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United States Marine Corps
Command and Staff College
Marine Corps University
2076 South Street
Marine Corps Combat Development Command
Quantico, Virginia 22134-5068
MASTER OF MILITARY STUDIES
PRESERVING THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN THE AMERICAN WAY OF WAR
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT
OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF MILITARY STUDIES
MAJOR CHRISTOPHER M. SIEKMAN
AY 13-14
Mentor and Oral Defense Committee Member: Dr. Richard L. DiNardo
Approved: ________________________________________________
Date: ____________________________________________________
Oral Defense Committee Member: Dr. John W. Gordon
Approved: ___________________________________
Date: _______________________________________
ii
Executive Summary
Title: Preserving the Human Element in the American Way of War
Author: Major Christopher M. Siekman, United States Marine Corps
Thesis: The American way of war as envisioned by the Pentagon is overly hierarchical
and technical in nature and overlooks the value of personality and collaboration.
Discussion: The American way of war was forged by commanders who first dealt with
the enduring problem of coordinating military operations among land, sea and, later, air
forces. The United States (U.S.) Armed Forces have faced challenges in coordinating
different military forces since armies became distinct from navies. Defense structure
provides the framework for both interservice and interagency coordination and
collaboration. War exacerbates these relationships and inherently drives them during
times of conflict.
Disputes among the American armed services, and between individual services and joint
command authorities, accentuated the need to expand the scope and authority of pre-
Goldwater-Nichols Act theater commanders. At issue were the conduct of conflicts, the
validation of service roles and missions, and the setting of critical precedents for future
joint operations. Today, joint staffs seek to maintain as much interservice harmony as
possible while ensuring their own ability to carry out their missions as demonstrated in
the air wars of Korea and Vietnam. The design of these operations precluded much, if
any, coordination between the services.
General Grant and Admiral Porter’s collaborationist styles proved to be tremendous
assets in coping with the increasing complexities of joint operations during the Vicksburg
Campaign as did General Powell and Secretary Cheney during Desert Storm. In addition,
General Zinni’s “Hand Shake Con” shows how the American way of war can be highly
effective with foreign militaries in multinational operations. The key to successful
command relationships, then, rests with the ability of leaders to understand strengths and
weaknesses and levy them accordingly. Leaders must know themselves as well as the
qualities and characteristics of their seniors, peers, and subordinates alike.
Conclusion: The American way of war is still a long way from developing a fully
integrated and collaborative profession. Bureaucratic unification around issues is
extremely slow to create long-term change within the Department of Defense. Additional
hierarchical layers and voluminous joint doctrine detailing the integration and
employment of technology and capabilities is not the ultimate answer. Rather,
professional attitudes lay at the bedrock of interactive and successful military
partnerships. The American way of war must embrace the fact that military institutions
do not transform -- people transform the institutions.
iii
DISCLAIMER
THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS EXPRESSED HEREIN ARE THOSE OF THE
INDIVIDUAL STUDENT AUTHOR AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT
THE VIEWS OF EITHER THE MARINE CORPS COMMAND AND STAFF
COLLEGE OR ANY OTHER GOVERNMENTAL AGENCY. REFERENCES TO
THIS STUDY SHOULD INCLUDE THE FOREGOING STATEMENT.
QUOTATIONS FROM, ABSTRACTION FROM, OR REPRODUCTION OF ALL OR
ANY PART OF THIS DOCUMENT IS PERMITTED PROVIDED PROPER
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT IS MADE.
iv
Table of Contents
Page
DISCLAIMER ...............................................................................................................iii
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS..........................................................................................v
PREFACE…..................................................................................................................vi
WIELDING COLLABORATION INTO VICTORY AT VICKSBURG .....................3
MOUNTING INTERSERVICE TENSIONS.................................................................5
INTERSERVICE STRUGGLES POST-WORLD WAR II ERA ..................................9
MODERN DEFENSE REFORM .................................................................................17
CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................22
END NOTES ................................................................................................................24
APPENDIX 1................................................................................................................26
BIBLIOGRAPHY.........................................................................................................27
v
Illustrations
Figure 1. North Vietnam Armed Reconnaissance Route Package Areas, Appendix 1...p. 26
vi
Preface
As I study the American way of war, it has become immediately apparent to me
that we are losing sight of a critical dynamic: the human element. While defense
reformation evolves and continues to enhance our military procedures, it is not the
underlying answer to meaningful and successful integration; nor does it reside in a
voluminous joint publication library. We are a warfighting organization, but this is a
people business -- let’s keep it that way.
Special thanks to my wife, Rebecca, for loving me and the Marine Corps and for
sacrificing so much for both. Thanks also to Dr. Richard DiNardo for his mentorship
throughout academic year at CSC and the MMS process. Thanks also Lieutenant Colonel
Dave Hudspeth for the unconditional support, mentorship, and friendship – that have
made me a better Marine, officer, and person. And, finally, thank you to the Marines and
Sailors I have served with -- for their sacrifices and tireless efforts while conducting our
Nation’s bidding.
1
Preserving the Human Element in the American Way of War
War is a human activity, inspired by human emotions, and guided by human intellect.
This appreciation respects war’s competitive nature, yet the American way of war overlooks
Clausewitz’s insight that war is not an exercise conducted with inanimate objects, but with living
allies and against living -- and thinking -- opponents. Defense reform has improved conditions
for coordination and collaboration, but still a great deal remains desired. In addition, joint
doctrine is designed to be authoritative in nature, but a voluminous, nuanced publication system
emphasizing technological integration and detail lends it a prescriptive character and supplants
essential human collaboration that must be preserved in order to ensure the future success of the
U.S. military. To put it succinctly, with all of the advances in technology, doctrine, and
organization, war is still a human activity as Clausewitz described.
Joint Publication (JP) 1, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States, defines joint
operations as “military actions conducted by joint forces and those service forces in specified
command relationships with each other. It is a single operation, particularly in combat,
employing two or more services from two military departments.”1
The effective coordination
and interoperability of service capabilities enhance joint operations to accomplish U.S.
Government objectives, building on U.S. traditions of conducting joint operations that began
with the Revolutionary War. When integrated into joint operations with partner military services
and other defense, logistical, and intelligence agencies, they become capable of unified action.
Yet, U.S. doctrine is technology-centric and relies upon merging capabilities and skill sets of
service components through the integration of service capabilities without focusing on deepening
relationships between its people.
2
The current version of Joint Publication 3-0, Joint Operations, dated 11 August 2011,
states that “joint warfare is team warfare.”2
This version was amended from the previous 22
March 2010 publication to redefine the strategic environment, update the art of command as it
pertains to planning and operational design, and expound upon the scope and capacity of joint
operations as they relate to the six warfighting functions.3
Although earlier editions of this
publication emphasized collaboration and communications with senior commanders to resolve
differences of interpretation of higher-level objectives, the current version still fails to require or
even suggest meaningful discourse between service or functional commanders prior to
embarking on a mission.
Developing relationships and establishing trust is extremely difficult over long-distance
or asynchronous communication mediums. According to JP-3, commanders and staffs may
collaborate to establish a common purpose. However, to ensure the future success of the U.S.
military, commanders operating in joint constructs must make a concerted effort to engage in
personal, meaningful discourse in person instead of by happenstance. Even at the interagency
level, JP-3 suggests that “formal agreements, robust liaison, and information sharing is needed to
bridge contradicting policies between intergovernmental (IGO) and military organizations.”4
Technology and equipment are key facets in warfare, but both require the human
dynamic to integrate these capabilities between the services. Thus, it is human collaboration that
creates the frame of reference that defines the preparation and conduct of war. Each service
crafts doctrine and platforms that are designed to operate or maneuver in their dominant domain,
but -- defense structure and current joint doctrine does little to integrate seams in the preparation,
sustainment, and conduct of war. Because of this misguided focus on how the services will
arrive at amenable employment concepts of cutting edge technologies, the American way of war
3
will continue to supplant the most important aspect of preparing and waging war -- the human
element. Therefore, the American way of war as currently envisioned by the Pentagon is overly
hierarchical and technical in nature and overlooks the value of personality and collaboration.
Although possessing rudimentary structure and lacking any formalized joint doctrine, the
Vicksburg Campaign of 1863 provides an authentic perspective of the value of personalities in
joint operations between Major General Ulysses S. Grant and Rear Admiral David D. Porter.
Wielding Collaboration into Victory at Vicksburg
Joint operations were still in their infancy leading up to the Civil War, even though this
type of operation has been essential in all wars the U.S. has participated since the American
Revolution. The services had not yet developed the present day practice of coordinating efforts
by keeping Navy liaison men with the Army command.5
Having exhausted what seemed to be
every possible option, Grant looked for assistance from the Navy as he had done during the
campaigns at Forts Henry and Donelson.
Porter was anxious to cooperate with Grant. Working together, the two drafted a daring,
unprecedented plan that would enable Grant’s men to take a position on some high, dry ground
east of Vicksburg. In short, the soldiers would march south along the western side of the
Mississippi River while Porter’s squadron, under the cover of darkness, would attempt to slip
past the city’s artillery-studded bluffs manned by Confederate troops.6
General Grant found in Porter a naval commander who shared his philosophy of
relentless war. Grant never undertook any movement without consulting Porter, and he never
did anything without consulting General Grant. This mutual respect fostered a harmony of
action, which has never been achieved in any other military and naval cooperation.7
Grant and
Porter were of equivalent rank, and neither could give an order to the other. Therefore, it was
4
only through that high courtesy bred in a purely military school, that so perfect an understanding
could be arrived at, or that the wishes of either military or naval commander could be
anticipated. Grant reminisced of the Vicksburg Campaign and wrote in his memoirs:
“The Navy under Porter was all it could be during the entire campaign. Without
its assistance the campaign could not have been successfully made with twice the
number of men engaged. It could not have been made at all in the way it was,
with any number of men without such assistance. The most perfect harmony
reigned between the two arms of the service. There never was a request made,
that I am aware of, either of the Flag-officer or any of his subordinates that was
not promptly complied with.”8
Porter stated to Major General Tecumseh Sherman, “I wish to cooperate with the Army
in every way where I can be of service, and if you can get any message to or from General Grant
on the subject, and give me an idea of what is going on, I shall be much obliged to you.” Porter
also commented (to Sherman) that, “Were either one of you in absolute command, all, of course,
would act in concert. I am ready to cooperate with anybody and everybody. All I ask on the part
of the military commanders is their full confidence and a pull together.”9
Porter pledged
harmony of action and established a superb tone for joint Army-Navy operations.
Two important contributions in all of this were: (1) Admiral Porter’s demonstrated ability
to lead his squadron into every kind of situation; and (2) his willingness to attempt anything the
Army asked of his command. Admiral Porter also showed his measure in that whenever the
Army needed, the Navy had it serviceable and ready.10
Although Grant had no official control
over the Mississippi Squadron, Porter wrote in his memoirs that he did his best to act as though
the general was in supreme command.11
This fact alone made it possible for Grant to lay his
plans with the Navy and always included Porter as an equal partner.
