De-Ranged

Global Power and Air Mobility

for the New Millennium

ROBERT A. COLELLA, Lt Col, USAF

School of Advanced Airpower Studies

Air University Press

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 36112-6615

July 2002

THESIS PRESENTED TO THE FACULTY OF

THE SCHOOL OF ADVANCED AIRPOWER STUDIES,

MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, ALABAMA, FOR COMPLETION OF

GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS, ACADEMIC YEAR 2000–2001.
This School of Advanced Airpower Studies thesis is available electronically at the Air

University Research Web site http://research. maxwell.af.mil under “Research Papers”

then “Special Collections.”

Disclaimer

Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of the

author and do not necessarily represent the views of Air University, the United States Air Force,

the Department of Defense, or any other US government agency. Cleared for public release: distribution unlimited.

ii
Contents

Chapter Page

DISCLAIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

ABSTRACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

ABOUT THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

1 GLOBAL POWER FOR AMERICA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

2 WORLD WAR II ORIGINS AND COLD WAR MATURITY . . . . . . 5

3 GLOBAL POWER––POST–COLD WAR: ASSUMPTIONS

FOR THE FUTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

4 CASE STUDIES IN GLOBAL POWER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

5 EVALUATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

6 CONCLUSIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Illustrations

Figure

1 Operation Black Buck Refueling Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Table

1 Tanker Off-load Capabilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

2 Case Study Tanker Usage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Maps

Operation Nickel Grass Routing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Routing through the Mediterranean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Falkland Islands War Global Distances . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Operation Eldorado Canyon Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

iii
Abstract

This is a story of long-range airpower, from Gen Henry H. “Hap” Arnold’s vision of a global mission to the Global Strike Task Force and expeditionary air

forces of the year 2001. It examines global power from its origins as Strategic Air

Command built a fleet of bombers and tankers to meet the needs of the global

nuclear-deterrent policy of the Cold War. With the end of the Cold War and the

changes in force structure that followed, USAF soon lost its historical roots in

global power. This evolution is traced through the studies and commissions of

the 1990s established to determine the force structure for the twenty-first century. The assumptions that were made to develop a force focused on expeditionary short-range airpower to project global power are established and then

examined with four case studies in the application of airpower over long range.

Operation Nickel Grass, the US airlift to Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War;

the British airpower experience in the Falkland Islands War with its Vulcan

Black Buck missions; Operation Eldorado Canyon; and Operation Desert Strike

are used to provide evidence to support and refute the assumptions made during the 1990s to structure the USAF force structure around short-range expeditionary forces with the intention of forward deploying them in a crisis. These

case studies are evaluated and recommendations are offered for the force structure of the twenty-first century to ensure an adequate global power force capable of executing a global power strategy. The conclusions of this study do not

make recommendations for long- or short-range airpower but rather offer recommendations for methods to enable those forces in the future with a sturdy inflight refueling force capable of supporting long-range missions free from the entanglements of foreign support and reliance on forward basing.

v
About the Author

Lt Col Robert A. Colella (BS, United States Air Force Academy [USAFA]; MS,

Louisiana State University, Shreveport) received a regular commission from

USAFA in May 1986. After graduation from undergraduate pilot training at

Williams AFB, Arizona, in 1987, he was assigned as a pilot in the B-52G at Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan, from March 1988 to March 1992. During this tour he performed nuclear alert duties in the B-52 and upgraded to aircraft commander. He

was reassigned to Castle AFB, California, in 1992 to the 34th Bomb Squadron

attached to the 366th Composite Wing, Mountain Home AFB, Idaho. During this

tour Colonel Colella upgraded to instructor pilot, B-52G, and was selected for

the USAF Weapons Instructor Course. After graduation from Weapons School,

he was assigned to B-52H Formal Training Unit duty at Barksdale AFB,

Louisiana, from July 1994 to July 1996. He was selected for the B-2 program at

Whiteman AFB, Missouri, in 1996. From June 1996 to June 1999, Colonel

Colella was a B-2 mission commander, instructor pilot, and the wing weapons

officer for the 509th Bomb Wing. He was the strike planning chief for all B-2 sorties flown in Operation Allied Force and was a member of one of the first crews

to fly the B-2 into combat during a 30-hour combat mission. As a senior pilot

with more than 3,000 flying hours, he was awarded the Air Force Air Medal for

his missions over Kosovo and has also been awarded the Meritorious Service

Medal. Colonel Colella is a distinguished graduate of Squadron Officers School

and a graduate of Air Command and Staff College and the School of Advanced

Airpower Studies. In July 2001, he was reassigned to the Pentagon,

AF/XOOC––Checkmate. Colonel Colella is married to the former Katherine Page,

and they have two children, Allison and Sam.

vii
Acknowledgments

I thank my research advisor, Maj John Terino, and my reader, Col Stephen

Chiabotti, for their inspiration and guidance. In addition, I thank all faculty

members of the School for Advanced Airpower Studies (SAAS) for their dedication to the mission of educating tomorrow’s airpower strategists. I am grateful to

them for their in-depth knowledge and for their dedication as teachers. Last, but

certainly not least, I thank my wife and family for their continued support and

prayers throughout this year. Katy not only gave birth to our second child, Sam,

but was the glue that held our family together over this past year through the

academic rigors of SAAS.

ix
Chapter 1

Global Power for America

Russia . . . does fear our long-range Strategic Air Force, which she cannot as yet

match, or as yet understand. In the Strategic Air Force, coupled with our atomic

bomb, at this writing we hold the balance of power in the world.

—Gen Henry H. “Hap” Arnold

—Global Mission

Vision for Global Power

Gen Henry H. “Hap” Arnold envisioned a “global mission” for airpower

where the force structure would meet the challenges of “range, fire power,

[and] bombload” to provide what “we [Arnold and Brig Gen William “Billy”

Mitchell] all preached and hoped for . . . the [strategic] independent function of airpower in which we had so long believed.”1 The force structure

born under General Arnold in World War II matured within Strategic Air

Command (SAC) to provide the global mission of nuclear deterrence

throughout the remainder of the twentieth century. Although SAC dissolved in June 1992, the Air Force did not lose its vision of a global mission for airpower. Secretary of the Air Force Donald B. Rice’s Global

Reach—Global Power white paper in 1990 was the vision for the future

without the Soviet Union as a focus for the global mission. With the disbanding of the Soviet Union, a New World Order emerged where threats,

conflicts, and obstacles shared uncertainty as their most common attribute. In the United States, pressure to downsize and the promise of a peace

dividend led to smaller military budgets that supported a shrinking force

burdened by a mission clouded by uncertainty. Although downsizing

meant the withdrawal of forward-deployed units around the world, the

strategy outlined in Global Reach—Global Power committed America to

both the presence and the ability to influence events militarily across the

globe. The end of the Cold War also brought demands for thrift and limits

on the research, development, and acquisition of new weapon systems to

meet the undefined challenges of the New World Order. It is within this

context that the strategy contained in Global Reach—Global Power and the

force structure to support it evolved as the United States entered the

twenty-first century. 

Global Reach—Global Power detailed a post–Cold War strategy to rapidly

deploy forces and assume a forward presence to assure regional stability

and firepower wherever required. Within this strategy, long-range forces

were central to satisfying “global responsibilities requir[ing] capabilities

independent of the need for mobilization and the political baggage sometimes inherent in that process.”2 Strategy, however, as Carl H. Builder

1
points out in his book The Masks of War, “is not the only determinant of

the purposes and kinds of military force. Institutional preferences, technological developments, [and] opposing forces [all] influence . . . the acquisition of military capabilities.” Builder also points out that strategy

should be an honest broker and work outside of the external influences of

its “formulation and application.”3 As Builder explains, “If strategy does

not adequately take into account or allow for service predilections or differing interpretations of the threat, the military forces will be driven to

some degree by factors omitted from strategy. Strategy should drive the

forces; if it does not it may reflect the inadequacies of a particular strategy rather than the proper role of strategy.”4

This study asks whether the strategy contained in Global Reach—Global

Power has evolved credibly with a force structure to project power globally

in the twenty-first century. Do the needs of the global power strategy drive

the force structure or, as Builder warned, do the “externalities” of institutional preference play too large a role in shaping the force structure? 

Definition

Global power is rooted in the World War II and Cold War images of waves

of aircraft conducting the long-range strategic attacks described in General Arnold’s Global Mission. The force structure built to support these

global missions was considered “strategic.” As the Cold War ended, definitions for the terms strategic, operational, and tactical blurred until airframes and their ranges no longer defined the scope of a mission. More

importantly, the term global power is no longer synonymous with the

terms strategic or nuclear.

Vernacular, however, has a tendency to polarize issues. The concept of

global power found in various vision and strategy documents requires a

basic definition for use as a reference point. Since 1990 the term Global

Reach—Global Power has taken on a variety of monikers. In 1997 it was

rechristened Global Engagement, but in 2000 it became a part of the large

concept of global vigilance as Global Strike. Regardless of etiology, the concept behind the strategy has remained the same. For the purpose of this

work, the term global power refers to operations employing military power

that must surmount long distances to strike or operate effectively. Historically, this brings to mind long-range SAC bombers on nuclear missions; however, as defined here, global power does not depend on an airframe or a service. An aircraft carrier that sails into a regional hot spot

and uses airpower in pursuit of national interests of the United States

represents an application of global power. A B-52 that launches conventional air-launched cruise missiles (CALCM) after flying halfway around

the world is a projection of global power. An air expeditionary force (AEF)

that deploys to a theater to provide a “presence” is a projection of global

power. A C-5 that delivers humanitarian aid to drought victims in Africa

is an application of global power. Regardless of the manifestation, in the

2
calculus of applying airpower, global power represents the ability to do so

over long range or distance. For this study, the focus is the role that USAF

plays in global power and how well the force structure at the turn of the

millennium was prepared to meet the challenges of applying airpower over

the ranges demanded in the twenty-first century.

Methodology 

The origins of the concept of global power will be covered first. After analyzing how the strategy and force structure Air Force leaders created

after World War II met the needs of the Cold War, the transition to the

post–Cold War strategy of global power will be evaluated. In the decade following the end of the Cold War, multiple studies—many directed by Congress—addressed the question of the proper airpower force structure to

meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. In each of these studies,

assumptions were made to justify the proposed force structure. Those assumptions are applied while evaluating several historical case studies of

global power to test their validity. After evaluating the assumptions used

to justify the current force structure, recommendations for the future are

offered to ensure the continued credibility and capability of US global

power strategy. 

The two chapters that follow examine the evolution of the strategy of

global power from World War II through the Cold War and into the year

2001. The purpose of examining the evolution of the strategy is twofold:

first, to evaluate the match between SAC’s strategy of nuclear deterrence

and the force structure it built to support it and second, to evaluate the

validity of the assumptions applied after SAC stood down to determine if

they drove the creation of a force structure to meet a strategic imperative

or if externalities trumped formulation of sound strategy. In chapter 4,

four case studies on the use of global power are presented to offer historical evidence of global power missions and the obstacles those missions

had to contend with. Chapter 5 evaluates the assumptions used to justify

the post–Cold War force structure of 2001 using the evidence presented in

the four case studies and makes recommendations for the future force

structure. Chapter 6 provides a synopsis and conclusions about global

power strategy as America faces the challenges of the twenty-first century. 

Notes

1. Gen Henry H. Arnold, Global Mission (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949), 156.

2. The Air Force and U.S. National Security Strategy: Global Reach—Global Power, white

paper, with a foreword by Secretary of the Air Force Donald B. Rice (Washington, D.C.:

SAF/OSX, June 1990), 7.

3. Carl H. Builder, The Masks of War: American Military Styles in Strategy and Analysis, research study, RAND (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989), 56.

4. Ibid.

3
Chapter 2

World War II Origins

and Cold War Maturity

[T]he development of the four-engine bomber . . . was such a turning point in the

course of airpower—of world power.

—Gen Henry H. “Hap” Arnold

—Global Mission

Introduction

Carl von Clausewitz proposes that strategy “assigns a particular aim to”

the means used within an engagement.1 Similarly, strategy is responsible

for connecting the military capabilities of a state to the ultimate interests

of that state. Clausewitz also states that war is a continuation of politics,

and it is policy that “converts the overwhelming destructive elements of

war into a mere instrument. It [policy] changes the terrible battle sword

[when required] . . . into a light, handy rapier—sometimes just a foil for

the exchange of thrusts, feints and parries.”2 Policy determines the character of war, and ultimately policy determines strategy. For military planners, strategy should dictate the military capabilities a state needs and

should permit military planners to advise policy makers what to do with

those forces once they are constructed. If American strategy is to engage

globally, then military planners must recommend a force structure capable of projecting airpower around the globe in pursuit of US interests. The

global power capabilities the United States had at the end of the Cold War

were the product of an evolution of strategy and force structure since the

conclusion of World War II. To better understand why that force structure

was constructed, it is important to understand the context of its evolution. 

Between the Wars

Prior to World War II, aviation theory and development in the United

States had to contend with budgetary restraints imposed by isolationist

political leaders backed by public opinion. Regardless of whether it was

“battleships, bombers, or the United States Infantry Rifle, Model 1903 . . .

America wasn’t buying any” in 1936.3 In spite of these fiscal constraints,

air leaders recognized the potential of long-range aircraft to both threaten

and defend the United States. Therefore, airpower advocates pushed hard

for technical improvements to overcome the tyranny of range. The B-17

was an aircraft built for long-range strike; however, isolationist sentiment

5
forced its true “strategic” nature to masquerade within the “tactical” mission of defending the US coast from attack by sea. Maj Gen Oscar Westover, chief of the Air Corps, “related his plea for a stronger air force to the

military dangers abroad” and made this point when addressing the National Aeronautical Association in November 1936: “If and when the great

European conflict occurs, the only way in which the neutral nations in the

world can keep out of that conflict is to have such a strong national defense that none of the belligerents involved dare violate their neutrality.”4

General Headquarters and Coastal Defense

In the same year, Maj Gen Frank M. Andrews, commander of General

Headquarters Air Force, made similar arguments for long-range aircraft

for coastal defense. In his opinion there was an inherent economy in the

efficiency of longer-range patrols. He also noted that larger aircraft such

as the B-17 were “especially useful for coastal patrol,” carrying more defenses to protect against attack.5 He was also emphatic that “the air

weapons under development were purely defensive saying ‘It is utterly absurd to consider them as anything else and I think we should emphasize

this point on all occasions.’ ”6

Maj Muir Fairchild, then an instructor at the Air Corps Tactical School

(ACTS), in 1939 listed three priorities for air in national defense:

• prevention of establishment of hostile air forces in threatening positions and the defeat of such forces as might have become established;

• destruction of enemy surface expeditionary forces at sea and defeat

of such elements as may have gained a beachhead; and 

• defeat (in cooperation with the Navy or independent thereof) enemy

sea forces within range, so as to protect sea-lanes.7

Based on performing these “defensive” missions, development of the B-17,

B-24, and B-29 aircraft was pursued vigorously before World War II. Although the capabilities of these aircraft to perform coastal defense was

advertised, the long-range offensive strike potential of these aircraft is

what really excited the officers of ACTS. ACTS theories of strategic bombing were developed with aircraft such as the B-17 and the B-29 in mind.

ACTS and Air War Plans Division—Plan 1

On the eve of World War II, the offensive bombing strategy to defeat Germany culminated in a document titled Air War Plans Division—Plan 1

(AWPD/1). Under the guidance of General Arnold, the Air War Plans Division (hence the title, AWPD) was a subordinate organization to the Army

general staff’s War Plans Division.8 Created by a team heavily influenced

by the theories of ACTS, AWPD/1 “represented the final development of

American air doctrine prior to our entrance into World War II and was to

serve as the actual blueprint for air operations against the Axis.” The plan

called for strategic bombing of “the National Economic Structure”9 of an

6
enemy nation and required intelligence about the enemy’s economy, an

accurate bombing system, and self-defending bombers in large numbers

in order to be successful.10

To accomplish the plan and execute its strategy, AWPD/1 advocated

creating a force of the following:

• 10 groups medium bombers—B-25, B-26;

• 20 groups heavies—B-17, B-24; and 

• 24 groups [very] heavy—B-29, B-32.

In addition, provisions were made for 33 groups of super bombers (4,000-

mile radius), or what eventually became the B-36.11

The United States entered World War II with its two “super eggs”—the

B-17 and the B-29—as the outgrowth of a substantial and sustained interwar development program designed to increase performance parameters of long-range aircraft.12 AWPD/1 provided a template for the force

structure to accomplish the strategic bombing mission and ensured that

the force would have the range qualities to meet the challenges the United

States would face in each theater of World War II.

World War II—Europe

As the United States entered the war in Europe, the White House

pressed air leaders for results. This action caused the Army Air Corps to

rush into the combined bombing offensive with its AWPD/1 strategy of

daylight high-altitude precision bombing without the numbers of aircraft,

or force structure, needed for the strategy to work. Poor intelligence about

the German economy, poor accuracy—due in part to bad weather—and

the inability of the small formations of B-17s to penetrate and survive in

daylight produced heavy American losses and little impact on the German

economy. It was not until February 1944, when Gen Carl A. “Tooey”

Spaatz took command of the American effort, that tangible degradations

in oil, transportation, and the Luftwaffe were noted.13

Many factors worked together to produce victory in Europe. The introduction of the P-51 helped protect the bomber formations and, simultaneously, contributed to the overall decline in strength of the Luftwaffe.

The ground offensives by the western Allies and the Red Army also made

the bomber attacks on transportation, petroleum, oil, and lubricants more

effective. Airpower, while significant, was not clearly decisive in the eventual defeat of Germany.14

Fortress Britain provided the forward operating bases for US bombers

to reach the European mainland and the heartland of Germany. Without

this forward operating location, the United States would have been forced

to fight at a greater distance. The initial shock of Nazi Germany’s success

in Europe convinced strategists that the United States might be forced to

fight Germany from the United States and drove the requirement for an

7
intercontinental bomber. The B-36, which evolved from this requirement,

was designed to overcome the range problem of flying unrefueled missions

to Germany from the United States in the event that Britain fell. 

The World War II strategy to bomb the industrial heartland of Germany

faced problems of range, forward basing, and access to Britain. Aircraft

were developed and envisioned prior to the war to meet the needs and

challenges of this strategy. B-17s and B-24s operating from the “unsinkable” aircraft carrier that was Britain provided the global power needed to

project force in the European theater. The force structure, while not capable of producing the results outlined in the strategy, was designed to

surmount the range requirements and represented the best technical solutions to the problems at that time.

World War II—Pacific

In the Pacific theater, range was also the major obstacle for the effective

employment of airpower. The B-29 dominated this theater with its 4,000-

mile range, but it was not until naval and marine amphibious campaigns

captured forward bases within range of Japan that B-29s were able to

take the fight directly to the enemy heartland.15 In a joint effort, the services worked together to secure and then exploit access within the region

to execute the long-range airpower strategy against Japan. With the

bloody seizures of the Mariana Islands and Iwo Jima by the Navy and Marine amphibious forces, brute force overcame the need for a technological

solution to aircraft range limitations in the Pacific. From the Marianas,

Maj Gen Curtis E. LeMay’s B-29s could range the Japanese homeland,

while fighters flying out of Iwo Jima could provide cover for the bomber

streams.16 The B-29’s service ceiling of 30,000 feet allowed it to outperform many of the defenses arrayed against it; however, the winds at these

higher altitudes over Japan led to ineffective bombing results and the

need for a different bombing strategy.17

AWPD/1 drafter Brig Gen Haywood S. Hansell commanded XXI Bomber

Command in the Pacific. AWPD/1 called for targeting critical nodes; but

in Japan the wartime economy was dispersed, and critical nodes did not

exist. Hansell failed to modify his strategy in the face of poor results in

Japan. General LeMay replaced him and used the flexibility inherent in

airpower to pursue a different tactic in the strategic bombing campaign.18

On 9 March 1945, LeMay attacked the city of Tokyo with B-29s loaded

with incendiary bombs. Attacking individually and at night, the 300 aircraft were stripped of their guns and flew with reduced crews to increase

bomb loads from six to eight tons. To reduce engine mechanical trouble

and to mitigate the bombing errors induced by the jet stream above

20,000 feet, the crews flew at low altitude—between 5,000 and 8,000 feet.

The lead bombers used radar to aim on the city of Tokyo. The incendiary

weapons they dropped set fire to the city and provided a visual aiming ref8
erence for the follow-on bombers.19 On this raid, few B-29s were lost to air

defenses—while 16 square miles of the city burned, inflicting more than

80,000 casualties.20 The success of this raid inspired LeMay to switch to

a strategy of burning every major city in Japan. Just as his goal was

within reach, the Japanese surrendered when the atomic bombs were

dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Throughout his tenure as the commander of XXI Bomber Command, LeMay carried with him an understanding of the price the United States paid in blood to gain forward bases

for B-29s in the Pacific. 

The precision bombing strategy prescribed by AWPD/1 did not work in

the Pacific due to the nature of the target and the available technology of

the time. LeMay’s genius as an airman was in adapting his strategy and

taking advantage of the flexibility of airpower to accomplish this mission.

The flexibility of the B-29 allowed him to adapt the long-range bomber for

effective attacks against the Japanese homeland continuously as he modified his bombing strategy. When LeMay became the commander of SAC

years later, he would remember the cost and time required to gain forward

bases and the flexible nature of airpower to adapt itself to the requirements of its mission.

World War II—Aftermath

World War II ended with a force structure limited in range and dependent upon forward bases to reach targets located outside of the United

States. In-flight refueling did not emerge as a viable solution to the problems of range in World War II. The “silver bullet” atomic weapons over

which the United States had a monopoly required a credible force structure and strategy for their delivery. As the Cold War began, solutions for

the problems of range and forward basing were needed to make the airatomic strategy of deterrence viable.

The Cold War—Strategic Air Command

After World War II, strategy for the use of airpower focused on deterrence and containment of the Soviets with the threat of atomic weapons.

President Harry S. Truman held a tight line on the military budget. The

budget fell from its World War II high of $45 billion in fiscal year (FY) 1946

to $14.5 billion in FY 1947.21 Truman’s $11 billion FY 1949 budget only

supported 11 of 25 requested Army divisions, 277 of 300 requested ships

for the Navy, and only 48 of 70 groups requested by the Air Force.22 With

an overall Defense Department budget of only $11 billion, battles over

roles and missions were furious, with the fate of each service’s future

hanging in the balance. For Truman the strategy of nuclear deterrence

was purchased as a cheap life insurance policy for the “worst case” scenario; and, like life insurance, it only insured against the “least likely” ca9
tastrophe. SAC’s force structure to support the strategy of nuclear deterrence was incapable of accomplishing its mission until after the Berlin crisis when General LeMay took charge and equipped SAC with a credible

force structure of bombers and tankers.

On 21 March 1946, SAC was formed as the lead agency within the Army

Air Forces (AAF) for building a credible nuclear-deterrent threat.23 As an

added pressure, the raison d’être for an independent air force was the

strategic bombing mission placed in SAC’s care. Gen George C. Kenney

was the first commander, and he made little headway under Truman’s

tight budgets and research and development constraints. In 1947 SAC’s

ability to deliver conventional and atomic weapons to enemy targets depended on forward bases in Western Europe, the Far Pacific, and the Arctic region. With 160 B-29s, of which only the 27 assigned to the 509th

Composite Bomb Group were nuclear capable, SAC hardly represented a

credible atomic deterrent to the Soviets.24

For SAC to have credibility as a deterrent force, it would have to be able

to strike the Soviet Union within a week’s time—the time estimated it

would take for the Soviets’ enormous conventional forces to overrun Germany and France.25 The 27 “Silver Plate” B-29s that were modified to

carry atomic bombs followed procedures that required five to six days to

depart Roswell Field to proceed to a storage location to load atomic

weapons. Once loaded they would fly to a forward base in range of the target and recover and refuel before launching a retaliatory nuclear strike.26

These procedures, coupled with the 4,000-mile range of the B-29, severely

limited options for American strategists. Just as in World War II, the issue

of range limited strategic options for effective airpower strategy. Consequently, the force structure developed after World War II and the procedures for its use did not support either the policy of containment or nuclear deterrence. It was, as Harry Borowski states in his book, a “hollow

threat.”27 SAC did have a weak retaliatory capability, but it did not have a

credible threat to deter the Soviets from a fait accompli in Europe. The

force structure did not support the timing, flexibility, or range required for

the missions the nuclear-deterrent force faced. Methods to build that

force structure evolved after events in Berlin catalyzed US fears.

General LeMay took command of SAC in October 1948 on the heels of

the Berlin airlift and in an atmosphere of renewed national and presidential support for the creation of a credible air-atomic strategy as the

bedrock of deterrence.28 To capitalize on the new attitude of the national

leadership toward developing effective instruments of deterrence, LeMay

called upon his personal experiences as an air leader and strategist in

World War II. He realized that intercontinental bombers that required forward bases were vulnerable to preemptive strikes that would deny the use

of those forward operating locations. “Many doubted that bases in England and the Middle East could endure . . . at the outset of a war . . . A

solution to the problem of intercontinental reach became essential.”29

That solution would depend upon overcoming the tyranny of range in10
volved in striking the Soviet Union from bases in the United States. The

B-36 represented one option to match force structure to strategy, forward

basing for ground refueling was another, while in-flight refueling represented a possible third alternative solution.

The B-36 

Building an aircraft with intercontinental range was SAC’s first attempt

at building a force structure to meet the needs of the deterrent strategy.

Although the B-36 was originally designed to permit American airpower to

strike continental Europe if Britain fell, in 1943 it was earmarked for use

in the Pacific in the event B-29 production problems could not be surmounted.30 Ultimately, the B-29 was fielded in time to see combat in

World War II; and the B-36’s own developmental problems delayed delivery until well after VJ-day. The 10,000-mile range of the B-36, more than

double that of the B-29, represented a method for attacking the Soviet

Union directly and rapidly from the United States.31 The B-36’s deterrent

value surpassed that of forward-deployed B-29s and made sense economically, as aircraft were cheaper than the costs associated with supporting all the possible forward locations a short-range force required.32

By the time the Air Force became an independent service in 1947, the

B-36 was plagued by developmental problems. In addition, test flights had

revealed its many vulnerabilities. The phenomenal range of the B-36 was

purchased at the cost of increased size and poor speed over the target. Its

size made it more vulnerable to air defenses, and the aircraft required

construction of very long and robust runways to support its massive

weight. These and other performance factors served to “prove [the super

bomber’s] own fallacy and insure its own oblivion.”33 In spite of its technological sophistication when conceived, the B-36 was too vulnerable at

the start of the Cold War to survive as the cornerstone of an air-atomic

strategy of deterrence. It revealed the marginal utility of increasing size to

enhance long-range aircraft. Instead of carrying all the fuel required to

conduct a 10,000-mile mission from takeoff to landing, air leaders contemplated two alternatives: continued use of forward basing and the development of tanker aircraft to perform refueling in flight.

