CONSTRAINTS, RESTRAINTS, 

AND THE ROLE OF AEROSPACE 

POWER IN THE 21ST CENTURY 

Jeffrey K. Beene 

INSS Occasional Paper 38 

Aerospace Issues and Planning Series 

April 2001 

USAF Institute for National Security Studies 

USAF Academy, Colorado 
ii
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The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not 

necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the 

Air Force, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. This 

paper is approved for public release by SAF/PA; distribution is 

unlimited. 

******* 

ISBN: 0-9710900-1-7 
iv

Comments pertaining to this paper are invited; please forward to: 

 Director, USAF Institute for National Security Studies 

 HQ USAFA/DFES 

 2354 Fairchild Drive, Suite 5L27 

 USAF Academy, CO 80840 

 phone: 719-333-2717 

 fax: 719-333-2716 

 email: james.smith@usafa.af.mil 

Visit the Institute for National Security Studies home page at 

http://www.usafa.af.mil/inss
v

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword vii 

Executive Summary ix 

Preface xiii 

Introduction 1 

Background 5 

 Constraints and Restraints 6 

 Constraint 7 

 Restraint 7 

 Characterizing Restraint 8 

 Net Result: Establishing Limits 9 

 Key History 10 

 Other Factors 10 

 Emerging Strategic Environment 11 

 Post-Cold War and the Information Age 13 

Aerospace Power as a Coercive Instrument 15 

 Emerging Aerospace Power Capabilities 17 

 Programmed USAF Improvements 17 

 Coercion as an Alternative to Traditional 

 US Military Strategy 20 

 Maximum Achievable Force 22 

 Factors in Successful Limited Force 

 Application 24 

 Policy Issues 26 

 Integrating Instruments of Power 27 

Implications for Aerospace Power Strategy 29 

 Doctrine-Strategy “Gap” 30 

 Inter-agency Cooperation and 

 Coordination 31 

 Response: What About Phase 0? 32 

 Coercion: Elements of Effective 

 “Gradualism” 34 

 Know the Adversary 39 

 Precision Engagement 40 

Recommendations 45 
vi

 Doctrine and Strategy 46 

 Filling the SSC Gap 48 

 Tools for the Strategist 49 

 Joint Reachback 50 

 “Operationalize” Modeling, Simulation, 

 and Analysis 51 

 Strategic and Operational Training 51 

 Integrating the Interagency Process 52 

 Operational Level Training Enhancements 52 

Conclusion 53 

Notes 56 

Glossary 69 

Bibliography 75 
vii

FOREWORD 

We are pleased to publish this thirtieth-eighth volume in the

Occasional Paper series of the US Air Force Institute for National 

Security Studies (INSS). Aerospace power has emerged as a primary 

military instrument of choice in pursuing national objectives within the 

complex international security environment entering the 21st century. 

Changes in the security landscape, the dynamics of sub-theater conflicts, 

and coalition imperatives combine to place new requirements on 

aerospace operational planning and the conduct of aerospace operations 

themselves. Occasional Papers 38 and 39 address, in turn, both political 

and operational dimensions of aerospace power application today. They 

are presented both for informational and educational purposes to offer 

informed perspectives on important aspects of contemporary aerospace 

operations, to generate informed discussion and to bound productive 

debate on aerospace power in both supported and supporting roles. In 

Occasional Paper 38, Constraints, Restraints, and the Role of Aerospace 

Power in the 21st Century, Jeffrey Beene presents a comprehensive 

examination of the use of aerospace power within tightly restrained 

conflicts and suggests improvements in doctrine, training, and tools to 

more effectively employ such power within that environment. Then in 

Occasional Paper 39, Aerospace Power in Urban Warfare: Beware the 

Hornet’s Nest, Peter Hunt examines the employment of aerospace power 

in the increasingly important urban operational environment. Each of 

these aspects of aerospace power demands greater thought and 

examination, and these two occasional papers are presented to help focus 

that attention. 

About the Institute

 INSS is primarily sponsored by the National Security Policy 

Division, Nuclear and Counterproliferation Directorate, Headquarters US 
viii

Air Force (HQ USAF/XONP) and the Dean of the Faculty, USAF 

Academy. Our other sponsors currently include the Air Staff’s 

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Directorate (XOI) and the 

Air Force's 39th and 23rd Information Operations Squadrons; the 

Secretary of Defense’s Office of Net Assessment (OSD/NA); the 

Defense Threat Reduction Agency; the Army Environmental Policy 

Institute; and the Air Force long-range plans directorate (XPXP). The 

mission of the Institute is “to promote national security research for the 

Department of Defense within the military academic community, and to 

support the Air Force national security education program.” Its research 

focuses on the areas of greatest interest to our organizational sponsors: 

arms control, proliferation, regional studies, Air Force policy, 

information operations, environmental security, and space policy. 

 INSS coordinates and focuses outside thinking in various 

disciplines and across the military services to develop new ideas for 

defense policy making. To that end, the Institute develops topics, selects 

researchers from within the military academic community, and 

administers sponsored research. It also hosts conferences and workshops 

and facilitates the dissemination of information to a wide range of private 

and government organizations. INSS provides valuable, cost-effective 

research to meet the needs of our sponsors. We appreciate your 

continued interest in INSS and our research products. 

JAMES M. SMITH 

 Director
ix

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

This study examines aerospace power (e.g., the use of aircraft, 

spacecraft, and information in the air and/or space medium to project 

military power in order to create political and military effects) 

employment in the emerging 21st century strategic environment and 

evaluates how its capabilities can best be used in tightly restrained 

conflicts. Now, perhaps more than ever before, it is important for airmen 

(e.g., any military or military-related practitioner of aerospace power 

employment) to understand how best to employ aerospace power in 

pursuit of national objectives. The reason is found in the magnitude of 

the potential dilemma. While the United States (US) and its military 

stand on the verge of coming to grips with the incredible potential of 

aerospace power and the technological means to employ it, the military 

may be limited from using it in preferred ways and from achieving its 

fullest potential only in the most extreme cases. 

The emerging strategic environment will become more complex 

with increasing challenges to US national security below the vital interest 

level. This environment will consist of new threats, new actors, with 

forces increasingly joined by military allies and agencies outside the 

military—domestic and foreign. In most of these environments if the US 

responds militarily it will be limited. Restraints (e.g., political and/or 

military choices affecting employment of the military instrument short of 

physical or legal limits that might otherwise be considered achievable, 

allowable, or acceptable) will be imposed—largely as a function of the 

conflict’s relation to national interests. As a result, the increasing 

complexities involved in application of the instruments of national power 

(i.e., political, economic, military, and informational) to achieve 

national/coalition objectives are such that, as a minimum, these 

instruments must be better integrated in the future to have a reasonable 

chance of achieving a desired end state. 
x

The US military will need to be increasingly able to provide 

national leadership with sound military strategies developed—within 

tight political controls—while operating more effectively with allies and 

non-military agencies from both within the US and outside. Aerospace 

power will continue to develop as a potent element of military power; 

capabilities will overcome many current and foreseen constraints (e.g., 

the physical and moral limits on the application of the military 

instrument), and aerospace power will increasingly be viewed as the 

military instrument of first (and possibly only) choice among world 

democracies. Therefore, the US military, and principally the Air Force, 

must be able to execute decisive operations across the spectrum of 

conflict. 

Future conflicts requiring the use of military power, while 

increasing in technological aspects, are likely to be more about 

application of sound strategy and operational art than maximizing 

operational effectiveness or employing new capabilities. Technological 

advances will provide increasing means for aerospace power to 

overcome constraints—most notably weather—providing attractive 

lethal and non-lethal means to achieve goals. However, it is difficult to 

understand if aerospace power, singly or predominantly, can achieve 

desired objectives in the face of increased restraints that, at best, reduce 

efficiency and, at worst, preclude its effectiveness. Warfare will remain 

an art form, not a science. Therefore, strategy provides more hope for a 

panacea than does technology. 

This creates a strategy imperative in the face of rapidly 

changing technology, tactics, and restraints. The same level and 

intensity with which the Air Force pursues tactical expertise must be 

pursued at the operational level. This means the airman has got to be 

able to know what kind of war it is the US has to fight, whether or not 

the US can fight it, or whether the conflict at hand requires resolution by 
xi

other means. ALLIED FORCE demonstrated that the US military has 

not thought through all “how’s,” especially when a military component 

other than the land force functions as the supported commander for the 

operation at hand. 

The study concludes that the immediate joint and USAF needs 

are for improvements to operational doctrine, training, and tools. The 

US military cannot focus exclusively on the war it would prefer to fight 

and ignore the complex realities of places like the Balkans or the 

ramifications of changes brought about by the revolution in military 

affairs. The study’s conclusions are based on reviewing areas of benefit 

to military operations across the spectrum: 

• Thinking about ways to improve national power integration is 

applicable in any conflict. 

• Thinking about solving a conflict before the shooting starts by 

responding with capabilities that strengthen allies and friendly 

states and can easily transition if the shooting starts. 

• Improving the ability to rapidly formulate a comprehensive 

systems blueprint of an adversary. 

• Realizing the key to success in coercion, as with any strategy, is 

the ability to undermine the adversary’s strategy. 

However, limited conflict and limited force employment are 

sticking points that will continue to require work to overcome. 

Specifically, the US can only reduce military force so much before it 

must ask itself why it is considering resorting to force and what other 

means are available to resolve the conflict. The history of employing 

measures short of war points out that they take time to be effective. Yet 

the length of time involved is always a concern when the US is involved 

in a conflict, particularly if it resorts to force. There is a balance to be 

achieved between the desires of civilian leadership and what the military 

and aerospace power can reasonably be expected to deliver. The balance 

is most likely to be achieved in a civil-military environment of trust, 

cooperation, and coordination. 
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PREFACE 

In August 1999 I attended the Aerospace Education Foundation 

Eaker Colloquy on “Operation ALLIED FORCE: Strategy, Execution, 

Implications” in Washington, DC. Former Air Force Chief of Staff 

General Michael Dugan was the moderator. I first met then-Major 

General Dugan, Tactical Air Command Deputy Commander for 

Operations, at the 1985 Strategic Air Command Bombing and 

Navigation Competition where my crew won the Best B-52 Crew 

honors. Later, as Chief of Staff, he presented the 1989 Mackay Trophy 

to my B-1 crew. I mention these events because General Dugan said 

something that day at the Eaker Colloquy that spoke to me as much as 

anything he said at our two previous meetings. He said, “I have grown 

to despise the word ‘targeting.’ Targeting is a terrific concept for the 

captain and for the sergeant. In my mind it is not a useful concept for the 

colonel and the general.”1

 I admired General Dugan before. I admire 

him even more now. Let me explain. 

I originally became interested in this research while assigned to 

Checkmate where I also came to despise the word “targeting” or, more 

specifically, “targets.” This is not say that I disagree with Colonel 

Phillip Meilinger's aerospace power targeting “proposition.”2

 But, it is to 

say the context in which airmen have often thought about and allowed 

others to think about targets has often misrepresented airmen as military 

professionals and the application of aerospace power as a military 

instrument—thinking about the desired political ends; possible military 

contributions to achieve those ends; possible aerospace power 

application within the military context; and lastly—finally—assigning 

appropriate targets. While we as airmen talk about how aerospace power 

is applied at the strategic and operational levels, we do not spend enough 

time as a service trying to understand applying force at those levels. We 

are tactical experts in putting bombs on target. However, in articulating 
xiv

aerospace power’s contribution to the overall campaign, “targets” must 

be the least used word in airman’s dictionary; strategy must be the first 

and most important word in the airman’s language—after all, “s” does 

come before “t.” 

The amazing potential and capability of aerospace power can 

only go unnoticed by those who willingly choose to ignore it. For the 

airman it is time to occupy a truly equal seat at the joint forces table. But 

to do so requires an adoption within our culture of the art of the 

application of military instrument of national power akin to the way 

airmen have historically embraced technology. It is not that technology 

will somehow cease to be at the core of aerospace power but, that for the 

airman, it is only the means to “support and defend the Constitution” by 

fighting and winning our Nation’s wars. Just as we are adopting the 

Aerospace Expeditionary Force as the Air Force culture—breaking down 

stovepipes—we must embrace an operational art renaissance within that 

culture. We really have to understand what it means for the airman to 

serve as a “supported commander” and, most importantly, a “joint force 

commander” in theaters and environments where we have rarely had the 

opportunity to do so. General Dugan and others are working hard to this 

end. 

A former Checkmate colleague used to comment about how we 

in the Air Force like to make things “bigger, faster, funnier.” In other 

words, with a hint of sarcasm, he pointed out how we often like to 

improve the effectiveness of things. But to what end? The context is 

normally absent of thought about improving strategy. Although the two 

are related there is a difference related to order: Strategy comes first. 

Improved operational effectiveness can enhance strategy; new 

technology can change doctrine; but, thinking about how to win and 

thinking about how best to organize, train, equip, and employ forces are 

central. Strategy is concerned with differentiating ourselves from an 
xv

adversary. If I only seek to improve effectiveness of individual things I 

will never truly grasp what the contribution of such things is to 

formulating a coherent strategy that places the adversary, in Sir Basil 

Liddell Hart’s words, “on the horns of a dilemma.” 

It is an encouraging time to be in the Air Force. The glass is 

half-full, not half-empty. In one way, we could be discouraged by the 

nature of the threats we face. Future scenarios in the lower end of the 

conflict spectrum will challenge some of our basic tenets such as 

centralized control-decentralized execution where technological 

capability will soon easily facilitate centralized control and execution at 

the highest levels. But, we cannot lose sight of the fact that we really 

still have to be ready for the larger challenges that we are going to 

increasingly be well equipped to handle. We must poise ourselves and 

embrace the following ideas: we will be called on for operations across 

the spectrum; operations within the near future will tend to be in the 

lower end of the spectrum; and our doctrine and the way we think about 

operations in the lower end of the spectrum are different. This should 

not cause us apprehension. If we are thinking about, articulating, 

experimenting, practicing, and educating on the best ways aerospace 

power can be employed, then we can confidently make recommendations 

and lead in those environments. We know aerospace power is relevant 

and we know that we will continue to face challenges to certain kinds of 

capabilities that we do not have. But at the same time if we keep the big 

picture in mind about how we are used as an instrument to achieve a 

political end then we can think in terms about how we can best be 

applied. 

In a general sense, it is time to move on from the half-empty 

glass notion of searching for service identity. And at the same time, it is 

not aerospace power versus everybody else. Much of the criticism of the 

Air Force is about the dependence and focus on technology. Yet, we 
xvi

know that is what aerospace power is. I’ve used the comparison before: 

All warfare except that of brute hand-to-hand combat is about exploiting 

technology or the adversary’s dependence on technology. Yet at the 

same time, if you always allow technology to be your focus there will be 

a fundamental problem with understanding the importance of why you 

have all these means to exploit warfare in the third dimension. That is 

why we need to pursue and continue to exploit technology, particularly 

as we go into space. But if we fail to understand and think about how 

those “things” that make up aerospace power can be applied to achieve 

political ends, then that’s where we will warrant criticism on the pursuit 

of technology only. It is time to think in terms of what the military can 

bring, in terms of management of violence to achieve the ends. Then, 

under that joint umbrella, determine what aerospace power can bring to 

the table. Former Air Force Chief of Staff, General Merrill A. McPeak 

brilliantly described the “joint” airman’s perspective: 

Few airmen today believe that the Air Force suffices to 

secure the nation’s interests. Korea, Vietnam, Desert 

Storm, and much other experience has accustomed us 

to combat formations in which land, sea, and air arms 

unite under joint command. We stake no claim to win 

all wars, all the time, all by ourselves, and neither does 

the Army or Navy. At any rate, it is a ridiculous, 

unreasonable test that any service should have to win 

by itself. But somehow our modesty in this regard has 

metastasized into something else—the theory that air 

power can never win alone, that under no conditions 

should we rely on air power to achieve victory. The 

integrity of this proposition has been damaged as badly 

as Serbian ambitions.3

A few words about what this paper does not do. This paper 

does not examine the reasons, factors, or the attributes of employing 

force or military capability, particularly in the lower end of conflict 

spectrum, by our political leadership. This paper does not propose 

changes to the existing National Security Strategy or National Military 
xvii

Strategy by advocating whether operations in the lower end of the 

conflict spectrum should be conducted. I want to make an argument that 

applies regardless of available resources or national security or military 

strategies. Knowing the adversary and applying strategy-to-task 

methodology and operational art are the main thrust areas. With those in 

mind, it is not hard to see that the more challenging strategic and 

operational thinking is at the lower end of the spectrum. 

It does not presume or argue that keeping land forces out of any 

conflict is the right thing to do. However, to contemplate the potential of 

aerospace power to be used predominantly requires a sober appreciation 

of our limits: What do we actually have the capability to do? 