For Porter, personal exposure to Grant transformed his opinion of professionally-trained
Army officers. Earlier in the war, he confessed to the Assistant Secretary Fox, “I don’t believe
5
in our generals any more than I do in our old fogies of the Navy.”12
Interservice mistrust and
rivalry from early war experiences had soured Porter’s assessment of high-ranking army
personnel. Grant had won over Porter through his professional conduct, sensitivity to Porter’s
rank and position, and the refreshing atmosphere of cooperation that they fostered. More than
anything, Porter feared, “For the sake of the Union that nothing may occur to make a change
here.”13
Unlike most Army generals, Grant grasped the possibilities of joint operations. Selflessly
committed to victory, and convinced that an Army-Navy team offered the only hope of success,
Grant did not possess any qualms about dealing with Porter as a peer, something few Army
officers would do. By leading his force from the front, Grant kept himself aware of the tactical
and operational realities that he faced. Although unity of command was not formalized by
formal regulation, Grant worked hard to ensure that good relations, constant communication, and
division of labor fostered unit of effort.14
Porter accorded full credit for the Vicksburg Campaign to Grant. In his report to the
Secretary of the Navy, the admiral asserted that:
“The late investment and capture of Vicksburg will be characterized as one of the
greatest military achievements ever known. The conception of the idea originated
solely with General Grant, who adopted a course in which great labor was
performed, great battles were fought, and great risks were run; a single mistake
would have involved us in difficulty, but so well were all the plans matured, so
well were all the movements timed, and so rapid were the evolutions performed
that not a mistake has occurred from the passage of the fleet by Vicksburg and the
passage of the army across the river up to the present time.”15
Mounting Interservice Tensions
The Army and Navy collaborated on a generally amicable, but ad hoc basis in wartime
for the defense and attack of objectives on coasts and along inland waters. There are far more
examples of good joint collaboration than bad examples, even in the absence of joint doctrine or
6
strong civilian pressure to cooperate. In the War of 1812, for example, joint forces defended
Washington, Baltimore, Plattsburgh, and New Orleans, the last three with dramatic success. In
the same war, the Army and Navy conducted successful landings, including shore
bombardments, along the shores of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. In the war with Mexico, the
campaign to conquer California and the successful landing at Vera Cruz depended upon joint,
sustained Army-Navy cooperation.16
During the Civil War, the successful conquest of the
Tennessee and Mississippi valleys and the major ports of the Confederacy required a series of
joint operations.
Although the services’ peacetime missions -- to patrol the nation’s continental and
maritime frontiers -- dictated such organizational structure as existed, at least one major mission,
coastal defense, required continued collaboration. Since coastal fortifications were built and
manned by the Army, the civil-military and interservice dimensions of the coastal defense
mission were obvious -- but often ignored. Untested by a foreign adversary after the War of
1812, the coastal defense system was with about as much civil-military and interservice harmony
as the American system allowed. During this period, Navy gunboat flotillas and state militias
worked in concert with each other absent any doctrine or procedures.17
Until World War II, the relationship of political leaders and military commanders had
more influence on military operations than organizational arrangements. Whether operations
involved a commander of one or more services, personality had more to do with operational
performance than formal command relationships. Since joint operations were comparatively
rare, there was no pressing need to create a formal, joint Army-Navy command structure,
particularly since those few instances of joint operations which occurred provided far more
examples of success than failure. Two developments at the end of the nineteenth century,
7
however, obscured this successful collaboration. As the Mahanian concept of major fleet
operations between modern battleships grew in the 1890s, the Navy lost interest in coastal
defense. The second development, in fact, applied to base defenses outside of the continental
United States.18
As the Navy prepared for the possibility of wartime operations in the western Pacific and
the Caribbean, it found the Army reluctant to protect the bases actually created in Cuba, the
Philippines, Guam, Hawaii, the Canal Zone, and the Virgin Islands. Interservice disputes on
shared coastal defense responsibilities were, however, secondary to the political context that
limited the mission: Congress had less enthusiasm for defending overseas military bases than it
did for defending American cities.19
In the twentieth century, influenced by the rationalization
craze that struck most of American public life, formal structure and organization began to play a
larger role in military performance on the battlefield. Influenced by mounting interservice
tension over roles, mission, and force-structuring, field commanders became sensitive to
operations that might set doctrinal precedents or influence policy in Washington.20
The introduction of the airplane to military operations, which coincided with the creation
of service headquarters planning staffs, created interservice tension that could not be mitigated
by informal cooperation. By the late 1930s, aviation policy had brought profound disagreement
to both the Army and the Navy. Even within the Army itself, the desire of air power advocates
for a separate air force. More specifically, the issue was the balance between strategic
bombardment and air support for the ground forces; in the latter, the question centered on the
offensive capability of carrier aviation. Aviation issues infected policy questions that ranged
from arms control negotiations to joint doctrine for coastal defense and amphibious assaults.
One intellectual effort to deal with the aviation issue (specifically, to fragment strategic planning
8
by physical environment into land campaigns, sea campaigns, and air campaigns) caused more
problems than it solved for operational commanders, because it created doctrinal excuses to
evade traditional mission sets or to participate only to establish doctrinal precedent while not
adding any real capability.21
The very potential and versatility of military aviation, coupled with
its high cost in men and materiel, made it difficult for the Army and the Navy not to regard each
other as competitors for the first time, and to give special importance to the drafting of joint
doctrine, an unknown activity in the nineteenth century.22
The institutionalization of military advising added equal interservice stresses between the
Army and the Navy. For the reformist military officers of the Progressive Era and their civilian
collaborators, the creation of a central planning staff represented the essence of military
professionalism.23
Whether they sought it or not, political leaders in Washington received plenty
of military advice throughout the Nation’s history. Field commanders often corresponded
directly with the service secretaries and sometime with the President -- and even with their
patrons in Congress. In the War Department, different secretaries received counsel from
generals. In addition to Admiral Porter, the Navy Department relied on the bureau chiefs in
peacetime and the ad hoc Naval War Board during the Spanish-American War.24
The general staff movement created serious implications for the conduct of future
operations, for it moved the locus of expertise from individuals to central staffs, whose concerns
for waging war could not be severed from the process of creating military forces and writing
doctrine for their use. It is important to recall, however, that the military reformers of that era
focused on intra-service readiness issues and not joint operations (note: the post of Chief of
Naval Operations was not created until 1915). Whatever their internal service role -- and their
limitations in the performance of that role -- the service central staffs formed the Joint Army-
9
Navy Board of 1903 in order to consider issues of mutual concern and to communicate these
concerns to the service secretaries. The Joint Board, the first move toward a formalized joint
structure, also attempted to integrate the services’ individual war plans, an exercise that
inevitably stirred doctrinal controversy and made the drafting of Joint Action of the Army and
Navy.25
Interservice Struggles Post-World War II Era
The change in America’s global position after World War II exposed the need to
coordinate between military departments. In addition, tensions with the Soviet Union led to a
series of policy choices that endured throughout the ensuing Cold War: maintaining a large
standing, forward deployed military; the advent and sustainment of a nuclear arsenal; security
alliances in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region; and participation in new treaties to oversee
global affairs and trade.26
In order to address these requirements, the U.S. needed an integrated approach to address
all possible intensities of armed conflict across the land, sea, and air domains. President Harry
Truman, in coordination with the 80th Congress, recognized the need to reengineer the United
States’ antiquated defense structure. For the military specifically, the National Security Act of
1947 was passed. The National Security Act of 1947 served to preserve the traditional
diplomatic and military departments, but changed the ways in which they related to one another,
centralizing power in certain cases and clarifying roles and responsibilities in others.27
That said,
National Security Act of 1947 did not exactly unify the military departments as demonstrated by
the structure and conduct of joint operations in the Korean and Vietnam Wars.
The U.S. maintained a large military presence in the Far East -- primarily in Japan.
General Douglas MacArthur, the senior American officer, had two command responsibilities: as
10
Supreme Commander, Allied Powers (SCAP), he exercised command over all occupation forces;
and as Commander-in-Chief, Far East (CINCFE), he exercised unified command of all U.S.
forces in his area. MacArthur's Far East Command (FEC) included all American forces in Japan,
Korea, the Ryukyus, the Philippines, the Marianas, and the Bonins.28
The FEC, however, was a model based on a World War II construct. In short, although
the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed General MacArthur to make his headquarters a joint command,
he ignored this directive and the command subsequently remained almost entirely Army-centric.
Not until January 1953, when General Mark Clark commanded the United Nation’s forces was
the United Nations Command (UNC)/FEC headquarters reorganized to incorporate a truly joint
staff. Unfortunately, by the time this staff was fully functional, the war was dragging into its
final months and the reorganization had little effect on the execution of the Korean War.29
In June 1950, the composition and functioning FEC headquarters clearly demonstrated an
absence of unification principles during the Korean conflict. In theory, the major commands
comprising the FEC were the Army Forces Far East (AFFE), the Naval Forces Far East (NavFE),
and the Far East Air Forces (FEAF), but General MacArthur had never organized an Army FEC.
Instead, the AFFE, commanded by General George E. Stratemeyer, was actually a shadow
headquarters, in which Commander in Chief Far East (CINCFE) personally commanded.30
Almost wholly manned by Army personnel and predominately concerned with Army business,
the GHQ Far East Command was dominated by Army thinking and prone to honor Army
concepts.31
Major General Robert M. Lee, General Stratemeyer’s deputy and head of the Tactical Air
Command (TAC), noted in a September 1949 meeting that several amphibious exercises with the
Army and Navy during 1945 to 1948 failed to yield any appreciable progress in developing joint
11
doctrines and procedures. The Air Force frequently was excluded from the planning of these
exercises or invited late.32
Control of aircraft also remained a major matter of dispute and
although agreements were reached on the command structure for each exercise, a permanent
solution to this problem remained obscure. The principal unresolved issue was between the
Navy and Air Force over the overarching issue of control.
As in World War II, the Navy insisted on its amphibious doctrine, which provided for
naval control for all operations, including any air tasking prior to an amphibious landing. With
the establishment of an Expeditionary Force commander ashore, control of aircraft was then
transferred to the ground force commander. The Air Force had yet to create its own doctrine on
the matter of command and control (C2), but the TAC strongly opposed yielding control to the
Navy for any portion of a joint undertaking. Since these exercises involved support of Army
units after initial landings, this issue had important implications for the C2 aspect of close air
support (CAS).33
In July 1950, General Stratemeyer had been seeking solutions to a critical theater air
force problem: the coordination of land-based and carrier-based air operations over Korea. On
the several occasions during World War II when he had “borrowed” fast carrier task forces from
the Pacific Fleet, General MacArthur had employed these carrier task forces against targets lying
beyond the range of FEAF’s land-based bombers. Such geographical coordination had worked
fairly well in the southwest Pacific, but under such arrangements the massed power of land-
based aviation could not simultaneously be brought to bear on significant targets. Moreover,
Korea was too small to permit geographical coordination.34
On 2 July, preparatory to Task Force 77’s first air strikes to be made on the following
day, Vice Admiral C. Turner Joy, Commander NavFE, requested and received “exclusive use” of
12
a large airspace area of northwestern Korea that encompassed Pyongyang.35
At 2235 on 3 July,
the FEC informed the FEAF that this same target area would again be allocated to Task Force 77
on the following day. Having no advance indication that the carrier air strikes would continue
for an additional day, FEAF operations scheduled a medium bomber strike against Pyongyang’s
airfield for 4 July. As a result, the scheduled B-29 strike for 4 July had to be canceled, and, since
it was too late to devise and process a new air tasking order, the aircraft were grounded that day.
The Navy’s air operations also added additional complications to the air flow because they
maintained radio silence while at sea. Therefore, neither General Stratemeyer nor his staff was
able to gain any situational awareness as to the results of carrier air strikes against Pyongyang.36
Without some form of centralized control or means of coordination, the mass of Air
Force and Navy airpower could not be effectively employed. Learning that Marine aircraft were
also scheduled to come to the Far East, General Stratemeyer requested that he be assigned
operational control (OPCON) over all naval land-based and carrier-based aviation, when
operating from Japan or over Korea.37
This request was not received well and General
Stratemeyer clarified his request for OPCON to simply include “the authority to designate the
type of mission, such as air defense, close air support, etc., and related operational details such as
targets, times over targets, degree of effort, etc., within the capabilities of the forces involved.”38
General Stratemeyer’s modified version of OPCON was especially frowned upon by the
Navy -- Admiral Joy and his staff contended that the phrase OPCON remained too broad and
subjected Navy aircraft to FEAF on a continuous basis, which could pose detrimental to the
Seventh Fleet’s mission in the Formosa area. As a result, the term “coordination control” was
adopted. Unfortunately, coordination control had different meanings to both the FEAF and
NavFE, which led to further differences of opinion, misunderstandings, and disagreements over
13
the command authority in operations orders.39
CINCFE never saw fit to define the term for the
services and temporary, part-time working groups attempted to sew the seams. As a result, air
control and coordination remained a significant point of contention throughout the Korean War.
