region
Garrard, Col Mark. “War Termination in the Persian Gulf:
Problems and Prospects,” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 42–50.
Gray, Group Captain Peter W. “The Myths of Air Control
and the Realities of Imperial Policing,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 21–31.

122

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL WINTER 2001

Meilinger, Col Phillip S. “Precision Aerospace Power, Dis­crimination, and the Future of War,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 12–20.
Wojtysiak, Lt Col Martin. “Another View of the Myths of
the Gulf War,” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 51–59.
Military Education
Drohan, Col Tom, and Col Doug Murray. “Responding tothe ‘Developing Aerospace Leaders’ Initiative: A Mas­
ter Attack Plan for Reforming Undergraduate Profes­
sional Development,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 13–22.
Iversen, Capt Alisen. “Professional Military Education for
Company Grade Officers: Targeting for ‘Affect,’ ” no.
2 (Summer 2001): 58–64.
Military Operations other than War
Dietrick, Capt Robert. “Casualty Sensitivity and the Indirect
Approach” (vortices), no. 1 (Spring 2001): 106–9.
Dougherty, Col James J. “Operational Medical Support
for the Tip of the Spear: The Heart of Air Force Spe­cial Operations Forces (AFSOF) Medicine,” no. 4(Winter 2001): 27–33.
Gray, Group Captain Peter W. “The Myths of Air Control
and the Realities of Imperial Policing,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 21–31.
Green, Brig Gen Bruce. “Challenges of Aeromedical
Evacuation in the Post-Cold-War Era,” no. 4 (Winter2001): 14–26.
Howard, Lt Col Stephen P. “The War on Drugs: Two More
Casualties” (vortices), no. 4 (Winter 2001): 91–94.
Johnson, Kent D. “Political-Military Engagement Policy:
Casualty Avoidance and the American Public” (vor­tices), no. 1 (Spring 2001): 98–105.
Military Revolutions
Ash, Lt Col Eric. “Precision Doctrine” (editorial), no. 1(Spring 2001): 3–4.
Bingham, Lt Col Price T. “Transforming Warfare with Ef­
fects-Based Joint Operations,” no. 1 (Spring 2001):
58–66.
Deptula, Maj Gen David A. “Air Force Transformation:
Past, Present, and Future” (pirep), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
85–91.
Drew, Col Dennis M. “The Essence of Aerospace Power:
What Leaders Need to Know,” no. 2 (Summer 2001):
23–31.
Jumper, Gen John P. “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 24–33.
McNamara, Maj Louis E., Jr. “Riding the InformationRevolution Tiger” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 108–16.
Mann, Col Edward, Lt Col Gary Endersby, and Tom
Searle. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Opera­
tions” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.
Werrell, Dr. Kenneth P., Col Allan W. Howey, Lt Col Eric
A. Ash, and Maj Thomas S. Szvetecz. “Global Dynamic
Operations” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 101–7.
Military Technology
Costanzo, Lt Col Charles E. “Shades of Sentinel? Na­tional Missile Defense, Then and Now,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 60–65.

