Number 79, July 1996

Tomorrow's AirForce

by Martin C. Libicki and Richard Szafranski
Conclusions

-   The U.S. Air Force stands at a crossroads as it contemplates its long term future.  

-   It can retain its atmospheric orientation and find itself mired in endless and fruitless debates overwhich military tasks (e.g., anti-tactical missiles) best fit which medium--and thus service.

-   Yet, aerospace is no longer the high ground of combat--the medium whose domination makesvictory everywhere else a matter of effort rather than fortune. Information plays that role today.

-   As the world's leading military service in the application of emerging technology, the Air Forcewill be best served by adopting an infospheric orientation. By doing so, it can lay claim to thethree new missions of the 21st century: strategic defense, global transparency, and extendedinformation dominance.
**Coming to Grips With the Future

        In 1995, the leaders of the U.S. Air Force asserted long-range planning in the Air Force was"broken" and they would fix it--as they must. By now, it is hardly news that the whole Departmentof Defense must come to grips with two fundamental issues: the "why" and "how" of warfare.  
        The "why" concerns history--the domination of world politics by great power struggles--andwhether they have ended, simply taken a breather, or are transforming. Today's challenges may benettlesome but it is hard to see how the reemergence of a hostile great power would enhance thenational security of the United States. In the Cold War, the Air Force prescribed bombers and ballisticmissiles to help deter a "Hot War." Today's environment mandates rethinking what capabilities theUnited States needs if it is to dissuade potential great powers from reigniting the Cold War.  
        The "how" reflects the Revolution in Military Affairs. Simply put, precision munitions converta target's visibility--its signature--into death. Just showing up risks signature. In tomorrow'sbattlespace everything will be far more visible than in today's--to both sides. Why?Everything--sound, light, odor, contrail vapor, pressure--leaves tracks (stealth helps--but it isexpensive and incomplete). Every bit of information illuminates tracks. As bit density doubles (aboutevery 18 months) the odds that enough of them land on something rises apace. As the World WideWeb, cheap videocameras, commercial satellites, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) suggest, thisphenomenon is not just military. Against these bits, to linger transparently is to court death. Exploiting transparency calls for topsight--the integration of bits into a coherent picture of thebattlespace rather than an opportunistic sequence of isolated appearances. Ignoring transparencyputs combatants, who fight while enshrouded in large metal protective boxes, at greater risk.
        By history, predilection, and structure, topsight is the natural (but not automatic) domain of theAir Force.  But prior to staking its claim to tomorrow's high ground, the Air Force needs to redefineitself predominantly as an ***infospheric* institution rather than an ***atmospheric* one. (Other alternativesfor the Air Force, such as policemen for the frontiers of chaos or as information warriors, encompassvalid tasks but cannot be its heart and soul.  The former takes the Force from the Air Force, and thelatter is too hit-and-miss to be consistent with an ethos built on strategy-to-task generation).
        To understand the logic of an infospheric Air Force returns one to the organizing principles ofthe Service.  The Air Force was formed to master a new high ground--take it, and victory elsewherewas only a matter of effort; WWI's bloody stalemate could be overleapt. Between the World Wars,the high ground was reified in manned aircraft.  But technology is protean by its very nature and,*pace* Desert Storm, the information realm is becoming the new high ground. Simply put, if you cansee the enemy and the enemy cannot see you, then only modest applications of precisely-aimed,correctly-timed force suffice to command the battlespace.

**The Air Force and the Meta-System**

        The battlespace, becoming as indivisible as cyberspace, can no longer be divided into neatdomains and parceled out to each Service to fight its own war--the Navy in the littoral, the Armyin the fields, and the Air Force high and deep.  They just keep getting in each other's way. For thisreason, the future Air Force must reflect the totality of the joint armed forces.  
        At the heart of this joint vision is emerging a vast, interconnected, interoperable, and ultimatelyintegrated Meta-System--a "system of systems"--to which all Services contribute and from whichthey all draw. The Meta-System is not the elusive silver bullet, but the convergent architecture ofcapabilities with which all go to war. Feeding it will be rules of engagement, commanders' intents,strategic intelligence, bitstreams from space, continuous logistics reports, status-of-forces, weatherobservations, sensors, operator inputs, and even the reports of global news networks.  The Meta-System will supply the raw material of nearly total situational awareness, from global overlay todesignated targets. If it is to do serious work, it has to be planned from the start as an integratedsystem (even though initially composed of legacy devices and code)--it cannot be constructed solelyby gluing old systems together.  In the end, someone must be in charge of building and maintainingthe Meta-System for whoever is asked to command it.
        The Air Force need not outfit the entire Meta-System--an organic construction of various piecesbeing built, tested, used, refined, reused, swapped out, and retired in their turn. What the Air Forcemust do, though, is envision the Meta-System's architecture and all that implies:  requirements,doctrine, tests, protocols, agents, and objects.  Once that is well understood, the Meta-System willgrow naturally--with the Air Force vision of topsight as the ghost in the machine.
        To the Meta-System support for observation and orientation must be added striking power.  Asfor decision, the Meta-System informs but does not replace command; operators are still in charge,and the Air Force will get its fair share. As for action, an infospheric Air Force must be armed. Lesttargets  disappear unscathed in tomorrow's battlespacefield, faster means of energy delivery maybe needed: real-time engagement weapons ranging from lasers to neutral particle beams and high-power microwaves. Indeed, the need for fast sensor-to-shooter coupling calls for the Air Force tostrengthen its command over strategic (not just nuclear) weapons, particularly those closely linkedwith the Meta-System itself.