This paper does not address ethical dimensions of a political 

decision to get involved in a conflict, other than the dimension of being 

able to discern if political restraint is unacceptable. It does not analyze 

casualty aversion in depth. I assume that part of the military ethic is to 

minimize casualties as a course of duty, but not as the preeminent duty. 

The “gap” that exists between traditional military doctrine and that at the 

lower end of the conflict spectrum is there because it lies in an area that 

traditionally runs contrary to accepted military principles and, 

potentially, ethics. A potential ethical dilemma already being raised has 

to do with paramilitary operations against aerospace power-only 

operations. If asked to do something like Operation ALLIED FORCE 

again there are ethical dimensions to accepting similar consequences on 

the ground such as the Kosovars experienced. As a result the key 

question from our senior military leaders may not be “if” we can do what 

is asked, but “whether” we should do what is asked. 

With regard to ethics, personally what is happening is 

disturbing. There are attempts to chip away at the core of the military 

ethos. This is why I believe it is imperative to understand not only the 

“if/whether” question, but to understand everything we contribute in 
xviii

terms of national power short of force application to resolve a crisis. 

Then, after applying the full potential of all possible measures and not 

achieving resolution, resort to force and apply it with all possible vigor, 

not ceasing until resolution is achieved. However, this is a subject of 

another project. Again, I assume we have already worked through those 

issues and have accepted the restraints, believing that a certain military 

response will contribute to achieving the desired end state. 

I have tried to examine what has occurred and then attempt to 

draw conclusions about the important factors that should be considered if 

something like Operation ALLIED FORCE is done again. I do seek to 

include in my assessment those aspects, which would not otherwise 

detract from military performance across the spectrum of conflict. 

Finally, I want to thank two thoughtful airmen of note for their 

invaluable advice and consultation: Dr. Earl Tilford of the Army 

Strategic Studies Institute and Colonel Phillip Meilinger of the Naval 

War College. Both helped me to examine aerospace power from a 

variety of perspectives. Many thanks are also in order for Mr. 

Christopher Makins, Dr. Alfred Wilhelm, and the staff of The Atlantic 

Council of the United States for providing an outstanding environment in 

which to think, talk, and write about national security policy issues. I 

want to offer special thanks to those who allowed me to interview them, 

particularly General John Jumper, Major General Thomas Hobbins, and 

Brigadier General (select) Alan Peck. Lastly, I want to thank my mentor 

and friend, Colonel Kevin Kennedy, for keeping the Checkmate door 

open to me for research. 

For by wise guidance you will wage war, and in 

abundance of counselors there is victory. 

Proverbs 24:6 (NASB) 
xix

 

1

 General Michael J. Dugan, USAF (ret.), “Operation ALLIED FORCE: 

Strategy, Execution, Implications,” address, Eaker Colloquy on 

Aerospace Strategy, Requirements, and Forces, Washington, DC, 16 

August 1999, 1; on-line, Internet, 2 September 1999, available from 

http://www.aef.org/eak16aug99.html. 

2

 See Phillip S. Meilinger, Ten Propositions Regarding Air Power 

(Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1995). 

3

 General Merrill A. McPeak, USAF (ret.), “The Kosovo Result,” Armed 

Forces Journal International, September 1999, n.p; on-line, Internet, 26 

October 1999, available from http://www.afji.com/ 

mags/1999/september/thekosovoresult/index.html. 
1

CONSTRAINTS, RESTRAINTS, AND THE ROLE OF AEROSPACE 

POWER 

IN THE 21ST CENTURY 

INTRODUCTION 

What should never be forgotten is that the instruments of 

power are ultimately judged and gain their entire meaning 

by the extent to which they serve national policies. 

—Dennis Drew and Donald Snow1

Military strategy can no longer be thought of, as it could for 

some countries in some eras, as the science of military 

victory. It is now equally, if not more the art of coercion, of 

intimidation and deterrence. The instruments of war are 

more punitive that acquisitive. Military strategy, whether 

we like it or not, has become the diplomacy of violence. 

—Thomas C. Schelling2

The purpose of this study is to examine aerospace power3

 employment in the 

emerging 21st century strategic environment and evaluate how its capabilities 

can best be used in tightly restrained conflicts.4

 Now, perhaps more than ever 

before, it is important for airmen5

 to understand how best to employ aerospace 

power in pursuit of national objectives. The reason is found in the magnitude 

of the potential dilemma. While the United States (US) stands on the verge of 

coming to grips with the incredible potential of aerospace power and the 

technological means to employ it, the military may be limited from using it in 

preferred ways and to its fullest potential except only in the most extreme 

cases. As noted military analyst Anthony Cordesman put it, “One of the 

ironies of the advances in modern air and missile power, and modern military 

technology of all kinds, is that it may be impossible to use it to achieve ‘shock 

and awe’ in all but the most drastic contingencies, and that real-world military 

plans and doctrine must be based on ‘limits and restraint.’”6

US foreign policy issues have increasingly utilized the military 

instrument, in its various forms, to achieve desired goals. Specifically, the 

argument to follow is that near-future conflicts requiring the military, while 

increasing in technological and informational dimensions, will be restrained 
2

and, therefore, will foremost require the application of sound strategy. Issues 

of maximizing operational effectiveness or employing new capabilities will be 

secondary. The fundamental assumption is that in order to contemplate use of 

aerospace power potential, predominantly or otherwise, requires a sober 

appreciation of its limits. The relevant issues are: how the military has been 

constrained and restrained in the past; understanding the nature of 21st century 

conflicts and adversaries; exploring how conflict in the lower end of the 

conflict spectrum affects use of the military instrument; and examining how 

military and aerospace power applications might be improved to meet new 

challenges. 

In the background section a foundation of understanding will be laid 

and the framework for discussion established. Important definitions will be set 

forth first. Key historical cases will illustrate how the US military has been 

restrained politically in varying degrees in the past and how it could be 

restrained in the future. Following this, the complex emerging environment 

will be examined in order to establish a basis for comparative analysis. In this 

environment, as in the past, much depends on which national interests are at 

stake. 

When a crisis erupts, the questions that senior civilian and military 

leadership ask—implicitly or explicitly—are: What interests are involved and 

what sacrifices will we be willing to make? This is where a great deal of the 

debate examined in this paper resides: Do limited interests justify only limited 

sacrifices? One may ask what about the Weinberger and Powell Doctrines. 

These declarations mutually proclaim that the US only commit forces when 

vital national interests are at stake. But, there is a problem with the definition 

of “vital” interests. The current US national security strategy, A National 

Security Strategy for a New Century, divides national interests into three 

categories: vital, important, and humanitarian and other interests. Vital 

interests are described as “those of broad, overriding importance to the 

survival, safety and vitality” to the Nation that “we will do what we must to 

defend these interests, including, when necessary and appropriate, using our 
3

military might unilaterally and decisively.”7

 Important national interests are 

defined as those that “do not affect our national survival, but they do affect our 

national well-being and the character of the world in which we live.”8

 Haiti, 

Bosnia, Kosovo, and East Timor are listed as examples. Humanitarian and 

other interests are those in which the US “may act because our values demand 

it.”9

 With respect to these interests, the strategy says, “Whenever possible, we 

seek to avert humanitarian disasters and conflict through diplomacy and a 

wide range of partners....”10 Responding to disasters and support for the rule 

of law are examples listed that will be handled with other governments and 

non-governmental organizations (NGO). 

While the national interest descriptions are relatively clear, there is 

room for debate as to which specific category a situation fits and the type of 

response it may require. It is difficult to think of total war in the age of 

weapons of mass destruction for anything outside of a nation’s most vital 

interest—survival. However, because most crises do not involve vital 

interests, it is generally accepted that all means short of force application are 

exercised to resolve them. Regarding Kosovo, National Security Advisor 

Sandy Berger said, “There can be circumstances short of an existential threat 

to the United States where the use of force is appropriate.”11 Generally, it will 

be seen that the political limitations established for military response are 

largely a function of the proximity of the crisis to vital national interests: the 

closer to a vital interest, the less restraint imposed. 

In the issue analysis section, the use of aerospace power as a coercive 

instrument will be examined. The latest in information age and aerospace 

power technologies are important to this discussion. While technological 

limitations will persist to some degree, aerospace power will continue to 

rapidly develop as an element of military power, and increasingly be viewed 

as the military instrument of first (and possibly only) choice among world 

democracies. Other instruments of national power will likely increase in 

relative importance in the information age, particularly in conflicts at the lower 

end of the spectrum. Next, consideration will be given to some problems with 
4

strategy development that—while not uncommon—are accentuated in the 

lower end of the conflict spectrum. The key question in order here is how do 

airmen develop, execute, and assess a coherent strategy and avoid narrow 

pursuit of target-based operations? Coercion as a political-military strategy is 

then considered. Questions here include what types of effects can aerospace 

power provide in highly restrained environments and what is the impact of 

restraints on parallel warfare? The section concludes with an examination of 

how integrating the military with the other instruments of national power 

might be improved. 

The US military must be increasingly able to provide national 

leadership with sound military strategies developed—within tight political 

controls—while operating more effectively with allies and non-military 

agencies from both within the US and outside. General John P. Jumper, 

Commander of United States Air Forces in Europe during Operation ALLIED 

FORCE (OAF), described the consequence: 

We have to learn, to continue to do as good a job as we can, 

to articulate the tradeoffs between the efficiency of a wellplanned air campaign, that takes into account all of those 

sophisticated techniques of targeting...balanced with the 

reality that, at the political level, many are going to say no to 

certain targets on your list that will spoil your plan entirely. 

And so all the efficiency you designed into it just goes away. 

And you have to decide how you are going to react to that. 

Are you going to say, ‘No, we’re just not going to do this?’ 

Or are we going to re-balance the risk versus rewards and 

perform at the limit of the political consensus while all the 

time trying to push for the greater efficiency that comes 

from allowing the military to produce the effect without the 

political constraint?12

Dr. Dennis Drew, Dean of the USAF School of Advanced Airpower 

Studies, and Dr. Donald Snow, professor of political science at the University 

of Alabama, offer a historical comparison for the strategy-related problems of 

limited war in Vietnam: “Possibly the greatest failure of the United States 

military in Vietnam was in not recognizing and admitting this frailty [our 

history of combating irregular, unconventional forces] to political authorities. 
5

Had the services said ‘we’re not sure’ rather than ‘can do,’ different decisions 

might well have been made.”13 Kosovo possibly could have presented a 

similar problem if the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) had not cooperated. It 

still remains to be seen if the political end state can be reached. The bottom 

line is that the adversary must be understood comprehensively. The means 

available to the strategist will be reviewed to see how the current modeling, 

simulation, and centers of excellence might be improved. Finally, 

recommendations are formulated in three main areas: doctrine and strategy; 

tools for the strategist; and strategic and operational training. 

BACKGROUND 

We must not start our thinking on war with the tools of 

war—with airplanes, tanks, ships, and those who crew them. 

These tools are important and have their place, but they 

cannot be our starting point, nor can we allow ourselves to 

see them as the essence of war. Fighting is not the essence 

of war, nor even a desirable part of it. The real essence is 

doing what is necessary to make the enemy accept our 

objectives as his objectives. 

—Colonel John Warden14

Part of the American tradition is one of war fought with limited means for 

limited ends, with the involvement of civilian authorities in the conduct of 

warfare.15 Only three of our wars, the Civil War and the two world wars, were 

conflicts in which the nation was mobilized and the military effectively 

“turned loose.”16 Even World War II was governed by political control—at 

the grand strategic level. The close of this war with the dropping of the first 

atomic weapons ushered in a new era of warfighting limitations. The arrival 

of the nuclear age and, now, the information age has served to accelerate the 

trend toward tighter civilian control. General Jumper described it this way, 

“...you are never going to create a situation where you get this blank slate 

that’s turned over to the airman and you never hear from the politicians 

again.”17 The profound political, economic, and social changes since the end 

of the Cold War create a strategic environment warranting a review of history 

and politics. 
6

Constraints and Restraints 

In order to establish a baseline for comparison and contrast it is first important 

to review some terminology that has been used to describe important aspects 

of warfare since the end of World War II, and even more so since the end of 

the Cold War. Other key definitions used in the study are listed in the 

glossary. 

The terms “constraint” and “restraint,” while used extensively—and 

near-interchangeably—in political-military context, do not exist as separate 

defined terms, per se, within Joint or Air Force doctrines except as described 

in planning considerations for military operations other than war (MOOTW). 

Joint Pub 3-0, Doctrine for Joint Operations, states: 

Constraints and Restraints. A commander tasked with 

conducting a joint operation other than war may face 

numerous restrictions in addition to the normal restrictions 

associated with ROE [rules of engagement]. For example, 

international acceptance of each operation may be extremely 

important not only because military forces may be used to 

support international sanctions but also because of the 

probability of involvement by international organizations. 

As a consequence, legal rights of individuals and 

organizations and funding of the operation should be 

addressed by the combatant commander’s staff. Also, 

constraints and restraints imposed on any agency or 

organization involved in the operation should be understood 

by other agencies and organizations to facilitate 

coordination.18 (emphasis original) 

Webster’s dictionary defines the terms as follows: 

Constraint n. 1. moral compulsion. 2. confinement or 

restriction. 3. repression of natural feelings and impulses.19 

(emphasis added) 

Restraint n. 1. a restraining or being restrained 2. a 

restraining influence or action 3. a means or instrument of 

restraining 4. a loss or limitation of liberty; confinement 5. 

Control of emotions, impulses, etc.; reserve; constraint.20

(emphasis added) 

It can be seen that the two definitions are near synonymous in some 

respects. However, there are important differences. To establish a baseline 
7

for the remaining discussion, the terms will be reviewed and working 

definitions established for each.21

Constraint. While “constraint” does not exist as a separate term in 

doctrine, the Air Force’s Joint Doctrine Air Campaign Course (JDACC) 

Handbook describes the term this way: “Constraints...obligate the 

commander to certain military courses of action....”22 With this and the 

dictionary definition in mind, constraints are confines or restrictions that 

establish the maximum operating envelope of the military. Morally or legally, 

constraints are restrictions that cannot normally be overcome without negative 

consequences. Physically, they correspond to capability or resource 

limitations. Constraints can be constant, temporary, or situational (e.g., 

Geneva Conventions—the laws of armed conflict [LOAC], weather, 

equipment limitations, and legal orders). For the purposes of this study the 

following definition23 will be used: 

Constraints are the physical and moral limits on the 

application of the military instrument. In effect, they are 

maximum acceptable and achievable bounds for the military 

instrument to operate within. 

Restraint. The term “restraint” exists in Joint and Air Force 

doctrines as a principle of MOOTW. The MOOTW principles include: 

objective, unity of effort, security, restraint, perseverance, and legitimacy.24 

Again, Joint Pub 3-0 states: 

Restraint. Apply appropriate military capability 

prudently. The actions of military personnel and units are 

framed by the disciplined application of force, including 

specific ROE [rules of engagement]. In operations other 

than war, these ROE will often be more restrictive, detailed, 

and sensitive to political concerns than in war. Moreover, 

these rules may change frequently during operations. 

Restraints on weaponry, tactics, and levels of violence

characterize the environment. The use of excessive force 

could adversely affect efforts to gain or maintain legitimacy 

and impede the attainment of both short- and long-term 

goals. This concept does not preclude the application of 

overwhelming force, when appropriate, to display US 

resolve and commitment. The reasons for the restraint often 
8

need to be understood by the individual Service member 

because a single act could cause political consequences.25

(Bold emphasis original. Italics emphasis added.) 

Restraints, then, reflect choices made by a nation or its military (e.g., 

political restrictions, ROE) restricting the application of the military 

instrument in some fashion. They are volitional. The JDACC Handbook 

definition states: “Restraints prohibit or restrict certain military actions, such 

as the prohibition imposed on MacArthur in Korea against bombing targets 

north of the Yalu River in 1950....”26 Mark Clodfelter, author of The Limits of 

Air Power, concludes that restraints stem from “negative” objectives—those 

deemed achievable only by restraining military power.27 A common example 

from the LOAC illustrates this point. If an adversary places a surface-to-air 

(SAM) site on a hospital, it loses protected status it would otherwise enjoy 

under the LOAC. Legally the hospital can be attacked. However, the 

attacking nation may well deem military benefit to be far exceeded by the 

consequences of causing civilian casualties and establish ROE to that end. 

Restraint essentially places limits short of where constraints would 

actually physically or legally preclude further action. In this study the 

following definition, consistent with the principle of restraint, will be used:28 

Restraints are political and/or military choices affecting 

employment of the military instrument short of physical or 

legal limits that might otherwise be considered achievable, 

allowable, or acceptable. 

