The “In Lieu Of” Myth Marttala

Airmen in Joint Ground Operations

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

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AIR UNIVERSITY

Carl a. spaatz CENTER

FOR officer EDUCATION

AIR FORCE FELLOWS

The “In Lieu Of” Myth

Airmen in Joint Ground Operations

David W. Marttala

Lieutenant Colonel, USAF

Walker Paper No. 13

Air University Press

Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama 36112-5962

January 2009
ii

Muir S. Fairchild Research Information Center Cataloging Data

Marttala, David W.

The “in lieu of” myth : airmen in joint ground operations / David W. Marttala.

p. ; cm. – (Walker Paper, 1555-7871 ; no. 13)

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-58566-187-9

1. Unified operations (Military science)—Management. 2. United States. Air Force—

Operational readiness. 3.  United States. Air Force—Reorganization. 4.  Manpower

policy—United States. 5. Combat sustainability (Military science) I. Title. II. Series:

Walker Paper (Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.) ; no 13.

358.41/46/0973—dc22

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.

This Walker Paper and others in the series are available 

electronically at the Air University Research Web site 

http://research.maxwell.af.mil and the AU Press Web 

site http://aupress.maxwell.af.mil.
iii

Since 1958 the Air Force has assigned a small number of 

carefully chosen, experienced officers to serve one-year tours 

at distinguished civilian institutions studying national security 

policy and strategy. Beginning with the 1994 academic year, 

these programs were accorded in-residence credit as part of 

professional military education at senior service schools. In 

2003 these fellowships assumed senior developmental education (SDE) force-development credit for eligible officers.

The SDE-level Air Force Fellows serve as visiting military ambassadors to their centers, devoting effort to expanding their 

colleagues’ understanding of defense matters. As such, candidates for SDE-level fellowships have a broad knowledge of key 

Department of Defense (DOD) and Air Force issues. SDE-level 

fellows perform outreach by their presence and voice in sponsoring institutions. They are expected to provide advice as well 

as promote and explain Air Force and DOD policies, programs, 

and military-doctrine strategy to nationally recognized scholars, 

foreign dignitaries, and leading policy analysts. The Air Force 

Fellows also gain valuable perspectives from the exchange of 

ideas with these civilian leaders. SDE-level fellows are expected 

to apprise appropriate Air Force agencies of significant developments and emerging views on defense as well as economic and 

foreign policy issues within their centers. Each fellow is expected to use the unique access she or he has as grounds for 

research and writing on important national security issues. 

The SDE Air Force Fellows include the National Defense Fellows, 

the RAND Fellows, the National Security Fellows, and the Secretary of Defense Corporate Fellows. In addition, the Air Force 

Fellows program supports a post-SDE military fellow at the 

Council on Foreign Relations.

On the level of intermediate developmental education, the 

chief of staff approved several Air Force Fellowships focused on 

career broadening for Air Force majors. The Air Force LegislaAir Force Fellows
iv

tive Fellows program was established in April 1995, with the 

Foreign Policy Fellowship and Defense Advanced Research 

Projects Agency Fellowship coming under the Air Force Fellows 

program in 2003. In 2004 the Air Force Fellows also assumed 

responsibility for the National Laboratories Technologies Fellows.

AIR FORCE FELLOWS
v

Contents

Chapter	 Page

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

FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix

ABOUT THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi

ABSTRACT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv

1 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

The Myth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

The Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

This Paper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2 BACKGROUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Genesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

 Convoy Airmen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

 Assumptions and Expectations . . . . . . . . . . 7

 In-Lieu-of Expansion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Current Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

 Joint Requirements and Sourcing . . . . . . . . 8

 Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

 Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

 Command and Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Popular Criticisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Studying the Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

3 CASE STUDY: SECURITY FORCES . . . . . . . . . . 17

Description of Security Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

 Personnel Strength . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

 Functional Roles and Core Competencies . . 18

 Operational Tempo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

 Post-Khobar Career Field Merger and

 Task Overmatch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

 Security Forces Transformation

 2004–Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

 Role Relationships of Military Police

 and Security Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
vi

Chapter	 Page

In-Lieu-of Deployments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

 Mission Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

 Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

 Duration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

 Positive Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

 Negative Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Temporary “Fixes” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

 Home Unit Augmentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

 Direct Reenlistment Incentives . . . . . . . . . . 32

 Quality-of-Life Initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

 Redrawing the Sustainment Model . . . . . . . 34

 Increased Accessions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

 Battlefield Outsourcing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

 Augmenting Security Forces Teams . . . . . . 35

 Reclaiming “Lost” Manpower . . . . . . . . . . . 35

 Reserve/Guard Mobilization . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

 Competency-based Mission Sourcing . . . . . 36

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

4 MODERN BATTLEFIELD, LEGACY FORCE . . . . 41

US Force Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

The Modern Battlespace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Gaps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

 Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

 Shape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

 Sustainment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

 Means . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

A Point of Crisis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

5 CLOSING THE GAPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

 Increase Department of Defense

 Force Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

 Reduce Service Home-Base Demand . . . . . . 64

 Increase Zero-Growth Deployable

 Capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

 Reduce Combatant Command Demand . . . 66

Moving Forward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

CONTENTS
vii

Chapter	 Page

APPENDIX: JOINT SERVICE AGREEMENT 8 . . 73

ABBREVIATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

GLOSSARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Illustrations

Figure	

1 Air Force ILO deployments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2 SF overseas contingency deployments . . . . . . . . 20

3 Training load in SF units . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

4 Air Force and ILO deployments . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

5 Security forces reenlistment rates,

FY 1997–2007 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

6 Proportional SF strength, by pay grade . . . . . . . 32

7 Military end strength, by service, 1940–2008 . . 42

8 Joint operational environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

9 Single-MRC Army requirements and CFP

manpower by branch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

10 US defense spending, 1940–2008 . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Tables

1 Deployment rates by service (total force) . . . . . . 13

2 Battlefield density through the ages . . . . . . . . . 47

CONTENTS

ix

Foreword

The contributions and role of the United States Air Force in 

Iraq and Afghanistan have been variously debated by politicians, pundits, uniformed service leaders, and even the military rank and file. This debate has grown particularly pointed 

over the past year, during which troop deployments for the war 

on terror have gripped public attention and become a key issue 

in the US presidential campaign. In this paper an Air Force 

ground commander and scholar, Lt Col Dave Marttala, brings 

to light a problem previously overlooked in popular discussion: 

Air Force deployment of large numbers of Airmen to augment 

the joint ground fight and the consequent breakage of the US 

war-fighting capability writ large.

Since 2004, the Air Force has deployed increasing numbers 

of Airmen to perform various combat-support functions doctrinally assigned to the Army or Marine Corps. This program—

known as “In Lieu Of” (ILO) deployment—has evolved from a 

temporary assistance measure to a de facto permanent reallocation of service roles and missions. Previous ILO debates and 

formal studies have emphasized important but marginal shortterm concerns such as ILO organizational relationships, equipment standardization, and training. Yet no attention has been 

given to the more serious, central problem of the long-term 

negative effects on comprehensive military capacity to fight 

modern wars. 

Certainly, the ILO program has demonstrated short-term 

success in filling specific manpower shortages among Army 

and Marine combat-support forces. However, Colonel Marttala 

argues that this success has contributed to systemic ignorance 

of the growing disconnects between force structure and the nature of warfare—a myth that the military we have is in fact the 

right one for modern warfare. In challenging this myth, Colonel 

Marttala’s broad historical analysis shows how the battlefield 

conditions that instigated the ILO program stem from a major 

evolution in the nature of war, one that fundamentally conflicts 

with existing US force structure and critically heightens the 

operational importance of combat-support functions. 
While the mismatch between Cold War–era direct combat 

forces and today’s asymmetric threats is widely recognized, 

Colonel Marttala argues that a corresponding mismatch among 

US combat-support forces has gone largely ignored. His paper 

shows how the present wars in Afghanistan and Iraq represent 

a long-term evolution of the battlefield. Using Air Force security 

forces as a case study, he demonstrates that ILO solutions actually do more harm than good, creating an illusion of adaptation that obscures the nature and scope of the problem, thereby 

jeopardizing future war-fighting capability among our collective military forces. He concludes by offering practical recommendations to rebalance requirements and resources for modern warfare.

This paper is important because it addresses a problem with 

legitimate strategic effects, one which has been only marginally 

acknowledged among senior leaders. Given the nature of the 

conflict in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, 

support functions have become a central component of how we 

fight. Combat-support personnel who are inadequately trained, 

ineffectively organized, or insufficiently resourced will ultimately cause combat-operations functions to fail. Continued 

allowance of an ill-structured support force—disguised by the 

ILO myth and sustained by the heroic efforts of today’s Airmen, 

sailors, soldiers, and marines—gambles away our capability for 

the next war to hit America’s doorstep. Colonel Marttala’s paper addresses a crucial policy problem of equal significance to 

any issue of grand strategy and should be of particular interest 

to planning staffs and leaders at all levels. 

DONALD M. GOLDSTEIN, PhD

Lt Col, USAF, Retired

Professor and Interim Director

Matthew B. Ridgway Center for 

 International Security Studies

x

FOREWORD
xi

Lt Col David W. Marttala received his commission through 

the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) in May 1987. 

A career security forces officer, he has served in a variety of 

positions including shift commander, Ground Launched 

Cruise Missile Defense Force commander, Ground Combat 

Regional Training Center officer in charge, and major command staff officer. In 1991 he deployed in support of Operation Desert Storm as the Ground Defense Force commander, 4401st Asset Reconstitution Group (Provisional), 

Al Kharj AB, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In addition, he deployed for the commencement of major combat operations 

in 2003 as the commander, 485th Expeditionary Security 

Forces Squadron and later, the 321st Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron, both in execution of Operations Iraqi 

Freedom and Enduring Freedom. He previously commanded 

the 17th Security Forces Squadron at Goodfellow AFB, 

Texas; the 1st Security Forces Squadron at Langley AFB, 

Virginia; and the 386th Expeditionary Security Forces 

Squadron at Ali Al Salem AB, Kuwait. 

Colonel Marttala holds a bachelor of science degree in international affairs from the USAFA and master’s degrees in public 

administration from the University of Arizona and in military 

studies from Marine Corps University. A distinguished graduate 

of Marine Corps Command and Staff College, he also served as 

a National Defense Fellow at the Matthew B. Ridgway Center for 

International Security Studies, University of Pittsburgh.

About the

Author

Lt Col David W. Marttala
Currently, Colonel Marttala is the chief, Antiterrorism and 

Critical Infrastructure Protection Division, Headquarters United 

States Pacific Command. In this capacity, Colonel Marttala 

leads combatant command efforts to deter and disrupt terrorism and to preserve the combat capability of forces throughout 

the Pacific theater. He is married to the former Lisa Turley from 

Granbury, Texas, and they have four beautiful children.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

xii
xiii

Abstract

The US Army and Marine Corps find themselves increasingly 

unable to fill combat-support and combat-service-support (CS/

CSS) positions in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. To compensate, the Joint Staff has tasked the Air Force 

to deploy significant numbers of Airmen from its agile combatsupport specialties “in lieu of” (ILO) the soldiers who normally 

fill these positions as prison guards and interrogators, convoy 

security elements, provincial reconstruction team members, 

and the like.

Most reviews of the ILO program have focused on short-term 

execution-level concerns such as organizational relationships, 

equipment, and training, while completely bypassing the 

essential long-term strategic problem: while modern warfare 

places new and critical demands on combat-support forces, US 

military force structure in this area remains woefully inadequate. 

A variety of ad hoc measures—critically aided by valiant individual efforts—has progressively ameliorated these secondary 

problems, while at the same time creating a popular mythology 

that the fundamental structure of combat-support forces is, if 

not optimal, at least adequate and that the ILO program is a 

joint success. As a result of this myth, and in spite of continuing 

drains on operational effectiveness, combat readiness, and personnel retention, no one has yet offered a feasible alternative to 

the ILO program. 

This paper examines the question, How can the DOD and the 

services better organize, assign, source, and prepare forces for 

CS/CSS missions in the joint operations area? Specifically, it 

uses the security forces career field as a case study by which to 

assess the comprehensive effects of the ILO program in light of 

the evolving nature of warfare and the heightened importance 

of combat support. 

This paper finds that because the ILO program inflicts significant critical effects on the long-term health of the supporting—and hence supported—forces, continuing the ILO program 

as presently administered is not a viable long-term option. In 

fact, the crux of the problem is bigger: the nature of the modern 

battlefield has outpaced a legacy force built upon a Cold War–

era doctrinal allocation of combat-support roles among the ser-
vices. The ILO problem is merely symptomatic of a long-term, 

evolutionary change in the war-fighting environment and 

masks the full impact of combat-support manpower shortfalls 

that will grow in relative deficiency as this evolution matures. 

The paper concludes by recommending solutions in four areas: 

decreasing combatant commander demand for ILO forces, increasing supporting service capacity, reducing home-station 

demand for support forces, and increasing real-force levels.

ABSTRACT

xiv
xv

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the expert assistance of several 

people in the research for this paper, including Lt Col Kathleen 

Fadok, Headquarters Air Force Security Forces Directorate; Mr. 

Mike Glunk, Headquarters Air Combat Command Security 

Forces Directorate; LTC Scott McCulloch, Joint Staff Global 

Force Management Office; and Lt Col Walt Shearer, Air Force 

Operations Group. These experts patiently and meticulously 

explained the details and subtleties of joint deployment processes and made invaluable suggestions for improvement. My 

thanks also to Mr. Art Maxwell, PhD candidate at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International 

Affairs, who reviewed the full manuscript draft and provided 

insightful, comprehensive recommendations. Thanks also to 

Prof. Don Goldstein of the Matthew B. Ridgway Center at the 

University of Pittsburgh, an “Airman’s Airman,” a mentor and 

role model, and a friend. Finally, and most importantly, thank 

you to my gorgeous bride and our wonderful children—you are 

why I do what I do.



Chapter 1

Introduction

I’ve got to start planning for the future as well. We cannot 

do this in a vacuum anymore; I think that’s probably 

the biggest thing coming out of this war. We cannot grow 

our services, and our service missions, in a vacuum. We 

have to all sit down and discuss who can provide what 

kind of capability.

 —Brig Gen Mary Kay Hertog

 —Director, Security Forces, Headquarters USAF

 —Interview by the author, 13 November 2007

The Myth

The belief that Airmen are only being provisionally deployed “in 

lieu of” (ILO) soldiers and marines is a myth. Most people believe 

that ILO deployments represent a somewhat eccentric albeit necessary response to the demands of current US conflicts. Moreover, 

while conventional wisdom recognizes the high deployment 

demands of the ILO program, it fails to acknowledge the broader 

negative consequences. In fact, the Department of Defense (DOD) 

and the services have effectively ignored the most severe effects of 

the ILO program. Many observers suggest that where there are 

negative consequences of the ILO program, they are relatively 

temporary and can be countered simply through the skill and 

energies of the troops. A number of misconceptions support the 

ILO myth: misconceptions about service roles and competencies, 

the nature of modern battle, and operational requirements. Worse, 

the relative absence of meaningful debate on this subject belies a 

misunderstanding of the significance of these conditions to the 

strategic military capabilities of the United States. 

The US Army and Marine Corps find themselves increasingly 

unable to fill combat-support and combat-service-support (CS/

CSS) positions in Operations Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Enduring 

Freedom (OEF). To compensate, the Joint Staff has tasked the 

Air Force to deploy significant numbers of Airmen from its agile 
combat-support specialties in lieu of the soldiers and marines 

who would have normally filled these positions. While an 

increasing share of ILO deployments have been “sourced” to 

Airmen already trained in the corresponding specialty—such 

as explosive ordnance disposal and on-base law-and-order 

missions—many have been for duties outside of preexisting Air 

Force core competencies, including deployments as prison 

guards and interrogators, convoy security teams, and provincial reconstruction teams (PRT). Recently, even sailors have 

been sourced for land-based ILO deployments. 

The Problem

The ILO program has caused a number of problems within 

the Air Force: manpower inefficiency, training and logistical 

gaps, and reduced combat mission readiness. To date, the Air 

Force has managed to sustain ILO mission operations by leveraging the readiness and endurance of its Airmen. However, 

these oft-cited concerns mask the fundamental problem: while 

modern warfare places new and critical demands on combatsupport forces, US military force structure in this area remains 

woefully inadequate. A variety of ad hoc measures—critically 

aided by valiant individual efforts—has progressively ameliorated these secondary problems while at the same time creating a popular mythology that the fundamental structure of 

combat-support forces is, if not optimal, at least adequate and 

that the ILO program is an unqualified joint success. As a result 

of this myth, and in spite of continuing drains on operational 

effectiveness, combat readiness, and personnel retention, no 

one has yet offered a feasible alternative to the ILO program. 

As a family of military occupational specialties, combat support 

is often overlooked in discussions of joint operational integration. Given the nature of the conflicts in OIF and OEF, combatsupport functions have become a prime component of how we 

fight the enemy rather than an ancillary planning consideration. The increasing irregularity and diffusion of combatants 

on the battlefield, blending of combat and noncombat zones, 

and unique constraints of stability and reconstruction operations all combine to increase the operational significance of 

combat-support forces in relation to the traditional combat 

INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION

arms. Combat-support personnel who are inadequately trained, 

ineffectively organized, or insufficiently resourced will ultimately cause combat operations functions to fail. More importantly, such shortfalls jeopardize US political objectives in the 

theater of operation.

The ILO program as presently administered is not a viable 

long-term solution to Army and Marine Corps manpower shortfalls. In fact, the crux of the problem is bigger: the nature of the 

modern battlefield has outpaced the legacy force structure built 

on Cold War–era doctrinal allocation of combat-support roles 

among the services. The negative effects to date are just the 

beginning, and the DOD must exercise a more sustainable 

strategic solution. The ILO problem is merely a symptom of an 

evolutionary change in the war-fighting environment. As such, 

it requires more than temporarily cross-tasking combat-support 

requirements to other services.

This Paper

The objective of this paper is to develop solutions to the ILO 

problem by identifying the root causes of today’s CS/CSS shortfalls, focusing on fundamental joint doctrine and policy solutions, and to design recommendations for the short term that 

are also valid for future conflict scenarios. This paper will examine the question, How can the DOD and the services better 

organize, assign, source, and prepare forces for CS/CSS missions in the joint operations area? 

Chapter two describes the beginning of the ILO program with 

the initial tasking for Air Force convoy operators in 2003 and 

its rapid expansion into other mission areas. The chapter 

includes a broad description of current ILO operations, along 

with the more common complaints from the field.

In order to more thoroughly examine ILO outcomes, chapter 

three presents a case study of the security forces (SF) career 

field. As the Air Force’s largest and most heavily deployed career 

field, with one of its most variegated mission sets, the security 

forces specialty represents a valid case against which to analyze the ILO program writ large. Chapter three describes the SF 

career field, its role in relation to other joint forces on the battlefield, its history of ILO deployments and outcomes, and various 
INTRODUCTION



measures previously applied to mitigate negative effects of the 

ILO program. 

Chapter four extends the security forces case study by analyzing the negative ILO effects presented in chapter three and 

identifies the mismatch between the modern battlespace and 

US force structure as the root cause of these effects. Specific 

gaps are identified in terms of force size, shape, sustainment, 

and means. Chapter five then develops recommendations to 

bridge these gaps and presents a range of options across the 

dimensions of time and cost. 

Before proceeding, a note on terminology is necessary. During its first four years, the program discussed in this paper was 

named “In Lieu Of,” a term that drew some criticism as a pejorative reference to relative service competencies and wartime 

contributions.1 As of mid-2007 this program is formally renamed 

the Joint Sourcing program, of which in-lieu-of deployments 

now specifically constitute but one subset.2 However, the new 

naming convention has yet to gain popular recognition, and 

virtually all commentators use the original vernacular, including such senior officials as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates 

in an April 2008 speech.3 Hence, for the sake of clarity this 

paper will use “in lieu of” to refer to all deployments outside the 

doctrinally assigned role of a particular force. 