Garrison Strategy

In 1952 the Air Force strategy for nuclear war depended upon forward

basing of medium-range B-29 and—by 1954—B-47 bombers. USAF

planned to build 82 overseas bases to support its “reflex” mobility plan.34

This strategy called for a permanent forward presence with some of the

force, while retaining the ability to rapidly deploy forward hundreds of

bombers upon strategic warning during a crisis. This strategy was designed specifically to meet the threat posed by an expansionist Soviet

Union and was “underwritten by a ring of alliances and bases around the

Soviet Union.” The RAND Corporation was tasked in 1953 to study the

11
process of designing a base structure to meet the needs of this strategy.

The findings of their study, “Selection and Use of Strategic Air Bases,” actually became the catalyst to “a much more secure strategic capability”

and determined the strategy and force structure of bombers and tankers

SAC maintained until it was dissolved in 1992.35

The RAND study looked at various options available at that time for

force structure and concepts of operation to perform nuclear strikes. The

study discounted the idea of a “single stage” bomber, like the B-36, without refueling of any kind as “the cost to buy and operate bombers big

enough to reach targets without refueling was found to increase at an accelerated rate with distances from bases to targets.”36 The project concluded “that for the period through 1961 . . . no bomber was likely to be

capable of operating at full intercontinental radius without any refueling

whatsoever.”37 The other options examined consisted of

• systems where bombers would deploy to forward operating locations

within striking range of targets,

• a system where bombers would refuel in flight in missions flown from

the United States, and

• a system where the bombers would ground refuel at forward bases in

range of the targets during missions flown from the United States.38

While RAND determined that forward-basing solutions were the most

economical, they discovered that this option was also the most vulnerable

to a Soviet first-strike attack. RAND determined that basing the bombers

where they would have the maximum warning time in case of an enemy

first strike and refueling them in the air was the most survivable option.

Based on this discovery, RAND recommended that the best location for

bomber bases was in the northern tier of the United States. Far from the

coast and deep in the interior of the United States, the bomber fleet would

have time to launch on warning of attack and ensure a retaliatory strike

capability. While RAND did look at ground-refueling options, they were

discarded as being too predictable and presenting the Soviets with a concentrated and vulnerable target once the bombers were on the ground.39

The RAND study started out as an assessment for the most efficient way

to choose forward bases. However, its conclusions called for a radical

change in force structure as forward-basing options for nuclear operations were proven to put US strategic retaliatory forces at great risk of not

surviving a first strike.40 This drove the force structure to acquire longrange bombers with in-flight refueling capability and a fleet of tankers to

support the long-range operations of the air-atomic strategy. 

The Tanker—World War II

In the Pacific, the United States did not have the “reach” to bomb Japan

directly until its forces gained a foothold in the region within range of the

12
home islands. Although Capt Ira C. Eaker demonstrated it in 1929 in the

Question Mark, in-flight refueling was not adopted during World War II. It

could have extended the range of escort fighters in Europe and permitted

operations across larger swaths of the expansive Pacific, but in-flight refueling was never employed as a capability. In the spring of 1943, in-flight

refueling between a B-24D tanker and B-17E was demonstrated; and although the concept was viable, it seemed too difficult a tactical application within the large bomber formations used in Europe. In the Pacific, the

concept of using a B-24 to increase the range of the B-29 was studied; but

the marginal return offered in range did not justify the time it would take

to modify the B-29 fleet.41

The Tanker—Cold War

During the Cold War, the B-36 pointed to the need to find a method of

increasing range other than increasing the size of the airframe. Faced with

a similar problem for escort fighters in World War II, the AAF eventually

developed drop tanks. During the Cold War, the solution for long-range

bombers was in-flight refueling. 

For a long period, air refueling was not considered a solution to the

problem of range. Engines with lower fuel consumption and performance

tradeoffs in speed were the popular constraining variables.42 Solutions to

the range problem included General LeMay’s one-way mission concept

that would “expend the crew, expend the bomb, [and] expend the airplane

all at once.”43 Faced with the obvious morale problems of this approach,

more rational approaches—such as forward bases for ground refueling on

the way to the target for missions launched from the United States—were

considered. However, in-flight refueling, which had a record of success

with past demonstrations, was pursued as a more survivable and economical solution to the vexing problem of range.44

A force structure of bombers and tankers emerged in 1948 as B-29s

and B-50s were modified as receivers, or “ruralists.” They were also modified as tankers, or “supermen,” and redesignated as KB-29s and KB50s.45 In-flight refueling training missions were soon common; and on 22

March 1949, a specially outfitted B-50A bomber, Lucky Lady II, completed

the first nonstop around-the-world flight utilizing in-flight refueling from

KB-29 tankers. The 92-hour mission covered nearly 24,000 miles.46 The

problem of overcoming range was no longer tied directly to aircraft size or

forward basing for the bomber. Only the tankers risked the vulnerability

inherent in forward basing.

KB-29s and KB-50s were replaced by KC-97s. Although still a propeller-driven design, it was better suited to match speeds with the all-jet

bomber fleet of B-47s and B-52s. In January 1957, three B-52s—the lead

aircraft christened Lucky Lady III—flew around the world in 45 hours and

19 minutes using the support of 98 KC-97s.47 In 1957 the first all-jet

13
tanker, the KC-135, entered service and provided a better match for the

speed and altitude of the fleet of jet-engined bombers. The B-52/KC-135

combination was stationed at SAC bases in the northern tier of the United

States, from which they were able to strike the Soviet Union independent

of forward bases. This force structure fit the needs of the strategy and became the model for SAC to provide nuclear deterrence with long-range

global power projection.48

Tactical Air Command (TAC) took SAC’s discarded KB-50s, added surplus B-36 pod-mounted jet engines to the wing tips to increase refueling

speeds, and used them to refuel TAC jet fighters.49 Using drogues from

wing-tip mounts and from beneath the aircraft, the KB-50 was able to refuel

three aircraft at a time. Aerial refueling lifted some of the range restraints

from the tactical air force; however, the utility of this arrangement was not

capitalized upon as the SAC force structure developed to support singlereceiver operations. 

SAC derived the Cold War force structure for containment and nuclear

deterrence through a realistic assessment of the mission requirements

and the operational environment. Range, speed of response, access to forward operating locations, survivability at forward operating locations,

warning time, and ability to survive a first strike were the factors SAC

leadership balanced to arrive at a force structure capable of meeting the

needs of the strategy. In its final evolution, SAC built a force of bombers

and tankers that were survivable, had the range to accomplish the mission, and could respond to a first strike in a rapid manner without the

need for forward basing. As a force capable of executing an assigned strategy, SAC provided a good model. 

An unintended by-product of this force structure was a flexible system

that could respond to threats below the level of nuclear war. SAC’s assets

were utilized in Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm. Using progressively

higher levels of integration with each conflict, SAC’s tankers and bombers

provided range extension for short-range fighters and long-range conventional bomber strikes from outside the theater.

The Tanker—Korea

In the Korean War, SAC’s global power force structure was not a major

contributor to the air battle. The first combat in-flight refueling occurred

in July 1951 when SAC KB-29s refueled a flight of four RF-80s.50 When

the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed SAC to keep one of its fighter escort

wings on a rotational tour in Japan, in-flight refueling made a significant

contribution. Up until that time, TAC’s fighter units had moved in and out

of the theater by ship transport. SAC, however, had modified some of its

bomber escort fighters—as well as its bombers—with an in-flight refueling

capability. In July 1952, KB-29s were used to deploy 58 F-84Gs from

SAC’s 31st Fighter Escort Wing at Turner AFB, Georgia, to Japan. Three

14
months later, in a similar fashion, 75 F-84Gs flew from Bergstrom AFB,

Texas, to Misawa AB, Japan.51 In-flight refueling made both trips possible

and demonstrated the “practicability of moving operational fighters to the

Far East by air in a short time and without the corrosion difficulties of a

water voyage.”52 Missions that included in-flight refueling to extend range

were the exception rather than the rule in Korea, as few aircraft were

equipped for this task.

SAC’s second-echelon conventional B-29s were assigned to the Far East

Air Forces to drop conventional bombs and flew more than 20,000 sorties

operating from bases in Japan and Okinawa. The distances flown from

these bases did not necessitate in-flight refueling for the B-29s, while forward basing allowed the bombers to take advantage of logistic support

from outside the immediate theater.

SAC’s force structure continued to evolve. Starting in 1951 and accelerating in 1953, B-47s replaced the B-29s and B-50s in SAC’s inventory.

By the end of 1954, all of the B-29s were gone; and by 1955 all the B-50s

were retired as bombers. In 1955 a transition began as B-52s began to replace B-36s, and SAC’s mobility increased as the KC-135 came on line.53

SAC’s force structure of bombers and tankers was used sparingly in

Korea, and the forces that were used were not the first-echelon nuclear

forces. SAC’s force structure found greater utility and had greater flexibility as the United States entered the Vietnam War. Concepts of in-flight refueling for combat operations and long-range conventional bombing saw

wider application during America’s war in Southeast Asia.

The Tanker—Vietnam

Although SAC’s nuclear mission was its primary focus, the force structure designed for long-range nuclear missions was able to support conventional bombing operations in Vietnam. The use of tankers for shortrange fighters as well as bombers for long-range conventional strikes

came of age.

In Vietnam the routine use of in-flight refueling to support fighter operations was an innovation. Jet-powered KC-135 tankers could refuel at altitudes up to 35,000 feet at 500 knots and were capable of off-loading up

to 50,000 pounds (lb) of fuel per sortie to support prestrike and poststrike

refueling of F-4 and F-105 combat missions into North Vietnam.54 By

1966, 60 KC-135 tankers were deployed to the theater. KC-135 refueling

became routine, and to some extent “getting the most out of the tanker

force drove mission scheduling.”55 Refueling of short-range aircraft to extend range and increase weapon loads became de jour.

SAC’s bomber/tanker combination was used in a conventional role in

Southeast Asia. KC-135s deployed to Okinawa supported B-52 operations

from Guam. Flying 10-hour missions at high altitude, the in-flight refueled B-52s supported Operations Rolling Thunder and Linebacker I. As

15
negotiations stalled to end the war honorably, B-52s garnered fame during bombing missions over Hanoi during Operation Linebacker II and facilitated a negotiated closure to the Vietnam War.56 Air refueling and longrange conventional bomber sorties were SAC’s global power contribution

to the Vietnam War. 

The Tanker—Desert Storm

Operation Desert Storm ushered the complete integration of in-flight refueling into combat operations for US forces. SAC’s B-52s also provided

long-range combat power from bases inside and outside the theater.57

Tankers were used to support missions inside the theater, to build the air

bridge to support the deployment of forces into the theater, and to support long-range B-52 strikes from both inside and outside the theater.

Tankers were integral to all attack operations. In fact, “some 60 percent

of all attack sorties required aerial refueling.”58 The initial Central Command estimate of 68 tankers to support Operation Desert Shield/Storm

blossomed to 230 to support combat operations in the theater, to include

support of naval fleet air operations.59 Eventually 100 tankers were used

to support the air bridge to deploy fighters into the theater, while 256 KC135 and 46 KC-10s deployed into the theater to 10 separate bases to support combat operations.60 During Operation Desert Shield, SAC tankers

flew 4,967 sorties and refueled more than 14,500 aircraft (including 5,495

Navy and Marine aircraft), off-loading 68.2 million gallons of fuel. Seventyfive percent of the KC-10 fleet and 44 percent of the KC-135 fleet were

committed to the crisis in the Gulf.61 When combat operations started, the

coalition tanker fleet—made up of tankers from the United States, France,

and the United Kingdom—performed on the order of 50,000 refuelings to

2,000 aircraft, transferring more than 700 million lbs of fuel. Gen Merrill

A. McPeak, then chief of staff of the Air Force, noted that “the tanker contribution to Desert Storm is what made it [the air war] work.” While indispensable, tankers were also “the limiting factor” in generating combat

sorties.62

SAC B-52s under operational control of theater commander Gen H.

Norman Schwarzkopf launched 1,741 long-range strikes from the United

States, United Kingdom, and Spain, as well as shorter sorties from bases

within the theater.63 The B-52s dropped mostly unguided bombs—but

dropped almost 32 percent of the total bomb tonnage in the war. “Even

without precision munitions, the B-52s became one of the most soughtafter aircraft by ground commanders for strikes against Iraqi ground

forces.”64 Deployed to the theater and operating from forward bases well

outside the theater, the B-52—with its range designed to meet Cold War

requirements—provided an effective combat punch. 

The most striking B-52 mission was accomplished by seven aircraft

during a round-trip combat mission from Barksdale AFB, Louisiana. This

16
mission began on 16 January 1991, well before the first shots were fired

in Operation Desert Storm. In this global power mission, the seven B-52s

launched 35 modified air-launched cruise missiles (ALCM). Updated

avionics and Global Positioning System navigation, as well as the replacement of the “physics package” with a high-explosive warhead, made

each ALCM a CALCM. In the flight from Barksdale, these seven B-52s

used in-flight refueling support from 38 KC-135 tankers that had forward

deployed to Lajes Field, Azores, and 19 KC-10s that had deployed to

Spain.65

Long-range conventional strikes with in-flight refueled bombers, as in

the example above, are not synonymous with the SAC model for global

power. In Desert Storm, forward bases for tankers were available due to

the support of regional allies. The SAC model, however, relied on CONUSbased tankers to refuel bomber missions for strikes against targets in the

Soviet Union, based on known combat ranges, without forward basing.

While a subtle difference, the use versus nonuse of forward basing for

tankers represents a significant chasm for global power force structure

and applications in the twenty-first century.

Conclusion

The force structure that evolved after World War II to support the Cold

War strategy of nuclear deterrence had great utility for conventional forces

as well. Built to support the mission of long-range nuclear attacks on the

Soviet Union, the bomber and tanker forces evolved in order to ensure

survival of a first strike and to provide a rapid response without vulnerable forward basing or forward-base refueling. The solution matched

tankers to bombers to accomplish missions of known range and found

utility for conventional purposes. This force structure was useful for deploying short-range fighters in and out of theater and matured to support

combat operations for short- and long-range aircraft. SAC’s tankers were

designed as single-point refueling platforms to pass huge off-loads of fuel

to bombers; and although they had utility for smaller aircraft, they lacked

efficiency when used as tankers for short-range aircraft conducting combat operations within a theater. 

SAC’s assumptions about the wars it would fight specifically excluded

the use of forward basing on the assessment that those bases would fall

under attack, as the nature of nuclear war would not allow time to either

secure or repair those facilities in war. To provide the maximum amount

of warning time to the nuclear bomber force, stateside basing was preferred, as it offered the largest degree of protection from first-strike attacks on the nuclear bomber force. The force structure that was developed

met the needs of the strategy of nuclear deterrence.

In the 1990s, as the Air Force mission evolved, new assumptions about

the nature of the world were used to support changes to the force struc17
ture for the twenty-first century. The next chapter explores the events of

the 1990s and derives assumptions that will be tested by case studies in

a later chapter.

Notes

1. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976), 143.

2. Ibid., 606.

3. Gen Henry H. Arnold, Global Mission (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949), 160.

4. Thomas H. Greer, The Development of Air Doctrine in the Army Air Arm, 1917–1941,

USAF Historical Study 89 (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: USAF Historical Division [USAFHD], Air University, 1955), 281. From address, 30 November 1936, page 6, in 4666-6, USAFHD.

5. Arnold, 157.

6. Greer, 230.

7. Ibid., 232.

8. Ibid., 318.

9. Ibid., 281, 294.

10. Walton S. Moody, Building a Strategic Air Force (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1996), 16.

11. Greer, 302–5, 321–22.

12. Ibid., 305.

13. Moody, 22.

14. Ibid., 21–23.

15. Ibid., 24; and Marcelle Size Knaack, Encyclopedia of US Air Force Aircraft and Missile Systems, vol. 2, Post–World War II Bombers, 1945–1973 (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air

Force History, 1988), 480.

16. Thomas A. Julian, “The Origins of Air Refueling in the United States Air Force,” in

Technology and the Air Force, eds. Jacob Neufeld and George M. Watson (Washington, D.C.:

Air Force History and Museums Program, 1997), 82.

17. Moody, 24.

18. Ibid., 24.

19. Arnold, 596.

20. Moody, 24.

21. Dr. Stephen L. McFarland, “Air Force in the Cold War, 1945–60: Birth of a New Defense Paradigm,” Airpower Journal, Fall 1996, 6, on-line, Internet, 12 February 2001,

available from http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/mcfarlnd.html.

22. Ibid.

23. Moody, 63.

24. Harry R. Borowski, A Hollow Threat: Strategic Air Power and Containment Before

Korea (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982), 103.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid.

27. Ibid., 105.

28. Ibid., 149.

29. Moody, 175, from verbatim minutes, 2d meeting—USAF Aircraft and Weapons

Board, January 27–30, 1948, 1st Day, Jan 27, 1948, 69–82; 2d Day, 191–94, RG 341,

DCS/Dev, Dir/Rqmts, 1st AWB, Box 183, MMB, NA (as cited in Moody).

30. Knaack, 3–10.

31. Ibid., 4.

32. Ibid., 3–10.

33. Moody, 175, from Report, Heavy Bombardment Committee to AWB, Report of Heavy

Bombardment, n.d. [Nov 47], 27, RG 341, DCS/DEV, Dir/Rqmts, Papers 1st AWB, Box

181, MMB, NA (as cited in Moody).

34. Paul S. Killingsworth et al., Flexbasing: Achieving Global Presence for Expeditionary

Aerospace Forces (Washington, D.C.: Project Air Force, RAND, 2000), 2–3.

18
35. E. S. Quade, ed., Analysis for Military Decisions, RAND Report R-387-PR (Santa

Monica, Calif.: RAND, November 1964), 24.

36. Ibid., 30.

37. Ibid., 32.

38. Ibid., 27–28.

39. Ibid., 24–63.

40. Ibid.

41. Julian, 81.

42. Ibid., 86.

43. Ibid.

44. Moody, 176.

45. Julian, 90.

46. Ibid.

47. Vernon B. Byrd, Passing Gas: The History of In-flight Refueling (Chico, Calif.: Byrd

Publishing Co., 1994), 47.

48. Killingsworth et al., 3–4.

49. A. Timothy Warnock, ed., Short of War—Major USAF Contingency Operations,

1947–1997 (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2000), 18.

50. Moody, 397.

51. Julian, 92; and Robert F. Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950–1953,

rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1983), 497.

52. Futrell, 497.

53. Ibid., 710; and Moody, 180–86.

54. Wayne Thompson, To Hanoi and Back: The US Air Force and North Vietnam,

1996–1973 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000), 9.

55. Ibid., 9–10.

56. Ibid.

57. Operation Desert Storm: An Assessment of Aerial Refueling Operational Efficiency,

General Accounting Office (GAO) report (hereinafter cited as GAO report), GAO/NSIAD-94-

68 (Washington, D.C.: GAO, November 1993), 2.

58. Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, Revolution in Warfare? Air Power in the Persian Gulf (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1995), 160.

59. Thomas A Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, Gulf War Air Power Survey [GWAPS], vol. 2,

Operations and Effects and Effectiveness (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office

[GPO], 1993), 20.

60. Paul S. Killingsworth et al., Tankers: Air Mobility Roles for the 1990s, RAND Report

DRR-913-AF/OSD (Washington, D.C.: RAND, November 1994), 13–14.

61. US Air Force, Reaching Globally, Reaching Powerfully: The United States Air Force in

the Gulf War, doc. no. D301.2:G95 (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: USAF Historical Research Agency,

September 1991), 10.

62. GAO report, 4.

63. Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, GWAPS, vol. 5, A Statistical Compendium

and Chronology (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1993), 346.

64. Keaney and Cohen, GWAPS, vol. 2, 99.

65. Ibid., 140–43.

19
Chapter 3

Global Power—Post–Cold War:

Assumptions for the Future

To postulate a scenario where you can operate no forward forces other than the

bombers . . . We simply cannot settle hardly any of these kinds of contingencies

we’re talking about if we can’t use any forward forces. Eventually we have to be

able to do that, or you simply can’t prevail . . . my point is that you simply cannot fight a war from the CONUS.

—Gen Larry D. Welch, USAF, Retired 

—Congressional testimony, 1 April 1998

Introduction

Bordered by two oceans, the United States remains insulated from invasion; however, the same borders that provide an obstacle for potential

opponents also create the greatest obstacle for the use of America’s military power—range. Airpower became the preferred force to overcome the

problem of range during the Cold War. First with bombers and then with

long-range bombers supported by tankers, airpower was the bedrock of

US national security strategy for 35 years. The strategic imperative for

long-range strike remained, but by the turn of the century the preferred

vehicle changed to short-range fighter-bombers. In Vision 2020, USAF envisions a return to the post–World War II expeditionary strategy. After Vision 2020’s release, Gen Michael E. Ryan, Air Force chief of staff, noted

“[w]e have been returning to our expeditionary roots for years now.”1 During World War II that particular expeditionary strategy relied, especially in

the Pacific, upon costly action to secure and hold forward bases for air operations. Did the forward-basing and range obstacles of the Cold War and

the force structure SAC used to surmount them become irrelevant in the

New World Order? Additionally, although US forces may not face the

threat of a nuclear first strike, was a return to a forward-based strategy

sensible? 

The following chronology of studies, reports, testimony, and public

opinion highlights the assumptions the Air Force made in shaping the

force structure for the post–Cold War era. In many ways the strategic challenges of the 1990s were not markedly different from the challenges of the

1940s and 1950s, but the assumptions of the best way to surmount these

challenges did change. Political agendas, institutional preferences, and financial constraints were all factors that altered the long-held assumptions of air leaders. This chapter chronicles the assumptions the Air Force

used to justify its new force structure. 

21
The evolution of the Air Force’s original global power strategy proceeded

from a realistic appraisal and study of the topographical, temporal, and

technological impediments to providing a credible threat. The evolution of

a new strategy of global power projection has left a forensic trail that permits analysis of why the current force structure of the Air Force has

evolved the way it has. During the 1990s, global power in the form of longrange airpower was not emphasized by the Air Force. Even though longrange airpower was still a part of the force, as General Welch noted above,

it was no longer the primary option for supporting national defense and

security strategy. How the expeditionary force supplanted long-range airpower in Air Force strategic thinking from 1990 to 2001 is chronicled in

the sections that follow.

Global Reach—Global Power, 1990 White Paper

In 1990 the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) issued its white

paper entitled Global Reach—Global Power. USAF’s role in national security was clearly laid out as the military was asked to shift its thinking from

a “national security focus . . . dominated by the threat posed by the Soviet Union” to a “number of dynamic and rapidly changing factors” which

“are creating the potential for a significantly different world environment

in the 21st century.”2 The long-range bomber’s role in this strategy was

logical, and the advantages it brought to the fight were clearly delineated

to meet the unknown threats of the future. 

While the white paper was the first cut aimed at breaking away from

Cold War thinking, the Air Force retained as its first priority a commitment to deterring nuclear attack.3 In addition, the national security strategy outlined America’s responsibility as the leader of the world’s democracies and described the nation as having an “inescapable role to play in

ensuring the stability of the international balance.”4 The strategy recognized Europe, the Pacific, and the Persian Gulf as areas where the United

States would continue to have important interests and commitments.

Moreover, these regions would drive the requirements for America’s military forces.5

The white paper recognized that the United States could not maintain a

continuous presence in every location where potential conflicts and

threats to its interests existed. To counter this weakness, strategists were

asked to contemplate “an increased emphasis on force projection capabilities—even more flexible, rapidly responding, precise, lethal forces with

global reach.”6 These CONUS-based forces could provide responsive counters to the variety of future threats on the horizon.

The white paper listed five objectives for the Air Force to sustain in

order to support the national defense strategy. Chief among them was the

need to provide versatile combat forces for theater operations as well as

CONUS-based forces for power projection. In addition, USAF needed to

supply rapid global mobility through airlift and tankers.7 In providing ver22
satile combat force, the Air Force envisioned that the more frequently occurring scenarios in the changing world environment would require airpower for “sharp, powerful, short duration operations.”8 More specifically

the white paper stated that “Our global responsibilities require capabilities independent of the need for mobilization and the political baggage

sometimes inherent in that process. Active forces of the highest quality

will be essential to respond quickly with precision and effectiveness.”9

Citing 1983’s Operation Bright Star, the white paper praised the use of

B-52s based in the United States and supported by in-flight refueling

tankers in the completion of the CONUS–Egypt–CONUS mission simulating conventional bombing on the North African nation. The white paper

compared Operation Bright Star to Operation El Dorado Canyon and the

US raid on Libya and noted how many of the problems which hampered

that operation were avoided through the use of CONUS-based long-range

bombers to Egypt. Many of the issues that plagued the Libyan raid—the

large numbers of strike, support, and refueling aircraft; the use of foreign

bases to support flight operations; the difficulty of obtaining overflight

permission from reluctant allies; and the exposure of naval assets to landbased threats—were not factors during Operation Bright Star. The white

paper also claimed that long-range strike aircraft would often provide a

cheaper option when compared to others and might, in some cases, be the

only option capable of “threatening or hitting targets in the crucial first

hours or early days of a conflict.”10

Global Reach—Global Power described short-range fighters as the

“ready and flexible tactical air forces [that] can also be tailored to provide

a quick and appropriate response to support US national policy.”11 With

forward basing, short-range aircraft could rapidly deploy into hot spots to

provide a presence or promote stability within a region. Global Reach—

Global Power noted that using short-range aviation required “forward basing to sustain power-projection operations.”12 Global Reach—Global Power

also assumed that when the interests of our allies were threatened, basing would be made available and that our fighter forces could deploy

within hours. These assumptions ignored several essential issues for the

deployment of short-range airpower.

