Developing Air Force Operational Planners for Enhanced Air-to-Ground Integration - Marker, Jeffrey L

. .

Résumé :
The United States military is unquestionably the most dominant fighting force in the world today and the Air Force is a critical aspect of that power. Our adversaries recognize these facts and are shifting the nature of war away from force-on-force conflict, turning instead to more asymmetric forms of conflict. To adjust, the United States Army is pushing planning and execution authority to lower echelons, and the Air Force should follow suit. Reviews of counterinsurgency actions in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom highlight the opportunity for increased flexibility when supporting ground forces and show how the Air Force should develop airpower expertise and planning capability to align with Army organizations. To make this change, the Air Force should develop airpower experts and modular, scalable planning teams capable of operational-level planning across the full spectrum of Air Force capabilities, and integrate those experts into Army divisions, brigades and battalions to maximize joint air, ground and space effectiveness. To demonstrate these points, this paper describes the current integration structure and builds upon lessons learned reports and analysis of current operations to propose this new planning construct aimed to improve the integration of joint air, ground and space capabilities.

Sommaire:

The United States military is unquestionably the most dominant fighting force in the world today and the Air Force is a critical aspect of that power. Our adversaries recognize these facts and are shifting the nature of war away from force-on-force conflict, turning instead to more asymmetric forms of conflict. To adjust, the United States Army is pushing planning and execution authority to lower echelons, and the Air Force should follow suit. Reviews of counterinsurgency actions in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom highlight the opportunity for increased flexibility when supporting ground forces and show how the Air Force should develop airpower expertise and planning capability to align with Army organizations. To make this change, the Air Force should develop airpower experts and modular, scalable planning teams capable of operational-level planning across the full spectrum of Air Force capabilities, and integrate those experts into Army divisions, brigades and battalions to maximize joint air, ground and space effectiveness. To demonstrate these points, this paper describes the current integration structure and builds upon lessons learned reports and analysis of current operations to propose this new planning construct aimed to improve the integration of joint air, ground and space capabilities.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.