Notes

(All notes appear in shortened form. For full details, see the appropriate entry 

in the bibliography.)

1. This anti-ILO naming bias persists. For example, Air Force chief of staff 

Gen T. Michael Moseley has been cited as disliking the “ILO” term because it 

implies that Airmen are otherwise underemployed in their assigned Air Force 

duty. See Kreisher, “Ground Force Taskings Go On,” 43.

2. McCulloch, “Global Force Management”; and Shearer, Types of Sourcing Solutions. The current global force management guidance describes four 

categories of force-selection decisions, known as “sourcing solutions”: standard (a preferred, planned force deploying to perform its core mission); joint 

(a force deploying in place of another service’s force, yet still performing its 

core mission); in lieu of (a force that is deployed for missions and tasks outside its core competencies); and ad hoc (a force that is consolidated from 

various services and commands to provide a nontraditional capability). 

3. Gates, address to Air War College. 


Chapter 2

Background

When our nation is at war, and a particular component of 

our Defense Department needs help, we have a responsibility to respond to that. And if it was more of an air war 

and we needed support from the Army because we ran 

out of security folks to provide security to our air bases, or 

if we ran out of folks to provide logistics support, we as a 

nation, and we as a military, ought to step up and do it. 

So, doing it is not the issue—the question is how long can 

you do it before it starts to eat into your capability?

 —Maj Gen Gary T. McCoy

 Director, Logistics Readiness, Headquarters USAF

 Interview by the author, 5 February 2008

Most observers understand that the military regularly tailors its 

organizational structures to meet the unique demands of particular combat campaigns. However, they assume that these tailoring 

efforts take place by combining—not reassigning—functions within 

the mission area boundaries of the various services and that these 

efforts involve adapting combat forces to exploit enemy vulnerabilities in combat power. While those beliefs are true in the main, there 

is historical precedent for borrowing forces from other services 

when combat-support requirements exceed force levels allocated to 

the service that is assigned a particular role. In World War II, for 

example, the fledgling Army Air Corps provided Airmen on loan as 

security guards to the Army at Pearl Harbor, a task doctrinally 

assigned to the Army.1 In both World War I and World War II, the 

Army Air Corps even provided Airmen on loan to the Army as combat convoy operators.2 So when the Army encountered similar 

shortages in Operation Iraqi Freedom, it was only natural that the 

Pentagon would look to other services to fill the gaps.

Genesis

In late 2003, the Army began experiencing severe shortages 

among its vehicle operators, those soldiers crewing long-haul 
resupply convoys throughout Iraq. Consequently, the Joint Staff 

tasked the Air Force to send three teams of Airmen to Iraq for a 

six-month deployment as substitutes for combat convoy soldiers. In recognition of the fact it was essentially outsourcing a 

function from one service to another that was neither doctrinally 

assigned nor trained in that mission area, the DOD labeled this 

the “In Lieu Of” program. These Airmen, primarily vehicle operators, were embedded as company-sized detachments within 

Army battalions convoying supplies to various US bases throughout Iraq. The ILO program developed on the basic assumption it 

was a limited-term program to overcome manpower shortages in 

certain specialties within the Army. Initially showing mixed 

operational results, the ILO program soon proved such a successful solution for the Army that it rapidly expanded into other 

combat-support segments. However, even while it eased the 

Army’s dire manpower straits, the ILO program generated widespread criticism within the Air Force.

Convoy Airmen

 The initial complement of approximately 300 convoy Airmen 

attended stateside Army orientation training and a “just-intime” certification course at the Army’s Udairi Range in Kuwait 

that eventually ran six weeks long before validating the Airmen 

were mission ready, highlighting distinct disparities between 

what the Army expected to receive and what the Air Force was 

generically prepared to provide in terms of “vehicle operators.” 

In fact, when the Airmen arrived in Kuwait, close to half of 

them failed their initial weapons qualification and demonstrated “major deficiencies” in basic combat skills that were 

prerequisites to conducting convoy-specific training.3

As a result of these discrepancies, the Air Force developed a 

specialized training course, known as the Basic Combat Convoy 

Course (BC3), where security forces Airmen instructed vehicle 

operations Airmen in the fundamentals of battlefield convoy 

operations. In addition to providing the vehicle operators basic 

training in convoy tasks, BC3 also provided an invaluable opportunity to develop team cohesiveness prior to departure for the 

war zone. As a result, the first BC3 graduates earned mission 

certification at Udairi Range in six days, not six weeks. More 



BACKGROUND
BACKGROUND



importantly, the Airmen subsequently repelled several insurgent 

attacks within their first week on the job, sustaining no casualties. Two of the three supported Army battalion commanders 

rated the Air Force convoy detachments as “best in my unit.”4

Assumptions and Expectations

 In the beginning it appeared that ILO deployments constituted an extraordinary, albeit necessary, case of “doing the 

Army’s job.” Most observers assumed this was a temporary 

situation for a short war—that US operations in Iraq and 

Afghanistan would soon stabilize, Army and Marine requirements would drop to a level supportable within those services, 

and the Air Force would revert to doing strictly “Air Force work.” 

At the outset, the underlying expectation at both headquarters 

and unit levels was that operational demands and existing 

Army forces would return to a point of equilibrium within approximately two years, negating the need to continue “borrowing” 

forces from other services.5

In-Lieu-of Expansion

Encouraged by the successful performance of the Airmen 

assigned these initial ILO missions, and based on increasing Army 

and Marine Corps shortages, the program steadily expanded. The 

initial convoy deployments were followed later in 2004 by a call for 

Air Force security forces Airmen to deploy on a six-month mission 

to the Army’s theater internment facility at Camp Bucca, Iraq, as 

detainee guards and camp defense forces. 

By mid-2007 over 5,000 Airmen, representing the majority of 

Air Force specialties, were deployed on ILO missions throughout Iraq, Afghanistan, and other locations; in 2008 that number is planned to break 6,600—a quarter of all Air Force Middle 

East deployments (see fig. 1).6 Presently, 70 percent of Air Force 

ILO deployments are to Iraq, with the remainder distributed 

throughout other Central Command locations.7

Current Operations

 The ILO program as executed in current operations is shaped 

by several key factors: mission-area requirements from the 
BACKGROUND

combat theater, joint matching—or “sourcing”—of requirements 

to specific service capabilities, the scope of specific missions 

and tasks assigned, training support for these assignments, 

and the command and control relationships established to 

oversee these operations.

Joint Requirements and Sourcing

ILO requirements levied on the various services originate from 

mission requirements submitted by the geographic combatant 

commander, in this case the commander, United States Central 

Command. These requirements flow through a vetting process 

between Joint Forces Command and the Joint Staff, after which 

they are parsed out to the respective services for an assessment 

of supportability and associated risk. There is no ILO policy 

Figure 1. Air Force ILO deployments. (Adapted from Lt Col Walt Shearer, chief, Future 

Operations Branch, Air Force Operations Group, staff briefing, subject: Joint Sourcing, 

e-mail to author, 12 September 2007; and Lt Col Dave Smith, Air Force Operations 

Center, e-mail to author, and telephone interview by the author, 11 February 2008.) 

7,000

6,000

5,000

4,000

3,000

2,000

1,000

0

OIF/OEF 03–05

(Sep 03–Sep 04)

OIF/OEF 04–06

(May 04–May 06)

OIF/OEF 05–07

(May 05–May 07)

OIF/OEF 06–08

(Mar 06–Mar 08)

FY 08

(Oct 07–Sep 08)

Deployment Period

Number Deployed (Man-Years)

(Note: overlap based on planning cycles—totals are discrete between periods)

1,905

2,536

3,468

5,177

6,663 CA/PRT

Civil Aairs/

Provincial

Reconstruction

Teams

IN/OSI

Intelligence/

Oce of Special

Investigations

Med

Medical

Comm

Communications

Log

Logistics

CE

Civil Engineering

SF

Security Forces

Ops

Air Operations

Misc

Miscellaneous

Fig1
BACKGROUND



statement per se that triggered the cross-tasking of service members. Rather, the 2004 creation of the business-oriented Global 

Force Management system established a formal strategy to fill 

combatant commanders’ requirements by sourcing across the 

collection of all-service “force provider” capabilities.8

Scope

Information concerning the numbers of Airmen performing 

specific ILO missions is not available in the unclassified domain 

due to the potential advantage to hostile forces who may exploit 

that information. However, examples of these functions—demonstrating the wide variety of the ILO mission set—include 

detainee interrogation, heavy-construction teams, detainee 

guard operations, convoy driver, teams to counter improvised 

explosive devices (IED), Army base security (defense), movement 

control teams, explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) (bomb technician), military working dog teams, relocation assistance teams, 

utility support detachment, police transition teams, stress counseling teams, well-drilling teams, personal security detachment, 

Afghanistan training teams, facility engineering teams, convoy 

security, PRTs (Iraq and Afghanistan), Iraqi forces support and 

training teams, and Army base law-and-order detachment.

Training

All ILO deployments require additional training, primarily 

when the deployment exceeds the tasked force’s core competencies. But even when deployed within their core competencies, all ILO Airmen attend combat training at one of eight Army 

installations.9 In some cases this training is conducted at a 

specially designed Air Force training course, such as the Basic 

Combat Convoy Course. Since 2006, the Air Force’s Second Air 

Force headquarters has overseen the design and execution of 

both types of ILO predeployment training and has also managed equipment issues for ILO Airmen.

Command and Control

Deployed command and control of ILO Airmen is established 

to account for both the manner in which the Air Force organizes 
BACKGROUND

10

its forces for deployment and the need for unity of command at 

the tactical, or execution, level. The Air Force organizes its weapons systems and its people among 10 deployable capability segments. These segments, called air and space expeditionary forces 

(AEF), comprise small teams of aircraft, people, and equipment 

across the Air Force that are combined to fulfill overseas deployment requirements. In general, two AEFs are preassigned as 

“deployable” during each successive 120-day time period, or 

“bucket.” In theory, and barring deployed requirements that 

exceed the preplanned AEF capacity, Airmen in the AEF system 

are therefore deployable for four months out of every 20-month 

AEF “life cycle.” The general idea behind the AEF system is to 

give units and individuals the ability to deconflict deployed missions with unit activities and personal calendars in advance, 

thereby minimizing the strain of deployments. To a certain 

extent, building composite deployable units also seeks to diffuse 

strain across multiple home bases that support deployed operations. Although the Air Force has begun to move toward a “teaming” concept consolidating the makeup of deployed units, it is 

not unusual to find deployed squadrons, particularly in the 

combat-support arena, comprised of several hundred Airmen 

deployed from 15 to 20 home bases.

In addition, virtually all ILO Airmen deploy under the administrative and operational control of an in-theater air expeditionary group (AEG), commanded by an Air Force colonel.10 Three 

such groups exist: the 586th, headquartered at Camp Arifjan, 

Kuwait; the 732nd, at Balad AB, Iraq; and the 755th, based at 

Bagram AB, Afghanistan. Administrative control, or ADCON, 

includes authorities for organization, accountability, discipline, 

logistics, and training of ILO Airmen.11 Operational control, or 

OPCON, is a broad authority closely subordinate to full command.12 OPCON encompasses authorities to organize, assign 

tasks, and direct all aspects of operations and joint training 

which the supported commander deems necessary to accomplish assigned missions.13 The 586th AEG oversees roughly 

1,950 ILO Airmen—1,500 Airmen provide Army base defense, 

area security, detention, convoy, engineering, and chaplain 

operations at multiple operations throughout Iraq and another 

450 operate the Army logistics port at Kuwait Naval Base.14 The 

732nd AEG administers OPCON and ADCON to over 1,800 Air-
BACKGROUND

11

men in six squadrons that support a variety of security, engineering, interrogation, and intelligence functions for Army and 

Marine Corps units in Iraq.15 Finally, the 755th AEG commands 

approximately 1,250 Airmen who conduct security, counterIED, medical, intelligence, and other operations across Afghanistan in direct support of US Army and International Security 

Assistance Force missions.16

The supported unit commander wields tactical control, or 

TACON, over ILO Airmen embedded in the unit. In contrast to 

the authority retained by the AEG commander, the commander 

with TACON has very limited authority constrained to that control of movement and action necessary to accomplish missions 

and tasks assigned by higher authority.17 Significantly, commanders with TACON do not have authority to reassign or 

reorganize those forces, to dictate training, or to administer 

discipline. In practice, the success of TACON-supported operations relies greatly on the relationship between the supported 

commander and the commander(s) retaining ADCON and 

OPCON of the supporting forces.

Popular Criticisms

Common criticisms of the ILO program focus on negative 

impacts on Air Force mission capability generated by the 

requirement to use Air Force resources to support non–Air 

Force roles. Such arguments cite the employment of Airmen 

outside the core competencies for which they are trained, the 

negative force-management impact of deconstructing the AEF 

deployment schedule, and degradation in home-mission capability. While these arguments are not without foundation, the 

problem is that they tend to be evaluated on emotional rather 

than objective grounds, with equity in service-member deployment sacrifices being a major theme. Across the DOD, the ILO 

providers—the Air Force and Navy—are considered traditionally underemployed in ground-centric campaigns. Yet among 

the ILO supplier community, deployment rates in current conflicts dramatically exceed previous experience. Consequently, 

this debate remains unresolved. In subsequent chapters this 

paper attempts to go beyond this debate to systemically examine ILO impacts. 
BACKGROUND

12

Before commencing the analysis in this paper, it is appropriate to discuss a related equity concern—the publicly unadvertised but marked objections that the Army wouldn’t need ILO 

support if it made more efficient use of the soldiers it already has 

and that the Army has unused capacity, particularly in the 

Guard and Reserve forces.18 These criticisms are not entirely 

without foundation. According to recent statistics from the 

Army’s Human Resources Command, 40.6 percent of soldiers 

have never deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.19 However, that figure alone is misleading. For instance, this group includes soldiers in basic training, serving in critical nondeployable jobs like 

recruiting, or who are medically ineligible to deploy.20 Nevertheless, the command found that 37,000 of these soldiers, some 7

percent of active duty soldiers, appeared to have no immediate 

excuse from deployment. A quarter of those troops work in medical services while the rest come from space operations, telecommunications, and similar support specialties.21 While the Army 

works to reduce its nondeploying population, the other services 

appear to have even higher rates of nondeploying personnel. 

According to October 2007 Air Force figures, 63 percent of Army 

personnel have deployed, 55 percent of the Marine Corps, 51 

percent of the Air Force, and 50 percent of the Navy.22

The picture of comparative deployment equity among the 

services sharpens somewhat by examining service-specific 

trends in post-9/11 combat deployments. While the DOD did 

not consistently collect deployment data until 2001, and isolated data for Iraq and Afghanistan deployments is unavailable, 

table 1 provides the best data available on comparative rates 

for worldwide deployments away from a member’s home unit.23

These figures demonstrate two key points: first, for all services 

except the Navy (for which sea time not spent in war zones 

impacts deployment rates) the deployment load on those who 

are deploying (“deployed members”) grew dramatically from 

2001 to 2004. This increase, generally well publicized and 

understood among the public, was most pronounced in the 

Army where deploying members spent 250 percent more days 

away from home in 2004 than in 2001.
BACKGROUND

13

Component 

(Active/

Reserve/

Guard)

AVERAGE DAYS DEPLOYED PER MILITARY MEMBER

FY2001 FY2002 FY2003 FY2004

Deployed

Members All

Deployed

Members All

Deployed 

Members All Deployed 

Members All

Army34.1 14.960.2 24.9 124.6 55.7119.4 54.8

Navy 111.0 50.3116.4 53.2 122.5 51.0104.8 39.0

Marine 

Corps63.0 24.882.9 34.7 130.7 64.8102.1 49.6

Air Force36.5 16.252.6 24.463.7 30.458.2 29.0

DOD53.5 23.473.0 31.7 110.2 49.999.4 45.0

Source: Donald H. Rumsfeld, secretary of defense, Annual Report to the President and the Congress, 

Office of the Secretary of Defense, Washington, D.C., 2005, B-3, http://www.dod.mil/execsec/adr 

2005.pdf/. 

The second point that table 1 demonstrates is less commonly 

understood. The “all” members data reflects the deployment 

load as measured against total service end strength and hence 

indicates deployment strain on each of the services. This data 

differs from the “deploying members” data, which measures 

the number of deployed days strictly among those who deployed 

and thus indicates individual deployment strain. In this sense 

then, Army deployment strain nearly quadrupled during this 

period, similar to the increase in individual soldier deployment 

strain and indicating that Army deployments increased roughly 

evenly across its population, an unsurprising result.24 However, the Air Force and Marine Corps figures show a substantially greater increase in deployment strain on each service 

than on individuals, indicating proportionally broader deploying populations among these two services.25 In short, while the 

Army deployment portfolio grew the most during this period, 

the Air Force and Marine Corps experienced smaller but broader 

deployment growth. 

Overall, while the nature of increased tempo varies by service, suggestions of Army deployment inefficiency appear exaggerated. Similarly, while the available Navy data is skewed by 

differences in definition of “deployment” and requires further 

Table 1. Deployment rates by service (total force)
BACKGROUND

14

study, assumptions of low Air Force deployment participation 

seem grossly overstated. 

Studying the Program

The features of the ILO program which draw the most attention, both in the field and among headquarters managers and 

senior leaders, are second-order concerns that stop short of 

analyzing the critical, strategic problem of military capacity 

and force structure. Common complaints tend to focus on current impact to service-specific mission sets rather than on the 

question of overall DOD operational capacity. Additionally, Air 

Force resistance to ILO participation is perceived in many circles as a somewhat pathetic form of grumbling from a service 

that has as yet sacrificed far less than its ground-centric counterparts. Formal analyses of the ILO program have variously 

understudied or ignored long-term force-management problems26 and offered operationally infeasible solutions that do 

little more than add unnecessary bureaucratic overhead without ever considering strategic consequences.27

As a result of this analytical uncertainty, meaningful ILO 

program questioning has been restricted to what are marginal 

concerns at the tactical level of execution. Certainly, resolution 

of execution-level problems has generated positive short-term 

effects, but the general inattention to ILO program effects on 

force structure, exacerbated by the growing significance of 

combat-support functions in war, overlooks serious long-term 

problems. While reducing execution-level friction is a good 

thing, failing to take action on fundamental disconnects in 

force structure is very bad. By shifting on the fly without meaningfully adjusting force structure, the United States will eventually break not only its military capacity to sustain the new 

generation of warfare but its capacity for conventional “big 

wars” as well. The next two chapters aim to overcome these 

various critical shortfalls by studying ILO effects in the case of 

the security forces career field and then evaluating those effects 

in terms of comprehensive military readiness for modern war.
BACKGROUND

15

Notes

1. Prof. Donald F. Goldstein (University of Pittsburgh), interview by the 

author, 11 December 2007.

2. McCoy, interview.

3. Headquarters USAF, staff briefing; and Headquarters USAF, staff summary sheet.

4. Headquarters USAF, staff briefing.

5. Headquarters Air Education and Training Command (AETC), staff talking paper. This view was regularly expressed in headquarters staff coordination between Headquarters Air Force and AETC, as observed by the author 

during his assignment as Combat Support Training Branch chief, Headquarters AETC, 2004–6. Joint tasking of Air Force elements to deploy for Army 

convoy support was projected only through the current deployment cycle; 

successive tasking orders were issued incrementally, usually within a few 

months prior to the required start of training. See also Headquarters USAF, 

staff talking paper, subject: Combat Skills Training Options. A deployed 

group commander who provided ILO forces to the Army in Iraq restated the 

original understanding that the program was a stopgap until the Army was 

able to train sufficient forces of its own to fill the shortfalls in transporters, 

security forces, and engineers. Richards, “Expeditionary Wing Leadership 

Lessons,” 18–21. 