The close air support doctrine and techniques used in Korea were underpinned on tactics,
techniques, and procedures learned in World War II. The 1946 Field Manual 31-35, Air-Ground
Operations, distilled the lessons from the war (primarily from Ninth Air Force operations in
Europe). In September 1950, the Army Field Forces and TAC jointly issued a “Joint Training
Directive for Air-Ground Operations,” which elaborated on the earlier manual. However, neither
service ever accepted the directive as policy.40
And, frankly, the Air Force was not particularly
interested in CAS, claiming that interdiction missions would be more successful than CAS in the
long run. The Army, however, continued to insist on CAS, since its troops usually could not see
the results of interdiction attacks.41
On the other hand, the Marine squadrons were in some ways
operating in an alien environment. When the Marine squadrons were supporting their own
Marine infantry, they were excused from reporting the JOC and were allowed to use their own
air control system.42
The entire air-ground system in Korea was ad hoc, with improvised units attempting to
standardize this process. General Earle E. Partridge, Commanding General of the Fifth Air
Force, realized solutions to date would not serve the joint force well in the long-term and
organized a Joint Operations Center (JOC) next to his headquarters. Again, unfortunately, the
JOC was never truly joint, for the Army supplied only a few lower-ranking individuals to work
in it, and the Navy provided one liaison officer to it until very late in the war.43
General
Partridge also sent tactical air control parties (TACP) to staff at Army regiments and higher
headquarters along with men and equipment to operate the Eighth Army's tactical air-request
14
communications net. The jet aircraft used for tactical air support, usually flying from Japan,
could not operate over the front lines long enough to be effective. Therefore, General Partridge
organized an airborne controller squadron flying to locate targets and direct the targeting
efforts.44
Command and control of air operations in the Vietnam War were equally tumultuous.
General William C. Westmoreland, commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command-Vietnam
(COMUSMACV), used his Commanding General, Seventh Air Force, as his deputy
COMUSMACV for air. However, Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp, Commander in Chief
Pacific (CINCPAC), under close supervision from the Pentagon, conducted the air war against
North Vietnam and procured the aircraft required from the various services.45
Under this
arrangement, the Seventh Air Force commander, General William W. Momyer, simultaneously
served two masters. General Momyer provided aircraft to service targets in North Vietnam
under the direction of CINCPAC through Commander in Chief Pacific Air Force
(CINCPACAF), while at the same time supporting allied forces in South Vietnam under General
Westmoreland.46
These unique command relationships were deemed necessary by international diplomatic
considerations and service doctrine. The Johnson administration insisted that the wars in Laos
and South Vietnam, while military closely related, be treated as separate conflicts with separate
command arrangements.47
Within South Vietnam specifically, the Army and Marine Corps
struggled to retain possession of their organic air forces, which they regarded as integral
elements of their respective “combined-arms” teams. Both services rejected Air Force
arguments that theater airpower could function at full efficiency and effectiveness only under
unified Air Force direction. The services waged their arguments over air command and control
15
with considerable intensity, not only because of the merits of the issues in the Vietnam conflicts,
but because of the likelihood that the results in Vietnam would set precedents for future joint
operations.48
General Westmoreland had an almost completely free hand in employing airpower in
South Vietnam, although he had to obtain Admiral Sharp’s concurrence in his command and
control arrangements and negotiate with him regarding air asset employment from carrier-based
aircraft. Westmoreland, devising his air command structure, also had to carefully thread his way
through conflicting service interests and doctrines. Ultimately, his solutions served personal
purposes in the form of theater command, but did not satisfy the other services.49
The degree of control that the deputy for air should exercise over non-Air Force aircraft
generated even more consternation. General Momyer, with strong support from Washington,
argued that the Air Force should maintain OPCON over all fixed-wing aircraft based in South
Vietnam. Consequently, this issue festered during Westmoreland’s tenure and resided primarily
with the Air Force and Marine Corps, since the Air Force, under the Johnson-McConnell
agreement of April 1966, had given up its earlier claim to control Army helicopters in return for
Army transfer of its fixed-wing transports to the Air Force.50
The Marine Corps maintained its
own service doctrine that the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW), as part of an “air-ground team,”
should remain outside the Air Force control system and OPCON to the Commanding General, III
Marine Amphibious Force (MAF).51
Until early 1968, General Westmoreland, with the backing of Admiral Sharp, essentially
accommodated the Marines. Westmoreland allowed the MAF to retain OPCON of the MAW,
with the understanding that the Marines’ fixed-wing aircraft would be under Seventh Air Force
for air defense purposes and that the MAW would make available for assignment by Seventh Air
16
Force any fixed-wing sorties not needed for support of Marine operations on a daily basis.
Westmoreland and Sharp adopted this compromise in order to avoid what they knew would be
an intense doctrinal battle with the Marine Corps and because, as long as only Marine units were
deployed in I Corps’ area of operations (AOR), the division of command had little adverse
effects on supporting ground forces.52
However, in early 1968, General Westmoreland changed his position based on the claim
that III MAF and 1 MAW had not been sufficiently responsive to Army requests for air support
to I Corps. Therefore, to ensure adequate air support of the Army units, as well as effective
coordination of the massive air effort in support of Khe Sanh, Westmoreland adopted a “single
management” air control system.53
Under it, General Momyer, as Westmoreland's air deputy,
gained a form of OPCON -- known as “mission direction” -- of all Marine Corps’ fixed-wing
strike and reconnaissance aircraft. In addition, this change resulted from General Momyer’s
doubts regarding III MAF’s inability to control increasingly complex joint operations.54
Despite Westmoreland’s reassurances, the Marine Corps’ chain of command perceived
the new system as an Air Force attempt to separate their aircraft from their ground forces, as
occurred in the Korean War. The Marine Corps began their war on single management as soon
as Westmoreland announced his intention to institute it and never let up thereafter. In short, the
single management system compromised the integrity of the air-ground team concept and
potentially even the Marine Corps’ force structure as a whole. The Marine Corps’ leadership
therefore attacked this system on both doctrinal and practical grounds and contended that
Admiral Sharp and General Westmoreland had exceeded their authority by imposing an air
command arrangement contrary to Defense Department doctrine for organizing joint forces and
further reduced their fire support abilities due to limited organic indirect fire assets.55
This
17
command structure ultimately led to slower and more cumbersome requests for Marine Corps
ground force support.
Operation ROLLING THUNDER was assigned to all air strikes, armed reconnaissance,
and photo reconnaissance against selected targets and lines of communication in North Vietnam.
To ensure economical and effective use of resources, operational procedures were developed by
the operating units to permit coordination for all air operations by zones, referred to as Route
Packages. The U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (COMUSMACV) was assigned
Route Package I, Pacific Fleet (PACFLT) was assigned Route Packages II, III, IV and VIB, and
Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) was assigned Route Packages V and VIA (see Figure 1 in Appendix
1 for a map of North Vietnam Armed Reconnaissance Route Package Areas).56
Unfortunately, these operational controls limited the pilots from all services. More
specifically, while the political and military constraints reduced Operation ROLLING
THUNDER’S effectiveness by limiting its scope, OPCON hindered the accomplishment of
approved missions, particularly with enemy defense targets.57
An ambiguous cooperation and
coordination principle, created during the Korean War and implemented once again in the
Vietnam War, reflected a continued tension between the services and an unwillingness to
compromise and focus on the mission at hand.58
Ultimately, route packages were delineated by
service and function, thereby precluding any requirement for joint coordination.
Modern Defense Reform: Setting Conditions for Human Collaboration?
The Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, commonly referred to as the
Goldwater-Nichols Act after its co-sponsors, Senator Barry Goldwater and Representative Bill
Nichols, made three broad reforms to meet these challenges. First, the Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff received greater statutory authority to operate independently of the other service
18
chiefs. The chairman was also given a larger staff to handle the range of interservice issues.
Secondly, the chain of command was streamlined to give the combatant commanders explicit
control over the forces assigned to them, including joint training, logistics, organization, and
doctrine. Finally, the joint personnel system was imbued with greater professionalism.59
Joint Publication 1 is the capstone publication for all joint doctrine and presents
fundamental principles and overarching guidance for the employment of the Armed Forces of the
United States.60
The current version, dated 25 March 2013, represents the evolution in U.S. joint
warfighting guidance and military theory that forms the core of joint doctrine and establishes the
framework for joint forces’ ability to fight as one team. Fortunately, JP-1 also ties joint doctrine
to the National Security Strategy as well as the National Military Strategy, which is essential in
outlining the military’s role in the development of U.S. foreign policy and strategy. Therefore, it
is a useful tool in linking joint doctrine and the contribution of other government agencies and
multinational activities.
The human element in the American way of war is critical amongst defense agencies and
military services. This human collaboration facilitates a unified, powerful position as the U.S.
military engages with other IGOs. That said, reformation measures to date center on
management of the military and IGOs and places too much emphasis on functions and individual
service interests instead of facilitating human collaboration as it relates to defense
interdependence and interoperability. For example, Richard Holbrooke, architect of the 1995
Bosnian peace accords, and retired Admiral Leighton Smith, commander of North Atlantic
Treaty Organization’s (NATO) forces in Bosnia, maintained a stressful relationship that
ultimately hindered the ability to secure and maintain peace in the region.
19
Holbrooke advocated for “Bombs for Peace,” or the selective, limited application of U.S.
military power to convince hostile parties to agree to a settlement. Conversely, Admiral Smith
believed that once the military is given a mission, it must be given the freedom and resources to
execute tasks unabated and the manner a commander deems best. Additionally, an important
lesson from the Vietnam War, Smith advocated for candor between political and military
leadership. That said, Admiral Smith was reluctant to undertake certain military tasks without
adequate force and a clear definition of the military's mission.61
Aside from not liking each other
in a personal manner, Smith and Holbrooke repeatedly clashed over the scope and nature of
NATO’s military presence in Bosnia, which subsequently forced Smith to give up leadership of
U.S. Navy and NATO forces in Europe on July 31, 1996.62
Another example involves the command structure and personal relationships during the
Coalition Provisional Authority’s (CPA) attempts to stabilize Iraq. Paul Bremer assumed his
duties as the U.S. Presidential Envoy in May 2003 and was initially instructed to report to the
Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. However, Bremer often spoke directly to President
Bush and other members of the White House, which eventually became a point of contention for
Rumsfeld.63
Interestingly, Bremer determined early after the CPA was established that his
reports to the Pentagon were not received by other IGOs. In addition, Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s
National Security Advisor, asked her staff to use their informal contacts in the Pentagon to find
out what was going on in Baghdad since she was receiving so little information through formal
channels.64
Bremer’s military counterpart was Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander
of Combined Joint Task Force 7 (CJTF-7). The two maintained reasonably cordial relations, but
their staffs often clashed. In his memoirs, Sanchez stated that “the details of the command
20
relationship between CPA and the military were never clearly defined by any level of command,
all the way up to the Department of Defense.”65
Bremer agreed that “it was a vague and
awkward relationship since he was not in the military chain of command.”66
Rumsfeld formally ordered Sanchez to support Bremer and the CPA. Bremer recognized
that he was not in a position to instruct Sanchez, but believed his guidance should be treated
analogous to “commander’s intent.” Furthermore, Sanchez admitted that Bremer believed that
the military was going to work for him, but thought that civilian command of the military was
not acceptable at this level.67
Formally, Bremer and the Central Command (CENTCOM)
combatant commander, first General Tommy R. Franks followed by General John P. Abizaid,
both reported to Rumsfeld, whereas Sanchez reported to CENTCOM, placing him one step lower
in the command chain than Bremer.68
Bremer’s relationship with the U.S. military was inherently strained given his anomalous
and unprecedented position as a presidential envoy governing an entire country in the midst of an
active conflict. A command structure that placed both Bremer and Sanchez under the Secretary
of Defense was intended to ameliorate this problem, but had an adverse effect given personal
relationships and previously established reporting procedures. Ironically, disagreements between
Bremer and Sanchez were rarely adjudicated in a timely fashion given actual practices.
