Complex, Adaptive
Behold the flexibility of the U.S. military.

By Charles E. Miller, a retired Air Force colonel
October 16, 2001 11:20 a.m.

he flexibility of the U.S. military is something to behold. It can rapidly turn a force designed for one mission to success in another. It routinely engages in what the folks at the Santa Fe Institute call complex, adaptive behaviors. Consider:

B-2 bombers were originally designed for hunting mobile nuclear missiles deep inside the Soviet Union. They were later reinvented to deliver a significant number of highly precise munitions in "strategic attacks," going "downtown" against regional foes. Now they are flying halfway around the world to bomb the corrupt government of a fourth-world nation and its terrorist owners. It is not too hard to imagine a B-2 delivering the 5,000-pound bunker buster that seals the fate of bin Laden.

In the Gulf War, the Navy was criticized for spending too many missions on defending its carriers and having scant precision-strike capabilities. Now, U.S. aircraft carriers in the waters off Pakistan are launching strike aircraft on 1,400-mile roundtrip missions of 6-to-7 hours in length in attacks against Taliban and al Qaeda targets. That's roughly 3-times their normal operating times and distances.

In response to the limitations on basing rights in the region, we sailed our own "bases" into range. An aircraft carrier will also apparently be used as a floating Special Forces base. Not only does that translate to less pressure on our coalition partners, it also means far fewer prying eyes.

Air Force refueling aircraft, originally conceived as flying gas stations for nuclear bombers, now are the indispensable elements of power projection for airlift aircraft, short-range fighter bombers, and global-range conventionally armed bombers (and for Navy airplanes, too).

Since the Gulf War, the U.S. military has transformed its emphasis from global thermonuclear war with the Soviet Union to conventional war against regional adversaries to high-tech military-revolution-based campaigns dominated by information superiority. All the while the military has actually executed operations in Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo.

Fixed-wing aerial gunships were developed in the Vietnam war to provide firepower to bases surrounded by hostile countryside and put of range of artillery support. Anyone who has seen the John Wayne movie The Green Berets is familiar with Puff the Magic Dragon — a C-47 with a side-firing Gattling gun. This is now a highly sophisticated platform (the AC-130) with superior sensors, firing computers, and a variety of guns, including a 105 MM cannon. They are reported to primarily train to support Special Ops, but they can also be used for power projection (the attack of enemy ground forces in the Taliban's case).

Now, in the early stages of what promises to be a long, difficult, complicated, global war on terrorism, we hear press reports that the secretary of defense is considering a radical reorganization of the U.S. military precisely because he is not sure the current structure is right for the new warfare. Currently, U.S. military forces operate (conduct warfare and supporting activities) under the authority of commanders-in-chief (CINCs, pronounced sinks). The military services transfer command of their units to the CINCs for war fighting. The regional CINCs for Europe, the Pacific, South America, and Southwest Asia are powerful entities in the joint military command structure that has evolved since the Goldwater-Nichols military reform legislation of the 1980s. They are joined by CINCs for such functions as special operations, strategic (essentially nuclear) operations, transportation, and space, plus joint-forces command in charge of joint training and military experimentation.

The system has its roots in World War II, when the world was divided into two major spheres and powerful military leaders were assigned responsibilities for each. Modern day CINCs are statesmen, grand strategists, bureaucrats, and operators all rolled into one. The weakness of the system is at the seams. The global terrorist threat is home-based across Northern Africa (under European Command jurisdiction), through Southwest Asia (under Central Command), and on to Indonesia (under Pacific Command). Special operations within a region fall under the authority of the regional commander. In short, the war will be global, but the core military organizations are sub-optimized to deal with regional problems and perspectives. The structure makes sense for limited, theater-based conflicts, but it is too clunky for the challenges it now faces.

Details of options under consideration are sketchy, but serious consideration is apparently being given to creating a military command for homeland defense, as well as various combinations of a smaller number of more powerful CINCs. The bureaucratic strength of the CINC system is formidable; the defense secretary may elect to leave it in place and appoint a senior officer to run the war from Washington, with the CINCs supporting the new supreme commander as required.

Follow Up
At a news conference Monday, the so called-bombing of Karam was clarified. The U.S. struck two tunnels in the area with bunker-busting, 5,000-pound bombs — which apparently went right through the tunnel entrances, recalling the laser-guided bombs going down the air shafts of the Iraqi military headquarters in the Gulf War. The attack was followed by more than three hours of secondary explosions; it may be that the village was involved in those. The Pentagon reported no bomb craters in the village. The tunnels, not caves, must have been crammed with weapons and explosives. Given the hint of the enemy's sophistication, gleaned from the Pentagon briefing, one wonders what else was being manufactured there.