6. Kreisher, “Ground Force Taskings Go On,” 42.

7. Ibid., 45.

8. LTC Scott McCulloch (Joint Operations Division, Headquarters Joint 

Staff), interview by the author, 14 November 2007. See also Rumsfeld, Annual 

Report to the President and the Congress, 2004, 34; and Joint Chiefs of Staff, 

briefing, subject: Global Force Management, slide 2 notes. 

9. Kreisher, “Ground Force Taskings Go On,” 44.

10. A very small number of Airmen, representing approximately 3 percent 

of all ILO positions, fill ILO positions at other locations throughout the region. 

See Schanz, “Air Force World,” 12.

11. The DOD’s full definition of ADCON is listed in the glossary of this 

paper. See Joint Publication (JP) 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary, 6.

12. The DOD’s full definition of combatant command, or command authority, is listed in the glossary of this paper (ibid., 98).

13. The DOD’s full definition of OPCON is listed in the glossary of this 

paper (ibid., 397–98).

14. Compiled from “586th Air Expeditionary Group”; and Schanz, “Air 

Force World,” 12. Personnel figures presented in this paragraph reflect data 

from unclassified sources that was marked current as of October 2007; 

therefore, the total ILO figure for all three AEGs discussed here—5,000 Airmen—falls below the aggregate number for the same period reflected in other 

sources as well as in other sections later in this paper, which is approximately 5,550.

15. “732nd Air Expeditionary Group.” 

16. “Fighting Terror, Building Peace”; and Schanz, “Air Force World,” 12.
BACKGROUND

16

17. The DOD’s full definition of TACON is listed in the glossary of this 

paper. See JP 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary, 539.

18. In the early years of ILO convoy support, this undocumented sentiment 

was commonly circulated among various Air Force headquarters’ staffs.

19. “Army Prioritizing GIs for Combat Tours.” 

20. “37,000 Soldiers Have Not Deployed,” 13.

21. “Army Prioritizing GIs for Combat Tours.” 

22. Headquarters USAF, staff talking paper, subject: Deployment within 

AF COCOM [Combatant Command] Support. 

23. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has noted problems in the 

collection and tracking of individual deployment data, specifically within the 

Army and Marine Corps. For instance, in 2005 inspections from separate 

agencies found that approximately three-quarters of individual personnel 

tempo data was improperly recorded. Nearly half of the Marine Corps units 

inspected in 2005 and 2006 had inconsistently or inaccurately reported personnel tempo to the DOD. Nonetheless, the GAO found that these errors most 

likely underreported personnel tempo, possibly by as much as 20 percent for 

the Army and 50 percent for the Marine Corps. See GAO, Military Personnel, 

15–16, 20–21. The service data is included in the DOD’s annual defense report 

on force management, the most recent of which is from 2005. See Rumsfeld, 

Annual Report to the President and the Congress, 2005, B-1–B-3. 

24. The Army deployment data from table 1 represents a 250 percent 

increase in individual deployment strain and a 268 percent increase in service deployment strain, an insignificant difference.

25. Air Force deployment strain increased 79 percent during this period 

whereas individual deployment strain on Airmen increased 59 percent. For 

the Marine Corps, service deployment strain increased 100 percent while 

individual deployment strain grew 62 percent. 

26. Boit, “Blue in Lieu of Green.”

27. Eagan, Future of “In Lieu Of” Forces.
17

Chapter 3

Case Study

Security Forces

And at some point we woke up and said, “Oh, man. The 

Navy’s getting involved and taking folks from different 

specialties. They’re taking the cooks, the bakers, and 

they’re turning those into detainee ops guys.” And we 

didn’t catch onto that, and by that time it was too late.

 —Col Steve Robinette, director, Security Forces

 —Headquarters Air Combat Command

 —Interview by the author, 15 November 2007

In addition to representing the largest career field in the Air 

Force, the security forces were one of the first specialties 

assigned to ILO missions. As one of the most regularly deployed 

fields—even before the post-9/11 boom in contingency deployments—security forces have a long track record of fulfilling 

split missions at home station and abroad. And given their 

wartime mission as quasi-infantry for the defense of air bases, 

they possess relatively more advanced ground combat skills 

than do most other Airmen. These characteristics make security forces an attractive case study for ILO program analysis. 

Since in many ways ILO missions would seem a more natural 

fit for SF Airmen, to the extent that problems have resulted for 

SF, the causes should be particularly instructive for other Air 

Force specialties. 

Moreover, other Air Force career fields are beginning to experience SF-like ILO demands. Recently, the Air Force announced 

that in order to keep pace with increased ILO mission demands, 

civil engineering specialties will shift in 2008 to longer sixmonth tour lengths for all deployments—both Air Force and 

ILO.1 In fact, according to a recent Air Force Times article, as a 

result of joint requirements, by the end of 2007 over 44 percent 

of all deployed Airmen were on six-month deployments, and 

roughly 6 percent were on yearlong deployments.2
Description of Security Forces

The Air Force’s largest enlisted career field, and traditionally 

one of its most heavily deployed, is security forces. Security 

forces mission tasks and manpower requirements in the typical home-base operating environment are fundamentally different from those of most deployed locations—a fact that was 

often overlooked in the pre-9/11 Air Force. This divergence has 

become more pronounced and problematic as the operations in 

Iraq and Afghanistan have matured.

Personnel Strength

Over 22,000-strong among the active force, the SF specialty 

comprises roughly 7 percent of Air Force personnel strength.3

Whereas there are nearly 24,000 active duty enlisted SF manpower authorizations, the actual number of assigned personnel 

is typically much less. As of January 2008 there were 22,695 

SF personnel assigned against these positions, a 95 percent 

effective manning rate.4 Due to the tactical ground combat 

character of SF duties, the force is naturally heavy in juniorranking Airmen and is highly reliant on first-tier noncommissioned officer leadership. Currently the force is configured 

much like the Marine Corps model, with roughly two-thirds of 

its strength in the bottom third of the rank structure.5

Functional Roles and Core Competencies

SF Airmen fulfill three core mission areas, or roles, at Air 

Force installations: law enforcement, physical security of aircraft and other critical operational assets, and infantry-like air 

base defense. Each of these general roles encompasses a set of 

task competencies, the nature of which requires regular, intensive training to perform safely and effectively. While at the time 

of this writing no detailed list of these competencies has been 

formally promulgated, the Air Force understands the importance of codifying these competencies to enable appropriate 

use and sourcing of its SF Airmen within the joint community. 

Accordingly, the Air Staff Security Forces Directorate is staffing 

a “Mission Essential Task List,” an early draft of which includes 

such items as installation entry and circulation control; active 

18

CASE STUDY
CASE STUDY

19

and passive base defense operations; area control; mounted, 

dismounted, and aerial patrolling; local intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; standoff attack defense; convoy 

security; and law-and-order operations.6

Operational Tempo

SF Airmen have a history of higher-than-normal deployment 

rates relative to the rest of the Air Force. However, after Khobar 

Towers SF deployments rose substantially; following 9/11 those 

deployments more than tripled, as reflected in figure 2. Today, SF 

Airmen serve deployed tours that are minimally 50 percent longer 

than the Air Force’s standard. A number of SF positions are nondeployable, such as presidential and nuclear security positions, 

and like all forces a portion is unavailable due to hospitalization, 

reassignment, pending separation, and similar conditions. These 

deductions leave roughly 10,300 active duty SF Airmen available 

for home-base and deployed missions, and over 3,500 of them are 

deployed at any given time, despite Reserve SF Airmen absorbing 

an average of 15 percent of the deployment burden.7 Based on 

deployment pace and length, this translates to a deployed-to-nondeployed “dwell ratio” of 1:1.9, meaning that on average, Airmen 

in deployable positions are deployed one day for every 1.9 days 

they are not deployed.8 Despite this exceptionally high deployment rate, home-station operations continue unabated since SF 

parent units have full-time base support missions. Consequently, 

in between deployments the Airmen back home are securing their 

bases with less than 80 percent of the people the Air Force has 

validated for the mission, and they work an average of 46 percent 

more hours in a week than the Air Force’s 42-hour planning factor.9 These combined effects produce a challenging operational 

tempo (optempo), one that in many respects equals that of the 

most highly deployed elements of any branch of the military.

Post-Khobar Career Field Merger 

and Task Overmatch

Khobar Towers was obviously a watershed event in many 

ways, but for the security forces career field it marked the beginning of an institutional decision that the classic tripartite division of roles and functions was no longer viable. Toward this 
CASE STUDY

20

end, in October 1997 the career field merged its separate police 

and security subspecialties, together with its wartime base 

defense duties, into a single all-inclusive field, renamed security 

forces.10 Two primary effects resulted from the SF merger: an 

expanded set of individual skills whereby all SF Airmen exercised all three legacy disciplines; and, since training time dropped 

relative to the expanded skill set, so did proficiency levels. Before 

the merger, SF Airmen were specialists with expertise in a relatively narrow field. Post-merger, these Airmen are trained in 

more skills but demonstrate the classic shortfall of becoming a 

“jack of all trades, and master of none.” 

The problem of task generalization is nothing new in the Air 

Force. In fact, the problem for SF is analogous to that of fighter 

aircrews in the 1970s, when the Air Force recognized the inherent risk in training multimission generalists and opted to train 

its crews as specialists in a single type of mission such as air 

superiority or ground attack. “The move away from commonality 

and homogeneity in the force allowed more units to be excellent 

at their primary tasks and avoided the danger of creating a service in which all aircrews were mediocre at everything.”11 More 

recently, this same recognition has surfaced in the Air Force’s 

response to the late-2007 incident with uncontrolled transporta5,000

4,000

3,000

2,000

1,000

0

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Fiscal Year

Number of Personnel

Fig 2

Figure 2. SF overseas contingency deployments. (Compiled from data contained 

in Maj David W. Marttala, The Emperor’s New Clothes: SF Force Structure and EAF 

Force Protection [Quantico, VA: United States Marine Corps Command and Staff 

College, July 2002]; and Lt Col Kathleen M. Fadok, chief, Security Forces Plans, 

Headquarters USAF, Washington, D.C., “Current SF Career Field Snapshot,” PowerPoint briefing slide, to the author, e-mail, 14 November 2007.)
CASE STUDY

21

tion of nuclear weapons from Minot AFB, North Dakota, to Barksdale AFB, Louisiana. Reviewers have recommended decoupling 

conventional and nuclear mission-area crews in order to reestablish necessary focus and expertise on nuclear weapons handling. 

Unfortunately, this lesson has been overlooked in the case of 

security forces. The struggle to overcome task-specific mediocrity 

consumes every security forces unit.

The compound problems of a high optempo and task generalization have overwhelmed the training capacity of Air Force 

security units. A 2006 RAND report analyzed the training load in 

16 operational SF units by examining the ratio of junior on-thejob trainees to middle-grade noncommissioned officers.12 This 

ratio was analyzed both for the planned rank structure as well 

as for the actual rank population assigned to a unit. Figure 3 

shows the comparison of these two ratios for the nine-year period 

overlapping the 1997 SF career field merger, revealing an increase 

of more than 50 percent over the planned training load that 

began precisely as the merger took effect. Increased training load 

leads to increased time away from primary duties as trainers 

struggle to bring their subordinates up to mission-ready skill 

levels, even while these same trainers by necessity fill tasks that 

cannot be performed by the partially trained junior Airmen.13

Assigned

Authorized

1.300

1.400

1.200

1.100

1.000

0.900

0.800

0.700

0.600

0.500

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002

Fiscal Year

Ratio

Fig 3

Figure 3. Training load in SF units. (Reprinted from Raymond E. Conley et al., 

Maintaining the Balance between Manpower, Skill Levels, and PERSTEMPO [Personnel Tempo] [Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2006], 60.)
CASE STUDY

22

Security Forces Transformation 2004–Present

In 2004 the then-director of Air Force Security Forces and 

Force Protection, Brig Gen Robert Holmes, initiated a groundbreaking effort to redefine the career field into a capability better fitted to modern mission demands and more relevant to the 

modern threat profile. Unfortunately, that effort is heavily 

dependent on outsourcing air provost (police) services and certain aspects of personnel and administrative security to DOD 

civilians while orienting active duty SF Airmen mainly on the 

base security function.14 To date, that effort has been hampered by manpower constraints, reinforced in the main by the 

Air Force’s elimination of 40,000 Airmen as a method to generate critical funds to recapitalize the aging aircraft fleet. Although 

an updated SF manpower formula was released in late 2007 

authorizing the use of deployed mission requirements to justify 

manpower, this new allowance does not necessarily mean newly 

justified positions will translate into funded authorizations for 

manpower.15 In fact, despite recent speculation over the success of the ongoing Air Force manpower reductions to free up 

funds for recapitalization, senior officials are not counting on 

any manpower growth. According to General Hertog, despite 

ongoing mission growth, “we are not going to get additional 

manpower,” a view shared by over a dozen senior military officials the author interviewed for this paper.16 For the time being, 

SF leaders are managing transformation and mission requirements as a zero-growth problem.17

Role Relationships of Military Police 

and Security Forces

Security forces perform functions that in many ways resemble 

those of Army military police (MP), yet the two service specialties 

are unique in certain distinct ways. For example, joint doctrine 

designates the land component commander as responsible for 

securing lines of communications (LOC), or movement corridors,18

and the Army executes this function by using military police in 

their battlefield circulation control capacity.19 The Army is also 

designated as the executive agent for detainee operations, a function it has assigned to its MP forces.20 The assignment of these 

functions is singular among the services—more precisely, the 
CASE STUDY

23

point is that no other service is manned, funded, or organized to 

perform this function. 

A common misperception within the Air Force is that SF Airmen only recently began performing air base defense operations 

outside the relatively protected confines of the base perimeter, 

and then did so as part of the ILO program. In fact, this function 

always has been an SF core competency. A major reason for this 

misconception lies in a 1985 agreement between the Army and 

Air Force, Joint Service Agreement (JSA) 8 (full text at appendix). 

JSA 8 was intended to formalize and clarify Army support to 

protect Air Force bases by providing military police response 

forces in an on-call capacity. However, many observers mistakenly interpreted the agreement’s conflicted language to mean 

that the Army had exclusive, full-time responsibility for external 

base defense.21 Despite this agreement, Airmen retained their 

previously assigned function to defend the base from inside and 

outside its perimeter as required by terrain and the local threat. 

The fact that this relationship was widely misunderstood 

stemmed more from its peacetime obscurity and the ambiguity 

of JSA 8 than from Army task ownership. Although JSA 8 has 

now nearly faded from corporate memory, and was formally terminated in 2005, the assumption persists that the external air 

base is an Army mission.22 When other Airmen observed SF 

execute their doctrinally-appointed defense mission in the tactical terrain around their bases in Desert Storm, Afghanistan, and 

Iraq, many assumed this was due to Army manpower shortages. 

Curiously, this misconception still exists today, even among 

congressional members who have suggested that all ground 

combat operations are somehow out of place for Airmen.23

In-Lieu-of Deployments

Notwithstanding its unique disposition among Air Force specialties, the ILO program has generated unprecedented reliance 

upon security forces. This reliance has manifested in terms of 

expanded mission-type sourcing, increased deployed-force levels, and increased deployment tempo. The extended duration of 

operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has disproven the original 

assumption of ILO support as a short-term program. In fact, all 
CASE STUDY

24

indications are that the shortfall in ILO mission types will continue indefinitely.

Mission Types

Security forces perform a wide variety of ILO missions at over 

a dozen main operating bases and three dozen forward operating bases, and smaller locations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Chief 

among these missions is the guarding of detainees in prisonerof-war facilities and Iraqi police training teams (PTT). The first 

dedicated security forces ILO deployment took place in late 

2004, when a squadron of Airmen trained at Fort Lewis, Washington, and deployed for a six-month mission to secure the US 

Army’s Camp Bucca and guard Iraqi detainees in its enemy 

prisoner facility.24 Today, security forces on PTTs provide training 

for new Iraqi police members. These Airmen conduct individual 

and team training, provide security for training operations, and 

run convoys to and from police stations and other training 

locations. Prior to their deployment, PTTs attend two months of 

specialized training at an Army power projection platform.25 In 

addition, security forces Airmen deploy as members of PRTs 

throughout Iraq and Afghanistan, assisting in critical infrastructure recovery operations. SF also deploy as law-and-order 

detachments on certain Army operating bases, conducting the 

Army’s provost marshal function. Security forces man gun 

trucks on resupply convoys across Iraq and provide personnel 

security details for designated officials. Finally, SF military 

working dog teams embed in a variety of tactical Army units to 

provide IED detection capability. 

Numbers

A large portion of the SF deployment burden, currently 52 percent, supports ILO deployments. Figure 4 shows the increasing 

ILO demand for SF and the corresponding increase in total SF 

deployments (ILO and Air Force missions combined). While this 

figure depicts a downward trend in 2008, this is merely an artifact 

of the process by which requirements are forecasted; historically, 

true requirements increase during execution.26 Security forces 

comprise one of 10 career fields, representing 42 percent of deploy-
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25

ing Airmen, whose members now deploy for either six or 12 

months at a time versus the AEF standard of four months.27

Duration

In every respect, the initial assumptions and expectations for 

the ILO program have not borne out. The reason is fundamentally tied to the fact that the war in general has run far longer 

than anticipated. As the United States enters the sixth year of 

Operation Iraqi Freedom, the nature and scope of operations 

show no signs of reduction in the immediate future. In February 2008, Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated for the first 

time that he supported a potential pause in Iraq troop withdrawals below presurge levels,28 which senior Iraq commander 

Gen David Petraeus subsequently recommended. The prospect 

of the new American president directing a perfunctory contraction—or even termination—of military operations in Iraq is certainly conceivable, but so long as withdrawal remains predicated on Iraqi self-security the US presence there could easily 

extend into the 2020s. Therefore, US planning needs to proceed on the assumption that operations will continue at their 

present level indefinitely.

0

500

1,000

1,500

2,000

2,500

3,000

3,500

4,000

4,500

5,000

Dec-02

Jun-03Dec-03Jun-04

Dec-04

Jun-05

Dec-05

Jun-06Dec-06

Jun-07

Dec-07

Jun-08

Number of Personnel Deployed

AF + ILO

ILO

Fig 4

Figure 4. Air Force and ILO deployments. (Adapted from Lt Col Kathleen M. Fadok, 

chief, Security Forces Plans, Headquarters USAF, Washington, D.C., “Current SF 

Career Field Snapshot,” PowerPoint briefing slide, to the author, e-mail, 14 November 

2007.)
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26

Effects

ILO support has tested the readiness of individual Airmen 

and units as well as the overall robustness of the Air Force’s 

combat-support force structure. For security forces, the results 

have been mixed. In the short term, the program has demonstrated remarkable operational outcomes: ILO Airmen have 

acquitted themselves famously. However, this benefit has not 

come without substantial risk and has done serious damage to 

the long-term health of the force. Ultimately, the negative effects 

are not restricted to the Air Force alone but jeopardize joint 

war-fighting capability.

Positive Outcomes 

The ILO program has certainly produced benefits. Foremost, 

the program has met its immediate objective: filling quantitative shortfalls in combat-support capability. Second, ILO Airmen have demonstrated widely acclaimed energy and motivation. Third, a by-product of ILO training and extended ILO 

deployments has been cross-feed of broader tactical skills. 

Fourth, participation in these missions has boosted confidence 

among individual Airmen to learn new skills and to perform 

under the rigors of combat.