**Tomorrow's Missions**

        In addition to today's enduring missions (strategic deterrence, overseas intervention, LOCprotection, and punitive strike), technology, and the need for deterrence suggest the need for threenew missions: extended information dominance, global transparency, and strategic defense.
         Transparency, plus a reluctance to take casualties, suggests sending large numbers overseasagainst lesser enemies (those who cannot possibly directly threaten the United States) need no longerbe the *modus operandi* of the Armed Services. Leverage may come from empowering our allies to helpdefend themselves by **extending our information dominance**(particularly when aided by energizedmass from over the horizon). Empowering is the key concept; telling our friends the location ofenemy targets to within the blast radius of their own ordnance permits them to defend themselvesagainst larger foes tied to ancient parameters of force. The means by which friends are soempowered are the bitstreams that feed the Meta-System, packaged for delivery rather than ingestedorganically.
        The **global transparency mission** naturally follows. The surest deterrence to any nation aspiringto hostile great power status may be the certain knowledge that it is under continual watch. U.S.power can be "globally present" even when over the horizon. Let others so much as open factorydoors in the desert, pick up the handset to summon their   platform, roll a tank out of its shed ontothe road, or launch an aircraft off a runway deep in the forest and somewhere, somehow, some partof the Meta-System knows--and can instantly alert whoever can best train their boresights on them.This knowledge need not always be converted into engagement; demonstration alone may deter.
        As for **strategic defense,** almost everything significant about stopping a ballistic or cruise missileis finding it.  To an aircraft, a missile travelling at Mach 25 is a blur; to a photon, however, it hangsin space.  The same Meta-System that can arm an ally with information, and make the entire worldtransparent to U.S. power, can also sweep the skies for air and space threats and dispatch their real-time coordinates as needed.
        These three missions favor the Air Force, not because the Army and Navy are absent--for theydo play--but because they reflect basic Air Force orientation and mythos: be it high ground, topsight,or warfare as the systematic application of force for calcuable ends. The impetus follows directlyfrom the inspiration that sent earlier generations to the flightline. Note that none of these newmissions have anything to do with the human mastery of flight. That was yesterday's problem, andone thoroughly solved. It is time for the Air Force, as America's      premier technological Service, tomove on.