Disagreements between American ambassadors and local American military commanders are not
infrequent as evidenced by the previous scenario with Holbrooke and Smith, nor is it unheard of
for American diplomats to deal directly with the White House.69
The CPA’s inability to disseminate message traffic to the White House and other IGOs
obstructed the war efforts. The State Department routinely shared its diplomatic traffic with
other agencies, but messages were withheld from the Department of Defense, Central
21
Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the White House by exception.70
Conversely, the Defense
Department’s communications were neither routinely shared nor routed to external agencies only
at the direction of the originator. In U.S. embassies, non–State Department elements, including
the Defense Department, are usually free to maintain their own communications as long as they
keep the ambassador generally apprised of their activities; this was not permitted in Baghdad,
except with the CIA.71
As evidenced by history, the personalities and experiences of senior officials directly
affect how the military conducts war. Two recent examples that epitomize the appreciation of
the human element in the conduct of war are in the case of General Colin Powell and Secretary
of Defense Dick Cheney during Operation DESERT STORM; and General Anthony Zinni and
multinational leadership during Operation PROVIDE COMFORT. General Powell and
Secretary Cheney appreciated the art of collaboration and forged a relationship based on mutual
trust and respect. The relationship fostered a confidence within the Pentagon that exuded a
confidence that facilitated the Defense Department’s ability to conduct the war unabated after
President Bush’s national objectives were promulgated.72
In the case of Operation Provide Comfort, General Zinni established “Hand Shake Con”
to account for the cultural sensitivities and volatility in multinational operations. Hand Shake
Con involved sitting down with leaders of foreign militaries, sharing assorted beverages, and
discussing the intricacies of the operation. Put simply, General Zinni sat down with foreign
military leaders and engaged in meaningful discourse regarding how forces might be employed
and the types of missions that could be pursued based on organizational capabilities.73
Once
complete, a consultative handshake finalized this process.
22
Conclusion
The prevailing characteristic of all joint operations is their relative complexity compared
to single service operations. The increasing capability of today’s forces exacerbates the
coordination problem, while the lethality and accuracy of modern weaponry demand a higher
standard of control. Coordinating the logistics, maneuver, and timing of vast forces over great
distances increases the opportunities for friction, the fog of war, and enemy action to destroy
plans. So, while joint doctrine and defense reformation facilitates interdependence and
interoperability, it is not the sole nexus that fosters the required cohesion that leads to effective
coordination and execution in the American way of war.
The American way of war has had its share of military problems centered upon command
relationships and integrating service doctrine. A characteristic method of reducing the burden of
coordination on military organizations has been the molding of “like-minded” men.74
It is
equally evident that new weapons and the increased size of armies have greatly diversified the
skills and perspectives required in the military establishment and that the pace of change has
rendered irrelevant many of the principles and methods by which it was developed. The need for
emphasis on human collaboration is more of a result of divergent forces on the battlefield -- the
technological explosion and its implications for fusing defense structure and joint doctrine.
The Grant-Porter relationship at Vicksburg -- absent any formal command structure or
joint doctrine -- illustrates how men willing to work together toward a common goal and
vacating personal agendas can achieve great success. Even with the significant defense
reformation and joint doctrine promulgated to date, men like General Powell and Secretary
Cheney in Operation Desert Storm, and General Zinni in Operation Provide Comfort, inherently
23
understand that the value of personal relationships is the critical ingredient to achieve success in
military operations.
U.S. joint doctrine tends to focus on technologically-produced solutions that integrate
service capabilities. While the U.S. approach to war cannot ignore the influence of technology
and service-specific equipment, it must keep this aspect or dimension in context. The American
way of war may very well be technology-enabled, but it must also respect the fact that war is
human-centric and requires human collaboration to plan, execute, and sustain joint operations. A
number of research and scholarly papers published by the National Defense University (NDU)
suggest a growing awareness of the importance of this field. Others, both within the U.S.
military, and our allies, have engaged with this issue to a greater degree.75
In short, the writers of
joint doctrine need to pay attention to previous U.S. history.
Finally, since war is a contest of human wills -- not simply technology or machines – the
American way of war must center on fostering human collaboration. Unquestionably, there is no
doubt that science and the application of advanced technology and enabling logistics are key
capabilities that the joint force must become accomplished in. But in the current operating
environment, the ways and means are likely to become more complex, and the circumstances in
which the ends are secured will be complicated with greater ambiguity. Joint operations are the
most extensive in time and resources; it is the human element that will truly integrate,
synchronize, and direct operations and enable U.S. forces to seamlessly transition across the
range of military operations. Preserving the human element in the American way of war will
remain a critical element to successful actions in future conflicts -- a military strategy and force
posture without human collaboration will be ineffective and inefficient on the battlefield.
24
End Notes
1
Joint Chiefs of Staff, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States, Joint Publication 1-0 (Washington, DC:
Department of Defense, March 25, 2013), I-1.
2
Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Operations, Joint Publication 3-0 (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, August 11,
2011), I-1.
3
Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Operations, ix.
4
Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Operations, I-11.
5
Christopher R. Gabel, The Vicksburg Campaign: November 1862 – July 1863 (Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center
of Military History, 2013), 61.
6
Harry S. Laver, The Leadership of Ulysses S. Grant (Lexington, KY: American University Press, 2013), 59.
7
Laver, 60.
8
David D. Porter, Naval History of the Civil War (Secaucus, NJ: Castle, 1984), 328.
9
Joseph T. Glatthaar, Partners in Command: The Relationships Between Leaders in the Civil War (New York, NY:
The Free Press, 1994), 167.
10
John D. Milligan, Gunboats Down the Mississippi (Annapolis, MD: United States Naval Institute, 1965), 160.
11
Milligan, 179.
12
Glatthaar, 179.
13
Glatthaar, 177.
14
Glatthaar, 178.
15
Glatthaar, 180.
16
Allan R. Millet, “The Organizational Impact of Military Success and Failure: An Historical Perspective,” in The
Reorganization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: A Critical Analysis (Washington, D.C.: Pergamon-Brassey, 1986), 1-17.
17
Millet, 4.
18
Millet, 5.
19
Millet, 5.
20
Millet, 2.
21
Millet, 6.
22
Millet, 6.
23
Millet, 6.
24
Millet, 7.
25
Millet, 7.
26
Rosenwasser, 14.
27
Rosenwasser, 17.
28
William T. Y’Blood, “The Korean Air War,” 7th Air Force, February 1, 2007,
http://www.7af.pacaf.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=7103.
29
Y’Blood, “The Korean Air War.”
30
Robert F. Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950-1953 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing
Office, 1981), 45.
31
Futrell, 45.
32
John Schlight, Help From Above: Air Force Close Air Support of the Army, 1946-1973 (Washington, DC: Air
Force History and Museums Program, 2003), 93.
33
Schlight, 93.
34
Futrell, 49.
35
Futrell, 49.
36
Futrell, 49.
37
Futrell, 50.
38
Futrell, 50.
39
Futrell, 51.
40
Y’Blood, “The Korean Air War.”
41
Y’Blood, “The Korean Air War.”
42
Schlight, 127.
43
Y’Blood, “The Korean Air War.”
44
Y’Blood, “The Korean Air War.”
25
45
Graham A. Cosmas, “General Westmoreland and Control of the Air War” in Command and Control of Air
Operations in the Vietnam War (Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1991), 29-38.
46
Cosmas, 30.
47
Cosmas, 30.
48
Cosmas, 31.
49
Cosmas, 30.
50
Graham A. Cosmas, “MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of the Withdrawal, 1968-1973 (Washington, DC:
Center of Military History, 2007), 10.
51
Graham A. Cosmas, “MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of the Withdrawal, 1968-1973, 10.
52
Graham A. Cosmas, “MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of the Withdrawal, 1968-1973, 78.
53
Graham A. Cosmas, “MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of the Withdrawal, 1968-1973, 78.
54
Graham A. Cosmas, “MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of the Withdrawal, 1968-1973, 78.
55
Graham A. Cosmas, “MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of the Withdrawal, 1968-1973, 82.
56
“USAF Operational Areas in North Vietnam,” National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Air Force, last
modified December 4, 2006, http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=1394.
57
Mark Clodfelter, The Limits of Airpower: The American Bombing of North Vietnam (New York, NY: The Free
Press, 1989), 131.
58
Clodfelter, 131.
59
Rosenwasser, 22.
60
Joint Chiefs of Staff, I-1.
61
“Give War a Chance,” Frontline Collection, Public Broadcasting System,
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/military/.
62
“Give War a Chance.”
63
James Dobbins, et al., Occupying Iraq: A History of the Coalition Provisional Authority (Santa Monica, CA:
RAND, 2009), 17.
64
Dobbins, et al, 16.
65
Dobbins, et al, 17.
66
Dobbins, et al, 17.
67
Dobbins, et al, 17.
68
Dobbins, et al, 17n. 16.
69
Dobbins, et al, 19.
70
Dobbins, et al, 19.
71
Dobbins, et al, 19.
72
U.S. Department of Defense, Conduct of the Persian Gulf War (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing
Office, April 1992), 27, 32.
73
Joe Strange, Capital “W” War: A Case for Strategic Principles of War, vol. 6, Perspectives on Warfighting
(Quantico, VA: Defense Automated Printing Service Center, U.S. Marine Corps, 1998), 265.
74
Paul Y. Hammond, Organizing for Defense: The American Military Establishment in the Twentieth Century
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), 398.
72
Millet, 7.
26
Appendix 1
27
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Clodfelter, Mark. The Limits of Airpower: The American Bombing of North Vietnam. New York,
NY: The Free Press, 1989.
Cosmas, Graham A. “General Westmoreland and Control of the Air War” In Command and
Control of Air Operations in the Vietnam War, 29-38. Washington, DC: Naval Historical
Center, 1991.
Cosmas, Graham A. MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of the Withdrawal, 1968-1973.
Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 2007.
Department of Defense. Joint Military Operations Historical Collection. Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1997.
Dobbins, James, Seth G. Jones, Benjamin Runkle, and Siddharth Mohandas. Occupying Iraq: A
History of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2009.
Futrell, Robert F. The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950-1953. Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 1981.
Gabel, Christopher R. The Vicksburg Campaign: November 1862 – July 1863. Washington,
D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2013.
Glatthaar, Joseph T. Partners in Command: The Relationships Between Leaders in the Civil War.
New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994.
Hammond, Paul Y. Organizing for Defense: The American Military Establishment in the
Twentieth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961.
Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD:
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007.
Joint Chiefs of Staff. Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States. Joint Publication 1-0.
Washington, DC: Department of Defense, March 25, 2013.
Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Operations. Joint Publication 3-0. Washington, DC: Department of
Defense, August 11, 2011.
Laver, Harry S. The Leadership of Ulysses S. Grant. Lexington, KY: American University Press,
2013.
28
Millet, Allan R. “The Organizational Impact of Military Success and Failure: An Historical
Perspective.” In The Reorganization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: A Critical Analysis, 1-17.
Washington, D.C.: Pergamon-Brassey, 1986.
Milligan, John D. Gunboats Down the Mississippi. Annapolis, MD: United States Naval
Institute, 1965.
Perret, Geoffrey. Lincoln’s War. New York, NY: Random House, 2004.
Porter, David D. Naval History of the Civil War. Secaucus, NJ: Castle, 1984.
Public Broadcasting System. “Give War a Chance.” Frontline Collection.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/military/.
Rosenwasser, Jon and Michael Warner. “History of the Interagency Process for Foreign
Relations in the United States: Murphy’s Law?” In The National Security Enterprise:
Navigating the Labyrinth, edited by Roger Z. George and Harvey Rishikof, 11-29.
Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2011.
Schlight, John. Help From Above: Air Force Close Air Support of the Army, 1946-1973.
Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2003.