Characterizing Restraint. Another term necessary to the discussion 

is the concept of “escalation” as developed by Dr. Herman Kahn in his classic 

work, On Escalation. He defined escalation as “an increase in the level of 

conflict in international crisis situations.”29 Kahn described three likely 

escalation paths that limited conflict can take “in which a would-be escalator 

can increase, or threaten to increase, his efforts: by increasing intensity, 

widening the area, or compounding escalation.”30 In essence, restraint is 

imposed to control escalation. For example, heavy bombers were not used in 

Bosnia in 1995 where, “Even had a significant military reason existed to bring 
9

heavy bombers into the fight, DELIBERATE FORCE commanders likely 

would have had second thoughts, given the big airplane’s inherent political 

liability of signaling escalation.”31 See figure 1. 

Limited Conflict

Intensity

Attack New Targets

Types of Forces

Use WMD

Attack Population

Area

Boundaries

Violate Local Sanctuary

Depth

Attack Allies or Clients

Violate Central Sanctuary

Figure 1. Restraint and Paths to Escalation32

The remainder of this study will use Kahn’s escalation model to 

categorize restraints: intensity, area, and depth (compounding). While these 

factors are often inter-related (i.e., an increase in intensity could serve to 

broaden the conflict), a general classification will provide the necessary means 

of comparison. 

Net Result: Establishing Limits. Constraints and restraints 

combine to create restrictions and establish limits. This is why many use the 

terms interchangeably. Note also that restraint directed at one level effectively 

results in a constraint for lower levels of command. The JDACC Handbook 

states: “The development of suitable military objectives, and the military 

strategy to achieve those objectives, is often restrained or constrained by 

external considerations. Such limits may be imposed by political authority, 

legal considerations (law of armed conflict), rules of engagement, or moral 

beliefs. All must be accounted for within the scope of the campaign plan.”33 

Collectively, the terms are most often referred to as “constraints.” For 

example, the use of the term “political constraint,” which is often used in 

popular media, is synonymous with “restraint” as defined in this study. 
10

Distinction between the two is important—restraint is the more difficult limit 

to successfully apply. 

Another aspect of restraints is that they can become of such an 

enduring nature as to eventually be classified as constraints. The laws of 

armed conflict are internationally accepted restraints that, for the US and most 

nations, have become an enduring legal limit. They have, in essence, become 

constraints. The US has in recent history added biological weapons (i.e., 

Biological Weapons Convention, 1975) and chemical weapons (i.e., Chemical 

Weapons Convention, 1997) to the constraint category by choosing to legally 

bind itself and preclude their use in conflict. An example of an enduring 

restraint not set into law or international treaty involves nuclear weapons—the 

“no first use” policy. 

Key History. For the US, as a nation that fights primarily in an 

expeditionary manner, the political objective’s importance to national security 

has been historically somewhat difficult to establish, since physical security is 

not in direct jeopardy and threats to the homeland are “abstract extrapolations 

from the situation at hand.”34 This review, while not comprehensive, seeks to 

identify the major constraints and restraints present in some important modern 

US conflicts (see Table 1). It is important to contrast how the US military, in 

general, and aerospace power, in particular, were constrained and restrained in 

the conduct of past operations. 

Other Factors. From a historical standpoint it is important to note 

the presence of other factors in conflict outside of threats or the actual use of 

the military instrument. Regarding OAF, Secretary of Defense Cohen and 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Henry Shelton, asserted that the 

political and diplomatic efforts of the NATO alliance served to isolate the 

Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) politically and economically.35 Cohen 

and Shelton, testifying before the Senate Armed Service Committee, said so 

many pressures were brought to bear (political, military, economic, etc.) that 

“we can never be certain about what caused Milosevic to accept NATO’s 

conditions” for an end to the campaign.36 Employing the military instrument, 
11

has always accompanied, to some degree, other efforts intended to help 

achieve the desired results. The extent to which they contribute is beyond the 

scope of this study, but the fact they exist is important to better understanding 

military power application and integration. 

Table 1. Historical Constraint and Restraint Comparison37

Berlin Korea Vietnam Iraq Bosnia Kosovo

Moral

LOAC

UN Charter

Biological

NATO Charter

Chemical

Physical

Environment

Some WX Some WX & 

Geography

Some WX & 

Geography

Minor WX Some WX & 

Geography

Major WX & 

Some 

Geography

Resources Some Minor Minor Minor Minor Some

Capability

Limited 

Capacity

Little: 

Precision, 

Hard, Mobile, 

Time-Critical, 

Standoff

Some Precision 

& Hard; Little 

Mobile, TimeCritical & 

Standoff

Major Precision; 

Some Hard & 

Standoff; Little 

Mobile & TimeCritical

Major Precision; 

Some Hard & 

Standoff; Little 

Mobile & TimeCritical

Major Precision 

& Hard; Some 

Mobile, TimeCritical & 

Standoff

Intensity

Forces No Force Nuclear

Chemical NA

Biological NA NA NA

No Ground Force

Targeting

NA Some 

Categories & 

Controls

Tight 

Categorization 

& Controls; 

Frequent Pauses

Minimum 

Categorization &

Controls

Tight 

Categorization & 

Controls

Some 

Categorization &

Tight Controls

Attack 

Population

NA Some CD 

Concern 

Some CD 

Concern 

Significant CD 

Concern 

Major CD Concern Major CD 

Concern 

Area

Limited Limited Limited; Local 

Sanctuary

Limited Limited Limited

Depth

NA Limited Clients Limited Limited Limited

Restraints

Constraints

Emerging Strategic Environment 

The emerging strategic environment suggests increasing challenges below the 

vital national interest level. While this discussion will not belabor a subject 

that has been discussed extensively, it is important to highlight some important 
12

characteristics that will have bearing on employing military power. The 

proliferation of WMD and advanced weapons technology are increasing the 

potential danger and risk. Many envision a new era of limited war. Alvin and 

Heide Toffler, authors of War and Anti-War, call these new limited conflicts 

that parallel the “de-massification” of advanced economies in the information 

age, “niche wars.”38 This environment is one of new threats, new actors, with 

forces increasingly joined by allies and agencies outside the military—

domestic and foreign. 

Confronting threats through coalitions will, among other things, result 

in more military restraints, not less. Increased restraints prompt an 

examination of opportunities for military and civilian policy makers to 

consider new force application strategies and to re-consider measures short of 

force to resolve conflict. For the US, several factors have combined to 

contribute to a lack of understanding of limited warfare: vast resources, 

powerful technologies, focus on tactical aspects of combat, and underemphasis in military history and international politics. Authors Dennis Drew 

and Donald Snow believe, “The result is a lack of appreciation of the 

relationship between politics and war that makes the military a poor advisor to 

political authority on anything other than the technical side of military activity 

and fails to provide the base for dialogue between military and civilian 

authorities.”39

The US Commission on National Security/21st Century (USCNS) 

recently published its first report on the changing security environment. The 

USCNS believes the essence of war will not change, but that the nature of 

threats will change and the information age will accelerate change. “Taken 

together, the evidence suggest that threats to American security will be more 

diffuse, harder to anticipate, and more difficult to neutralize than ever 

before.”40 This, “...will require sustainable military capabilities characterized 

by stealth, speed, range, unprecedented accuracy, lethality, strategic mobility, 

superior intelligence, and the overall will and ability to prevail.... The mix 

and effectiveness of overall American capabilities need to be rethought and 
13

adjusted, and substantial changes in non-military national capabilities will also 

be needed”41 Adversaries at a technological disadvantage will try to negate 

the advantage of superior technology by obtaining weapons of equal or greater 

power, by building effective defenses, and by using superior strategy and 

tactics. According to Dr. Earl H. Tilford, Jr., Director of Research at the US 

Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, “Our greatest threat will come 

from those opponents who will exploit cultural and political asymmetries to 

blunt our technological superiority.”42

Post Cold-War and the Information Age. Emergence of the 

information-based economy and globalization add another level of complexity 

yet to be understood. The world is now made up of interlocking systems with 

global American interests. Strategic choke points are migrating from land and 

sea to cyberspace and economic markets.43 Former Defense Intelligence 

Agency Director, Lt. Gen. Patrick Hughes, said that the “micro and nano 

technologies” of the “techno-info era” not only will make traditional warfare 

less likely, but have placed the US in a position where military force cannot 

solve all the problems that will likely result.44 Several types of adversaries in 

potentially multi-faceted conflicts could be confronted (see Figure 2.). 

A variety of conflict types will require versatile forces and 

approaches to strategy. According to the Toffler’s, “...with a world fast 

dividing into First, Second, and Third Wave civilizations, three distinctly 

different forms of warfare need to be averted or limited, along with various 

combinations.... The variety of wars requires a variety of anti-war forces, not 

a single omnipurpose unit.”45 Pape states: 

The end of the Cold War and the rise of potential regional 

hegemons are shifting national security policy away from 

deterring predictable threats toward responding to 

unpredictable threats after they emerge, making questions 

about how to compel states to alter their behavior more 

central in international politics. This trend is also apparent 

in the growing role of air power in U.S. military strategy. 

As the American public’s willingness to bear military costs 

declines, the role of air power in overseas conflicts is 

increasing because it can project force more rapidly and with 
14

less risk than land power and more formidably than naval 

power.46

Adversary

Allies

Y3

Y2

Y1

1

2

3

1 2 3 US

1

2

3

X

Z2

Z3

Z1

Social/Economic Age

1 Agrarian

2 Industrial

3 Information

Nature of the Conflict

X, Y1, Z1

X, Y1, Z2

X, Y1, Z3

X, Y2, Z1

X, Y2, Z2

X, Y2, Z3 etc.

Figure 2. Complex Information Age Construct 

The spectrum of conflict—from MOOTW, to small-scale 

contingencies (SSC), to major theater war (MTW), to nuclear war—is a useful 

construct to illustrate the political-military relationship (see figure 3). While 

politics are always preeminent as the governing factor, in the high end of the 

spectrum (right side), the military without question is principally used as a 

martial instrument. Drew and Snow point out that, “Total war tends to lessen 

the friction between the military and civilian authorities. This is so to some 

measure because a total war calls for maximum military effort, thereby 

lessening the politically defined shackles on the conduct of hostilities.”47 On 

the left side of the spectrum (the focus area of this study), the military as a 

political instrument is accentuated. 

The lower end of the spectrum tends to be a capability-centric area 

for the military. With respect to this, Clausewitz states, “the less intense the 

motives, the less will the military element’s natural tendency to violence 

coincide with political directives. As a result, war will be driven further from 
15

its natural course, the political object will be more and more at variance with 

the aim of the ideal war, and the conflict will seem increasingly political in 

character.”(emphasis original)48 Noted aerospace power author Colonel 

Phillip Meilinger stated, “...as we continue to get involved in things...if our 

national interests are not at stake, then there’s going to be a lot of heavy 

constraints that are going to be placed on the way we use military force.”49

Political Military

MOOTW SSC MTW Nuclear War

Elements of National Power Applied

Realm of Strategy

Risk

Area of Interest

Intensity

Political High Involvement Coercive Diplomacy Low Involvement

Other Power Diverse Requirements Required/More Specific Mobilized

Military Capability Intensive Cap. & Mission Oriented Mission Intensive

Interests Humanitarian/Other Important Survival

Figure 3. Spectrum of Conflict 

AEROSPACE POWER AS A COERCIVE INSTRUMENT 

The degree of force that must be used against the enemy 

depends on the scale of political demands on either side. 

These demands, so far as they are known, would show what 

efforts each must take; but they seldom are fully known—

which may be one reason why both sides do not exert 

themselves to the same degree. 

—Clausewitz50
16

If Kosovo had been a “war” against Serbia, it would have 

been over in about two and a half hours! 

—Lord George Robertson, NATO Secretary General51

Some experts foresee a “bitter harvest” for the US and the North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization (NATO) in strategic terms, cautioning about the 

uniqueness of OAF and believing there is a “great danger in drawing larger 

implications from it.”52 What conclusions, if any then, can be drawn? Many 

argue that the DESERT STORM, while easily categorized as a military “win,” 

has yet to produce a strategic victory. Specific lessons from Kosovo and the 

Gulf War aside, understanding the nature of a conflict, knowing the adversary, 

and developing a coherent approach to strategy are timeless ingredients of 

successful conflict resolution. 

Clausewitz posited that, “The maximum use of force is no way 

incompatible with the simultaneous use of the intellect.”53 Sun Tzu might 

have said that the minimum use of force is only possible to contemplate with 

maximum use of the intellect. However, Clausewitz and Sun Tzu do not 

present a dichotomy. Each looked at war from a different level of analysis. 

Dr. Michael Handel, noted military historian, points out: 

Sun Tzu’s framework is much broader than that of 

Clausewitz, who wrote a treatise on the art of waging war 

itself, not on the workings of diplomacy before, during, and 

after war. Clausewitz’s analysis begins at the point where 

diplomacy has failed and war has become unavoidable.... 

While Sun Tzu is primarily concerned with the conduct of 

war at the highest strategic level, Clausewitz focuses on the 

lower strategic/operational levels of warfare.54

Handel explains that Sun Tzu’s preference for the use of all means 

short of war and victory without fighting is “primarily relevant for the type of 

military conflict with which Sun Tzu would have been most familiar: dynastic 

wars waged for limited objectives rather than the total-ideological wars of the 

nineteenth and twentieth centuries.”55 Consider OAF as current example of 

limited war. Although as Lord Robertson pointed out that it was not a total 

war, OAF had elements of MOOTW, a SSC, and a MTW occurring 
17

simultaneously requiring military and civilian operations and organizations. 

Hence, the strategic nature of any conflict encompasses all instruments of 

national power. The military then cannot focus exclusively on the conduct of 

war without understanding how it started and how it is expected to end. 

Similarly, diplomacy cannot focus on resolving a conflict with all necessary 

means, then use the military without an understanding of what force can do, if 

anything, particularly if there are severe restraints. 

Emerging Aerospace Power Capabilities 

Overall, programmed aerospace force improvements will go far to overcome 

physical constraints. Dr. Karl Mueller of the School of Advance Airpower 

Studies concludes that the “NATO air campaigns over Bosnia and Serbia 

demonstrate that air power has in some ways reached a point of great maturity. 

The technologies and techniques of air attack have advanced...to the point that 

aircraft can strike and destroy most types of ground targets with considerable 

efficiency...."56 Additionally, force improvements will go a long way in 

dealing with restraints (i.e., better identification and accuracy contribute to 

less collateral damage). The changing nature of the potential restraints 

comprised a formidable task for OAF planners. According to General Jumper, 

“...if you look at the situation in Kosovo, we started off in actually May of ‘98 

with direction to do planning. The planning that we did was with a certain set 

of political constraints. And over the time between June of ‘98, when we 

briefed our first air campaign plan to the CINC, to March of ‘99, when we 

started flying combat missions, we had done over 40 iterations of the air 

campaign plan. All of those dictated by the limit of political consensus....”57 

The question remains what effect does striking a particular target have on 

attaining the specified goal? Destroying a bridge in such a manner that avoids 

all collateral damage is merely a bombing exercise if it is not pertinent to the 

adversary’s strategy or one’s own strategy. 

Programmed USAF Improvements 

Combat Aerospace Forces (CAF). Nowhere is the reduction of 

physical constraints on aerospace power more telling than in the CAF—the 
18

inventory of attack, bomber, and fighter aircraft. If an OAF-like conflict were 

fought in 2005, weather would essentially cease to be a constraint for weapons 

delivery. By then, every USAF combat aircraft type will have all-weather 

precision-guided munitions (PGM) and most will have standoff58 attack 

capability (see table 2). 

Table 2. USAF All Weather Precision Attack Capability 

Aircraft

EGBU-15 EGBU-27 EGBU-28 WCMD JDAM JSOW JASSM CALCM

B-1

B-2

B-52

F-15E

F-16 B30

F-16 B40

F-16 B50

F-117

B-1

B-2

B-52

F-15E

F-16 B30

F-16 B40

F-16 B50

F-22

F-117

USAF All Weather Precision Attack Capability, FY99

Direct Attack Standoff

USAF All Weather Precision Attack Capability, FY05

Source: HQ USAF/XORW, “Fighters/Bombers/Weapons Integration 

Schedule,” February 2000. 