Negative Outcomes

The ILO program has also produced a number of negative 

effects that outweigh the benefits and threaten to undermine 

immediate Air Force military capability and future DOD capacity 

to prosecute military campaigns. First, because many of the 

joint-sourcing-solution (JSS) missions tasked to SF have been 

outside their core competencies, a great deal of predeployment 

training has been required. This has generated new training 

costs for both services, but primarily for the Army, which conducts the bulk of such training. In fiscal year (FY) 2007, 2,738 

SF Airmen attended Army predeployment training for ILO missions.29 At an average of 30 days per Airman, this equates to 

something over 80,000 man-days of ILO-driven training time, 

or the equivalent of 220 full-time manpower positions.30
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27

Second, skills-competencies mismatches mean that SF Airmen are not as effective in their first JSS deployment as they 

ought to be when going to war. There is a decided learning 

curve in individual and team tactics over time. Even concentrated training just prior to deployment is insufficient to overcome the relatively shallow experience base of Airmen on their 

first deployment in a new ILO mission.31 There is no substitute 

for long-term repetition of tasks which demand a high degree of 

conditioned physiological response. Lack of such experience 

places Airmen and the mission at undue risk.

Third, the number of ILO deployments has resulted in all SF 

deployments—both ILO missions as well as those for Air Force 

missions—exceeding the AEF planning basis. SF deployments 

are now a minimum of six months in duration, with many 

extending to 12 months. Earlier, this paper presented the SF 

deployed-to-nondeployed dwell ratio as 1:1.9. However, after 

predeployment training and travel time are factored in, deployable SF Airmen actually sustain a 1:1 “effective dwell ratio” 

between the number of days deployed and the number of days 

at home, producing physiological stress on individuals and 

operational strain on home units.

Fourth, due to the higher dwell ratios, time to train and execute the primary SF mission at home base has dwindled to a 

dangerous level. Unlike most of their Army and Marine counterparts, SF Airmen have a home-base operational mission in addition to a deployed mission; when these Airmen are deployed, 

their home mission suffers. Available SF resources are not projected to grow to fulfill ILO requirements because “on the books” 

these roles are assigned to other services. Hence, the Air Force 

earns no manpower authorizations to handle ILO requirements. 

Furthermore, such use draws those resources away from the 

core mission readiness of the supporting service. Moreover, in 

contrast to many CS/CSS forces in the Army and Marines, Air 

Force support forces are authorized manpower based strictly on 

their home-base mission, not for deployed wartime missions. 

Consequently, deploying forces represent a one-for-one decrement in the strength of the associated home unit; every Airman 

deployed represents one less Airman to perform the corresponding support function at the base from which the service member 

deployed (e.g., security, communications, engineering, etc.).
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28

Fifth, because of the cumulative toll on SF Airmen and their 

families, morale has suffered, which can cause a variety of 

other problems within units. Discipline, energy, and rates of 

misbehavior are all prey to the pervasive effects of dissatisfaction with quality of military life. While refined empirical data on 

this effect is virtually nonexistent, career-field leaders from 

squadron level to the Pentagon are aware of the growing hazard 

of deployment-related morale.

As a direct consequence of degraded morale, a sixth negative 

effect has manifested in declining retention rates that, through 

second- and third-order effects, could decimate home-station 

and deployed operations. Contrary to public understanding, 

this problem is not merely speculative; in fact, low retention 

has already reached epidemic proportions. Until very recently, 

senior Air Force leaders have regularly cited the success of the 

AEF in meeting personnel management challenges of an 

increased optempo. In 2003 Gen John Jumper, then chief of 

staff, said that “the AEF is allowing us to highlight our stressed 

career fields. We are able to pinpoint them and able to size the 

level of our stress. . . . We are working hard to right-size our 

force. . . . We are enjoying excellent results in our recruiting 

and retention.”32 And as recently as mid-2007, Gen T. Michael 

Moseley, chief of staff, affirmed AEF capability to handle wartime deployment demands: “We can stay at this level as long as 

we have to.”33 It makes sense that the Air Force remains committed to the AEF structure, which is based largely on the 

maintenance cycles of aircraft and their support systems. At 

the same time, the Air Force is ready and willing to support 

deviations from the 120-day AEF rotations when the combatant 

commander needs particular Air Force support. Maj Gen 

Anthony F. Przybyslawski puts it this way: “We’ll never say to 

the COCOM that, ‘I’m sorry, we can’t support this because we 

only go for 120 days.’ This is war, Americans are getting killed, 

and airmen are in the fight.”34

However, more recent statements from Air Force officials have 

begun to acknowledge signs of stress in the force. In November 

2007, Lt Gen Roger Brady, then-deputy chief of staff for Air Force 

Manpower and Personnel, told some members of Congress and 

staffers that security forces—along with EOD and transportation—were not retaining enough noncommissioned officers in 
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29

the six-to-14-year career band.35 In February 2008, Brady’s successor, Lt Gen Richard Y. Newton III, testified to the House Armed 

Services Military Personnel Subcommittee that overall Air Force 

retention was at acceptable levels. General Newton then continued with brief reference to problems in certain specialties: 

For FY07 . . . enlisted retention fell below goal (92.7% of goal), still within 

acceptable margins. The AF Reserve fell short of its enlisted retention 

goal by 3%, attaining 97% and was .2% shy of the officer retention goal, 

attaining 99.8%. The ANG [Air National Guard] met their overall officer 

and enlisted retention goals for FY07. Even with these successes, some 

enlisted specialties in the active Air Force did not achieve their overall 

retention goal, including Air Traffic Control, Mid East Crypto Linguist, 

Structural Civil Engineering, and Pavement[s] and Construction Equipment[,] Vehicle Operations, and Contracting. . . . 

Our warfighting Airmen are committed to serving, including those experiencing high deployment rates. . . . COCOM requirements and the 

GWOT [global war on terror] levy a high demand for pilots, navigators, 

intelligence, civil engineers, and security forces officers as well as enlisted Airmen in aircrew, special operations, intelligence, vehicle operators, civil engineering, and security forces. Despite an increased operations tempo and deployment rate, the Air Force continues to achieve 

acceptable retention levels across the officer and enlisted force.36

It is important to note that four of the six low-retention specialties General Newton highlighted—structural engineers, pavement and construction, vehicle operators, and contracting—are 

among the most heavily tasked under the ILO program, having 

been fully removed from the four-month AEF schedule and programmed instead for six- to 12-month deployments. 

This subtle turn in Air Force pronouncement of retention 

trends is more significant than might be judged from General 

Newton’s statement alone. In the case of security forces, the 

fact of the matter is that the Air Force is well beyond the point 

of early warning. Real retention has dropped significantly, predominantly among so-called second-term Airmen, those members completing their second enlistment period, typically after 

about eight years of service. Figure 5 depicts the most recent 

10-year trend in SF reenlistment rates.37 Disregarding the Stop 

Loss–induced artificial spike in 2002, second-term reenlistments have dropped steadily, from 74 percent in 1997 to 40 

percent in 2007—a 46 percent relative decline.38 While firstterm reenlistments have certainly exhibited more fluctuations 
CASE STUDY

30

during this period, the 46 to 36 percent retention decline among 

that population is also cause for concern. 

Figure 5. Security forces reenlistment rates, FY 1997–2007. (Compiled from Air 

Force Personnel Center [AFPC], Retrieval Applications R-Status Report Generator, 

9 November 2007.) 

One factor impacting determination of retention health is the 

recent recalculation of the required retention targets. Two years 

ago, retention of first- and second-term Airmen had already 

eroded to the point where drastic management moves were instituted to preserve overall career-field strength, creating a seventh 

negative ILO effect: an out-of-balance enlisted rank structure. In 

2006, Air Force personnel managers adjusted the SF manpower 

management model to account for reduced reenlistment rates.39

This move generated several second-order effects. First, it created the appearance of retention program success by lowering 

the reenlistment target to match the reality of declining retention. Second, it increased the number of new Airmen who needed 

to be brought into the career field, effectively front-loading more 

resources to deal with increased attrition and increasing the SF 

recruiting and training load. Third, since this adjustment took 

place within a zero-growth environment, it required shifting 

manpower authorizations from higher to lower ranks in order to 
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31

achieve the desired front-loading, thereby creating the appearance of overmanning in the middle noncommissioned officer 

corps. Historical data on these shifts is not widely available, but 

while real manning dynamics tend to lag shifts in the authorized 

structure, a glance at authorized levels in each rank is instructive. The 11-year trends in SF manpower are portrayed in figure 

6, which shows the percentage of the SF enlisted force assigned 

within each pay grade from E-1 Airman basic through E-9 chief 

master sergeant. As shown, the late 1990s witnessed high volatility, particularly for the E-1 through E-5 grades, as the career 

field underwent its bottom-up specialty merger. The 2001–3 

period was heavily impacted by the post-9/11 engagements, as 

SF deployments tripled and Stop Loss interrupted normal force 

outflows. During 1997–2003 the SF career field grew by roughly 

20 percent, from slightly over 20,000 to roughly 24,000 personnel, with proportionally greater increases in lower ranks.40 By 

2003, however, all these separate effects had largely stabilized. 

Since the start of the ILO program, there has been a relative 

exodus of Airmen finishing their second enlistment, virtually all 

of them E-5 staff sergeants. At the same time, expanding requirements and zero-growth resources have led to inflation of the E-1 

through E-3 population by approximately 1,500 Airmen. In sum, 

ILO-driven retention problems have caused a major reshaping of 

the SF rank structure, creating an imbalance in effective supervisory ratios and relative experience levels. 

Temporary “Fixes”

Caught between the competing challenges of increasing tempo 

and constrained resources, the Air Force has aggressively 

employed a variety of corrective measures to control the damage 

to the SF career field and sustain mission capability. While comprising a broad array of alternatives, these measures represent 

short-term fixes to ILO program effects on the SF force. 

Home Unit Augmentation

Personnel augmentation is nothing new in security forces units. 

What is new is that, traditionally, security forces have sought outside support for their mission, rather than the other way around. 
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32

For instance, for more than two decades the Air Force maintained 

a formal program to augment certain emergency base operating 

functions during crises. This program, known as resource augmentation duty (READY), involved local ancillary training of a 

contingency pool of Airmen allocated across all other units on a 

base. When the base came under attack, experienced an industrial accident, or otherwise encountered a rapid requirement for 

additional security or police manpower, the pretrained READY 

augmentees were activated. Since 9/11, the Air Force has variously employed large numbers of Air Reserve Component volunteers, Army National Guard units, and contractors to augment 

home-base security units degraded through the heavy deployment of their full-time military SF Airmen. Each of these measures has entailed high costs, and with the limited exception of 

contractors none of these programs are in significant force. 

Direct Reenlistment Incentives

These factors include such things as targeted reenlistment 

bonuses, priority choice for assignment location, and so on. AcFigure 6. Proportional SF strength, by pay grade. (Adapted from SF manpower 

data retrieved from AFPC, Interactive Demographic Analysis System [IDEAS] Public 

Version Report Builder.) Percent of All SF Enlisted

45

50

40

35

30

25

20

15

10

5

0

FY97 FY98 FY99 FY00 FY01 FY02 FY03 FY04 FY05 FY06 FY07 Jan08

E1–E3

E4

E5

E6

E7

E8 & E9

Fig 6
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33

cording to House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee chairman John P. Murtha, D-PA, DOD money for enlistment and reenlistment bonuses has grown more than tenfold from 2006 to 

2007, to $2 billion.41 Except for the relatively small numbers of 

SF K-9 and combat-arms specialists, however, the application of 

reenlistment bonuses for the security forces career field was terminated following two relatively brief experiments in 1998 and 

from 2002 to 2004.42 While these bonuses failed to produce the 

desired results for SF, it was the overwhelming size of the career 

field that drove their demise.43 While the Air Force continues to 

pay reenlistment bonuses for Airmen in certain so-called lowdensity/high-demand fields, typically topping $25,000 each, the 

cost to do this for SF is viewed as prohibitively expensive.44 The 

cost of paying reenlistment bonuses for the 3,000 or so first- and 

second-term SF Airmen finishing their service term each year 

could easily exceed $75 million.

Quality-of-Life Initiatives 

There are other programs that at least implicitly target personnel retention. Primarily categorized as “quality-of-life” and 

“family support,” these programs certainly improve daily living 

for military members and their families and are generally appreciated. However, aside from the moral imperative of leaders to 

reasonably take care of military people, there remain serious 

questions about the cost-effectiveness of such programs. In 

fact, a RAND study found virtually no evidence—due mainly to 

lack of rigorous academic study—that programs like this had 

succeeded in improving retention rates within any of the services.45 “[There] is a general acceptance, mostly based on anecdotes, that quality of life affects the retention of service members and the readiness of the armed forces. At another level, it 

is the individual programs that need to be assessed.”46

There is certainly great variability in the design, resourcing, 

and likely effectiveness of quality-of-life programs. Some have 

encouraging titles but offer little in terms of likely perceived 

value among troops, and cannot reasonably be expected to 

generate any significant retention effects. For instance, the 

Defense Department’s Post Deployment/Mobilization Respite 

Absence program grants between one and four days of addi-
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34

tional time off for each month a member deploys in excess of 

DOD thresholds.47 Under this program, an Airman who deployed 

for 18 months in a three-year period (a typical rate for SF Airmen) would earn an extra eight days of leave, hardly likely to 

influence a person to reenlist and actually increasing the workload for his or her nondeployed colleagues.

Redrawing the Sustainment Model

As described earlier in greater detail, the SF specialty is 

undergoing an unplanned, resource-driven reshaping of its 

rank demographic profile. This reshaping has already retooled 

the career field into a Marine-like force structure with a disproportionally high share of first-term Airmen versus second-term 

and career Airmen. Although impelled by tempo-driven declines 

in retention, the redesign of the sustainment formulae represents a conscious management decision and hence bears inclusion among this summary of temporary corrective measures.

Increased Accessions

In order to feed the larger requirement for new recruits to flow 

into the SF training pipeline, career field managers had to gain 

formal approval to increase their share of recruits graduating Air 

Force Basic Military Training. Since recruits in training count 

against total service end-strength limits, the increase for SF accessions was subsidized by manpower authorizations from other Air 

Force specialties, effectively underresourcing other Air Force specialties to pay the SF recruit “bill.”48 In addition, the capacity of 

the SF training academy was constrained and required additional 

infrastructure and manpower, at significant cost. 

Battlefield Outsourcing

Use of contractors has extended beyond simply filling positions at home bases vacated by deploying active duty Airmen. In 

2007 the Air Force began exploring the possibility of using contractors in the deployed theater and, in fact, is in the process of 

identifying specific positions to be outsourced to civilian companies. To the extent that they replace deployed SF Airmen, contractors could increase system capacity to fill ILO requirements. 
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35

However, in light of recently highly publicized tragedies involving 

armed private security contractors, it seems most likely that SF 

contractors would be used for low-visibility duties in interior 

areas of Air Force bases, thereby limiting the potential benefit. 

Augmenting Security Forces Teams

In mid-2007, the Air Staff Security Forces Directorate drafted 

a proposal to essentially cross-task certain SF ILO deployment 

requirements to other Air Force specialties. The basis for this 

proposal was twofold: first, there are many Air Force specialties 

with a far slower optempo than SF; and second, SF Airmen are 

marginally better prepared to execute many of the ILO mission 

sets than are other Airmen. With baseline training in specific 

tasks, such as guarding prison detainees, the idea was that 

teams of non-SF Airmen could be led by SF noncommissioned 

officers. The effect was to distribute a portion of the SF ILO 

missions across lesser deployed career fields. Not surprisingly, 

this proposal gained little traction among other Air Staff directors. As of this writing, the concept has not been approved.49

Reclaiming “Lost” Manpower

The Air Staff has focused a great deal of effort on trying to tap 

into the large pool of previously untouchable Airmen securing 

nuclear weapons at Air Force Space Command bases. Two specific efforts in this area are (1) adapting the Guard and Reserve 

volunteer program to replace active-duty, nuclear security Airmen at their home base while they deploy and (2) introducing 

security policy changes to free up some of those Airmen within 

existing manning levels.50

Additionally, the Air Force also recently identified 359 “noncore” positions across the Air Force that are filled by security 

forces Airmen even though these duties do not actually require 

an armed security forces military member. Examples of such 

positions range from base protocol offices, to antiterrorism staff 

advisors, to classified program security administrators. Consequently, the Air Staff has directed these Airmen be replaced 

with civilians or other specialties unless the unit owning the 

position can justify retaining an SF specialist.51 The Air Staff 
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36

estimates roughly half of these Airmen will return to core SF 

units and staffs.52

Reserve/Guard Mobilization

In addition to the Space Command Reserve/Guard volunteer 

program, the Air Staff is planning to mobilize an unknown number 

of these Airmen to take over security at specific bases in Southwest 

Asia, which will then be perpetually manned by successive deployments from those same Reserve and Guard units.53

Competency-based Mission Sourcing

The Air Force chief of staff has largely succeeded in shifting 

his service’s ILO missions away from functions lying outside 

Air Force core competencies. As of late 2007, virtually all ILO 

deployments sourced to Airmen fall within their defined core 

competencies, those skill sets the Air Force has determined 

align within their trained primary specialty. For SF though, 

despite this positive step there remains a critical problem: the 

disparity between formal core competencies for which Airmen 

receive episodic peacetime training and the operational core 

competencies that Airmen actually exercise in the course of 

their routine duties outside the war zone. 

Unfortunately, while representing the near limit of what can 

be done from the perspective of the resource-limited ILO supplier, these various measures incompletely address the problem. These temporary fixes seek to reduce the operational strain 

on SF Airmen but treat only the marginal symptoms of a much 

more fundamental problem: the misalignment of joint combatsupport force structure for modern military operations. Because 

these fixes operate within the set domain of the supplier—the 

Air Force in this case—they are insufficient to resolve the central DOD-wide problem. Further, these fixes have proven insufficient to curb the heavy damage already inflicted on universal 

SF mission capacity: the SF rank profile is out of balance, relative competency and experience levels are down, and without 

firm strategic correction these conditions will worsen. 

These problems jeopardize more than just Air Force missions; 

the Army units that depend on ILO support will see increasingly 

inexperienced and inadequately trained first-term Airmen led by 
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37

an ever-smaller supervisory cohort. The tendency—already 

exhibited over five years of Air Force experience—will be to tackle 

these problems through aggressive training immediately prior to 

deployment. However, such efforts drive huge growth in training 

costs, at the expense of time and money previously allocated for 

other required missions assigned to the Air Force and Army. 

This outcome is representative of the predicament ultimately 

facing all ILO-tasked Air Force combat-support specialties. 

Worse, among the present debates over transforming, rebalancing, and in some cases growing DOD capabilities to meet these 

emergent challenges, all are focused on combat forces—none 

address problems on the combat-support side of the equation. 

Modern warfare places unique demands on combat-support 

forces, but critical gaps have opened between those demands 

and the associated capabilities of our military, a discussion 

taken up in the next chapter.

Notes

1. “Longer Tours Ahead,” 7; and Eulberg, written response to advance 

questions provided during interview by author.

2. “12 Things You Must Know.” 

3. Broder, briefing.

4. Fadok to the author, “SF Enlisted Pyramid,” e-mail, 22 January 2008. 

5. Ibid.; and Western to the author, e-mail.

6. Fadok to the author, e-mail, 24 August 2007. 

7. Ibid., briefing, e-mail, 19 December 2007; and Ibid., 14 November 2007.

8. Ibid., 14 November 2007.

9. Ibid., 19 December 2007.

10. Dorsey, “Air Force’s 21st Century Vision.” 

11. Kagan, Finding the Target, 46.

12. Conley et al., Maintaining the Balance, 59–61. 

13. Ibid., 61.

14. Headquarters USAF, Security Force Transformation Strategic Plan, 12–16. 

15. Air Force Capability-Based Manpower Standard 43SXXX, Security 

Forces Squadron.