Strange, Joe. Capital “W” War: A Case for Strategic Principles of War. Vol. 6, Perspectives on
Warfighting. Quantico, VA: Defense Automated Printing Service Center, U.S. Marine
Corps, 1998.
U.S. Air Force. “USAF Operational Areas in North Vietnam.” National Museum of the U.S. Air
Force. http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=1394.
U.S. Department of Defense. Conduct of the Persian Gulf War. Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office, April 1992.
Y’Blood, William T. “The Korean Air War.” 7th Air Force. February 1, 2007.
http://www.7af.pacaf.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=7103.

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Siekman_MMS_Final w_PhD Signatures

  • 1.
  • 2. United States Marine Corps Command and Staff College Marine Corps University 2076 South Street Marine Corps Combat Development Command Quantico, Virginia 22134-5068 MASTER OF MILITARY STUDIES PRESERVING THE HUMAN ELEMENT IN THE AMERICAN WAY OF WAR SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF MILITARY STUDIES MAJOR CHRISTOPHER M. SIEKMAN AY 13-14 Mentor and Oral Defense Committee Member: Dr. Richard L. DiNardo Approved: ________________________________________________ Date: ____________________________________________________ Oral Defense Committee Member: Dr. John W. Gordon Approved: ___________________________________ Date: _______________________________________
  • 3. ii Executive Summary Title: Preserving the Human Element in the American Way of War Author: Major Christopher M. Siekman, United States Marine Corps Thesis: The American way of war as envisioned by the Pentagon is overly hierarchical and technical in nature and overlooks the value of personality and collaboration. Discussion: The American way of war was forged by commanders who first dealt with the enduring problem of coordinating military operations among land, sea and, later, air forces. The United States (U.S.) Armed Forces have faced challenges in coordinating different military forces since armies became distinct from navies. Defense structure provides the framework for both interservice and interagency coordination and collaboration. War exacerbates these relationships and inherently drives them during times of conflict. Disputes among the American armed services, and between individual services and joint command authorities, accentuated the need to expand the scope and authority of pre- Goldwater-Nichols Act theater commanders. At issue were the conduct of conflicts, the validation of service roles and missions, and the setting of critical precedents for future joint operations. Today, joint staffs seek to maintain as much interservice harmony as possible while ensuring their own ability to carry out their missions as demonstrated in the air wars of Korea and Vietnam. The design of these operations precluded much, if any, coordination between the services. General Grant and Admiral Porter’s collaborationist styles proved to be tremendous assets in coping with the increasing complexities of joint operations during the Vicksburg Campaign as did General Powell and Secretary Cheney during Desert Storm. In addition, General Zinni’s “Hand Shake Con” shows how the American way of war can be highly effective with foreign militaries in multinational operations. The key to successful command relationships, then, rests with the ability of leaders to understand strengths and weaknesses and levy them accordingly. Leaders must know themselves as well as the qualities and characteristics of their seniors, peers, and subordinates alike. Conclusion: The American way of war is still a long way from developing a fully integrated and collaborative profession. Bureaucratic unification around issues is extremely slow to create long-term change within the Department of Defense. Additional hierarchical layers and voluminous joint doctrine detailing the integration and employment of technology and capabilities is not the ultimate answer. Rather, professional attitudes lay at the bedrock of interactive and successful military partnerships. The American way of war must embrace the fact that military institutions do not transform -- people transform the institutions.
  • 4. iii DISCLAIMER THE OPINIONS AND CONCLUSIONS EXPRESSED HEREIN ARE THOSE OF THE INDIVIDUAL STUDENT AUTHOR AND DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT THE VIEWS OF EITHER THE MARINE CORPS COMMAND AND STAFF COLLEGE OR ANY OTHER GOVERNMENTAL AGENCY. REFERENCES TO THIS STUDY SHOULD INCLUDE THE FOREGOING STATEMENT. QUOTATIONS FROM, ABSTRACTION FROM, OR REPRODUCTION OF ALL OR ANY PART OF THIS DOCUMENT IS PERMITTED PROVIDED PROPER ACKNOWLEDGEMENT IS MADE.
  • 5. iv Table of Contents Page DISCLAIMER ...............................................................................................................iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS..........................................................................................v PREFACE…..................................................................................................................vi WIELDING COLLABORATION INTO VICTORY AT VICKSBURG .....................3 MOUNTING INTERSERVICE TENSIONS.................................................................5 INTERSERVICE STRUGGLES POST-WORLD WAR II ERA ..................................9 MODERN DEFENSE REFORM .................................................................................17 CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................22 END NOTES ................................................................................................................24 APPENDIX 1................................................................................................................26 BIBLIOGRAPHY.........................................................................................................27
  • 6. v Illustrations Figure 1. North Vietnam Armed Reconnaissance Route Package Areas, Appendix 1...p. 26
  • 7. vi Preface As I study the American way of war, it has become immediately apparent to me that we are losing sight of a critical dynamic: the human element. While defense reformation evolves and continues to enhance our military procedures, it is not the underlying answer to meaningful and successful integration; nor does it reside in a voluminous joint publication library. We are a warfighting organization, but this is a people business -- let’s keep it that way. Special thanks to my wife, Rebecca, for loving me and the Marine Corps and for sacrificing so much for both. Thanks also to Dr. Richard DiNardo for his mentorship throughout academic year at CSC and the MMS process. Thanks also Lieutenant Colonel Dave Hudspeth for the unconditional support, mentorship, and friendship – that have made me a better Marine, officer, and person. And, finally, thank you to the Marines and Sailors I have served with -- for their sacrifices and tireless efforts while conducting our Nation’s bidding.
  • 8. 1 Preserving the Human Element in the American Way of War War is a human activity, inspired by human emotions, and guided by human intellect. This appreciation respects war’s competitive nature, yet the American way of war overlooks Clausewitz’s insight that war is not an exercise conducted with inanimate objects, but with living allies and against living -- and thinking -- opponents. Defense reform has improved conditions for coordination and collaboration, but still a great deal remains desired. In addition, joint doctrine is designed to be authoritative in nature, but a voluminous, nuanced publication system emphasizing technological integration and detail lends it a prescriptive character and supplants essential human collaboration that must be preserved in order to ensure the future success of the U.S. military. To put it succinctly, with all of the advances in technology, doctrine, and organization, war is still a human activity as Clausewitz described. Joint Publication (JP) 1, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States, defines joint operations as “military actions conducted by joint forces and those service forces in specified command relationships with each other. It is a single operation, particularly in combat, employing two or more services from two military departments.”1 The effective coordination and interoperability of service capabilities enhance joint operations to accomplish U.S. Government objectives, building on U.S. traditions of conducting joint operations that began with the Revolutionary War. When integrated into joint operations with partner military services and other defense, logistical, and intelligence agencies, they become capable of unified action. Yet, U.S. doctrine is technology-centric and relies upon merging capabilities and skill sets of service components through the integration of service capabilities without focusing on deepening relationships between its people.
  • 9. 2 The current version of Joint Publication 3-0, Joint Operations, dated 11 August 2011, states that “joint warfare is team warfare.”2 This version was amended from the previous 22 March 2010 publication to redefine the strategic environment, update the art of command as it pertains to planning and operational design, and expound upon the scope and capacity of joint operations as they relate to the six warfighting functions.3 Although earlier editions of this publication emphasized collaboration and communications with senior commanders to resolve differences of interpretation of higher-level objectives, the current version still fails to require or even suggest meaningful discourse between service or functional commanders prior to embarking on a mission. Developing relationships and establishing trust is extremely difficult over long-distance or asynchronous communication mediums. According to JP-3, commanders and staffs may collaborate to establish a common purpose. However, to ensure the future success of the U.S. military, commanders operating in joint constructs must make a concerted effort to engage in personal, meaningful discourse in person instead of by happenstance. Even at the interagency level, JP-3 suggests that “formal agreements, robust liaison, and information sharing is needed to bridge contradicting policies between intergovernmental (IGO) and military organizations.”4 Technology and equipment are key facets in warfare, but both require the human dynamic to integrate these capabilities between the services. Thus, it is human collaboration that creates the frame of reference that defines the preparation and conduct of war. Each service crafts doctrine and platforms that are designed to operate or maneuver in their dominant domain, but -- defense structure and current joint doctrine does little to integrate seams in the preparation, sustainment, and conduct of war. Because of this misguided focus on how the services will arrive at amenable employment concepts of cutting edge technologies, the American way of war
  • 10. 3 will continue to supplant the most important aspect of preparing and waging war -- the human element. Therefore, the American way of war as currently envisioned by the Pentagon is overly hierarchical and technical in nature and overlooks the value of personality and collaboration. Although possessing rudimentary structure and lacking any formalized joint doctrine, the Vicksburg Campaign of 1863 provides an authentic perspective of the value of personalities in joint operations between Major General Ulysses S. Grant and Rear Admiral David D. Porter. Wielding Collaboration into Victory at Vicksburg Joint operations were still in their infancy leading up to the Civil War, even though this type of operation has been essential in all wars the U.S. has participated since the American Revolution. The services had not yet developed the present day practice of coordinating efforts by keeping Navy liaison men with the Army command.5 Having exhausted what seemed to be every possible option, Grant looked for assistance from the Navy as he had done during the campaigns at Forts Henry and Donelson. Porter was anxious to cooperate with Grant. Working together, the two drafted a daring, unprecedented plan that would enable Grant’s men to take a position on some high, dry ground east of Vicksburg. In short, the soldiers would march south along the western side of the Mississippi River while Porter’s squadron, under the cover of darkness, would attempt to slip past the city’s artillery-studded bluffs manned by Confederate troops.6 General Grant found in Porter a naval commander who shared his philosophy of relentless war. Grant never undertook any movement without consulting Porter, and he never did anything without consulting General Grant. This mutual respect fostered a harmony of action, which has never been achieved in any other military and naval cooperation.7 Grant and Porter were of equivalent rank, and neither could give an order to the other. Therefore, it was
  • 11. 4 only through that high courtesy bred in a purely military school, that so perfect an understanding could be arrived at, or that the wishes of either military or naval commander could be anticipated. Grant reminisced of the Vicksburg Campaign and wrote in his memoirs: “The Navy under Porter was all it could be during the entire campaign. Without its assistance the campaign could not have been successfully made with twice the number of men engaged. It could not have been made at all in the way it was, with any number of men without such assistance. The most perfect harmony reigned between the two arms of the service. There never was a request made, that I am aware of, either of the Flag-officer or any of his subordinates that was not promptly complied with.”8 Porter stated to Major General Tecumseh Sherman, “I wish to cooperate with the Army in every way where I can be of service, and if you can get any message to or from General Grant on the subject, and give me an idea of what is going on, I shall be much obliged to you.” Porter also commented (to Sherman) that, “Were either one of you in absolute command, all, of course, would act in concert. I am ready to cooperate with anybody and everybody. All I ask on the part of the military commanders is their full confidence and a pull together.”9 Porter pledged harmony of action and established a superb tone for joint Army-Navy operations. Two important contributions in all of this were: (1) Admiral Porter’s demonstrated ability to lead his squadron into every kind of situation; and (2) his willingness to attempt anything the Army asked of his command. Admiral Porter also showed his measure in that whenever the Army needed, the Navy had it serviceable and ready.10 Although Grant had no official control over the Mississippi Squadron, Porter wrote in his memoirs that he did his best to act as though the general was in supreme command.11 This fact alone made it possible for Grant to lay his plans with the Navy and always included Porter as an equal partner. For Porter, personal exposure to Grant transformed his opinion of professionally-trained Army officers. Earlier in the war, he confessed to the Assistant Secretary Fox, “I don’t believe
  • 12. 5 in our generals any more than I do in our old fogies of the Navy.”12 Interservice mistrust and rivalry from early war experiences had soured Porter’s assessment of high-ranking army personnel. Grant had won over Porter through his professional conduct, sensitivity to Porter’s rank and position, and the refreshing atmosphere of cooperation that they fostered. More than anything, Porter feared, “For the sake of the Union that nothing may occur to make a change here.”13 Unlike most Army generals, Grant grasped the possibilities of joint operations. Selflessly committed to victory, and convinced that an Army-Navy team offered the only hope of success, Grant did not possess any qualms about dealing with Porter as a peer, something few Army officers would do. By leading his force from the front, Grant kept himself aware of the tactical and operational realities that he faced. Although unity of command was not formalized by formal regulation, Grant worked hard to ensure that good relations, constant communication, and division of labor fostered unit of effort.14 Porter accorded full credit for the Vicksburg Campaign to Grant. In his report to the Secretary of the Navy, the admiral asserted that: “The late investment and capture of Vicksburg will be characterized as one of the greatest military achievements ever known. The conception of the idea originated solely with General Grant, who adopted a course in which great labor was performed, great battles were fought, and great risks were run; a single mistake would have involved us in difficulty, but so well were all the plans matured, so well were all the movements timed, and so rapid were the evolutions performed that not a mistake has occurred from the passage of the fleet by Vicksburg and the passage of the army across the river up to the present time.”15 Mounting Interservice Tensions The Army and Navy collaborated on a generally amicable, but ad hoc basis in wartime for the defense and attack of objectives on coasts and along inland waters. There are far more examples of good joint collaboration than bad examples, even in the absence of joint doctrine or
