Since 2001, U.S. Air Force fighter aircraft have flown combat sorties with abnormally high flight durations while participating in Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. These longer sortie durations have added previously unanticipated...
The United States Army began transformation to meet the needs of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). Senior leaders within the military initiated the transformation from a division-based organization to one built around brigades. This...
This newsletter highlights some of the operations and missions over the last several years where Army and Navy forces have operated jointly. This publication is primarily a compilation of articles and interviews published in professional journals...
A special tactics (ST) project officer for the Joint Special Operations Air Component during two separate deployments in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, US Air Force Major Jerry Kung, in this interview, discusses the purpose and organization...
Major Alan Wesenberg, US Air Force, deployed as a flight commander of a 12-aircraft air expeditionary force (AEF) element of the 492nd Fighter Squadron form March to June 2004. Flying F-15Es from Royal Air Force Lakenheath, United Kingdom, to...
This study examines the current level of detailed integration in close air support (CAS) planning, with the focus on air component support of Army conventional forces, to determine if changes should be made to the current concept of operations for...
The Luftwaffe's defeat of Allied airpower in the Kasserine Pass in 1943 imprinted the principle of mass upon the US Air Force's organizational psyche. The then Army Air Corps recognized the necessity of consolidating airpower under the command and...
Deploying initially with the 96th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron in January 2002 in support of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM (then later re-task organized under the 40th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron), Major Mike Adderley served as a B-52 aircraft...
Recent joint force thinking has espoused effects-based operations (EBO) as an evolutionary, some say revolutionary, approach to warfare. The 2003 Joint Operations Concepts document states, “The Joint Force uses an effects-based approach.” With...
Is America's counterinsurgency (COIN) effort being shortchanged? Does a one-dimensional doctrine fail to exploit America's full COIN potential? Would a genuinely joint approach provide better options to decision-makers confronted with the harsh...
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are not new concepts. Their history dates back to the Civil War with hot air balloons and has evolved into a crucial combat tool for commanders in the modern battlespace. The increased demand for unmanned systems has...
Responding to comments made by the Secretary of Defense in April 2008, the United States Air Force began procuring thirty-seven C-12 class aircraft to augment existing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems already operating in the...
Beginning in 2009, the United States and many of its NATO-ISAF partners dramatically raised their levels of effort in Afghanistan. The "Afghan Surge," as it came to be known, was most evident in the number of additional US and allied troops that...
During Operation Phantom Fury in November 2004, Staff Sergeant Jimmy Amyett was the second-highest-ranking noncommissioned officer in 2nd Platoon, 3rd Brigade Reconnaissance Troop - a 20-man, four-Humvee unit attached to Task Force 2-2 Infantry for...
As the Afghan Regional Security Integration Command-West (ARSIC-W) CSM in 2008, I would best describe the Italian commanded Western Afghanistan as a chicken wire canoe. Built quickly and on the cheap, even though it may have slightly resemble a...
As an infantry officer in the 82nd Airborne Division from 2002-2006, Major Keller Durkin participated in three different deployments and describes them in three separate interviews. In the wake of the attack on the World Trade Center, he...
In this second of two interviews, Major Mark Huhtanen talks about serving as the assistant operations officer and executive officer for 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry in Baghdad, Iraq, from August 2005 through November 2006 in support of Operation...
In this second of two interviews, Major Scott Morrison, United States Air Force, talks about commanding the intelligence flight for Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, at Al Udeid Airbase, Qatar from January through May 2007 in support of the...
Major Michael Berdy commanded a company in the 25th Infantry Division in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. In this interview, he talks about accountability issues with ammunition arising from their handoff, the size...
In this three-part interview, Lieutenant Colonel Scott “Soup” Campbell, United States Air Force, talks mainly about his support of March 2002’s Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan in his capacity as an A-10 flight commander and the chief of...