Jumper, Gen John P. “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 24–33.
McNamara, Maj Louis E., Jr. “Riding the InformationRevolution Tiger” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 108–16.
Metzger, Dr. Louis S., and Col Donald R. Erbschloe.
“Who’s Got the Big Picture?” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 6–11.
Van Nederveen, Capt Gilles. “A Light Dawns: The Airborne Laser” (pirep), no. 1 (Spring 2001): 95–97.
———. “Technology for the Future Leader: Interna­
tional Command and Control Enhancements”(pirep), no. 2 (Summer 2001): 78–80.
Military Thought
Ash, Lt Col Eric. “Precision Doctrine” (editorial), no. 1(Spring 2001): 3–4.
Bingham, Lt Col Price T. “Transforming Warfare with Ef­
fects-Based Joint Operations,” no. 1 (Spring 2001):
58–66.
Deptula, Maj Gen David A. “Air Force Transformation:
Past, Present, and Future” (pirep), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
85–91.
Drew, Col Dennis M. “The Essence of Aerospace Power:
What Leaders Need to Know,” no. 2 (Summer 2001):
23–31.
Fawcett, Lt Col John M., Jr. “Leadership and Reorganiza­
tion: A New Model for the Air Force,” no. 2 (Summer
2001): 65–77.
Hughes, Dr. Thomas. “The Cult of the Quick,” no. 4(Winter 2001): 57–68.
Mann, Col Edward, Lt Col Gary Endersby, and Tom
Searle. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Opera­
tions” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.
Werrell, Dr. Kenneth P., Col Allan W. Howey, Lt Col Eric
A. Ash, and Maj Thomas S. Szvetecz. “Global Dynamic
Operations” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 101–7.
Military Training
Drohan, Col Tom, and Col Doug Murray. “Responding tothe ‘Developing Aerospace Leaders’ Initiative: A Mas­
ter Attack Plan for Reforming Undergraduate Profes­
sional Development,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 13–22.
Fawcett, Lt Col John M., Jr. “Leadership and Reorganiza­
tion: A New Model for the Air Force,” no. 2 (Summer
2001): 65–77.
Hall, Col Tom. “ ‘I’d Rather Be Flying’: The Ethos of the
Air Force Officer Corps” (vortices), no. 2 (Summer
2001): 82–85.
Iversen, Capt Alisen. “Professional Military Education for
Company Grade Officers: Targeting for ‘Affect,’ ” no.
2 (Summer 2001): 58–64.
Missiles and Missile Operations
Butterworth, Dr. Robert L. “Out of Balance: Will Con­ventional ICBMs Destroy Deterrence?” no. 3 (Fall2001): 74–84.
Costanzo, Lt Col Charles E. “Shades of Sentinel? Na­tional Missile Defense, Then and Now,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 60–65.

INDEX

123

Eikmeier, Col Dale C., USA. “Organizing for Success:
Theater Missile Defense in Korea,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
66–73.

Johnson, Kent D. “Political-Military Engagement Policy:
Casualty Avoidance and the American Public” (vor­tices), no. 1 (Spring 2001): 98–105.

National Security Policy
Costanzo, Lt Col Charles E. “Shades of Sentinel? Na­tional Missile Defense, Then and Now,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 60–65.
Hays, Lt Col Peter, and Dr. Karl Mueller. “Going Boldly—
Where? Aerospace Integration, the Space Commis­
sion, and the Air Force’s Vision for Space,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 34–49.
Howard, Lt Col Stephen P. “The War on Drugs: TwoMore Casualties” (vortices), no. 4 (Winter 2001):
91–94.
Record, Dr. Jeffrey. “Thinking about China and War,” no.
4 (Winter 2001): 69–80.
Worden, Brig Gen Simon Peter. “The Air Force and Fu­
ture Space Directions: Are We Good Stewards?” no. 1(Spring 2001): 50–55.

Persian Gulf ConflictDrew, Col Dennis M. “The Essence of Aerospace Power:
What Leaders Need to Know,” no. 2 (Summer 2001):
23–31.
Garrard, Col Mark. “War Termination in the Persian Gulf:
Problems and Prospects,” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 42–50.
Wojtysiak, Lt Col Martin. “Another View of the Myths of
the Gulf War,” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 51–59.

National Strategy
Costanzo, Lt Col Charles E. “Shades of Sentinel? Na­tional Missile Defense, Then and Now,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 60–65.
Hays, Lt Col Peter, and Dr. Karl Mueller. “Going Boldly—
Where? Aerospace Integration, the Space Commis­
sion, and the Air Force’s Vision for Space,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 34–49.
Hughes, Dr. Thomas. “The Cult of the Quick,” no. 4(Winter 2001): 57–68.
Worden, Brig Gen Simon Peter. “The Air Force and Fu­
ture Space Directions: Are We Good Stewards?” no. 1(Spring 2001): 50–55.
Nuclear War
Butterworth, Dr. Robert L. “Out of Balance: Will Con­ventional ICBMs Destroy Deterrence?” no. 3 (Fall2001): 74–84.
Costanzo, Lt Col Charles E. “Shades of Sentinel? Na­tional Missile Defense, Then and Now,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 60–65.
Pacific Region
Eikmeier, Col Dale C., USA. “Organizing for Success:
Theater Missile Defense in Korea,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
66–73.
Peacekeeping Operations
Carlton, Lt Gen Paul K., Jr. “New Millennium, New
Mind-Set: The Air Force Medical Service in the Air
Expeditionary Era,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 8–13.
Dietrick, Capt Robert. “Casualty Sensitivity and the Indi­
rect Approach” (vortices), no. 1 (Spring 2001):
106–9.
Dougherty, Col James J. “Operational Medical Support
for the Tip of the Spear: The Heart of Air Force Spe­cial Operations Forces (AFSOF) Medicine,” no. 4(Winter 2001): 27–33.
Green, Brig Gen Bruce. “Challenges of Aeromedical
Evacuation in the Post-Cold-War Era,” no. 4 (Winter2001): 14–26.