**Toward a New Organizing Principle**

        An organizing principle lives or dies by how it informs decisions. The original theory of airpowergave the organization its mission, put the mission in the context of the other Services, suggested howthe mission might be fulfilled, prioritized tasks within the mission, steered acquisition strategy (andso fostered the world's greatest aviation industry), defined the essence of being an airman, and thuscontributed to the creation and sustainment of airpower.
        Yet, no principle can outlive its times. Today's Air Force sees the F-22 as a must-have, the nextobvious step in a logical progression of sleek machines--even in a world where everyone has givenup flying against the F-15. Yet, stealth and silicon aside, the F-22 remains another souped-up, short-range, manned fighter whose costs crowd out other opportunities. Perhaps the F-22 can pass a cold-eye test even in an infospheric Air Force. But an atmospheric Air Force cannot help but buy them.
        To an atmospheric Air Force, the UAV is a stepping stone to a remotely piloted combat vehicle.Yet, at several million dollars each, they must be increasingly well-protected (adding features, andhence cost).  If $100,000 each, UAVs would be cheaper than the only weapon that can shoot it out ofthe sky. The concept of a swarm of expendable UAVs would sooner arise in an infospheric Air Forcethan in an atmospheric one.
        In an atmospheric Air Force, space operators cannot be happy without some way of emulatingtheir air combat cousins. Space matters, but it never had much credibility as a contested medium(even when the Soviets were around). Nevertheless, the belated discovery that our forces could beimperiled with spacecraft-derived information (e.g., permitting Saddam Hussein to see the Left Hookcoming) impels space warriors to plan to shoot such craft from the heavens. Such a tasking isproblematic. First, it allows others to deny the inevitability of space-mediated transparency on ill-founded presumption that we can eliminate it--all of it--when the time comes. Second, withsatellites so cheap ($50 million can soon buy three-meter resolution capability), and third-partysources so ubiquitous, it will be nigh impossible to find out where bits are being picked up, how theyare being sluiced from satellite to satellite, or even which portal or switch they come down to. Suchthinking drives doctrine to targeting everyone else's spacecraft. 
        Instead of preening for pointless battle, a space command ought to recognize itself as the world'spremier information component. Virtually everything it owns exists to foster battlespace awareness,connectivity, and strategic intelligence, and it would push its data as the firmament that makes senseof all other sensors' attempts to paint the battlespace.
        An infospheric Air Force may also be able to play the roles and missions game more shrewdly,casting off low-information missions in favor of high-information ones, strengthening its corecompetence, positioning itself for vigorous institutional life well into the next century, andcontributing to fostering jointness without risking its own identity.
        The current division of Services by media is problematic for the Air Force. Take any givenmission. Step One is to assign each Service responsibility for weapons emerging from their particularmedium:  ground, sea, or air.  Step Two is to argue that systems emerging from one medium are ofcourse superior to systems from another. Every service put its prestige on the line in defense oftechnical characteristics that play randomly across the face of combat--but the Air Force, by virtueof its need for theory rather than   sentiment, inevitably puts its coherence on the line as well.
        Consider close air support. The atmospheric Air Force disdains every other Service's use ofaircraft in general, and so it husbands the mission but discharges it with very littleenthusiasm--using the wrong aircraft, under the wrong command philosophy, and not nearly asquickly or responsively as it could, in spite of the valor of its warriors. Meanwhile, the Army makesdo with never-satisfactory coordination mechanisms and then puts all the capabilities it needs in yetanother platform for the mission--the helicopter--since the Air Force allows it no other choice. Aninfospheric Air Force would let this mission go. Close air support is a necessary but low-yield andlow-information component of warfare, one which contributes very little to topsight, and rarely tostrategic effect. Armies will fight armies, and close air support will be necessary. But on which stoneis it written that Air Forces must do it? 
        Air defense, even with long-range missiles is considered an Army bailiwick, oft-contested by theAir Force as unwarranted intrusion into the deep battle. An infospheric Air Force strategy wouldseek the radars and the fire-control internetting and leave the missiles to whoever wants to dragthem around. True, this split is notional as long as fire control and guidance are intimately connectedto specific missiles, but such coupling is precisely the wrong way to establish missile guidance. APave Paw's radar or an Aegis radar could guide a Patriot missile. Ultimately, it is the Meta-Systemwhich informs the firing control mechanism, and the Air Force, if it is smart, will put first claims onthe Meta-System as the core of the military's information machine.

**Outcomes**

        An atmospheric Air Force faces two possible outcomes. Splinter groups may arise, chipping offAir Force missions piecemeal and leaving the institution a withering core. Worse, the atmosphericideology withstands all challenges--alienating its visionaries--until it wakes up to find therevolution grasped firmly abroad by those with few tears left for the Air Force.
        An infospheric Air Force is a smaller leap than it seems. The Air Force has always capitalized onthe speed, range, freedom of maneuver, and vantage their medium provides. Yet, nothing travelsfaster than information. Nothing impedes the distance knowledge can travel. Nothing makesmovement more intelligent, economical, and fruitful than information. And nothing else wouldprovide the vantage point of a Meta-System. Atmospheric solutions sufficed until technologypermitted multiple solutions from any medium. The Meta-System, however, demands an integrationof exoatmospheric components with those provided from air and surface. This is not a vision or rolethe Army, Navy, or Marine Corps are in a natural position to advance on, although they may layclaim to bits and pieces, thereby frustrating the larger aim. This is the Air Force's game to win or lose.

This paper has been prepared for the Air University's Project 2025.  A longer version of this paperis scheduled for the Fall 1996 edition of Airpower Journal.  Dr. Martin C. Libicki is a Senior Fellowwith INSS's Center for Advanced Concepts and Technology.  He can be reached at 202-685-3837 x521, 202-685-3664 (fax), [email protected].  Colonel Richard Szafranski (USAF) leads the Air Force'sProject 2025 Team at Air University.  He can be reached at 334-953-2722, 334-953-4028 (fax) or[email protected]. 

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