Airpower Against an Army: Challenge and Response in Centaf's Duel with the Republican Guard: a Cadre Paper

Publisher Marketing: In January and February 1991, Central Command Air Forces (CENTAF) conducted an air-to-ground onslaught against Iraq's Republican Guard. The requirements of this operation conflicted in a number of respects with the US Air Force's extended preparations for conflict on a European battleground. A major case in point involved the low-altitude tactics CENTAF crews had practiced for the previous decade and a half, tactics that were manifestly unsuited for the task that confronted them in Iraq. Colonel Andrews's study, "Airpower against an Army: Challenge and Response in CENTAF's Duel with the Republican Guard," examines how CENTAF adjusted air operations against the Republican Guard to meet the realities of combat. As he makes clear, four factors proved instrumental in facilitating CENTAF's rapid adaptation to the realities of war: 1) air superiority which created a permissive environment for innovative tactics, 2) open-minded attitudes of senior commanders which nurtured the growth of new methods of operation, 3) the faith of senior commanders in highly motivated and well-trained subordinates which permitted - and inspired - lower echelon units to find optimal solutions to complex problem in minimum time, and 4) the high degree of personal initiative - cultivated on training and tactics ranges, in classrooms at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada, and flight briefing rooms across the USAF - which served as the ultimate sine quo non of the adaptation process. Colonel Andrews's study also serves to powerfully reaffirm the fundamental truth of the old Air Force adage that "flexibility is the key to airpower." As we confront an uncertain international security environment, a fundamental lesson of "Airpower against an Army" is that we must encourage flexibility in peacetime if we are to possess the physical, mental, and organizational agility that will be required to master the unforeseen realities of the next war. Contributor Bio:  Press, Air University Walter Gary Sharp Sr. serves as a senior associate deputy general counsel for intelligence at the US Department of Defense, where he advises on legal issues related to intelligence, covert action, intelligence and counterintelligence policy, intelligence oversight, information security, information sharing, security classification policy, information operations, and computer network operations. Prior to his appointment, Dr. Sharp served as an associate deputy general counsel for international affairs at the Department of Defense; the director of legal research for international, comparative, and foreign law at the Law Library of Congress; the director of global and functional affairs within the Bureau of Legislative Affairs at the State Department; and a principal information security engineer at The MITRE Corporation. A veteran with 25 years of service, Dr. Sharp retired as a decorated US Marine Corps lieutenant colonel with prior enlisted service. His military assignments include commanding officer of a field artillery battery, senior prosecutor, deputy legal counsel to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and international law adviser for the commanding general of the Unified Task Force in Somalia during Operation Restore Hope. Dr. Sharp's military decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal, and his many awards for writing excellence and academic achievement include the Judge Advocate General's School Alumni Association Annual Professional Writing Award and an American Bar Association Award for Professional Merit. Dr. Sharp is the author of numerous articles and three books: UN Peace Operations (1995), CyberSpace and the Use of Force (1999), and Jus Paciarii (1999). He serves as an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center where he currently teaches a counterterrorism course, The Law of 24. He has also taught graduate-level seminars on United Nations peace operations and international peace and security. He lectures internationally in universities and other diverse public forums on wide-ranging topics of international law and national security law, such as international peace and security, conflict management, and peacekeeping operations.