"The Air Force may have adopted a doctrine on irregular warfare - combating insurgents and guerrillas while trying to win the hearts and minds of a local population - but it's not about to abandon the advantages of airpower and sophisticated weaponry in the name of "fighting fair."

Maj. Gen. Allen Peck, commander of the Air Force Doctrine Development and Education Center, made that pretty clear today at the Air & Space Conference sponsored by the Air Force Association in Washington, D.C.

Peck - noting that the Air Force's irregular warfare doctrine stipulates that military actions must come second to influencing the population you're trying to win over - heard that an earlier speaker said that just using airpower, even on a legitimate target, gives the enemy a propaganda opportunity.

The argument made by the earlier speaker is that enemy troops will claim the Air Force attacks them from the air but will not come face to face to fight them.

It was obviously not a question Peck usually gets. Or, perhaps, one he’d ever heard.

"We should eschew capabilities that the enemy doesn't have and just drive up and put a bayonet in his chest because that's the only capability they have?" Peck asked. "We're using weapons from the air, and that's cheating? And we're doing it at night and we have precision weapons and they don't? I don't even know how to respond to that."

The fact is, Peck said, "I don't want a fair fight."

The Air Force drew up an irregular warfare doctrine that was approved by Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley on Aug. 24. A key part of the doctrine is that while combating and defeating the enemy, you don't things to turn the civilian population against you.

Legitimacy and influence are critical, according to the doctrine, and "the battle of arms" must work in harmony with "the battle for influence," but not become more important.

Still, it’s warfare. And somebody has to decide when a particular action is necessary - even if it may be viewed negatively by the population.

If the target is a mosque, for example, "chances are something like that, the approval level is going to be pretty high," Peck said, with the person making that call likely being the one who will have to publicly justify it later."

-- Bryant Jordan
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/003750.html


What! fight fair? Is this guy serious, the very means of the insurgents tactics (gurilla warfare) are unfair to the 'T'. The moment war becomes fair; it isn't war at all, but a game.

War War War

http://old.newlit.ru/~purdenko/002117.jpg

WAR !!! WAR !!! WAR !!!!

It's absurd though, this guy is saying we should fight fair.

It's absurd though, this guy is saying we should fight fair.

misleading is a tactic of war

power is everything. power is everything. power is everything.

we are nothing alone. unite. crush. kill.

Victory shall be OURS!!!

If you are fighting to win, are you sure you want to bomb civilians from the air in an insurgency ?

Does that increase your odds of winning?

If you are fighting to win, are you sure you want to bomb civilians from the air in an insurgency ?

Does that increase your odds of winning?

Goal is met: win

misleading is a tactic of war

Maskirovka?
Da.

Maskirovka?
Da.

:cool: ci, comprehende.

If you are fighting to win, are you sure you want to bomb civilians from the air in an insurgency ?

Does that increase your odds of winning?

It all depends on the situation; what ever opportunity we see that will give us the edge, we should take it.

If you are fighting to win, are you sure you want to bomb civilians from the air in an insurgency ?

Does that increase your odds of winning?

Trying to find the insurgents that use civilians as human shields are difficult to kill. If the civilians won't kill them then they must be dealt with somehow without killing to many civilians as possible. In any war there are civilian causalities as you well know. But when insurgents use those civilians as hostages in order to kill American troops then anything goes but avoiding as many civilian deaths and injuries as humanly possible.

It helps rediuce the enemy combatants but doesn't help with the civilians trust of the Americans. I do think the civilians realise that they are going to get killed either way so they are screwed anyway they look at it. The insurgents will kill them just for not helping them with hideing them or feeding them so the insurgents are the real assholes in this war.

THEY SHOOT AT US? GIT TEH NOOKZ!!!!

Armchair general underrates utility of tactical air power in irregular warfare? I am shocked and awed.

To add content, Maj. Gen. Peck had an essay published in this summer's Air Power Journal that is worth reading. "Airpower’s Crucial Role in Irregular Warfare": link (http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj07/sum07/peck.html)

;1559341']THEY SHOOT AT US? GIT TEH NOOKZ!!!!