  • 13. 6 strong civilian pressure to cooperate. In the War of 1812, for example, joint forces defended Washington, Baltimore, Plattsburgh, and New Orleans, the last three with dramatic success. In the same war, the Army and Navy conducted successful landings, including shore bombardments, along the shores of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. In the war with Mexico, the campaign to conquer California and the successful landing at Vera Cruz depended upon joint, sustained Army-Navy cooperation.16 During the Civil War, the successful conquest of the Tennessee and Mississippi valleys and the major ports of the Confederacy required a series of joint operations. Although the services’ peacetime missions -- to patrol the nation’s continental and maritime frontiers -- dictated such organizational structure as existed, at least one major mission, coastal defense, required continued collaboration. Since coastal fortifications were built and manned by the Army, the civil-military and interservice dimensions of the coastal defense mission were obvious -- but often ignored. Untested by a foreign adversary after the War of 1812, the coastal defense system was with about as much civil-military and interservice harmony as the American system allowed. During this period, Navy gunboat flotillas and state militias worked in concert with each other absent any doctrine or procedures.17 Until World War II, the relationship of political leaders and military commanders had more influence on military operations than organizational arrangements. Whether operations involved a commander of one or more services, personality had more to do with operational performance than formal command relationships. Since joint operations were comparatively rare, there was no pressing need to create a formal, joint Army-Navy command structure, particularly since those few instances of joint operations which occurred provided far more examples of success than failure. Two developments at the end of the nineteenth century,
  • 14. 7 however, obscured this successful collaboration. As the Mahanian concept of major fleet operations between modern battleships grew in the 1890s, the Navy lost interest in coastal defense. The second development, in fact, applied to base defenses outside of the continental United States.18 As the Navy prepared for the possibility of wartime operations in the western Pacific and the Caribbean, it found the Army reluctant to protect the bases actually created in Cuba, the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii, the Canal Zone, and the Virgin Islands. Interservice disputes on shared coastal defense responsibilities were, however, secondary to the political context that limited the mission: Congress had less enthusiasm for defending overseas military bases than it did for defending American cities.19 In the twentieth century, influenced by the rationalization craze that struck most of American public life, formal structure and organization began to play a larger role in military performance on the battlefield. Influenced by mounting interservice tension over roles, mission, and force-structuring, field commanders became sensitive to operations that might set doctrinal precedents or influence policy in Washington.20 The introduction of the airplane to military operations, which coincided with the creation of service headquarters planning staffs, created interservice tension that could not be mitigated by informal cooperation. By the late 1930s, aviation policy had brought profound disagreement to both the Army and the Navy. Even within the Army itself, the desire of air power advocates for a separate air force. More specifically, the issue was the balance between strategic bombardment and air support for the ground forces; in the latter, the question centered on the offensive capability of carrier aviation. Aviation issues infected policy questions that ranged from arms control negotiations to joint doctrine for coastal defense and amphibious assaults. One intellectual effort to deal with the aviation issue (specifically, to fragment strategic planning
  • 15. 8 by physical environment into land campaigns, sea campaigns, and air campaigns) caused more problems than it solved for operational commanders, because it created doctrinal excuses to evade traditional mission sets or to participate only to establish doctrinal precedent while not adding any real capability.21 The very potential and versatility of military aviation, coupled with its high cost in men and materiel, made it difficult for the Army and the Navy not to regard each other as competitors for the first time, and to give special importance to the drafting of joint doctrine, an unknown activity in the nineteenth century.22 The institutionalization of military advising added equal interservice stresses between the Army and the Navy. For the reformist military officers of the Progressive Era and their civilian collaborators, the creation of a central planning staff represented the essence of military professionalism.23 Whether they sought it or not, political leaders in Washington received plenty of military advice throughout the Nation’s history. Field commanders often corresponded directly with the service secretaries and sometime with the President -- and even with their patrons in Congress. In the War Department, different secretaries received counsel from generals. In addition to Admiral Porter, the Navy Department relied on the bureau chiefs in peacetime and the ad hoc Naval War Board during the Spanish-American War.24 The general staff movement created serious implications for the conduct of future operations, for it moved the locus of expertise from individuals to central staffs, whose concerns for waging war could not be severed from the process of creating military forces and writing doctrine for their use. It is important to recall, however, that the military reformers of that era focused on intra-service readiness issues and not joint operations (note: the post of Chief of Naval Operations was not created until 1915). Whatever their internal service role -- and their limitations in the performance of that role -- the service central staffs formed the Joint Army-
  • 16. 9 Navy Board of 1903 in order to consider issues of mutual concern and to communicate these concerns to the service secretaries. The Joint Board, the first move toward a formalized joint structure, also attempted to integrate the services’ individual war plans, an exercise that inevitably stirred doctrinal controversy and made the drafting of Joint Action of the Army and Navy.25 Interservice Struggles Post-World War II Era The change in America’s global position after World War II exposed the need to coordinate between military departments. In addition, tensions with the Soviet Union led to a series of policy choices that endured throughout the ensuing Cold War: maintaining a large standing, forward deployed military; the advent and sustainment of a nuclear arsenal; security alliances in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region; and participation in new treaties to oversee global affairs and trade.26 In order to address these requirements, the U.S. needed an integrated approach to address all possible intensities of armed conflict across the land, sea, and air domains. President Harry Truman, in coordination with the 80th Congress, recognized the need to reengineer the United States’ antiquated defense structure. For the military specifically, the National Security Act of 1947 was passed. The National Security Act of 1947 served to preserve the traditional diplomatic and military departments, but changed the ways in which they related to one another, centralizing power in certain cases and clarifying roles and responsibilities in others.27 That said, National Security Act of 1947 did not exactly unify the military departments as demonstrated by the structure and conduct of joint operations in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The U.S. maintained a large military presence in the Far East -- primarily in Japan. General Douglas MacArthur, the senior American officer, had two command responsibilities: as
  • 17. 10 Supreme Commander, Allied Powers (SCAP), he exercised command over all occupation forces; and as Commander-in-Chief, Far East (CINCFE), he exercised unified command of all U.S. forces in his area. MacArthur's Far East Command (FEC) included all American forces in Japan, Korea, the Ryukyus, the Philippines, the Marianas, and the Bonins.28 The FEC, however, was a model based on a World War II construct. In short, although the Joint Chiefs of Staff directed General MacArthur to make his headquarters a joint command, he ignored this directive and the command subsequently remained almost entirely Army-centric. Not until January 1953, when General Mark Clark commanded the United Nation’s forces was the United Nations Command (UNC)/FEC headquarters reorganized to incorporate a truly joint staff. Unfortunately, by the time this staff was fully functional, the war was dragging into its final months and the reorganization had little effect on the execution of the Korean War.29 In June 1950, the composition and functioning FEC headquarters clearly demonstrated an absence of unification principles during the Korean conflict. In theory, the major commands comprising the FEC were the Army Forces Far East (AFFE), the Naval Forces Far East (NavFE), and the Far East Air Forces (FEAF), but General MacArthur had never organized an Army FEC. Instead, the AFFE, commanded by General George E. Stratemeyer, was actually a shadow headquarters, in which Commander in Chief Far East (CINCFE) personally commanded.30 Almost wholly manned by Army personnel and predominately concerned with Army business, the GHQ Far East Command was dominated by Army thinking and prone to honor Army concepts.31 Major General Robert M. Lee, General Stratemeyer’s deputy and head of the Tactical Air Command (TAC), noted in a September 1949 meeting that several amphibious exercises with the Army and Navy during 1945 to 1948 failed to yield any appreciable progress in developing joint
  • 18. 11 doctrines and procedures. The Air Force frequently was excluded from the planning of these exercises or invited late.32 Control of aircraft also remained a major matter of dispute and although agreements were reached on the command structure for each exercise, a permanent solution to this problem remained obscure. The principal unresolved issue was between the Navy and Air Force over the overarching issue of control. As in World War II, the Navy insisted on its amphibious doctrine, which provided for naval control for all operations, including any air tasking prior to an amphibious landing. With the establishment of an Expeditionary Force commander ashore, control of aircraft was then transferred to the ground force commander. The Air Force had yet to create its own doctrine on the matter of command and control (C2), but the TAC strongly opposed yielding control to the Navy for any portion of a joint undertaking. Since these exercises involved support of Army units after initial landings, this issue had important implications for the C2 aspect of close air support (CAS).33 In July 1950, General Stratemeyer had been seeking solutions to a critical theater air force problem: the coordination of land-based and carrier-based air operations over Korea. On the several occasions during World War II when he had “borrowed” fast carrier task forces from the Pacific Fleet, General MacArthur had employed these carrier task forces against targets lying beyond the range of FEAF’s land-based bombers. Such geographical coordination had worked fairly well in the southwest Pacific, but under such arrangements the massed power of land- based aviation could not simultaneously be brought to bear on significant targets. Moreover, Korea was too small to permit geographical coordination.34 On 2 July, preparatory to Task Force 77’s first air strikes to be made on the following day, Vice Admiral C. Turner Joy, Commander NavFE, requested and received “exclusive use” of
  • 19. 12 a large airspace area of northwestern Korea that encompassed Pyongyang.35 At 2235 on 3 July, the FEC informed the FEAF that this same target area would again be allocated to Task Force 77 on the following day. Having no advance indication that the carrier air strikes would continue for an additional day, FEAF operations scheduled a medium bomber strike against Pyongyang’s airfield for 4 July. As a result, the scheduled B-29 strike for 4 July had to be canceled, and, since it was too late to devise and process a new air tasking order, the aircraft were grounded that day. The Navy’s air operations also added additional complications to the air flow because they maintained radio silence while at sea. Therefore, neither General Stratemeyer nor his staff was able to gain any situational awareness as to the results of carrier air strikes against Pyongyang.36 Without some form of centralized control or means of coordination, the mass of Air Force and Navy airpower could not be effectively employed. Learning that Marine aircraft were also scheduled to come to the Far East, General Stratemeyer requested that he be assigned operational control (OPCON) over all naval land-based and carrier-based aviation, when operating from Japan or over Korea.37 This request was not received well and General Stratemeyer clarified his request for OPCON to simply include “the authority to designate the type of mission, such as air defense, close air support, etc., and related operational details such as targets, times over targets, degree of effort, etc., within the capabilities of the forces involved.”38 General Stratemeyer’s modified version of OPCON was especially frowned upon by the Navy -- Admiral Joy and his staff contended that the phrase OPCON remained too broad and subjected Navy aircraft to FEAF on a continuous basis, which could pose detrimental to the Seventh Fleet’s mission in the Formosa area. As a result, the term “coordination control” was adopted. Unfortunately, coordination control had different meanings to both the FEAF and NavFE, which led to further differences of opinion, misunderstandings, and disagreements over
  • 20. 13 the command authority in operations orders.39 CINCFE never saw fit to define the term for the services and temporary, part-time working groups attempted to sew the seams. As a result, air control and coordination remained a significant point of contention throughout the Korean War. The close air support doctrine and techniques used in Korea were underpinned on tactics, techniques, and procedures learned in World War II. The 1946 Field Manual 31-35, Air-Ground Operations, distilled the lessons from the war (primarily from Ninth Air Force operations in Europe). In September 1950, the Army Field Forces and TAC jointly issued a “Joint Training Directive for Air-Ground Operations,” which elaborated on the earlier manual. However, neither service ever accepted the directive as policy.40 And, frankly, the Air Force was not particularly interested in CAS, claiming that interdiction missions would be more successful than CAS in the long run. The Army, however, continued to insist on CAS, since its troops usually could not see the results of interdiction attacks.41 On the other hand, the Marine squadrons were in some ways operating in an alien environment. When the Marine squadrons were supporting their own Marine infantry, they were excused from reporting the JOC and were allowed to use their own air control system.42 The entire air-ground system in Korea was ad hoc, with improvised units attempting to standardize this process. General Earle E. Partridge, Commanding General of the Fifth Air Force, realized solutions to date would not serve the joint force well in the long-term and organized a Joint Operations Center (JOC) next to his headquarters. Again, unfortunately, the JOC was never truly joint, for the Army supplied only a few lower-ranking individuals to work in it, and the Navy provided one liaison officer to it until very late in the war.43 General Partridge also sent tactical air control parties (TACP) to staff at Army regiments and higher headquarters along with men and equipment to operate the Eighth Army's tactical air-request