16. Hertog, interview (see chap. 1, p. 1).

17. Ibid.

18. JP 3-10, Joint Security Operations in Theater, 1 August 2006, V-1. 

Specifically, JP 3-10 assigns responsibility for LOC security to the commander designated with responsibility for the operational area, i.e., the landcomponent commander for areas outside of tactical base boundaries. It further explains that “the area commander uses selected air assault, mechanized, 

or motorized combat units to man combat outposts at critical locations along 
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the assigned route” (ibid., V-5). The selection of specific elements will vary 

with the situation, but the allocation of this function to land-component 

forces is universally acknowledged.

19. Federation of American Scientists, Table of Organization and Equipment.

20. JP 3-63, Detainee Operations, II-1. 

21. Marttala, Emperor’s New Clothes, 21–23. See also Davis, 31 Initiatives, 

52–53, 72–73. 

22. Grant, “Safeside in the Desert,” 48.

23. In its report on the fiscal year (FY) 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, the House Armed Services Committee discussed its concerns regarding permanent ILO deployment of Airmen and sailors and expressed displeasure over establishing dedicated training facilities to support ILO requirements. 

In this discussion, the committee implied that all ground combat operations 

should by definition fall within the role of the Army or Marines, indicating a 

misunderstanding of certain Air Force and Navy support capabilities in areas 

such as base security, which fall cleanly within service roles. See United 

States House of Representatives, National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal 

Year 2008, 301–2. 

24. Romano, Dains, and Watts, “Air Force Breaks New Ground,” 14.

25. Air Force Print News, “Dangerous Road to Progress,” 42; and Air Force 

Print News, “Security Forces Airmen to Step Outside the Wire,” 52.

26. Lt Col Walt Shearer (chief, Future Operations Branch, Air Force Operations Group), interview by the author, 13 November 2007.

27. Svan, “Air Force Personnel.” 

28. Shanker, “Gates Endorses Pause.”

29. Rolfsen, “Security Forces’ Pre-Deployment Training Tightened,” 17.

30. The arithmetic is as follows: (80,000 man-days) / (365 days per year) 

= 220 man-years. One man-year roughly approximates the available capacity 

of one full-time manpower position. 

31. This subjective judgment reflects the author’s experiences in operations and training over a 20-year career. There is widespread support for this 

judgment among senior ILO commanders in the field. For example, see Richards, “Expeditionary Wing Leadership Lessons Learned,” 8, 18–21.

32. Lopez, “Air Expeditionary Forces Concept,” in Rostker, America Goes 

to War, 66.

33. Quoted in Tirpak, “On Expedition, Hanging Tough,” 33.

34. Ibid., 35.

35. Rolfsen, “Brady Vows to Keep NCOs a Priority,” 24.

36. Newton, Fiscal Year 2009 National Defense Authorization, 3. 

37. For clarity, the chart depicts rates only for non-subspecialty qualified 

SF personnel, excluding the more reenlistment-troubled subspecialties of 

military working dog (MWD) handlers and combat-arms (CA) weapons 

specialists. While they are deploying at even higher rates than so-called 

straight-leg SF Airmen, the MWD and CA groups are falling far below required 

force-sustainment levels.

38. As an immediate response to the 9/11 attacks on America and the 

declaration of the US global war on terror, the Air Force instituted a freeze on 
CASE STUDY

39

retirements and separations known as “Stop Loss.” This policy was in effect 

from 2 October 2001 through 2 August 2002. As a result of Stop Loss, Air 

Force reenlistment tracking databases reflect an artificial increase for 2002. 

Similarly, the 2003 data probably show an overcorrection effect due to forcibly delayed separations. See Air Force Personnel Center (AFPC), “Air Force 

Stop Loss Message #6.”

39. Western to the author, e-mail.

40. SF manpower data from AFPC, Interactive Demographic Analysis System (IDEAS).

41. Cited in Scully, “Volunteers in a Time of War,” 43.

42. Bonuses were paid, during these periods only, to so-called core SF 

Airmen, while the SF specialty shreds for CA and MWD handlers have received 

reenlistment bonuses continuously, through present. See AFPC, “SRB History 98–04.”

43. The Air Force paid reenlistment bonuses to core security forces reenlistees in 1998 and 1999, and again from 2002 to 2004, during which time 

the associated reenlistment rates failed to respond (ibid.; and AFPC, R-Status 

Report Generator). 

44. The latest roster of Air Force specialties eligible for reenlistment 

bonuses includes 43 different career fields, including various hard-to-retain 

but low-population specialties in special forces, medicine, and linguistics. 

The average bonus multiplier for a first-term reenlistee is 2.8; assuming an 

E-5 who reenlists for four more years, this equates to a bonus payment of 

$26,937. See AFPC, “SRB AFSCs.”

45. Rostker, America Goes to War, 81–83.

46. Ibid., 81.

47. Rolfsen, “More Days Off for War-Zone Service.” This article also points 

out that the “Air Force announcement of the program’s details came four 

months after the other services announced their time-off plans. When the 

other services were unveiling their programs, the Air Force downplayed the 

significance of the [DOD] mandate, claiming the service’s deployment system 

kept airmen from exceeding the Defense Department’s deployment guidelines.” The delay indicates an as yet slow recognition within the Air Force 

regarding the extent to which deployment tempo is impacting Airmen.

48. Hertog, “Perspectives on SF Operations,” 32.

49. Hertog, briefing, subject: “QFEZU: Force Protection Enhancement 

UTC [Unit Type Code].”

50. Hertog, “Perspectives on SF Operations,” 32–33.

51. Brady to Air Staff and vice commanders, all USAF major commands, 

memorandum. 

52. Hertog, interview (see chap. 1, p. 1).

53. Hertog, “Perspectives on SF Operations,” 32.

41

Chapter 4

Modern Battlefield, Legacy Force

The 19th-century “battlespace” in the [American] West 

was noncontiguous, nonlinear, and of varied terrain 

and weather. This was an environment in which a 

mobile, lethal, and determined enemy, prone to acts of 

“terrorism,” could attack at any time and from any 

direction. This environment consisted of long lines of 

communication, along which there were relatively few 

friendly forces available to provide security. Every 

wagon master and every family knew that the wagon 

train must be organized and prepared to conduct its 

own defense. In the same manner, every Army supply 

column knew it also must be prepared to defend itself.

 —Col Gregory Fontenot, US Army, Retired

 On Point , 2005

The ILO problem exists because the US military has failed to 

adapt its combat-support forces with appropriate capability to 

meet the demands of current and future conflict. Throughout 

the twentieth century, the United States developed its military 

assuming symmetrical conflict between marked forces arrayed 

across a linear battlefield. Following the Cold War and Desert 

Storm, the United States significantly downsized its forces. 

Today, that smaller force is overwhelmed by the demands of the 

simultaneous military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. While 

there is widespread agreement that US force structure does not 

match the demands of current conflicts, that understanding 

generally targets two shortfalls: the number of soldiers and 

marines needed to sustain ground combat operations, and the 

weapons and equipment needed to conduct nation-building in 

the middle of an insurgency. Importantly, the critical shortage of 

combat-support forces has largely escaped public attention. 

Moreover, so has the fact that this shortage is as important to 

campaign success as are the more widely publicized areas of 

shortfall in the ground combat arms, particularly Army infantry. 

What is not generally recognized is that today’s battlespace—and 

indeed, those most likely to manifest in the near future—require 
a vastly different combat-support force than exists. More critically, the disconnect between the modern battlespace and the 

legacy combat-support force jeopardizes US military capabilities 

across the spectrum of conflict.

US Force Structure

Since the end of World War II, US military force sizing and shaping has been driven more by fiscal constraint than by any other 

single factor.1 During this period, military forces have steadily 

declined, as depicted in figure 7. This decline has been buttressed 

by beliefs that modern threats really don’t endanger America’s 

national survival and that technology has rendered manpowerintensive “big wars” obsolete. Yet US military strategy still levies 

war-fighting requirements across the full spectrum of conflict 

intensity. As a consequence, the DOD has sought to maintain 

full-spectrum readiness by becoming more efficient. Specifically, 

42

MODERN BATTLEFIELD, LEGACY FORCE

7,000

6,000

5,000

4,000

3,000

2,000

1,000

0

1940 1945 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005

Army

Navy

Air Force

Marine

Corps

Fiscal Year

Active Duty Manpower (FY 1940–2008)

End Strength (Thousands)

Fig 7 Figure 7. Military end strength, by service, 1940–2008. (Adapted from DOD, 

National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2008 [Washington, D.C.: Office of the 

Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), March 2007], table 7-5, 212–13, http://

www.defenselink.mil/comptroller/defbudget/fy2008/.)
MODERN BATTLEFIELD, LEGACY FORCE

43

the military has sought to maximize what is commonly called the 

“tooth to tail ratio” between combat and support forces—the 

higher the better, according to most military experts.2

Traditionally considered as a necessary but ancillary part of 

campaign execution, combat support comprises those functions 

which directly enable but don’t directly engage in combat with the 

enemy. Due to differences in service terminology, this paper will 

use the term “combat support” to refer to all forces other than 

“combat” forces (i.e., the combination of what in the US Army 

lexicon is considered two separate categories: combat support 

and combat service support).3 The distinction between combat 

and combat-support forces underpins the organization and funding of the military services and the planning of the campaign 

operations which they execute. Since traditional military planning 

culminates in decisive actions executed by combat forces that 

either destroy or checkmate enemy forces, combat forces tend to 

receive proportionally greater investment in weapons systems, 

equipment, and manpower than do their support counterparts. 

In the mid-1970s, the conventional forces of the Soviet Union 

vastly outnumbered those of North Atlantic Treaty Organization 

allies in Central Europe. In order to increase the odds of defeating a Warsaw Pact attack in the long, vulnerable period before 

US reserves could be activated and deployed—and without 

resorting to nuclear weapons—the Department of Defense determined that a significant increase in active combat forces was 

necessary. Consequently, Army chief of staff Gen Creighton 

Abrams shifted the bulk of combat-support forces into the 

Reserve and used the offsetting active force capacity to add more 

combat units. As a result, General Abrams’s strategy achieved 

the rather amazing feat of increasing active combat forces over 

20 percent between 1975 and the early 1980s—from 13-plus to 16 

divisions—while holding end active strength steady.4

In the immediate aftermath of the end of the Cold War and 

the overwhelming American performance in Desert Storm, the 

nation expected to reap a victor’s dividend, and it did, reducing 

active Army end strength from 751,000 to less than 500,000 

soldiers between 1990 and 1996.5 This reduction was driven 

by two assessments of the military force structure necessary 

to support US strategy in the new security environment: the 

Joint Chiefs’ 1991 Base Force proposal, and Secretary of Defense 
MODERN BATTLEFIELD, LEGACY FORCE

44

Les Aspin’s 1993 Report on the Bottom-up Review (BUR).6 Both 

assessments shifted the military planning focus from global to 

regional threats, postulating a requirement to conduct two 

simultaneous major regional conflicts (MRC). The Base Force 

concept, formally documented in the 1992 National Military 

Strategy, proposed a structural realignment to provide a core—

or base—military capability to meet four mission areas: strategic deterrence, crisis response in the continental United States, 

forward presence, and regional crisis response.7 This strategy 

projected significant force reductions, particularly for the Army, 

which was to shrink from 26 to 20 active and Reserve divisions 

within four years—a 23 percent reduction.8 The BUR went even 

further in its proposed force cuts, calling for a 15-division Total 

Army force by 1999. Like the Base Force, the BUR allowed for 

the likelihood of peace enforcement or other interventions short 

of major war, but considered such “smaller-scale contingencies” to pose relatively small demand for forces, on the order of 

10 combat brigades and a total of 50,000 combined combat 

and support forces.9 Based on that assumption, the BUR considered that if such a crisis emerged simultaneously with two 

ongoing MRCs, “then we might be required to activate significant numbers of reserve component forces.”10 Although commonly referred to as a two-war strategy, this latter concern 

effectively resulted in a 2-plus-1 strategy: a capability to fight 

two major wars plus one smaller conflict.

Today’s force structure continues the basic BUR construct. 

The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) Report calls for 

maintaining a US surge capability to fight two nearly simultaneous campaigns, one of which may be a “large-scale, longduration irregular campaign” while “selectively reinforcing 

deterrence.”11 The QDR further states that steady-state operations for homeland defense, the war on terror, and conventional 

deterrence represent the main determinant of force size.12

Although somewhat incoherently, the QDR appears to return to 

the nominal two-war approach, with one such war resembling 

a larger version of the BUR’s irregular operations short of war. 

While the 2006 QDR appropriately recognizes a shift in the 

form of modern war, a central problem occurs in its incomplete 

specification of the military capabilities necessary to operate 

successfully in the modern battlespace.
MODERN BATTLEFIELD, LEGACY FORCE

45

The Modern Battlespace

OEF and OIF have witnessed the culmination of an evolution 

toward asymmetric, nonlinear battle. The traditional line between 

combat operations and most combat-support and service-support 

functions is now barely visible. Support forces are now engaged 

throughout the length and breadth of the physical battlespace as 

thoroughly as are traditional combat forces. The environment in 

which today’s conflicts occur is fundamentally different than that 

of any previous era. It is more amorphous, and hence endangers 

support forces more directly, than any previous conflict in history. 

The evolving nonlinearity and overall complexity of the battlefield is widely recognized. Retired Army general Gary Luck, 

the Desert Storm XVIII Airborne Corps commander, describes 

the modern battlespace as much more complex than the relatively unfettered fighting environment of the traditional battlefield, populated by much larger numbers and varieties of actors, 

and less able to be monitored and controlled by establishing 

traditional operating area boundaries.13 Army major general 

Jeanette Edmunds, commanding officer of the 19th Theater 

Support Command, has explained that in modern wars like 

Iraq “there is no room for a ‘rear-area’ mindset, unless that 

mindset is one that acknowledges that in war being in the rear 

area or in the vital logistics lines of communication may well be 

the most dangerous place to be.”14

US military doctrine formally recognizes the unique features 

of the modern battlespace. Following Operation Desert Storm, 

the Army developed the concept of the contemporary operating 

environment (COE) to describe the field of conflict in the twentyfirst century. The COE is characterized by “intelligent and 

adaptive enemies who seek asymmetric advantages across the 

battlespace.”15 In its updated 2006 keystone doctrine document—Joint Publication (JP) 3-0, Joint Operations—the Joint 

Staff refined this idea by altogether discarding the traditional 

concept of battlespace in favor of the “operational environment,” which includes the combination of enemy and friendly 

physical, procedural, and cognitive factors impacting a commander’s design and control of operations.16 While acknowledging the contextual accuracy of the Joint Operations terminology, this paper will use “battlespace” to refer to the tactical 
MODERN BATTLEFIELD, LEGACY FORCE

46

level of the operational environment within a given campaign 

theater. Joint Operations recognizes the differences between 

linear and nonlinear operations, as well as whether they are 

conducted in contiguous or noncontiguous areas. This typology is depicted graphically in figure 8. The concept of linearity 

refers to the geometrical forms of troop displacement, operating boundaries, sequencing, and whether operations orient on 

enemy forces or on nongeographically associated objectives. 

The concept of contiguousness refers to degree of tangency and 

physical coordination between units. Stability or civil-support 

operations typically are designed as nonlinear operations within 

• Korea • Kuwait

• Bosnia • JTF Andrew • Vietnam • Panama • Somalia

• Urban operations • Forcible entries

Contiguous

Areas of Operations

Noncontiguous

Areas of Operations

Linear Operations Linear Operations

Nonlinear Operations Nonlinear Operations

XXX

XX XX

XXX

XXX XXX

XXX

XXX

XXX

XX XX

Forward

Line of

Own troops

Forward

Edge of the

Battle Area

Forward

Edge of the

Battle Area

Forward

Line of

Own troops

X

XX

XX

XX

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X XX

XX

Fig 8

X X X

X

X

X

X X

X

Rear

Area

Rear

Area

Figure 8. Joint operational environment. (JP 3-0, Joint Operations, 17 September 

2006, incorporating Change 1, 13 February 2008, V-19.)
MODERN BATTLEFIELD, LEGACY FORCE

47

contiguous operations areas—such as Bosnia, Joint Task Force 

Andrew, and Vietnam. JP 3-0 states that in nonlinear, contiguous operations, vulnerability increases due to extended troop 

exposure, and complexity increases due to the fluidity of operations and high presence of noncombatants.17 In this sense 

Operation Iraqi Freedom, particularly as prosecuted since mid2007, represents a nonlinear, contiguous operation.

Another unique characteristic of the modern battlespace is its 

dramatically decreasing density. In his 2000 report Heavy Matter: Urban Operations’ Density of Challenges, Russell W. Glenn 

offers numerical estimates of the historical trend in battlefield 

combatant density, as presented in table 2. This characteristic 

increases the distance between friendly units and troops, lengthens lines of communication, and generally increases friction.

Table 2. Battlefield density through the ages

Age Antiquity Napoleonic US Civil 

War WWII 1970s

Urban Examples Plataea

New Carthage

Jungingen 

Aspern-Essling

Monterrey 

Churubusco 

Rorke’s Drift

Stalingrad 

Aachen 

Manila

Berlin

Beirut

Khorramshahr 

Hue

Combatants

per km2* 100,000 4,970 3,883 32 25

Urban Examples 16,300 46,400 11,600 1,300 1,100

Km2 per

Combatant 10 201 258 31,000 40,000

Urban Examples 61 22 86 769 909

*km2 = square kilometer

Source: Russell W. Glenn, Heavy Matter: Urban Operations’ Density of Challenges (Santa Monica, 

CA: RAND, 2000), cited in United States Joint Forces Command, Joint Operating Environment: 

Trends and Challenges for the Future Joint Force through 2030, December 2007, 58.

In addition to these changes in the battlespace, the modern 

enemy himself is different today than that encountered in previous conflicts. General Luck argues the enemy himself cannot 

now be attacked in the usual manner: “The traditional militarycentric single center of gravity focus that worked so well in the 

cold war doesn’t allow us to accurately analyze today’s emerging networked, adaptable, asymmetric adversary. This adversary has no single identifiable ‘source of all power.’ ”18
MODERN BATTLEFIELD, LEGACY FORCE

48

Moreover, the nature of the enemy threat has increased the 

criticality of CS/CSS missions to the overall campaign, along 

with their associated mortality and lethality. Operations to 

reconstruct, secure, and stabilize a country require promulgating human capacity throughout virtually the entirety of the 

political geography. In so doing, the modern enemy has 

increased opportunity to attack friendly forces in small elements using guerilla tactics. Exposure to enemy attack is distributed equally across space and no longer restricted mainly 

to defined areas between the front lines of opposing forces. As 

a result, the risk of attack is shared equally among combat and 

support troops, both because the enemy seeks out targets in all 

areas and because support troops must venture broadly to 

conduct their assigned missions. As seen in Iraq, reactively 

withdrawing into protected enclaves defeats the ability to 

achieve the necessary interaction with the civilian populace, 

thus placing friendly forces on the horns of a dilemma between 

doing what’s effective and doing what’s safe.

