Air Power in the New Counterinsurgency Era: The Strategic Importance of USAF Advisory and Assistance Missions.

Air Power in the New Counter-insurgency

Era: The Strategic

Importance of USAF Advisory

and Assistance Missions

by Alan J. Vick, Adam Grissom,

William Rosenau, Beth Grill, and

Karl P. Mueller

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2006

204 pp. $25.00

ISBN: 978-0-8330-3963-7

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Air Power in the New Counterinsurgency Era delivers far more than the title implies. In the best tradition of RAND studies, this work combines theory, model development, and policy applications for developing counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy writ large and for improving U.S. Air Force COIN capabilities specifically.

The first half of the study analyzes the emerging strategic environment and examines the nature and importance of contemporary insurgencies, especially those being leveraged by global jihadists, to U.S. national security interests. The authors correctly place the issue of military counterinsurgency strategy within the larger framework of grand strategy involving political, diplomatic, social, economic, and law enforcement efforts. While stressing the essentially political nature of COIN, the authors argue that the nature and extent of the U.S. military response requires a cost-benefit analysis based on the level of risk and expense tied to the probability of success. With respect to military means, they argue: "The most effective means for the U.S. military to contribute to the defeat of insurgencies is indirectly, through advisory and training missions" (146).

With respect to model development, the work provides a useful dual typology for describing COIN strategy: a precautionary approach or a remedial approach. In the case of the former, early detection and timely intervention provide the keys to preventing nascent insurgencies from evolving into movements threatening regime stability. If an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure, then the cases of the recent Georgia Train and Equip program and the U.S. effort in El Salvador in the 1980s offer cost-effective options that allowed host governments to effectively marginalize or defeat insurgent groups, obviating the requirement for large-scale U.S. involvement. In cases of established insurgencies, the remedial strategy draws on a true interagency approach incorporating phased or graduated military responses ranging from training and advisory functions to the participation of forces in direct combat operations, as exemplified in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The second half of the work focuses on the employment and efficacy of airpower assets in the counterinsurgency role and provides recommendations for senior Air Force leaders for enhancing Service COIN capabilities. Above all, the authors insist that "COIN be treated as a problem as important as conventional warfighting even though the manpower, dollars, and force structure devoted to it will likely never need to be as large as that devoted to major combat operations" (xii-xiii). In truth, this assertion constitutes a major challenge for a Service that historically has seen the air advisory and training function as little more than a sideshow to the main effort. Within the U.S. Air Force, the air advisory mission has benefited from tepid rhetorical and minimal materiel support at best, and, at worst, has suffered from outright neglect.

According to the authors, the "single most effective means" for reversing the traditional neglect of this mission and expanding USAF expertise involves "the creation of a wing size organization dedicated to aviation advising" (136). In addition, the study advocates personnel initiatives designed to identify, train, and promote officers and noncommissioned officers who choose the air advisory career path. However, the fundamental challenge involved in creating a robust air advisory capability centers less on specific organizational initiatives than on the creation of a new institutional mindset among the senior leadership. As Stephen Rosen highlights in Winning the Next War: Innovation and the Modern Military (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), military innovation requires advocates within the senior flag ranks of the affected Service. Indeed, the U.S. Army's adoption of the airmobile concept in the 1960s provides an apt model for the current Air Force air advisory effort. The creation of the Army's air mobility capability resulted from the patronage and support of Generals James Gavin and Hamilton Howze, the transfer of "blue chip" or "fast burner" colonels from the traditional combat branches into the new combat arm, and the promise of promotion opportunities for mid-career and junior officers. Similarly, the creation of a viable and effective U.S. Air Force air advisory mission will require all of these steps along with the investment of substantial financial resources from a limited budget.

Air Power and the New Counterinsurgency Era is a work of critical importance for Air Force senior leadership and the rank and file. It offers a prescient analysis of COIN warfare and strategy and provides trenchant recommendations for enhancing the Service's capability in the long war against Islamic extremism. In the end, however, Service priorities determine resource commitments, and it remains to be seen if the U.S. Air Force will invest in an air advisory ounce of prevention or remain wedded to a conventionally based pound of cure.

Reviewed by EDWARD B. WESTERMANN Colonel Edward B. Westermann, USAF, is a Senior Military Professor in the Department of Military Studies at the U.S. Air Force Academy.