Mobility and Command, Control, Communications, Computers, 

Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) Forces. Mobility and 

C4ISR forces are foundational requirements, or enabling forces, of all 

aerospace operations. Regarding mobility forces, there is an increasing 

importance for rapid response and sustainment. Aerial refueling combined 

with the large capacity of today’s airlift fleet has increased airlift capability 

from 2,491 ton miles per mission in the Berlin Airlift to over 345,000 ton 

miles per mission by Operation RESTORE HOPE in Somalia in 1993.59 Aerial 

refueling is also critical to long-range power projection capability for landbased and naval aviation. General Michael Ryan, Air Force Chief of Staff, 

speaking at the February 2000 Air Warfare Symposium, outlined the future 
19

priority for mobility forces as developing “complete visibility into what is 

being moved and assured delivery and making sure that it gets there. It is any 

time in any place, and that is not just on the surface of the earth. That has to 

do with our ability to lift things into orbit....”60 

For C4ISR forces, priorities center on determining what can be 

migrated to the ultimate high ground of space and assuring force-wide 

connectivity. Again, speaking at the Air Warfare Symposium, Gen. Ryan said 

“we must link every node of our Air Force and every one of our platforms 

together so that we can come up with precision dominance, the ability to get 

inside the [decision] cycle of whatever kind of adversary we are fighting, 

whether it is a famine or a foe.”61 He went on to say that planning to improve 

the USAF’s ability to attack time critical and moving targets “has a lot to do 

with our capability to net all our aircraft together—not just the attack aircraft, 

but the ISR aircraft and our air operations center—to our commander.... I’d 

like to set a timeline of 05 [Fiscal Year 2005] to have that at least to all 

platforms.”62

This study confirms the key conclusion of a 1993 RAND study on the 

contribution of aerospace power to joint operations. While acknowledging 

some situational constraints and the need for continued improvement in C4ISR 

and mobility forces, it went on to conclude: 

...the results of our analysis do indicate that the calculus 

has changed and airpower’s ability to contribute to the joint 

battle has increased. Not only can modern airpower arrive 

quickly where needed, it has become far more lethal in 

conventional operations. Equipped with advanced munitions 

either in service or about to become operational and directed 

by modern [command and control] systems, airpower has the 

potential to destroy enemy ground forces either on the move 

or in defensive positions at a high rate while concurrently 

destroying vital elements of the enemy’s war-fighting 

infrastructure. In short, the mobility, lethality, and 

survivability of airpower makes it well suited to the needs of 

rapidly developing regional conflicts....63 (emphasis 

original) 
20

Caution will be required; however, in order to avoid “chasing” new 

capabilities for their own sake which could have a negative effect on the use of 

military force as a whole. Dr. Mueller says “we continue to be more effective 

at investing in new technology than in the personnel who operate it, especially 

those in the force multiplying specialties ranging from battle management to 

strategic analysis.”64 He went on to say that on the strategic level, “the art and 

science of coercive air power remain quite underdeveloped.”65 To this end, 

maintaining a robust strategy formulation mindset and analytical tools to 

support it are not inconsistent with conflict at any location on the spectrum. 

Coercion as an Alternative to Traditional US Military Strategy 

General Joseph Ralston, as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs speaking at the 

1999 Air Force Association convention, stated “when the political and tactical 

constraints imposed on air leaders are extensive and pervasive—and that trend 

seems more, rather than less, likely—then gradualism may be perceived as the 

only option, and whether or not we like it, a measured and steadily increasing 

use of airpower against an opponent may be one of the options for future 

war.”66 The gradualism that Gen. Ralston refers to is in essence coercion. 

Thomas C. Schelling in his classic study, Arms and Influence, explained 

coercion by contrasting it with brute force. “The purely ‘military’ or 

‘undiplomatic’ recourse to forcible action is concerned with enemy strength, 

not enemy interests; the coercive use of the power to hurt, though, is the very 

exploitation of enemy wants and fears.”67 Coercion then, can be thought of as 

the art of influencing an adversary’s behavior by threats, primarily the 

threatened use of force, including the limited use of actual force to back up the 

threat.68 The ultimate coercive measure of success is being able to exploit the 

adversary’s wants and fears without resorting to force while achieving the 

desired objective. 

Schelling identified three aspects of coercion:69 knowing the 

adversary; having a bargaining position; and clear communication of the 

desired behavior. Knowing the adversary is key. In order to successfully 

coerce an adversary, Schelling stated “one needs to know what an adversary 
21

treasures and what scares him and one needs the adversary to understand what 

behavior of his will cause the violence to be inflicted and what will cause it to 

be withheld.”70 He went on to say: 

To seek out and to destroy the enemy’s military force, to 

achieve a crushing victory over enemy armies, was still the 

avowed purpose and the central aim of American strategy in 

both world wars. Military action was seen as an alternative

to bargaining, not a process of bargaining. 

The reason is apparently that the technology and geography 

of warfare, at least for a war between anything like equal 

powers during the century ending in World War II, kept 

coercive violence from being decisive before military 

victory was achieved71 (emphasis original) 

In this context, the goal for the strategist is to develop, execute, and 

assess a coherent coercive strategy that will be decisive before military victory 

in the traditional sense, while avoiding narrow pursuit of target-based, or 

attrition, operations. Coherency can best be realized in a top-down or strategyto-task approach (see figure 4). One can see that the will of the opponent is at 

the core of the problem. In Kosovo, NATO commanders were never sure of 

what it would take to break Milosevic’s will. “How to accomplish this was 

one of the overarching moral, political and military questions of the war—and 

a source of dissension among the allies.”72 In an attempt to develop a strategy 

focused on that will, one must first decide what parts of the problem are 

amenable to political as opposed to military solutions.73 

Historically, this has proved difficult for the US. The attempt to use 

coercion in Rolling Thunder to compel the North Vietnamese to cease their 

support of the Vietcong was a failure. The choice of an attrition strategy 

ignored several critical factors: commitment of the adversary to the cause; 

assumed we could inflict appropriate casualties; and by its nature, a war of 

attrition is a long and drawn-out affair.74 Given the total Vietnamese 

commitment, the strategy had little effect except to strengthen adversary 

resolve and slow their progress to the ultimate goal.75 
22

POL 1

POL 2

POL 3

MIL 1

MIL 2

MIL 3

MIL 4

DIP 1

DIP 2

etc.

ECO 1

ECO 2

etc.

INF 1

INF 2

etc.

AIR 1

AIR 2

AIR 3

AIR 4

AIR 5

GND1

GND 2

etc.

MAR 1

MAR 2

etc.

SOF 1

SOF 2

etc.

AIR

Task 1

Task 2

Task 3

Task 4

Task 5

Task 6

GND

Task 1

Task 2

etc.

MAR

Task 1

Task 2

etc.

SOF

Task 1

Task 2

etc.

National

Security

Strategy

Policy

Objectives

Instrument

Objectives

Component

Objectives

Integration &

Synchronization

Other

Objs

Other

Tasks

Target

Sets

NOTES:

POL - Political

MIL - Military

DIP - Diplomatic

ECO - Economic

INF - Informational

AIR - Air Component

GND - Land Component

MAR - Maritime Component

SOF - Special Operations Component

Coherent/ Deductive Incoherent/ Inductive

Figure 4. Strategy-to-Task Construct76

Maximum Achievable Force. With respect to the Korean War, 

Schelling noted that, “Restraint took the form of specific limitations on the 

fighting; within those limits, the war was ‘all out.’”77 General Wesley Clark, 

Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, stated in his Senate testimony “one of 

the lessons that comes out of this [OAF] is the need that once you cross the 

threshold, to move as rapidly as possible to the decisive use of force, within 

the military feasibility and the political constraints.”78 Senator Joseph 

Lieberman, speaking on, “Transforming National Defense for the 21st

Century,” said the following about the idea of “all out” within “political 

constraints”: 

The current doctrine of overwhelming force is not desirable 

politically nor necessary militarily in all cases.... 

Accordingly, we may have to focus less on achieving 

maximum possible force and more on achieving what my 
23

colleague [Senator] Carl Levin has termed “maximum 

achievable force.” By this he means that a variety of 

constraints will likely exist that will determine what means 

we can use and how and where we can use them. However, 

since we can never allow “maximum achievable force” to 

fall below the level of necessary force, we need to utilize the 

rapid advances in technology to increase lethality and to 

know better our opponents’ vulnerabilities so we can 

achieve devastating effect through the selective and 

graduated application of force.

79 (emphasis added) 

Determining “maximum achievable force” is a question about the 

proper use of military power within the context and application of the use of 

national power orchestrated to achieve the desired aims—limited or unlimited. 

It is an “unlimited” commitment within the stated bounds of policy. When this 

force is determined, one of two options is available to US military leadership: 

fight within the established limits with maximum achievable force or be 

prepared to explain why the restraints will not work. The major question is: Is 

“maximum achievable force” within the declared policy bounds good enough? 

Or, how does one avoid narrow-focused, target-based planning in an era of not 

only limited ends, but also limited means (e.g., no ground forces) and limited 

ways (e.g., alliances and coalitions; very low collateral damage)? As shown, 

aerospace power means (i.e., find, fix, track, and target capabilities) are 

increasing, but the way airmen prefer to employ the various means have been 

challenged. The military strategist must be able to analyze all the limits in the 

equation rapidly and accurately, including non-military means, and make a 

recommendation as to the feasibility of maximum achievable force in any 

given case. 

While aerospace power has recently proved it can play a formidable 

role in successful coercion, it does not come without problems. First of all, as 

78 days in Kosovo showed, coercion takes time. Time can be a problem for 

democratic nations that find it much easier to support long wars that are total 

in purpose rather than limited.80 America’s least popular wars have been 

limited. Other problems of limited force application include: 
24

1. Shock and paralysis81 can be lessened or negated. 

2. Parallel and simultaneous operations82 can be curtailed 

(contribute to #1). 

3. System adaptation83 associated with gradual force application can 

occur. 

4. Ongoing system analysis and assessment84 can be complicated 

(associated with #3). 

However, the most formidable problem deals with having a 

comprehensive understanding of the adversary. Accurate intelligence is at a 

premium. In rapidly unfolding operations Byman, Waxman, and Larson, 

authors of Air Power as a Coercive Instrument, say: 

Air power’s ability to destroy a range of targets, and its 

growing capabilities in intelligence and precision strike offer 

new options to military and political decisionmaking. These 

capabilities, however, do not always lead to more favorable 

outcomes for the United States. Even if a particular target is 

destroyed successfully, the change in behavior sought—the 

true object of coercion—often fails to occur. Understanding 

this relationship between a target’s destruction and the 

desired outcome is difficult and requires insights into 

culture, psychology, and organizational behavior.

85

(emphasis added) 

Factors in Successful Limited Force Application. In a series on 

OAF, The Washington Post reported, “By the end of the 78-day air war, 

NATO had so many planes available that it could cover all the bases. But the 

debate continued—and continues today—over the best strategy for such an air 

campaign.”86 When coercive threats fail and force is used, one would like to 

know what factors contribute to successful limited force application. In a 

study of 25 post-World War II cases involving air power and coercion, 

Byman, Waxman, and Larson found three conditions associated with 

successful coercion: threaten strategy; magnify third-party threats; and 

escalation dominance.87

Threaten Strategy. When its strategy for victory—not simply its 

military operations—is impeded, an adversary is more likely to accede to 

negotiations.88 This does not have to wait until armed conflict begins. For 

example, after securing access to ports and airports, infrastructure 
25

improvement and other aid in neighboring friendly states can begin. In 

Kosovo, once the behind-the-scenes approval process started for a possible 

ground invasion option, NATO forces simultaneously repaired roads for 

refugee movement and made them strong enough to support the weight of 

mechanized forces.89 Others point out that efforts to coerce an adversary 

depend far more on the vulnerabilities of the attacked than on the capabilities 

of the attacker.90 Dr. Robert Pape, author of Bombing to Win, concluded that, 

“Matching the coercer’s strategy to the target state’s specific vulnerabilities 

can be decisive: it will determine how severe the effects of the coercer’s 

attacks are and thus how strong the pressure on the target’s political 

calculations.”91 To deny the adversary’s strategy means to target all 

adversaries and focus on the strategic center(s) of gravity. Answers to where, 

how, and for how long to apply force will follow. 

Magnify Third-Party Threats. Coercion is enhanced when other 

threats to the adversary such as external military and internal threats are 

magnified.92 The more effective of the two is to reduce the ability of the 

adversary to defend against external military threats.93 In 1995, Bosnian Serbs 

had to contend with the possibility of losing a large area of western offensive 

when Croat and Bosnian Muslim forces went on the offensive at the same time 

Operation DELIBERATE FORCE air strikes were underway.94 

Fostering internal instability in the adversary’s country can prove 

more difficult.95 Internal security is critical to totalitarian regimes, as efforts to 

date in Iraq have so far proved unsuccessful. Some studies conclude that 

punishing populations will likely backfire. Pape found that the adversary 

population is unlikely to turn on its government unless it doubts the moral 

worth of the system as a whole, as opposed to specific policies or leaders.96 

Escalation Dominance. Escalation dominance is the ability to 

increase the adversary’s costs while denying it the opportunity to neutralize 

those costs or counterescalate.97 Essentially one-sided attrition helped in 

tolerating the length of OAF. In describing the campaign in Kosovo, General 

Clark said it, “was an effort to coerce, not to seize. It only made good sense 
26

that at some point, if [Milosevic] continued to lose and we didn’t that he 

would throw in the towel.... It was a function of variables beyond our 

predictions—ultimately, his state of mind.”98 Meilinger described it this way: 

The air war over Kosovo introduced a new and unique twist 

to the concept of gradualism. The combination of stealth 

and electronic warfare, but especially precision guided 

weapons...allowed NATO to fight a one-sided war of 

attrition against the Milosevic regime. This is unique 

because wars of attrition, like that in Vietnam, are generally 

two-sided.... 

...The Serbs were unable to inflict reciprocal punishment on 

NATO and, as a consequence, their morale declined 

steadily.99 

When an adversary cannot effectively strike back it makes it easier to 

win. However, coercion is a dynamic process of two or more parties. This is 

the area where asymmetric responses come to the fore. While an adversary 

may not be able to strike back similarly, it may work to hinder basing access 

or generate casualties and attempt to counterescalate. 

Policy Issues 

A combination of factors is always brought to bear by a nation in conflict—

coercion to total war. Thomas Griffith, in his study of air strategy in the 

Korean War, concluded that despite the quantity and ferocity of Far Eastern 

Air Forces attacks and other military efforts, “most authors agree that a 

combination of military, political, and economic factors was necessary to end 

the war.”100 In a recent speech, General Henry Shelton, Chairman of the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff, said “the overriding lesson from our extensive experiences in 

contingency operations in this decade is that we must bring all our resources to 

bear—economic, political and diplomatic, and military—if we expect to be 

fully effective in solving non-military problems that are rooted in religious, 

cultural or ethnic strife.”101 (emphasis original) Great Britain’s Ministry of 

Defence Kosovo report said that the conflict “emphasized the extent to which 

the means of responding to an international crisis are inter-linked. The 

diplomatic and political initiatives pursued by the international community 
27

continued in parallel with NATO’s military campaign and ultimate success 

was due to the synergy of all these approaches.”102

Integrating Instruments of Power. Byman, Waxman, and Larson 

point out, “To ask the question ‘Did air power coerce?’ is misleading because 

a particular military instrument never operates in a vacuum. The question is 

not whether air power ‘worked,’ but rather whether it helped or hindered 

coercion.”103 Two major points on this: First, in a full-scale war, such as a 

MTW, it is self-evident that the nonmilitary instruments of power must be 

mobilized in support of the military. Second, and not so evident, while not 

requiring mobilization in the MTW context, a “package” approach—

sophisticated orchestration of political, psychological, economic, and military 

actions—is required to combat conflicts at the lower end of the conflict 

spectrum. Gen. Clark stated in his Senate testimony on OAF: 

...we did this campaign as an exercise in predominantly 

military power and I think, as we look ahead, we shouldn’t 

let the military instrument be isolated from the diplomatic 

and economic instruments of power that can be brought to 

bear.... There were a number of measures that could have 

been taken sooner and some that were never actually 

implemented that would have augmented, maybe even been 

more powerful than the military instrument, maybe have 

prevented the use of the military instrument.

104 (emphasis 

added) 

In the emerging strategic environment, maximum achievable force 

must be thought of not only in military terms, but also in political, economic, 

and informational terms as well. Power in the information age is becoming 

increasingly distributed. Total national power available is more appropriately 

viewed in a holistic manner (see figure 4). Therefore the best solutions are 

likely to be achieved by working with all major actors in a flexible “Third 

Wave” organization.105 This is easy to think of if one starts at the strategic 

level—focusing first on the end state or what one wants the adversary to do 

and not on the means, such as armed forces. Objectives are set with a view to 

their direct effect on the adversary system and its key decisionmakers.106
28

Elements of National Power

Political

Economic

Informational

Military

Aerospace Land Maritime Special

Ops

Figure 5. Elements of National Power Model 

In addition to military strength, NATO has great economic and 

political power. In Kosovo, however, NATO did not exercise all means short 

of force before resorting to force. For example, the US did not take unilateral 

actions to extend the full compliment of sanctions to ban oil sales and freeze 

FRY assets in the US until 1 May 1999—over one month after commencing 

hostilities.107 While it is not known if these factors without force would have 

helped achieve the objectives, the point is that these were things that were 

pursued under the assumption that they would make a difference. Pape 

believes more study is required on the effects of blockades, domestic unrest, 

and the like and how they affect people and governments in agricultural, 

industrial, and information age societies.108 In their seminal work on the use 

of armed forces as a political instrument, Force Without War, Blechman and 

Kaplan had the following to say: 

A state has many means at its disposal to obtain objectives 

abroad.... These instruments, together, are an orchestra, to 

be used in accordance with the differing requirements of 

individual scores. 

