In Homer’s “The Odyssey,” Odysseus’ ship sails past a shore
inhabited by the Sirens, whose alluring call to his crew seeks to entice the
men to join them ashore with the promise of supernatural wisdom, and the promise
of freedom to sail on with that wisdom once imparted. Odysseus sees the Siren’s song for what it
is: enticement so strong that a man,
once enthralled, never wants to leave, even to the point of his death.
Midway through my career as a Marine infantry officer I
received orders to attend the US Air Force’s Air Command and Staff College
(ACSC). Following graduation, I joined
the faculty of ACSC as one of two Marine officers filling joint assignments as
instructors. What was supposed to be a three-year joint job was cut
short by a year when I was selected for command of an infantry battalion. But three years at the Mecca of Airpower was
enough for this grunt. One can only
stand so much of a good thing -- nowhere
else in DOD can a Marine go on vacation and get joint credit.
Colonel John Warden, author of “The Air Campaign” and
proclaimed “architect” of the Desert Storm air campaign, had assumed command of
ACSC just prior to my arrival as a student in the Class of 1994, and had
radically overhauled the curriculum. He
welcomed that class on Day 1 and gave us the mission of finding a way to use
airpower alone to win wars. Warden was a
“true believer” in the absolute supremacy of the strategic application of
conventional airpower over all other arms.
So much so that his own theory was that technologically advanced
conventional (not nuclear) airpower applied at just the right place and time (a
critical node in an enemy state’s system) would cause a catastrophic, cascading
failure of the enemy state’s entire system.
At the foundation of his theory was the need to view the enemy, not so
much as formations of men and material, but as a system of interconnected
nodes. On paper, it was, and still is it
seems, an alluring concept -- a Sirens’ song promising a quick and ground force-saving achievement of strategic war aims.
The belief that just the right application of technologically
advanced conventional airpower can win any war without the need for costly and
bloody “boots on the ground,” dates back almost to the first flight at Kitty
Hawk. Following the First World War, in
which airpower was primarily used as a tactical, supporting arm for ground
forces, airpower theorists such as Hugh Trenchard, Guilio Douhet, and Billy
Mitchell, argued that technologically advanced airpower’s greatest value was
not in its tactical, or even operational application, but in a strategic attack
against an enemy’s most critical regime-supporting systems.
In the US Army Air Corps, prior to the Second World War, a
debate raged between theorizing airmen over which type of airpower,
fighter/interceptor or heavy bomber, should be the focus of attention (and
therefore garner the lion’s share of finite resources). Each side addressed the further
operations-enabling concept of air superiority (the degree to which one side in
a conflict holds control of air power over opposing forces). The fighter proponents argued that
achievement of air superiority through fighter/interceptor operations in aerial
combat was a crucial first step in any prolonged air campaign, and that without
fighter/interceptor aircraft in sufficient numbers to overwhelm and destroy the
enemy’s own fighters, follow-on strategic bombers could not be effective. Proponents of strategic bombing believed that
heavy strategic bombers, bristling with formidable defensive armament and
flying in tight, mutually supporting formations, would not need fighter escort
and would achieve local air superiority sufficient to allow attack of key
strategic targets. They believed that,
as Douhet theorized, and British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin warned, “the
bomber will always get through.”
Given that, in the middle of the last century, the US
mainland was out of reach of any foreseeable enemy’s bomber, the need for
interceptor aircraft was deemed far less than the need for long-range heavy
bombers. Further, the bomber enthusiasts
argued that heavily defensive-armed bombers would not need fighter escort and that any
attention given to the development of long-range fighter aircraft was a waste
of resources.
Add to this Siren’s Song the promise of supernatural high
altitude daylight precision bombardment with the technologically advanced
Norden bombsight (“we can put a bomb in a pickle barrel from 20,000 feet”) and
the position of the bomber proponents became too alluring to resist. The
strategic airpower enthusiasts of the inter-war period also promised that US
prioritization of resources to heavy bomber production would avoid the
disastrous waste of men in the attrition battles of trench warfare in the First
World War.
As even the most cursory examination of history reveals, the
promise of winning the war from the air came with its own butcher bill to
pay. In 1943, unescorted heavy bomber
formations flying missions over Nazi-occupied Europe were decimated. The 8th Air Force alone, lost more
men killed in the skies over Europe, than the entire Marine Corps lost in the
Pacific. Air superiority was achieved
over Europe, thanks to the eventual introduction of long-range fighter aircraft
and the resultant unrecoverable high attrition of German fighter pilots. As Dr. Rich Mueller, head of my instructor
group at ACSC, said, “The air war over Europe was trench warfare in the sky.”
There was even still, a belief amongst the airpower zealots
during that war that ground invasion of Europe was unnecessary. Their argument was that now that air
superiority (in some cases, air supremacy) had been achieved over Europe, the
systematic destruction of Germany’s war-making capability would eventually be
achieved – all from the air.
Of course, that would probably have meant that the Red Army
would have taken not just Eastern Europe, but all Western Europe as well. Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” would have
fallen astride the English Channel.
To this day, the Siren’s promise of technologically advanced
airpower effectiveness continues to supplant the wisdom of practical
experience. The United States today is
in possession of the most impressively advanced conventional airpower
capability the world has ever seen. The
airpower Sirens sang that our unmatched strength and incredible accuracy would
quickly bring the Islamic Republic of Iran to its knees.
They are indeed on their knees. But without a boot on their neck, they will
not capitulate.
Since WWII, we have conventionally bombed a succession of
enemy state’s systems to dust. Not one
of them gave up, save Iraq; whose capital was occupied by U.S. ground forces.
I would be the very last retired military professional to
recommend a ground invasion of Iran. But
don’t sing me a lullaby and tell me it’s not nap time.
To the next generation of political/military leadership:
Don’t listen to the Siren’s song. If the
cost of introducing ground forces to put a boot on an enemy’s neck is not worth
the strategic aim, it ain’t a well thought out strategic objective.
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