In addition, as there was room for both short- and long-range airpower

within the strategy, there was no cost-benefit analysis of trade-offs between the two. Budgets in 1991 did not constrain either the force structure or the strategy. While recognizing the limitations of using short-range

aircraft and the utility of using long-range aircraft, the white paper was

not required to do more than postulate new ways airpower could contribute to the national defense policy. Roles and missions for the Air Force

and the force structure to support them fit under the same roof. Within

this structure the bomber emerged as an asset with greater freedom of

movement and utility while remaining true to its heritage as the foundation of SAC’s long-range airpower capability. Strategy and capability still

23
fit together smoothly. The white paper did not exude a bomber-centric

tone, but it put long-range airpower in perspective for national defense.13

SAC Deactivated and the Decision to Halt

B-2 Production—1992

In the wake of Desert Storm and the collapse of the Soviet Union, President George H. W. Bush, in a measure designed to “heat up the economy,” announced in his January 1992 State of the Union Address that he

was cutting the purchase of B-2s to a mere 20 aircraft.14 Bush wanted to

cancel the bomber altogether but acquiesced to finish the 20 airframes for

which center sections had already been produced by the primary contractor, Northrop Grumman.15 The Air Force appeared to raise virtually no

objections, as they had already put a higher priority on procuring a new

air-superiority fighter to replace the F-15.16

Procurement of a new air-superiority fighter at the expense of virtually all

other airborne assets seemed foolhardy at a time when the American system

of air dominance had no peer on the horizon. In order to present a symmetric counter to US airpower, an adversary would have to make large investments in aircraft, pilots, and command and control assets to field a challenging force. Logically, future adversaries had more to gain by procuring

asymmetric challenges to US airpower—such as cheap surface-to-air missiles to counter the threat from the air and surface-to-surface missiles to disrupt and destroy the forward bases US aircraft required.17 Although justified

through the assessment of emerging air-to-air and surface-to-air threats, a

replacement for the aging F-15 was likely to face few peers.

Bush’s decision in June 1992 to stop B-2 production was followed

promptly by the deactivation of Strategic Air Command. This action compounded the demise of the force structure to support global power

through long-range airpower. Although SAC was highly structured and

viewed as a rigid institution with a narrow scope and purpose, the command was the historical center of advocacy for bombers and long-range

airpower. When SAC deactivated, Air Combat Command (ACC) stood up

and assumed responsibility for all bomber forces, and the “institutional

foundation for bombers disintegrated.”18 ACC placed a higher priority on

the F-22 than on long-range airpower. While individual bomber units remained committed to long-range aviation, command leadership willfully

shifted its focus away from the acquisition of bombers. Consequently,

bombers lost their voice in the appropriations battles at the headquarters

level before the debate got inside the beltway of Washington. 

Bush’s characterization of the B-2 as a nuclear bomber no longer

needed with the demise of the Soviet Union revealed his inability to grasp

the utility of bombers in a conventional global power role. This led to a

force structure featuring short-range fighters as the “centerpiece of American air power.”19 Air Force leaders did not make the case for the use of

bombers in a conventional role to the president; in fact, the top brass ap24
peared to ignore the “operational implications of long-range, stealthy

bombers armed with precision-guided weapons.”20

The institutional shift within the Air Force was best characterized by

Geoffrey Perret, author of Winged Victory, who made this blunt assessment of the comparison between the US use of airpower in World War II

and the US approach to airpower in the 1990s: “In Vietnam, SAC’s

bombers might have pounded the communist regime into submission, but

they were not given the chance to do it. Since then, they have become irrelevant. The essential combat aircraft of the 1990s is the fighter-bomber.

The present-day Air Force is run by what is known as ‘the Fighter Mafia.’

The long-term future of the Air Force turned out not to be in heavy

bombers after all.”21 Gen Joseph W. Ralston, then vice commander of the

Joint Chiefs of Staff, seconded Perret’s notion in his 1996 congressional

testimony as he revealed that in a military crisis the option that “contained the weapons of choice was [tactical airpower] TACAIR.”22 While an

institutional preference, short-range TACAIR had limitations that were

not fully appreciated.

USAF had large numbers of very capable tactical aircraft as a legacy of action in Vietnam and the confrontation with the Soviets in Europe. These assets could effectively project power within certain operating assumptions and

parameters. Given ready access to forward bases secure from enemy attack

and unhindered logistical support, TACAIR could replace long-range

bombers. TACAIR also needed time to build up forces in-theater amid the

risks inherent in forming coalitions for forward basing, overflight, and allied

support. These deficiencies accentuated the virtues inherent in Americanbased long-range airpower: speed, flexibility, and independence. Nonetheless, a marked shift in the vision of global power had begun in favor of packages of deployable short-range assets over long-range bombers. 

Bottom-Up Review—1993

In 1993 Secretary of Defense Les Aspin directed a Bottom-Up Review

(BUR) of US military forces. When Aspin was the chairman of the House

Armed Services Committee, he was a vocal critic of the Pentagon for what

he perceived as their “top down planning.” His complaint was that defense

cuts were implemented by “percentage adjustments to the program rather

than by a careful examination of requirements from the bottom up.”23

When he became the secretary of defense in the William J. Clinton administration, Aspin seized upon the opportunity to do his coveted BUR.

The review, however, was fatally flawed. Before it started, spending caps

on military expenditures for the next five years established a five-year cut

of $104 billion below the final projection of the Bush administration and

$245.2 billion below the 1990 defense budget baseline. The requirements

and programs that could fit under that budget line awaited the BUR.24

Assuming a strategy centered on an America prepared to fight two

“nearly” simultaneous major regional conflicts, the BUR sought to shape

25
the force structure to match this need. However, according to Cong. Ike

Skelton (D-Mo.), the force structure flunked “simple third grade arithmetic.”25 Skelton noted that the forces as projected could not support one,

much less the two regional contingencies, that the BUR expected them to

handle simultaneously.26

By asserting budget imperatives above requirements, Aspin’s BUR became the top-down process he had routinely denigrated as a congressman. Bombers were capped at 184 aircraft in the BUR. In addition,

bombers and other high-demand/low-density assets were envisioned as

“swinging” from one regional conflict to the other to support both conflicts.

Missing from the BUR was a specificity in airlift. “A curious lapse since

airlift, more than anything else, constrains deployment to the kind of regional crisis around which the Bottom-Up Review is built.”27 The BUR was

criticized as an attempt to justify the enormous defense cuts that the new

administration planned in a top-down method by slicing the assets on

hand as well as gutting future acquisitions and programs. Within new

budget constraints, the services now had to choose which new acquisitions to pursue. Biases towards the replacement of certain weapon systems appear to have had an impact on building a force structure to support the strategy of global power within the Air Force.

Seven Secretaries Weigh In—January 1995

On 4 January 1995, seven former secretaries of defense wrote to President

Clinton to express their concern over the “impending termination of the B-2

bomber production line.”28 The former secretaries—Melvin Laird, James

Schlesinger, Donald Rumsfeld, Harold Brown, Caspar Weinberger, Frank

Carlucci, and Dick Cheney—were upset that the administration did not plan

to build the new bomber in the quantities they felt were necessary to meet

the challenges to US security in the next century. While they were primarily

concerned about the B-2, they also criticized the number of bombers proposed under the 1993 BUR. In their view, the total of barely 200 was not

enough to meet future requirements—“particularly in view of the attrition

that would occur in a conflict and the eventual need to retire the B-52s.”29

The secretaries hit upon several themes for advocating greater production of B-2s in an effort to modernize the bomber fleet and to capitalize on

the $20 billion in sunk costs to establish the production line. They noted

that as the United States gradually withdrew from its forward operating

locations it would become “increasingly difficult to use tactical aircraft in

bombing missions” and that it was “essential that steps be taken now to

preserve an adequate long-range bomber force.”30 The former secretaries

of defense also noted that long-range airpower, even given the expense of

airframes like the B-2, remained the “most cost-effective means of rapidly

projecting force over great distances.”31

As John T. Correll, editor in chief of Air Force Magazine, noted, “There is

little if any precedent for the extraordinary statement by the seven former

26
Secretaries of Defense.”32 In speaking out in a public letter to the sitting president and telling him they felt he was in error, the seven secretaries advocated their view on continued production but made an even stronger statement concerning their confidence in Secretary Aspin. These men represented

four presidential administrations. The former secretaries spoke with one

voice to the current holder of the office with a powerful message.

Heavy Bomber Force Study—1995

The former secretaries of defense were not alone in their criticism of the

decline of long-range airpower in importance and the impending closure

of the B-2 production line. Certain members of Congress, distressed by

the cancellation of B-2 production in 1992 and further aggravated by the

conclusions of the BUR, directed the Department of Defense (DOD) to

carry out a study of its bomber-force requirements in the 1995 Defense

Authorization and Appropriations Act.33 Dr. Paul Kaminski, undersecretary for defense for acquisition and technology, was responsible for this

Heavy Bomber Force study. Both the Joint Staff and the Institute for Defense Analysis gave this report a chilly reception when it was presented to

Congress; and as of June 1997, OSD had yet to print a final copy of this

report. Its findings were judged by many in Congress to reflect a predetermined mix of bombers to support the desired direction of Air Force as

well as executive office spending. This study was critiqued heavily in congressional testimony for its assumptions about strategic warning and the

ability to deploy forces into a theater with an opposing force armed with

weapons of mass destruction.34

The Heavy Bomber Force Study made a number of dubious assumptions. It assumed that the United States would receive approximately two

weeks of strategic warning. Acting immediately on this warning (another

assumption), the United States would use these two weeks to deploy large

numbers of fighters and aircraft carriers to the theater (without encountering access or logistical support problems). The enemy, having watched

and waited as the United States deployed overwhelming force into a theater (at unprecedented rates), would then attack anyway. American fighters would then fly at sortie rates far beyond those achieved during the

Persian Gulf War to defeat these enemy forces.35 In addition to these large

numbers of fighters engaged in combat, the analysts added 20 additional

B-2s to the planned bomber force (bringing the total number of B-2s to

40). Using a land-war simulation, the analysts then assessed the impact

on the scenario of the additional 20 B-2s, which were flown at sortie rates

below those achieved in Operation Desert Storm by B-52s.36

The study used the scenario to measure combat sortie rates and to

measure bombs delivered to targets over time. The quantitative analysis

favored a force structure that was able to put combat power on target in

the shortest amount of time and at the least cost. In the scenario, however, the 14 days of warning allowed short-range forces to build up in the

27
area of operations until there were 10 times as many tactical aircraft deployed than bombers available before hostilities even started. Given the

scenario assumptions, as Dr. Kaminski noted, the bomber contributions

in delivering firepower were lost in the aggregate.37 Instead of measuring

bombs over time, the study could have measured bomb miles over time.

This would have factored range into the cost equation and would have favored the economies of scale that long-range, large-payload bombers bring

to a conflict.38 As for assumptions about strategic warning, Gen Charles

A. Horner, air component commander for Operation Desert Storm, noted

that the assumption of 14 days of strategic warning “jibes neither with

history nor with military logic.”39

Cong. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.),40 in a hearing of the Military Procurement Subcommittee of the House National Security Committee, noted that

the assumptions used in the Heavy Bomber Force Study were faulty: “The

capability of projecting force deep into the heart of hostile territory has

been and should continue to be the centerpiece for American air doctrine.

The number of American Bases abroad declining and belligerent activity

around the globe [that is] ever-present, America must retain an ability to

strike afar in a variety of threats. In the conflicts of tomorrow, however, it

will desperately need long-range air capability. Forward airstrips and

naval aircraft carriers may not be available.”41

The arguments over the utility and acquisition of aircraft throughout all

the studies performed in the 1990s was best summed up by Glenn Buchan,

RAND associate program director, in his testimony before Congress following

the completion of the Heavy Bomber Force Study. He said, “The need for B2s is governed almost entirely by scenario assumptions.”42 As the first in a

series of studies to evaluate long-range airpower, this study and the ones

that followed established the assumptions used to justify the expeditionary

forces USAF favored for the twenty-first century.

The Heavy Bomber Force Study was followed closely by the Deep Attack

Weapons Mix Study (DAWMS) where the Commission on Roles and Missions

of the Armed Forces (CORM) played the primary role in crafting long-range

airpower’s future. 

Deep Attack Weapons Mix Study—1996

The CORM looked for duplicity of roles and missions within the services

as opportunities to cut costs. The CORM spoke with one voice in its final

report; however, several studies generated by subcommittee, in particular

the Deep Attack Study Team, were ignored in the final analysis. DAWMS

examined the contribution of bombers to conventional and nuclear warfighting scenarios and considered several options to acquire funds to expand the B-2 fleet. They considered retiring the entire B-1 force, eliminating various numbers of fighter wings, percentage cuts in Marine air,

and scrapping carriers and their air wings—all in various combinations.

The study assumed the immediate retirement of these to purchase B-2s

28
in numbers funded by the savings created. The analysis showed, in the

scenarios examined, that the B-2 was more cost effective over the course

of a war than the systems they replaced.43

Unfortunately, the results of this study did not provide “the desired answers” at OSD or at the Pentagon.44 As a result, the scenario was adjusted

to a two-phased war with separate halt and counteroffensive phases. The advantages of the B-2 in the critical halt phase were negated over the course of

the protracted counteroffensive, as deployed short-range fighters proved

more cost effective over time once they were deployed to the theater. What

was missing from the analysis was the logic that the counteroffensive could

only occur after a successful halt phase—a phase in which the B-2 was

proven both more cost effective and critical to success. The study also assumed that short-range fighters would have access to the theater and that

once in the theater, they would operate without degradation from adversary

action to deny access to or operate from forward bases.45

To further the case against the B-2, “capability gaps” were highlighted

that emerged between the time forces traded for B-2s were retired and the

time that additional B-2s, purchased with the retirement savings, came

on line.46 There was no phasing out of the retired forces as the B-2s came

on line. As posed in this scenario, it is hard to imagine a weapon system

that could pass this type of scrutiny. Compounding the problem for B-2

advocates, a Faustian-like bargain was presented to the Air Force. If air

leaders accepted the conclusion that the B-2 was more cost efficient, the

Air Force risked losing fighter wings to Navy carriers. If Navy leaders accepted that the B-2 was more cost effective than carrier air wings, the

Navy risked losing carriers in favor of Air Force programs in joint budget

battles. This rendered the B-2 dead on arrival for both services.

The study also highlighted the capabilities the B-2 could not perform in

the theater if certain forces were retired. Drug interdiction, sea control,

and antiship warfare were highlighted as missions the B-2 could not perform if aircraft carriers were traded for their purchase. Analysis supporting the shortcomings of the B-2 to perform any of these missions was

missing. In addition, the potential advantages of an expanded B-2 fleet

were ignored, as pointed out in the Independent Bomber Force Review.47

“For example, we currently cannot halt a large-scale armored assault

without tactical air forces in-theater prior to the outbreak of hostilities.

How do we plan to do so in the case of a surprise attack? How do we plan

on conducting a large-scale pre-emptive strike against an adversary’s facilities for producing weapons of mass destruction?”48

Brig Gen David A. Deptula served on the staff of CORM and was the

team leader for examining deep-precision attack systems on the Deep Attack Study Team.49 He was explicit in his support of long-range aviation:

The synergy of advanced munitions with the range and payload of long-range

bombers may be more important to the Department of Defense in the years

ahead than at any time during the Cold War. Combined with the stealth of the

B-2, precision munitions with long-range bombers have the potential to provide

key capabilities not available from any other forces to meet critical future na29
tional security requirements. . . . The B-2 capabilities of stealth, long range,

high payload, and precision strike give the United States a singular ability

among nations to respond in near-real time to short-notice contingencies using

conventional force anywhere in the world.50

The report delivered by the Deep Attack Study Team to the CORM, although ignored in the final DAWMS report, made significant recommendations. This report was never published as part of the commission’s final

report, Directions for Defense. Nonetheless, the report was quoted during

congressional testimony by Cong. Norman Dicks (R-Wash.) and formed

the basis for Dr. Rebecca Grant’s monograph Origins of the Deep Attack

Weapons Mix Study. The CORM released the Deep Attack Study Team’s report to Dr. Grant in its draft form but also made clear that it did not necessarily endorse the opinions in the report made by the Deep Attack Study

Team staff. The commission noted that this report represented one of the

many inputs to the commission, which used its own judgment and experience to arrive at the conclusions and recommendations in the final report.51 One must refer to Dr. Grant’s analysis in her monograph and the

few snippets of congressional testimony that referenced the report to gain

an appreciation for the value of long-range bombers. 

The full commission report allowed that future military operations

could be uncertain due to the nature, location, scope, characteristics, and

timing of the military actions required. However, the unpublished Deep

Attack Study Team report went further as it questioned the potential combat environments of the future and made the case that the capabilities of

stealth and precision made the projection of force more important than the

deployment of force. Making the case that deployment of theater forces

was not always prescribed, the smaller staff rested its case on stealth and

precision and the range that long-range B-2s could bring to a conflict. The

study’s report indicated that mass would play a diminished role in the decisive application of force as the demands for quick response in a lethal

security environment grew in the future.52 The CORM chose instead to

use assumptions in recommending a force structure for global power

geared more towards smaller sized aircraft embedded in deployable expeditionary forces. The potential benefits of long-range aviation were not

only dismissed, they were discredited through much of the analysis performed to determine the force structure for the twenty-first century.

Quadrennial Defense Review—1997

In 1997 the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) used the results of the

DAWMS to justify a short-range force structure for the global power mission.

The QDR also used a two-phased halt and counteroffensive scenario to justify its decision not to purchase additional B-2s. The primary logical flaw in

the QDR assumptions rests on the lack of benefits derived from short-range

aircraft during the counteroffensive if the halt phase failed. And it would fail

without aircraft in-theater to make it work. The QDR addressed the idea that

“additional B-2s deployed quickly to a conflict could improve our ability to

30
halt an adversary’s advance during the opening days of a major theater war,”

but the analysis did not attribute a higher value to the halt phase for its importance within the overall strategy.53 The QDR recognized that “this was especially true in cases where there would be little or no warning of the conflict or where our tactical aircraft would be restricted in access to the

theater.”54 Unfortunately, the QDR noted that this “advantage . . . diminishes

as other low observable aircraft, particularly the Joint Strike Fighter, enter

the force.”55 The advantages of long-range aircraft were discounted in the

QDR analysis. It assumed that short-range forces would overcome the obstacles of range and forward basing in future conflicts.

As former Cong. Jim Courter (R-N.J.) feared, the biased results of the

DAWMS found their way into the military recommendations that became

the 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review. The objective study that was

needed did not occur. For QDR purposes the “capabilities” gap was manufactured, and the halt and counteroffensive phases were created to skew

the data away from long-range bombers.56

Dr. Kaminski defended the reasoning within the DAWMS study as it was

used to justify the force structure in the QDR. He noted, 

If you look only at the ground-attack mission, there are cases where the

bombers are competitive and, per unit investment, could do even more. The

problem is, that isn’t the only mission. The tactical air forces perform four or

five different missions that the bombers do not do, so you have to weight that.

The bombers do, indeed, contribute in early phases of the air-to-ground mission before we’ve deployed tactical air forces [overseas in significant] numbers. 

What the DAWMS results show, however, is that for some period of years when

you take out what’s in the force today to get the money to pay for additional B2 bombers, you have a gap. When the B-2s are in the force, they are competitive, especially under situations of early warning, but only if you’re comparing

them in the air-to-ground mission area. If you’re looking at the other mission

areas, the B-2 isn’t doing those missions, so we somehow have to account for

that.57

The capability gap Dr. Kaminski speaks of again did not consider the

contributions that the B-2 could make to the “four or five different missions” that “tactical air forces perform.” Also, besides roles and missions,

the capabilities gap was created by the immediate retirement of one force

to pay for the buildup of additional B-2s. The use of the DAWMS results

to support the QDR left many in Congress dissatisfied about the conclusions regarding the future of long-range aviation.

Addressing Congress in April 1997 following the release of the QDR,

Gen Ronald R. Fogleman, the chief of staff of the Air Force, answered

questions about the future of long-range aviation before the National Security Committee of the House of Representatives.58 In answer to Congressman Hunter’s question concerning long-range aviation acquisitions

past the year 2020 and the fact that there was no ongoing bomber program, General Fogleman testified that “by 2020 you could have a whole

range of things. Perhaps your long-range strategic bomber by 2020 is a

weapon from space and it is not a kinetic kill, but it is a directed energy

31
kill.”59 To which Congressman Hunter commented, “I hope you are not

waiting for space weapons to replace your bomber force because that is

pretty problematic, General.”60 Congressman Hunter scolded General

Fogleman, noting that when the CNO [Chief of Naval Operations] wants to

build a new carrier he starts planning for it 30 years out “because he cannot rely on space-based weapons to take the place of carriers at some

point in the future. He cannot rely on things that are not tangible and

have some lack of surety in terms of coming about. You have to do the

same thing. And you’ve got to be looking at how you are going to replace

bombers.”61 He ended by telling General Fogleman, “Lord knows the TAC

air boys have not decided that something is going to replace tactical aircraft. You have given us a $350 billion bill through 2018 for TAC air. Now

you did not come up with any space-based munitions to replace that

stuff.”62 Congressman Hunter was left to wonder how long-range aviation

had moved from the back burner to lost in space. 

By the 1997 QDR, the Air Force had made the case for short-range airpower to perform the functions of long-range airpower in global power

missions. The QDR recognized the importance of the halt phase, and it

used it to bias the final analysis against long-range airpower. In addition,

the QDR created capability gaps to ensure Air Force resources would not

fund further B-2 production. While noting that access and reaction time

were important during the halt phase, the QDR analysis failed logic in the

two-phase war scenario when it did not consider halt phase success as a

precursor to the counteroffensive. In addition, the QDR assumed that deploying forces would have access to forward bases to achieve the sortie

rates necessary to complete the phase. The QDR left congressional proponents of the B-2 unhappy about the future of long-range airpower. Yet, the

Air Force seemed more committed than ever to a strategy of global power

based on short-range airpower in an expeditionary mode.

Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21st Century Air Force

Drafted as Air Force Doctrine Document 2, Global Engagement: Operational Doctrine for the 21st Century became the Air Force vision statement

in 1997. It is in this document that the strategy of global power took on

the moniker of global attack. In a speech delivered to the Air Force Association, General Fogleman discussed global attack:

A core competency we’ve added is one we elected to call Global Attack. There

are two aspects to this core competency. The primary aspect of Global Attack is

the ability of the Air Force to find and attack targets anywhere on the globe

using the synergy generated by air and space assets to operate at the strategic

level of war.

The other aspect of Global Attack is the expeditionary nature of our force. We

have demonstrated this capability through a CONUS-based Air Expeditionary

Force (AEF). As the United States continues to reduce fixed, overseas bases, the

Air Force will use expeditionary forces to support the nation’s priorities. These

will consist of a rapidly deployable force tailored to the needs of the theater

commander. Depending on the situation, that force can include both lethal and

32
non-lethal elements. This expeditionary capability will be key to rapidly providing tailored air and space capabilities to the regional CINCs in the future (emphasis added).63

Global power was recast as global strike within the new air expeditionary force concept. The assumptions about access and the availability

of forward bases were similar to those made in the QDR. In this vision

statement, “expeditionary aircraft” and not long-range aircraft took on the

primary role of providing global attack or global power to a theater commander. The shift to short-range aircraft was leveraged by the strategy

that demanded expeditionary forces to support it. Global attack removed

the question of range and access from the global power problem and assumed away the concerns upon which the SAC force was built. Nevertheless, advocates for long-range airpower in Congress continued to press for

reviews of strategy.

Independent Bomber Force Review—June 1997

Brent Scowcroft, a retired Air Force lieutenant general, was appointed

to head a committee formed by the Military Procurement Subcommittee to

study the issue of long-range airpower.64 In 1997 he presented the Independent Bomber Force Review to the House Military Procurement Subcommittee of the House National Security Committee. This study was requested within the defense budget in 1997 after several members of the

committee, of which Congressman Hunter was the chairman, voiced their

displeasure with the findings of the QDR in relation to the continued production of long-range bombers, specifically the B-2. The report reached

two major conclusions:

First, long-range airpower will be more important than ever in the decades

ahead. Consequently, we do not believe that the planned force of 21 B-2s will

satisfy foreseeable US military requirements. 

Second, Pentagon opposition to further B-2 production is shortsighted and

parochial. It reflects a consensus across the services that long-range air power

can be safely abandoned in the long-run—a view with which we strongly disagree.65

The issues raised in this report centered on the ability of airpower to

gain access to a theater. Scowcroft mentioned at length the roles of airpower and placed a premium on assets that could ensure access. Scowcroft made the following points to argue that long-range bombers were

ideally suited for the evolving national security arena:

• Long-range bombers are the only force elements capable of stopping

surprise enemy aggression while operating outside the range of theater weapons of mass destruction. 

• Long-range bombers do not require bases in the immediate combat

theater.

• Bombers, though expensive when viewed on a per-unit basis, are extremely cost effective compared to other force elements.66

33
In this report the assumptions made to discount long-range forces in

previous studies were outlined and critiqued. As the Air Force continued

its shift away from long-range aircraft, Scowcroft’s report chimed in with

several members of Congress concerned about the capabilities the United

States was sacrificing to emphasize short-range expeditionary forces. In

his review of the DOD studies to date, Scowcroft indicated that the “B-2

issue has become so captive to Pentagon bureaucratic politics that the Department has made the wrong strategic choice.”67 Simply put, Scowcroft

thought the emphasis on short-range at the expense of long-range forces

put the United States at risk. He was not alone in this concern.

Long-Range Airpower Study—1998

The Long-Range Airpower Study (LRAPS) was conducted at the request

of Congress and was chaired by Gen Larry D. Welch, retired, former chief

of staff of the Air Force.68 His task was to lead a study to examine the role

of “long-range airpower, the value of stealth, the adequacy of the current

force to support likely contingencies, and the desirability of buying additional B-2s.”69 General Welch determined that the current bomber force

was adequate for the next decade and a half. He based this assessment

on planned upgrades in standoff weapons to the current fleet. This study

looked out only to 2015. Congress was surprised to find that this report

did not include a long-range plan for acquisition or research and development of bombers beyond the B-2 or beyond 2015.70

The LRAPS also made assumptions about the need for long-range airpower. When asked by Cong. Jane Harman (D-Calif.)71 about the “stability of

forward basing in the future,” General Welch replied that the study was

specifically asked to consider the possibility of the lock out from forward bases,

and the impact of that. One of the conclusions you arrive at very quickly is that

even long-range bombers will not be very effective in a demanding situation if

they have to operate from the CONUS. It’s too long [of a] sortie. It does too much

violence to the sortie rate and to provide the weight of effort that you need in a

large contingency from these precision attack systems, which long-range

bombers are becoming, you need to drastically shorten that mission and drastically increase the sortie rate. Which means you need forward bases for longrange bombers. Now, clearly those forward bases can be removed from the

threat. So, they don’t have to face all the same threats that the tactical bases,

but none the less you do have to have forward bases.72

General Welch further stated that in situations where access is denied,

“you simply can’t imagine that you could ever buy enough bombers to

provide the weight of effort that would be required.” General Welch did not

indicate that he envisioned long-range forces as the enabler for the

shorter range aircraft to gain access to forward bases, nor did he indicate

that his study had a solution to the problem of gaining access to a denied

forward location.73

The study concluded that forward basing and access was an issue for

the Air Force to confront. General Welch acknowledged the importance of

long-range aircraft in the early part of a war, as they were able to gain ac34
cess to a theater without forward bases. He noted that a small force of this

nature could provide great advantage in striking targets in the early part

of a conflict to clear a path through defenses for aircraft that followed. But

he also pointed out that the capabilities of stealth and long range were not

something required in all platforms.74 This was a point well taken; however, the problem of access was still on the table.