...[Clausewitz] saw war as “a continuation of political 

intercourse with an admixture of other means.” So, too, the 

armed forces—by their very existence as well as by their 

general character, deployment, and day-to-day activities—

can be used as an instrument of policy in time of peace. In 
29

peace, as in war, a prudent statesman will turn to the military 

not as a replacement or substitute for other tools of policy 

but as an integral part of an “admixture...of means.”109

However, as Pape points out, trying to determine the extent to which 

non-military “admixture of means” played in Kosovo or the extent to which 

they might play in the future, will be a challenge, but must be understood.110 

IMPLICATIONS FOR AEROSPACE POWER STRATEGY 

Soldiers usually are close students of tactics, but rarely are 

they students of strategy and particularly never of war. 

—Bernard Brodie111

Gradual escalation is fraught with problems, but there were 

good reasons for Thomas Schelling to recommend it in the 

1960s, and the fact that Rolling Thunder failed did not prove 

that idea was without merit. Again, this question misses an 

even larger point, however. Even if gradual escalation 

turned out to be the worst air power idea since the Great Air 

Mail Fiasco of 1934, airmen should not have responded to 

the experience simply by averting their eyes and calling on 

Heaven to smite the heretics. What Kosovo does prove 

about the subject, for those who may not have realized it, is 

that sometimes strategists will be called upon to design and 

execute gradually escalatory air campaigns whether they 

approve of the concept or not, and thus they should develop 

expertise in the art form even if they abhor it. 

—Dr. Karl Mueller, School of Advanced Air Power 

Studies112

Restraints will complicate future military equations immensely. This element 

alone places a premium on strategy, from grand to tactical. Planning iterations 

intended to examine numerous possible restraints take time and consume 

numerous man-hours. Much of the time is devoted to analyses that have 

nothing to do with gaining an understanding of the adversary and developing 

an appropriate strategy, but with processing information. In the information 

age, analyses can be increasingly accomplished with the aid of modeling and 

simulation. This is not to say strategy by “algebra” or computer. It is to say 

that national security organizations, including the military, can take advantage 

of technology to aid numerous and complex planning efforts. Many agencies 

(e.g., Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, and National 
30

Security Agency) study a potential adversary from different perspectives. 

Most already have individual computer-aided analyses and simply need to be 

organized in a fashion that allows for a synergistic analysis. Improved 

coordination alone could contribute to the available response options. The 

output of such a comprehensive analysis could be provided to strategists. 

Cordesman believes that, “the real lesson of Kosovo is that the US needs to 

develop far better criteria for characterizing a given contingency, carrying out 

risk analysis, and determining a broad range of military options...”113

Doctrine-Strategy “Gap” 

The major issue is the gap between MOOTW and MTW—the area of 

coercion. The focus of the gap is offering up military forces and capabilities 

in ways that support and lend credibility to coercive diplomacy. In a 24 March 

1999 news conference on OAF, Secretary Cohen reiterated that no ground 

forces were being planned for the operation: “What we have indicated to the 

Congress and to the country is that this is an air operation, campaign.”114 No 

one in senior military leadership was recommending an aerospace power only 

operation, but that was to be the restraint. However, one should not confuse 

the imposition of restraint with the means to formulate a recommendation. An 

aerospace power only decision could possibly have been recommended by the 

military, but with little history and no sophisticated campaign modeling 

available, the military acquiesced in a decision based on hope. The fact is that 

existing joint doctrine and strategy are land power-centric (ground forces in 

the supported role) and means are not adequately available to assess a crisis 

and make a recommendation for aerospace power only or anything else only. 

The basis for change lies in having less concern over which branch is decisive 

and more concern that the right tools are employed to be decisive. Senator 

Joseph Lieberman, Senate Armed Services Committee member, noted, “The 

eye-popping advances in technology we are engineering today are paving a 

path not just to a revolution in military affairs, but to a complete paradigm 

shift in the American way of war....”115 He went on to add “successfully 

transforming our military requires that we move to the next level of jointness. 
31

By now, virtually every expert believes that future operations will be 

increasingly joint, interagency, and combined, and that while competition 

among the Services can assist in determining how best to exploit new 

capabilities or solve emerging challenges, there should be a much greater 

emphasis on collaboration...[and] interdependent force structures....”116

The idea of “jointness” here is not one of a single military. The idea 

is the total inclusion of the separate parts into the broader whole. Sir Richard 

Johns, Royal Air Force Chief of Staff observed that “within all levels of 

warfare, whether on land at sea or in the air, there are few if any absolutes. 

Balanced judgements within the joint arena of warfare can only be made 

through the abandonment of prejudice and dispassionate consideration of first, 

military facts, and, second political sensitivities which condition the use of 

military force.”117 The strategist must think in terms of denying the 

adversary’s strategy and isolating the battlespace with all available means, 

realizing that the most effective means may be aerospace power and 

information. 

Inter-agency Cooperation and Coordination. During ODF in 

September 1995, the President remarked “I am frustrated that the air campaign 

is not better coordinated with the diplomatic effort.”118 Ambassador 

Holbrooke goes on to comment about the situation: 

This was an astute observation. The same point troubled me 

deeply; there was no mechanism or structure within the 

Administration capable of such coordination. It was, in fact, 

the role of the NSC [National Security Council] to 

coordinate such interagency issues. I wanted to tell the 

President that this problem required immediate attention. 

But relations among the NSC, State, and Defense were not 

something an Assistant Secretary of State could fix....119

Apparently this was one of the factors leading to Presidential 

Decision Directive 56 (PDD-56), Managing Complex Contingency 

Operations. PDD-56 defines “complex contingency operations” as peace 

operations, humanitarian intervention and assistance, but unless otherwise 

directed, does not apply to military operations.

120 It states that, “...effective 
32

responses to these situations may require multi-dimensional operations 

composed of such components as political/diplomatic, humanitarian, 

intelligence, economic development, and security....”121 The DOD 

Kosovo/Operations ALLIED FORCE After-Action Report (KOAFAAR) 

concluded: 

...the interagency planning process (1) helped to mobilize 

and coordinate the activities of different agencies, (2) 

identify issues for considerations by [NSC] Deputies, (3) 

provide planning support for international organizations 

(e.g., OSCE and United Nations), and (4) develop 

benchmarks for measuring progress. This political-military 

planning played an important role in ensuring that the United 

States achieved the objectives set forth by the President. 

...As it became clear that Milosevic intended to outlast the 

alliance, more attention was paid to other ways of bringing 

pressure to bear, including economic sanctions and 

information operations. While ultimately these instruments 

were put to use with good effect, more advance planning 

might have made them more effective at an earlier date. Our 

experience in Operation ALLIED FORCE has shown that 

[PDD-56] had not been fully institutionalized throughout the 

interagency.122 

It remains to be seen if the DOD recommendation to improve the 

interagency process will be adopted. Overall, there is some concern and 

confusion about how extensively the PDD should coordinate military 

operations. Other aspects of the PDD that must be addressed deal with 

training. It does not require training below the Deputy Assistant Secretary 

level.123 Also noteworthy is, while PDD-56 stresses the importance of 

education to interagency training, only the National Defense University and 

the Army War College are institutions required to examine training from the 

DOD perspective.124 

Response: What About Phase 0? The National Military Strategy 

describes the elements of US military strategy as “shape, respond, and 

prepare.” Respond is what the US does when a crisis occurs—the reactive 

phase. In Kosovo, this was called “Phase 0,” or the actions taken short of 

force by NATO in attempt to negotiate a peaceful resolution. If one thinks 
33

about “respond,” or Phase 0, in terms of trying to defeat the adversary’s 

strategy, measures short of force application may be viewed in a different 

light. This is not to argue for the military to accomplish non-military tasks, 

per se, but to better coordinate efforts and, if required, pave the way for 

military operations. The theater strategy in Kosovo consisted of combat and 

non-combat operations: OAF, SHINING HOPE in Albania, operations in 

Macedonia, as well as the preceding Kosovo and Air Verification Missions. 

If the military can posture in such a way as to increase the credibility 

of the threat (sufficient likelihood in the adversary’s mind that it will occur) 

while at the same time support peripheral objectives, is not the overall value of 

the threat increased? Does this approach increase the likelihood the coercer 

will act regardless? Or does it allow the coercer to improve its overall position 

while achieving some peripheral objectives? The KOAFAAR stated, “The 

alliance had been addressing this crisis—through diplomatic activities and 

military planning—for some time before the onset of the military campaign 

itself...trying to resolve the conflict before the operation commenced.”125 The 

threats to regional stability and possible humanitarian crisis were known, but 

were not dealt with proactively. As Cordesman states, “NATO threatened war 

without having a clear contingency plan to deal with the very problem that led 

it to threaten air strikes in the first place.”126 There was potential to deny 

Milosevic’s strategy prior to OAF and, while requiring resources, it would 

have served a long-term plan of regional stability had the crisis been averted. 

The KOAFAAR concluded, “One general lesson learned is that similar 

attempts at asymmetric challenges should be anticipated in future 

conflicts....”127 Reactive approaches in the future may not be sufficient to 

challenge the range of possible asymmetric responses. 

The strategist must develop “transitional” elements—those that are 

not provoking, but can facilitate combat if needed. In Kosovo, this could have 

been analogous to DESERT SHIELD. A “Balkan Shield” within the 

framework of the 1998-99 Kosovo Verification Mission provided 

opportunities for transitional actions. Major General Edward Atkeson, USA 
34

(Ret.), senior fellow at the Association of the United States Army’s Institute of 

Land Warfare observed:

...inasmuch as one cannot foresee the future, strategy is 

often framed to broaden one’s own options while narrowing 

the opposition’s. In the case of Kosovo, it would have been 

useful to have troops deployed in the area in April and May 

to assist in the reception and care of the multitudes of 

refugees. While the refugee migration might not have been 

foreseeable, good strategy would have deployed troops as a 

precautionary step.128

Transitional elements of coercive strategy point to the consideration 

of the coercive effects of non-combat aerospace power when used in 

conjunction with diplomacy and the other instruments of national power. This 

is the area where mobility and C4ISR come to the fore. Mobility forces can 

accomplish things from “showing the flag,” to humanitarian assistance, and 

support to infrastructure improvements. The US is increasing means of 

transparency with aircraft like the Airborne Warning and Control System 

(AWACS) and the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS). 

Colonel Meilinger believes it is an area where the US can establish a track 

record of transparency applied to a potential adversary: 

I think it is getting to the point now where you can do a little 

bit more educating, when in the newspapers—the news 

media—when you send a JSTARS, an AWACS, the B-2, or 

something like that, you can use the media to demonstrate or 

try to explain why this is such a significant event using real 

historic examples from the past decade to show what this is 

often a prelude to....129

...but with any type of military force...sometimes deterrence 

is going to fail. The reason it’s going to fail is because even 

if we have the credibility; we have the capability; we’ve 

communicated to the enemy that we are going to use that 

credibility and capability—that military force—to really hit 

them hard; we still might not be able to deter a potential 

aggressor because he may have domestic concerns which 

make him, if you will, “undeterable.”130

Coercion: Elements of Effective “Gradualism.” The terms 

“incrementalism” and “gradualism” are often used to refer to coercive 
35

escalation. Escalation can be approached incrementally or gradually. If 

approached gradually it is most often referred to as “gradual escalation” or 

“gradualism.” Schelling described the idea as: 

The ideal compellent action would be one that, once 

initiated, causes minimal harm if compliance is forthcoming 

and great harm if compliance is not forthcoming, is 

consistent with the time schedule of feasible compliance, is 

beyond recall once initiated, and cannot be stopped by the 

party that started it but automatically stops upon compliance, 

with all this fully understood by the adversary. Only he can 

avert the consequences; he can do it only by complying; and 

compliance automatically precludes them.131 (emphasis 

original) 

“Incrementalism” is different in that it implies an amount of force 

administered over varied time intervals. Vietnam from an aerospace strategy 

perspective was an indictment of incrementalism, not gradualism. While the 

military would prefer neither approach, there are areas associated with success, 

as we have seen: threaten the adversary’s strategy; magnify third-party 

threats; and escalation dominance. Gen. Ralston described four factors, fitting 

within these areas, that were different in Kosovo from Vietnam: a relatively 

developed industrial society offering substantial aerospace power targets 

(threaten strategy); some internal political opposition and negative world 

opinion (magnify third-party threats); and the Serbs were unable to inflict 

reciprocal punishment (escalation dominance).132 Taken together with the 

broader areas of success identified by Byman, Waxman, and Larson, the 

following concepts are offered as elements of effective gradualism: no pauses; 

“what next” options; open options; and multiple dimensions. Consider a 

gradualism construct applied to Kosovo for discussion (see figure 6 and note): 
36

FRY

KLA

R

R

FRY

KLA

R

G

FRY

KLA

G

R

FRY

KLA

G

G

Peace

Enforcement

Agreement

Peacekeeping

FRY

KLA

R

G

FRY

KLA

G

R

FRY

KLA

G

G

Peace

Enforcement

Force

Application

Coercion

Response

Diplomatic, Information Operations, Economic Tools Applied

Time

HUMRO

1

2

3

4

Force

Application

Coercion 1

Force

Application

Coercion 2

HUMRO

Figure 6. Notional Gradualism Strategy Framework Applied to Kosovo133

No Pauses. One of the key differences with respect to gradualism in 

Kosovo is that NATO did not pause.134 When the decision to use force is 

reached, it should be applied in such a manner that allows application without 

ceasing until demands are met. Schelling’s concept of gradualism had no 

room for pauses, but describes an action that inflicts steady pressure over time, 

accumulating pain or damage to the adversary.135 Gen. Clark had concern 

with this during ALLIED FORCE. In one of the daily video teleconferences 

he said, “[NATO must strike] as many targets as we can each night. I don’t 

want to let the perception get started that we’re not doing much, so we can 

have a pause.... I don’t want to get into something like the Rolling Thunder 

Campaign, pecking away indefinitely.... We’ve got to steadily ratchet up the 

pressure.... Otherwise we are at risk of being paused indefinitely. We’ll lose 

public support.”136 Closely associated with not pausing is that coercion for the 

most part, takes time. Griffith cited that in Korea, “While air power 

contributed to the peace agreement, the air pressure strategy alone was not 

successful and its impact took much longer to be felt than the planners had 

originally anticipated.”137 In Kosovo, 78 days proved difficult to sustain for 
37

NATO and, while there were calls for pause, it was an important factor in 

OAF’s overall effectiveness. 

“What Next” Options. The strategist must always have a “what next” 

option that follows in a gradually increasing application of force along a 

“critical path” leading to the will of the adversary. The strategist must know 

the attributes of all US forces and capitalize on them to put the forces in the 

best possible position to provide a wide range of options for the political 

leadership.138 In this regard, a gradualist strategy is similar to numerous 

branches and sequels in terms of an operational plan (see figure 6). Within a 

particular branch/sequel—within established restraints—one must maximize 

physical and psychological shock and paralysis and then be prepared to 

articulate what the next branch/sequel should be if the current one fails to 

achieve the desired results. This concept of “critical path” determination can 

be thought of as a “series of parallel” operations always directed at adversary 

centers of gravity. The notion is similar to Clausewitz’s thoughts on a “chain 

of linked engagements” where each branch/sequel is viewed as part of a 

continuous series of events leading to the desired result.139 Such an effort 

seeks large, disproportionate effects throughout the adversary’s strategic depth 

and can only be determined through extensive analysis of the complex 

interaction of adversary systems.140 

Open Options. Widespread agreement came quickly during OAF that 

overtly ruling out ground forces was a mistake of potentially strategic 

consequences. No feasible means, military or otherwise, should be ruled out. 