Personnel Issues
Fawcett, Lt Col John M., Jr. “Leadership and Reorganiza­
tion: A New Model for the Air Force,” no. 2 (Summer
2001): 65–77.
PIREP
Deptula, Maj Gen David A. “Air Force Transformation:
Past, Present, and Future,” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 85–91.
Van Nederveen, Capt Gilles. “C-9 Nightingale: From Ded­icated Aeromedical Evacuation to Theater Transport,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 89–90.
———. “A Light Dawns: The Airborne Laser,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 95–97.
———. “Technology for the Future Leader: Interna­
tional Command and Control Enhancements,” no. 2(Summer 2001): 78–80.
Planning
Bingham, Lt Col Price T. “Transforming Warfare with Ef­
fects-Based Joint Operations,” no. 1 (Spring 2001):
58–66.
Deptula, Maj Gen David A. “Air Force Transformation:
Past, Present, and Future” (pirep), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
85–91.
Fawcett, Lt Col John M., Jr. “Leadership and Reorganiza­
tion: A New Model for the Air Force,” no. 2 (Summer
2001): 65–77.
Hughes, Dr. Thomas. “The Cult of the Quick,” no. 4(Winter 2001): 57–68.
Jumper, Gen John P. “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 24–33.
Kamps, Charles Tustin. “The JCS 94-Target List: A Viet­nam Myth That Still Distorts Military Thought,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 67–80.
Lorenz, Maj Gen Stephen R., Lt Col James A. Hubert, and
Maj Keith H. Maxwell. “Linking Resource Allocation to
Performance Management and Strategic Planning: An
Air Force Challenge,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 34–45.
Mann, Col Edward, Lt Col Gary Endersby, and Tom
Searle. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Opera­
tions” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.
Werrell, Dr. Kenneth P., Col Allan W. Howey, Lt Col Eric
A. Ash, and Maj Thomas S. Szvetecz. “Global Dynamic
Operations” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 101–7.
Political-Military Affairs
Dietrick, Capt Robert. “Casualty Sensitivity and the Indirect
Approach” (vortices), no. 1 (Spring 2001): 106–9.