General Welch’s study affirmed the need for expeditionary forces within

a theater to achieve the sortie rates required to fight and win a major theater war. He also asserted that access to forward bases and the need to

deploy forward was as important to long-range as short-range aircraft. He

rightly pointed out that forward deployment issues were a concern to all

USAF aircraft, regardless of range. He did not mention tankers, but they

also require forward bases in order to perform their mission in a theater.

The LRAPS left Congress unsatisfied with the airpower plan past 2015,

and they demanded a road map to explain the long-term plan to replace

bombers past that point. The Bomber Road Map of 1999 proved equally

disappointing in answering questions about long-range aviation.

Bomber Road Map of 1999

The Air Force Bomber Road Map of 1999 did little to answer congressional

questions about the future of long-range aviation. This white paper merely

extended the LRAPS’s projections for bombers from 2015 to 2037. This was

not what Congress had in mind. During congressional testimony, Lt Gen

Gregory S. Martin,75 principal deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for

acquisition, noted, “Whether it was the Heavy Bomber [Force] Study done in

‘95 or the Long Range Air Power Study, more recently the QDR study or most

recently the Bomber Road Map, there has never been an indication that we

needed to go buy more bombers ahead of other things.”76

General Martin indicated that the trade-offs considered within these studies did not justify sacrifices in tactical or short-range air for bombers. When

Congressman Hunter asked General Martin about access to forward bases

and combating scenarios where access could be denied with chemical or biological weapons, such as in Korea, he replied that he thought the effects of

chemical weapons on operations would be minimal.77 When asked to “presume the worse” about the political ramifications of a chemical attack, General Martin noted his devotion to “bringing this ABL [Airborne Laser] on

board . . . to make that problem go away.” Congressman Hunter noted that

the airborne laser and theater missile defense both represented “another big

if” and that he did not believe General Martin’s assessment of the impact of

chemical weapons was realistic.78

Congressman Hunter noted that “it would be great to be able to move longrange aircraft into that theater [Korea] without having to have the problem of

operating those targeted [short-range aircraft operating] airfield[s].” He

asked, “Doesn’t that make bombers more valuable?” General Martin replied

that “if the ranges are not accessible by fighters and air refueled fighters . . .

35
the value of bombers go up.” But he concluded that “all the assessments we

have done is what drives us to the 130 CC-coded or combat capable bombers

as the correct number for us to maintain and approve.”79

The Bomber Road Map as presented did not envision research and development for a new long-range bomber follow-on replacement until 2013.

The testimony by General Martin indicated that “we have not yet decided

on whether there will be a follow-on bomber or a follow-on fighter aircraft.”80 The Bomber Road Map was the last attempt by Congress to persuade the Air Force to build a global power force more heavily weighted

towards long-range aviation. Institutionally, there was no advocacy for

long-range bombers within Pentagon or OSD circles. The lone exception,

Brent Scowcroft, had his recommendations for additional long-range

bombers set aside in the Long Range Air Power Report and refuted completely in the following Air Force vision statement.

Global Vigilance Reach and Power—2000

In June 2000 the USAF published Global Vigilance Reach and Power:

America’s Air Force Vision 2020. This vision for the twenty-first century firmly

established the predominance of short-range over long-range airpower for

the expeditionary aerospace force of the future. The concept in Vision 2020

has aerospace expeditionary forces rapidly deploying, after global vigilance

warning, to a forward base—using global reach—to prosecute global power.

The core competency of global attack discusses “the ability to engage adversary targets anywhere, anytime.”81 However, it describes that ability as the

capacity to “deploy an AEF in 48 hours—fast enough to curb many crises—

and [to] be able to rapidly deploy additional AEFs to deter a major theater

war.”82 Long-range airpower was supplanted by short-range airpower within

this context, and as noted by General Martin, “We don’t talk about global attack in terms of fighters and bombers anymore; we talk about it in terms of

global attack, which includes them both.”83

The assumptions for forward basing and strategic warning (through global

vigilance) are clearly stated, and assumptions about coalitions, access, and

technology are implied within the vision statement. Most powerfully the vision declares, “We are an expeditionary aerospace force configured for the full

spectrum of aerospace operations. We have returned to our expeditionary

roots in the way we organized ourselves and present our forces.”84 The expeditionary roots are not qualified within the text of the vision statement. It is

plausible that this statement refers to the manner in which the United States

deployed B-29s in the Pacific and B-17s and B-24s in Europe during World

War II. By this definition, airpower that was deployed forward within striking

range of its targets during World War II was certainly expeditionary. However,

the conditions that allowed forces to move forward in the Pacific theater of

World War II, as General LeMay recalled as the commander of SAC, consisted

of great struggles over time with large costs in human life. Assumptions concerning the establishment of similar conditions for the future relied on se36
curing political access and the physical ability to gain access where it was

denied with little cost. These contentious issues, mostly ignored throughout

the 1990s, crept into Air Force thinking as a strategy to justify the F-22

within the new force structure. 

Global Strike Task Force—2001

In February 2001, ACC commander Gen John P. Jumper introduced his

concept of the Global Strike Task Force (GSTF).85 This “kick down the

door” force is the part of the expeditionary force that is tailored to gain access to a theater for the rest of the force. Within this concept, F-22s were

labeled as the linchpin of the US ability to gain access to hostile regions

to enable a “few B-2s” to do the “heavy lifting.” General Jumper stated that

“air refueling ensures that we can sustain and, if necessary, employ GSTF

over long ranges,” but did not go into detail on forward-basing requirements for tankers. This study also delineated many of the assumptions

that defined global power in 2001.86

Using the experiences of the 1990s, General Jumper discussed the following assumptions for airpower in the twenty-first century:

• “We can fully expect to fight jointly alongside partners and allies.

• Although we will not do battle alone, success will highly depend upon

our technological prowess.

• We should never start a limited operation if the enemy can turn it into

a sustained conflict.

• Allied Force taught us that employment from great distance is possible when conducting sustained operations and that forward basing

need not be a major limitation.

• We continued to conduct sustained land-based operations in the face

of Scud missile attacks during Desert Storm . . . we have prepared

ourselves for this scenario [of denial of access].

• Access assurance . . . and some consider it the key factor in the near

future . . . In general, access has been granted to US and allied warplanes during the past decade, particularly when a host’s sovereignty

or vital interests are at stake. 

• [R]estrictions to access, both physical and political, will always impact operations, and no service is immune to the problem.”87

For General Jumper, the lack of access appeared as the “most significant of the challenges”; however, the GSTF was his solution to this problem. “GSTF overcomes range barriers by providing means to rapidly roll

back adversary threats.” Once this is accomplished, the AEF would gain

access to its forward bases and conduct 24/7 operations.88

The transformation of strategy completed itself in this final version, as

the short-range fighter became the dominant feature of the global power

landscape. Not only did the short-range fighter have a dominant role in

providing power within the theater, it was heralded as the enabler to ensure access for the expeditionary force. Budgetary spending on fighters

37
when compared to bombers jumped from a 5:1 ratio in 1999 to a planned

30:1 ratio in 2003. In terms of numbers, the force in the 1950s which was

balanced at a 2:1 ratio of fighters to bombers shifted by 1995 to a ratio of

16:1, in which the 3,000 fighter aircraft were leveraged with a total of 187

bombers.89 The increased utility of the B-2 and other bombers with standoff weapons was mentioned as part of the access securing force, but the

ability of the expeditionary force structure to respond to the full spectrum

of conflicts was not considered in Jumper’s article. 

Assumptions

As the presented studies, testimony, and vision statements shaped

force structure for the twenty-first century, the following assumptions

about the future and the use of global power come to light. They are evident in the justification used to end B-2 production and in the absence of

a follow-on bomber program until the year 2013. They were used to extend the bomber force to the year 2037 without replacement, to justify the

continued development of short-range aircraft to deploy and fight the nation’s wars, and were codified in General Jumper’s GSTF concept for the

expeditionary force:

• The United States will have adequate strategic warning of hostilities

to deploy expeditionary force into a theater. (The force structure of

short-range aircraft will not be “shut out” of a theater of operations

due to its range.)

• Forward basing is an obstacle that US expeditionary air forces can

overcome in the use of global power. (Range will not present an obstacle to US expeditionary forces in the use of airpower.)

• Conflicts the United States will face in the future will require the deployment of forces into a theater.

• The United States will fight in alliances and coalitions. Coalition partners will provide host-nation support for forward basing and allow

overflight.

• The United States will be able to defeat adversary actions to deny the

US access through physical or political action.

• US technological advantages will ensure the ability to overcome the

obstacles of access and performing global power missions.

• US tanker aircraft will meet the needs of the expeditionary global

power strategy.

Questions

The end of the Cold War compelled the United States to reevaluate its

strategy and retool its force structure. Although the SAC model for projecting global power had been a bomber and tanker “system” for decades,

in the 1990s the capabilities of this system were shunted aside in favor of

a deployable expeditionary force. Starting with the publication of the

38
Global Reach—Global Power white paper in 1990, a litany of studies,

commissions, congressional testimony, and vision statements reinforced

this preference for a new global power force structure. The SAC force

structure built to conquer the obstacles of range and access with longrange bombers and tankers faded into the background as expeditionary

airpower took center stage as the model for airpower to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.

Short-range aviation is dependent upon secure forward bases. The distance of those bases to the fight eventually determines the sortie rates

those forces can sustain. The distance also determines the level of in-flight

refueling support required within the theater to support operations. On

top of resource requirements, forward bases assume a common political

goal between the United States and the host nation. Where that is not the

case, access and agreements to use force are both difficult and convoluted. A threatened ally may not have suitable facilities for US forces,

while a neighboring ally with adequate facilities may choose not to commit itself to one side or the other of a regional squabble. The United States

may find it is denied access to forward bases for short-range fighters by

physical threats of missile, chemical, or biological attacks; but it may be

political pressure within the region that keeps the United States from intervening in a regional conflict. Even with a shared goal and adequate facilities within range of the conflict, forces deployed to a region also require

protection from conventional and unconventional attack. Although difficult to measure, it is fair to estimate that the closer a base is to the fight,

the higher the opportunity and risk there is for hostile attacks. As with the

Cold War, the amount of warning time is reduced and the energy required

to protect deployed forces grows as the force is deployed farther forward.

The white paper did not consider the dangers of these assumptions.

Did the Air Force choose the correct path? Were the AEF and GSTF justified by strategic considerations? Did the global power strategy of USAF

make sense given the nature of the global environment? Were the assumptions made to justify this force correct? How will political and economic conditions intersect to determine how nations view their sovereignty? Does history shed any light on these questions?

The case studies that follow were chosen to answer the questions

raised. Hopefully, as Carl von Clausewitz wrote about the use of historical examples, the case studies will “eine Lehre ziehen aus” or “learn us a

lesson” from the collected experiences of others.90

Notes

1. SrA J. Bosker, “Air Force Evaluates Professional Development of Its Total Force,” Air

Force Print News, 9 February 2000, n.p., on-line, Internet, 24 May 2001, available from

http://www.af.mil/news/Feb2000/n20000209_000184.html.

2. The Air Force and U.S. National Security Strategy: Global Reach—Global Power, white

paper, with a foreword by Donald B. Rice, secretary of the Air Force (Washington, D.C.:

SAF/OSX, June 1990), 1.

39
3. Ibid., 2.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid., 3.

7. Ibid., 5.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid., 6–7.

10. Ibid., 8.

11. Ibid., 9.

12. Ibid., 9–10.

13. The bomber force within SAC saw the B-52 emerge as the preeminent bomber solution. B-47s and B-58s were built and retired for their lack of range and limited avionics

capability. The medium range FB-111 and B-1 entered the force in the 1970s and 1980s

as replacements for the aging, 20-year-old B-52s. One hundred B-1Bs were purchased

after President Ronald W. Reagan resurrected the program cancelled under President

Jimmy Carter. B-2s, designed in the 1970s, were delivered in the 1990s to Whiteman AFB,

Missouri. The B-2 was originally planned for a buy of 132; this number was reduced in

1991 to 75 and then to 20 under President Bush in 1992 and upped by President Clinton

to 21 through conversion of a training test bed to full operational capability. The combat

bomber force for the 1990s was funded to support 16 of the 20 stealthy B-2s alongside 84

of the remaining 95 conventional B-1s purchased in the 1980s and 84 of the remaining 95

B-52s built in the 1960s. The remaining bombers—above the funding line—would allow

for attrition, training, and down time for maintenance and upgrades to the fleets. James W.

Canaan, “How Many Bombers Are Enough?” Air Force Magazine, February 1994, 1, on-line,

Internet, 16 February 2001, available from http://www.afa.org/magazine/perspectives/

b2/294howma.html; and Williamson Murray, “The United States Should Begin Work on a

New Bomber Now,” Policy Analysis, 16 March 2000, 7.

14. Murray, 7.

15. Dr. Rebecca Grant, The B-2 Goes to War (Arlington, Va.: IRIS Press, 2001), 12.

16. Murray, 7.

17. Ibid. 

18. House, Independent Bomber Force Review, Lt Gen Brent Scowcroft, retired, presented

to the House National Security Committee, 23 July 1997, n.p., on-line, Internet, 11 March

2001, available from http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/970000-ibr.htm (hereinafter cited as IBFR).

19. Murray, 8.

20. Ibid.

21. Geoffrey Perret, Winged Victory: The Army Air Forces in World War II (New York: Random House, 1993), 464.

22. House, Testimony at Hearing on Tactical Aircraft Modernization before the Subcommittees on Military Procurement and Military Research of the House Committee on National

Security, Gen Joseph W. Ralston, 27 June 1996. According to his official USAF biography,

General Ralston is a command pilot, with more than 2,500 hours in the F-105D/F/G, F4C/D/E, F-16A, and F-15A/C. “Biographies,” Air Force Link, n.d., n.p., on-line, Internet, 10

June 2001, available from http://www.af.mil/news/biographies/ralston_jw.html.

23. John T. Correll, “The Bottom Down Review,” Air Force Magazine, December 1993, 1.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid., 2. Congressman Skelton is the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. He is a staunch supporter of the military and the B-2. The B-2 is based

within his district in Missouri at Whiteman AFB.

26. Ibid.

27. Ibid.

28. Seven former defense secretaries to President William J. Clinton, 4 January 1995,

Center for Security Policy, n.d., n.p., on-line, Internet, 19 February 2001, available from

http://www.security-policy.org/papers/1995/95-D1at.html.

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid.

40
32. John T. Correll, “A Message from Seven Secretaries,” Air Force Magazine, March 1995,

n.p., on-line, Internet, 13 February 2001, available from http://www.afa.org/magazine/

editorial/03edit95.html.

33. Murray, 11.

34. IBFR.

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid.

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid.

39. Gen Charles A. Horner, “What We Should Have Learned from Desert Storm, But

Didn’t,” Air Force Magazine, December 1996, 52. According to his official USAF biography,

General Horner is a command pilot with more than 5,300 hours in the F-100, F-105, F-4,

F-16, and F-15. “Biographies,” Air Force Link, n.d., n.p., on-line, Internet, 10 June 2001,

available from http://www.af.mil/news/biographies/horner_ca.html.

40. Congressman Hunter is a Republican who represents California’s 52d District

(southern California’s Imperial and San Diego counties). Southern California is heavily

vested in the defense industry and was at the time the home of Northrop Grumman’s B-2

production facilities in Pico Rivera and final assembly facilities farther west in Palmdale,

California.

41. House, Hearing of the Military Procurement Subcommittee on the House National Security Committee, 12 September 1996, n.p. Federal News Service. 

42. House, Military Procurement Subcommittee of the House National Security Committee, Military Modernization and the B-2 Bomber, testimony of Mr. Glenn Buchan, RAND analyst, 12 September 1996, n.p. Federal News Service.

43. IBFR, QDR section.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid.

46. 1998 Secretary of Defense Report to President and Congress, n.d., n.p., on-line, Internet, 12 March 2001, available from http://www.dtic.mil/execsec/adr98/chap5.html.

47. IBFR, QDR section.

48. Ibid.

49. Maj Gen (Sel) David A. Deptula is director, Air Force Quadrennial Defense Review,

Headquarters US Air Force, Washington, D.C. He is the focal point for Air Force efforts,

analysis, and articulation of aerospace power positions for the 2001 Quadrennial Defense

Review. He is a command pilot with more than 2,900 hours, including 400 combat hours,

in the F-15A/B/C/D. He was instrumental as a planner in the Instant Thunder air campaign used in Operation Desert Storm. “Biographies,” Air Force Link, n.d., n.p., on-line, Internet, 12 June 2001, available from http://www.af.mil/news/biographies/deptula_da.

html.

50. Commission on Roles and Missions, Future Bomber Force (Washington, D.C.: Aerospace Education Foundation, 1995), 10–11.

51. Dr. Rebecca Grant, The Origins of the Deep Attack Weapons Mix Study (hereinafter

cited as DAWMS) (Arlington, Va.: IRIS Independent Research, 1997), ii. Dr. Grant is an airpower advocate and a strong advocate for the B-2 and its long-range capabilities. Congressman Dicks’s district in Washington is heavily vested in the defense industry. The

Sixth Congressional District is located 30 miles south of Seattle, and it includes McChord

AFB, B-2 subcontractor Boeing Aircraft, and the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard within its

borders.

52. DAWMS, 14.

53. William S. Cohen, secretary of defense, Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review

(hereinafter cited as QDR) (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, May 1997), 11, online, Internet, 16 February 2001, available from http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/qdr/.

54. Ibid.

55. Ibid.

56. Jim Courter and Loren Thompson, “What Is the Bomber’s Role?” Defense News,

6–12 January 1997, 1–3, on-line, Internet, 12 March 2001, available from http://www.

adti.net/html_files/defense/defnews.html. Congressman Courter is highly visible within

the defense establishment as an advocate for many modern weapon systems. As a congressman, he led two rounds of the base closure commission and now heads the defense

program of the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution.

41
57. “Reengineering the Acquisition Process: An Interview with Dr. Paul G. Kaminski,

Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology,” Armed Forces Journal International, June 1997, n.p., on-line, Internet, 13 February 2001, available from http://www.

afji.com/mags/1997/June/feat_kaminski.html.

58. According to his official USAF biography, General Fogleman is a command pilot

with more than 6,500 flying hours in the T-37, T-33, F-100, F-4, F-15, F-16, A-10, C-21,

and C-141. “Biographies,” Air Force Link, n.d., n.p., on-line, Internet, 10 June 2001, available from http://www.af.mil/news/biographies/fogleman_rr.html.

59. House, Hearings before the Committee on National Security, The Quadrennial Defense Review, 16 April 1997, n.p., on-line, Internet, 12 March 2001, available from

http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/security/has160000.000/has160000_1.htm.

60. Ibid.

61. Ibid.

62. Ibid.

63. Gen Ronald R. Fogleman, chief of staff, US Air Force, “Strategic Vision and Core

Competencies,” address, Air Force Association National Symposium, Los Angeles, Calif.,

18 October 1996, Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, Ala., IRIS K239.057-

5; and on-line, Internet, 14 February 2001, available from http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/

csafafa.htm.

64. General Scowcroft spent the majority of his career in political and diplomatic posts.

He is rated as a pilot; however, after only five years of active flight duty, he pursued academic interests and can best be described as a generalist in matters of airpower. He served

as military assistant to the president in February 1972, and in August 1973 he was reassigned as deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs. He is currently

president of the Scowcroft Group, Inc., an international business consulting firm. He is

also the founder and president of the Forum for International Policy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization providing independent perspectives and opinions on major foreign policy issues. After his retirement from active duty, General Scowcroft served as assistant to

the president for national security affairs to Presidents Ford and Bush. “Biographies,” Air

Force Link, n.d., n.p., on-line, Internet, 10 June 2001, available from http://www.af.mil/

news/biographies/scowcroft_b.html and http://www.ndu.edu/ndu/nwc/Calendar/

nwc_cal_doclinks/Scowcroft_bio.htm.

65. IBFR.

66. Ibid.

67. Ibid.

68. General Welch is rated as a command pilot with more than 6,500 hours, including

combat time in the F-4 over Vietnam. He served as the vice chief of staff of the Air Force

as well as the commander of Strategic Air Command. “Biographies,” Air Force Link, on-line,

Internet, 10 June 2001, available from http://www.af.mil/news/biographies/welch_ld.

html.

69. Murray, 11.

70. House, Hearing of the Military Procurement Subcommittee of the House National Security Committee, Testimony by Gen Larry D. Welch, Long Range Airpower Report, 1 April

1998, Federal Information Systems Corporation transcript, 20–24 (hereinafter cited as

LRAP Report).

71. Congresswoman Harman is a Democrat from California’s 36th Congressional District located in the heart of Los Angeles. At the time of this testimony, she was in favor of

continued B-2 production as quoted on page 9 of the proceedings noted in the previous citation. 

72. LRAP Report, 10.

73. Ibid., 24.

74. Ibid., 22.

75. Gen Gregory S. Martin is currently the commander of USAFE and is a command

pilot with more than 3,200 flying hours in the AT-38, F-4, and F-15. He is a Vietnam combat veteran with 161 missions in the F-4 over Southeast Asia. “Biographies,” Air Force

Link, n.d., n.p., on-line, Internet, 10 June 2001, available from http://www.af.mil/news/

biographies/martin_gs.html.

76. House, Hearing of the Military Procurement Subcommittee of the House National Security Committee, Testimony by Lt Gen Gregory S. Martin, Principal Deputy Assistant Secre42
tary of the Air Force for Acquisition, 3 March 1999, “Service Aviation Modernization Plans,”

Federal Information Systems Corporation transcript.

77. Ibid.

78. Ibid.

79. Ibid.

80. Ibid.

81. Global Vigilance Reach and Power: America’s Air Force Vision 2020, with a foreword

by Gen Michael E. Ryan, chief of staff of the US Air Force and F. Whitten Peters, secretary

of the Air Force, June 2000, 5–6.

82. Ibid.

83. House, Martin testimony.

84. Air Force Vision 2020, 5–6.

85. General Jumper is currently the commander of Air Combat Command. He is a command pilot with more than 4,000 hours, including combat time in the C-7 and F-4 in Vietnam. He has flown a variety of aircraft including C-7, C-20, T-37, T-38, F-4, F-15, and F16. “Biographies,” Air Force Link, n.d., n.p., on-line, Internet, 10 June 2001, available from

http://www.af.mil/news/biographies/jumper_jp.html.

86. Gen John P. Jumper, “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged

by Experience,” Aerospace Power Journal, Spring 2001, 30; and “ACC Chief to Unveil

‘Global Strike Task Force’ Concept Next Week,” Inside the Air Force, 9 February 2001, 1,

on-line, Internet, 10 February 2001, available from http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/

airchronicles/apj/apj01/spr01/spr01.html.

87. Jumper, 27.

88. Ibid.

89. Murray, 1, 5.

90. As translated from German Lehre Ziehen in original German printing of Clausewitz,

On War (Vom Kriege).

43
Chapter 4

Case Studies in Global Power

Air strategy begins with airplane ranges. Airplane ranges determine the location

of bases. The proximity to the target of the bases under one’s control fixes the

weight and rhythm of the attack.

—Gen Carl A. “Tooey” Spaatz

Use of Case History

to Assess Global Power Assumptions

Experience is a cruel teacher. States that err in judgment and pursue policies of war are ill equipped to implement leave as spoils lessons about the

miscalculation of “ultimate possibilities” and “immediate probabilities.”1 Airpower history of the last 30 years provides many examples of global power in

practice. Some of these cases reveal means that did not meet the ends of

strategy. In many of the cases “human spirit” and ingenuity filled the gap between the means required and those available to make it happen. In some

cases, the lack of capability in force structure resulted in increased risk and

losses for the forces involved. The case studies that follow inform the debate

on global power forces. They suggest that faulty assumptions may result in

a force structure that mortgages too much risk.

As the previous chapter detailed, Air Force global power strategy and

force structure is focused on deploying expeditionary force as the means

of projecting power globally. Assumptions were made to justify the paths

of acquisition and force structure to support an expeditionary force. 

In addition to testing the efficacy of assumptions, historical evidence

should be scrutinized to determine if it is relevant. Context is important.

The case studies chosen challenge some of the assumptions about the application of airpower in an expeditionary manner. 

The case studies range from small-scale operations like Operation Desert

Strike in 1996 to the major theater war, by British standards, in the Falklands in 1982. Operation Eldorado Canyon in 1986 and Operation Nickel

Grass in 1973 are also used as small-scale applications of global power. All

of the cases shed light on the difficulties of employing force at long ranges.

They are presented in chronological order, starting with Operation Nickel

Grass.

Operation Nickel Grass—1973 Yom Kippur War

Unfortunately, the Military Airlift Command could not even use established

United States bases in England, Germany, Spain, Turkey or Greece. The problem

45
was that the Arabs had another weapon which they were learning to use well. It

was oil. Any nation helping Israel would not get any.

—Kenneth L. Patchin

—Flight to Israel

For generations to come, all will be told of the miracle of the immense planes from

the United States bringing in the material that meant life to our people.

—Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir

Operation Nickel Grass was the code name for the major airlift operation the United States undertook to resupply Israel during the 1973

Arab–Israeli war. This operation highlights the problems for global power

when there is a lack of forward basing, a lack of support from allied and

coalition partners for overflight, and a force structure that is not trained

for long-range operations.

Background

On 6 October 1973, Egyptian and Syrian forces launched a two-front

attack on Israel. As Egyptian forces crossed the Suez Canal and pounded

Israeli positions in the Sinai Desert, Syrian forces to the east attacked the

Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The Arab objective was to regain territory

lost to Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War.2 While the actual attack itself did

not come as a surprise to Israel or the West, the ferocity, coordination of

effort, improved technology, and mass the Egyptians and Syrians brought

to the fight caught both off guard.3 In a short period, the Egyptians secured both banks of the Suez, moved their air defenses forward, and dug

into defensive positions. In the east, the situation was more precarious

because there was less room to give. The Syrians initially recaptured the

Golan Heights; but by the end of the first week, Israeli forces, through a

massive effort, advanced 10 miles inside Syria.4 Although both fronts had

stabilized, the losses accumulated were huge for each side. A war of attrition—the type of war Israel could not afford to fight logistically, economically, politically, or socially—loomed.