Maximum achievable force should establish the importance in the adversary’s 

mind that one has the capacity to achieve desired objectives whether one 

chooses to exercise all the capacity (aerospace, land, sea, etc.) or not. Pape 

determined “the most effective way to compel concessions without achieving 

decisive victory is to demonstrate that one actually has the capacity to achieve 

decisive victory.... Surrender long before complete military defeat should be 

regarded an outstanding coercive success.”141 Because of the possible nature 

of political restraint, achieving desired effects may require the use of other 
38

elements of national power. Clausewitz said, “But there is another way [to 

gain victory]. It is possible to increase the likelihood of success without 

defeating the enemy’s forces. I refer to operations that have direct political 

repercussions.... [T]hey can form a much shorter route to the goal than the 

destruction of the opposing armies.”142 (emphasis original) 

Multiple Dimensions. A multi-dimensional approach to gradualism 

assumes interdependence and a degree of self-compensation among an 

adversary’s sources of strength.143 A wide range of target sets is important in 

that multiple approaches (direct and indirect) serve to complicate the 

adversary’s response—the observe, orient, and decide phases of his decision 

cycle. Multiple dimensions provide the advantage of allowing for 

miscalculations. In Liddell Hart’s words, it is always having the adversary on 

the “horns of a dilemma.” Meilinger notes that the US has enjoyed great 

advantage in this regard: 

...the American way of war is redundancy. It always has 

been.... We have the resources, therefore we are going to do 

all of the above and let the enemy try to worry about all 

these various things that are happening to him.... [W]hen 

you’ve got the best Air Force, the best Navy, the best Army, 

the best Marine Corps, the best space force, the best 

information force and you use them all at the same time, the 

enemy is absolutely overwhelmed to how he can deal with 

that.144

Fundamentally, a multi-dimensional approach requires the coherent 

use of all available means of power. Blechman and Kaplan concluded: 

The discrete use of the armed forces for political objectives 

should not be an option that decisionmakers turn to 

frequently or quickly to secure political objectives abroad; it 

should be used only in very special circumstances. We have 

found that over the longer term such uses of the armed 

forces were not often associated with positive outcomes. 

Decisionmakers should thus not expect them to serve as 

substitutes for broader and more fundamental policies 

tailored to the realities of politics abroad, and incorporating 

diplomacy and the many other potential instruments 

available to U.S. foreign policy.

145 (emphasis added) 
39

Currently, the US is not organized to quickly formulate a 

comprehensive understanding of any potential adversary or to be able to 

identify a “critical path” of capabilities and vulnerabilities—both required for 

coercion. This is associated with the popular criticism that “we tend to end up 

fighting who we have not planned to fight.” The emerging strategic 

environment requires the ability to rapidly “know the adversary.” 

Know the Adversary 

Sun Tzu said “if you know others and know yourself, you will not be 

imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know others but know yourself, 

you win one and lose one; if you do not know others and do not know 

yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.”146 Colonel John Boyd, 

architect of the “observe, orient, decide, act (OODA) loop” decision-making 

cycle, in tracing the history of war, discovered that victory consistently went to 

the side that could think more creatively, orient itself, and then act quickly on 

the insight.147 Rapid, comprehensive systems analysis is at the heart of 

observing the adversary and then orienting strategic decision-makers in the 

21st century. 

Understanding the nature of the conflict, the adversary, the full extent 

of its systems, and its critical capabilities and vulnerabilities comprises a huge 

problem that is becoming more difficult. Intense systems analysis can reveal 

key links and nodes (system interrelationships) that directly and/or indirectly 

relate to military capabilities. A deeper understanding of the adversary and its 

systems is the key to enabling creation of multiple options for national 

leaders—a foundational requirement for a strategy of coercion. Strategists 

will have to understand all feasible approaches to an adversary’s strategic, 

operational and tactical centers of gravity. Luttwak described it this way, “The 

central problem is this: If we are going to make it with this kind of precision 

airpower in very low volume, akin to acupuncture, we really have to know 

where to put the needle. To make the other guy back down, you must 

understand his politics, his soul. You can’t photograph his soul.”148 The US 

will have to exploit technology and computers in order to develop effects-
40

based models, simulations, and wargames suitable to crises in the information 

age. Meilinger offered this assessment: 

I use to make a pitch that we could analyze tactical effects; 

we could not analyze operational or strategic level effects. I 

think we’re getting to the point now where we can analyze 

operational and, to some extent, even strategic level effects. 

JWAC [Joint Warfare Analysis Center] is beginning to do 

that...and the way it’s growing and becoming more mature 

and sophisticated is leading us down a very beneficial, 

desirable path because we are solving a major problem. 

Which is this measurement of strategic level effects.... 

[T]hat’s what we’re finally doing.149

Precision Engagement. One has to know who, what, when, and 

where to engage in order to achieve precision. Precision is becoming less of 

an issue for weapons. The US has the means to engage precisely—it can place 

a weapon any place it desires. After the “who” is decided, the core issues of 

precision engagement become determining what and where to engage from the 

strategic to the tactical level—to find, fix, track, and target. Joint and USAF 

understanding of precision engagement affects all aspects of organizing, 

training, and equipping forces: from expeditionary forces, to joint exercises, 

to focused logistics. 

Leveraging Centers of Excellence. One also has to know—and must 

be able to measure—the possible effects of precision engagement. Rapid, 

comprehensive systems analysis requires fusion of numerous products. 

Access to centers of excellence, such as the Central Intelligence Agency 

(CIA), Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), National Security Agency (NSA), 

National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA), Joint Warfare Analysis 

Center (JWAC), Joint Information Operations Center (JIOC), and various 

service-specific organizations, is critical in this regard. Currently, their 

outputs are not examined collectively in a fashion suited to develop a 

comprehensive picture of the adversary. There is much to be gained from 

mutual support among the various centers that work on similar types of 

country studies and the like, but all from the organization’s particular 

perspective. Through a process of determining what all the available outputs 
41 

Table 3. Activities Transferred to USACOM (now USJFCOM), 1998 Activity Mission 

Joint Warfare Analysis Center (JWAC) Provide combatant commands and Join

effects-based, precision targeting options networks and nodes to carry out US nationmilitary strategies during peace, crisis and 

Joint Warfighting Center (JWC) Assist the CJCS, combatant commands 

services in (1) preparing for joint aoperations through conceptualization, devassessment of current and future joint doaccomplishing joint and combined training 

Joint Command and Control Warfare Center (now Joint Information Operations Center [JIOC])

Provide combatant commanders and Joint in planning and executing command and cand information operations.

Joint C4ISR Battle Center Provide combatant commands’ joint task 

joint C4ISR assessment and experimentatio

Joint Communications Support Element Provide contingency and crisis communic

operational support needs of combatanservices, defense agencies, and non-DOD as the State Department.

Source: General Accounting Office, US Atlantic Command: Challenging Role in the Evolution of Joi(Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1999), 55. 
42

are, how much redundancy exists, and how to coordinate the output, improved 

center access would aid the joint force commander (JFC) and his or her 

component commanders in strategy development. There is some movement in 

this direction with the transfer of some key planning organizations to US Joint 

Forces Command (USJFCOM) (see table 3). 

Reachback is the process of obtaining necessary services or items 

from organizations, such as the above centers of excellence, which are not 

forward deployed.150 The real-time and flexible targeting processes151 created 

in OAF were cited as one example of positive reachback outcomes. Gen. 

Jumper said that their success was “dependent on a couple of things. The first 

and foremost thing was getting the processes and the right people and the right 

things and the right reachback all glued together.”152 In other words, most 

reachback entails accomplishing horizontal integration of already-available 

organizations and assets in order to get what Gen. Jumper calls, “decision 

quality data” to the commander.153 

Modeling, Simulation, and Analysis. The kinds of modeling, 

analysis, and data collection required in the future must, the Toffler’s wrote, 

be based on, “anticipatory thinking, rather than crash efforts after first blood is 

drawn.”154 They went on to say, “This requires insight not merely into 

military balances, troop movements, and the like, but information about the 

political factions and structural pressures, the payoffs and constraints that 

drive decision making in each state.”155 While complex, these kinds of 

modeling, simulation, and analysis are becoming available. The goal is not to 

remove the strategist from the loop and replace that person with computers, 

but to make the process such that the automated analytical analyses are 

maximized allowing the strategist to focus on the art of war. According to a 

1995 RAND study, “The goal of automated support to planners should be 

exactly what the term itself implies—providing ready access to information 

and easier recording and implementation of decisions.”156 The acquisition of 

such rapid response strategy tools would be effective across the spectrum of 

conflict. 
43

The complexity of required analyses for systems warfare are 

immense. For example, Jason Barlow, author of Strategic Paralysis: An 

Airpower Theory for the Present, studied eight theories of strategic warfare 

and discovered seven areas of national elements of value: leadership, industry, 

armed forces, population, transportation, communication, and alliances.157 

The various interrelationships among the elements are dynamic and are 

accurate only at the time of a particular “snapshot.”158 What might have been 

a desired effect at the beginning of the conflict may not be important later 

therefore continual evaluation will be required throughout in order to 

determine which elements are critical at a given time.159

According to Lt. Col. John Borsi of the Air Force Studies and 

Analysis Agency, most operations research required for this type of systems 

analysis is not focused on supporting operations, but stovepiped along specific 

functional lines within an organization.160 In order to do operations research 

well, one has to know all aspects of the operation and then exercise that 

analytic support in context.161 Borsi also points out that it will be important to 

guard against using advances in analytic tools as predictive models.162 

The current USAF operational level (campaign) model is 

THUNDER. The main advantage it enjoys from previous models is that it is 

not an attrition-based model reliant on ground forces.163 THUNDER’s 

primary shortfall is that it does not integrate the diverse elements of force 

application, C4ISR, mobility, and logistics.164 The USAF’s next generation 

campaign model, Synthetic Theater Operations Research Model (STORM), 

will integrate these elements.165 STORM is also the USAF’s contribution to 

the new Joint Warfare System (JWARS). In 1995, DOD established the Joint 

Analytic Model Improvement Program (JAMIP) to eliminate inadequacies in 

the current models of all the services; it designated JWARS as the joint 

warfare analysis model of the future.166 JWARS is an aggressive attempt to 

model the contributions of all components to a theater campaign.167 However, 

the current plans for JWARS are focused on resource allocation in support of 

the Planning, Programming, and Budgeting System (PPBS).168 It remains to 
44

be seen if STORM and JWARS can be used to analyze campaigns in crisis 

action or deliberate plans.169 

Training. Inter-agency training will likely become an area for further 

refinement, as the US seeks to determine how extensively the various agencies 

will be required in the future. The final recommendations of The US 

Commission on National Security/21st Century for changes to the national 

security structure, due in January 2001, will likely affect the outcome. The 

commission’s conclusion regarding the use of all instruments of power and the 

contributions of non-military national capabilities in the emerging security 

environment will likely have recommendations in the area of interagency 

operations.170 

While the staff colleges and war colleges provide advanced education 

in strategy and operational art, there are few field exercises, particularly joint 

exercises, which emphasize operational level training for a commander and 

planning staff. The USAF’s Joint Force Air Component (JFACC) training, 

known as BLUE FLAG, is accomplished as two interconnected exercises: 

crisis action planning (CAP) and execution. In addition to deployment actions 

during the CAP phase, strategy for the exercise conflict is formulated. 

Strategy has become an area of increased importance in the last few years. 

Historically, however, the strategy aspects have been downplayed. Speaking 

at the February 2000, Air Warfare Symposium, Gen. Jumper said, “We need to 

take those steps that consciously train our colonels and generals to command 

aerospace power at the operational level....”171 He went on to add: 

Quite frankly, at BLUE FLAG, we had learned about the 

command and control of airpower. We learned to deal with 

very cantankerous pieces of technology like CTAPS 

[Contingency Theater Automated Planning System]. 

...[W]e spent more time trying to make them work than 

those systems work for us. To generate an ATO [air tasking 

order] with a thousand sorties was hard work, and we never 

got to the part where colonels and generals were required to 

mass and concentrate forces...or do the things that [Lt. Gen.] 

Mike Short [OAF Combined Forces Air Component 
45

Commander] was required to do in real-time in his real 

combat experience.172 (emphasis added) 

RECOMMENDATIONS 

To discover how much of our resources must be mobilized 

for war, we must first examine our own political aim and 

that of the enemy. We must gauge the strength and situation 

of the opposing state. We must gauge the character and 

abilities of its government and people and do the same in 

regard to our own. Finally, we must evaluate the political 

sympathies of other states and the effect the war may have 

on them. To assess these things in all their ramifications 

and diversity is plainly a colossal task. Rapid and correct 

appraisal of them clearly calls for the intuition of a genius; 

to master all this complex mass by sheer methodical 

examination is obviously impossible. Bonaparte was quite 

right when he said that Newton himself would quail before 

the algebraic problems it could pose. 

—Clausewitz173

We can never predict who will be in the key positions of 

strategy formulation and execution in a time of crisis, and 

we cannot expect to be able to create “instant military 

strategists” in time war. In order to have the ability to 

expand, we need a structure—or better a matrix—in which 

at any one time there are officers at all levels experiencing a 

maturation of their talents as strategists. We need young 

strategists because we need senior strategists, and we need a 

lot because when the time comes we need enough. 

 —General John R. Galvin, USA174

“Rapid and correct appraisal” in the 21st century will certainly call for 

“genius.” While the means to methodically analyze the complex mass of 

information has improved from Clausewitz’s day, the need is still for 

developing and maturing strategists who can master the complex art form of 

war. Aerospace forces will need commanders who can deal with the changing 

face and means of conflict and act decisively in support of national objectives. 

To that end, the recommendations put forth focus on improving aerospace 

power employment from a strategic and operational perspective not of 

maximizing operational effectiveness of individual platforms or systems. 
46

Based on the findings of this study, recommendations will be made in three 

main areas: doctrine and strategy, tools for the strategist, and operational level 

training. At the foundation of all these recommendations is a multidisciplinary, cross-functional aerospace power strategy team supporting the 

JFACC and the joint force commander. 

The sentiment that the US maintains for wars of annihilation has less 

to do with political realities and more to do with actually re-thinking how to 

take aerospace forces of increasing precision and lethality and apply them in 

different ways. While systems warfare has been extensively discussed, it is 

important to remember that this approach is about methodology and the 

framework of a problem. Ultimately, warfare is not about systems, just as it is 

not about direct one-on-one annihilation; it is about finding new ways to affect 

the outcome of new problems by focusing on desired effects in the adversary. 

Doctrine and Strategy 

This study does not support changes to foundational warfighting 

precepts. Existing doctrine only needs to be adapted to accommodate the 

different strategy approaches that have been examined. No part of the 

preceding discussion should be taken to imply that basic joint or Air Force 

doctrine is flawed. For the USAF, it has generally enjoyed excellent basic 

(strategic) and tactical doctrines. The “how” of aerospace power, operational 

level doctrine, is the largest area in need of development. The Expeditionary 

Aerospace Force (EAF) culture change within the USAF has contributed to 

breaking down stovepipes that originated as result of tactical focus. Combat, 

combat support, and combat service support airmen now have improved 

understanding of how their roles contribute to the overall mission. It has often 

been said that, “flexibility is the key to air power,” yet airmen have historically 

been rigidly focused on tactics and weapons load mixes as applicable to 

targeting processes. However, if flexibility for the airman is thought of not 

only as a tenet of aerospace power but as a principle of operations,175 then the 

airman would develop a greater appreciation for its value in a strategy sense. 
47

NCA

NSC Others

State

JFLCC JMCC

JSOCC

JFACC JFC

Figure 5. Joint Force Paradigm176

Generally, doctrinal changes should be pursued that emphasize that 

aerospace power or any branch of combat arms can function in a supported 

role. It is important to note that the JFC is not the center of the universe in this 

construct, but only a “planet” with the components “moons.” (see figure 7) 

Regarding the land power-centric nature of existing doctrine, nowhere was it 

more acutely demonstrated than in the reversal of supported and supporting 

roles in ALLIED FORCE. Gen. Jumper commented: 

The biggest thing we need to overcome here is the doctrinal 

piece of the CINC saying the air component commander is 

the supported commander. ...We never got the relationships 

squared away because we were afraid to do that. As a matter 

of fact, when the Apaches [Task Force Hawk] started 

becoming a factor, we went to this elaborate process of 

getting the corps commander in there so you could have 

somebody at the same level as the JFACC because 

somebody was afraid that the JFACC was going to ask for 

control of the Apaches.177 

While the military promulgates doctrine reflecting the desired way of 

employment, the US has had doctrine it believed could be overwhelming, but was 

either restrained or constrained. In World War II, while restraints were few, constraints 

were most notable. Physical constraints precluded the strategic bombing doctrine’s 

realization. While it is likely that available technology and conditions will always 

present some physical barriers that that will constrain the use of force, times have 
48

changed and the ratio between the two is now reversed. Specifically, development of 

“response” and “coercion” must be pursued in joint and USAF doctrine. 

Filling the SSC Gap 

Flexible “Response” Options. The types of contingency operations 

the US faces are for the most part not covered by deliberate or standing 

operational plans. Few of the locations have proved to have adequate 

infrastructure for typical US operations. The humanitarian dimension of 

recent conflicts has proved immense as well. Yet, no humanitarian operations 

(HUMRO) doctrine exists. While it will most likely continue to be important 

to separate combat from humanitarian missions in separate joint task forces 

(JTF), HUMROs cannot be separated from desired objectives and unity of 

effort. 