Perhaps the most salient feature of the modern battlespace 

is not measured in physical characteristics or dimensions, but 

in time. Today’s conflict in Iraq has been observed as a culmination of sorts of an evolution in warfare toward “fourth generation warfare” (4GW). The Joint Forces Command’s Trends 

and Challenges for the Future Joint Force through 2030 uses 

4GW to frame its vision of future war. This vision highlights the 

4GW adversary’s will to use unrestricted violence, false propaganda, and his nonbureaucratic adaptability to overwhelm US 

social and political will to continue the fight.19 According to Col 

Thomas X. Hammes, the salient feature of this form of warfare 

is that it lasts much longer than the wars Americans are used 

to fighting—decades long, rather than months or even years.20

The modern battlespace consumes combat-support forces at 

a historically unprecedented rate. The Army’s first historical 

report on Operation Iraqi Freedom identified combat service 

support as one of its key shortfalls. “The current system emphasizes efficiency over effectiveness—from parts and supply distribution to the physical equipping of CSS units. In combat, 

however, effectiveness is the only real measure of success; 

many CSS units struggled to perform their mission due to 

‘savings’ realized in recent changes in organization, equip-
MODERN BATTLEFIELD, LEGACY FORCE

49

ment, training, resources, and doctrine.” Further, this same 

report found the active/Reserve component mix “inappropriate 

to meet post–Cold War realities. The demands on the Reserve 

components—to support a crisis contingency force while simultaneously supporting homeland security, major combat, and 

stability operations and support operations requirements, 

require a full review of missions and force structure.”21

A specific example of the modern demand for combat-support 

forces is the role of military police in OIF. The anticipated rates 

of advance for V Corps and the I Marine Expeditionary Force, 

along with expected enemy surrender rates, generated large 

requirements for military police to secure both enemy prisoners of war and rapidly liberated areas.22 But a large portion of 

the military police forces, along with other combat-support 

forces, was drawn from the Army Guard and Reserves, and in 

many cases the process of mobilization and training led to 

missed deployment timelines.23

Moreover, even if these timelines had been universally met, the 

judgment of many experts is that even the planned levels of forces 

to secure the areas behind advancing forces were inadequate.24

During the transition from combat to stability operations, this 

mismatch only intensified. According to Thomas Friedman, “The 

U.S. forces arrived in Iraq with far too few military police and civilian affairs officers to run the country. As a result, the only way 

U.S. troops could stop the massive looting was by doing the only 

thing they knew how: shooting people. Since they didn’t want to 

do that . . . Iraqi government infrastructure, oil equipment, and 

even nuclear research sites were stripped bare.”25

Gaps

It takes more than a decade to procure a major weapons 

system, to develop a military leader, or to realize the practical 

effect of major bureaucratic reorganization. When force planning 

perfectly matches the shape of future conflict, there is a seamless fit between military means and what is required to win. 

However, when force planning is off target the resultant gaps 

between requirements and capabilities generally are first visible 

in major conflict. In the case of today’s combat-support forces, 

these gaps began forming at the end of the Cold War but did 
MODERN BATTLEFIELD, LEGACY FORCE

50

not fully manifest because the conflicts of the 1990s were not 

yet fully evolved toward 4GW. Today, in the face of two mature 

fourth-generation wars, these gaps in force size, shape, sustainment, and means produce critical negative effects on mission capability, as described in the previous chapter. The identification of gaps is important because it helps develop 

operational solutions by narrowing the analytical divide between 

cause and effect and keeps the focus on meaningful solutions. 

Size

The first gap lies between the force size required to conduct 

modern battles and the available resources. Mr. Aspin conceived the BUR based on an assumption that future MRCs 

could be handled by four to five Army divisions and four to five 

Marine expeditionary brigades, or 16–20 combined ground 

combat brigades, roughly equivalent to the US troop levels 

actually employed in Iraq.26 Despite the rough parity between 

BUR assumptions and current experience, force size turns out 

to represent a huge gap on the support side of the force. This 

gap results from three primary causes: the geometry of the 

modern battlespace, budget-driven force sizing, and the operational strategies inherent in modern conflict. 

According to Frederick Kagan, one of the key assumptions in 

General Abrams’s calculus was that the dense battlefield likely 

in a conventional war in Europe would generate economies-ofscale savings in combat-support forces.27 However, as discussed 

earlier the modern battlespace evinces much more diffuse 

requirements for support forces than envisioned by General 

Abrams. Indeed, not only does the battlespace overwhelm any 

potential for support-force economies, it generates losses of 

scale compared to the conventional battlefield. 

The 1980s deactivation and misbalancing of combat-support 

functions was only exacerbated by the BUR force reductions, 

just as analysts had predicted soon after completion of the 

BUR. For instance, a 1995 RAND report found that while the 

BUR-structured Army possessed sufficient combat forces to 

meet the two-MRC construct, the force fell approximately 

100,000 personnel short of requirements for combat support in 

the near-simultaneous MRC scenario.28 Moreover, the same 
MODERN BATTLEFIELD, LEGACY FORCE

51

report found that Army combat support was barely sufficient 

even for a single major regional conflict, requiring 180,000 of 

the planned 193,500 active and Reserve support forces and 

thereby jeopardizing military capacity to do anything else, even 

to conduct a smaller-scale contingency operation.29 Thus, even 

by BUR standards, planned force levels were reduced to a quantity barely sufficient to handle a major conflict.

Historically, support troops represent an increasing share of 

the total military force applied in war. According to Andrew F. 

Krepinevich Jr., director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, in Vietnam combat troops represented less 

than 20 percent of total deployed forces.30 In Operation Desert 

Storm, roughly 125,000 of the 300,000-plus deployed soldiers 

represented combat units; the remainder—approximately 60 

percent—was in support units.31 Similarly, a Multinational 

Force-Iraq headquarters spokesman stated that US forces in 

Iraq include 60 percent support forces, and statistics attributed 

to a 2006 Pentagon report put the figure as high as 77 percent.32

Certainly, the definition of “combat troops” is variously interpreted, particularly among the media, yet there is widespread 

agreement that even the narrowest definition of “support” translates to over half of the deployed force. Moreover, these estimates 

discount the significant levels of contract workers in Iraq supporting military combat functions. By every indication, the proportion of support forces required to prosecute modern war continues to rise, increasing the force size gap. 

Shape

Even more disconcerting than the mistaken projections of 

aggregate support-force requirements though, is the crude 

method by which support forces have been drawn down in the 

post–Cold War era. Not only are there barely sufficient support 

forces in overall numbers, the shortages are worst in the very 

support specialties that have turned out to be in highest 

demand. This result was also foreshadowed in uncanny detail 

by the 1995 RAND analysis. According to this report, the broadest possible comparison of active and Reserve forces to singleMRC requirements showed that “six branches (adjutant general, 

composite services, medical, military intelligence, quartermaster, 
MODERN BATTLEFIELD, LEGACY FORCE

52

and transportation) . . . have shortfalls totaling about 13,500 

personnel . . . the transportation branch alone would be short 

by over 6,000 personnel.”33 The principal cause identified was 

shortages in specialty manpower to carry out Army executive 

agent all-service theater support, primarily in ground transportation of combat supplies such as fuel, ammunition, and 

rations.34 Figure 9 compares support requirements to personnel available in the active and Reserve support population, 

known as the contingency force pool (CFP). 

Similarly, a December 2002 DOD report observed the unique 

skill sets required of modern operations other than war (OOTW): 

“Contingencies such as peacekeeping and humanitarian operations place a high demand on some capabilities—civil affairs, 

military police and security forces, public affairs units, air traffic control services, deployable air control squadrons, and the 

reserve intelligence community—that are low in density to overall forces . . . [and] are high in demand as the Department 

strives to meet global security requirements.”35

AD–Air defense

AG–Adjutant general

AV–Aviation

CM–Chemical

CS–Combat support

EN–Engineer

FA–Field artillery

MD–Medical

MI–Military intelligence

MP–Military police

OD–Ordnance

QM–Quartermaster

SC–Signal

TC –Transportation

35,000

30,000

25,000

20,000

15,000

10,000

5,000

0

Personnel

Branch

AD AG AV CM CS EN FA MD MI MP OD QM SC TC

CS/CSS

requirement

CFP

Fig 9 Figure 9. Single-MRC Army requirements and CFP manpower by branch. (Adapted 

from Ronald E. Sortor, Army Active/Reserve Mix: Force Planning for Major Regional 

Contingencies [Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1995], 27.)

Sustainment

Another gap, perhaps most significant of all, exists in the 

dimension of time. The duration of modern conflicts is significantly longer than what is supportable by the current force 

structure. Operation Desert Storm required nearly twice as 
MODERN BATTLEFIELD, LEGACY FORCE

53

many troops as deployed over the greatest period of the Iraq 

War, but this was a relatively short conflict, and the force was 

still relatively large. The predrawdown US military was able to 

absorb the huge scale of Desert Storm because it required no 

lengthy sustainment of forces and was able to surge forces. The 

length of the current operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, in 

their seventh and sixth years, respectively, has exposed the 

limited endurance of the US military for 4GW operations. This 

shortfall goes beyond simply imposing hardships on the troops. 

It even exceeds the hazard of constricting readiness for other 

missions, although that in itself represents a serious dilemma. 

The problem is that after the first two deployment rotations, 

the US Army simply runs out of troops to perform all of its 

assigned combat-support functions. 

Means

Finally, there is a huge gap between the mix of technological 

and human means in the existing force and that required in 4GW. 

This gap is widely acknowledged. As Anthony Cordesman writes 

in The War after the War, while diplomacy must play the dominant 

role in stabilization operations and nation-building, there is still a 

necessary military component, but it depends on manpowerintensive capability rather than technology. He continues on to 

say that

the military missions of low-intensity combat, economic aid, civil-military 

relations, security, and information campaigns are manpower dominated, 

and they require skilled military manpower. . . . Although technology has 

been, is, and will be critical to US power and military success, it is correct 

to question whether the United States has any credible way of using technology to further cut forces and manpower without taking unacceptable 

risks. Creating the proper mix of capabilities for asymmetric warfare, 

low-intensity conflict, security and Phase IV operations, and nation building requires large numbers of skilled and experienced personnel.36

According to US Naval War College professor Peter Dombrowski, “[Current US military reforms] largely avoid the problem 

of numbers. Effective postconflict operations, whether in Iraq or 

in the future in Iran and elsewhere, require large numbers of welltrained, prepared, and equipped troops on the ground. [Absent 

corrective measures], the United States may win every force-onforce encounter but lose wars because it will be unable to provide 
the security necessary for political and economic stabilization in 

defeated countries.”37

The Army and defense transformation programs of the 1990s 

and early 2000s, billed as a way to squeeze greater effectiveness 

out of fewer troops, failed to produce any revolutionary technological or organizational answer to the reality of manpowerintensive modern nation-building. As Kagan observes in his 

comprehensive review of American military transformation, 

Finding the Target: 

[None] of the service visions really considered what the requirements of 

[OOTW] missions might be in any detail. All treated them primarily as 

lesser-included missions within a force structure designed for major war. 

. . . The U.S. strategy community in the 1990s was in general so caught 

up with the minutiae of technology that it lost sight of the larger purpose 

of war, and therefore missed the emergence of a challenge even more 

important than that of technology—the challenge of designing military 

operations to achieve particular political objectives.38

For a military experienced in OOTW, and which even in hindsight was adequately sized for major-conflict combat forces, 

the shortage of support forces is discouraging but understandable. Alongside earlier reports of sufficient support forces for at 

least one MRC, a 1997 RAND analysis determined there was 

enough combat support to cover even a large OOTW. However, 

the report observed high organizational friction in conducting 

such operations: historically, units were commonly tailored up 

or down from their conventional structures, personnel were 

temporarily cross-leveled among units and specialties, and 

partial unit deployments were used in order to preserve as 

much conventional war-plan capability as possible.39 Given the 

scale and duration of 4GW operations, such as that ongoing in 

Iraq, we see the worst of both worlds: the force-skills-management 

complexity of OOTW coupled with the size and duration of an 

MRC. The combination of major operational gaps in size, shape, 

sustainability, and means poses a dire set of 4GW challenges. 

Clearly, the US military force structure is misaligned for the 

modern battlefield.

A Point of Crisis

On the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the DOD itself observed 

a number of indicators that its force structure was out of bal54

MODERN BATTLEFIELD, LEGACY FORCE
MODERN BATTLEFIELD, LEGACY FORCE

ance: “Routine use of involuntary recall of reserves; increased 

operational tempo in selected areas, anecdotal evidence that the 

ongoing partial mobilization may have a negative impact on 

reserve recruiting and retention in the future; the mismatch 

between the new defense strategy and current force structure; 

and the length of time it takes to adapt force-mix allocations in 

today’s rapidly changing security environment.”40

Exacerbated by the post-1990 force cuts, the Army’s 1970s 

decision to shift most of its support forces to the Guard and 

Reserve has proven ill suited to the modern battlefield. Forcestructure shortfalls have led the DOD to dip into its strategic 

reserves to an extent that jeopardizes both its ability to support 

a large conventional conflict and to respond to a homeland catastrophe. According to a recent report from the Commission on the 

National Guard and the Reserves, fewer Army National Guard 

units are ready for an attack on the United States today than 

were ready a year ago, when the commission reported a 12 percent readiness level.41 Many of the same specialties for which the 

Army turns to the Reserves for support in Iraq would also be 

particularly crucial in most homeland defense and emergency 

response scenarios—specialties like military police, transportation, and civil affairs. In an interview about the commission’s 

report, chairman and retired Marine general Arnold L. Punaro 

said, “We think there is an appalling gap in readiness for homeland defense, because it will be the Guard and reserve that have 

to respond for these things. . . . Because the nation has not 

adequately resourced its forces designated for response to weapons of mass destruction, it does not have sufficiently trained, 

ready forces available.”42 The strain on Guard and Reserve readiness grew so high that in January 2007 the secretary of defense 

limited their deployments to one year in every five.43

The nexus of 4GW, US foreign policy, and legacy force structure has of course strained the active force in ways previously 

seen only in acknowledged wars of national survival, particularly 

so in the Army, where signs of overreach are beginning to appear: 

recruiting waivers for education and other factors are on the 

rise;44 desertions are up 80 percent since 2003;45 suicide rates 

are at a 25-year high;46 and lack of training time is jeopardizing 

readiness for other missions.47 The Army’s manpower chief has 

reported the Army is “out of balance” and “demand for forces 

55
56

exceeds our capacity to supply them on a sustained basis.”48

According to Gen George Casey, Army chief of staff, the current 

deployment pace is “unsustainable.”49 Commenting on the challenge of managing deployed tour lengths, General Casey remarked 

in December 2007, “We are now in a position of having to sustain an all-volunteer force in a protracted confrontation for the 

first time since the Revolutionary War, and so we are in uncharted 

territory. We’re measuring all of these things very carefully, but 

I’ve got to tell you, it’s a dicey game.”50

In spite of several ongoing force-management initiatives, 

there is no indication that the Army’s ability to supply the full 

requirement for combat-support forces will improve, certainly 

not within the next five years. While the Army growth initiative 

plans to add 65,000 new active duty soldiers to the force by 

2013, roughly half of those are destined for new combat-support or service-support units.51 Army growth takes place alongside the Army transformation effort, but the extent to which 

these parallel efforts can correct the balance of active-Reserve 

support capabilities remains unclear, as does the ability of the 

Army to meet its corresponding recruiting goals52 or effectively 

budget for the associated infrastructure and equipment.53 The 

deployment tempo and recapitalization strain on Army resources 

have compounded the difficulty of staying on course with these 

plans. Originally slated to conclude by 2011, at a cost of $52 

billion, the GAO recently reported that the Army’s transformational brigade conversion will run through 2019 and overrun 

original cost forecasts by an as-yet-undetermined amount.54

Similarly, there is no indication that strategic demands will 

require fewer combat-support forces. Future Iraq troop-level 

requirements—even in the very near term—are highly unpredictable, particularly given the uncertainty of the policy of the 

new US presidential administration. Even if the Army is able to 

draw down Iraq combat brigades in the next year, there is no 

guarantee that will necessarily translate to reduced combatsupport requirements. The number of support troops required 

will depend more on the operational and basing strategies 

employed than on the number of combat troops; indeed, it 

could even increase.55

Beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, chances are very high that the 

United States will continue to face the same challenges it has 

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MODERN BATTLEFIELD, LEGACY FORCE

57

confronted in the first decade of the new century. T. David 

Mason, in a recent Strategic Studies Institute monograph, cites 

data from the two preeminent conflict-tracking databases 

showing that since World War II there have been more than 

four times as many intrastate wars as interstate or extrastate 

conflicts.56 According to the Stockholm International Peace 

Research Institute (SIPRI), in the period 1997–2006 there were 

only three interstate conflicts, and during the last three years 

of that period there were none.57 Even more disturbing, Mason 

reports that a single intrastate war makes a state highly likely 

to suffer another such war, indicating something of a chronic 

nature to intrastate conflicts.58 SIPRI’s 2007 report points out 

that strife-torn, failed, or failing states not only cause problems 

for their populations but also typically inflict second-order 

damage, serving as havens for transnational terrorists and 

criminals and contributing to conflict diffusion across state 

borders.59 One-third of the world’s major armed conflicts ongoing in 2006 directly involved the United States (i.e., the conflicts against Iraqi insurgents, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and 

al-Qaeda worldwide), and were the deadliest.60 In the global 

context of the US war on terror, odds are that the conditions 

contributing to complex, diffuse, and violent 4GW conflict will 

continue to shape US military involvement.

Overall then, it would be wishful thinking to simply assume 

that demand for combat-support forces will subside or that 

future conflicts will better match the US legacy force structure. 

Positive action must be taken to overcome the joint shortage in 

combat-support forces necessary to sustain the full slate of 

ongoing missions, without hazarding big-war readiness. 

Notes

1. For one example of the widespread agreement on this point, see Correll, 

“In the Wake of the QDR,” 70–76.

2. Kagan, Finding the Target, 20.

3. While combat-support forces operate on the battlefield, often alongside 

combat forces, they are not designed for the purpose of fighting the enemy, 

as are combat forces. The combat-arms, combat-support, and combat-servicesupport lexicon is part of the US Army Regimental System. Combat forces

(also known as the “combat arms”) include those functions focused on enemy 

engagement: air defense artillery, armor, aviation, cavalry, field artillery, 
MODERN BATTLEFIELD, LEGACY FORCE

58

infantry, and special forces. Combat support refers to units which provide fire 

support and operational assistance to aviation and ground combat troops to 

permit those units to accomplish their missions in combat; this support comprises the areas of chemical warfare, intelligence, police/security, and 

communications. Combat service support encompasses logistical support 

services required by the soldiers of combat units to continue their missions in combat; these services consist of quartermaster, ordnance, transportation, adjutant general, finance, chaplain, legal, and medical functions. 

For further description, see Wikipedia, s.v. “U.S. Army Combat Arms Regimental System,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_Combat_Arms

_Regimental_System (accessed 16 February 2008).

4. Kagan, Finding the Target, 19–21. There are various theories on 

General Abrams’s motivation for his combat-support-force realignment, 

including what has become known as the “Abrams Doctrine,” that he intended 

to limit the president’s ability to deploy combat strength without engaging 

public support vis-a-vis a large-scale Reserve mobilization (ibid., 17–18; and 

Carafano, “Army Reserves and the Abrams Doctrine”).

5. DOD, National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2008, table 7-5, 

212–13. Other sources often cite different numbers, most likely referring to 

actual troop strength, which at times slightly exceed authorized manpower 

ceilings in real time. For example, see Fontenot, On Point, 5, who cites a reduction from 786,000 active Army soldiers in 1990 to 500,000 by mid-1993.

6. For an excellent and concise review of force-structure evolution through 

the 1990s and the disconnects with the requirements of the US war on terror, 

see Schmitt and Donnelly, “Numbers Matter,” in Of Men and Materiel, 5–29.

7. Joint Chiefs of Staff, National Military Strategy of the United States, 17.

8. Ibid., 19.

9. Aspin, Report on the Bottom-up Review, pts. 3 and 4. 

10. Ibid., pt. 4. 

11. DOD, Quadrennial Defense Review Report, 38. 

12. Ibid., 36.

13. Luck, “Insights on Joint Operations,” 4–15. 

14. Quoted in Noon, Evaluating Combat Service Support, 45.

15. Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point, xiv.

16. JP 3-0, Joint Operations, II-20–II-25.

17. Ibid., V-16–V-19.

18. Luck, “Insights on Joint Operations,” 6. 

19. US Joint Forces Command, Joint Operating Environment, 44–46.

20. Hammes, Sling and the Stone, 44–47, 207–23. I have, of course, somewhat crudely condensed here Hammes’s description of 4GW. He catalogs 

various tactical, operational, and strategic characteristics unique to 4GW 

and its evolution throughout Vietnam and subsequent key conflicts, which 

require a full reading to appreciate. 