Diplomatically, the United States attempted to get the Russians to agree to

mutual restraint in weapons deliveries and instead to use their influence to

bring about a cease-fire. Unfortunately, four days after the war started, the

Soviets began an airlift of replacement parts and ammunition for their allies,

Egypt and Syria.5 Israel, badly outnumbered from the start and pushed back

from their defensive positions along the east bank of the Suez Canal, had

suffered its “worst military setback in the country’s short existence.”6 Israel

looked to its only ally for logistical assistance. The urgent message sent from

Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir stipulated that “the war’s outcome would

be in doubt if Israel did not receive help soon.”7 The United States considered

the use of shipping to resupply the Israelis, who had less than a two-week

supply of ammunition remaining; however, the shipping time of 12–14 days

would not provide help in time. The speed required and the desperate nature

of the situation made airpower the only solution. On 14 October 1973, USAF

46
began Operation Nickel Grass with C-5s and C-141s moving cargo from the

United States to Israel in about 18 hours flying time (see map titled Operation Nickel Grass Routing).8 When the operation ended 32 days later, US aircraft had airlifted roughly 22,300 tons of supplies to Israel.9 While US airlift

had experience flying long distances to support operations, this was the “first

time that the men and machines of the strategic airlift force were called upon

to virtually go it alone.”10

47

TEL AVIV TEL AVIV

MCGUIRE AFB

ATLANTIC

OCEAN

LAJES FIELD,

AZORES

DOVER AFB DOVER AFB

CHARLESTON AFB

Operation Nickel Grass Routing

Problem

The primary obstacle for an efficient US airlift operation was the lack of

allied support. The lack of forward basing and overflight rights along the

preferred Great Circle route meant that the airlift crews had to make a

more lengthy transit at lower latitude across the Atlantic, using the

Azores as a refueling stop. Along this route, the transit from domestic

American bases to Tel Aviv averaged 6,450 miles. The leg from the United

States to the Azores depended upon the point of departure on the East

Coast, but it was roughly equal to the Azores to Tel Aviv leg of 3,300 nautical miles (NM).11 Throughput was limited due to the nature of the cargo

and the distance between refueling stops. The dense ammunition and the

additional fuel required to make the trip along the nonoptimal routing

usually meant that aircraft weight limits were reached before the internal

volume capacity of most of the transports was filled.

With the Azores as the only refueling point for east and west transit, it

was, as Gen Paul K. Carlton, commander in chief of Military Airlift Command (MAC) warned, “only a matter of time until we are going to get bottled up on one base out there.”12 Unfortunately, even without cargo on the

return trip, C-5s and C-141s fully loaded with fuel could not make the

trip west from Tel Aviv to the United States if, as was most often the case,

the prevailing headwinds were greater than 35 knots.13 Efforts to gain access to US bases in Europe, including mainland Portugal, to support even

the empty westbound trips home met with rejection. Spain’s large Arab
population drove its vehement opposition to the use of any Spanish airfields, “in even the most insignificant way,” to support Israel.14

The need for alternate bases became critical. General Carlton was

aware that the crosswinds at Lajes were prone to going out of limits for

several hours at a time. If this happened, it would prohibit takeoffs and

require inbound aircraft—that would not have enough fuel to return to the

United States or Israel—to divert to alternate bases. He noted that if this

situation occurred, inbound aircraft from the east and west would be

forced to divert; and because the choices of options to the aircrews were

limited, there would rapidly be “14 aircraft at Torrejon [Spain]” and “then

you would really have some diplomatic problems.”15 It was fortunate that

the only day the winds actually went out of limits was on the first planned

day of the airlift. This caused a weather hold on the commencement of the

operations from the United States. However, once Operation Nickel Grass

started, the winds at Lajes remained favorable. 

The lack of basing, as well as anxiety over what to do if an emergency

required an aircraft to divert as it traveled from Lajes to Tel Aviv, caused

General Carlton to warn, “I just can’t impress upon you the weak reed we

are leaning on here.” Unfortunately, the problem of alternate bases was

not only out of the Air Force’s hands, it was out of DOD’s hands as well.

On 15 October 1973, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger outlined the policy for the use of alternates. The United States would not ask for permission but would rely on established international procedures already in

place for aircraft in distress to land at the nearest suitable field.16 It was

much easier to deal with the problem in this manner than to risk refusal

upon asking permission. This left the crews in a precarious position on

the trip from Lajes to Tel Aviv should an emergency require them to divert. 

To accomplish this mission, 36 C-141s and six C-5s flew daily to Tel Aviv.

This meant that the crews and support in the Azores had to handle a “combined east-west flow of 72 C-141 and 12 C-5 flights daily.”17 Had the return

trips flowed through a different forward base, the throughput to Israel using

the same amount of effort at the Azores might have been doubled.

General Carlton proposed a solution to the problem of forward basing by

in-flight refueling the C-5s. He proposed sending the C-5s all the way to Tel

Aviv by refueling them as they left the East Coast of the United States. Planning the route to overfly the Azores would ensure a divert option if in-flight

refueling proved too difficult for the crews.18 This option was not pursued for

several reasons. First, only 19 crews were trained and proficient in this difficult task at the time of Operation Nickel Grass.19 Unfortunately, this number of crews would not satisfy the mission requirements. Gen Thomas Wade,

vice chief of staff of the Air Force, felt that in-flight refueling of the C-5 was

“too marginal a capability” and provided “too little gain for crews.”20 In addition, General Wade was concerned that it would “demonstrate that it [the

USAF] could go nonstop with refueled airplanes, [and] the United States

might lose the use of the Azores,” which it needed for other missions.21

48
The C-5 could have flown directly from the United States to Tel Aviv without in-flight refueling or stopping at Lajes to refuel on the ground. However,

this option sacrificed cargo for fuel and would have reduced the planned 80

tons of cargo per planeload to only 20 tons. In addition, as already noted, the

C-5s lacked the fuel capacity to make the return trip west without favorable

winds on a direct flight from Tel Aviv to the United States. Even if the C-5

could have made the round trip, the reduced cargo load would have upped

the required sorties from 145 to 500 to accomplish the same amount of lift—

numbers that just did not add up with the force of C-5s and crews available.22

Answer

Although there were many obstacles to supporting Israel, the United

States could cobble together the capability to accomplish the mission. The

political and diplomatic pressures applied by the Arab nations and NATO

allies unwilling to support the US action further aggravated the inherent

difficulties presented by the physical limits and capabilities of the available force structure.

Had Portugal not allowed the United States access to the Azores, the

airlift operation would have been impossible.23 The Portuguese could

withstand an oil embargo by the Arab states because they imported twice

their daily need from their West African territory of Angola.24 “In yielding,

Portugal considered the American utilization of the Azores as use for

NATO defense and simply looked the other way as far as Israel’s support

was concerned.”25 For its part, the United States made promises of concessions to Portugal concerning foreign aid legislation.26 Additionally, the

existing agreement for the United States to use Lajes Field was due to expire in February 1974. Allowing the United States to use Lajes for Operation Nickel Grass secured a degree of leverage for the upcoming renewal

agreement and the anticipated revenue it would provide.27

With only one forward operating base, the United States began to move

supplies to Israel. The initial plan had called for US aircraft to move material

to the Azores where Israeli commercial aircraft would then transport it the

rest of the way to Tel Aviv. However, due to limited Israeli cargo capability,

the decision was made to take the material all the way to Tel Aviv; and this

required the United States to plan a route through the Mediterranean Sea.

Within the Mediterranean, NATO allies refused to allow overflight of any sovereign land masses, forcing MAC crews to take a zigzag path—as seen in the

map titled Routing through the Mediterranean—through the region to ensure compliance while avoiding more hostile Arab-controlled airspace.28

The route through the Mediterranean Sea exposed American aircrews to

potentially hostile Arab airpower. The crews flew past Morocco, whose troops

were in the Golan Heights. They also passed by Algeria and Libya, both of

whom were anti-United States. Algeria actually had MAC aircraft under

radar coverage throughout their transit and air defense fighters on strip

alert. The MAC crews also had to contend with the two active belligerents,

Egypt and Syria. Both had radar coverage of the Mediterranean Sea, inter49
50

SPAIN

MOROCCO ALGERIA

EGYPT

SYRIA

USSR

LIBYA

3,163 MILES

TUNISIA

ROTA

ZARAGOZA

AVIANO

NAPLES

SIGONELLA

ATHENS

INCIRLIK

TEL AVIV

MAC Flight Route

Routing through the Mediterranean

cept forces armed with air-to-air missiles, and ballistic surface-to-surface

missiles that could range US aircraft on the ground in Tel Aviv.29

The US Navy supported the airlift operation in a unique way. Two US

Navy carrier battle groups, the USS Independence and the USS Roosevelt,

took up positions in the Mediterranean Sea to provide air cover and early

warning along the North African coast.30 This air cover protected the airlift crews from potential hostile intervention and established a US presence to respond to threats.

The MAC crews successfully moved material along this route despite

many distractions. Most significant were the multitude of foreign air traffic

controllers of various nationalities that attempted to put the MAC aircrews

on standard air routes through the Mediterranean to prevent conflicts with

other traffic. This became a problem as many of the routings passed over the

territory of NATO allies who had refused overflight.31 While this problem was

overcome by administrative action, crews were also harassed by numerous

air-to-air intercepts, jamming, and false radio calls.32

Both fair weather and aircraft reliability helped make the airlift a success. Only once did an aircraft emergency require a landing at a “diplomatically” closed airfield. On this occasion, a stuck gear door required a

C-5 crew to divert to Incirlik, Turkey. In what became the standard procedure for this situation, the Turks demanded that the aircraft not proceed to Israel from Turkey once the problem was rectified. Instead, any

aircraft landing at a nonparticipating base would have to return to Lajes

and then reattempt its mission to Israel. Aircraft on the westbound route
home, once repaired, could continue back to the United States.33 Fortunately, Turkey did not take more overt measures. NATO seemed satisfied

to appear noncooperative to the Arab oil-producing states. 

The first relief landed at 10:01 P.M. on 14 October 1973—a C-5A

touched down at Lod Airport, Tel Aviv, Israel, with 97 tons of ammunition.

A cease-fire was issued on 26 October, but the airlift continued until the

afternoon of 14 November. Over the 32 days of the airlift operation, 567

missions flew into Lod—delivering nearly 22,300 tons of equipment, ammunition, and relief supplies.34

In Operation Nickel Grass, US global power—in the form of airlift—

moved material halfway around the world to support an ally. While the

United States had done missions of this type in Vietnam, the Middle East

mission highlights the difficulties of executing global power missions without allied support, forward basing, or overflight rights. It also points to

questions for the future when adversaries adopt similar economic and political measures to thwart US intervention in their regional affairs. 

Contextual Inferences

This particular case study is especially enlightening when the full context of the Cold War is taken into account. In 1973 American air, ground,

and naval forces were deployed at bases throughout Europe, Asia, and the

Middle East to deter Soviet aggression at the height of the Cold War.35

Having these bases provided the opportunity for the United States to project power throughout the region. It came as a shock to US leaders that,

with the exception of Portugal, none of their NATO allies allowed the use

of any of these forward operating locations. It was only because the Portuguese allowed the use of the Azores as a refueling stop that the United

States could come to the aid of Israel.36 While the Soviets conducted an

airlift operation to resupply the Arab nations involved in the conflict, no

other NATO allies were motivated to assist the United States in its aid to

Israel. The Arab threat of an oil embargo against any country that helped

Israel convinced the remaining NATO allies to act in their own self-interest and refuse American access to any part of the region.37 In addition, the

United States used naval assets to provide early warning and defensive

counterair, as US aircraft based in Europe could not participate. This regional confrontation had global implications with both Cold War opponents facing each other through proxy; however, from a regional perspective, none of the NATO allies were willing to risk their economic security

to back the American use of global power to ensure the survival of Israel. 

An unpublished RAND analysis indicated that 72 percent of the 421 C-141

missions to Israel during Operation Nickel Grass were limited by cargo

weight. One factor was the high density of the ammunition cargo. But the

most important reason for limiting cargo weight was the requirement to carry

additional fuel for the nonoptimal routing through the Azores. The RAND re51
search noted that if the C-141 had an in-flight refueling capability, each sortie could have delivered 20 percent more ammunition.38

As a result of this experience, General Carlton “championed air refueling

as a normal operational procedure for strategic transports.” He argued that

the advantages would include “more rapid worldwide response capability,

heavier cargoes, shorter closure times, reduced risk of terrorism, and reduced requirements for overseas base support.”39 As an institution, USAF

learned from its shortfalls and pushed for improvements in its force structure to bring more capability to the airlift fleet. With Operation Nickel Grass

as a catalyst, MAC placed higher emphasis on in-flight refueling training for

C-5 crews; and all were subsequently trained in this task.40 Operation Nickel

Grass also highlighted the need for in-flight refueling for all airlift aircraft.

This capability was added to the C-141B in addition to 23 feet of cargo space

when the fleet was “stretched” to increase range and cargo capacity.41 Operation Nickel Grass also provided the impetus to purchase a tanker with

longer range and off-load capacity. The KC-10 was developed in response to

this need. It would off-load twice as much fuel as the KC-135 and also “extend” its own range as an in-flight refueling receiver.42

The benefits of these force structure modifications were realized in October 1993 during Operation Restore Hope II. In this airlift operation, KC10 and KC-135s refueled C-141s and C-5s during 8,000-mile direct flights

from the United States to Somalia. Tankers based in England, Spain,

Greece, and the United States provided fuel as the airlift moved across the

Atlantic Ocean into the Mediterranean and through the Red Sea to Somalia.43 Air Mobility Command met the challenge of coordinating airlift and

in-flight refueling to compensate for the lack of available forward operating locations along the route of flight. Unlike the Israeli airlift in 1973, this

humanitarian relief effort benefited from international support of the US

airlift in forward basing and overflight rights. However, even in 1993—20

years after the need for increased capability to perform in-flight refueling

was identified and the force structure was altered to achieve it—shortages

of C-5 and C-141 crews trained in aerial refueling “threatened the efficiency of the operation” in Somalia.44

Force structure debates should thus consider the limitations the United

States experienced in Operation Nickel Grass. The mission will not always

conform to our resources. Therefore, the United States must look to ways

to better enable the forces it has to perform their missions. Global power

is limited by range, and in-flight refueling can enable global power. It can

also extend the range of combat aircraft. This case study suggests that a

long-range tanker can have great utility in a similar scenario. In addition,

the political and diplomatic problems of securing forward basing and overflight rights, even with our closest allies, should be considered when developing strategy. Finally, it appears that any increase in air-to-air refueling capability of the lift fleet should be matched by commensurate

transport and off-load capability in the tanking fleet.

52
British Vulcan Bomber Attacks

on the Falkland Islands—1982

What was most bizarre—and dangerous—about this mission, code-named Black

Buck, was that it involved flying some 3900 miles over the South Atlantic, to find

and bomb a single runway, when the normal range of the aircraft was just 1700

miles; and with not one alternative airfield available for emergency landings or

refueling, except possibly Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

—“First Strike: Vulcan and Harriers Hit Stanley”

—Falklands War

The difficulties of the long-range missions and the arduous obstacles

the British had to overcome to fight a determined enemy showcase how

distance can increase friction and liability in warfare—both compounded

by a lack of allies and forward operating locations. For airpower, the Falklands campaign highlights the limitations and problems of relying on a

strategy of global power without an entirely capable long-range force.

Background

In 1982 conflicting claims over the Falkland Islands, which lie 400 miles

off the coast of Argentina, became a test of national will and credibility for

the belligerents involved. Great Britain, whose seat of power lay more than

8,000 miles away, had colonized and populated the archipelago and was the

internationally recognized—though disputed—sovereign of the island chain.

Argentina had a long-standing historical territorial claim to the Falkland Islands or, as they referred to them, the “Malvinas Islands.” The Argentine government pushed its claim of sovereignty to distract attention from sour domestic and political issues and enhance its credibility.45

The Argentines invaded in April 1982 and removed the small British marine garrison and colonial government. Britain felt compelled to respond militarily as a matter of national sovereignty and global credibility. The difficulties the British faced in liberating the colony from the Argentines were

daunting. The distances were indeed global, and the United Kingdom was

forced to fight its way into the area of operations to employ its forces. For the

British, this was a major theater war. It required the recall of marine and

paratroop forces from Easter leave, the modification of civilian ships for military transport and flight operations, and deployment of the majority of its

naval fleet to protect the task force on the 8,000-mile trip to the Falklands

and to sustain combat operations.46 In addition, the Falkland Islands War

“was the first time a Western Fleet had encountered mass air opposition in

the jet age”47 (see map titled Falkland Islands War Global Distances).

Problem

The British had two operational goals for airpower: (1) protect the

British fleet from air attack and (2) provide close air support for the

marines as they went ashore.48 Neither side obtained total air superiority

over the battlefield, and this lack of air superiority was “a contributing fac53
54

FALKLAND

ISLANDS

UNITED

KINGDOM

ARGENTINA

FALKLAND ISLANDS

SOUTH GEORGIA

SOUTH SAND SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS WICH ISLANDS

ASCENSION ISLAND

All distances quoted are in statute miles

400 mi

3,750 mi

Nimrod 2,200 mi

Hercules 1,900 mi

Vulcan 1,400 mi

Phantom 525 mi

Harrier 475 mi

Unfueled radii of action

Vulcan, Nimrod, and

Hercules refueled

radii of action

during the campaign

4,225 mi

Rio Grande

Super

Entendard

460 mi

Skyhawk

575 mi

Mirage

625 mi

Unrefueled maximum radii of action

Falkland Islands War Global Distances

tor in the loss of five British ships.”49 The Argentine strategy was to destroy British ships. Because the Argentines operated over the Falklands

at the extreme of their aircraft range, the limited loiter time available over

the target drove them to attack British troops while massed at sea rather
than waiting for them to come ashore and disperse. The intent was to

raise the cost to the British and force them to withdraw or negotiate.50

The British faced several obstacles in this scenario. The limited numbers

of British carrier-based Sea Harrier aircraft had a range of just over 475

miles. The Argentines attacked the British fleet by air from the Argentine

mainland, 400 miles from the Falklands, and from the airfield at Port Stanley on the Falklands. This small strip at Port Stanley could not handle the

larger Argentine jets; and, fortunately for the British, the Argentines did not

lengthen this runway to extend the range of their A-4s, Mirages, and Super

Entendards after they invaded.51 Consequently, the more capable aircraft

within the Argentine Air Force faced the British fleet at sea at the extent of

their nonrefueled combat radius.52 The Argentines did refuel their Super Entendards during the highly coordinated Exocet attacks on British shipping.

Using their Neptune aircraft for sea surveillance and early warning, the Argentines located the British fleet and scrambled their Exocet-loaded Super

Entendards. They refueled them in flight with their KC-130 aircraft to extend

their range and reach the British fleet.53 Once the British fleet closed within

Harrier range of the Falklands, the Argentines were able to reach the British

fleet in nonrefueled attacks from Rio Grande using their A-4 aircraft armed

with unguided conventional bombs.54

British losses were heavy. Of the 38 warships, 51 merchants, tugs, liners,

and other ships deployed, six were lost and eight were damaged.55 Five of the

lost ships were warships, while the other—the Atlantic Conveyor—held critical supplies for the ground war.56 The eight damaged ships were fortunate

that the majority of hits came from unguided conventional bombs that did

not detonate on impact. The HMS Antelope, hit by one such dud, later sank

when efforts to diffuse the bomb failed.57 Exocets launched from 20 to 30

miles away provided an asymmetric means for the Argentines to complicate

British access to the region. In just two attacks by air, Exocets sank the destroyer HMS Sheffield and the cargo ship Atlantic Conveyor.

58 Fortunately for

the British, the Argentines had only five of the air-launched versions of this

missile.59 Using $200,000 weapons to sink $40-million-dollar ships like the

Sheffield provided a cost-efficient way for a third-world country to counter a

rival it could not match dollar for dollar.60

The British were in the process of downsizing their navy in both numbers and capability, which left them ill equipped to defend the fleet they

sent to the Falklands. The last big deck carrier of the fleet air arm, the

HMS Ark Royal, had just been scrapped; its long-range fighter-bombers—

F-4 Phantoms and Buccaneers—had been sent to the RAF; and, most

costly, its Fairey Gannet airborne early warning aircraft had been mothballed.61 This left the British fleet vulnerable to attack. The smaller carriers, HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible, carried limited numbers of shortrange Sea Harriers. These aircraft, with their limited range and without

early warning, could not provide an air umbrella over the fleet. The British

used a defense-in-depth of screening ships with surface radars, Sea Harriers, short and medium ship-to-air missiles, and antiaircraft guns to de55
fend the fleet. However, most of the missile systems were designed for selfdefense and could not provide a picket defense for the large task force.62

Consequently, the British, in spite of their numbers and superior technology, remained vulnerable to air attack.63 The limited numbers of Sea

Harriers for interception patrols coupled with the lack of early warning

aircraft guaranteed that the first major air battles of the conflict witnessed

many of the intercepts occurring right over the British fleet.64

Neutralizing the Argentine air threat was a major concern for the heads

of both the British army and the Royal Air Force (RAF).65 The easiest way

to counter this threat was to attack the Argentine airfields on the mainland, but the British could not attack the mainland without exposing the

fleet to attack from land-based aircraft. Air Chief Marshal Sir Michael

Beetham, head of the RAF, considered using Vulcan bombers to attack the

Argentine airfields closest to the Falklands. Logistically, however, the

8,000-mile round trip would take 17 in-flight refueling tankers to get just

one bomber from Ascension Island to the target and back. Since the Vulcan lacked laser-guidance systems, at least four bombers carrying gravity

bombs would be required to ensure adequate coverage of a single airfield.

Constrained by limited ramp space at Ascension and limited numbers of

Victor tankers and crews, Vulcans could not be justified as cost effective

or realistic.66 However, the airfield at Port Stanley presented a scenario

where one aircraft putting one bomb on target might be enough.67 One

Vulcan bomber could potentially deny the Argentines the use of the field

for its Pucara aircraft as well as the C-130 transports resupplying the island. “Most significantly, [it would] also give the Argentinian garrison

something to think about.”68 Attacking Port Stanley, however, would not

give the British air superiority or prevent the Argentines from attacking

the British fleet. In fact, even after two Vulcan attacks and numerous attacks made by Harriers and Sea Harriers, the British were unsuccessful

in preventing Argentine operations from Port Stanley during the war.69

Answer: Operation Black Buck

The Vulcan missions to the Falklands were code-named Black Buck. The

range and capabilities of the British Vulcan bomber and Victor tanker force

were stretched to the absolute limit in performing these missions. The

British-built Vulcan bomber was originally designed as a medium-range nuclear bomber to support NATO and had a limited range of 1,700 miles. To

use it in this conflict, the British had to refurbish the 25-year-old Vulcan’s

internal air-refueling equipment and retrain its crews in air-refueling procedures.70 The length of the mission, the fuel capacity of the bombers, and the

fuel capacity and range of British Victor tankers created an air-refueling

scheme (shown in fig. 1) that was graphically and operationally complex. 

Flying from Ascension Island, the British used 11 tankers (which included two spares) and 17 in-flight refuelings to enable the Vulcan

bomber to make the 7,732 NM round trip.71 The limited fuel capacity of

56
the Victor tanker fleet meant that to accomplish the mission, tankers

would refuel tankers to provide fuel to the attacking Vulcan at various

points along the mission route. Although the British asked the United

57

First Wave Second Wave

Reserves Victors Primary Victor Reserve Victors

Vulcan

Fuel Transfers

Return Flight

Two Victor tankers and a

Nimrod fly from Ascension

to recover Vulcan.

Vulcan bombs Stanley Airfield

Ascension Island to Stanley Airfield, 3,750 miles

Figure 1. Operation Black Buck Refueling Plan

States for in-flight refueling support from KC-135 Stratotankers, President Reagan permitted only limited American actions. Military supplies

were offered to Great Britain and sanctions, both military and economic,
were imposed against Argentina. No American personnel were involved in

direct support of hostile actions.72

The Vulcan missions flown during the war were, at the time, the longest

combat bombing sorties in the history of warfare.73 Black Buck missions

were successfully executed on five out of seven attempts. The first Black

Buck mission attacked the runway at Port Stanley. This “silver bullet” carried 21 unguided 1,000 lb bombs and released them from medium altitude.74 While this mission did manage to crater the runway at Port Arthur,

it was soon repaired; and resupply flights came in and out regularly

throughout the war.75 The results of the remaining four missions were

minor compared to the enormous effort expended to get the Vulcan

bombers to the fight. Black Buck 2 also targeted the airfield at Port Stanley and missed with all 21 of its 1,000 lb bombs. Black Buck 5, the next

mission to successfully strike, launched two US-provided Shrike antiradiation missiles against a radar early warning facility and caused minor

damage. Black Buck 6 flew a similar mission profile and destroyed the fire

control radar for an antiaircraft battery. Last, Black Buck 7 attacked the

facilities at Port Stanley with 21 1,000 lb bombs.76 While the British effort

was admirable, it revealed the inadequacies of RAF in-flight refueling

tankers, bombers, and laser-guided bomb technology for conducting longrange, precision conventional strikes.

Contextual Inferences

Many global power issues complicated the British fight for the Falkland

Islands. Availability of forward operating locations, lack of allied support,

denial of access, and the limits of British technology were all factors that

complicated the British ability to fight this major theater war. While the

British eventually overwhelmed the Argentines and gained a military advantage from the sea, their land-based third-world opponent held an

asymmetric airpower advantage due to its shorter logistics trail and the

vulnerability of the British fleet to attack. The real enemy for the British

was the distance their forces had to travel to engage the enemy. The

British could not concentrate airpower from long range to affect the battle for air superiority over their own forces on land and sea. The Argentines, on the other hand, conducted an effective denial-of-access campaign and successfully sank five British ships. 

It is arguable that while “the Vulcans accomplished little tactically,

they did have an important psychological effect because the Argentines

were made to believe that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

could lose her patience and order the bomber strikes against mainland

targets.”77 While that may be the case, it is also necessary to point out

that British long-range airpower was ineffective in overcoming the obstacles of projecting power. It is also relevant to point out that the

British ability to project force and influence events from the sea was ac58
tively denied by a third-world power using high-technology missiles in

combination with airpower. 