With factors like these in mind and facing a potential crises in 

Kosovo, US Air Forces in Europe (USAFE) formed the 86th Contingency 

Response Group (CRG) prior to Operation ALLIED FORCE. It was designed 

to be “a multi-disciplinary, cross-functional team whose mission is to provide 

the first on-scene Air Force forces trained to command, assess, and prepare a 

base for expeditionary aerospace forces.”178 The 86th CRG provided: the 

foundation of a relief-delivery system; a framework for the initial deployment 

of USAF, joint, and multinational forces; airport and airspace control; initial 

US military leadership in the Emergency Management Group of participating 

country representatives and relief organizations.179 With this in mind, a 

“flexible response option,” as opposed to the current “flexible deterrent 

option” construct, would ask: What if the 86th CRG could have deployed to 

Albania, and possibly Macedonia, when the Rambouillet talks started to break 

down? Or earlier? 

Coercion. While proven effective politically, coercion is inefficient 

and demanding from a military perspective. Nonetheless, this study has 

demonstrated that there are certain coercive elements that have proven to be 

areas of success: threaten strategy, magnify third-party threats, and escalation 

dominance. Further examination revealed that within these elements there 
49

were other factors (no pauses, “what next” options, open options, and multiple 

dimensions) that could be offered as elements of effective gradualism. All 

should be further developed in joint and USAF adoption into a form of 

“Smaller Scale Conflict.” 

A coercive strategy of gradualism is demanding and therefore 

particularly dependent on accurate assessment of effects taking place within 

the adversary. One must know what is desired, what is being achieved, and 

how the adversary is reacting in terms of systems changes in order to 

determine the true effectiveness of all operations—lethal and non-lethal. 

Traditional means of bomb damage assessment (BDA) typically prove 

insufficient, being optimized for looking for physical damage. Achieving an 

effect within a system requires a holistic assessment of system operations and 

functions as much or more than destructive assessment of things. This is the 

area where equipping the strategist with the right tools becomes important. 

Tools for the Strategist 

There will be a diverse nature of threats in the information age. Increasing 

urbanization will complicate intelligence gathering. Humanitarian operations 

have a greater likelihood of being intermingled with combat operations in such 

environments—possibly being more complicated than the combat operations 

themselves. Proliferation of potential adversaries coupled with the fact that 

the US always seems to fight who and where it had not planned create lofty 

problems for the theater commanders-in-chief (CINC) and his planners. The 

goal of USJFCOM’s “Precision Engagement Process” is to provide a 

supported CINC with “focused, collaborative, operational, intelligence, and 

interagency support” for effects-based operations and targeting to better deal 

with such challenges.180 The emphasis is on meeting the CINCs’ limited 

resources to conduct infrastructure modeling and analysis, develop integrated 

courses of action, determine the best effect, and rapid effects assessment.181 

This effort is supportive of operations across the spectrum of conflict and 

consistent with the following recommendations. 
50

Joint Reachback. Timely, accurate, strategically and operationally 

focused intelligence is the most critical element to success of any operation. 

Military planners must be aware of, use, and train with the organizations that 

together have the capability to develop a comprehensive picture of an 

adversary. Analyzing an adversary as a system yields critical nodes vital to its 

warfighting capability that can reveal the best approaches to centers of 

gravity.182 USJFCOM expects to develop the foundation for “one stop 

shopping” support for the CINCs both before and during operations.183

Joint Force

Commander

JFACC JFLCC JFMCC JFSOCC

JWAC

JWF

JIWC

Others

(as req)

CIA

NIMA

NSA DIA

Theater

JAC

Joint

Reachback

Center

Figure 6. Joint Reachback Concept 

Pape recommended that “governments should create permanent 

organizations composed of individuals with expertise in a variety of military 

and civilian fields and disciplines to study the various political effects that 

alternative uses of force might produce.... [S]uch groups should serve as 

repositories of knowledge about the general political, economic, and social 

effects of various applications of force, which would be available to policy 

makers considering intervention in international disputes.”184 In such a 

federated center of excellence construct, the organizations would exploit the 

gains in artificial intelligence to perform extensive objective analyses. Closely 
51

associated and supporting these centers are advanced modeling, simulation, 

and analysis means. 

“Operationalize” Modeling, Simulation, and Analysis. Campaign 

analysis in the future must be responsive to diverse adversaries and dynamic 

restraints to be capable of examining “maximum achievable force” for any 

scenario. These future campaign analysis tools should also be able to account 

for the contributions of non-military power and non-lethal effects of combat. 

A 1999 General Accounting Office (GAO) report concluded that USACOM 

(now USJFCOM), by having the Joint Warfighting Center work with the Joint 

Training and Simulation Center, is improving the joint training program, 

development of joint doctrine, and is expected to enhance DOD modeling and 

simulation.185 The plan is for USJFCOM to serve as a single source for joint 

training and warfighting support, with strong roles in lessons learned, 

modeling and simulation, doctrine, and joint force experimentation.186

To this end, the USAF should fully support the Joint Analytic Model 

Improvement Program (JAMIP) efforts to eliminate inadequacies in all the 

current models. The service should fully support development of the new 

Joint Warfare System (JWARS) campaign model and its goal to capture the 

contributions of all components to a theater campaign. Continued USAF 

support to its next generation campaign model, the Synthetic Theater 

Operations Research Model (STORM), is pivotal in this overall effort since it 

is the first to integrate diverse elements of force application, C4ISR, mobility, 

and logistics. Joint and USAF plans should center on the ability of these new 

models to support crisis action or deliberate planning first and resource 

allocation in support of the Defense Department Planning, Programming, and 

Budgeting System second. 

Strategic and Operational Training 

General Anthony C. Zinni, Commander-in-Chief, US Central Command, 

speaking at the February 2000 Air Warfare Symposium said, “We don’t do a 

good job of training people for this job I hold right now,...to understand the 

broader, maybe more difficult, things in how to plan and conduct an air 
52

campaign and then how to make the air campaign fit into everything else you 

are doing, be it naval, air, ground [or] combinations thereof, [and] the political 

side of that dimension.”187 In other words, the US must train operational 

commanders and their planners to be effective in the emerging strategic 

environment. 

Integrating the Interagency Process. Those same commanders and 

staffs must then exercise strategic and operational elements in crisis scenarios, 

including the interagency process, including participation with key civilian 

leadership such as the National Security Council. The types of training 

described in PDD-56 must be pursued below senior leadership levels. 

Additionally, education development about the interagency process is required 

beyond the National Defense University and the Army War College. 

The primary reason is that even with an excellent understanding of 

the adversary, the military may not be able to affect anything the adversary 

values or get at its COG with aerospace power or anything else. Nonstate 

actors are an important case in point. Byman, Waxman, and Larson concluded 

that, “Such actors provide few easy targets to destroy or hold at risk; they can 

flexibly adapt to or counter military strikes. Working with local opposing 

parties (state or nonstate) will often be necessary and require a more 

sophisticated understanding of local dynamics and an adversary’s internal 

workings than may be available.... Success in these case will often require a 

convergence of factors, many of them far beyond the control of air 

planners.”188 General Clark also advised that greater coordination should be 

made between the military and the diplomatic fronts and that other kinds of 

coercion—economic, for example—should be counted among the tools 

available to achieve the desired objectives.189 It simply is going to take 

aspects of everything the US can bring to bear to resolve conflicts in the 

future. 

Operational Level Training Enhancements. While most of this 

study has focused on understanding the adversary, to be fully effective the US 

military must understand itself. This requires purposeful training at all levels 
53

of war. Training must be joint and composite, but in many ways, no longer 

requires collocation or massing of actual forces. For operational commanders 

and key staff, new and emerging distributed and collaborative training tools 

offer abilities to extensively plan, wargame, and simulate employment from 

varied locations around the world. 

Jointly and by individual service, the US must better train its leaders, 

especially at middle and senior levels, to work at the operational and strategic 

levels of warfare. This is especially pertinent to the USAF where a critical 

need is to incorporate rapid response aerospace strategists into its 

expeditionary culture. Lieutenant General Michael Short, OAF Combined 

Forces Air Component Commander, recently discussed his recommendations 

for the future of operational level training. Speaking at the February 2000, Air 

Warfare Symposium, he said, “I went to one BLUE FLAG in my life...and the 

emphasis was on getting the ATO [air tasking order] out.”190 He went on to 

say: 

I came away from that experience [first J-7 in US Atlantic 

Command] with a healthy respect for a program the US 

Army runs called the Battle Command Training Program, 

BCTP. It is a series of yearly exercise based on modeling 

and simulation.... You start out with platoon leaders, and 

you train as platoon leaders, and company commanders, and 

battalion XOs [executive officers], and commanders, and 

division and corps commanders. ...[G]enerations of great 

soldiers in green uniforms have learned how to practice their 

trade in a BCTP matrix. I believe there is something out 

there that offers the Air Force that same opportunity. I 

believe it is BLUE FLAG-based, and...it is not about the 

ATO, it is about a thought process. ...—how to employ and 

execute airpower. Initially, certainly at the tactical level, but 

moving to the operational and strategic level. I believe that 

is something we need to do or...we run the risk of continuing 

to be incredible operators at the tactical level, but not the 

leaders at the operational or strategic level, where our 

nation needs us.

191 (emphasis added) 

CONCLUSION 

Above all, warfare, especially limited warfare, is an art. As 

such, it requires intellectual sophistication, mental dexterity, 

and the ability to think abstractly... If the Air Force is to 
54

perform successfully within the context of national 

objectives, its leaders must become masters of the art of war. 

—Dr. Earl H. Tilford192

We now need airmen conversant and well grounded in all 

aspects of warfare, including the theoretical. Only then will 

they be able to select the employment concept best suited to 

the situation at hand. Flexibility is also the key to air 

strategy. Ultimately, air-targeting strategy is an art, not a 

science. Unfortunately, it is an incredibly complex art. 

—Colonel Phillip S. Meilinger193

The strategy imperative for the airman has always been present. It has been 

masked by a land power-centric approach to war—the overwhelming 

firepower approach of World War II—that has prevailed through the industrial 

age, as well as the airman’s own inattention. DESERT STORM changed the 

airman’s outlook and supplied confidence in his abilities and capabilities. The 

stage is set for a new breed of aerospace leaders who think about aerospace 

power differently. For the most part, US aerospace power is on the right 

course, but as ALLIED FORCE showed, the airman’s preferred ideas are 

brought back to reality by politics. 

The emerging strategic environment will become increasingly 

complex. If the US responds militarily it will be limited. Restraints will be 

imposed—largely as a function of the conflict’s relation to national interests. 

Aerospace power will be the instrument of choice in most of these conflicts. 

Therefore, the USAF must be able to execute decisive operations across the 

spectrum of conflict—it has to be able to fight all kinds of wars well. 

Emerging aerospace power capabilities will overcome many current and 

foreseen constraints with respect to finding, fixing, tracking, and targeting 

diverse aspects of potential adversaries, providing the means to contribute to 

decisive operations anywhere along that spectrum. 

This is a strategy imperative in the face of rapidly changing 

technology, tactics, and restraints. Though the means will change, warfare 

will remain an art form, not a science. Therefore, strategy provides the 
55

linchpin of success in the future environment, not technology. These changes 

place a premium on strategy and operational art for the airman. The same 

level and intensity with which the Air Force pursues tactical expertise must be 

pursued at the operational level. This means the airman has got to be able to 

know what kind of war it is the US has to fight, whether or not the US can 

fight it, or whether the conflict at hand requires resolution by other means. 

ALLIED FORCE shows that the US military has not thought through all 

“how’s,” especially when a component other than the land force functions as 

the supported commander. The “how to” of “responding” and “coercing” are 

the areas that most notably stand out from the aerospace power only operations 

in Kosovo that must be addressed. 

The immediate joint and USAF needs are for improvements to 

operational doctrine, training, and tools. The US military cannot focus 

exclusively on the war it would prefer to fight and ignore the complex realities 

of places like the Balkans or the ramifications of changes brought about by the 

revolution in military affairs. While recommendations deal in areas 

traditionally uncomfortable for the airman and the military it is nonetheless 

required. This study has tried to focus on areas that will benefit operations 

across the spectrum: 

Thinking about ways to improve national power integration is 

applicable in any conflict. 

Thinking about solving a conflict before the shooting starts by 

responding with capabilities that strengthen allies and friendly 

states and can easily transition efforts if the shooting starts. 

To be able to rapidly formulate a comprehensive systems blueprint of 

an adversary is a force multiplier. 

The key to success in coercion or any strategy is the ability to 

undermine the adversary’s strategy. 

But limited conflict and limited force are sticking points that will 

have to be overcome. They can be overcome without compromising all-out 

war capability. 

This study also provides an imperative for civilian leadership. The 

US can only reduce military force so much and then it must ask itself why it is 
56

considering resorting to force and what else is available? The history of 

employing measures short of war points out that they take time to be effective. 

Yet the length of time involved is always a concern when the US resorts to 

force. There is a balance to be achieved between the desires of civilian 

leadership and what the military can reasonably be expected to deliver. The 

balance is most likely to be achieved in an environment of trust, cooperation, 

and coordination: The ability to balance restraints with the increasing 

capabilities of aerospace power. 

 

NOTES 

1

 Dennis M. Drew and Donald M. Snow, Eagle’s Talons: The American 

Experience at War (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, December 

1988), 1. 

2

 Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CT: Yale 

University Press, 1966), 34. 

3

 A note on the use of terms. Air Force Doctrine Document 1-2, Air 

Force Glossary, 9 July 1999, defines aerospace power as “the synergistic 

application of air, space and information systems to project global strategic 

military power.” Aerospace power, as it is used in this paper, describes the 

use of aircraft, spacecraft, and information in the air and/or space medium to 

project military power in order to create political and military effects. Air 

power and space power are subsets of aerospace power. Aerospace power will 

be used throughout the text unless citing a work that uses another similar term 

(e.g., air power, airpower, air and space power) or if the term, air power, is 

required in the context of reflecting the time before space flight. The same 

general meaning is implied regardless. 

4

 While aspects of this paper are applicable to aerospace power in 

general, it is written from a US, first, and, then, a USAF perspective. 

5 Airman will be used to describe any military or military-related 

practitioner of aerospace power employment. 

6

 Anthony H. Cordesman, “The Lessons and Non-Lessons of the Air and 

Missile War in Kosovo,” revised draft report (Washington, DC: Center for 

Strategic and International Studies, 22 September 1999), 16; on-line, Internet, 

October 1999, available from http://www.csis.org.html. 

7

 President William J. Clinton, National Security Strategy for a New 

Century (Washington, DC: The White House, December 1999), 1. 

8

 Ibid., 1-2. 
57

 9

 Ibid., 2. 

10 Ibid. 

11 Quoted in Barton Gellman, “The Kosovo Peace Deal; What It Means,” 

The Washington Post, 6 June 1999, A1. 

12 General John P. Jumper, Commander, US Air Forces in Europe, 

interviewed by author during visit to Ramstein AB, FRG, 13 October 1999. 

13 Drew and Snow, 324-325. 

14 John A. Warden, “The Enemy as a System,” Airpower Journal 9 

(Spring 1995), 55. 

15 Drew and Snow, 396. 

16 Ibid. 

17 Jumper interview. 

18 Joint Pub 3-0, Doctrine for Joint Operations, 1 February 1995, V-5. 

19 Webster’s Desk Dictionary of the English Language, based on The 

Random House Dictionary (Avenel, NJ: Gramercy Books, 1983), 196. 

20 Webster’s New World Dictionary, 2nd college ed. (World Publishing 

Company, 1978), 1212. 

21 The terms constraint and restraint and their associated concepts, should 

not be confused with a discussion of military orders—orders from political 

leadership to senior commanders, from commanders to forces in the field, or 

otherwise. It is assumed here that constraints and restraints will be reflected 

accordingly in military orders that follow. 

22 Joint Doctrine Air Campaign Course, Air Campaign Planning 

Handbook (Maxwell AFB, AL: College of Aerospace Doctrine, Research, and 

Education, January 1997), 16. 

23 Colonel Kevin J. Kennedy, Division Chief, HQ USAF/XOOC, 

Checkmate, used similar terminology. Notes, HQ USAF/XOOC, Checkmate 

Strategy Conference (U), conducted at Arlington, VA, 8 February 2000. 

(Secret) Information extracted is unclassified. 

24 Joint Pub 3-0, xv. 

25 Ibid., V-3. 

26 JDACC, 16. 

27 Mark Clodfelter, The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of 

North Vietnam (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1989), 4. 
58

 28 Kennedy used similar terminology. Notes, HQ USAF/XOOC, 

Strategy Conference (U). (Secret) Information extracted is unclassified. 

29 Herman Kahn, On Escalation (New York, NY: Frederick A. Praeger, 

1965), 3. 

