The US Air Force recently (1 August) signed off on its latest doctrinal publication - AFDD 2-3 Irregular Warfare.
Foreword
Our nation is at war. Warriors must plan and orchestrate irregular warfare as joint, multinational, and multi-agency campaigns, beginning with the first efforts of strategy development and concluding with the achievement of the desired endstate. As Airmen, we have a unique warfighting perspective shaped by a century-long quest to gain and maintain the high ground. We must be able to articulate Air Force capabilities and contributions to the irregular warfare fight, with its unique attributes and requirements. Employed properly, airpower (to include air, space, and cyberspace capabilities) produces asymmetric advantages that can be effectively leveraged by joint force commanders in virtually every aspect of irregular warfare. Irregular warfare is sufficiently different from traditional conflict to warrant a separate keystone doctrine document. While the fighting experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan should weigh heavily in the development of our doctrine, we intend this doctrine document to be broad, enduring, and forward-looking, rather than focusing on any particular operation, current or past.
Purpose
Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 2-3, Irregular Warfare, establishes operational-level doctrinal guidance for irregular warfare (IW). IW is not a lesser included form of traditional warfare. Rather, IW encompasses a spectrum of warfare where the nature and characteristics are significantly different from traditional war. IW presents unique challenges to military forces requiring innovative strategies for employing Air Force capabilities. Effectively combating and conducting IW is critical to protecting the US and its vital interests.
Application
This AFDD applies to the Total Force: all Air Force military and civilian personnel, including regular, Air Force Reserve, and Air National Guard units and members. Unless specifically stated otherwise, Air Force doctrine applies to the full range of operations.
The doctrine in this document is authoritative, but not directive. Therefore, commanders need to consider the contents of this AFDD and the particular situation when accomplishing their missions. Airmen should read it, discuss it, and practice it. Due to the political nature of IW, Airmen must be able to articulate Air Force capabilities to civilian leadership and decision makers.
Scope
This doctrine focuses on the operational and strategic aspects of IW and differences in the application of force from traditional warfare. Understanding the strategic context of IW is the first step in determining how best to employ forces. The document describes Air Force capabilities and operations required to effectively defend and counter adversaries. Effectively employing these capabilities relies on the development of coherent strategies and plans providing the appropriate force at the appropriate time. The complex nature of IW requires the combined capabilities of all military Services, government agencies, and partner nations. While this document focuses on Air Force doctrine, IW is inherently a joint and interagency fight.
IW Truths for Airmen
Across the range of IW scenarios there is a set of overarching concepts that provide the foundation for planning and employing Air Force capabilities. These "truths" do not apply to all conceivable situations; however, they do represent broad concepts that Airmen should consider. These overarching concepts either reflect a best practice in evolving IW concepts or base themselves on significant lessons learned from operations that failed to meet expectations.
1. The Air Force must be prepared to simultaneously conduct irregular and traditional warfare operations. The nature of a single conflict can easily shift between types of warfare. Failure to understand or anticipate these shifts often leads to fighting the wrong type of war, or focusing on the wrong effects for a given conflict. IW and traditional warfare are not mutually exclusive and both are often present in the same conflict. Finding a critical balance in capabilities is essential to overall success in both conflicts.
2. IW is a different form of warfare and not a lesser form of conflict within traditional warfare. The struggle for legitimacy and influence over a relevant population is the primary focus of operations, not the coercion of key political leaders or defeat of their military capability. In conducting operations, adversaries commonly use tactics to provide asymmetric advantages that erode the US population's support for the conflict. These tactics often diminish the effectiveness of traditional military modes of attack. Therefore, while many IW tactical-level airpower applications may not be distinguishable from traditional operations, the desired effects at the operational and strategic levels may require a different mindset in order to better plan, understand, and coordinate Air Force capabilities.
3. IW is intelligence-intensive. Providing actionable intelligence is challenging. The ability to hide among the population, the tactics employed, and the distributed nature of insurgent organizations make finding, identifying, and engaging targets difficult. Intelligence efforts may focus on non-traditional areas such as cultural, social, political, and economic issues rather than military capabilities and key leaders. Fusing information obtained from multiple sources, methods, and levels is required to provide timely, accurate, and relevant intelligence to all levels.
4. Unity of effort across all instruments of power is essential to overall strategic success. Success in IW depends on a high degree of integration of the military with other elements of national power within a national security strategy. Organizationally, the instruments of national power—DIME—should operate in close cooperation among joint, interagency, intergovernmental, In situations where IW operations are distributed among multiple distinct environments, a single, theater-level commander of Air Force forces/joint force air component commander (COMAFFOR/JFACC) commanding airpower may not always provide the adequate degree of situational awareness and flexibility in rapidly evolving operations. In some cases, the COMAFFOR/JFACC may delegate some aspects of planning and decision-making to subordinate Airmen positioned at lower levels within the theater air control system (TACS). Increasing the role and authority of subordinate Airmen may provide more innovative and effective uses of Air Force capabilities. In other situations, the JFC may establish a subordinate JTF for a given operation involving the attachment of certain Air Force assets.