The Vulcan bombers and Victor tankers were not designed for the

range of these missions. However, the problems the British faced in

gaining access to the Falklands and denying the runway at Port Arthur

to the Argentines was not lost on their after-action analysis. In the minister for defence’s report to Parliament after the war, air-to-air refueling was noted as

[V]ital in supporting operations at long range. In the operations from the Ascension Island, the relatively small amount of fuel carried by the Victor tanker

aircraft resulted in a large proportion of the available tanker force being used

for each Vulcan, Nimrod [sea surveillance], and Hercules [C-130 transport] sortie. Large capacity strategic tanker aircraft are needed to provide greater operational flexibility in the future (emphasis added).78

The report recommended the “purchase of wide-bodied tankers which

will considerably enhance the capacity of the Royal Air Force’s tanker

force and will be a significant force multiplier for all the Royal Air Force’s

combat aircraft.”79 In addition, following the war British Vulcan bombers

slated for retirement were converted to in-flight refueling tankers to fill the

gap in refueling capability identified after the Falkland Islands War.80

The British did not have the ability to gain access to this theater without exposing their fleet to attack and potentially large losses. Long-range

airpower was required to establish air superiority. The long-range forces

available were unable to contribute to the British objectives of protecting

its fleet at sea and its troops on shore from attack. This war reveals the

price a nation may pay to gain access to a region without forward basing,

without allied support, with an enemy that actively denies access, and

without technology capable of surmounting these obstacles.

This case study suggests that long-range airpower and tanker support

aircraft capable of supporting missions over long distances and without

forward basing should be a focus for a nation that accepts the proposition

that their adversaries will attempt to deny them access to their region. It

also suggests that in situations without forward basing for ground troops

and land-based aviation, having those forces afloat presents a large, visible, and vulnerable target for an adversary to attack. Depending on the

technology available, an enemy may be able to deter action from the sea

simply by having a credible capability to attack shipping with air- or surface-launched missiles. In this particular case, the British could not

achieve air superiority, and it cost them dearly. Long-range aviation might

achieve better effects against similar targets with standoff and precisionguided munitions. In situations such as this, where forward basing is not

available, long-range aviation may be the only means to provide force protection for forward deploying troops and ships against an adversary such

as the one the British faced in the Falkland Islands War.

59
Operation Eldorado Canyon—

US Raid on Libya, 1986

When our citizens are abused or attacked, anywhere in the world, on the direct

orders of a hostile regime—we will respond, so long as I am in the Oval Office.

—President Ronald W. Reagan 

—Address to the Nation on Libya

—14 April 1986

When the United States is a target for terrorism, it must be prepared to

act to ensure its regional and global credibility and defend its interests.

Acting unilaterally, even when surrounded by allies, may be necessary

again in the future. This case study reveals the political nature of allied

support in the use of global power. Gaining support in Europe to use military force against Libya was intertwined with the regional and internal

politics of the many European states. The desires of the United States to

act against a regional aggressor were balanced not only by US political

motivations but also by the internal machinations of all the European allies. For the United States to act in its own interests without allied support, it must have a capable independent force structure. Building force

structure that is dependent on allies for its use may reduce its utility in

operations below major theater war. This case study reveals the difficult

nature of gaining allied support for military action at the lower ends of the

spectrum of conflict where the lines between politics, regional interests,

regional security, and military action blur according to the vision of those

involved and their own local politics. 

Background

Since President Reagan took office in 1981, the United States had used

military, economic, and diplomatic actions against Libya as a means to discourage its support of terrorism. Because of Libya’s continued support of terrorism, US relations with Libya were completely broken off in January

1986.81

President Reagan adopted a policy in April 1984, National Security Decision Directive 138, which stated in principle that the United States

would act preemptively and in retaliation against terrorists.82 State-sponsored terrorism is a difficult crime to prove and prosecute due to its very

nature. In order to act, the United States required solid evidence that a

state was actively engaged in sponsoring terrorism against America. If the

United States was going to convince its allies to take a large-scale military

action against Libya, the “US needed to make public some solid evidence

of an anti-American act by Libyan President Moammar Qaddafi in as

short a time as possible.”83 The opportunity presented itself after the

bombing of the La Belle discotheque nightclub in West Berlin on 5 April

1986. The bombing of this popular spot among US service members killed

one US soldier and a Turkish woman while injuring 230 others, including

50 American military personnel.84

60
President Reagan was determined that the United States “would act

with others if possible, and alone if necessary, to ensure that terrorists

have no sanctuary anywhere.”85 The direct link to Libya was established

by US intelligence and enabled the president to authorize air strikes

against Libya. American intelligence intercepted a message from Qaddafi

ordering an attack on Americans “to cause maximum and indiscriminate

casualties.”86 Another communications source, an intercepted Libyan

message, outlined the attack planned and executed in West Berlin. The

final piece of evidence was the report after the attack from Berlin to Tripoli

by the Libyan-sponsored terrorist unit, the Libyan People’s Bureau, exalting the “great success” of the mission.87 While sufficient for the United

States to act, this evidence was not as compelling to our NATO allies in

the region to gain their support for military action. In essence, allied support became the obstacle for the use of global power against Libya.

Problem

US attempts to gain support for measures to isolate and punish Libya

throughout Europe met with little success. The United States found that

its European allies were unwilling to support what the United States believed was a logical and just military strike. The international behavior of

the European allies was heavily flavored by domestic concerns on the part

of governments and individual leaders. In order to support actions against

terrorism, a state, its government, and its leadership all have to weigh the

long- and short-term impact of taking action. Political and domestic capital, much like economic capital, has a wide audience in any state when

it is spent. Regardless of the “righteousness of the cause,” each nation had

to consider its own economic, political, and internal interests. These interests dictated the level that the heads of state or governments could

align themselves with interests outside of the state. For each state there

was an internal domestic price as well as an external security price for

alignment with the United States. In the end, each European ally made its

decision based on its own interests.

The United States worked hard to gain allied support. Why the United

States chose not to act unilaterally with the naval assets it already had in

the region is a matter of debate. It is arguable that the United States

wanted to include other European allies to legitimize its actions politically.88 After the raid it became apparent that “US military action had a

central role in galvanizing the allies to adopt positions that were markedly

closer to those of the United States.”89 Regardless of motive, the United

States argued to its allies that in order to achieve tactical surprise it was

necessary to hit all of the planned targets at the same time. In addition,

the United States argued that to limit collateral damage and risk to US

aircrews, precision weapons must be used. At that time the only aircraft

in the US inventory capable of conducting a precision night attack were

the Navy’s A-6 and the Air Force’s F-111F.90 The Navy had two carriers in

61
the Mediterranean, USS America and USS Coral Sea, and each had 10 A6 aircraft. However, this was not enough aircraft to hit all five targets at

once.91 The Navy could have hit the targets on successive attacks, but that

would have exposed the fleet and the aircraft to a fully alerted air defense

network during the second attack wave. This prompted military strategists to explore using F-111Fs in conjunction with the A-6s. The closest

F-111Fs in the theater belonged to the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing at RAF

Lakenheath in the United Kingdom.92 Using the F-111Fs added a layer of

complexity and coordination to the mission as it became a joint Navy–Air

Force operation. Gaining permission from the British for the use of Lakenheath and coordinating the strike routing over France and/or Spain to

the target rapidly became the focus of this global power effort. 

While domestic and economic concerns played a role, the difficulty in

obtaining allied support can also be described as a cultural confrontation

between the United States and Europe. While the United States was an

activist in global affairs, “Western Europeans were more accustomed to

coexisting with unpleasant neighbors.”93 The firsthand experience of Europeans with domestic terrorism has made them “wary of American appeals to uproot a phenomenon that has shown considerable resistance.”94

The British have had to contend with the Irish Republican Army, the

Spanish with Basque separatists, the Germans with the Red Army Faction, and the Italians with the Red Brigade. In fact, one unidentified

French diplomat summed up the European view as “We accept the idea

that some loss of life, at home and abroad, is and will continue to be a fact

of life, however wasteful and tragic.”95 If war is a continuation of politics

by other means, this case study reveals the multipolar nature of those politics when they involve an alliance. Eldorado Canyon also reveals the difficulty of gaining access to forward basing and overflight rights even in regions where the United States already has a large presence and the

impact that can have on the application of global power.

Answer

Initially, the British objected to US military action. In a New York Times

article dated 11 January 1986, Prime Minister Thatcher is quoted as

speaking out against possible US retaliatory strikes against Libya, “warning that such strikes were ‘against international law.’”96 To gain her approval to use the F-111F aircraft stationed in England, President Reagan

appealed directly to Thatcher. He told her the F-111F aircraft were needed

“because by virtue of their special characteristics they would provide the

safest means” to carry out the raids “with the lowest possible risk of civilian casualties and casualties among United States service personnel.”97

Mrs. Thatcher had to consider the 5,000 British citizens living in Libya as

well as the United Kingdom’s economic relationship with Libya in making

this decision. This was balanced against Great Britain’s “special relationship” with the United States and the “Falkland Factor.” In making her de62
cision, Mrs. Thatcher reminded the British citizens that “[w]e must never

forget that the United States forwent regional interests in Latin America

to give us fantastic help on the Falklands.”98 In the end, Mrs. Thatcher

told the president she would support “action directed against specific

Libyan targets demonstrably involved in the conduct and support of terrorist activities.”99

Presented with the evidence the United States had gathered after the 5

April terrorist attack in Berlin, the British allowed the use of its territory

as a forward base. The domestic political cost was high for Mrs. Thatcher,

as two-thirds of British voters opposed this support.100 In addition, antiAmerican sentiment in the United Kingdom, measured by a February

1986 poll, showed that 54 percent of the British questioned agreed that

the “United States was either as great a threat to world peace as the Soviet Union or a worse threat.”101

President Reagan made similar appeals to both France and Spain, but

each refused overflight rights. The one-way distance grew from 1,500

miles to 2,800 miles, which added approximately seven hours of flight

time to the round-trip mission and required additional air-refueling support (overview shown on map).102 The French objected because they felt the

United States involved the French too late in the planning and presented

them with a fait accompli. They argued that the raid would increase terrorist activity in Europe and that it was too weak to achieve its objective.103 Spain’s refusal for overflight required the attack to fly around the

entire Iberian Peninsula. Spain’s prime minister, Felipe Gonzalez, also disagreed with the method of the raid. Faced with sharp disagreements from

potentially useful allies, the United States diplomatically chose to emphasize the positive by noting that neither Spain nor France revealed to the

Libyans that the United States had secretly asked for overflight rights.104

The Attack

On the evening of 15 April 1986, the first aircraft to take off from the

United Kingdom were 28 KC-10 and KC-135 tankers. They were quickly

followed by 24 F-111Fs and six EF-111 Raven jamming aircraft. After the

first in-flight refueling, the six spare F-111Fs and the one spare EF-111

returned to base as planned.105 Four in-flight refuelings and several hours

later, the remaining planes entered the Mediterranean Sea by a circuitous

route and joined the waiting Navy strike force. To facilitate attack coordination, the strike was operationally and geographically divided between

the Navy and the Air Force. Navy A-6s struck the two targets in the Benghazi area while the Air Force F-111Fs hit the other three targets in the

vicinity of Tripoli.106

The attacking aircraft dropped 60 tons of munitions. There was little resistance other than antiaircraft artillery; however, one F-111F was lost, for

reasons that are still unknown. After two in-flight refuelings on the return

trip, the remaining aircraft returned to the United Kingdom except for one

63
F-111F that landed in Spain with an engine problem.107 The entire flight

duration from takeoff to landing was approximately 13 hours.108

Results

The measurable damage that resulted was consistent, on the tactical

level, with what US planners expected to achieve. Of the 18 F-111Fs, one

aborted because it could not meet timing criteria, one aborted over the

water, and three aborted in the target area after equipment malfunctions

64

IRELAND 

GERMANY 

GREECE 

TUNISIA 

MALTA

MOROCCO 

ALGERIA 

FRANCE

SPAIN ITALY

LIBYA

MEDITERRANEAN SEA

Tripoli

Benghazi 

✪

LAKENHEATH

FAIRFORD MILDENHALL

✪ London

ENGLAND

BAB AL-AZIZIYAH

ELDORADO CANYON

MURAT

SIDI BILAL

TRIPOLI MILITARY

AIRPORT

JAMAHIRIYAH

GUARD BARRACKS

BENINA

AIR BASE

Operation Eldorado Canyon Overview
restricted their weapons release under the rules of engagement. One lost

its terrain-following radar and also aborted. Of the 11 aircraft left, one

made a radar aiming error and damaged the French embassy instead of

its intended target. Five dropped their laser-guided bombs and damaged

their targets while the remaining five released unguided weapons on the

Tripoli airport, damaging several IL-76 transport aircraft and facilities located there.109 On the Navy side, one A-6 aborted on deck and two aborted

in the air, leaving 12 to strike the two targets. These strikes caused significant damage.110 The high abort rate was disappointing to the Air Force

but was a reflection of the restrictions imposed by the strict rules of engagement for timing and equipment, as well as the fragility of some of the

critical F-111F subsystems.111 The United States considered the raid a

military success and a political success as it galvanized European attitudes towards Libya making “several European leaders eager to limit their

differences with Washington and poised them to move well beyond past

summit declarations on international terrorism.”112

Contextual Inferences

In this case study, carrier-based aviation played a significant role. In

fact, it is arguable that carrier-based aviation was the optimal solution in

this scenario because all the targets were near the coast and because the

Navy could accomplish all the required support roles of air superiority and

electronic combat. The use of long-range aviation from the United States

could have played a similar role; however, at a minimum, forward basing

for tankers to support the force structure would have been essential. Consequently, limited allied support would have been required. If the United

States really wanted the ability to act unilaterally in this scenario or one

like it in the future, a long-range strategic tanker paired with long-range

bombers based in America would be required.

The ability of the United States to act unilaterally was blocked by the

interests of the individual Western European states. Understandably,

there are times when developing a coalition and holding an alliance together are part of the process of using force to pursue national interests.

By involving the United Kingdom and attempting to involve the French

and Spanish, the United States sought to gain wider, even latent, participation. The desired effect of Operation Eldorado Canyon extended beyond

the weapon effects on the ground. The political effect was to build consensus among our European allies to further isolate Libya for its support

of terrorism. The line between politics and war is thin, and part of the

long-term political solution for Libya rested in gaining consensus for a

military course of action among the European allies. Therefore, gaining

access to forward basing and overflight rights was part of the political and

military solution to ensure the diplomatic tranquility of the region and the

US legitimacy to involve itself in this regional issue. 

65
The ability to act unilaterally was also hampered by force structure limitations during Operation Eldorado Canyon. The Navy was constrained by the

small number of strike aircraft aboard ship and the inability to drop precision-guided munitions, and the Air Force was hampered by the distance its

medium-range bombers had to fly and the inability to operate without allied

assistance. Although long-range strike was a strategy pursued by the United

States, the force structure to enable this strategy was underdeveloped and

forced American leaders to pursue a riskier operation.

Operation Desert Strike—1996

Once, I remember, we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast. There

wasn’t even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush . . . In the empty immensity of earth, sky and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a

continent. Pop would go one of the 6-inch guns: A small flame would dart and

vanish . . . a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech—and nothing happened.

Nothing could happen.

—Marlow

—Heart of Darkness

The focus of this case study is not to evaluate the congruence between the

political or military objectives at the national command level and the eventual outcomes of this operation. Although the United States and its Arab allies saw the situation differently, the United States employed its global power

strategy to act in its primary interests in the region without damaging the

coalition. Even if the political context of this operation begs the question of

whether or not the United States should have taken action, the global power

question is more basic: When the United States decides to act, does its force

structure allow it to act? While apparently confirming the ability of the

United States to project power with long-range bombers, this case raises

questions about the utility of expeditionary forces that are reliant on forward

basing, allied support, and strategic warning.

Background

When Operation Desert Storm ended in 1991, the 3.5 million Kurds living in northern Iraq joined factions to gain independence from a weakened

Iraq. Iraqi Republican Guard forces violently ended this insurrection, and

a million Kurds fled their homes and cities for Turkey. The flow of refugees

destabilized the region, and the United Nations (UN) reacted with UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 688, which led to Operation Provide

Comfort.113 US-led coalition aircraft established a no-fly zone (NFZ) above

36 degrees north latitude to secure a safe haven for the relief effort. Coalition aircraft continued to enforce the northern NFZ during phase two of

Operation Provide Comfort, which in early 1997 became Operation Northern Watch.114

On 31 August 1996, approximately 40,000 Iraqi ground troops moved

above the 36th parallel in northern Iraq to remove some Kurdish factions

66
from the city of Irbil, which was located inside the safe haven. US efforts

to influence the situation were complicated. Britain supported the US position that the Iraqi incursion into the northern NFZ was prohibited by the

UNSCR. However, most of the Arab nations and Turkey, in particular,

viewed the incursion as an internal security measure. The lack of Middle

Eastern support for the American position meant that Arab and Turkish

allies in the region refused to allow the United States to use any of its forward-deployed forces on the Arabian Peninsula or in Turkey to retaliate

against Iraq.115 Without these aircraft, American military options quickly

devolved to Navy tactical land attack missiles (TLAM), carrier-based aircraft, and long-range aircraft.

Problem

The United States intended to “punish and weaken Hussein”116 by targeting his ability to harass aircraft enforcing the southern NFZ. In addition, the United States wanted to send a “signal of international condemnation for the latest violation of UN resolutions.”117 The decision to attack

targets in the south in retaliation for Iraqi aggression in the north was also

dictated by several factors. First, politically, land-based aircraft were not

available due to the lack of host-nation support. Second, carrier-based

aircraft lacked the range to reach targets in the north without land-based

in-flight refueling support; and US allies in the region also denied this limited support. The decision to use cruise missiles was driven by the lack of

stealthy carrier-based aircraft to attack the air-defense targets in the

south.118 Secretary of Defense William Perry noted that the whole mission

could have been done by either TLAMs or by B-52s with CALCMs. He also

indicated that Navy air could have been used, but cruise missiles provided

the advantage of minimizing risk to the US forces involved. He emphasized

that “[t]he choice of a combination of TLAMs and B-52s [was] a choice of

convenience, not a necessity.”119 While many have questioned the logic of

the decision to attack the targets in the south in retaliation for the Iraqi

incursions in the north, this attack represented the limits of what the

force structure could accomplish, given the political constraints of the situation.120 The United States was able to overcome the lack of political

support in the region through a global power response with naval forces

and the deployment of long-range bombers armed with ALCMs. These

weapons and the force structure to support them ensured the United

States had the ability to act in its interests in the region regardless of allied political support.

Answer

From 3 to 4 September 1996, Operation Desert Strike used Navy TLAMs

and B-52 CALCMs against air-defense targets in southern Iraq. The mission began on 31 August when three B-52Hs armed with eight CALCMs

and a C-5 with additional aircrews and support personnel deployed from

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Barksdale AFB, Louisiana. After a 16-hour flight with in-flight refueling

support from 14 tankers and a time change across the international date

line, the aircraft landed at Andersen AFB, Guam, in the early morning of

2 September.121 KC-135 tankers from Fairchild AFB, Washington, and KC10 tankers from Travis AFB, California, and McGuire AFB, New Jersey,

were used to support the deployment and strike portion of the 14,300-

mile mission. Several of the tankers deployed to Diego Garcia, a Britishheld territory in the Indian Ocean, to support poststrike in-flight refueling

requirements. Additional KC-135 tankers already in place at Kadena AB,

Japan, also provided in-flight refueling support for the strike mission.122

On 3 September 1996, less than 18 hours after landing on Guam, the

three B-52s and two KC-10 tankers took off together for what would be

the longest combat sortie in history.123 After the first in-flight refueling,

the single airborne spare B-52 returned to Guam and the two remaining

B-52s attacked the 16 assigned targets.124

In-flight refueling was critical to extend the range of the bombers for the

34-hour strike mission. KC-135s from Kadena AB met the formation over the

South China Sea to refuel both the B-52s and the KC-10s. During the

14,300-mile mission, 15 tankers off-loaded 1,360,000 pounds of fuel to support the nonstop round-trip to Guam.125 The British allowed the use of Diego

Garcia for deployment of tankers to support the operation. The KC-10s that

took off from Guam were scheduled to land in Diego Garcia, while other KC10s deployed to Diego Garcia launched to support poststrike in-flight refueling requirements for the bombers’ return leg to Guam.126

The flexibility of this force structure, the range and fuel capacity of B-52s,

and the large off-load capability of the KC-10 provided a large degree of slack

for this mission. One of the KC-10s that departed Guam suffered an engine

failure during prestrike refueling and had to abort prior to completing its

transfer of fuel. The remaining KC-10 off-loaded additional fuel to make up

for the loss and then diverted to Utapao, Thailand.127 One of the KC-10s at

Diego Garcia scrambled to perform an additional prestrike refueling to make

up for the lost fuel in flight.128 After landing at Diego Garcia, this same KC10 crew refueled and was back in the air in one hour to support the poststrike refueling for the B-52s on their return leg to Guam. Fifteen tankers

spread out over the Pacific at locations in Guam; Kadena AB, Japan; and

Diego Garcia made it possible to complete the mission.129

The US Navy’s destroyers USS Laboon and USS Shiloh fired the first

shots of Operation Desert Strike in the late evening of 3 September 1996

when they launched 14 TLAMs from their positions in the Persian Gulf. In

the early morning hours of 4 September, the two Air Force B-52s, escorted

in the Persian Gulf by F-14s from the USS Carl Vinson, fired 13 of their

16 CALCMs.130 All of the weapons launched were targeted against surfaceto-air missile sites and command and control nodes in southern Iraq.131

Later, on 4 September, the US Navy’s destroyers USS Russell Hewitt and

USS Laboon and the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Jefferson

City launched a second strike of 17 TLAMs.132 In addition, the NFZ in the

68
south was extended from 32 degrees to 33 degrees north latitude, just

below Baghdad. This forced Iraq to relocate the aircraft and air defenses

in this region farther north.133

Contextual Inferences

In the following weeks, the bulk of Iraq’s forces stood down and withdrew to garrison.134 Iraq, however, had achieved its objectives in the north.

Iraq installed a favored Kurdish faction in Irbil, established its secret police and intelligence organizations in the area, and executed or expelled

the Kurds who were aligned with the West.135 The US response, while not

congruent with stopping Iraqi aggression against the Kurds, was aimed at

influencing Iraq’s behavior in the future. When he was questioned, General Ralston, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained that the

US intent was to reinforce the point that “if he [Saddam Hussein] violates

the norms that are expected . . . he will suffer a penalty. In this particular case, he is suffering a penalty in loss of sovereignty over his airspace,

and his armed forces are suffering a penalty in terms of their ability to

train and of their combat readiness.”136

Allied Support. Allied support from the British allowed long-range airpower to complete in-flight refueling for the mission. The British territory

of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean is an important forward operating

base in this region and ensured access for US long-range aircraft to

Southwest Asia. In addition, Diego Garcia provides a forward operating

base outside of the theater to protect against and provide additional warning time for potential theater ballistic missiles or hostile air attacks. The

geography of the Pacific Ocean and the availability of forward operating locations in the region point to the need to maintain a flexible and healthy

long-range striking force of bombers and large capacity tankers in the US

force structure.

The difficulties of gaining support from regional allies for limited strikes

supports the notion that the interests of the United States may not always

be congruent with the interests of regional allies. In the future, it is likely

that a clash between US desires to pursue limited aims in a region and regional allies’ desires for diplomatic solutions will temper the US pursuit of

regional interests. In this particular case, it was difficult for allies to connect the dots between the targets, the strategy, and the desired political

outcomes. The commander of ACC, Gen John P. Jumper, acknowledged

that our coalition partners in the Gulf region did not agree with our

“asymmetrical strategy of bombing targets in southern Iraq in retribution

for Iraqi actions against the Kurds in the North.” General Jumper noted

that the cruise missile attacks “clearly demonstrated the US resolve”;

however, the United States did not deny the Iraqis the ability to violate the

UNSCR established to protect the Kurds.137

The lack of political support in the region did not thwart the US desire or ability to strike. Secretary of Defense Perry made it clear after

69
Operation Desert Strike that “we acted on our own national interests,

which is the President’s responsibility.” He also emphasized that while

“[w]e expect most of our allies to be supportive . . . most importantly, I

would point out we did not need their participation in this strike. We

have the national resources to conduct this strike.”138 The force structure must continue to provide the resources to conduct strikes of this

type on a similar scale.

Tankers. KC-135s and KC-10s extended the range of the bombers to

accomplish the mission. KC-135 tankers extended the range of KC-10

tankers for later in-flight refuelings of the B-52s. The ability of the KC-10

to receive fuel in flight makes it a valuable asset for future global power

missions as it solves the problems of range and forward basing. Although

this mission required a high ratio of tankers to bombers, the obstacles of

mission length, distance, forward operating bases in the Pacific, and inflight aborts for emergencies were surmounted by the flexibility provided

in the force structure.

Results. The 44 cruise missiles launched during Operation Desert Strike

achieved mixed results against their assigned air defense targets. “Folks used

to seeing better performance than this were disappointed” by the lack of accuracy and effectiveness of the attacks.139 The accuracy of the cruise missiles

came into question when the second wave of 17 TLAMs attacked targets that

the first strike had either missed or did not damage sufficiently.140 General

Ralston explained that damage assessment was impeded by weather and

where there “was any doubt at all as to whether we reduced the effectiveness

of his air defense system, we thought it prudent to go back with a restrike.”141

Global power to conduct air strikes requires weapon systems that are capable of achieving desired results. Cruise missile attacks such as these may not

provide the level of accuracy or effects needed for the future. Systems that

are capable of penetrating enemy defenses to deliver precision munitions are

required for global power to be a credible threat. If cruise missiles cannot

provide the needed punch, modifications, new acquisitions, and delivery

methods to provide the desired effects must be pursued. 

Conclusion

The US strategy of maintaining a forward presence in the Gulf to deter

Iraqi aggression and to enforce UNSCRs did not provide the means for the

United States to respond to this particular instance of Iraqi aggression.

The difference of opinion on the nature of the conflict led to a lack of support within the Gulf Cooperation Council to support reprisals or to allow

the use of airfields where US forces were based. The aerospace expeditionary force in the region was restrained by politics; however, Navy ships

deployed to the Persian Gulf as well as rapidly deployed long-range

bombers provided the means for the United States to strike unilaterally.

Air refueling played a key role in deployment of and execution of the missions flown in Operation Desert Strike.