124

AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

WINTER 2001

Johnson, Kent D. “Political-Military Engagement Policy:
Casualty Avoidance and the American Public” (vor­tices), no. 1 (Spring 2001): 98–105.
Record, Dr. Jeffrey. “Thinking about China and War,” no.
4 (Winter 2001): 69–80.
Preparedness
Fawcett, Lt Col John M., Jr. “Leadership and Reorganiza­
tion: A New Model for the Air Force,” no. 2 (Summer
2001): 65–77.
Principles of War
Meilinger, Col Phillip S. “Precision Aerospace Power, Dis­crimination, and the Future of War,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 12–20.
Werrell, Dr. Kenneth P., Col Allan W. Howey, Lt Col Eric
A. Ash, and Maj Thomas S. Szvetecz. “Global Dynamic
Operations” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 101–7.
Professionalism
Ash, Lt Col Eric. “Purple Virtues: A Leadership Cure for
Unhealthy Rivalry,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 32–39.
da Rocha, Dr. Alexandre S. “The Ethical Problem in Plu­ralistic Societies and Dr. Toner’s ‘Mistakes,’ ” no. 1(Spring 2001): 81–94.
Drew, Col Dennis M. “The Essence of Aerospace Power:
What Leaders Need to Know,” no. 2 (Summer 2001):
23–31.
Drohan, Col Tom, and Col Doug Murray. “Responding tothe ‘Developing Aerospace Leaders’ Initiative: A Mas­
ter Attack Plan for Reforming Undergraduate Profes­
sional Development,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 13–22.
Fawcett, Lt Col John M., Jr. “Leadership and Reorganiza­
tion: A New Model for the Air Force,” no. 2 (Summer
2001): 65–77.
Hall, Col Tom. “ ‘I’d Rather Be Flying’: The Ethos of the
Air Force Officer Corps” (vortices), no. 2 (Summer
2001): 82–85.
Iversen, Capt Alisen. “Professional Military Education for
Company Grade Officers: Targeting for ‘Affect,’ ” no.
2 (Summer 2001): 58–64.
Kohn, Dr. Richard H., ed. “The Early Retirement of Gen
Ronald R. Fogleman, Chief of Staff, United States Air
Force,” no. 1 (Spring 2001): 6–23.
Mets, Dr. David R. “In Search of a Twenty-First-Century
Air-Leadership Model: Fodder for Your Professional
Reading,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 40–51.
Public Affairs
Dietrick, Capt Robert. “Casualty Sensitivity and the Indi­
rect Approach” (vortices), no. 1 (Spring 2001):
106–9.
Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA)
Ash, Lt Col Eric. “Propositions Concerning the Aerial
RMA” (editorial), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 3–4.
Deptula, Maj Gen David A. “Air Force Transformation:
Past, Present, and Future” (pirep), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
85–91.
McNamara, Maj Louis E., Jr. “Riding the InformationRevolution Tiger” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
108–16.

Mann, Col Edward, Lt Col Gary Endersby, and Tom
Searle. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Opera­
tions” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.
Meilinger, Col Phillip S. “Precision Aerospace Power, Dis­crimination, and the Future of War,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 12–20.
Metzger, Dr. Louis S., and Col Donald R. Erbschloe.
“Who’s Got the Big Picture?” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 6–11.
Werrell, Dr. Kenneth P., Col Allan W. Howey, Lt Col Eric
A. Ash, and Maj Thomas S. Szvetecz. “Global Dynamic
Operations” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 101–7.
Royal Air Force
Gray, Group Captain Peter W. “The Myths of Air Control
and the Realities of Imperial Policing,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 21–31.
Johnson, Dr. Wray R. “Airpower and Restraint in Small
Wars: Marine Corps Aviation in the Second Nicaraguan
Campaign, 1927–33,” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 32–41.
Space Operations
Hays, Lt Col Peter, and Dr. Karl Mueller. “Going Boldly—
Where? Aerospace Integration, the Space Commis­
sion, and the Air Force’s Vision for Space,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 34–49.
Worden, Brig Gen Simon Peter. “The Air Force and Fu­
ture Space Directions: Are We Good Stewards?” no. 1(Spring 2001): 50–55.
Special Operations
Dougherty, Col James J. “Operational Medical Support
for the Tip of the Spear: The Heart of Air Force Spe­cial Operations Forces (AFSOF) Medicine,” no. 4(Winter 2001): 27–33.
Howard, Lt Col Stephen P. “The War on Drugs: Two More
Casualties” (vortices), no. 4 (Winter 2001): 91–94.
Strategic Bombing
Drew, Col Dennis M. “The Essence of Aerospace Power:
What Leaders Need to Know,” no. 2 (Summer 2001):
23–31.
Kamps, Charles Tustin. “The JCS 94-Target List: A Viet­nam Myth That Still Distorts Military Thought,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 67–80.
Strategy
Bingham, Lt Col Price T. “Transforming Warfare with Ef­
fects-Based Joint Operations,” no. 1 (Spring 2001):
58–66.
Deptula, Maj Gen David A. “Air Force Transformation:
Past, Present, and Future” (pirep), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
85–91.
Drew, Col Dennis M. “The Essence of Aerospace Power:
What Leaders Need to Know,” no. 2 (Summer 2001):
23–31.
Jumper, Gen John P. “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 24–33.
Kamps, Charles Tustin. “The JCS 94-Target List: A Viet­nam Myth That Still Distorts Military Thought,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 67–80.

