Supporting Air and Space Expeditionary Forces: Analysis of Combat Support Basing Options
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Supporting Air and Space Expeditionary Forces: Analysis of Combat Support Basing Options
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780833036759 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | RAND Corporation |
| Publication date: | 06/21/1995 |
| Series: | Supporting Air and Space Expeditionary Forces Ser. |
| Pages: | 145 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.28(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.41(d) |
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Supporting Air and Space Expeditionary Forces
Analysis of Combat Support Basing OptionsBy Mahyar A. Amouzegar Robert S. Tripp Ronald G. McGarvey Edward W. Chan Charles Robert Roll, Jr.
RAND Corporation
Copyright © 2004 RAND CorporationAll right reserved.
Chapter One
Introduction
The end of the Cold War and the associated realignment of power centers placed the United States and its allies in a new environment with vastly different security challenges than the one faced only a decade earlier. The early euphoria of the end of the Cold War was soon replaced with the realization that the United States , with the possible support of allied coalitions, would be expected to carry a substantial portion of security and peacekeeping responsibilities around the globe. In today's environment, U.S. forces, and in particular the U.S. Air Force, have been called upon to make numerous overseas deployments, many on short notice, using downsized Cold War legacy force and support structures. The forces have had to satisfy a wide range of mission requirements associated with peacekeeping and humanitarian relief, while maintaining the capability to engage in major combat operations such as those associated with operations over Iraq, Serbia, and Afghanistan. A recurring challenge facing the post-Cold War Air Force has been its increasing frequency of deployments to increasingly austere locations.
U.S. defense policymakers can no longer plan for a particular scenario in a specific region of the world as the geopoliticaldivide of the last century has been replaced with a security environment that is more volatile. One of the many lessons of the past decade has been the unpredictability of the nature and the location of the conflicts. In the conflict in Serbia, the U.S. and coalition Air Forces in Operation Allied Force (OAF) played a major role in driving the Serbian forces from Kosovo. A common thought of the day was that all future conflicts would be air dominated.
The events of September 11, 2001, and the consequent U.S. reprisal against the Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan-Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF)-reemphasized the importance of asymmetric warfare and the fundamental role of Special Forces. These events, however, have not lessened the need for a powerful and agile aerospace force as the United States Air Force (USAF) flew long-range bombers to provide close air support to Special Operations Forces working with indigenous resistance ground forces in Afghanistan, far from existing U.S. bases. In Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), the U.S. Air Force played a substantial role throughout the conflict, from its initial role to suppress and disable the Iraqi command and control and the air defense system, to providing close air support in urban environments.
Creation of the Air and Space Expeditionary Force
To meet current and anticipated challenges, the Air Force has developed an Air and Space Expeditionary Force (AEF) concept that has two primary goals. The first goal is to improve the ability to deploy quickly from the Continental U.S. (CONUS) in response to a crisis, commence operations immediately on arrival, and sustain those operations as needed. The second goal is to reorganize to improve readiness, better balance deployment assignments among units, and reduce uncertainty associated with meeting deployment requirements. The underlying premise is that rapid deployment from CONUS and a seamless transition to sustainment can substitute for an ongoing U.S. presence in theater, greatly reducing or even eliminating deployments the Air Force would otherwise stage for the purpose of deterrence.
To implement the AEF concept, the Air Force created ten Aerospace Expeditionary Forces, each comprising a mixture of fighters, bombers, and tankers. These ten AEFs respond to contingencies on a rotating basis: for 90 days, two of the ten AEFs are "on-call" to respond to any crisis needing air power. The "on-call" period is followed by a 12-month period during which those two AEFs are not subject to short-notice deployments or rotations. In the AEF system, individual wings and squadrons no longer deploy and fight as full and/or single units as they did during the Cold War. Instead, each AEF customizes a force package for each contingency consisting of varying numbers of aircraft from different units. This fixed schedule of steady-state rotational deployments promises to increase flexibility by enabling the Air Force to respond immediately to any crisis with little or no effect on other deployments.
