ARTICLE

November 2003

Washington Pulse

by Geoff S. Fein

Air Force War Lessons Will Not Be ‘Shelved’
The Air Force intends to take immediate action to determine whether the lessons learned from the conflict in Iraq should lead to near-term changes in the service’s budget, said Gen. T. Michael Moseley, Air Force vice chief of staff.

This marks a different approach from how the Air Force managed its conclusions from Operation Desert Storm, in 1991, he told a gathering of defense industry officials, in Washington, D.C. After that conflict ended, the Air Force Staff spent a year compiling lessons learned, but the results ultimately were shipped to the Air War College and the Command and Staff College, for academic analysis.

Now, the plan is to “capture” the experiences from the war and establish if and how they should influence “corporate investments,” such as current and future procurement programs, said Moseley.

“We will look at what lessons should be funded,” he said.

In the past, “lessons were put on the shelf,” said Moseley. His boss, Gen. John Jumper, specifically directed his staff to not let that happen again. It is important to take action while there is still “momentum” for change, he said. Otherwise, the natural tendency is to let things go back to the way they were.

Moseley became vice chief in September. He previously was the commander of U.S. Central Command Air Force, and directed the air war in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

He stressed the “joint” nature of the Iraqi conflict, and predicted that it is unlikely and unadvisable for any future war to be fought by a single service. Further, OIF reinforced the notion of a “total force,” with heavy participation by the Guard and Reserves. Of the forces under his command in OIF, about 25 percent were Guard and Reserves, he said.

One OIF-related issue that surely is getting high-level attention is “battle damage assessment,” or the ability to determine whether an air strike achieved the commander’s intended goals, Moseley said. “We are working BDA from the top down and from the bottom up,” he said. In future air wars, “we need better ways to pass data, stream video and determine the effects” of an air strike.

For example, he said, a pilot may be certain that he dropped a 2,000-pound bomb through the roof of an enemy command-and-control compound, but he may not necessarily know the results of the strike, such as whether the enemy inside the building stopped transmitting.

As the reconstruction phase in Iraq continues, among the Air Force’s priorities is to help Ambassador Paul Bremer secure airfields and reopen Baghdad’s international airport, Moseley said. One of the major obstacles is the spread of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles within Iraq.

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Pump Up Anti-Sub Warfare, Admiral Says
The Navy needs to rejuvenate its anti-submarine warfare capabilities, the commander of the Pacific Fleet, Adm. Walter F. Doran, told a recent gathering of defense writers, in Washington, D.C.

Doran said ASW was at the top of the list of topics that he came to discuss with the chief of naval operations, Adm. Vern Clark.

“Blue water ASW kind of went away with the demise of the old Soviet Union,” Doran said. But “we have to adjust ourselves to a new world” of littoral warfare, he said. An increasing threat is being posed, especially in coastal waters, by “very capable, very quiet” diesel electric submarines deployed by countries such as North Korea, he added.

“ASW is both an art and a science,” Doran said, and the Navy needs to invest more, both in technology and training, to counter the diesel electrics.

A promising tool in littoral operations, Doran said, is the high-speed vessel, an Australian-built class of wave-piercing catamarans, with a speed in excess of 40 knots.

Doran said he recently visited the shipyard where Incat Tasmania builds such ships, and came away “very impressed” with the HSVs. One must actually go aboard one, he said, to appreciate how big and adaptable they are. The Navy could develop a niche role for HSVs in missions such as inserting troops, logistics support, and command and control, Doran said.

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Military Imagery Agency to Be Renamed
With the signing of the fiscal year 2004 defense authorization bill, the National Imagery and Mapping Agency will change its name to National Geo-spatial Agency (NGA). The name change is reflective of the agency’s new role in providing more than just mapping and imagery, said Dave Burpee, an agency spokesman.

NIMA “identified where we were in 1996,” he said. The current name “keeps us on par with the CIA, the National Security Administration and the Defense Intelligence Agency.”

NGA will offer more detailed classified maps and images with higher detail resolution displaying more specific information, such as infrastructure.

Established in October 1996, NIMA replaced the Defense Mapping Agency (DMA), the Central Imagery Office (CIO), the Defense Dissemination Program Office (DDPO), and the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center. NIMA also assumed duties for imagery exploitation, dissemination and processing elements of the Defense Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office and the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office.

Other changes underway at NIMA include focusing on surveillance needs instead of reconnaissance and moving away from government-only imagery, said retired Gen. James Clapper, NIMA’s director.

“Commercial imagery is crucial,” said Clapper. Industry provided satellite imagers that aided U.S. and British forces in the planning and seizure of the Al Faw Peninsula in southern Iraq last March, said Clapper.

Commercial images also helped coalition forces measure water levels at the Qadisiyah Dam. U.S. forces were concerned that water released from the dam, which is on the Tigris River, would flood the area north of Baghdad.

NIMA recently awarded a potential $500 million, five-year contract to DigitalGlobe, Inc. of Colorado, for low-cost commercial imagery, under a program called NextView. Under the contract, NIMA commits to investing in DigitalGlobe’s satellite development, in exchange for early participation and access to the next generation of U.S. commercial satellite imaging capabilities.

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