INDEX
Mann, Col Edward, Lt Col Gary Endersby, and Tom
Searle. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Opera­
tions” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.
Meilinger, Col Phillip S. “Precision Aerospace Power, Dis­crimination, and the Future of War,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 12–20.
Werrell, Dr. Kenneth P., Col Allan W. Howey, Lt Col Eric
A. Ash, and Maj Thomas S. Szvetecz. “Global Dynamic
Operations” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 101–7.
Tactics
Bingham, Lt Col Price T. “Transforming Warfare with Ef­
fects-Based Joint Operations,” no. 1 (Spring 2001):
58–66.
Deptula, Maj Gen David A. “Air Force Transformation:
Past, Present, and Future” (pirep), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
85–91.
Jumper, Gen John P. “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 24–33.
Kamps, Charles Tustin. “The JCS 94-Target List: A Viet­nam Myth That Still Distorts Military Thought,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 67–80.
Mann, Col Edward, Lt Col Gary Endersby, and Tom
Searle. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Opera­
tions” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.
Meilinger, Col Phillip S. “Precision Aerospace Power, Dis­crimination, and the Future of War,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 12–20.
Terrorism
Dietrick, Capt Robert. “Casualty Sensitivity and the Indi­
rect Approach” (vortices), no. 1 (Spring 2001):
106–9.
Johnson, Kent D. “Political-Military Engagement Policy:
Casualty Avoidance and the American Public” (vor­tices), no. 1 (Spring 2001): 98–105.
Theater Missile Defense
Eikmeier, Col Dale C., USA. “Organizing for Success:
Theater Missile Defense in Korea,” no. 3 (Fall 2001):
66–73.
Transformation
Deptula, Maj Gen David A. “Air Force Transformation:
Past, Present, and Future” (pirep), no. 3 (Fall 2001):
85–91.
Jumper, Gen John P. “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged by Experience,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 24–33.
Mann, Col Edward, Lt Col Gary Endersby, and Tom
Searle. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Opera­
tions” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.

125

Ryan, Gen Michael E. “A Word from the Chief: Transfor­
mational Leaders,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 4–5.
Werrell, Dr. Kenneth P., Col Allan W. Howey, Lt Col Eric
A. Ash, and Maj Thomas S. Szvetecz. “Global Dynamic
Operations” (vortices), no. 3 (Fall 2001): 101–7.
Vietnam War
Kamps, Charles Tustin. “The JCS 94-Target List: A Viet­nam Myth That Still Distorts Military Thought,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 67–80.
Vortices
Dietrick, Capt Robert. “Casualty Sensitivity and the Indi­
rect Approach,” no. 1 (Spring 2001): 106–9.
Hall, Col Tom. “ ‘I’d Rather Be Flying’: The Ethos of the
Air Force Officer Corps,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 82–85.
Howard, Lt Col Stephen P. “The War on Drugs: TwoMore Casualties,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 91–94.
Johnson, Kent D. “Political-Military Engagement Policy:
Casualty Avoidance and the American Public,” no. 1(Spring 2001): 98–105.
Leinbach, 1st Lt Glenn. “For Lieutenants Only!” no. 2(Summer 2001): 90–92.
McNamara, Maj Louis E., Jr. “Riding the InformationRevolution Tiger,” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 108–16.
Mann, Col Edward, Lt Col Gary Endersby, and Tom
Searle. “Dominant Effects: Effects-Based Joint Opera­
tions,” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 92–100.
Michael, Maj Steve. “Air Force Doctrine and Leadership,” no. 2 (Summer 2001): 86–89.
Werrell, Dr. Kenneth P., Col Allan W. Howey, Lt Col Eric
A. Ash, and Maj Thomas S. Szvetecz. “Global Dynamic
Operations,” no. 3 (Fall 2001): 101–7.
War on Drugs
Howard, Lt Col Stephen P. “The War on Drugs: Two More
Casualties” (vortices), no. 4 (Winter 2001): 91–94.
War Gaming
Wilkes, Col Bobby J. “Silver Flag: A Concept for Opera­
tional Warfare,” no. 4 (Winter 2001): 47–56.
Weapons of Mass Destruction
Butterworth, Dr. Robert L. “Out of Balance: Will Con­ventional ICBMs Destroy Deterrence?” no. 3 (Fall2001): 74–84.
Costanzo, Lt Col Charles E. “Shades of Sentinel? Na­tional Missile Defense, Then and Now,” no. 3 (Fall2001): 60–65.

