David A. Deptula, a retired Air Force general, is dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter’s recent remarks on the efficacy of Iraq’s army reflect the fact that, despite years of training by thousands of U.S. and coalition forces, the army has not been able to halt Islamic State aggression. What makes anyone think that a few more months of similar training will yield success?
We
must not, however, confuse Iraq’s objectives with critical U.S.
national security interests. While the two may overlap, they are not the
same. Each demands its own strategic, military and policy approach.
From the U.S. perspective, the most important goal is not the
maintenance of the Iraqi government but the destruction of the Islamic
State.
The current U.S.-led coalition is
following the counterinsurgency model used in Iraq and Afghanistan for
more than a decade, but the Islamic State is not an insurgency. The
Islamic State is a self-declared sovereign government. We must stop
trying to fight the last war and develop a new strategy.
The
Islamic State can be decomposed through a comprehensive and robust air
campaign designed to: (1) terminate its expansion; (2) paralyze and
isolate its command-and-control capability; (3) undermine its ability to
control the territory it occupies; and (4) eliminate its ability to
export terror.
But to do these
things, air power has to be applied like a thunderstorm, not a drizzle.
In the campaign against the Islamic State, we are averaging 12 strike
sorties per day. During Operation Desert Storm in Iraq and Kuwait in
1991, the average was 1,241; in Operation Allied Force in Kosovo in
1999, it was 298; in the first 30 days of Operation Iraqi Freedom in
2003, 691; during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in 2001, 86.
In the past two decades, several
strategic victories were brought about by air power operating in
conjunction with indigenous ground forces — none of which were better
than the Iraqi army. Robust air power, along with a few air controllers,
carried the Northern Alliance to victory over the Taliban, at minimal
cost in blood and treasure to the United States. Bosnia, Kosovo and
Libya similarly involved airstrikes well in excess of those being used
against the Islamic State.
Complicating
the effort to defeat the Islamic State is an excessive focus on the
avoidance of collateral damage and casualties. In an armed conflict, the
military establishes rules of engagement designed to balance the moral
imperative to minimize damage and unintentional casualties against
what’s required to accomplish the mission. Recently reported by pilots actually fighting the Islamic State
is that the current rules — which far exceed accepted “Law of War”
standards — impose excessive restrictions that work to the advantage of
the enemy. The ponderous and unnecessary set of procedures in place is
allowing the Islamic State to exploit our desire to avoid civilian
causalities to commit atrocities on the ground.
We
have the finest, most professional men and women flying the finest
combat aircraft in the world. The best way to improve our force
effectiveness while still minimizing collateral damage and casualties is
to allow them to use their judgment. This is called “mission command,”
and the Pentagon should empower our aviators to employ it.
The
fastest way to end the inhumanity of war is to eliminate its source —
in this case, the Islamic State — as quickly as possible. Gradualism
doomed the effectiveness of air power in the “Rolling Thunder” air
campaign from 1965 to 1968 during the Vietnam War. The current
gradualist approach is worsening the suffering and increasing the loss
of innocent life. While unintended casualties of war are regrettable,
those associated with airstrikes pale in comparison with the savage acts
being carried out by the Islamic State. What is the logic of a policy
that restricts the use of air power to avoid the possibility of
collateral damage while allowing the certainty of the Islamic State’s
crimes against humanity?
This does not
have to be a “long war,” as has been claimed by those whose politics
benefit from that assertion, as well as those whose experience is rooted
in counterinsurgency. The counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan went on for eight and 14 years, respectively. Desert Storm
took 43 days; Bosnia’s Operation Deliberate Force, 22 days; Allied
Force, 78 days; the decisive phase of Enduring Freedom took 60 days. A
robust air campaign can devastate the Islamic State to the point where
Iraqi and Kurdish forces can end the occupation.
Let’s
stop unnecessarily restricting our asymmetric advantage and get on with
the task of destroying the Islamic State as quickly as possible through
the optimal use of air power. America’s enemies are exploiting our
humanity to impose their terror. It is time to change strategy.