21. Fontenot, Degen, and Tohn, On Point, xviii–xix.

22. Ibid., 69.

23. Ibid., 72–73.

24. Record, Dark Victory, 102.
MODERN BATTLEFIELD, LEGACY FORCE

59

25. Friedman, “Bad Planning,” quoted in Record, Dark Victory, 118.

26. Aspin, Report on the Bottom-up Review, pt. 3. In addition to the Army 

divisions, the BUR postulated that a future MRC would require 10 Air Force 

fighter wings, 100 bombers, four to five Navy carrier battle groups, and special operations forces.

27. Kagan, Finding the Target, 158.

28. Sortor, Army Active/Reserve Mix, 52–53.

29. Ibid., 25–26. RAND analysts based their calculations on historical and 

doctrinal rules that figured a ratio of 2.5 support troops for every combat 

soldier, once the theater had matured to a steady-state level. Additionally, the 

analysis used Army force-deployment-planning databases and modeling software (ibid., 22–24).

30. Quoted in Shanker, “Pulling out Combat Troops.” 

31. Sortor, Army Active/Reserve Mix, 21.

32. Shanker, “Pulling out Combat Troops.” 

33. Sorter, Army Active/Reserve Mix, 27. Interestingly, these figures are 

very close to the combined total of current Air Force and Navy ILO support to 

the Army.

34. Ibid., 29–31. This study estimates an active Army shortage of 20,000–

60,000 personnel based strictly on the theater executive agency requirements, necessitating Reserve augmentation. 

35. Rumsfeld, Rebalancing Forces, in Rostker, America Goes to War, 61.

36. Cordesman, War after the War, 42–43. See also Kagan, “Protracted 

Wars,” in Schmitt and Donnelly, Of Men and Materiel, 37–39. 

37. Dombrowski, “Military Capabilities,” in Keller and Mitchell, Hitting 

First, 196.

38. Kagan, Finding the Target, 252–53. Kagan is not alone in observing the 

failure to adapt US force structure to post–Cold War OOTW. In America Goes 

to War, Rostker points out that Somalia provided a telling example of the 

imbalance of the incongruity between these operations and DOD force structure (57–59). He observes that “in Somalia, the planning assumption that an 

OOTW engagement was the lesser but included case of conventional war 

proved wrong. Understanding the nature of future military engagements, 

defining the appropriate force structure for the future, and developing an 

appropriate set of personnel policies for an all-volunteer force should have 

been the legacy of Somalia, but it was not” (ibid., 58).

39. Sortor, Army Forces, xvii–xviii, 93–94.

40. Rumsfeld, Rebalancing Forces, in Rostker, America Goes to War, 60.

41. Baldor, “U.S. Military May Not Be Ready.”

42. Tyson, “ ‘Appalling Gap’ Found,” A04.

43. Gates, DOD policy memorandum. 

44. Rochelle, statement in House of Representatives, 6. 

45. Baldor, “Army Desertion Rates Rise.” At the same time (FY 2007), 

Marine Corps and Navy desertions were at three- and seven-year lows, 

respectively, and their combined desertions represented less than half the 

Army total of 4,698. The Air Force had 16 desertions during FY07. See 

McMichael, “Number, Rate of Army Desertions,” 28–29.
MODERN BATTLEFIELD, LEGACY FORCE

60

46. Martin, “Soldier Suicide Attempts Skyrocket.”

47. Baldor, “War Demands Strain Military Readiness.” 

48. Rochelle, statement in House of Representatives, 1.

49. Kreisher, “Army Chief Says Troops Strained.” 

50. Associated Press, “Army Leaders Push.” 

51. “Army Announces Stationing Decisions.” 

52. Pine, “Army, Marine Corps Struggle.”

53. Scully, “GAO Says Cost of Army’s ‘modular’ Conversion Will Climb.”

54. Grant, “Reports Warn of Impending Army Budget Crisis.”

55. Although the author developed this opinion independently, it is appropriate to note that Maj Gen Del Eulberg (Air Force Civil Engineer, Headquarters USAF, Washington, D.C.) also articulated this view independently. 

Interview by the author, 20 November 2007. 

56. Mason, Sustaining the Peace, 1–4.

57. SIPRI, SIPRI Yearbook 2007, 79. For a similar description of the trend 

in conflict, and external interventions to resolve conflict, see Shearer, Private 

Armies and Military Intervention, 30–34.

58. Mason, Sustaining the Peace, 2.

59. SIPRI, SIPRI Yearbook 2007, 56–60.

60. SIPRI reported deaths for 2006 in the three US conflicts totaling 8,800; 

deaths in the other 14 conflicts totaled 5,400, as follows: Burundi (100), 

Sudan (100), Uganda (200), Colombia (500), Peru (25), India (700), Myanmar 

(100), Nepal (400), Philippines (325), Sri Lanka (1,950), Chechnya (300), 

Israel (500), and Turkey (200). See SIPRI, SIPRI Yearbook 2007, 82–90.
61

Chapter 5

Closing the Gaps

Under political guidance that is certain to be unsatisfactory, likely to contain contradictions, and almost 

bound to bear the stamp of some unsound assumptions, defense planners are obliged to decide what is a 

good enough defense establishment when one cannot 

know precisely whether, when, where, or for what ends 

war will be waged.

 —Colin S. Gray

 “RMAs [Revolutions in Military Affairs] and the 

 Dimensions of Strategy” 

So, we’ve got to be a little careful as a service [of saying], “You know what, this is messy, and therefore this 

is a ground combat thing, therefore the default is the 

Army.” I think that’s unfair as hell. The question is, as 

our nation is facing an enemy we’ve never faced before 

. . . how are we adapting as a truly interdependent joint 

force? That’s the question.

 —Maj Gen Del Eulberg, Air Force Civil Engineer

 Interview by the author, 20 November 2007

The security forces case study shows that the ILO program 

has already inflicted broad negative effects on Air Force and 

Army capabilities. The evolving nature of war indicates that the 

associated gaps in combat-support capacity will continue to 

widen. Despite this hazard, it would be naïve and pointless to 

propose solutions to the combat-support problem that are 

restricted solely to requirements for unrealistic budget increases. 

While the best generic answer may be one that is unconstrained 

with respect to resources, it may be politically unachievable. 

Therefore, the goal of this paper is to offer executable solutions 

that close the combat-support gaps in size, shape, sustainment, 

and means discussed in the previous chapter. 
Solutions

The following solutions represent a range of cost and time 

requirements and are ordered by increasing degree of complexity. While neither an exhaustive nor precise list of detailed program actions, these recommendations nonetheless represent 

critical areas of effort that stand to generate decisive improvements to close important gaps in combat-support capability.

Increase Department of Defense Force Levels

The most straightforward—albeit crudest—solution to close 

the combat-support-force gaps would be to simply add more 

manpower, consistent with current service roles and functions. 

Not only would such an approach provide headroom within 

which to reshape the force, it would add the necessary size to 

properly sustain long modern wars. Strength increases form 

the essential argument behind the Bush administration’s 2007 

announcement to grow the Army and Marines by a combined 

92,000 troops over the next five years.1 However, it is not clear 

what portion of this increase will go toward combat-support 

functions. For instance, of the 65,000 new active-duty soldiers, 

only about 14,000 are projected for ground CS/CSS brigades, 

while roughly 20,000 others are slotted for scattered smaller 

CS/CSS elements.2

While Army and Marine Corps growth will help, many analysts believe it’s not nearly enough to fulfill current and likely 

requirements across the spectrum of assigned military capabilities. For instance, Gen Charles Campbell, commander of US 

Army Forces Command, has estimated that in order to meet all 

current operational demands without breaking normal deployment schedules, the Army would require 800,000 soldiers.3

Similarly, Kagan calls for a return to a 750,000-soldier active 

Army to handle the prolonged and manpower-intensive conflicts ongoing and likely in the future. Kagan puts the cost of 

all-volunteer expansion to this level at $45 billion a year for the 

first five years, then $33 billion annually thereafter, about 30 

percent above the FY 2007 baseline defense budget.4 And it is 

this cost of personnel, typically a quarter of the DOD budget, 

that makes meaningful force increases politically unpalatable 

to the American public. 

62

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63

The decline of US defense budgets relative to the size of the 

economy is commonly understood. Figure 10 shows total combined defense spending since 1940, which currently sits at 4.2 

percent of gross domestic product (GDP), the post–Cold War 

defense share of which is its lowest since 1948.5 What is not well 

understood is the fact that DOD manpower as a share of the 

American labor force has dropped even more dramatically. In 

2008, only 1.3 percent of the eligible US pool worked in the DOD, 

the lowest level since these measures were formally tracked beginning in 1940, and only half of the 1989 figure of 2.6 percent.6

Figure 10. US defense spending, 1940–2008. (Adapted from DOD, National 

Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2008 [Washington, D.C.: Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller), March 2007], 216–17, http://www.defenselink.mil/

comptroller/defbudget/fy2008/.) 

In a relative sense, the American public is thus much less 

vested in its national defense than at any previous point in nearly 

70 years. The level of economic and familial detachment from 

today’s military effort is historically significant and not likely to 

improve. Even ignoring the impact of election year rhetoric, the 

reality is that the US economy is in trouble. And despite its relative decline in defense spending, the United States outspends its 

nearest potential opponent more than 10 to one.7 Most citizens 

think the defense establishment remains bloated with excess 

resources. Indeed, recent polling suggests that economic pres-
CLOSING THE GAPS

64

sures heavily impact public sentiment over how to handle a 

military that is increasingly considered as inefficient as it is necessary.8 Thus, any additional growth in budgets or personnel 

seems highly unlikely, and this alternative shows little real 

promise of resolving the combat-support-force gaps. 

Reduce Service Home-Base Demand

Two potential solutions exist within the domain of Air Force 

control and, hence, are significantly more feasible than are outright 

force-level increases. Both approaches deal with increasing the 

internal capacity of the Air Force to support ILO requirements 

by reallocating existing manpower. Because these approaches 

seek no manpower increases, they are legitimate options that 

could be enacted even in the short term, without major budget 

action. The first such approach is to minimize Air Force homebase mission-support operations in order to free existing manpower to perform war-zone combat support. This approach goes 

against the grain of what the services have traditionally provided 

their base communities. The Air Force in particular, and to a 

similar extent its ILO partner, the Navy, is known for a distinctly 

high quality of living on its bases. Yet somehow over time, the 

notion of quality of life has gone beyond sustaining what is 

reasonable and appropriate. Base and community support 

programs show very few signs of curtailment, even during periods of national economic difficulty and expanding operational 

military requirements. However, in many areas of base support, 

including security, there is room to cut certain manpowerintensive services. The real hazard of this approach is not that of 

decreasing the real benefit to base personnel; rather, the principal difficulties are low institutional risk aversion and the possibility of alleged disregard for military troops and families. 

The high likelihood of public complaints would challenge 

base commanders to explain why cuts are wartime necessities. 

For example, reducing base-entry-gate manning is a low-risk 

way to reduce home-base security requirements, save for the 

fact it tends to extend the wait for drivers coming on base, particularly during rush hour. A standard workaround to this 

effect is to stagger base work schedules to disperse traffic concentrations throughout the day. Yet this option is universally 
CLOSING THE GAPS

65

assailed as unacceptably inconvenient and almost never 

employed; in over 20 years, the author has seen it instituted 

twice, and then for just a few days. As Gen Ronald E. Keys, 

commander of Air Combat Command, said of home-base 

customer-service expectations, “We’re just like any big city, 

and so we have a requirement for some law and order on our 

bases.”9 While on its face this is more than a fair statement, 

institutional and customer-service expectations have failed to 

evolve over time in relation to available resources. 

In this regard, I propose a comprehensive review of basesupport service standards to determine manpower that can be 

eliminated, reduced, or perhaps outsourced. Similar approaches 

have been employed previously in other mission areas, such as 

the outsourcing of health care services and health contractor 

administration. In the few existing cases of base support services—including outsourcing dining hall work, groundskeeping, 

and facility maintenance and automating many personnel 

management functions—those moves have largely paid for troop 

drawdowns rather than providing management headroom to 

support deployed operations. In the current operational environment, the time has come to conduct a bottom-up review of base 

support services. Such a review would very likely identify 

significant numbers of combat-support Airmen who could be 

reallocated to ameliorate the negative effects of the ILO program.

Increase Zero-Growth Deployable Capacity

The second internal Air Force option considers expanding 

the pool of available combat-support resources, within existing 

manpower limits, by apportioning ILO support taskings across 

a broader population of Airmen. One possibility to increase 

such flexibility, without necessarily committing particular 

career fields to specific levels of support, would be to train all 

Airmen to an introductory level in a secondary skill set. A form 

of this proposal was recently proposed by Col Linda Dahl, of 

the Headquarters Air Force Logistics Readiness staff, in an 

interview with the author.10 Colonel Dahl suggested providing 

new Airmen a basic level of training in a secondary wartime 

function. During their career, those Airmen would perform 

their primary specialty during normal operations, but during 
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66

contingencies they could be activated as a sort of “READY-plus” 

augmentee for security operations, facility construction, or 

similar requirements. 

This proposal, similar to the 2007 SF team augmentation initiative, would likely meet broad opposition unless mandated by 

the chief of staff. The idea does offer a number of potential advantages though, including greater capacity to fill ILO missions, 

enhanced flexibility to fill home-base support requirements during austere manning periods, and increased agility of deployed 

Air Force bases under attack. This idea could even be extended 

across the services to create a pool of joint combat-support 

specialists administered by Joint Force Command (JFCOM). 

To date, the problem with such proposals is not that they are 

without merit but that there has been little cross-functional 

cooperation in the policy development stages. Therefore, I 

recommend the Joint Staff direct a cross-service review of a 

joint combat-support augmentation program. Further, the 

respective service chiefs of staff should conduct similar reviews 

within their services.

Reduce Combatant Command Demand

Lastly, the quickest, most complex, and least costly solution 

is to reduce the overall demand for combat-support forces by 

eliminating unnecessary requirements. This solution—actually, 

a family of solutions—has the extra benefit of generating potential 

reductions in the overall number of US troops deployed to the 

war zone. Depending on the degree of such reduction, the ILO 

program could be significantly diminished or even eliminated. 

Due to the significant interservice friction involving sourcing, 

training, and administering forces outsourced from another 

service, it is in the best interest of all DOD elements to maximize the use of organic (directly assigned) resources. ILO 

forces are even defined within headquarters circles as “nonpreferred” forces. Yet despite the common preference for organic 

forces, there is growing evidence of inefficiency and inflation in 

the process of defining and vetting ILO force requirements. 

The author’s direct contact with ILO-supporting unit commanders in-theater, extensive review of ILO after-action reports 

from the Air Force Lessons Learned database, and interviews 
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67

with headquarters staffers and general officers confirm what 

many have long suspected: there is waste, at an undefined but 

potentially significant level, within the requirements submitted 

by supported commanders and ultimately levied on the services. For example, in one case a group of security forces was 

tasked as an ILO military assistance team (MAT) to train Iraqi 

military personnel in garrison force protection and military 

police operations, with the specific exclusion of conducting 

offensive operations. Yet once they arrived in Iraq, these Airmen 

were ordered by their Army commander to conduct offensive 

combat patrols, a mission they continued for the first four 

months of their deployment. In another case, Airmen deployed 

for a MAT mission wound up conducting long-range convoy 

patrols, and in a third episode a MAT team wound up assigned 

to the exclusive function of driving Iraqis to transportation 

hubs so they could travel to their hometowns on vacation.11 In 

2005, over 30 percent of the Airmen who arrived at their ILO 

base to conduct combat convoys were immediately reassigned 

by the Army commander to perform air-shipment packing and 

crating, supply, administrative, and even trash pickup duties 

as part of a garrison-support “personnel tax” assessed across 

base units.12 Many other cases point to problems where the 

requirement for ILO forces specified particular numbers of 

Airmen required to perform the respective mission, rather than 

simply stating the mission and desired effect as required by 

Joint Sourcing guidelines.13 Still other episodes demonstrate 

ILO force-management problems, including a report from 2007 

where a satellite operations team arrived at its war-zone 

location only to find that the job had been contracted out the 

prior year, so the Army commander sought to reassign the 

Airmen to an unauthorized function; similar episodes happened 

with at least two ILO movement control teams.14

There are probably many reasons for such cases, but the 

number and diversity of these examples indicate the primary 

cause lies within the ILO requirements and sourcing system. In 

fact, action officers interviewed at the Air Staff and Joint Staff 

explained that once an initial requirement is validated and 

filled, when the same requirement is subsequently submitted 

for a replacement in successive deployment cycles, the level of 

scrutiny applied is significantly reduced.15 This introduces suc-
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68

cessively expanding degrees of inaccuracy in the validation 

process as the supported unit mission and organization evolve 

over time. Requirements that were valid one year ago may not 

be valid in the current term or may not require the same mix of 

skills and numbers of personnel. 

The degree of requirements waste is uncertain, but there is a 

clear need for objective analysis and review of the way in which 

supported units have organized themselves to execute their mission and the way in which they integrate ILO supporting forces. 

Similarly, the overall US basing “footprint” requires review in 

terms of campaign supportability. More bases mean more 

requirements for security, facilities and utilities, transport of 

resources to and among these bases, and so on. To date, the 

determination of US basing appears to have been driven, in isolation, by the geography of counterinsurgency engagement 

zones. Just as in any other operation, it stands to reason that if 

operational requirements exceed logistical support, then it’s time 

to rework the plan. In this case, where the level of basing required 

for operations is beyond the level of what’s reasonably sustainable by the force, the basing strategy must be streamlined. 

Theoretically, reduction of COCOM demand for ILO forces 

also includes tasking the Army to increase internal capacity to 

fulfill its own requirements by moving manpower from low- to 

high-demand specialties. To some extent, this has already happened, but this approach has not yet generated visible effects 

on optempo, possibly because of the lag between simply shifting personnel authorizations on the books and retraining and 

reassigning the people filling those authorizations.16 It remains 

to be seen if the large numbers of claimed “rebalanced” Army 

strength will manifest in reduction of ILO requirements. Additionally, there is significant hazard in this approach, in that it 

jeopardizes Army capacity to handle “big war” conventional 

conflicts, which require a greater proportion of combat troops. 

Herein lies the dilemma for planners: the exigency of the current Iraq-induced stresses notwithstanding, fixing today’s 

“small war” problem by borrowing resources tied to unique bigwar tasks jeopardizes US ability to meet uncertain future 

threats. Put another way, whereas today’s asymmetrical threats 

target our relative vulnerability in low-end warfare, tomorrow’s 

asymmetry might actually reside among our historical strengths: 
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69

high-end combat vulnerabilities left uncovered by shifting 

around capability in a zero-sum resource game. While there 

are some functions that obviously overlap high- and low-end 

conflict, to a great extent the force structures for each are 

mutually exclusive. For this reason, rebalancing the force without growth represents significant strategic security risk and is 

not a viable solution.

There is significant room for improved oversight of the 

requirements generation and validation process, and JFCOM is 

the prime agent for that oversight. There is an ongoing project 

to standardize management data to facilitate greater visibility 

into available resources, but there is no evidence of any movement to increase the rigor of the requirements validation process. There are no explicit criteria for assessing when ILO forces 

are appropriate—that determination is left to service-defined 

and JFCOM-adjudged “level of risk.” Thus for the sake of equity 

and, more importantly, efficiency, JFCOM should establish 

quantitative and more specific qualitative ILO support thresholds. Separately, the organization of Army combat support—

independent of the ILO effect—warrants a review as there is 

ample evidence that suggests deployed capability exceeds true 

requirements, regardless of whether those capabilities are provided by Army or ILO forces. 

