Organizing, Training, and Equipping the Air Force for Crises and Lesser Conflicts

xxii, 93, [1] pages. Figure. Footnotes. Tables. References. Conflicts in such places as Bosnia, Somalia, Haiti, Rwanda, and Kuwait lead to a public debate as to whether such assignments are a proper use of U.S. military power. Carl H. Builder (1930-1998): Builder was a legendary senior military operations research analyst at the RAND Corporation. Mr. Builder enlisted in the Navy in 1948 and served in the USS Amphion (AR-13). He was a Midshipman at the U. S. Naval Academy with the Class of 1954. He received both his B.S. and Master of Engineering degrees from the University of California at Los Angeles. His 18-year career in aerospace engineering has been devoted to advanced systems planning and analysis for a broad spectrum of military and civil systems. His industrial associations have been with the Marquardt and United Aircraft Corporations, directing analytical planning studies for weapon and transportation systems. Mr. Builder has also been associated with the non-profit Aerospace and RAND Corporations in the areas of space and strategic system analysis. Known for his seminal 1989 book The Masks of War, he specialized in diagnosing the deep-seated institutional behaviors and organizational cultures of the various American military service branches. Dr. Theodore W. Karasik is an accomplished scholar and geo-political analyst. He spent decades researching defense acquisitions, volatile regional political shifts, and security policy across Eurasia and the Middle East for various U.S. defense agencies. The U.S. armed forces of the post-Cold War era are sized and structured principally to fight and win two nearly simultaneous major regional conflicts (MRCs). Since Operation Desert Storm, the armed forces have been committed to more than 20 nonroutine operations outside the borders of the United States. Although it has been preparing for Major Regional Contingencies (MRCs), the military has found itself instead dispensing humanitarian aid, conducting peace operations, enforcing sanctions, and in other ways intervening in response to numerous crises and lesser conflicts (CALCs). These operations have placed substantial burdens on some force elements. The Air Force has been particularly affected, as CALCs have stressed capabilities for theater airlift, airborne warning and control, reconnaissance, and suppression of air defenses (if an embargo needs to be enforced). This raises the possibility that the MRC-driven force structure is not sufficient in some respects for CALCs. In a recent Project AIR FORCE study, a team of RAND researchers sought to identify directions the Air Force might take in responding to growing CALC demands. The researchers began with the recognition that the increasing importance of CALCs poses a dilemma for an Air Force oriented toward MRCs. Senior military officials have already expressed concern that CALC demands might be eroding their ability to respond to MRCs. Furthermore, enhancing capabilities to respond to CALCs could make demands on funds already stretched thin by budget reductions and by the need for forces large enough to meet the two-MRC requirement. Nonetheless, the RAND researchers thought it instructive to consider just what changes would be appropriate, at the limit, if the Air Force were to be organized, trained, and equipped for CALCs. Organizing. Organizational changes offer the Air Force a low-cost, high-payoff way to increase CALC responsiveness, although institutional reaction could make such changes among the most difficult to effect. The most important change would be to create a headquarters point of advocacy for CALC capabilities. Currently, no Air Force office speaks for opportunities to improve those capabilities-and without such a voice, other measures to improve CALC responsiveness are unlikely to be implemented. A more CALC-driven Air Force might also require these actions: Reversing the current active/reserve allocation of responsibilities so that more of the support forces ne.…