Aviation Security Force Assistance: Joint General Purpose Forces as Air Advisors
Abstract
The 2012 Defense Strategic Guidance (DSG -- released amid pending decreases in U.S. military spending -- states that Building Partnership Capacity remains important to sharing security costs and responsibilities, and it emphasizes innovative, low-cost, small-footprint approaches. It also reaffirms the intent of the 2010 National Security Strategy to strengthen the capacity of partner nation security forces. In a June 2012 speech, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta declared, "[T]hose security cooperation capabilities and skill sets once considered the exclusive province of the special operations community will need to be built up and retained across the force." Toward meeting the policy intent, this thesis argues that the Services must develop an integrated and coordinated joint methodology to organize and train general purpose forces (GPF) as air advisors for fixed-wing and rotary-wing aviation security force assistance (AvSFA) missions. It also proposes a joint solution to flexibly increase the depth and breadth of GPF air advisor capability without burdening the Services with creating additional force structure. The core of the proposal is to create Joint GPF AvSFA Unit Type Codes (UTCs). Upon implementation, the Services will possess taskable packages of GPF fixed-wing, rotary-wing, and aviation support capability. These three AvSFA UTCs could be used independently or employed in concert to support the theater campaign plans of the geographic combatant commands. Eight recommendations result from the thesis. The three primary recommendations are to adopt the proposal, to identify a lead Service to chair joint implementation, and to convene a joint working group to determine the precise composition of the recommended GPF AvSFA UTCs.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 2013
- Accession Number
- ADA581314
Entities
People
- Paul J. Scott
Organizations
- National Defense University