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This electronic representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for non-commercial use only. Unauthorized posting of RAND PDFs to a non-RAND Web site is prohibited. RAND PDFs are protected under copyright law. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of our research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please see RAND Permissions. This product is part of the RAND Corporation monograph series. RAND monographs present major research findings that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors. All RAND mono- graphs undergo rigorous peer review to ensure high standards for research quality and objectivity. Combat Pair THE EVOLUTION OF AIR FORCE–NAVY INTEGRATION IN STRIKE WARFARE Benjamin S. Lambeth Prepared for the United States Air Force Approved for public release; distribution unlimited The research described in this report was sponsored by the United States Air Force under Contract FA7014-06-C-0001. Further information may be obtained from the Strategic Planning Division, Directorate of Plans, Hq USAF. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lambeth, Benjamin S. Combat pair : the evolution of Air Force-Navy integration in strike warfare / Benjamin S. Lambeth. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-8330-4209-5 (pbk.) 1. Air warfare—United States—History. 2. Unified operations (Military science) 3. United States. Air Force. 4. United States. Navy—Aviation. 5. United States. Marine Corps—Aviation. I. Title. UG633.L258 2007 358.4'24—dc22 2007044048 The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors. R ® is a registered trademark. Cover design by Peter Soriano © Copyright 2007 RAND Corporation All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from RAND. Published 2007 by the RAND Corporation 1776 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138 1200 South Hayes Street, Arlington, VA 22202-5050 4570 Fifth Avenue, Suite 600, Pittsburgh, PA 15213-2665 RAND URL: http://www.rand.org To order RAND documents or to obtain additional information, contact Distribution Services: Telephone: (310) 451-7002; Fax: (310) 451-6915; Email: [email protected] Preface This report was prepared as a contribution to a larger RAND-initiated study for the U.S. Air Force aimed at exploring new concepts for bring- ing land-based air power together with both naval aviation and surface and subsurface naval forces to enhance the nation’s ability to negate or, if need be, defeat evolving threats in both major combat operations and irregular warfare. The report describes the evolution of Air Force and Navy integration in aerial strike warfare from the time of the Vietnam War, when any such integration was virtually nonexistent, to the con- temporary era when Air Force and Navy air combat operations have moved ever closer to a point where they can be said to provide both a mature capability for near-seamless joint-force employment and a role model for other possible types of closer Air Force and Navy force inte- gration in areas where the air and maritime operating domains inter- sect. It was sponsored by Major General R. Michael Worden, USAF, then-Director for Operational Plans and Joint Matters in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Air, Space and Information Operations, Plans, and Requirements (AF/A5X), Headquarters, United States Air Force. The research reported here was conducted within the Strategy and Doctrine Program of RAND Project AIR FORCE as a part of a fiscal year 2006 study titled “Exploring New Concepts for Joint Air- Naval Operations.” iii iv Combat Pair: The Evolution of Air Force–Navy Integration in Strike Warfare RAND Project AIR FORCE RAND Project AIR FORCE (PAF), a division of the RAND Corpo- ration, is the U.S. Air Force’s federally funded research and develop- ment center for studies and analyses. PAF provides the Air Force with independent analyses of policy alternatives affecting the development, employment, combat readiness, and support of current and future aero- space forces. Research is conducted in four programs: Aerospace Force Development; Manpower, Personnel, and Training; Resource Manage- ment; and Strategy and Doctrine. Additional information about PAF is available on our Web site at http://www.rand.org/paf/ Contents Preface............................................................................. iii Summary..........................................................................vii Acknowledgments...............................................................xv Abbreviations.................................................................... xix CHAPTER ONE Introduction....................................................................... 1 CHAPTER TWO A Backdrop of Apartness........................................................ 5 CHAPTER THREE The Watershed of Desert Storm...............................................13 CHAPTER FOUR Post–Gulf War Navy Adjustments to New Demands.....................17 CHAPTER FIVE First Steps Toward Integrated Strike-Warfare Training ................ 27 CHAPTER SIX Continued Sources of Navy–Air Force Friction............................33 CHAPTER SEVEN A Convergence of Integration over Afghanistan...........................45 v vi Combat Pair: The Evolution of Air Force–Navy Integration in Strike Warfare CHAPTER EIGHT Further Convergence in Operation Iraqi Freedom........................55 CHAPTER NINE Emergent Trends in Air Force–Navy Integration..........................65 CHAPTER TEN A New Synergy of Land- and Sea-Based Strike Warfare.................81 CHAPTER ELEVEN Future Challenges and Opportunities.......................................89 Bibliography..................................................................... 99 Summary During the more than three decades that have elapsed since the war in Vietnam ended, the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy have progressively developed a remarkable degree of harmony in the integrated conduct of aerial strike operations. That close harmony stands in sharp con- trast to the situation that prevailed throughout most of the Cold War, when the two services lived and operated in wholly separate physical and conceptual worlds, had distinct and unique operating mindsets and cultures, and could claim no significant interoperability features to speak of. Once the unexpected demands of fighting a joint littoral war against Iraq in 1991 underscored the costs of that absence of interop- erability, however, both the Air Force and the Navy quickly came to recognize and embrace the need to change their operating practices to accommodate the demise of the Soviet threat that had largely deter- mined their previous approaches to warfare and to develop new ways of working with each other in the conduct of joint air operations to meet a new array of post–Cold War challenges around the world. In the realm of equipment, the Navy in particular upgraded its precision-strike capability by fielding both new systems and improve- ments to existing systems that soon gave it a degree of flexibility that it had lacked throughout Operation Desert Storm, when its aviation assets were still largely configured to meet the very different demands of an open-ocean Soviet naval threat. Naval aviation also undertook measures to improve its command, control, and communications arrangements so that it could operate more freely with other joint air assets within the framework of an air tasking order (ATO), which by vii viii Combat Pair: The Evolution of Air Force–Navy Integration in Strike Warfare that time had become the established mission planning tool for large- scale air operations. Finally, in the realm of doctrine, there was an emergent Navy acceptance of the value of strategic air campaigns and the idea that naval air forces must become more influential players in them. For its part, the Air Force also embraced the new demands and opportunities for working more synergistically with its Navy counter- parts both in peacetime training and in actual combat, where joint- force commanders stood to gain from the increased leverage that was promised by their working together more closely as a single team. The single most influential factor that accounted for bringing the two services ever closer together in strike-warfare tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) in this manner was the nation’s ten-year expe- rience with Operations Northern and Southern Watch, in which both Air Force land-based fighters and Navy carrier-based fighters jointly enforced the United Nations (UN)–imposed no-fly zones over north- ern and southern Iraq that had first been put into effect shortly after the conclusion of Operation Desert Storm. That steady-state aerial policing function turned out to be a real-world operations laboratory for the two services, and it ended up being the main crucible in which their gradual merger of operational cultures and styles was forged. To be sure, despite this steady trend toward more harmonious Air Force–Navy cooperation, some lingering cultural disconnects between the two services persisted for a time throughout 1990s, most notably with respect to continued Navy discomfiture over having to operate within the framework of the Air Force–inspired ATO and the uneven way in which, at least in the view of many naval aviators, that mecha- nism made less than the most effective use of the nation’s increasingly capable carrier-based forces. Nevertheless, the results of this steady process of integration were finally showcased by the near-seamless Air Force and Navy performance in their joint conduct of integrated strike operations in the largely air-centric war in Afghanistan in late 2001 and early 2002. The uncommonly close meshing of land- and sea-based air involvement in that first round in the global war on terror, as well as the unprecedentedly prominent role the Navy played in the planning and conduct of the war, bore witness to a remarkable transformation