Living With Fog and Friction: The Fallacy of Information Superiority
War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty. A sensitive and discriminating judgment is called...
View ArticleTreating the Islamic State as a State
Rhetorically, the tendency in the U.S. government is to treat the Islamic State as an insurgent movement rather than a state-like entity. It is often called ISIL — the Islamic State in Iraq and the...
View ArticleThe U.S. Air Force and Stealth: Stuck on Denial Part I
Note: This article is the first of a series addressing the challenges facing the Air Force’s combat aviation capabilities in the future. The series, titled “Stuck on Denial,” addresses the root of the...
View ArticleRediscovering Low Altitude: Getting Past the Air Force’s Overcommitment to...
Editor’s note: This is the second in a two-part series, “Stuck on Denial,” which looks at the U.S. Air Force and its use of stealth technology. Read the first part here. On the night of May 16, 1943,...
View ArticleLow-Altitude Penetration and Electronic Warfare: Stuck on Denial, Part III
Desert Storm remains the benchmark for a modern air campaign. In 40 days, a diverse assembly of coalition airpower managed to shatter one of the world’s largest military establishments, paving the way...
View ArticleThe Need for SEAD Part I: The Nature of SEAD
Editor’s Note: The Nature of SEAD is the first part of a 2-part series calling for the restoration of the defense suppression enterprise that carried the Joint Force from Vietnam until Desert Storm....
View ArticleIt’s Not About the Airplane: Envisioning the A-X2
The ongoing debate over the A-10 is settled only in the short term. Congress has directed the Air Force to retain the A-10 airframe, and that is sensible for now, but it is only a short-term fix. The...
View ArticleThe Need for SEAD Part II: The Evolving Threat
Editor’s Note: This is the second part of a 2-part series called “The Need for SEAD”, which advocates the restoration of the defense suppression enterprise that carried the Joint Force from Vietnam...
View ArticleAvoiding the Charge of the Light Brigade Against China
Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them, Volleyed and thundered; Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of...
View ArticleWe Already Have an Arsenal Plane: It’s Called the B-52
And the last project I want to highlight is one that we’re calling the arsenal plane, which takes one of our oldest aircraft platforms and turns it into a flying launchpad for all sorts of different...
View ArticleThe Myth of High-Threat Close Air Support
Close air support (CAS) is air action by fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft against hostile targets that are in close proximity to friendly forces and requires detailed integration of each air mission...
View ArticleThis is Not the Killer Robot You’re Looking For: Dallas Police Used a...
A standoff between police and one of the suspects in a Dallas shooting spree, which left at least five police officers dead and seven others wounded Thursday night, ended after the suspect was killed...
View ArticleThe Phantom Menace: When Threat Capabilities Are Made Up
The propeller-driven OA-X would be configured mainly for “permissive” environments, meaning places where enemies have no air forces and no air defenses. Those kinds of places are fast disappearing,...
View ArticlePolitical Airpower, Part I: Say No to the No-Fly Zone
There is an old adage about shortcuts: If they worked, they would simply be called “the way.” For military strategy, any shortcuts come with significant penalties. This is applicable across multiple...
View ArticlePockets, Pinkish Hues, and Other Flight Suit Problems
I recently went to Kabul International Airport for a two-week airpower survey. Kabul International, hosting a NATO base, has very little in the way of uniform rules. You cannot wear shorts to the...
View ArticleLogistical Fratricide: The Cost of Fast Jet TACAIR, Measured in Purple Hearts
“Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics.” The U.S. Air Force has been continuously at war for more than 25 years. From the opening minutes of Desert Storm to the present, there...
View ArticlePolitical Airpower, Part II: The Seductive Allure of Precision Weapons
Editor’s Note: Please read the first installment of this series, “Say No to the No-Fly Zone.” I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail....
View ArticleNo End in Sight to the Army’s Dependence on Airpower
“Land-based forces now are going to have to penetrate denied areas to facilitate air and naval forces. This is exact opposite of what we have done for the last 70 years, where air and naval forces...
View ArticleClash of Clans: The Air Force Can Never Deliver Enough Close Air Support for...
In spite of the fact that close air support has shown that it is often one of the truly pivotal uses of air power in modern warfare, even now no other single issue seems more quickly to lead to...
View ArticleLight Attack: Removing the Veil on OA-X
There has been a recent flurry of press attention on OA-X, an Air Force effort to obtain off-the-shelf light attack aircraft. Sen. McCain’s recent publication of Restoring American Power — which calls...
View ArticlePolitical Airpower, Part III: Boots Off the Ground
Editor’s Note: This is the third installment of the “Political Airpower” series. The first two installments are: “Say No to the No-Fly Zone” and “The Seductive Allure of Precision Weapons.” “Even...
View ArticleMaladjusted, Part I: 21st-Century Attack
Once upon a time, the Air Force was flush with attack aircraft. Late in the 20th century, the Air Force maintained large numbers of attack aircraft, peaking in 1983 with a total inventory of 1,115...
View ArticleMaladjusted, Part II: How the U.S. Air Force Went from Eagle to Chicken
Editor’s Note: Please read the first installment in this series, “21st Century Attack.” In 1964, the Air Force officially entered the war in Vietnam. And they did so with the wrong mix of tactical...
View ArticleMaladjusted, Part III: Not Your Father’s Skyraider
There are few things about insurgent warfare that favor the use of airpower, but one of them is that jungle rebels are not equipped with ack-ack or interception capability, so that air superiority is...
View ArticleReclaiming the Air Attack Mission: A Radical Return to a Proven Success
In 1961, then-Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara started the process that would result in the development of the Air Force’s last attack aircraft. By January 1965, the program that would become...
