Interdependence more than just joint warfighting

  • Published
  • By Louis A. Arana-Barradas
  • Air Force Print News
ORLANDO, Fla. --  The Air Force must balance its capabilities and capacities to reach the joint interdependence with its sister services it needs to win in today’s battlespace.

That is the message Lt. Gen. Ronald E. Keys, Air Force deputy chief of staff for air and space operations, delivered here Feb. 18 to about 1,000 attendees of the Air Force Association’s annual Air Warfare Symposium. The association promotes Air Force interests.

The general said balance has driven the Air Force to go beyond “just fighting joint” to “fighting together” with the other U.S. armed forces. Today’s Air Force fights a more refined “together, not just because it works in an interoperability sense, but because the services need each other.

“We simply can’t fight apart, nor can we afford to fight apart,” he said.

The other services, General Keys said, are talking more about interdependence. But the Air Force is no stranger to the concept. It has provided the other services capabilities like airlift, close-air support, aerial refueling, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance for a long time.

“The Air Force has long been the joint coalition-culture service,” he said.

But transitioning to a truly interdependent force requires extensive cooperation because forging such a force requires close collaboration in planning, interoperable communications and intelligence training, the general said. Today, however, interdependence goes both ways.

“Before, the Air Force was more or less ‘free goods’ to the joint force, because our bases were safe in the rear areas, in friendly territory,” General Keys said. “But now there may not be a rear area. The base could be in enemy territory.”

A prime example is Balad Air Base, Iraq, which endures 30 to 50 rocket and mortar attacks a month. There, Airmen depend on Soldiers for base defense, while Airmen generate air power, he said. But a joint team of Airmen and Soldiers combine intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data to help thwart attacks.

At the same time, C-130 Hercules aircraft are flying more than 164 daily sorties for U.S. Central Command. This means 13 Army convoys do not have to face the gauntlet of roadside bombs through Iraq’s Sunni Triangle, the general said.

“So here’s the emerging difference,” General Keys said. “Interoperability is all about what capabilities I have that can make your operations better. Interdependence is all about what you need done that you can’t live without, (and) my capability is the only capability you have.”

To reach the needed level of interdependence, the U.S. military must first solve a host of problems. Some of the issues that need fixing include finding ways to have compatible systems, training, collaborative and predictive tools and Web-based networks.

But there are many examples of how interdependence is already working in all corners of the globe.

For example, Nevada Guardsmen process photographs taken by a Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle flying over Iraq that end up supporting Soldiers on the ground searching for suspected terrorists. After an aerial refueling over Guam, B-52 Stratofortress bombers roll in on a range on the Korean peninsula to practice close-air support of ground forces. While over the Caribbean Sea, a C-130 flies a resupply mission to the U.S. embassy in Colombia.

These illustrations of global vision, reach and power are prime examples of the global joint interdependent force the U.S. military is forging, General Keys said.