Airpower Future Use

Libyan Operation Demonstrates US-Europe Capabilities Gap

One of the eye-opening features of the three month old NATO air campaign in Libya is the hollowness of the world’s premier military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Let’s be honest, this is not a major conventional war against a capable adversary. The real challenge for NATO airpower is finding targets to hit. The Alliance publishes daily statistics of sorties flown and strike missions conducted. Of course, the vast majority of those strike missions are unsuccessful meaning that the aircraft went out armed and came back without having expended any ordinance. Yet, without significant U.S. assistance, NATO would not have been able to initiate the air campaign and the Alliance’s air armada would be grounded today. The Libyan campaign began with several hundred cruise missile strikes on Libyan air defenses, most of which were conducted by U.S. ships and submarines. Ongoing patrols to suppress residual enemy air defenses are being conducted by U.S. Air Force F-16CJs and U.S. Navy EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft. According to a White House report, the U.S. is providing nearly 70 percent of NATO’s ISR capability. This is not just a matter of numbers of sensor platforms. The U.S. deploys a range of unique capabilities for which there is no NATO counterparts including the U-2, the E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System ground surveillance aircraft, and the Navy's P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft. The U.S. provides nearly 70 percent of the NATO operation's ISR capacity, according to the White House report. Without U.S. ISR assets, NATO would be conducting its air operations in the blind. “In particular, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets are lacking that would allow more allies to be involved and make an impact. The most advanced fighter aircraft are little use if allies do not have the means to identify, process, and strike targets as part of an integrated campaign. To run the air campaign, the NATO air operations center in Italy required a major augmentation of targeting specialists, mainly from the U.S., to do the job – a “just in time” infusion of personnel that may not always be available in future contingencies. We have the spectacle of an air operations center designed to handle more than 300 sorties a day struggling to launch about 150.

Information Dissemination: Technology and Executive Power

In the future, however, presidents may resort to airpower in order to avoid congressional limitations on their executive power. A longer-range concern is that as the United States continues to develop technologies that increase the distance between "shooter" and target, such as advanced drones and Prompt Global Strike, power over decisions of military and security policy would shift even more radically away from Congress and toward the executive... In the short term, members of Congress concerned about executive control over war-making powers might be best advised to pay closer attention to procurement decisions. If the president continues to claim the right to use certain weapons of war without Congressional oversight, then Congress is clearly within its powers to deny those weapons to the president, or at least to demand accountability. In the future, however, presidents may resort to airpower in order to avoid congressional limitations on their executive power. A longer-range concern is that as the United States continues to develop technologies that increase the distance between "shooter" and target, such as advanced drones and Prompt Global Strike, power over decisions of military and security policy would shift even more radically away from Congress and toward the executive... In the short term, members of Congress concerned about executive control over war-making powers might be best advised to pay closer attention to procurement decisions. If the president continues to claim the right to use certain weapons of war without Congressional oversight, then Congress is clearly within its powers to deny those weapons to the president, or at least to demand accountability.

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