30 Ibid., 4. 

31 Robert C. Owen, ed., Deliberate Force: A Case Study in Effective Air 

Campaigning (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, January 2000), 242. 

32 Figure adapted from Kahn, 5. 

33 JDACC, 16. 

34 Drew and Snow, 377. 

35 Cited in John A. Tirpak, “The NATO Way of War,” Air Force 

Magazine, December 1999, 25. 

36 Quoted in “The NATO Way of War,” 24. 

37 While no other nation can exploit inclement weather operations like 

the US, there are still limitations, most of which involve precision-guided 

munitions. The problem is being ameliorated with the continuing introduction 

of next-generation GPS-aided munitions (e.g., JDAM, JSOW, and JASSM). 

Weather problems in Kosovo were more a function of the precision required to 

meet collateral damage restraints than the actual capability to deliver weapons. 

For the USAF, all USAF combat aircraft can deliver various payload types in 

adverse weather. 

Positive target identification in a highly dynamic environment is a 

constraint that will require priority effort to overcome. 

Precision munitions proved dominate in ALLIED FORCE, but there 

were munitions expenditure implications that the US and Allies did not 

foresee. The high demand for PGMs required prudent management in order to 

ensure war reserve stocks remained at acceptable levels. 

38 Alvin Toffler and Heide Toffler, War and Anti-War (New York, NY: 

Warner Books, 1993), 104. 

39 Drew and Snow, 372-373. 

40 US Commission on National Security/21st Century, New World 

Coming: American Security in the 21st Century, Phase I Report (Washington, 

DC, 15 September 1999), 8. 

41 Ibid., 7. 
59

 42 Earl H. Tilford, The Halt Phase Strategy: New Wine in Old 

Skins...With PowerPoint, (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute), 

24. 

43 Justin Brown, “World Choke Points’ Are Moving From Sea to Air,” 

Christian Science Monitor, 15 December 1999, 3. 

44 Notes, US Army Conference on Strategic Responsiveness, 

Washington, DC, 2 November 1999. 

45 Toffler, 270-271. 

46 Robert A. Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War

(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), 2. 

47 Drew and Snow, 384. 

48 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and 

Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 88. 

49 Colonel Phillip S. Meilinger, USAF, interviewed by author during visit 

to US Naval War College, Newport, RI, 3 December 1999. 

50 Clausewitz, 585. 

51 Notes, Lord George Robertson, NATO Secretary General, “NATO: 

Why Should Americans Care?” address at The George Washington University, 

Washington, DC, 4 April 2000. 

52 Paul Mann, “Kosovo’s Lessons Called Ambiguous,” Aviation Week 

and Space Technology, 28 Jun 1999, 32. 

53 Clausewitz, 77. 

54 Michael I. Handel, Masters of War: Sun Tzu, Clausewitz, and Jomini

(London: Frank Cass, 1992), 32-33. 

55 Ibid., 87-88. 

56 Karl Mueller, “Dues Ex Machina? Coercive Air Power in Bosnia and Kosovo” (paper presented at 

the University of Chicago Program on International Security Policy, Chicago, 

IL, 16 November 1999)

, 20. 

57 Jumper interview. 

58 Standoff attack is that capability that exceeds the free fall ballistic 

range of a munition. Typically this is on the order of 15 nautical miles or 

greater. 

59 Keith Hutcheson, Air Mobility: The Evolution of Global Reach

(Vienna, VA: PointOneVII, September 1999), 28. 
60

 60 General Michael E. Ryan, Chief of Staff, USAF, address to the Air 

Force Association Air Warfare Symposium, Orlando, FL, 24 February 2000. 

61 Ibid. 

62 Ibid. 

63 Christopher J. Bowie et. al., The New Calculus: Analyzing Airpower’s 

Changing Role in Joint Theater Campaigns (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 

1993), 83-84. 

64 Mueller, 20. 

65 Ibid. 

66 General Joseph W. Ralston, USAF, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 

of Staff, address to the Air Force Association National Convention and 

Symposium, Washington, DC, 16 September 1999. 

67 Schelling, 3. 

68 This definition is essentially a combination of basic definitions used by 

Daniel Ellsberg and Byman, Waxman, and Larson. See Daniel Ellsburg, The 

Theory and Practice of Blackmail (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, July 1968), 2; 

and Daniel L. Byman, Matthew C. Waxman, and Eric Larson, Air Power as a 

Coercive Instrument (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1999), 10. 

69 For Schelling, coercion included two dimensions: deterrence and 

compellence. “The threat that compels rather than deters often requires that 

punishment be administered until the other acts, rather than if he acts.” 

(Schelling, 70; emphasis original) “Deterrence involves setting the stage—by 

announcement, by rigging the trip-wire, by incurring the obligation—and 

waiting. The overt act is up to the opponent.” (Ibid., 71; emphasis original) 

“Compellence, in contrast, usually involves initiating an action (or an 

irrevocable commitment to action) that can cease, or become harmless, only if 

the opponent responds.” (Ibid., 72) 

70 Ibid., 3-4. 

71 Ibid., 16. 

72 Dana Priest, “France Balked at NATO Targets,” The Washington Post, 

20 September 1999, A10. 

73 Drew and Snow, 323. 

74 Ibid., 297. 

75 Ibid. 

76 Adapted from: Briefing, HQ USAF/XOOC, subject: Introduction to 

Checkmate, 6 January 1999. 
61

 77 Schelling, 30. 

78 Statement of General Wesley K. Clark, USA, SACEUR, in Senate, 

Lessons Learned from Military Operations and Relief Efforts in Kosovo: 

Hearing before the Committee on Armed Services, 106th Cong., 1st sess., 21 

October 1999, n.p.; on-line, Internet, 4 November 1999, available from 

http://www.senate.gov/~armed_services/hearings/1999/c991021.htm. 

79 Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, “Transforming National Defense for the 

21st Century,” address to the US Army Conference on Strategic 

Responsiveness, Washington, DC, 2 November 1999. 

80 Drew and Snow, 379. 

81 Shock and paralysis are normally associated with the use of 

overwhelming force, especially from aerospace power. 

82 Both terms describe the idea that operations are most effective when 

they create effects that help achieve different levels of objectives at the same 

time. Generally, aerospace power can attack strategic, operational, and tactical 

targets at the same time. See Frederick L. Baier, “50 Questions Every Airman 

Can Answer” (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air Force Doctrine Center, undated), 7. 

83 An adversary can be viewed as a total system composed of numerous 

subsystems. The Warden model describes five basic sub-systems: leadership, 

organic essential, infrastructure, population, and fight mechanism. See 

Warden, 44. 

If systems are attacked piecemeal or gradually, the potential for workarounds greatly increases. 

84 Adversary systems require extensive analysis in order to determine 

what needs to be attacked and what effect is desired in the attack. The attacks 

must then be assessed in order to determine if the effect was achieved. 

Extensive system adaptation leads to increased analysis and assessment 

requirements. 

85 Byman, Waxman, and Larson, 129. 

86 Dana Priest, “Tension Grew With Divide Over Strategy,” The 

Washington Post, 21 September 1999, A16. 

87 Byman, Waxman, and Larson, 30. 

88 Ibid., 37-38. 

89 Dana Priest, “A Decisive Battle That Never Was,” The Washington 

Post, 19 September 1999, A30. 

90 Comments on Dr. Robert A. Pape in Tilford, 37. 

91 Pape, 8. 
62

 92 Byman, Waxman, and Larson, 39. 

93 Ibid. 

94 Richard C. Holbrooke, To End a War (New York, NY: Random 

House, 1999), 144. 

95 Byman, Waxman, and Larson, 40. 

96 Pape, 24. 

97 Byman, Waxman, and Larson, 31. 

98 Quoted in Priest, “Tension Grew,” A16. 

99 Phillip S. Meilinger, “Gradual Escalation,” Armed Forces Journal 

International, October 1999, 18. 

100 Thomas E. Griffith, “Air Pressure: Strategy for the New World 

Order?” Airpower Journal 8, no. 2 (Summer 1994): 23. 

101 General Henry H. Shelton, USA, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 

Staff, “Force, Diplomacy and National Security,” address to the Patterson 

School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, University of Kentucky, 

19 November 1999. 

102 United Kingdom Ministry of Defence, Kosovo: An Account of the 

Crisis, Initial Lessons Learned (London: Ministry of Defence, Undated), 3; 

on-line, Internet, 13 October 1999, available from 

http://www.mod.uk/news/kosovo/account/lessons.htm. 

103 Byman, Waxman, and Larson, 21. 

104 Clark, US Senate. 

105 See Toffler, Chapter 9 for an excellent discussion of “Third Wave” 

information age changes and how they will the organization and instruments 

of war. 

106 Warden, 51-52. 

107 Department of Defense, Kosovo/Operation ALLIED FORCE AfterAction Report, report to Congress (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 

31 January 2000), A-9. 

108 Pape, 329-330. 

109 Barry M. Blechman and Stephen S. Kaplan, Force Without War: U.S. 

Armed Forces as a Political Instrument (Washington, DC: Brookings, 1978), 

4. 

110 Pape, 329-330. 
63

 111 Quoted in Charles M. Westenhoff, Military Air Power: The CADRE 

Digest of Air Power Opinions and Thoughts (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air 

University Press, October 1990), 56. 

112 Mueller, 16. 

113 Cordesman, 7. 

114 Quoted in “DOD News Briefing,” DefenseLINK News, 24 March 

1999; on-line, Internet, October 1999, available from 

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/mar1999/t03241999_t0324sd. html. 

115 Lieberman. 

116 Ibid. 

117 Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Johns, Royal Air Force, Chief of the 

Air Staff, Sir Frederick Tymms Memorial Lecture to the Guild of Air Pilots 

and Air Navigators, The Royal Aeronautical Society, 21 September 1999, 6; 

on-line, Internet, 4 November 1999, available from 

http://www.raf.mod.uk/news/castymms.html. 

118 Quoted in Holbrooke, 145. 

119 Ibid. 

120 Presidential Decision Directive 56. “The Clinton Administration’s 

Policy on Managing Complex Contingency Operations,” White Paper, May 

1997, 1; on-line, Internet, 11 February 2000, available from 

http://whitehouse.gov/WH/EOP/NSC/html/documents/NSCDoc2.html. 

121 Ibid. 

122 Department of Defense, 126. 

123 Ibid. 

124 PDD-56, 5. 

125 Department of Defense, 5. 

126 Cordesman, 15. 

127 Department of Defense, 7. 

128 Edward B. Atkeson, “The Death of Strategy?” Army Magazine, June 

1999, 14. 

129 Meilinger interview. 

130 Ibid. 

131 Schelling, 89. 

132 Ralston. 
64

 133 Note that the coercive strategy flow considers two adversaries (the 

FRY and the KLA) and each one’s possible starting scenario position with 

respect to the US/NATO/UN desired end state when NATO decides to 

respond. Position one represents that a political agreement is reached without 

resort to force. This reflects the desired Rambouillet outcome. Position two 

reflects the notion of continued KLA intransigence. NATO could impose a 

settlement and conduct peace enforcement operations. Position three is 

essentially the scenario when Operation ALLIED FORCE began on 24 March 

1999. Position four is similar, but reflects a non-cooperative KLA as in 

position two. In positions three or four, two basic force application strategies 

reflect the differences in the adversaries. However, there are numerous 

possible strategies that could consist of various branches and sequels. These 

coercive force measures also require simultaneous humanitarian operations 

due to refugee flows. At some point a change in the FRY or KLA position 

occurs requiring a change in the phase of operations. The bottom of the figure 

shows the other elements of national power applied in concert with the 

military instrument. 

134 Lt Col Patrick L. Sheets, USAFE Studies and Analysis (Air War Over 

Serbia group), interviewed by author during visit to Ramstein AB, FRG, 14 

October 1999. 

135 Schelling, 90. 

136 Quoted in Priest, “Tension Grew,” A16. 

137 Griffith, 25. 

138 James Riggins and David E. Snodgrass, “Halt Phase Plus Strategic 

Preclusion: Joint Solution for a Joint Problem,” Parameters, Autumn 1999, 

11-12. 

139 Clausewitz, 182. 

140 Riggins and Snodgrass, 9. 

141 Pape, 5. 

142 Clausewitz, 92-93. 

143 Jason B. Barlow, Strategic Paralysis: An Airpower Theory for the 

Present (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, February 1994), 62. 

144 Meilinger interview. 

145 Blechman and Kaplan, 532. 

146 Sun Tzu, The Art of War, trans. Thomas Cleary (Boston, MA: 

Shambhala Publications, 1988), 82. 
65

 147 Phillip S. Meilinger, “Air Strategy: Targeting for Effect,” Aerospace 

Power Journal 13, no. 4 (Winter 1999): 54. 

148 Edward N. Luttwak, “Operation ALLIED FORCE: Strategy, 

Execution, Implications,” address, Eaker Colloquy on Aerospace Strategy, 

Requirements, and Forces, Washington, DC, 16 August 1999, 6. On-line. 

Internet, 2 September 1999. Available from http://www. 

aef.org/eak16aug99.html. 

149 Meilinger interview. 

150 AFDD 1-2. 

151 Real-time targeting refers to the process of identifying and attacking a 

target with immediately available assets. The sensor-to-shooter cycle is 

accomplished in near real time. Flexible targeting refers to the process of 

using a mixture of weapons and/or assets to prosecute a variety of emerging 

targets. The two tactics can be related. Flexible targeting can be done in realtime if the assets are immediately available. It can also be accomplished from 

a ground alert response. 

152 Jumper interview. 

153 General John P. Jumper, USAF, Commander, Air Combat Command, 

“21st Century Aerospace Force: Essentials for Operational Success,” address 

to DFI International Aerospace Power Seminar Series, Rayburn House Office 

Building, Washington, DC, 13 April 2000. 

154 Toffler, 281. 

155 Ibid. 

156 David A. Shlapak and David E. Thaler, Perspectives on Theater Air Campaign Planning

(Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1995)

, 31. 

157 Barlow, 57. 

158 Ibid., 66. 

159 Ibid. 

160 Lt Col John Borsi, USAF, interviewed by author during visit to Air 

Force Studies and Analysis Agency, Rosslyn, VA, 24 February 2000. 

161 Ibid. 

162 Ibid. 

163 Lt Col Daniel Hackman, USAF, interviewed by author during visit to 

Air Force Studies and Analysis Agency, Rosslyn, VA, 24 February 2000. 

164 Ibid. 
66

 165 Ibid. 

166 Ibid. 

167 Ibid. 

168 Ibid. 

169 Ibid. 

170 Commission on National Security, 7. 

171 General John P. Jumper, USAF, Commander, Air Combat Command, 

address to the Air Force Association Air Warfare Symposium, Orlando, FL, 25 

February 2000. 

172 Ibid. 

173 Clausewitz, 585-586. 

174 General John R. Galvin, “What’s the Matter with Being a Strategist?” 

Parameters 19, no. 1 (March 1989): 4. 

175 For an excellent discussion of flexibility as a principle of military 

operations, see Robert S. Frost, The Growing Imperative to Adopt ‘Flexibility’ 

as an American Principle of War (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US 

Army War College), 15 October 99. 

176 Adapted from Figure 6. David A. Deptula, Firing for Effect: Change 

in the Nature of Warfare (Arlington, VA: Aerospace Education Foundation, 24 

August 1995), 16. 

177 Jumper interview. 

178 General John P. Jumper, “Rapidly Deploying Aerospace Power,” 

Aerospace Power Journal 13, no. 4 (Winter 1999): 4-5. 

179 Ibid., 8-9. 

180 Briefing, US Joint Forces Command, subject: Provide a Validated 

Precision Engagement Concept of Operations, undated (copy provided by the 

Joint Warfare Analysis Center on 25 February 2000). 

181 Ibid. 

182 Riggins and Snodgrass, 10. 

183 General Accounting Office, U.S. Atlantic Command: Challenging 

Role in the Evolution of Joint Military Capabilities, GAO/NSIAD-99-39 

(Washington, DC: General Accounting Office, February 1999), 56. 

184 Pape, 330. 

185 GAO, 55. 
67

 186 Ibid., 56. 

187 General Anthony C. Zinni, USMC, Commander-in-Chief, US Central 

Command, address to the Air Force Association Air Warfare Symposium, 

Orlando, FL, 25 February 2000. 

188 Byman, Waxman, and Larson, 125-126. 

189 Clark, US Senate. 

190 Lt. Gen. Michael C. Short, USAF, Commander, Allied Air Forces, 

Southern Europe, address to the Air Force Association Air Warfare 

Symposium, Orlando, FL, 25 February 2000. 

191 Ibid. 

192 Earl H. Tilford, “Setup: Why and How the US Air Force Lost in 

Vietnam,” Armed Forces & Society 17, no 3 (1991): 339. 

193 Meilinger, “Air Strategy,” 60. 
68