70
Case Study Summary

The evidence presented in the four case studies reveals much about the

nature of the world and global power. While an acid test of US policy may

be found in the ability to secure allies and forward basing, each case represented an instance where the United States chose to act without the desired level of allied support. In each case, diminished allied support led to

a range problem that the force structure was left to resolve. The US airlift

to Israel during Operation Nickel Grass is a case in point where American

allies were coerced into refusing to allow the United States access to forward bases on their territory. Combat operations in Libya and Iraq faced

similar opposition and forced the United States to craft solutions that

were overly dependent upon limited air-refueling resources. The Falkland

Islands War and the Operation Black Buck refueling plan provide sobering examples of the cost of a force structure that lacks range and is forced

to operate over long distances. The United States faces similar long-range

scenarios within the Pacific theater in the twenty-first century that are

further complicated by issues of active access denial. In the future, regardless of whether the United States is able to build a political/military

bridge, if the United States wants to act unilaterally, it must have more

than the will to act—it must also have the force structure that can act independent of foreign entanglements. 

Notes

1. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976), 606.

2. Kenneth L. Patchin, Flight to Israel (Scott AFB, Ill.: Office of Military Airlift Command

History, 1 July 1976), available from Air Force Historical Research Agency (AFHRA),

Maxwell AFB, Ala., doc. no. M300.03-87, 3.

3. Ibid., 3–5.

4. Ibid., 5.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid., 4–6.

8. Ibid., 5.

9. A. Timothy Warnock, ed., Short of War—Major USAF Contingency Operations,

1947–1997 (Washington, D.C.: AF History and Museums Program, 2000), 80.

10. Patchin, 7.

11. Paul Killingsworth et al., “Tankers: Air Mobility Roles for the 1990s,” RAND study,

DRR-913-AF/OSD, November 1994, 8.

12. Patchin, 102.

13. Ibid., 100.

14. Ibid., 101.

15. Ibid., 34, 102.

16. Ibid., 34.

17. Ibid., 10.

18. Ibid., 34.

19. Warnock, 81.

20. Patchin, 34.

21. Ibid., 32, 86. These other missions are not discussed in the history; however, the

history reports that on 14 October, SAC deployed 13 KC-135 tankers and 142 personnel

71
to Lajes—further congesting the overcrowded outpost—without consulting MAC. When

queried by MAC, SAC responded that “refueling concepts” necessitated a beddown of nine

KC-135s and aircrews at Lajes. This indicates to the author, as does the evidence of an increased defense readiness condition alert status, that SAC was dispersing and forward deploying its forces in accordance with single integrated operational plan nuclear war plans.

It makes sense that General Wade would be aware of this, while General Carlton—as the

head of MAC—would not.

22. Warnock, 81.

23. Ibid.

24. Patchin, 36.

25. Ibid., 37.

26. Ibid.

27. Ibid., 99.

28. Ibid., 57.

29. Ibid., 59.

30. Ibid., 68.

31. Ibid., 67.

32. Ibid., 72–74.

33. Ibid., 103.

34. TSgt Charles Ramey, “Dover Remembers Operation Nickel Grass,” 436th Airlift

Wing Public Affairs, 23 October 1998. Note: 14 October to 14 November encompasses at

most 31 days; however, when the first aircraft touched down on 14 October 1973, it was

13 October in the United States with the time change—hence 32 days.

35. Williamson Murray, “The United States Should Begin Work on a New Bomber Now,”

Policy Analysis, March 2000, 2.

36. Warnock, 81.

37. Patchin, 8.

38. Killingsworth et al., 8.

39. Ibid., 8–9.

40. Lt Col Peter Wangler, USAF Doctrine Center, Tanker/Transport Doctrine Office, interviewed by author, 24 March 2001.

41. Killingsworth et al., 9.

42. Warnock, 81.

43. Ibid., 216–17.

44. Ibid., 218.

45. Bruce W. Watson and Peter M. Dunn, Military Lessons of the Falkland Islands War:

Views from the United States (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1984), xi; and Rodney A.

Burden et al., Falklands: The Air War (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1986), 101–4.

46. Sunday Times of London Insight Team, War in the Falklands—The Full Story (New

York: Harper & Row, 1982), 30–62.

47. Watson and Dunn, 21.

48. Ibid., 43.

49. Ibid., xi.

50. Ibid., 44.

51. Martin Middlebrook, The Fight for the “Malvinas”: The Argentine Forces in the Falklands War (New York: Viking, 1989), 122.

52. Watson and Dunn, 37–47.

53. Middlebrook, 121–23.

54. The Falkland Campaign: The Lessons (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office,

1983), 4.

55. Watson and Dunn, 135–70.

56. Ibid., 158.

57. Ibid., 135–70.

58. Ibid., 45.

59. Ibid., 151.

60. Ibid., 83.

61. Ibid., 44, 129.

62. Ibid., 158.

63. Ibid., 26–30.

64. Ibid., 28.

72
65. Sunday Times of London Insight Team, 157.

66. Ibid., 157–58.

67. Ibid., 158.

68. Ibid.

69. Watson and Dunn, 4.

70. “First Strike: Vulcan and Harriers Hit Stanley,” Falklands War, no. 3 (London: Marshall Cavendish Limited, 1983), n.p.; and Sunday Times of London Insight Team, 157.

71. “First Strike.”

72. Watson and Dunn, 149, 157.

73. Ibid., 43.

74. Sunday Times of London Insight Team, 158.

75. “First Strike.” 

76. Burden et al., 365–67.

77. Watson and Dunn, 43.

78. The Falkland Campaign, 26.

79. Ibid., 34.

80. Burden et al., 367.

81. Frederick Zilian Jr., “The US Raid on Libya—and NATO,” ORBIS—A Journal of World

Affairs, Fall 1986, 502; and David Shipler, “‘Libyan Clash’ Chance to Flex Muscles,” New

York Times, 26 March 1986.

82. Warnock, 146.

83. Ahmed K El Din, “The US: Striking at the Libyan ‘Pariah,’” Arabia, May 1986, 16–17.

84. President Ronald Reagan, statement, “American Bombing of Libya,” 446–47.

85. Ibid., 449.

86. Ibid.

87. Ibid.

88. Judith Perera, “Voyage to Disaster,” The Middle East, May 1986, 7–8.

89. Zilian, 521.

90. Lt Gen Mike Short noted that he was the F-117 vice wing commander during this

strike and that his crews were demoralized over the fact that they were not used for this

mission. As reported in [Dr.] Rebecca Grant, The B-2 Goes to War (Arlington, Va.: Iris Press,

2001), 32.

91. Col Stephen E. Anno and Lt Col William E. Einspahr, “Command and Control and

Communications Lessons Learned: Iranian Rescue, Falklands Conflict,” Research Report

no. AU-AWC-88-043 (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air War College, n.d.), 56.

92. Warnock, 146.

93. Zilian, 504.

94. James M. Markham, “Europe Has Its Reasons for Turning the Other Cheek,” New

York Times, 12 January 1986.

95. R. W. Apple Jr., “Libyan Issue Leaves Many Questioning Roles of Allies,” New York

Times, 19 January 1986.

96. “Thatcher Asserts Strikes on Libya Could Sow Chaos,” New York Times, 11 January 1986.

97. Zilian, 510.

98. Ibid., 513.

99. Ibid., 510.

100. Ibid., 522.

101. Joseph Lelyveld, “In Britain, Anti-Americanism Rises After Strikes on Libya,” New

York Times, 26 April 1986.

102. Zilian, 510; and Anno and Einspahr, 50.

103. Zilian, 514.

104. Ibid., 517.

105. Warnock, 151.

106. Ibid., 53.

107. Zilian, 517.

108. “Hits and Misses in Libyan Raid,” Defense Attaché, no. 2, 1986, 11–14.

109. “Weinberger, Crowe Provide Additional Details on Libya Raid,” Aerospace Daily, 26

June 1986, 495–96; and Warnock, 153, 155.

110. Ibid.

111. “Weinberger, Crowe Provide Additional Details”; and Warnock, 155.

73
112. James M. Markham, “Europeans Call Allies Ready to Act on Terror,” New York

Times, 29 April 1986.

113. Warnock, 184–86.

114. Ibid., 185.

115. House, Independent Bomber Force Review (hereinafter cited as IBFR), Lt Gen

Brent Scowcroft, retired, presented to the House National Security Committee, 23 July

1997, n.p., on-line, Internet, 11 March 2001, available from http://www.fas.org/nuke/

guide/usa/bomber/970000-ibr.htm. 

116. Eric Schmitt, “Targets Were Chosen to Punish and Weaken Hussein, US Officials

Say,” New York Times, 4 September 1996.

117. Gen Joseph W. Ralston, vice chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, DOD News Briefing,

4 September 1996, n.p., on-line, Internet, 24 March 2001, available from http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Sep1996/t090496_t0904asd.html.

118. IBFR.

119. William J. Perry, Secretary of Defense, DOD Press Briefing, 3 September 1996,

n.p., on-line, Internet, 24 March 2001, available from http://www.defenselink.mil/news/

Sep1996/t090396_t0903dst.html.

120. Alan Vick, E-mail to Dr. James W. Titus, subject: Comments on Draft Operational

Doctrine, 12/18/96, AFHRA file no. K239.057-5, 17 September 1997, n.p.

121. TSgt Terry Somerville, “B-52s Lead Attack on Iraq,” Air Force News Service, n.d.,

n.p., on-line, Internet, 15 April 2001, available from http://www.af.mil/news/Sep1996/

n19960906_960892.html.

122. “Desert Strike Demonstrates Air Force’s Global Reach,” Air Force News, on-line,

Internet, 15 April 2001, available from http://www.af.mil/news/Sep1996/n19960912_

960918.html.

123. Maj Kent R. Beck, 96th Bomb Squadron, chief, Weapons and Tactics, 2d BW/8th

AF liaison for Operation Desert Strike, interviewed by author, 15 April 2001; and

Somerville.

124. Beck interview.

125. “Desert Strike.”

126. Ibid.

127. This crew was awarded the 1996 General Doolittle Trophy for best flight crew in

US mobility forces for off-loading virtually all their available fuel to the B-52 aircraft to ensure the success of Operation Desert Strike. Air Force Magazine, September 1997, n.p., online, Internet, 15 April 2001, available from http://www.afa.org/magazine/world/0997

world.html.

128. Beck interview.

129. Ibid.

130. Ibid. Three of the CALCMs failed in flight or failed to launch; and “Desert Strike.”

131. Jay E. Hines, Central Command historian, paper delivered to the 2d International

Conference of Saint Leo College’s Center for International–American Studies, 19 March

1997, n.p., on-line, Internet, 24 March 2001, available from http://www.centcom.mil/

what%20is/history.htm.

132. Ralston; and “Desert Strike.” 

133. Hines.

134. Ibid.

135. Stephen Kinzer, “Iraq Troops Said to Round Up Kurd Leaders,” New York Times,

3 September 1996; and Eric Schmitt, “Baghdad Leaves Enough Force in North to Control

the Region,” New York Times, 5 September 1996.

136. Ralston.

137. Gen John P. Jumper, “Global Strike Task Force: A Transforming Concept, Forged

by Experience,” Aerospace Power Journal, Spring 2001, 26.

138. Perry.

140. John H. Cushman Jr., “Pentagon Defends Missiles’ Accuracy,” New York Times, 5

September 1996.

141. Ibid.

74
Chapter 5

Evaluations and Recommendations

Historical examples clarify everything and also provide the best kind of proof in

the empirical sciences . . . This is particularly true of the art of war. 

—Carl von Clausewitz

—On War

Evaluation of Assumptions

Air Force thinking in the 1990s circumvented the obstacle of range

through assumptions about forward basing, allied support, and the ability to

rapidly deploy expeditionary forces. The case studies, however, reveal the

shortcomings of those assumptions and affirm that range remains as the primary obstacle for America’s forces at the turn of the millennium.

Strategic Warning

The assumption about having adequate strategic warning to deploy expeditionary forces in the BUR and the Heavy Bomber Force Study is discounted

by General Horner, commander of US and allied air forces in Operation

Desert Storm. He asserts that the United States should have learned this lesson in Iraq in 1991. He notes, “We must assume that any future US adversary is likely to do everything possible to mount ‘a bolt from the blue’ attack.”1 Indian Brigadier V. K. Nair offers a sobering view in War in the Gulf,

Lessons for the Third World. Nair warns that the third world should fear a

New World Order dominated by US interests and recommends that India prepare for “the eventuality of a repressive foreign policy by the United States.”

States such as India must “be prepared to resist the [US] designs to project

power beyond its immediate sphere.” He confirms this advice for potential US

adversaries as he advocates that third world countries use surprise and technology in the future as an asymmetric means to thwart US airpower.2 General Horner laments the inability of the expeditionary force to deploy quickly

enough to stop an adversary short of achieving its military objectives. His solution is to ensure a capability for “prompt denial” through forward presence—which he deems too expensive—or else a return to a focus on longrange airpower to deal with situations where the United States is given little

strategic warning.3

Forward Basing

The US strategy in a major theater war is to deploy expeditionary forces

in order to achieve higher combat sortie rates. For many cases, this is a

viable and sound strategy; however, if expeditionary forces cannot deploy

75
to a forward location to support combat operations, their utility is suspect

regardless of the level of war. Forward basing was not available in the optimum locations in Europe for Operation Nickel Grass, and it was denied

in Operation Desert Strike. In the Falkland Islands War, geography limited

forward-basing options for the British to the carriers and converted cargo

ships used to support air operations. The National Defense Panel objected

to the assumptions about forward basing made in the 1997 Quadrennial

Defense Review.4 The National Defense Panel report stated that “US

forces’ long-term access to forward bases . . . cannot be assumed. Access

may be granted or denied for any number of military or political reasons.

Moreover, US forces may find themselves called upon to project power in

areas where no substantial basing structure exists.”5

As the United States attempts to gain allies for future conflicts, it is

worth noting that allies may view forward-basing support of US air-refueling operations at a lower political threshold than basing for US combat

strikes. While this may “allow an allied nation to maintain the fiction that

it is not directly supporting US combat operations,” it in no way compels

regional bad actors—who seek to deny US access—to distinguish among

the latent and active participants as they respond to US-sponsored air

strikes in their region.6 Even if the proverbial camel’s nose is already

under the tent, as with the forces deployed to the Persian Gulf in the

1990s to defend Kuwait, Operation Desert Strike reveals how allies can refuse the United States permission to use forces already deployed in their

country. Building a force structure that depends upon forward basing

leaves US policy vulnerable to the political support of regional allies; the

case studies reveal that an expeditionary force structure may severely

limit freedom of action in the future.

Requirement to Deploy

Arguments that a major theater war will require short-range airpower

in order to produce the required number of sorties for a successful counteroffensive must contend with the potential for denial strategies that prevent deployment to locations where the higher sortie rates are possible. If

short-range forces are denied access, a theater commander should have

other options for airpower. Long-range aviation in these situations ensures a flexible and unilateral option free from many foreign entanglements. General Horner opines that a war-fighting strategy that hinges on

gaining access to forward bases has grave risks. He notes that foreign

support is not guaranteed and cites Operation Desert Strike as an example.7 The Falkland Islands War also underscores this point, as does the

airlift for Israel in Operation Nickel Grass. Nair notes that the United

States relies on the resources of third world host countries for its airpower

and that the locations of these facilities are usually well known. He makes

the point that “Iraq could have taken numerous measures to degrade

these facilities in the run up to the war [Desert Storm],” but failed to seize

76
the opportunity.8 A long-range force structure that is capable of unilateral

action is required to ensure a credible US response.

Fighting in Coalitions

The case studies reveal how minimal allied support generally compounded the problem of range. While the ability to form alliances or gather

the support of allies should serve as an acid test for the use of military

force in most cases, lack of allied support should not prohibit US unilateral action in others. Richard Andres notes that nations, including allies,

quite often become unwilling to help powerful states during a militarized

crisis and are more likely to help the opposition. While states may form

alliances with strong nations in peacetime, they tend to oppose the actions of powerful nations once the shooting starts.9 The four case studies

in this research verify his findings and discount the assumptions made in

the 1990s about the United States fighting in coalitions and with allies.

This conclusion should serve as a warning to those who would design a

force structure and strategy that relies upon foreign support for the application of military force. Regardless of the US ability to gain allies, credible airpower options for the twenty-first century demand a force structure

that ensures capability for unilateral response.

The US difficulties in Operations Eldorado Canyon, Nickel Grass, and

Desert Strike and the British difficulties in the Falkland Islands War indicate

that building alliances for future military action may be a flimsy assumption.

A May 2001 RAND report holds that in the Persian Gulf, Britain may soon

be the only US ally within NATO to fully cooperate with US military efforts.10

In addition, as Brigadier Nair suggested after Operation Desert Storm, wise

adversaries will attack US coalitions to deny the United States the ability to

use airpower in their regions. Although he does not cite Sun Tzu, it is obvious Brigadier Nair is following his ancient prescription to attack an adversary’s strategy and his alliances before attacking his army. 

Access Denial

Denial of access represents more than the physical problems posed by

weapons of mass destruction, ballistic missiles, and other barriers. The case

studies support the contention that political denial is a constant problem

that theater missile defense, airborne laser platforms, or the GSTF are ill

suited to solve. While technological systems may help the United States gain

access to a region and protect US forces at deployed locations, the extension

of that protection to a host nation is not as easy to provide physically or

promise politically. The physical ability to protect an ally and forces intheater does not guard against the myriad of political reasons for an ally to

turn away from supporting American use of force in its region. 

Assumptions about a GSTF’s ability to “kick down the door” to gain access do not deal with the issue of political denial, which is much more

prevalent than physical danger. Richard Haass notes in Reluctant Sheriff

77
that the world is much “more discrete and divided in the political.”11 His

point is best confirmed by the lack of NATO support, during the height of

the Cold War, for the US airlift to Israel. Operation Eldorado Canyon is another case where allies posed an obstacle to the use of force. Although the

United States will continue to do what is necessary to gain access—as the

British did in the Falklands—when national interests are at stake, the

question that remains is the cost of that access.

Physical denial, however, is still a problem. As Brigadier Nair notes, US logistic lines are vulnerable and the success or failure of US strategy often depends on secure passage for its forces abroad.12 He notes that 90 percent of

all forces moved by sea during Operation Desert Storm and that Iraq failed

to put at risk any of the nations whose flags were flown by the non-US sealift.

Had Iraq attacked shipping in and out of port, the United States would have

had to use its naval strength to protect sea lines of communication “forcing

[the United States] to stretch [its] naval assets to the point where the [US]

ability to concentrate for combat becomes questionable.”13 Attacks against

the logistic Achilles’ heel of US strategy during prehostilities can severely reduce the combat potential of deployed forces.

Nair suggests the following actions to deny US airpower in the future:

1. Attack high-value assets like [airborne warning and control system]

AWACs and [Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System] JSTARs.

2. Attack air-refueling tankers, forcing the coalition to deploy them in

greater depth to erode combat ranges of the fleet and increase the

cost of the air effort.

3. Attack forward operating locations with commando-type raids. 

4. Conduct raids against logistic bases that are vulnerable and have a

disproportionate value to the forces required to strike them.

5. Use shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles against hostile air targets—even with limited success, this type of action would cause the

redeployment of high-value assets to rear areas and would be worth

the effort.14

Taken together or in combination, these actions directly target the US

strategy to deploy and utilize expeditionary forces. Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.),

chairman of the Armed Services Committee, asked Dr. Kaminski, the Heavy

Bomber Force Study chairman, what would happen if the United States was

taken by surprise and theater access was a problem. Dr. Kaminski replied

“Then I am going to need a lot more bombers than I have in the current

force.”15

Technology

Will technology protect deployed forces? Congressional testimony by

Generals Fogleman and Martin in chapter 3 concerning the use of theater

missile defense and the airborne laser to thwart ballistic missile threats

to forward-deployed forces is a step in the right direction. However, Nair

78
points out that asymmetric threats to US forces are more likely, and high

technology is difficult to employ against terrorist commando attacks. At

the present time, theater ballistic missile defense, as Congressman

Hunter noted, is still a “big if.”16

Third world countries pursue and will continue to pursue asymmetric

means to thwart the US intervention in their regional affairs. The goal will

not be to “win” engagements with the United States but to raise the cost,

as the Argentines were able to do, to an unmanageable level and deter US

intervention at its inception.17

Tanker Force

Tankers emerge as one of the most important features of a credible

global power force for the twenty-first century. The tanker force was adequate for Operation Eldorado Canyon; the tanker-to-bomber ratio in Operation Desert Strike was high—and even higher during the Operation

Black Buck missions. The high tanker to bomber ratios in these operations should suggest to USAF leadership that a strategic long-range

tanker is needed to ensure access and flexibility. Long-range tankers efficiently close the distance between the fighting force and the adversary. 

Operation Desert Strike used the flexibility of the current force for its

long-range missions but also revealed the difficulties of range in the Pacific and the need for tankers with greater range and off-load capability.

As retired Air Force Lt Gen Thomas G. McInerney commented in USA

Today in May 2001, “Keeping the Asian Pacific secure and stable in this

century will take the same wisdom and dedication we devoted to Europe

in the last—and the right weapons systems to do the job.”18 The SAC

tanker fleet that remained after the Cold War is not well suited for the mission demands of the twenty-first century, where mission ranges may be

dramatic and the need for large off-loads to bridge gaps are required to ensure a capable and credible force.

Recommendations for Tankers

For both short-range and long-range airpower, the in-flight refueling

tanker is the key to extending range. With the demise of SAC in 1992, tanker

aircraft joined other airlift aircraft in AMC and were assimilated into a community with different priorities. Although SAC’s tankers had played second

fiddle to bombers within SAC, tankers in AMC found advocacy for in-flight

refueling even farther down the pecking order of the new command’s priorities for replacing aging C-141s and C-5s.19 The in-flight refueling capability

SAC built to support the nuclear-deterrent mission suffered from a lack of

attention in force-structure debate that followed the Cold War. KC-135s purchased in the 1950s were built to satisfy the needs of SAC’s long-range

bombers in the event of a nuclear war. In Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq, SAC’s

tankers found great utility supporting conventional operations within and

during deployment to the theaters of operation. The KC-135 and KC-10 force

79
proved that it was flexible and a great force enhancement to the rest of the

combat air force, but it has aged and lacks range. 

As the Black Buck missions show, pyramid schemes for air refueling require many assets to ensure support for the scheme as the range increases. For this reason, a long-range strategic tanker that can provide a

large amount of mission flexibility is a necessity to ensure access for US

forces in the future. General McInerney noted in a May 2001 op-ed piece

in USA Today:

Pentagon airpower planners are developing a form of conventional deterrence

that links networks of sensors and shooters to deliver rapid and intense firepower. Their plan is eventually to invest more than $300 billion in short-range

fighter/attack aircraft, while all but ignoring long-range air power. 

If there are regional bases and port access, as there would be during another

war against Saddam Hussein, this rapid application of aerospace power promises overwhelming effectiveness. But in the Asian Pacific, where the Chinese

can deny US military forces regional access, this approach would be a serious

mistake, leaving the United States without credible military options.

Ignoring long-range airpower denies the strategic reality of political constraints

on regional bases, the tyranny of distance in the Asia Pacific, and the proliferation of sophisticated military capabilities such as space-based intelligence and

satellite-guided missiles. Rapid application of aerospace power won’t work if our

short-range fighters are denied the bases or the access they need.20

General McInerney recommends that the United States purchase 40 additional B-2s to increase the number in the fleet to 61 and ensure a long-range

capability in the Pacific theater. His reasoning is sound; however, purchasing additional B-2s to meet the threats in the Pacific will mean very little

without a tanker force to support the long-range global power a force like that

could project. Using the same 11:1 tanker ratio of Desert Strike, it would require 440 tanker sorties to support the 40 B-2s he envisions using in the first

24 hours of a war for similar strikes on Iraq from Guam. 

Current tanker planning guidance indicates that there are 472 KC-135

and 54 KC-10 aircraft available for combat missions through the year

2001. Their off-load capabilities are as shown in table 1. The surge utilization rate for the KC-10 is given as 12.5 sorties per day.21 With only

12.5 sorties, it is doubtful that an in-flight refueling plan to support a

force of 40 B-2s is possible without an excessive use of KC-135 aircraft,

in an inefficient manner like Operation Black Buck, to fill in the gaps. 

Global power strikes also have to compete with other users during the

initial stages of a conflict. The KC-10 has an air mobility role as well as a

tanker role. Additionally, the KC-10 is used to deploy aircraft into theater

and to support the tanker-bridge for air transport. All these demands on

the tanker force sharpen the need for a tanker designed for long-range

global power missions. Even if there were 40 B-2s, the 400 tanker sorties

required to put them to good use would price a long-range airpower solution out of the market. 

80
Simply put, the range and off-load ability of the tanker force cannot support the operations from CONUS. The present tanker planning guidance assumes that for sorties over 3,000 NM, tankers will deploy to multiple bases

located optimally along the route of flight to support the mission. The planning guidance assumes that these forward bases exist and that they are in

the optimal locations to meet the fuel reserve requirements for the receivers

and tankers along the route of flight. If they are not, the refueling requirements and number of tankers required increase dramatically. Table 2 contains the tanker requirements for the case studies examined. 

Operation Black Buck suffered from a small-capacity tanker, as evidenced by its ratio of tankers to bombers. While Operation El Dorado

Canyon appears with a more reasonable ratio, it is worth noting that the

81

Max Off-load Available (lbs)

Mission Radius

Takeoff Takeoff

Gross FuelAircraft Weight (lbs) Load (lbs) 500 NM 1,000 NM 1,500 NM 2,500 NM

KC-135E 275,700 160,000 101,200 78,600 55,800 10,500

KC-135R/T 301,700 180,000 122,200 99,400 76,400 30,700

KC-10 587,000 327,000 233,500 195,200 156,000 78,700

Table 1

Tanker Off-load Capabilities

NM—nautical miles

lbs—pounds

Source: Air Force Pamphlet 10-1403, Air Mobility Planning Factors, 1 March 1998, 18.

Table 2

Case Study Tanker Usage

Distance

Nautical Tanker/Bomber Number/Type of

Case Study Miles Ratio Tankers

Nickel Grass 6,450 N/A N/A

Black Buck 7,732 11:1 11 Victor

Eldorado Canyon 5,600 28:23 28 KC-10/KC-135

Desert Strike 14,300 7:5-1 15 KC-10/KC-135
range of this mission was optimal. In Operation Desert Strike, three forward bases for tankers and a 7.5:1 ratio of tankers to bombers was required. Additionally, Desert Strike required the use of KC-10s with larger

off-load capability to complete the mission. If KC-135s were substituted in

a similar scenario, it would result in a ratio and air-refueling plan that resembles Black Buck.