PPPZZZZZZZZOWNED!!!!

We had overwhelming air power in Vietnam and we still lost. Air power is useful in counterinsurgency, but only to a degree. It depends on having precise intelligence about valuable targets, usually people. I agree that it could be counterproductive in heavily populated areas, the Israelis learned that.

We had overwhelming air power in Vietnam and we still lost.

Yeah, but we weren't allowed to use it!!

We could have bombed Hanoi into a pile of rubble, but the politicians wouldn't let us do it.
We could have bombed the Hai-Phong harbor, where they got most of their war supplies, but the politicians wouldn't let us bomb it.
We could have destroyed their railroad system, but the politicians wouldn't let us bomb them.
We could have destroyed their military airfields, but the politicians wouldn't let us bomb them.
We could have destroyed their radar systems, but the politicians wouldn't let us do it.
We could have destroyed their SAM missile sites, but the politicians wouldn't let us do it.

Are you getting the basic pictures of why we were forced to pull out of Vietnam?

And they're doing the same thing now in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military could win easily, simply, but the politicians won't let them fight. But everyone in the world encourages the insurgents and the terrorists in their efforts to ....ahh, what, kill more Iraqis?

Baron Max

Armchair general underrates utility of tactical air power in irregular warfare? I am shocked and awed. We can find real generals on both sides of this argument.

We have some right now arguing that we can "win" by bombing Iran, without invasion. We have others disparaging such a strategy.

We have no examples of wars against insurgencies won by air power, that I can think of off hand. We have several examples of air power failing to achieve the original publically admitted objectives - Vietnam and Iraq maybe the most obvious for the US, Lebanon for Israel, Afghanistan for the Russians, etc.

There were more bombs dropped on Vietnam and neighboring countries than on Germany in WWII.

In Iraq, as in Vietnam, it's possible that bombing and rocketing the civilian popualtion as we did set us back in our objectives, and has made "winning" more difficult.

That depends on what counts as winning, of course.

Exactly, Iceaura. There has been a determination to use air power over everything else in Iraq right from the beggining, and it leads to high civilian casualties and lack of trust in the locals.

..., and it leads to high civilian casualties and lack of trust in the locals.

When the civilians and the locals are all dead and gone, one doesn't have to worry about their lack trust!

Baron Max

We have some right now arguing that we can "win" by bombing Iran, without invasion. We have others disparaging such a strategy.

We have no examples of wars against insurgencies won by air power, that I can think of off hand. We have several examples of air power failing to achieve the original publically admitted objectives - Vietnam and Iraq maybe the most obvious for the US, Lebanon for Israel, Afghanistan for the Russians, etc.
The guys who say that air power will do the job against Iran are talking about halting their nuclear ambitions specifically, nothing more. To summarize very quickly because I'm tired: leveling the Bushehr reactor and maybe a handful of other support facilities will be enough to interrupt the Iranian nuclear fuel cycle and prevent them from producing fissile plutonium, which would be the surest way to fight proliferation if it ever came to that. In truth, a brief air campaign really wouldn't be all that difficult to pull off. By the time we were hearing about it on the news it would probably be over. The absolute extent of ground force involvement would be in the form of SF teams to direct the strikes, but probably not even.

Pointing out that insurgencies can't be won through airpower is a strawman. Nobody with any education in the matter would argue such a ridiculous point (ex. Baron Max) and it is an axiom in COIN doctrine that the foremost asset is manpower. The general rule of thumb there is at least 1 counterinsurgent for every 50 locals. After that, you push local security and run effects-based operations to help build popular support for the host nation government and improve the quality of life for the citizens. Air power is an enabler to this end, and is applied in a manner that is symptomatic and supportive.

I'll recommend some additional reading about the many ways in which air power is immeasurably beneficial to a COIN campaign. Check out Appendix E of FM 3-24:

http://usacac.army.mil/cac/repository/materials/coin-fm3-24.pdf