View ArticleBack to Basics: The Light Attack Experiment Begins
This month at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, an unusual event is occurring. For the first time since the end of the Vietnam era, the Air Force is conducting a flying experiment with combat...
View ArticleOA-X Strikes Back: Eight Myths on Light Attack
In August, I was present at Holloman Air Force base, when the Air Force conducted a live-fly experiment with light attack aircraft. The first of its kind since the Vietnam era, the aptly named “Light...
View ArticleBlurring the Lines, Part I: A Promising New Trainer Aircraft and Its Combat...
Editor’s Note: This is the first installment of a three-part series on new approaches to airpower called “Blurring the Lines.” In the 1950s, Northrop Grumman designed a lightweight fighter wrapped...
View ArticleBlurring the Lines Part II: A Pilot by Any Other Name
Editor’s Note: This is the second installment of a three-part series on new approaches to airpower called “Blurring the Lines.” Read the first article in the series here. It’s been pointed out so often...
View ArticleThe Myth of the Export Fighter
At the beginning of the Nixon Administration, there was renewed concern that our friends in the Third World needed to do more for their own defense. In air defense terms, the “Nixon Doctrine” led to...
View ArticleBlurring the Lines Part III: Airpower Applications in the Gray Zone
Figure 1: The U-10 was a military variant of Helio Aircraft Company’s Super Courier. The Air Force, Army, and CIA used more than 100 aircraft in three different models during the Vietnam War. Here a...
View ArticleBringing the Air Division Back to the Future
Figure 1: Homestead-based F-104 Interceptors of the 319th Fighter Interceptor Squadron over Biscayne Bay in 1958. The 319th was attached to the 32nd Air Division, which was responsible for air defense...
View ArticleUplifted: The Case for Small Tactical Airlift
In Europe, NATO once again faces a threat from Russian ground forces, postured to the East. Operations in Ukraine have conclusively demonstrated the willingness and ability of the Russian government to...
View ArticleUnwarranted: Reconsidering the Air Force Warrant Officer
The Air Force is faced with a long-standing conundrum — not enough pilots, particularly fighter pilots. The causes of the shortage are longstanding, and have defied easy or quick solutions. The...
View ArticleFinding the Way (Again): Building the Air Force’s New Century Series
We’ve got to kill the major defense acquisition program as it is today, and replace it with something that looks like the Century Series development of the Early Air Force. –Dr. William Roper Dr....
View ArticleFeatherweight Airlift: For Want of a Nail
For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost; being overtaken and slain by the enemy, all for want of care about a horse-shoe...
View ArticleShapes, Part I: The Shape of Airpower
Figure 1: The medium-range stealth strikefighter that should have been: The YF-23 “Grey Ghost” in flight over the Mojave, August 2006 (U.S. Air Force photo) This is the first in a two-part series,...
View ArticleShapes, Part II: The Shape of Strategy
This is the second in a two-part series, called “Shapes,” which examines the assumptions behind how the Air Force designs its combat aviation at the enterprise level, rather than at the aircraft level....
View ArticleAirpower Orphans, Part I: Putting the “Operational Support” Back in...
On Nov. 7, 1910, 24-year old Philip Parmalee took off from Huffman Prairie airfield, a glorified cow pasture in Ohio, in a Wright Model B aircraft. Sixty-six minutes later, he landed at a flag-marked...
View ArticleAirpower Orphans, Part II: Whatever Happened to Liaison Aircraft?
The airplane was remarkably pretty. Sporting a steel frame, the O-49 was a high-wing, fabric-covered monoplane built for the Army Air Corps in 1940. Silvery sheet metal enclosed the engine, in front of...
View ArticleAvoiding the Charge of the Light Brigade Against China
Editor’s Note: This week, War on the Rocks is featuring some old favorites from the archives. This article was originally published in 2016. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in...
View ArticleSlaying the Unicorn: The Army and Fixed-Wing Attack
Consider another day under the hot sun as a four-man team in some distant land goes out on patrol on an “advise and assist” mission. This is hardly unusual — these missions are replicated globally...
View Article21 Years Later: The First Shots of the Second Gulf War
At 10:05:24 Zulu (1:05 p.m. local), on the morning of Dec. 28, 1998, Lt. Col. Al “Bat” Cross and I were in Coors 01, an F-15E Strike Eagle, southbound northeast of Mosul, Iraq, over the northern no-fly...
View ArticleThe Army Should Rid Itself of Symbols of Treason
“I, _____, appointed a _____ in the Army of the United States, do solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and that I will serve them honestly and...
View ArticleOf Course the U.S. Military Has A White Supremacy Problem. It’s Baked In.
What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a...
View ArticleThe Dangerous Allure of the No-Fly Zone
Editor’s Note: This is a heavily revised and updated version of an article written by the authors for these pages in 2016. Don’t miss our comprehensive guide to Russia’s war against Ukraine. A press...
View ArticleAmateur Hour Part I: The Chinese Invasion of Taiwan
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine set off a flurry of handwringing over Taiwan. Russia, in this interpretation, “broke the ice” by attacking Ukraine, emboldening China versus Taiwan. But any such action by...
View ArticleAmateur Hour Part II: Failing the Air Campaign
An air campaign is the controlled conduct of a series of interrelated air operations to achieve specified objectives. The conduct of effective air campaigns is the hallmark of all successful air...
View ArticleAmateur Hour Part III: It’s Still Not About the Airplane
Ukraine is fighting for its existence and the war that began with unchecked Russian aggression in 2014 has become the most destructive conflict in Europe since World War II. Ukraine, ably defended by...
View ArticleBuilding R2-D2
When Star Wars debuted in 1977, it marked a major departure from the depiction of sci-fi robots. R2-D2 was a cylindrical, round-headed, three-legged “astromech” droid that communicated in whistles,...
View Article