MISSION DEBRIEF

127

OUR CONTRIBUTORS

Lt Gen Paul K. Carlton Jr. (USAFA; MD, Uni­
versity of Colorado at Denver) is the surgeon
general of the Air Force, Headquarters,
USAF, Bolling AFB, D.C. He serves as func­
tional manager of the USAF Medical Services(AFMS). He advises the secretary of the Air
Force and Air Force chief of staff, as well as
the assistant secretary of defense for healthon matters pertaining to the health of Air
Force people. The general has authority tocommit resources worldwide for AFMS, tomake decisions affecting the delivery of med­
ical services, and to develop plans, programs,
and procedures to support peacetime andwartime medical-service missions. He exer­
cises direction, guidance, and technical man­agement of more than 42,400 people assigned to 78 medical facilities worldwide.

Maj Gen Stephen R. Lorenz (USAFA; MPA,
University of Northern Colorado) is deputy
assistant secretary for budget, Office of theAssistant Secretary of the Air Force for Finan­cial Management and Comptroller, Headquarters US Air Force, Washington, D.C. He
previously served as director of plans and programs, Headquarters US Air Forces in Eu­rope, Ramstein Air Base (AB), Germany. A
command pilot with 3,300 hours in eight aircraft, he has served as a staff officer at two
major commands, the Air Staff, and the Joint
Staff, as well as having commanded an airrefueling squadron and a geographically sep­arated operations group. The general has
commanded three wings—an air-refuelingwing, an air-mobility wing, and a training
wing at the Air Force Academy, where he wasalso the commandant of cadets. General
Lorenz is a graduate of Squadron Officer
School, Air Command and Staff College, Air
War College, and National War College.

Brig Gen Bruce Green (BS, University of Wis­consin; MD, Medical College of Wisconsin;
MPH, Harvard University) is command sur­geon, United States Transportation Com­
mand (USTRANSCOM) and Headquarters
Air Mobility Command (AMC), Scott AFB,
Illinois. He is a director on the staff of thecommander in chief, United States Trans­
portation Command. In this capacity, he en­sures both the maximum wartime readinessand combat-support capability of worldwide
patient movement, aeromedical evacuation,
the Global Patient Movement Requirements
Center, and AMC’s 12 community-based med­
ical-treatment facilities. He leads more than
8,000 AMC medical personnel, providing
care to more than 456,000 beneficiaries, andoversees an annual budget of $796 million.
As the command surgeon of USTRANSCOM,
he advocates the Department of Defense’s ef­
forts to reengineer the Global Patient Move­ment System.

Lt Col James A. Hubert (BS, Oregon State
University; MS, George Washington Univer­sity) is chief of the Strategy and Programming
Branch, Headquarters United States Air
Forces in Europe, Ramstein AB, Germany.
Recent assignments have included memberof the Air Force Resource Allocation Process
Reengineering Team, Washington, D.C.;
chief of Acquisition Management Policy and
Acquisition Strategic Planning, Washington,
D.C.; electronic-warfare program manager,
Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio; and Air Forcetechnology coordinator for identification ofground forces, Langley AFB, Virginia. The
holder of two patents and the author of sev­
eral technical papers, Colonel Hubert is a
graduate of Squadron Officer School and Air
Command and Staff College.

Col James J. Dougherty (BA, Rice University;
MD, Baylor College of Medicine; MPH, Johns
Hopkins University) is command surgeon,
Headquarters Air Force Special Operations
Command, Hurlburt Field, Florida. He leads
the directorate that drafts and oversees exe­
cution of policy related to direct medical support of Air Force special operations and provision of health care for beneficiaries within
the command. He has spent most of his ca­reer in aerospace medicine, from squadron
flight surgeon to tactical hospital com­mander. A chief flight surgeon with morethan 1,000 flying hours, Colonel Dougherty isalso a senior parachutist and jump masterwith 70 static-line deployments and a US Navyclosed- and open-circuit diver.

