Air Base Ground Defense: Employing The Army National Guard to Protect US PowerProjection Capability

摘要

The current US national military strategy is contingent on maintaining anunchallenge aerial power projection capability. It is difficult to conceive of an enemy in the near future with the capability to seriously challenge our aerial platforms while they are airborne. But what is our adversaries focus their attention on destroying our forward-based aircraft while they are on the ground. This paper postulates that the consequences of successful enemy standoff attacks on our air bases could not only affect the tactical situation, but the strategic outcome as well, as the national will is negatively influenced by low-risk, high-payoff enemy level II standoff attacks. The paper traces the fundamental historical shift in air base ground attack from penetrating, to standoff attacks, explains why technology will accelerate this trend, and identifies the Army National Guard 'medium' brigades as the logical force to be assigned the joint rear area defense and ABGD missions.