How Military Air Freight Moves in Post-9/11 World
Introduction
The American armed forces seemingly dictate state-on-state war. Its last true challenger in the military arena was the disbanded Soviet Union. The latest conflicts like Iraqi Freedom, Panama, Desert Storm (Iraq), Libya, Kosovo, Bosnia, and Afghanistan demonstrate that the American military has succeeded in accomplishing its classic military goals against other nations armies in various circumstances. Accomplishing military goals of political significance against terrorists, rebels, and other non-state players have been increasingly tricky (Bolkcom & Katzman, 2006). Fighting non-state players was earlier widely perceived as a lesser included case as such players were seemingly less of a threat to the nations security when compared to well-financed, sophisticated, and far more militarily powerful armies of hostile countries.
But the 9/11 attacks graphically demonstrated that even small clusters of non-governmental players could take advantage of the commercially available, fairly cheap present-day technology for carrying out highly lethal attacks over large distances. A scant number of contemporary observers regard non-state players as the previously-mentioned lesser included case. It is increasingly acknowledged that, in several instances, fighting non-state players poses a distinctive and usually bigger series of challenges as compared to fighting typical military enemies. Decision-makers at the top-level utilize innumerable instruments for finding, tracking, detecting, apprehending, neutralizing, and eliminating terrorist individuals and groups and other non-governmental players. An examination of the latest anti-terrorism endeavors reveals the prominent contribution of military aviation in carrying out the above tasks. Congressional issues include whether the American military aviation is appropriately financed, trained, deployed, equipped, and organized to fight non-state players (Bene, 2017). In this paper, background information on terrorism and other non-state player challenges will be presented, in addition to the potential contribution of military aviation to operations undertaken against these players. The next section deals with military aviation employment problems against non-state players and potential alternatives to consider.
Challenges of Combating Non-State Actors
The American armed forces can be deployed against nations giving refuge to terrorists or sponsoring terrorist events. The widely-held belief is that the U.S. army is typically well-equipped and trained to face the challenges connected with defeating regular armies of terrorism-sponsoring governments. This paper concentrates on several challenges related to military aviation adoption to combat non-state players, including terrorists directly. The challenges are segregated into the following three groups: operational challenges, cost challenges, and mindset challenges (Perl, 2003).
Operational challenges
As opposed to a countrys army, non-state players can be easily defeated in a direct combat situation. The latter normally do not possess the discipline, equipment, and training defining national armies. The main operational issue lies in actual direct fights with such players as they commonly don no uniforms. Rather, they mostly try to blend in with the domestic civilian
Furthermore, they seldom congregate into easily identifiable arrangements and largely lack overt logistical processes or large infrastructure. Thus, they pose some high-value targets for the American military. Defense Department leaders are well-aware of the challenge presented by this faction, as evidenced by the following statement:
For many years, though, theres been a concern that intelligence collection capability rested in the ability to find a tank or an artillery piece hiding in a grove of trees. The problem now becomes how to find individuals hiding in groups of people...This presents a huge problem for us (Simons & Tucker, 2003).
Non-country entities like Al Qaeda have an obscure framework and leadership. They may be diffuse, operating over great distances. For instance, the Al Qaeda frequently operates via small partner organizations with fluid leadership. If one leader of an outfit gets apprehended or killed, he is swiftly replaced by...
…outside line-of-sight communication. The U.S. Air Force lacked command-and-control
aircraft devoted to such missions because of the 2002 retirement of the EC-130E ABCCC (Airborne Battlefield Command and Control Center). Air Force personnel find some comfort in the knowledge that there has been a push for an EC-130E, whose lone mission was to support CAS and CSAR (combat search and rescue)
communications.
Mindset Changes as a result of 9/11
The establishment and implementation of novel acquisition priorities for better fighting non-state players are challenging. But for identifying and implementing reforms in airpower planning, policy, approach, maneuvers, and coordination to that end, a change in outlook concerning military air freight is needed. Together with likely acquisition priority reforms, there seem to be no less than two overarching perspective changes to be considered, namely, Direct vs. Indirect Action and Centralization vs. Decentralization.
Centralization vs. Decentralization.Utilizing airpower against typical contemporary adversaries greatly revolves around getting inside the enemys OODA (Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act) loop a broad construct to describe the military decision-making process of the enemy.
Direct action as against Advisory or Supporting Activities.Lawmakers face how much to concentrate on direct airpower application against non-state players compared with counseling and supporting allies airpower undertakings or allocating major resources to security officials and ground troops looking for terrorist groups leadership.
November 2005 witnessed the declaration that a total of 2,660 Marines would become Special Operations Command members. Besides a couple of trigger-pulling battalions, roughly eight-hundred Marines would specialize in intelligence, FID, and logistics (Graham, 2005). Those advocating for improvements in A-FID capabilities can consider this an opportunity. The addition of Marines to 6SOS would enhance the manpower of the squad and potentially improve all entities processes and knowledge since the air force could get exposed to the experiences of the Marine Corps with FID and close air support.
References
Bene, J.…