Maj Keith H. Maxwell (BS, University ofMaine; ME, University of Florida) is senior
military advisor to the commander for RheinMain Transition, Spangdahlem AB, Germany.
Recent assignments have included chief ofprograms and legislative liaison, Headquar­ters US Air Forces in Europe, Ramstein AB,
Germany; Peace Vector IV construction man­ager, Sakara AB and Gianaclis AB, Egypt;
chief of the Geotechnical Division and assis­
tant professor, United States Air Force Acad­emy; and electromagnetic project leader,
Phillips Lab, Kirtland AFB, New Mexico.
Major Maxwell is a graduate of Squadron Of­
ficer School and Air Command and Staff Col­
lege.

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AEROSPACE POWER JOURNAL

Col Bobby J. Wilkes (USAFA; MS, EmbryRiddle Aeronautical University; MS, George
Washington University) is commander of theCollege of Aerospace Doctrine, Research and
Education (CADRE), Maxwell AFB, Alabama.
He has served as commander of the 355th
Wing, Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona, and as
director of operations, Joint Task Force Southwest Asia. He is a command pilot with morethan 3,800 flying hours in the T-38, A-10, andF-16. Colonel Wilkes is a graduate of Squad­ron Officer School, Air Command and Staff
College, Armed Forces Staff College, Air War
College, and Industrial College of the Armed
Forces.

WINTER 2001

Dr. Thomas Hughes (BA, St. John’s University; MA, PhD, University of Houston) is anassistant professor at the USAF Air War College, Maxwell AFB, Alabama. He is the authorof Over Lord: General Pete Quesada and the Triumph of Tactical Air Power in World War II,
which is on the USAF chief of staff’s profes­
sional reading list. Dr. Hughes is currently
writing a biography of Adm William F. HalseyJr.

Lt Col Phil “Goldie” Haun (BA, Harvard Uni­
versity; MA, Vanderbilt University) is a student
at the School of Advanced Airpower Studies,
Maxwell AFB, Alabama. He has served as
chief of weapons and tactics for the 52d
Fighter Wing at Spangdahlem AB, Germany;flight commander of the 25th Fighter Squad­ron at Osan AB, South Korea; and instructorof economics at the United States Air Force
Academy. A graduate of the USAF A-10 Weap­
ons School and Air Command and Staff Col­lege, Colonel Haun has published articles in
Air Land Sea Bulletin and Flight Journal Maga­
zine.

Dr. Jeffrey Record (BA, Occidental College;
MA, PhD, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced
International Studies) is professor of strategy
and international security at the Air War Col­lege, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, and senior research fellow at the Center for International
Strategy, Technology, and Policy at the Geor­
gia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia.
He previously served as a professional staff
member on the Senate Armed Services Com­mittee; legislative assistant to Sen. Sam Nunn,
Sen. Bob Krueger, and Sen. Lloyd Bentsen;
senior fellow at BDM International, Hudson
Institute, and Institute for Foreign Policy
Analysis; advisor to Sen. William Cohen andSen. Gary Hart; research associate and Rock­efeller Younger Scholar at the Brookings In­
stitution; and assistant province advisor in the
Republic of Vietnam. Dr. Record is the au­thor of The Wrong War: Why We Lost in Vietnam(Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1998) andMaking War, Thinking History: Munich, Viet­nam, and Presidential Uses of Force from Korea to
Kosovo (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press,
forthcoming).

EDITORIAL BOARD
Lt Gen Bradley C. Hosmer, USAF, Retired
Maj Gen I. B. Holley Jr., USAFR, Retired, Duke University
Dr. Richard H. Kohn, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Dr. Alexander S. Cochran, National War College, National Defense University
Prof. Thomas B. Grassey, Naval War College
Lt Col Dave Mets, USAF, Retired, School of Advanced Airpower Studies
Col Bobby J. Wilkes, USAF, College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research and Education

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