Integrated Swarming Operations for Air Base Defense: Applications in Irregular Warfare
Abstract
For decades the U.S. military has been designed and funded as a conventionally superior force on the battlefield, employing the most devastating and advanced weapon systems the world has ever seen. Examples of this conventional warfare are World War I, World War II, Operation Desert Storm, and Phase I of Operation Iraqi Freedom. However, in low-intensity conflicts (LICs) or irregular warfare (IW) campaigns, U.S. forces are faced with an irregular enemy, one that does not choose to fight its forces directly, but rather through unconventional or indirect methods. For over 60 years, the Department of Defense has had an appalling record of protecting its air bases and personnel while deployed around the world in support of LICs. The way the military defends and protects these air bases still revolves around a Cold War threat, a conventional threat. The strategies of global power projection and forward presence are the cornerstones of U.S. defense. To enhance combat capabilities in the Air Force and to defeat irregular warfare (IW) forces in any environment, the answer lies within the concept of Integrated Swarming Operations (ISO). ISO is the complete integration of a highly trained security force skilled in the employment of successful counterinsurgency tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) with today's most sophisticated Command, Control, Communications, Computer, and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) platforms into a battlefield swarm. In doing so, ISO allows Air Force Security Forces to achieve their three critical air base defense Mission Essential Tasks (METs): (1) tactical ISR; (2) intercepting the threat; and (3) application of force. ISO also helps the Air Force achieve its Integrated Base Defense (IBD) Objectives of "See First, Understand First, and Act First." This thesis provides a tactical air base defense strategy in a three-phased approach to deter, delay, deny, and defeat irregular warfare forces.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2006
- Accession Number
- ADA451371
Entities
People
- Ron Gray
Organizations
- Naval Postgraduate School