Courses of Action for Enhancing USAF 'Irregular Warfare' Capabilities: A Functional Solutions Analysis

摘要

This monograph documents a 'quick-turn' study to assist Air Force leadership in determining actions to enhance USAF capabilities and capacities for joint and combined operations in irregular warfare. The Secretary of Defense has directed the military services to come forward with operational and force structure initiatives to rebalance their forces across IW and conventional-warfare mission areas. According to this direction, U.S. forces must be prepared to conduct IW operations for many years to come. Airpower plays critical roles in IW operations that are both direct-e.g., hunting down and attacking terrorist groups-and indirect-e.g., training, equipping, advising, and assisting partners. As the Air Force enhances its IW capabilities it must also maintain capabilities for deterring or defeating regional or near-peer adversaries in large-scale conflicts. In rebalancing, it must recognize that, although IW and large-scale combat operations have features in common, IW operations are not a lesser included case of major combat operations. This is particularly apparent when one recognizes that IW is largely about influencing relevant populations and operating by, with, and through partner nations. Further, military force is only one of the relevant instruments of national power and may even be secondary to political and economic instruments in many contexts.