  • 21. 14 communications net. The jet aircraft used for tactical air support, usually flying from Japan, could not operate over the front lines long enough to be effective. Therefore, General Partridge organized an airborne controller squadron flying to locate targets and direct the targeting efforts.44 Command and control of air operations in the Vietnam War were equally tumultuous. General William C. Westmoreland, commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command-Vietnam (COMUSMACV), used his Commanding General, Seventh Air Force, as his deputy COMUSMACV for air. However, Admiral Ulysses S. Grant Sharp, Commander in Chief Pacific (CINCPAC), under close supervision from the Pentagon, conducted the air war against North Vietnam and procured the aircraft required from the various services.45 Under this arrangement, the Seventh Air Force commander, General William W. Momyer, simultaneously served two masters. General Momyer provided aircraft to service targets in North Vietnam under the direction of CINCPAC through Commander in Chief Pacific Air Force (CINCPACAF), while at the same time supporting allied forces in South Vietnam under General Westmoreland.46 These unique command relationships were deemed necessary by international diplomatic considerations and service doctrine. The Johnson administration insisted that the wars in Laos and South Vietnam, while military closely related, be treated as separate conflicts with separate command arrangements.47 Within South Vietnam specifically, the Army and Marine Corps struggled to retain possession of their organic air forces, which they regarded as integral elements of their respective “combined-arms” teams. Both services rejected Air Force arguments that theater airpower could function at full efficiency and effectiveness only under unified Air Force direction. The services waged their arguments over air command and control
  • 22. 15 with considerable intensity, not only because of the merits of the issues in the Vietnam conflicts, but because of the likelihood that the results in Vietnam would set precedents for future joint operations.48 General Westmoreland had an almost completely free hand in employing airpower in South Vietnam, although he had to obtain Admiral Sharp’s concurrence in his command and control arrangements and negotiate with him regarding air asset employment from carrier-based aircraft. Westmoreland, devising his air command structure, also had to carefully thread his way through conflicting service interests and doctrines. Ultimately, his solutions served personal purposes in the form of theater command, but did not satisfy the other services.49 The degree of control that the deputy for air should exercise over non-Air Force aircraft generated even more consternation. General Momyer, with strong support from Washington, argued that the Air Force should maintain OPCON over all fixed-wing aircraft based in South Vietnam. Consequently, this issue festered during Westmoreland’s tenure and resided primarily with the Air Force and Marine Corps, since the Air Force, under the Johnson-McConnell agreement of April 1966, had given up its earlier claim to control Army helicopters in return for Army transfer of its fixed-wing transports to the Air Force.50 The Marine Corps maintained its own service doctrine that the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing (MAW), as part of an “air-ground team,” should remain outside the Air Force control system and OPCON to the Commanding General, III Marine Amphibious Force (MAF).51 Until early 1968, General Westmoreland, with the backing of Admiral Sharp, essentially accommodated the Marines. Westmoreland allowed the MAF to retain OPCON of the MAW, with the understanding that the Marines’ fixed-wing aircraft would be under Seventh Air Force for air defense purposes and that the MAW would make available for assignment by Seventh Air
  • 23. 16 Force any fixed-wing sorties not needed for support of Marine operations on a daily basis. Westmoreland and Sharp adopted this compromise in order to avoid what they knew would be an intense doctrinal battle with the Marine Corps and because, as long as only Marine units were deployed in I Corps’ area of operations (AOR), the division of command had little adverse effects on supporting ground forces.52 However, in early 1968, General Westmoreland changed his position based on the claim that III MAF and 1 MAW had not been sufficiently responsive to Army requests for air support to I Corps. Therefore, to ensure adequate air support of the Army units, as well as effective coordination of the massive air effort in support of Khe Sanh, Westmoreland adopted a “single management” air control system.53 Under it, General Momyer, as Westmoreland's air deputy, gained a form of OPCON -- known as “mission direction” -- of all Marine Corps’ fixed-wing strike and reconnaissance aircraft. In addition, this change resulted from General Momyer’s doubts regarding III MAF’s inability to control increasingly complex joint operations.54 Despite Westmoreland’s reassurances, the Marine Corps’ chain of command perceived the new system as an Air Force attempt to separate their aircraft from their ground forces, as occurred in the Korean War. The Marine Corps began their war on single management as soon as Westmoreland announced his intention to institute it and never let up thereafter. In short, the single management system compromised the integrity of the air-ground team concept and potentially even the Marine Corps’ force structure as a whole. The Marine Corps’ leadership therefore attacked this system on both doctrinal and practical grounds and contended that Admiral Sharp and General Westmoreland had exceeded their authority by imposing an air command arrangement contrary to Defense Department doctrine for organizing joint forces and further reduced their fire support abilities due to limited organic indirect fire assets.55 This
  • 24. 17 command structure ultimately led to slower and more cumbersome requests for Marine Corps ground force support. Operation ROLLING THUNDER was assigned to all air strikes, armed reconnaissance, and photo reconnaissance against selected targets and lines of communication in North Vietnam. To ensure economical and effective use of resources, operational procedures were developed by the operating units to permit coordination for all air operations by zones, referred to as Route Packages. The U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (COMUSMACV) was assigned Route Package I, Pacific Fleet (PACFLT) was assigned Route Packages II, III, IV and VIB, and Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) was assigned Route Packages V and VIA (see Figure 1 in Appendix 1 for a map of North Vietnam Armed Reconnaissance Route Package Areas).56 Unfortunately, these operational controls limited the pilots from all services. More specifically, while the political and military constraints reduced Operation ROLLING THUNDER’S effectiveness by limiting its scope, OPCON hindered the accomplishment of approved missions, particularly with enemy defense targets.57 An ambiguous cooperation and coordination principle, created during the Korean War and implemented once again in the Vietnam War, reflected a continued tension between the services and an unwillingness to compromise and focus on the mission at hand.58 Ultimately, route packages were delineated by service and function, thereby precluding any requirement for joint coordination. Modern Defense Reform: Setting Conditions for Human Collaboration? The Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, commonly referred to as the Goldwater-Nichols Act after its co-sponsors, Senator Barry Goldwater and Representative Bill Nichols, made three broad reforms to meet these challenges. First, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff received greater statutory authority to operate independently of the other service
  • 25. 18 chiefs. The chairman was also given a larger staff to handle the range of interservice issues. Secondly, the chain of command was streamlined to give the combatant commanders explicit control over the forces assigned to them, including joint training, logistics, organization, and doctrine. Finally, the joint personnel system was imbued with greater professionalism.59 Joint Publication 1 is the capstone publication for all joint doctrine and presents fundamental principles and overarching guidance for the employment of the Armed Forces of the United States.60 The current version, dated 25 March 2013, represents the evolution in U.S. joint warfighting guidance and military theory that forms the core of joint doctrine and establishes the framework for joint forces’ ability to fight as one team. Fortunately, JP-1 also ties joint doctrine to the National Security Strategy as well as the National Military Strategy, which is essential in outlining the military’s role in the development of U.S. foreign policy and strategy. Therefore, it is a useful tool in linking joint doctrine and the contribution of other government agencies and multinational activities. The human element in the American way of war is critical amongst defense agencies and military services. This human collaboration facilitates a unified, powerful position as the U.S. military engages with other IGOs. That said, reformation measures to date center on management of the military and IGOs and places too much emphasis on functions and individual service interests instead of facilitating human collaboration as it relates to defense interdependence and interoperability. For example, Richard Holbrooke, architect of the 1995 Bosnian peace accords, and retired Admiral Leighton Smith, commander of North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) forces in Bosnia, maintained a stressful relationship that ultimately hindered the ability to secure and maintain peace in the region.
  • 26. 19 Holbrooke advocated for “Bombs for Peace,” or the selective, limited application of U.S. military power to convince hostile parties to agree to a settlement. Conversely, Admiral Smith believed that once the military is given a mission, it must be given the freedom and resources to execute tasks unabated and the manner a commander deems best. Additionally, an important lesson from the Vietnam War, Smith advocated for candor between political and military leadership. That said, Admiral Smith was reluctant to undertake certain military tasks without adequate force and a clear definition of the military's mission.61 Aside from not liking each other in a personal manner, Smith and Holbrooke repeatedly clashed over the scope and nature of NATO’s military presence in Bosnia, which subsequently forced Smith to give up leadership of U.S. Navy and NATO forces in Europe on July 31, 1996.62 Another example involves the command structure and personal relationships during the Coalition Provisional Authority’s (CPA) attempts to stabilize Iraq. Paul Bremer assumed his duties as the U.S. Presidential Envoy in May 2003 and was initially instructed to report to the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. However, Bremer often spoke directly to President Bush and other members of the White House, which eventually became a point of contention for Rumsfeld.63 Interestingly, Bremer determined early after the CPA was established that his reports to the Pentagon were not received by other IGOs. In addition, Condoleezza Rice, Bush’s National Security Advisor, asked her staff to use their informal contacts in the Pentagon to find out what was going on in Baghdad since she was receiving so little information through formal channels.64 Bremer’s military counterpart was Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of Combined Joint Task Force 7 (CJTF-7). The two maintained reasonably cordial relations, but their staffs often clashed. In his memoirs, Sanchez stated that “the details of the command
  • 27. 20 relationship between CPA and the military were never clearly defined by any level of command, all the way up to the Department of Defense.”65 Bremer agreed that “it was a vague and awkward relationship since he was not in the military chain of command.”66 Rumsfeld formally ordered Sanchez to support Bremer and the CPA. Bremer recognized that he was not in a position to instruct Sanchez, but believed his guidance should be treated analogous to “commander’s intent.” Furthermore, Sanchez admitted that Bremer believed that the military was going to work for him, but thought that civilian command of the military was not acceptable at this level.67 Formally, Bremer and the Central Command (CENTCOM) combatant commander, first General Tommy R. Franks followed by General John P. Abizaid, both reported to Rumsfeld, whereas Sanchez reported to CENTCOM, placing him one step lower in the command chain than Bremer.68 Bremer’s relationship with the U.S. military was inherently strained given his anomalous and unprecedented position as a presidential envoy governing an entire country in the midst of an active conflict. A command structure that placed both Bremer and Sanchez under the Secretary of Defense was intended to ameliorate this problem, but had an adverse effect given personal relationships and previously established reporting procedures. Ironically, disagreements between Bremer and Sanchez were rarely adjudicated in a timely fashion given actual practices. Disagreements between American ambassadors and local American military commanders are not infrequent as evidenced by the previous scenario with Holbrooke and Smith, nor is it unheard of for American diplomats to deal directly with the White House.69 The CPA’s inability to disseminate message traffic to the White House and other IGOs obstructed the war efforts. The State Department routinely shared its diplomatic traffic with other agencies, but messages were withheld from the Department of Defense, Central
  • 28. 21 Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the White House by exception.70 Conversely, the Defense Department’s communications were neither routinely shared nor routed to external agencies only at the direction of the originator. In U.S. embassies, non–State Department elements, including the Defense Department, are usually free to maintain their own communications as long as they keep the ambassador generally apprised of their activities; this was not permitted in Baghdad, except with the CIA.71 As evidenced by history, the personalities and experiences of senior officials directly affect how the military conducts war. Two recent examples that epitomize the appreciation of the human element in the conduct of war are in the case of General Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney during Operation DESERT STORM; and General Anthony Zinni and multinational leadership during Operation PROVIDE COMFORT. General Powell and Secretary Cheney appreciated the art of collaboration and forged a relationship based on mutual trust and respect. The relationship fostered a confidence within the Pentagon that exuded a confidence that facilitated the Defense Department’s ability to conduct the war unabated after President Bush’s national objectives were promulgated.72 In the case of Operation Provide Comfort, General Zinni established “Hand Shake Con” to account for the cultural sensitivities and volatility in multinational operations. Hand Shake Con involved sitting down with leaders of foreign militaries, sharing assorted beverages, and discussing the intricacies of the operation. Put simply, General Zinni sat down with foreign military leaders and engaged in meaningful discourse regarding how forces might be employed and the types of missions that could be pursued based on organizational capabilities.73 Once complete, a consultative handshake finalized this process.
