Strategic Airlift: Our Achilles' Heel
Abstract
Our nation's ability to project and sustain conventional military forces rapidly anywhere in the world is our most evident sign of national power. Today's National Military Strategy requires the ability to respond to nearly simultaneous major theater wars (MTWs) in Northeast Asia and Southwest Asia. Scenarios describing these potential wars have been analyzed since 1994 in both Commander-in-Chief (CINC) deliberate planning and service programmatic processes. The acknowledged shortage of strategic airlift remains the "Achilles' heel" of our nation's power projection capability and is a classic example of a strategy to resource mismatch. In essence, today we have a two MTW strategy supported by a one or less MTW airlift force. This paper examines the purpose, components, and capabilities of the National Airlift System. The examination of the most recent mobility requirements study will show that an airlift shortfall exists. The paper presents three airlift options to alleviate the current airlift shortfall. The analysis will show that additional C-17 procurement and partial upgrade to the C-5 fleet is the most cost-effective solution. Finally, in order to preserve our monopoly on airlift, the author argues for a new airlift policy for modernizing the airlift fleet based upon national requirements.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2001
- Accession Number
- ADA391157
Entities
People
- John C. Burns
Organizations
- United States Army War College