The dramatic increase in deployments from CONUS, combined with the reduction of Air Force resource levels that spawned the AEF concept, have equally increased the need for effective combat support. Because combat support resources are heavy and constitute a large portion of the weight of deployments (as shown in Figure 1.1), they have the potential to enable or constrain operational goals, particularly in today's environment, which is greatly dependent on rapid deployment. Combat support continues to account for the bulk of assets in terms of lift requirements, as shown in Figure 1.2. Consequently, the Air Force is re-examining its combat support infrastructure, to focus on faster deployment, smaller footprint, greater personnel stability, and increased flexibility.
The AEF rapid global force projection goals and associated sustainment requirements create a number of support planning challenges in such areas as munitions and fuel delivery, engines and navigational equipment maintenance, and Forward Operating Locations (FOLs) development. Support is a particular challenge in expeditionary operations, which are often conducted with little warning. The traditional assumption associated with Cold War-era support planning-that scenarios and associated support requirements could be fairly well developed in advance and materiel prepositioned at anticipated FOLs-no longer holds.
Much of the existing support equipment and processes are heavy and not easily transportable; deploying all of the support for almost any sized AEF from CONUS to an overseas location would be expensive in both time and airlifts. As a result, the Air Force has focused attention on streamlining deploying unit combat support processes, reducing the size of deployment packages, and evaluating different technologies for making deploying units more agile and able to be quickly deployed and employed. Decisions on where to locate intermediate maintenance facilities, such as Jet Engine Intermediate Maintenance shops, and non-unit heavy resources (i.e., those not associated with flying units, such as munitions, shelters, and vehicles) are significant drivers of employment timelines.
RAND's Concept of Agile Combat Support
Since the end of the Cold War, and the inception of the AEF concept, the RAND Corporation has worked with the Air Force to determine options for intermediate maintenance, and for combat support as a whole, that could meet the Air Force's changing needs. RAND's research has resulted in what it calls an "Agile Combat Support (ACS)" network, consisting of five principal elements:
1. Forward Operating Locations are sites in a theater, out of which tactical forces operate. FOLs can have differing levels of combat support resources to support a variety of employment timelines. Some FOLs in critical areas under high threat should have equipment prepositioned to enable aerospace packages designed for heavy combat to deploy rapidly. These FOLs might be augmented by other, more austere FOLs that would take longer to spin up. In parts of the world where conflict is less likely or humanitarian missions are the norm, all FOLs might be austere.
2. Forward Support Locations are sites near or within the theater of operation for storage of heavy combat support resources, such as munitions or war reserve materiel (WRM), or for consolidated maintenance and other support activities. The configuration and specific functions of FSLs depend on their geographic location, the threat level, steady state and potential wartime requirements and the costs and benefits associated with using these facilities.
3. CONUS Support Locations (CSLs) are support facilities in the continental United States. CONUS depots are one type of CSL, as are contractor facilities. Other types of CSLs may be analogous to FSLs. Such support structures are needed to support CONUS forces should repair capability and other activities be removed from units. These activities may be set up at major Air Force bases, appropriate civilian transportation hubs, or Air Force or other defense repair and/or supply depots.
4. A transportation network connects the FOLs and FSLs with each other and with CONUS, including locations providing en route tanker support. This is an essential part of an ACS system in which FSLs need assured transportation links to support expeditionary forces. FSLs themselves could be transportation hubs.
5. A Combat Support Command and Control (CSC2) system facilitates a variety of critical management tasks: (1) estimating support requirements, (2) configuring the specific nodes of the system selected to support a given contingency, (3) executing support activities, (4) measuring actual combat support performance against planned performance, (5) developing recourse plans when the system is not within control limits, and (6) reacting swiftly to rapidly changing circumstances.
This infrastructure can be tailored to the demands of any contingency. The first three parts-FOLs, FSLs, and CSLs-are variable; the Air Force configures them as deployments occur to best meet immediate needs. In contrast, the last two elements-a reliable transportation network and a CSC2 system-are indispensable ingredients in any configuration. Determining how to distribute responsibility for the support activities required for any given operation among CSLs, FSLs, and FOLs is an essential part of the strategic planning process. For example, in determining the number of FSLs to support a given operation, and their roles, the Air Force must carefully evaluate such factors as the support capability of available FSLs and the risks and costs of prepositioning specific resources at those locations.
The benefits of maintenance FSLs or centralized intermediate repair facilities (CIRFs) were made more evident by both an ad hoc implementation during the conflict in Kosovo and as a result of USAF formal testing of the CIRF in fall of 2001. However, one of the outstanding issues in our analysis has been a strategic assessment of current and potential locations of supply Forward Support Locations, especially for munitions and non-munitions WRM, which is addressed in this document.