  • 29. 22 Conclusion The prevailing characteristic of all joint operations is their relative complexity compared to single service operations. The increasing capability of today’s forces exacerbates the coordination problem, while the lethality and accuracy of modern weaponry demand a higher standard of control. Coordinating the logistics, maneuver, and timing of vast forces over great distances increases the opportunities for friction, the fog of war, and enemy action to destroy plans. So, while joint doctrine and defense reformation facilitates interdependence and interoperability, it is not the sole nexus that fosters the required cohesion that leads to effective coordination and execution in the American way of war. The American way of war has had its share of military problems centered upon command relationships and integrating service doctrine. A characteristic method of reducing the burden of coordination on military organizations has been the molding of “like-minded” men.74 It is equally evident that new weapons and the increased size of armies have greatly diversified the skills and perspectives required in the military establishment and that the pace of change has rendered irrelevant many of the principles and methods by which it was developed. The need for emphasis on human collaboration is more of a result of divergent forces on the battlefield -- the technological explosion and its implications for fusing defense structure and joint doctrine. The Grant-Porter relationship at Vicksburg -- absent any formal command structure or joint doctrine -- illustrates how men willing to work together toward a common goal and vacating personal agendas can achieve great success. Even with the significant defense reformation and joint doctrine promulgated to date, men like General Powell and Secretary Cheney in Operation Desert Storm, and General Zinni in Operation Provide Comfort, inherently
  • 30. 23 understand that the value of personal relationships is the critical ingredient to achieve success in military operations. U.S. joint doctrine tends to focus on technologically-produced solutions that integrate service capabilities. While the U.S. approach to war cannot ignore the influence of technology and service-specific equipment, it must keep this aspect or dimension in context. The American way of war may very well be technology-enabled, but it must also respect the fact that war is human-centric and requires human collaboration to plan, execute, and sustain joint operations. A number of research and scholarly papers published by the National Defense University (NDU) suggest a growing awareness of the importance of this field. Others, both within the U.S. military, and our allies, have engaged with this issue to a greater degree.75 In short, the writers of joint doctrine need to pay attention to previous U.S. history. Finally, since war is a contest of human wills -- not simply technology or machines – the American way of war must center on fostering human collaboration. Unquestionably, there is no doubt that science and the application of advanced technology and enabling logistics are key capabilities that the joint force must become accomplished in. But in the current operating environment, the ways and means are likely to become more complex, and the circumstances in which the ends are secured will be complicated with greater ambiguity. Joint operations are the most extensive in time and resources; it is the human element that will truly integrate, synchronize, and direct operations and enable U.S. forces to seamlessly transition across the range of military operations. Preserving the human element in the American way of war will remain a critical element to successful actions in future conflicts -- a military strategy and force posture without human collaboration will be ineffective and inefficient on the battlefield.
  • 31. 24 End Notes 1 Joint Chiefs of Staff, Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States, Joint Publication 1-0 (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, March 25, 2013), I-1. 2 Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Operations, Joint Publication 3-0 (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, August 11, 2011), I-1. 3 Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Operations, ix. 4 Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Operations, I-11. 5 Christopher R. Gabel, The Vicksburg Campaign: November 1862 – July 1863 (Washington, DC: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2013), 61. 6 Harry S. Laver, The Leadership of Ulysses S. Grant (Lexington, KY: American University Press, 2013), 59. 7 Laver, 60. 8 David D. Porter, Naval History of the Civil War (Secaucus, NJ: Castle, 1984), 328. 9 Joseph T. Glatthaar, Partners in Command: The Relationships Between Leaders in the Civil War (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994), 167. 10 John D. Milligan, Gunboats Down the Mississippi (Annapolis, MD: United States Naval Institute, 1965), 160. 11 Milligan, 179. 12 Glatthaar, 179. 13 Glatthaar, 177. 14 Glatthaar, 178. 15 Glatthaar, 180. 16 Allan R. Millet, “The Organizational Impact of Military Success and Failure: An Historical Perspective,” in The Reorganization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: A Critical Analysis (Washington, D.C.: Pergamon-Brassey, 1986), 1-17. 17 Millet, 4. 18 Millet, 5. 19 Millet, 5. 20 Millet, 2. 21 Millet, 6. 22 Millet, 6. 23 Millet, 6. 24 Millet, 7. 25 Millet, 7. 26 Rosenwasser, 14. 27 Rosenwasser, 17. 28 William T. Y’Blood, “The Korean Air War,” 7th Air Force, February 1, 2007, http://www.7af.pacaf.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=7103. 29 Y’Blood, “The Korean Air War.” 30 Robert F. Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950-1953 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1981), 45. 31 Futrell, 45. 32 John Schlight, Help From Above: Air Force Close Air Support of the Army, 1946-1973 (Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2003), 93. 33 Schlight, 93. 34 Futrell, 49. 35 Futrell, 49. 36 Futrell, 49. 37 Futrell, 50. 38 Futrell, 50. 39 Futrell, 51. 40 Y’Blood, “The Korean Air War.” 41 Y’Blood, “The Korean Air War.” 42 Schlight, 127. 43 Y’Blood, “The Korean Air War.” 44 Y’Blood, “The Korean Air War.”
  • 32. 25 45 Graham A. Cosmas, “General Westmoreland and Control of the Air War” in Command and Control of Air Operations in the Vietnam War (Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1991), 29-38. 46 Cosmas, 30. 47 Cosmas, 30. 48 Cosmas, 31. 49 Cosmas, 30. 50 Graham A. Cosmas, “MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of the Withdrawal, 1968-1973 (Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 2007), 10. 51 Graham A. Cosmas, “MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of the Withdrawal, 1968-1973, 10. 52 Graham A. Cosmas, “MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of the Withdrawal, 1968-1973, 78. 53 Graham A. Cosmas, “MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of the Withdrawal, 1968-1973, 78. 54 Graham A. Cosmas, “MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of the Withdrawal, 1968-1973, 78. 55 Graham A. Cosmas, “MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of the Withdrawal, 1968-1973, 82. 56 “USAF Operational Areas in North Vietnam,” National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, U.S. Air Force, last modified December 4, 2006, http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=1394. 57 Mark Clodfelter, The Limits of Airpower: The American Bombing of North Vietnam (New York, NY: The Free Press, 1989), 131. 58 Clodfelter, 131. 59 Rosenwasser, 22. 60 Joint Chiefs of Staff, I-1. 61 “Give War a Chance,” Frontline Collection, Public Broadcasting System, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/military/. 62 “Give War a Chance.” 63 James Dobbins, et al., Occupying Iraq: A History of the Coalition Provisional Authority (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2009), 17. 64 Dobbins, et al, 16. 65 Dobbins, et al, 17. 66 Dobbins, et al, 17. 67 Dobbins, et al, 17. 68 Dobbins, et al, 17n. 16. 69 Dobbins, et al, 19. 70 Dobbins, et al, 19. 71 Dobbins, et al, 19. 72 U.S. Department of Defense, Conduct of the Persian Gulf War (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, April 1992), 27, 32. 73 Joe Strange, Capital “W” War: A Case for Strategic Principles of War, vol. 6, Perspectives on Warfighting (Quantico, VA: Defense Automated Printing Service Center, U.S. Marine Corps, 1998), 265. 74 Paul Y. Hammond, Organizing for Defense: The American Military Establishment in the Twentieth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961), 398. 72 Millet, 7.
  • 34. 27 BIBLIOGRAPHY Clodfelter, Mark. The Limits of Airpower: The American Bombing of North Vietnam. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1989. Cosmas, Graham A. “General Westmoreland and Control of the Air War” In Command and Control of Air Operations in the Vietnam War, 29-38. Washington, DC: Naval Historical Center, 1991. Cosmas, Graham A. MACV: The Joint Command in the Years of the Withdrawal, 1968-1973. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, 2007. Department of Defense. Joint Military Operations Historical Collection. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1997. Dobbins, James, Seth G. Jones, Benjamin Runkle, and Siddharth Mohandas. Occupying Iraq: A History of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2009. Futrell, Robert F. The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950-1953. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1981. Gabel, Christopher R. The Vicksburg Campaign: November 1862 – July 1863. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center of Military History, 2013. Glatthaar, Joseph T. Partners in Command: The Relationships Between Leaders in the Civil War. New York, NY: The Free Press, 1994. Hammond, Paul Y. Organizing for Defense: The American Military Establishment in the Twentieth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961. Joiner, Gary D. Mr. Lincoln’s Brown Water Navy: The Mississippi Squadron. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States. Joint Publication 1-0. Washington, DC: Department of Defense, March 25, 2013. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Operations. Joint Publication 3-0. Washington, DC: Department of Defense, August 11, 2011. Laver, Harry S. The Leadership of Ulysses S. Grant. Lexington, KY: American University Press, 2013.
  • 35. 28 Millet, Allan R. “The Organizational Impact of Military Success and Failure: An Historical Perspective.” In The Reorganization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: A Critical Analysis, 1-17. Washington, D.C.: Pergamon-Brassey, 1986. Milligan, John D. Gunboats Down the Mississippi. Annapolis, MD: United States Naval Institute, 1965. Perret, Geoffrey. Lincoln’s War. New York, NY: Random House, 2004. Porter, David D. Naval History of the Civil War. Secaucus, NJ: Castle, 1984. Public Broadcasting System. “Give War a Chance.” Frontline Collection. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/military/. Rosenwasser, Jon and Michael Warner. “History of the Interagency Process for Foreign Relations in the United States: Murphy’s Law?” In The National Security Enterprise: Navigating the Labyrinth, edited by Roger Z. George and Harvey Rishikof, 11-29. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2011. Schlight, John. Help From Above: Air Force Close Air Support of the Army, 1946-1973. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2003. Strange, Joe. Capital “W” War: A Case for Strategic Principles of War. Vol. 6, Perspectives on Warfighting. Quantico, VA: Defense Automated Printing Service Center, U.S. Marine Corps, 1998. U.S. Air Force. “USAF Operational Areas in North Vietnam.” National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=1394. U.S. Department of Defense. Conduct of the Persian Gulf War. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, April 1992. Y’Blood, William T. “The Korean Air War.” 7th Air Force. February 1, 2007. http://www.7af.pacaf.af.mil/library/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=7103.