Air Land Battle

Truth will ultimately prevail
where there is pains to bring it to light
--George Washington

This republic was not established by cowards;
and cowards will not preserve it
--Elmer Davis
_______________

The battles in Afghanistan and Iraq illustrate how the Army is desperately and unsuccessfully attempting to apply the Air Land Battle concepts of the Cold War and the 70's to the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©).

The Air Land Battle (ALB) is nothing but the integration of of air power applied synergistically to the ground scenario. In effect, the battlefield becomes and Air Force responsibility, which on the conventional battlefield is as it should be. The invasion of Iraq was a fair depiction of the ALB, except the scenario was not extended to echelons above corps.

The ALB always plans for the preparation of the battlefield before the fight starts. At Wanat and several other recent battles, this was not so. In addition, in most of these fights the engaged units depended on aerial delivery of ordnance rather than organic indirect fire assets. This is all fine and dandy in an ALB, but there the air assets are frosting on the cake.

The engaged units have assigned mortars, attached and dedicated artillery at Division/Corps and Theatre level used by the ground commander to facilitate successful completion of the mission. These assets are controlled and task organized by the ground commander.

In present COIN operations, ground units lack the assets presupposed in the ALB, a lack which is getting soldiers killed.

Historically, the ALB worked in the following scenarios: At The Bulge in 1944, the Air Corps couldn't fly interdiction for the ground forces, but the Infantry units held on and successfully defended their positions until the clouds parted and the aviation assets flew, and the enemy was pushed back.

The U.S. Marines marching out of the Chosin Reservior was classic ALB, even as a retrograde movement [apologies to Mike for having to use "retrograde" and "Marines" in the same sentence.] The Navy and Air Force flew suppression missions that gave an escape corridor to the Marines, and the Marines fought under a pre-planned, carefully coordinated umbrella. The result is one of the greatest examples of a break out from the encirclement and a shining example of coordinated action.

These points are absent from the PWOT because the fight is being marketed as COIN and not ALB, yet the attempts to suppress the enemy are always based in the ALB concept.

At Wanat, the After Action Report stressed the lack of drones and problems with helicoptors. In reality, the deficiency was in the confusion of concepts. Any combat action should be reasonably sustainable if the synergy of the combat arms are properly applied, but that is not COIN; that is ALB.

Air power is not necessary in COIN if the units have responsive coordinated indirect fires, but even this is illusory since COIN is not supposed to be classic ground combat. There is a disconnect between the wars we are taught and the wars we fight.

The entire Infantry Officer Advanced Course and Command and General Staff College was dedicated to the ALB in the 80's. COIN did not appear in the program of instruction. Ranger does not imagine there has been a seamless introduction of the separate concepts in the intervening 25 years.

The problem is, U.S. leaders do not know what war we are really fighting. After seven years, somebody should be getting a handle on it. As a military official told NBC News about a question regarding the endgame in Afghanistan, "Frankly, we don't have one."

But they're working on it.