The refueling force must be focused on longer range missions for the future. While additional B-2s may provide additional delivery capability,

without tankers for support additional bomber assets are of little use in

global power operations. Strategic tankers built in large numbers that can

support missions similar to Desert Strike are necessary. This could mean

the purchase of additional KC-10s for the future, or it may mean a completely new tanker design with massive capacity. It would be a mistake to

focus the next-generation tanker solely on the requirements of an expeditionary force and build it to optimize support for theater operations with

expeditionary forces. 

However, to support global power, this force must simultaneously support long-range bomber sorties and the movement of expeditionary forces

during the initial phases of a conflict. Largely ignored in the post–Cold

War force structure debates, the standing fleet may not be adequate to

support this dual requirement.

Next-Generation Tanker

The current force of tankers is eroding in capability. Its numbers, age,

and flexibility raise questions of utility. There is legitimate concern over

depot-level maintenance for KC-135s that takes 400 days, instead of the

scheduled 150 days, to complete. Admittedly, some of the backlog is due

to Pacer Craig avionics upgrades to keep the aircraft flying through 2040;

however, the majority of the backlog is due to the “unpredictability of

major structural repairs” that have emerged with the aging fleet.22 With

161 of the 546 KC-135s backlogged in depot in December 2000, Air Force

plans for a replacement tanker—the KC-X—may need to be pushed up

prior to the planned deployment in 2013.23 Within AMC, it remains to be

seen if the looming tanker shortfall will gain attention among the competing demands for airlift.24

To meet the needs of the various missions, USAF should look for theatertanker options with multiple refueling off-load options to efficiently refuel

short-range theater assets. USAF should also pursue a long-range high

capacity “super tanker” that can provide refueling support for long-range

aircraft flying missions, if necessary, from CONUS. In addition, USAF

should consider hybrids to support both mission needs. 

Long Range

Long-range airpower requires tankers with large capacity and off-load capability. The KC-135, while a capable tanker for missions with limited

82
ranges, does not provide the support and flexibility needed to plan long-range

missions across long distances with flexibility. A scenario like the Falklands

within the Pacific theater is a challenge for long-range operations. Without

forward basing, the challenge is even greater given the limited range and fuel

off-load of the KC-135. Desert Strike highlights the refueling needs of the

bomber with the largest fuel capacity in the USAF fleet. B-52s required large

off-loads from KC-10s to make their round-trip from Guam. They also required KC-135s from Japan to refuel the KC-10s and required the KC-10s to

land in British-owned Diego Garcia. In the future, the United States must

have the ability to act unilaterally. To do that, a flexible force of tankers capable of refueling each other if necessary to extend their own range is needed.

Using a force such as this, unilateral bomber operations from US-held territories become an option for the future. 

Presently, the British plan to purchase a new-generation tanker based

on a Boeing 767 derivative that would double the fuel capacity of their

current fleet of KC-135s.25 This Boeing aircraft and other large Boeing 777

variants warrant consideration for modification for in-flight refueling missions. However, most of these off-the-shelf options, designed for the airline industry, only have two engines. A two-engine design may not meet

the reliability needs of the military and may require the pursuit of a more

dependable military system.26

A strategic tanker with extremely long range adds flexibility to a global

power force. Whether used to support global power strike missions for

long-range aircraft or global power deployment missions of short-range

aircraft, this concept has wide application in locations such as the Pacific,

where distance is the primary obstacle to the use of airpower.

In his Air War College research paper, Lt Col Stephen C. German cautioned about notions of using off-the-shelf airliners for the next-generation tanker.27 Due to the current commercial drive for fuel economy with

increased engine efficiency and super-critical wings that maximize fuel efficiency at cruising altitudes, commercial aircraft do not meet the combat

needs of the Air Force. A two-engine airliner optimized for flight at 39,000

feet would have drastically reduced efficiency operating across the range

of altitudes and airspeeds required to meet the performance needs of

other military aircraft. As German notes, airliners make their money in

the cruise phase of flight, but USAF tankers make their money in the refueling envelope that extends from 500 to 30,000 feet and 180 to 355

knots indicated airspeed.28 A three- or four-engine aircraft is desirable to

increase reliability. The KC-135R model can still perform its mission with

one or two of its four engines shut down. Shutting down one of two engines on a 767 leads to “performance degradation of unacceptable parameters.”29 For these reasons, the next-generation tanker—which should

have a strategic focus—will likely require an acquisition program to design

and build it to meet USAF’s mission needs. This follow-on tanker should

also have multiple refueling connections for probe-and-drogue refueling

and a separate boom refueling system for large aircraft. 

83
Theater

The next-generation tanker should be modeled after the existing KC-135

but should take steps to counter the inefficiencies of the KC-135 in theater

operations. Although the KC-135 can off-load large quantities of fuel, its

transfer rate and cycle time for individual fighters make it an uneconomical

choice. As proof, in Operation Desert Storm almost 40 percent of the fuel carried by tankers was unused, and combat sorties were limited by the inability of the KC-135 to service more than one receiver at a time.30 Booms available—not fuel available—was the limiting factor and often required more

tankers to be in the air than was dictated by fuel requirements alone.31 For

this reason, modifications to add flexibility into the present KC-135 fleet are

necessary. In addition, this type of flexibility is required for any follow-on designs for tankers used in theater-refueling operations.

Currently an effort is under way to modify the KC-135 fleet with a multipoint probe-and-drogue refueling system. A similar modification was

added to the KC-10 in the early 1990s. This system encompasses wing

pods for probe-and-drogue refueling of multiple receivers. However, this

arrangement is only useful to receivers configured for drogue operations.

In the Air Force, that would include only helicopters; but for the Navy and

other allies who primarily rely on the drogue system, this Air Force modification has great utility. In addition, this modification will allow the 45

modified KC-135R models to support both probe and drogue as well as

boom in-flight refueling for operations during the same mission.32 While

the Air Force should continue to provide a boom system for its heavier aircraft, multipoint modification allows a return to early TAC KB-50 designs

that had multiple drogues to refuel up to three aircraft at a time.33

Modifying the KC-135 in this fashion will make it a more efficient intheater tanker. However, missing from the equation is the way that current USAF short-range aircraft refuel. The F-22 is currently designed as a

boom-refueled aircraft; and the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), in its X-32 and

X-35 prototypes, displays the ability to perform either based on the “service” variant.34 Instead of a boom receptacle for the USAF version, all JSFs

should be built for drogue refueling in anticipation of a KC-135 force in

the near term and a possible replacement in the future designed to support multiple drogue receivers. This joint approach to refueling will allow

the use of a joint tanker in future theater operations that matches not

only US refueling needs but those of coalition allies as well. The theater

tanker for USAF should provide the ability to refuel multiple receivers in

an efficient manner. 

USAF should also consider modifying or adapting current USAF F-16,

F-15, and A-10 aircraft for drogue refueling. By way of example, Sargent

Fletcher, Incorporated, has flight tested and offers a 370-gallon external

tank for the F-16 that is modified with an external probe for drogue refueling. This adaptation allows for the rapid modification of all USAF F-16s

for drogue refueling.35 Similar concepts for other aircraft, which would

84
preclude expensive structural retrofit, would make a common tanker for

joint and coalition operations possible. Aircraft that are unsuitable for

probe-and-drogue refueling, or are too far along in the production process

to alter, could continue to use the boom system. The boom should remain

on any future theater tanker to allow it to refuel not only boom receptacle

fighters but also other large aircraft with boom systems. The time is ripe

for the Air Force to rethink its boom versus probe-and-drogue approach

to the JSF, its current aircraft, and future tankers.

Hybrids

As demonstrated in the 1950s and 1960s with the B-29 and B-50,

USAF should again consider various hybrids to augment both the strategic and theater-tanker missions. The B-52 has a fuel capacity of approximately 300,000 lbs, while the KC-10 has a maximum usable fuel of

342,000 lbs; and each aircraft burns fuel at comparable rates.36 There is

potential and historical precedent, in the form of KB-29s and KB-50s, for

using the B-52 as a tanker. Congress has already directed the secretary

of the Air Force to assess the B-52 for a standoff jamming role.37 On top

of this “new mission,” USAF should consider adding a hose-reel-type refueling system. This system is currently carried on the KC-10 and permits

fuel transfer through a drogue system at 400 to 500 gallons per minute

(2,400 to 3,000 lbs per minute). While a hose-reel system would require

an internal modification to the B-52, it would take advantage of an airframe that already exists and is part of the GSTF. In this fashion, the EB52 could shoot its standoff missiles and then assume a jamming/refueling orbit for probe-equipped aircraft. This option puts fuel closer to the

threat for receivers and provides a tanker that is capable of maintaining

situational awareness and can defend itself in a hostile environment. 

For F-22 operations within the GSTF, USAF should consider using the B2 as a tanker. If the F-22’s mission is to penetrate deep into enemy territory

unannounced, it makes sense that it should refuel from a stealthy tanker.

Rather than build a whole new aircraft, the B-2 should also be modified with

a hose-reel system. As the B-2 is a key part of the GSTF package to penetrate an enemy’s defenses, it can also provide fuel in flight to extend F-22

range without putting a conventional tanker at risk. In places like Iran,

where the distance to Tehran from the country’s border with the Persian Gulf

would require refueling over land, the B-2 provides an excellent option for the

F-22 to extend its global range. A hose-reel system that retracts and is

stealthy would be optimal; however, it would require modification of the F-22

for probe refueling. If USAF is serious about a GSTF, it must consider this

application for refueling its F-22 fleet in combat operations. 

Hybrid tanker concepts are out-of-the-box answers to the problems of

range. However, both of these proposals are worth exploring as the GSTF

takes shape for the future. Utilizing airframes that already exist, that are

already part of the strike force and plan to be on station, deserves con85
sideration. Modifying a B-2 or B-52 in the manner suggested provides an

opportunity to make the current force structure more flexible and offers

the ability to relieve refueling requirements from conventional tankers for

long-range missions. 

Summary

In General Fogleman’s address to the Air Force Association in October

1996, he noted that in the twenty-first century, “it will become possible to

find, fix or track and target anything that moves on the surface of the

earth.”38 Missing in the “find, fix, track, target, engage, assess” loop is

fuel—fuel for aircraft to get to the theater and then to get to the target.

Fuel is the missing link between capabilities and expectations for global

power exercised over long range. 

Absent forward bases, coalitions, and political arrangements, tankers

are the only viable means within the USAF force structure to extend

range. Aircraft design, as the B-36 proved at the extreme, determines fuel

capacity and range. The B-36 also proves that mission and performance

requirements are bounded by size—that is, maneuverable fighters are

small and bombers with long range and payload are big. Since range matters, the only way to enhance range without sacrificing mission or performance characteristics is through the use of in-flight refueling. Forward

bases and optimal routings over allied airspace can alleviate range as an

issue but require allied support. Lacking this, the GSTF is likely to find

range a problem, with in-flight refueling the only solution. The solution for

solving the problem of range in the future is not to be found in the numbers of tankers available but in the types of tankers available and their

ability to extend the range of the force.

Notes

1. Gen Charles A. Horner, “What We Should Have Learned in Desert Storm, But Didn’t,”

Air Force Magazine, December 1996, n.p., on-line, Internet, 15 May 2001, available from

http://www.afa.org/magazine/21_century/1296storm.html.

2. Brigadier V. K. Nair, War in the Gulf: Lessons for the Third World (New Delhi, India:

Lancer International, 1991) 217–20.

3. Horner.

4. The appointment of the National Defense Panel (NDP) was required by the FY 1997

Defense Authorization Act. The mission of the NDP was to submit recommendations on the

Defense Department’s work on 1997’s Quadrennial Defense Review as part of the report to

Congress. Secretary of Defense William Cohen chose Mr. Phil Odeen, president of BDM International, a defense consulting and research firm, to chair the NDP. Other NDP members were Richard Armitage, former assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs; Richard Hearney, former assistant commandant of the Marine Corps; David

Jeremiah, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Robert M. Kimmitt, managing

director of Lehman Brothers, an investment banking firm; Andrew Krepinevich, director of

the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments; James P. McCarthy, former deputy

commander in chief, US European Command; Janne Nolan, senior fellow, Brookings Institution Foreign Policy Studies Program; and Robert R. RisCassi, former commander of

86
US forces in Korea. NDP members were selected in consultation with congressional leadership. NDP Web page, n.d., n.p., on-line, Internet, 12 June 2001, available from http://

www.defenselink.mil/news/Feb1997/b020697_bt057-97.html and http://www.defenselink.

mil/topstory/quad_ndp.html.

5. “The National Defense Panel, Assessment of the May 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review,” n.d., 5, on-line, Internet, 12 April 2001, available from http://www.defenselink.

mil/topstory/ndp_assess.html.

6. Cindy Williams, ed., Holding the Line (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001), 157.

7. Horner.

8. Nair.

9. Richard Andres, The Balancing Preference: Why Powerful States Win or Lose Disputes

(PhD diss., University of California–Davis, 2001), n.p.

10. “RAND: Only UK Will Stand With US in Gulf,” Air Force Magazine, May 2001, 20.

11. Richard N. Haass, The Reluctant Sheriff (New York: Brookings Institution Press,

1997), 1.

12. Nair, 220.

13. Ibid., 223.

14. Ibid., 226.

15. House, Independent Bomber Force Review, Lt Gen Brent Scowcroft, retired, presented to the House National Security Committee, 23 July 1997, n.p., on-line, Internet, 11

March 2001, available from http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/970000-ibr.

htm.

16. House, Committee on National Security, Testimony of Lt Gen Gregory S. Martin,

Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, 3 March 1999.

17. Ibid., 226.

18. Lt Gen Thomas G. McInerney, “Long-Range Air Power Would Keep Pacific Secure,”

USA Today, 2 May 2001, n.p., on-line, Internet, 7 May 2001, available from http://ebird.

dtic.mil/may2001/e20010503range.htm. General McInerney was a command pilot with

more than 4,100 flying hours, including 407 combat missions (243 in 0-1s as a forward

air controller and 164 in F-4Cs, Ds, and Es). He has flown the O-1, F-104, F-4, and F-15.

Before retiring in 1992, General McInerney was the commander of Alaskan Air Command/Eleventh Air Force. “Biographies,” Air Force Link, n.d., n.p., on-line, Internet, 10

June 2001, available from http://www.af.mil/news/biographies/mcinerney_tg.html.

19. Lt Col Stephen C. German, “The Making of the Weakest Link,” Research report

(Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air War College, 1994), 6–10.

20. McInerney.

21. Air Force Pamphlet 10-1403, Air Mobility Planning Factors, 1 March 1998, 16.

22. Seena Simon, “Running on Empty,” Air Force Times, 5 February 2001, 14.

23. John S. Tirpak, “The Airlift Shortfall Deepens,” Air Force Magazine, April 2001, n.p.,

on-line, Internet, 15 April 2001, available from http://www.afa.org/magazine/April2001/

0401airlift.html.

24. Ibid.

25. Gregor Ferguson, “RAAF Tanker Project Finally Gets the Nod,” Australian Defence

Magazine, February 2001, 2, on-line, Internet, 15 May 2001, available from http://www.

yaffa.com.au/defence/february/air2.htm.

26. German, 20–21.

27. Ibid., 20.

28. Ibid., 21.

29. Ibid.

30. General Accounting Office (GAO), Operation DESERT STORM—An Assessment of

Aerial Refueling Operational Efficiency, GOIA/NSIAD-94-68 (Washington, D.C.: GAO,

1993), 1.

31. Ibid., 9.

32. KC-135R Stratotanker, n.d., n.p., on-line, Internet, 15 April 2001, available from

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/kc-135r.htm.

33. A. Timothy Warnock, ed., Short of War—Major USAF Contingency Operations (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2000), 18.

34. Capt Tom Crossan, “KC-10 Tanker Refuels X-32A Joint Strike Fighter,” Air Force

Link, 12 December 2000, n.p., on-line, Internet, 15 May 2001, available from http://www.

af.mil/news/Dec2000/n20001220_1874.shtml; and “Lockheed Martin JSF Completes

87
First In-flight Refueling Mission,” n.d., n.p., on-line, Internet, 15 May 2001, available from

“KC-135 Refuels X-35,” n.d., n.p., on-line, Internet, available from http://www.aerotechnews.

com/starc/2000/111000/JSF_Refuel.html.

35. “Sargent Fletcher’s ART/S Is First Probe/Drogue Tested on the F-16,” Sargent

Fletcher, Inc., n.d., n.p., on-line, Internet, 20 April 2001, available from http://www.sargent

fletcher.com/ARTS.htm.

36. KC-10A Extender, Fact Sheet, n.d., n.p., on-line, Internet, 15 February 2001, available from http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/bomber/kc-10.htm; author’s experience

in B-52H operations; and AF Pamphlet 10-1403, 16.

37. Senate, 2001 Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 12 June 2000, n.p., Defense Daily, 32, on-line, Internet, 15 May 2001, available from http://www.defensedaily.

com/cr/previous/cr0612.htm.

38. Gen Ronald R. Fogleman, chief of staff, US Air Force, address, “Strategic Vision and

Core Competencies,” Air Force Association National Symposium, Los Angeles, Calif., 18 October 1996. AF Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, Ala., file no. IRIS K239.057-5, n.d.,

n.p., on-line, Internet, 14 February 2001, available from http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/

csafafa.htm.

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Chapter 6

Conclusions

The world in the wake of the Cold War is turning out to be less structured and

less disciplined by military force and the fear of nuclear war. It is the age of

“deregulation” . . . [and it] promises to be terribly complex . . . For the United

States, it is both safer (with no existential Soviet threat) and more dangerous

(with the emergence of more numerous if lessor threats). It is more unified and

global in the economic and information realms and more discrete and divided in

the political.”

—Richard N. Haass

—The Reluctant Sheriff 

From the Past, The Future

Clausewitz noted that history does not by itself provide relevance; however,

the “combination of several events [historical examples] make it possible to

deduce a doctrine: the proof is in the evidence itself.”1 History, from B-29s

reaching out to attack Japan in World War II to the 1999 combat debut of

the B-2 in Operation Allied Force, reveals that the United States has often

used long-range airpower to fight its wars and pursue its interests. Range

has always been key to the use of airpower and developing strategy. As General Spaatz put it, “Air strategy begins with airplane ranges. Airplane ranges

determine the location of bases. The proximity to the target of the bases

under one’s control fixes the weight and rhythm of the attack.”2 But range is

underplayed in the assumptions used to develop the force structure and

strategy for the US Air Force in the twenty-first century. The range of this

force is too short and the vision it embraces too shortsighted.

Motivations for Assumptions

It is difficult to determine why the historical examples in this study

were not applied with greater impact in the force structure debate of the

1990s. USAF did not object, as Williamson Murray noted, when B-2 production was reduced to 20 aircraft; and it may have been, as he suggests,

because the Air Force did not want to risk losing the F-22 program.3 It is

also likely, as Builder pessimistically points out in The Masks of War, that

the expeditionary force structure has nothing to do with global power and

everything to do with building the force structure USAF desires. Builder

points out that in strategy, the horse often comes before the cart and that

strategy becomes “the intellectual rationale that follows after and attempts to explain the forces sought or in being for other unspoken or unspeakable reasons.”4 If this is true for the pursuit of short-range expeditionary air forces to support the global power strategy, it may explain why

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USAF has used the noted assumptions to frame the force structure debate

around short-range airpower. The arguments for increased sortie rates

and the combat “throughput” benefits of short-range aircraft deployed

into a theater may not be as sinister as Murray and Builder imply. However, it is hard to imagine, given the history of SAC and the evidence presented in the case studies, that the call for short-range expeditionary

forces to execute global power missions is based on a sound assessment

of the available data. 

Considerations for long-range global power must be included in the debate to ensure that the force structure meets the needs of the strategy and

the global environment. Airmen must continue to insist upon a capable

long-range force with the ability to project global power across a broad

spectrum of scenarios. Currently, a realistic assessment of the global environment does not support the pursuit of short-range expeditionary

forces as a credible source of global power.

Summary of Assumptions and Recommendations

The assumptions used in the 1990s to support the force structure of expeditionary forces for global power do not reflect a sound assessment of

previous experience. This suggests perhaps the need to return to the SAC

model, where force structure was designed around the CONUS-based nuclear force. SAC built a garrison force in the 1950s because its forwardbasing strategy was vulnerable to Soviet first-strike attack. To increase

warning time and ensure survivability of the force, SAC moved its

bombers into a CONUS garrison and built bombers and tankers with

range to reach the Soviet Union, independent of forward basing. During

the Cold War, the United States matched KC-135 and B-52 range and fuel

capacities to meet the range requirements of striking the Soviet Union

from bases within CONUS.

In the twenty-first century, survivability for conventional operations is

not the issue. CONUS may, however, be the only “operating base” for future conflicts. Ranges may indeed be greater than during the Cold War,

and the United States needs to ensure a force structure that is even more

flexible than the Cold War force in order to meet the challenges of range

independent of access to forward bases and allied support.

An unexpected finding within the research was the discovery within

each case study that the Navy and its carrier-based aviation represent a

flexible means for forward basing short-range aircraft to support longer

range heavy-lift aircraft. USAF should capitalize on the ability of the Navy

to control the littoral areas with its “floating forward bases” and its ability

to provide for air superiority, suppression of enemy air defenses, jamming

support, and search and rescue. The case studies highlighted this type of

integration; and while the Global Strike Task Force embraces the ideal of

gaining access, perhaps the model for the future unilateral use of force

lies in a broader concept of a joint Global Strike Task Force. Kicking down

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the door in the future may be appropriate for physical barriers; however,

for political barriers, a joint approach may provide the right synergy to execute strategy. Naval forces offer a great enhancement to long-range airpower. Where they are opposed, as in the Falkland Islands War, the United

States must prepare responses to protect the fleet.

Concerning the mix of long- and short-range forces, balance is the key.

This study at best humbly supports the conclusions reached long ago by

General Spaatz at the conclusion of World War II:

There has been a tendency to over-emphasize long-range bombardment, and to

ignore the versatile application of air power. Our Air Forces were used for any

mission considered important, at any given moment. Especially misleading is

the distinction made between strategic and tactical air forces. That distinction

is not valid in describing the use of airpower as a whole, day after day.5

RAND analyst and former School of Advanced Airpower Studies airpower film program director Karl Mueller’s assessment of the correct balance of forces is on the mark. He argues that in the debate between a

purely global power projection force of B-2s and other long-range bombers

and a focus on expeditionary airpower capable of rapid deployment and

sustained combat operations, a combination of the two is appropriate. His

advice is to lean towards the expeditionary force but to ensure an insular

approach with long-range airpower “to deal with situations where there

are severe limits on US access to in-theater bases.”6

Like Mueller and Spaatz, this study supports the idea that global airpower is best served through a balanced force structure that has the ability to provide combat power across a broad spectrum of conflict but provides a unilateral ability to project power as situations dictate. The

linchpin to this ability, however, is not additional purchases of long- or

short-range airframes. It lies instead in the tanker aircraft that enable the

ranges necessary to pursue global power missions. Tankers are the key

determinant of the amount and type of combat power that the United

States will bring to bear in future operations regardless of how short- or

long-range in character. 

Range and the Current Fleet

If the assumptions made in the 1990s are disavowed, USAF will require a

force focused with range and in-flight refueling capability to ensure access

for its long-range forces. If the recommendations made here for tankers are

followed, a force structure with the following attributes will result.

• A long-range force enhanced by a strategic in-flight refueling force to

(1) perform small-scale strikes for contingencies at the lower end of

the spectrum of conflict, (2) counter the access-denial strategies of future adversaries as part of a joint GSTF, and (3) provide sustained

long-range combat power for regional conflicts.

• Theater tankers to provide efficient refueling options for short-range

aircraft.

91
• Hybrid tankers to provide (1) refueling for short-range aircraft closer

to the threat, and (2) survivable tanker support for the F-22 and other

elements of the joint GSTF.

The global power force for the twenty-first century must have the range

to carry out the missions that US policy demands. The danger of the current focus on short-range aircraft is that it habituates the force structure

around this concept and negates both the benefits and practice of longrange airpower. If nothing else, this study affirms the notion that range is

and will continue to be the primary issue for the use of airpower in the

twenty-first century.

Conclusion

As defined throughout the many USAF vision statements, global power

in the late twentieth century abandoned its historical long-range roots. In

the words of Murray, “Long-range aviation is a national asset. Within the

Department of Defense, only the Air Force operates long-range bombers.

A decision within that service to exit the business is also a strategic choice

for the United States—a choice with far-reaching consequences.”7

For the future, the utility of US combat power in a given scenario is dependent upon several factors: warning time, access to the region of hostilities, the ability to deploy forces, forward bases for combat operations,

denial of access strategies of opponents, and sufficient range to apply

combat power. A force structure that relies on expeditionary short-range

forces, allied support, and forward basing—unprepared to counter denial

strategies of opponents with range—is not suited to meet the unknown

challenges of the twenty-first century.

While the United States does not need to focus exclusively on longrange unilateral solutions to promote its interests abroad, unilateral solutions—leveraged by long-range strategic tankers—must remain credible

options. As RAND analyst Alan Vick noted, if Desert Strike was a victory

for global power, US credibility can afford “few victories” like it in the future, as the available force structure was unable to thwart the objectives

of Saddam Hussein.8 The Global Strike Task Force concept must focus on

joint operations with the Navy and must recognize that range is an obstacle that forward basing is unlikely to surmount. Range is the dominant

obstacle for the use of airpower, and for the United States in the twentyfirst century, it cannot be “assumed away” in the force structure debate.

Notes

1. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976), 171. Howard and Paret have translated the

original German text Lehre ziehen as deduce. The literal translation of this passage from

the German reads “from the several combined examples make it possible to pull a teaching.” The point being made is that the word deduce as found in the Howard translation is

92
more aptly translated as induce—to induce from a series of historical examples a teaching

or doctrine.

2. Military Air Power: The CADRE Digest of Air Power Opinions and Thoughts, comp. Lt

Col Charles M. Westenhoff, Airpower Research Institute (Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University

Press, 1990), 26.

3. Williamson Murrray, “The United States Should Begin Work on a New Bomber Now,”

Policy Analysis, 16 March 2000, 7.

4. Carl H. Builder, The Masks of War: American Military Styles in Strategy and Analysis, RAND Corporation, research study (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989),

54.

5. Westenhoff, 14.

6. Cindy Williams, ed., Holding the Line (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001), 236.

7. Murray, 11.

8. Alan Vick, E-mail to Dr. James W. Titus, subject: Comments on Draft Operational

Doctrine, 12/18/96, Air Force Historical Research Agency file no. K239.057-5, 17 September 1997, n.p.

93