Operation Iraqi Freedom and Beyond
Figure 1.3 illustrates the relative size of engaged forces, the relative time required to plan, and the condition of any prior development in the theater for some recent conflicts. Operation Desert Storm, in the upper left quadrant of the figure, was a large operation that had the benefit of a long buildup time and a relatively good infrastructure. Operation Allied Force, in the lower left quadrant, had less time to plan, but was a smaller operation conducted from bases with good infrastructure. Operation Enduring Freedom, in the lower right quadrant, was a small operation, but was conducted on short notice in an immature theater. Operation Iraqi Freedom was similar to Operation Desert Storm in that it was sized like a major regional conflict (although with a much shorter duration) but had the benefit of long planning and buildup times.
The upper right quadrant of Figure 1.3 represents scenarios that the AEF must be ready to handle. The Air Force chief of staff recently said, "Our heightened tempo of operations is likely to continue at its current pace for the foreseeable future."
Although all of these conflicts are unique in certain ways, they do share certain elements-in particular, Operation Iraqi Freedom shares some attributes with both Operation Allied Force and Operation Enduring Freedom. OIF and OAF both involved a large fighter force and some bombers, a fairly long preparation time, and deployment to known forward operating locations. OAF required minimum Special Operations Forces (SOF) and was supported with a relatively large coalition force (part of Operation Allied Force). Whereas both OEF and OIF used SOF forces extensively, OEF required a large naval participation and made heavy use of tankers and Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) assets.
Although OEF and OIF had very little direct coalition participation in their actual operations, the U.S. military enjoyed the participation of many of its "non-traditional" allies in supporting roles. In years past, we had recommended that a fresh look be taken at North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and European Union (EU) aspirant countries as potential sites for both permanent and virtual maintenance and supply operations. The important roles that many of these countries played in Operation Allied Force, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Iraqi Freedom have further enhanced their value as partners to the United States.
A New Combat-Support Planning Strategy for the 21st Century
The 21st century has ushered a new era in the national security arena in which the focus has shifted from the post-Cold War paradigm of preparing for nonrecurring major regional conflicts to ongoing and succeeding engagements and reconstitutions to deter aggression and coercion throughout the world by both state and stateless actors while preparing to engage and succeed in major theater wars (MTWs).
The department of defense force planning has focused on four major categories:
Defense of the United States
Deterrence of aggression and coercion in critical regions of the world
Swift defeat of aggression in overlapping major conflicts
Conducting a limited number of smaller-scale contingency operations.
The focus of our work is on the last three categories. However, in order to develop a robust combat support system for the Air Force, we must incorporate the temporal elements that have been missing in the earlier combat support planning studies. The Air Force's new role will inevitably include a commitment to multiple engagements in various geographical areas with differing degrees of operational intensity, with some (e.g., drug interdictions) occurring more than once in a short time horizon. This temporal dimension is captured in a new planning methodology in which several likely deployment scenarios, from small-scale humanitarian operations to major regional conflicts, are considered.
After a list of scenarios is generated, it is important to outline the sequencing and recurrence of these scenarios. For any given scenario, decisions should be made regarding its likelihood of occurrence over time (e.g., a given scenario may be highly unlikely over the next five years, but considerably more feasible 20 years out), its interrelationship with other scenarios (e.g., Scenario A may likely occur simultaneously with Scenario B), and its finality (e.g., a given scenario might repeat itself ten years out). We have coined the term m-Period-n-Scenario (MPNS) to describe this planning methodology, where "m" and "n" are placeholders for the number of time periods and the number of deployment scenarios, respectively. This is a major departure from the current war planning mindset. Previously, whether planning for nuclear warfare against the Soviet Union, or for large-scale conventional war in the Near East, U.S. analysts were planning for one great conflict that would occur only once, and that would change the defense environment so greatly as to invalidate plans for out-years following this conflict.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Supporting Air and Space Expeditionary Forces by Mahyar A. Amouzegar Robert S. Tripp Ronald G. McGarvey Edward W. Chan Charles Robert Roll, Jr. Copyright © 2004 by RAND Corporation . Excerpted by permission.
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