Moving Forward 

The United States has a demonstrated history of recovering 

from interwar force reductions by rapidly regenerating capacity 

through a variety of means, both for hardware and manpower. 

But in the absence of a general agreement that an existential 

threat exists, the nation has not committed any dramatic 

increase of manpower to sustain current and planned operations, meaning that we’ve traded a large degree of big-war readiness for the demands of today’s small-war, 4GW conflicts. 

The conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq are fundamentally 

different than any previous war in American history. Combat 

support figures more prominently in campaign operations than 

ever before, yet the US military is barely able to sustain these 

functions. Consequently, the Air Force is deploying increasing 

numbers of Airmen in lieu of the soldiers and marines who 
CLOSING THE GAPS

70

traditionally performed these tasks. To date, the Air Force has 

managed to fulfill these requirements through a series of temporary measures, and Airmen have generally excelled in these 

missions. However, these temporary measures have also 

induced Air Force personnel inefficiencies, eroded primary mission readiness, and reduced retention in critical specialties. As 

demonstrated in the security forces case study, these effects 

have critically weakened capacity not just for Air Force missions but have also jeopardized the capability of Army units 

supported by ILO forces.

Certainly, the future of global conflict is largely unknown, 

and the requirements of future wars can only be generally 

estimated. As in the past, chances are that future wars will 

never perfectly match the preplanned force at hand, and so 

adjustments will be required in the way forces are organized 

and employed. In this sense, the ILO program has clearly 

enabled short-term adaptation of the force to the exigencies of 

Iraq and Afghanistan. But its use now exceeds its effective life 

span, and the negative effects as presently administered outweigh the benefits.

The degree of shortfall in US combat-support capability 

should have come as no surprise, having been variously 

assessed and predicted over the past 15 years. At the same 

time, the nature of the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan represent an evolved form of warfare reminiscent in many 

ways of the US experiences in Vietnam and other unconventional conflicts of the past 40 years. Modern conflict poses 

unique demands on combat-support forces which are not 

served by the current US force structure. The consequent gaps 

between force structure and the requirements of fourthgeneration warfare—in terms of size, shape, sustainment, and 

means—undermine US military capacity across the spectrum 

of potential conflict. 

For Iraq and Afghanistan, and for the conflicts to come, a 

long-term strategy must be developed to support joint combatsupport requirements while minimizing the hazards of doing so 

with short-term solutions. The solutions proposed in this paper 

all require further study before they can be implemented, but 

they offer a range of options across the dimensions of time, 

cost, and feasibility. Most importantly, because these solutions 
CLOSING THE GAPS

71

are derived from observation of key gaps between legacy force 

structure and the modern battlespace, they emphasize decisive 

factors that will close those gaps and sustain US military capacity 

for the future. 

Notes

1. Stout, “Bush’s Iraq Plan.” 

2. “Army Announces Stationing Decisions.” 

3. Quoted in Scully, “General: Army Reliance on National Guard.” 

4. Kagan, “Protracted Wars,” in Schmitt and Donnelly, Of Men and Materiel, 44. These estimates include expenditures for personnel, operations and 

maintenance, and equipment to outfit the new units. Kagan does not itemize 

his recommended increase in terms of weapons systems or numbers of units. 

However, this level of expansion is virtually identical to that contained in one 

of six “future Army” options defined against various alternative future world 

scenarios in a 2005 RAND report. In this scenario, “competitive multipolarity,” 

the report recommends a “global maneuver Army” approximately 50 percent 

larger than today’s force and capable of reasonably sustaining five deployed 

divisions against two major and one minor operational commitment. See 

Nichiporuk, Alternative Futures and Army Force Planning, 91–96.

5. DOD, National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2008, 217. According 

to the Office of Management and Budget, the defense slice of the GDP is projected to fall to 3.1 percent by 2013. See Grant, “Girding for Battle.”

6. DOD, National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2008, 216–17.

7. In constant 2007 dollars, the United States led global 2006 military 

spending with $546 billion. Following the United Kingdom and France—

neither hardly a potential enemy—China was estimated to have spent $51.4 

billion. See SIPRI, SIPRI Yearbook 2007, 310–16.

8. According to a Gallup telephone poll of 1,007 national adults conducted 

11–14 February 2008 (sampling error of +/– three percentage points at a 95 

percent confidence level), while the number of Americans (47 percent) who 

think US national defenses are not strong enough is at a 25-year high, a 

growing proportion of the public (currently 44 percent) thinks that US 

defense spending is “too much.” See Newport, “Almost Half of Americans Say 

Military Is Not Strong Enough.”

9. Grant, “Safeside in the Desert,” 48.

10. Col Linda Dahl (chief, Force Development and Organizations Division, Logistics Readiness, Headquarters USAF), interview by the author, 

5 February 2008.

11. “SF Mission.” 

12. “Tasked AFSCs Not Used as Intended in AOR.” 

13. For example, see “332 AEW [Air and Space Expeditionary Wing] AAR 

[After-Action Report].” 

14. “Army Re-sourcing Movement Control Forces.” 
CLOSING THE GAPS

72

15. Shearer, interview (see chap. 3, n. 26); Lt Col Kathleen M. Fadok (chief, 

Security Forces Plans, Headquarters USAF, Washington, D.C.), interview by 

the author, 14 November 2007; and McCulloch, interview (see chap. 2, n. 8). 

16. In fiscal years 2003–5, the DOD converted 50,000 military reserve 

positions from low-demand to high-demand specialties, and the Army 

reported a similar conversion of 5,600 active slots in 2003, mainly in chemical, military police, engineering, medical, quartermaster, and transportation 

specialties. See Rostker, America Goes to War, 61–62. Additionally, according 

to the DOD, “The Services have executed rebalancing of about 89,000 [active 

and reserve] spaces from FY03–6 and an additional 37,000 spaces are programmed from FY07–12 for a total of approximately 126,000 spaces.” See 

Hall, “Changes in Reserve Component Forces,” 11.
73

Appendix

Joint Service Agreement 8

25 April 1985

JOINT SERVICE AGREEMENT

USA-USAF AGREEMENT FOR THE

GROUND DEFENSE OF

AIR FORCE BASES AND INSTALLATIONS

This Agreement sets policies for the Departments of the Army 

and the Air Force for the ground defense of Air Force bases and 

installations.*

The policies set forth in this Agreement will be used to guide 

appropriate Army and Air Force regulations, manuals, publications, and curricula. This Agreement also serves as a basis for 

future development of joint doctrine and supporting procedures 

for ground defense of Air Force bases and installations. It recognizes the Army’s fundamental role in land combat and the 

need to protect the Air Force’s ability to generate and sustain 

air power for joint airland combat operations. This Agreement 

is effective immediately and shall remain in effect until rescinded 

or superseded by mutual written agreement between the Army 

and the Air Force. It will be reviewed every two years.

JOHN W. WICKHAM, JR. CHARLES A. GABRIEL

General, United States Army General, United States Air Force

Chief of Staff Chief of Staff

1 Atch

_________________________________

*Davis, 31 Initiatives, 125–31.
JOINT SERVICE AGREEMENT ON

UNITED STATES ARMY–UNITED STATES AIR FORCE

GROUND DEFENSE OF

AIR FORCE BASES AND INSTALLATIONS

ARTICLE I

REFERENCES AND TERMS DEFINED

1. REFERENCES:

a. DOD Directive 5100.1, Functions of the Department of 

Defense and Its Major Components, January 1980.

b. JCS Pub 1, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military 

and Associated Terms, April 1984.

c. JCS Pub 2, Unified Action Armed Forces (UNAAF), October 

1974.

d. Memorandum of Agreement on US Army–US Air Force 

Joint Force Development Process, May 1984.

e. AFR 206-2, Ground Defense of Main Operating Bases, 

Installations, and Activities, 22 September 1983.

f. FM 90-14, Rear Battle, September 1984.

2. TERMS DEFINED:

 General: The following terms form the basis for the remaining articles of this agreement.

a. Air Base Ground Defense (ABGD): Local security measures, both normal and emergency, required to nullify 

and reduce the effectiveness of enemy ground attack 

directed against USAF air bases and installations.

b. Base or Installation Boundary: Normally the dividing line 

between internal and external defense. The exact location 

of the dividing line is subject to minor deviation from the 

local base boundary on a case by case basis to accommodate local conditions. Such delineations should be 

incorporated into appropriate OPLANS.

74

APPENDIX
APPENDIX

75

c. Rear Battle: For the purpose of this Agreement, rear battle 

consists of those actions taken by all units (combat, combat support, combat service support, and host nation), 

singly or in joint effort, to secure the force, neutralize or 

defeat enemy forces in the rear area, and ensure freedom 

of action in the deep and close-in battles.

d. Base: A locality from which operations are projected or supported, or an area or locality containing installations that 

provide logistic or other mission support (JCS Pub 1).

e. Base Defense: The local military measures, both normal 

and emergency, required to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of enemy attacks on, or sabotage of, a base or installation so as to insure that the maximal capacity of its 

facilities is available to US forces (JCS Pub 1).

f. Installation: A grouping of facilities, located in the same 

vicinity, which support particular functions. Installations 

may be elements of a base (JCS Pub 1).

g. Level I Threat: Enemy activity characterized by enemycontrolled agent activity, sabotage by enemy sympathizers, and terrorism.

h. Level II Threat: Enemy activity characterized by diversionary and sabotage operations conducted by unconventional forces; raid, ambush, and reconnaissance 

operations conducted by combat units; and special mission or unconventional warfare (UW) missions.

i. Level III Threat: Enemy activity characterized by battalion 

size or larger heliborne operations, airborne operations, 

amphibious operations, ground force deliberate operations, and infiltration operations.

ARTICLE II

BACKGROUND

1. The references in Article I provide guidance to the Army and 

the Air Force on rear battle operations, including the ground 

defense of air bases and installations.
APPENDIX

76

a. The Army has responsibility for organizing, training, and 

equipping forces for the conduct of sustained operations 

on land, specifically to defeat enemy land forces and to 

seize, secure, occupy, and defend land areas. 

b. The Air Force base or installation commander is the officer responsible for the local ground defense of his base or 

installations (reference c). The forces of Services other 

than his own, assigned to his base or installation for the 

conduct of local ground defense, shall be under his operational control.

2. The Army has responsibility (reference d) for the provision of 

forces for ABGD operations outside designated Air Force 

base or installation boundaries.

3. Overseas, a variety of existing arrangements for ABGD are 

explicitly recognized by international agreements. In some 

countries, both within the NATO alliance and elsewhere, 

external ABGD is a host nation responsibility prescribed by 

status of forces agreements or separate negotiation. In other 

countries, responsibility is shared between the host nation 

and US Forces.

ARTICLE III

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this Agreement is to develop combat forces 

for ABGD to ensure Air Force sortie generation and missile 

launch capability. ABGD forces must be capable of:

a. Detecting and defeating Levels I and II attacks;

b. Delaying a Level III attack until the arrival of friendly tactical 

combat elements capable of defeating this level of attack.

ARTICLE IV

RESPONSIBILITIES

1. The Army and the Air Force will establish a Joint Air Base 

Ground Defense Working Group (JABGDWG). The tasks of 

the JABGDWG are to monitor, coordinate, examine, and 
APPENDIX

77

report to the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and 

Plans and the Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and 

Operations on the actions necessary to ensure the implementation of policies and preparation of forces for ABGD.

a. The Army and the Air Force will appoint co-chairmen for 

the JABGDWG. Support will be provided by functional 

staffs from the Departments of the Army and the Air 

Force, and by the appropriate subordinate commands.

b. The JABGDWG will conduct a yearly review of ABGD 

requirements in time for joint recommendations to be 

made in July of each year prior to the initiation of the following DOD POM [program objective memorandum] cycle. 

This review will recommend specific planning and programming actions designed to ensure mutual support for 

respective service programs.

2. The Army and the Air Force are jointly responsible for:

a. Participating in the JABGDWG.

b. Developing joint doctrine for rear battle, to include ABGD.

c. Coordinating proposed changes in ABGD concepts, doctrine, and force structure.

d. Ensuring the provisions of this Agreement are addressed 

appropriately in operational and contingency plans to 

avoid any security degradation.

3. The Army is responsible for providing forces for ABGD operations outside the boundaries of designated USAF bases and 

installations.

a. When assigned the ABGD mission to counter the level I 

and level II threats to specific USAF bases or installations, Army forces will be under the operational control of 

those Air Force base or installation commanders.

b. Within 90 days of approval of this Agreement, the Army 

will provide a transition plan to the JABGDWG for a timephase[d] transfer of responsibility for external ABGD. 

Transfer will start 1 October 1985.
APPENDIX

78

c. The Army will initiate, where feasible, requests for host 

nations to provide ABGD external to Air Force bases and 

installations (except as noted in paragraph 4f below).

d. The Army will provide multi-source intelligence on enemy 

ground forces for Air Force threat assessments and tactical counterintelligence efforts.

4. The Air Force will provide for physical security and internal 

defense within the boundaries of its bases and installations.

a. Air Force base and installation commanders are responsible for the local ground defense of their installations.

b. As dictated by the threat, environment, and availability of 

Army or host nation forces provided for external defense, 

the Air Force, in coordinating with the local ground force 

commanders, may employ external safeguards to provide 

early warning and detection of, and reaction to, enemy 

threats to air bases and installations.

c. The Air Force will provide the command, control, communication and intelligence (C3I) resources required by 

Air Force base and installation commanders to [effect] 

operational control of forces assigned to them for ground 

defense. C3I provided by both services in supporting rear 

battle operations will be interoperable.

d. The Air Force will lead in the collection of data and assessment of the overall threat to air bases and installations 

worldwide. It will retain the lead in Ground Combat Intelligence and Tactical Counterintelligence covering each 

ABGD area of influence, as defined in reference e.

e. The Air Force will submit requirements for ABGD to the 

Army, to include a list of locations to be defended, updated 

as required.

f. The Air Force will seek host nation commitment for ABGD 

in agreements relating to the use of Collocated Operating 

Bases (COBS) and Aerial Ports of Debarkation (APODs).

5. Army and Air Force delineations of responsibilities will not 

preclude the deployment of forces from either Service to support the other should the tactical situation dictate.
79

Abbreviations

ADCON	 administrative control

AEF	 air and space expeditionary force

AEG	 air expeditionary group

AETC	 Air Education and Training Command

AEW	 air and space expeditionary wing

AFPC	 Air Force Personnel Center

BC3	 Basic Combat Convoy Course

BUR	 Bottom-up Review

CA	 civil affairs; combat arms

CE	 civil engineering

CFP	 contingency force pool

COCOM	 combatant command

COE	 contemporary operating environment

CS	 combat support

CSS	 combat service support

DOD	 Department of Defense

EOD	 explosive ordnance disposal

4GW	 fourth generation warfare

FY	 fiscal year

GAO	 Government Accountability Office

GDP	 gross domestic product

IED	 improvised explosive device

ILO	 in lieu of

JFCOM	 Joint Force Command

JP	 joint publication

JSA	 joint service agreement

JSS	 joint sourcing solution

K-9	 police canine (also “MWD”—military working dog)

LOC	 line of communication

MAT	 military assistance team

MP	 military police

MRC	 major regional conflict
ABBREVIATIONS

80

MWD	 military working dog (also “K-9”—police canine)

OEF	 Operation Enduring Freedom

OIF	 Operation Iraqi Freedom

OOTW	 operations other than war

OPCON	 operational control

PRT	 provincial reconstruction team

PTT	 police training team

QDR	 Quadrennial Defense Review

READY	 resource augmentation duty

SDE	 senior developmental education

SF	 security forces

SIPRI	 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

TACON	 tactical control

USAFA	 United States Air Force Academy
81

Glossary

administrative control. “Direction or exercise of authority over 

subordinate or other organizations in respect to administration 

and support, including organization of Service forces, control of 

resources and equipment, personnel management, unit logistics, 

individual and unit training, readiness, mobilization, demobilization, discipline, and other matters not included in the operational 

missions of the subordinate or other organizations.”1

combat forces (combat arms). Includes those functions 

focused on enemy engagement: air defense artillery, armor, aviation, cavalry, field artillery, infantry, and special forces.2

combat service support. Encompasses “logistical support . . . 

services required by the soldiers of combat units to continue 

their missions in combat”;3 these services consist of quartermaster, ordnance, transportation, adjutant general, finance, 

chaplain, legal, and medical functions.4

combat support. “Refers to units which provide fire support 

and operational assistance” to aviation and ground combat 

troops to permit those units to accomplish their combat missions; this support comprises the areas of chemical warfare, 

police/security, intelligence, and communications.5

combatant command (command authority). “Nontransferable 

command authority established by title 10 (‘Armed Forces’), 

United States Code, section 164, exercised only by commanders 

of unified or specified combatant commands unless otherwise 

directed by the President or the Secretary of Defense. Combatant command (command authority) cannot be delegated and is 

the authority of a combatant commander to perform those functions of command over assigned forces involving organizing and 

employing commands and forces, assigning tasks, designating 

objectives, and giving authoritative direction over all aspects of 

military operations, joint training, and logistics necessary to 

accomplish the missions assigned to the command. Combatant 

command (command authority) should be exercised through the 

commanders of subordinate organizations. Normally this authority is exercised through subordinate joint force commanders and 
GLOSSARY

82

Service and/or functional component commanders. Combatant 

command (command authority) provides full authority to organize and employ commands and forces as the combatant commander considers necessary to accomplish assigned missions. 

Operational control is inherent in combatant command (command authority).”6

dwell ratio. The ratio of the number of days an individual is 

deployed (away from the home unit and/or station to which 

permanently assigned) to the number of days the individual is 

not deployed. 

operational control. “Command authority that may be exercised by commanders at any echelon at or below the level of 

combatant command. Operational control is inherent in combatant command (command authority) and may be delegated 

within the command. Operational control is the authority to perform those functions of command over subordinate forces involving organizing and employing commands and forces, assigning 

tasks, designating objectives, and giving authoritative direction 

necessary to accomplish the mission. Operational control 

includes authoritative direction over all aspects of military operations and joint training necessary to accomplish missions 

assigned to the command. Operational control should be exercised through the commanders of subordinate organizations. 

Normally this authority is exercised through subordinate joint 

force commanders and Service and/or functional component 

commanders. Operational control normally provides full authority to organize commands and forces and to employ those forces 

as the commander in operational control considers necessary to 

accomplish assigned missions; it does not, in and of itself, 

include authoritative direction for logistics or matters of administration, discipline, internal organization, or unit training.”7

optempo. Operational tempo. Generally refers to the strain on 

individuals generated by frequent deployment to temporary 

duty away from the home unit and/or duty station to which 

permanently assigned.

tactical control. “Command authority over assigned or 

attached forces or commands, or military capability or forces 

made available for tasking, that is limited to the detailed direc-
GLOSSARY

83

tion and control of movements or maneuvers within the operational area necessary to accomplish missions or tasks assigned. 

Tactical control is inherent in operational control. Tactical control may be delegated to, and exercised at any level at or below 

the level of combatant command. Tactical control provides sufficient authority for controlling and directing the application of 

force or tactical use of combat support assets within the 

assigned mission or task.”8

Notes

1. JP 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary, 6. 

2. Wikipedia, s.v. “U.S. Army Combat Arms Regimental System,” http://

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Army_Combat_Arms_Regimental_System 

(accessed 16 February 2008). 

3. Ibid.

4. Wikipedia, s.v. “Combat service support,” http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ 

Combat_Service_Support (accessed 16 February 2008).

5. Wikipedia, s.v. “Combat support,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat 

_support (accessed 16 February 2008).

6. JP 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary, 98.

7. Ibid., 397–98.

8. Ibid., 539.

85

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The “In Lieu Of” Myth

Airmen in Joint Ground Operations

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