Operational control (OPCON) of these forces should be delegated by the JTF commander to the attached COMAFFOR. While this C2 arrangement may enhance flexibility and responsiveness, the theater-level COMAFFOR should consider the theater-wide impact of attaching Air Force forces to a given JTF. Ultimately, as the US military becomes involved in more IW operations, critical mission analysis should be used in order to determine the appropriate C2 arrangements to provide the most effective and efficient use of Air Force capabilities and multinational (JIIM) organizations. In some circumstances, Airmen should be prepared to assume non-traditional roles until other JIIM organizations are able to assume these roles. Providing security, basic services, and other forms of development needs to be coordinated and integrated.
5. Integrated C2 structures enable flexibility at all levels and are vital to successful counterinsurgency operations. The complex operating environment of IW requires rapid, adaptive application of capabilities at the operational and tactical levels. Conducting multiple, separate operations against different IW adversaries in a single theater may require that the combatant commander (CCDR) establish multiple joint task forces (JTFs). It must be emphasized that key assets, especially intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), special operations forces (SOF), and all other low density/high demand (LD/HD) systems, are scarce resources and their use must be prioritized to those efforts that most directly affect the achievement of the CCDR's or JFC's strategic objectives. This prioritization decision is best accomplished through centralized control and decentralized execution.
6. Effective working relationships between people and organizations are key to success in IW. Coordinated effort across the spectrum of operations is vital and success often hinges on effective interpersonal relationships. IW operations often use small teams of integrated airpower functional experts working in concert with PN forces, as well as acting as liaisons to the PN, to integrate and bring together the full range of Air Force capabilities.
7. Operational effectiveness can be very difficult to measure; thus, feedback through a strong operations assessment and lessons learned process is essential to strategic success. Complex localized conditions and issues require an adaptive strategy and assessment process. Measuring effectiveness of lethal and non-lethal operations is challenging. Determining which operations are effective and modifying those that are not are critical to adjusting strategy.
8. The adversary may be highly complex and adaptive. The adversary often adopts a decentralized, broadly networked organization that operates semi-independently, taking advantage of local issues and conflicts that can be radically different in adjacent locales. Additionally, adversaries are adept at operating within the seams of military and political boundaries. To counter these tactics, military operations must be timely, precise, and coordinated. This often necessitates that military planning and intelligence processes be conducted and aggregated at a much lower level than in traditional warfare, but still requires operational level guidance from the JFC. Ultimately, the management of scarce resources to generate the most appropriate effects against a highly adaptive adversary remains critical to overall success.
Counterinsurgency (COIN) Truths for Airmen
1. Legitimacy and influence are the main objectives. Whether conducting COIN, support for COIN, or shaping and deterring operations, the legitimacy of the PN government is critical. Legitimacy ultimately rests with influencing the perception of the relevant population and often is a function of the government's ability to maintain security while addressing valid grievances of that population. In most conflicts, the center of gravity is the population and establishing or maintaining the legitimacy of their government is often the effect desired. While the government must maintain legitimacy, insurgents can diminish the popular support of the government by addressing the population's grievances, real or perceived, or by eroding the government's ability to maintain security. Recognition of tools at the insurgents' disposal, like coercion and terrorism, is important due to their use as a way to erode popular support for the legitimate government.
2. The Air Force provides critical capabilities that enable joint force operations in COIN. The COMAFFOR enables the JFC to achieve key objectives. Often, the effects desired in COIN will directly support ground operations (military and civilian) requiring proper integration and coordination. In other situations, Air Force capabilities may be used to achieve effects interdependently. Airmen should identify new and innovative ways to use those capabilities and advocate them to the JFC.
3. Military actions are a necessary part of any COIN strategy; military actions that affect the adversary's will or capability must be integrated with the JFC's objective to influence the populace. In order to achieve the JFC's strategic and operational objectives, traditional approaches to warfare must often be reversed, first weighing the impact on the relevant population and then determining the impact of operations on an adversary's will and capability. There may be times when a conscious decision not to respond to enemy provocation may be more effective toward achieving strategic goals. In COIN, strategic success is defined by successfully discrediting the hostile ideology rather than by achieving military tactical victories.
4. A key adversary strength is the ability to hide within the populace—countering many key advantages of traditional military power. Interpersonal relationships built through sustained interaction with the populace and partner operations with indigenous forces are critical to understanding the nature of the conflict and ultimate victory in the IW fight. Developing these relationships can effectively strip the insurgency of its most valuable asset—the support of the population. The inability to distinguish insurgents from the general population allows adversaries the freedom to organize and attack while creating a dilemma for counterinsurgency forces trying to identify insurgents. Cooperation of the general population provides valuable intelligence on the whereabouts of insurgents. This intelligence enables counterinsurgency forces to identify insurgents, making them easier to identify and target.
5. COIN is a protracted affair. While traditional war has tended to become shorter in duration due to technology and lethality, COIN has remained protracted in nature. Insurgencies can last for years, even decades. Insurgents and terrorists often use time as a primary weapon in order to develop capabilities and build popular support. Protracting the conflict gives insurgents greater latitude in determining where and when operations will take place. They also use time as a weapon to undermine support for a government (either the established government they are trying to overthrow or popular support for an intervening government). Every day an insurgent or terrorist organization exists threatens the stability of the status quo. Time is typically on the side of the insurgents because they can often achieve their goal simply by surviving and exhausting government efforts, resources, and national/coalition political will. Time is also required to establish and develop a PN's capacity to conduct COIN.
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