On that point, a memorandum from Air Combat Command (ACC) to the Air Staff in late March frankly admitted that “our operational units are suffering, with few serviceable engines [and] depleted wartime spare kits.”[168] ACC’s commander, General Hawley, reported a month later that five weeks of bombing had left U.S. munitions stocks, notably CALCM and JDAM, in critically short supply, adding that “it’s going to be really touch-and-go as to whether we’ll go Winchester [the pilot’s term for running out of ammunition] on JDAMs.” Hawley warned that should a more serious crisis erupt elsewhere, ACC would be “hard-pressed to give them everything that they would probably ask for. There would be some compromises made.”[169] The later resort to an increased use of dumb bombs in Allied Force was driven in part by the steady depletion of stocks of precision munitions of all kinds.
Seeking an explanation for this increased stress on the U.S. defense establishment across the board, General Hawley laid the blame squarely on the nation’s military overcommitment: “I would argue that we cannot continue to accumulate contingencies. At some point you’ve got to figure out how to get out of something.” Hawley added that because of a fourfold spike in the number of deployments in the 1990s at the same time the force was undergoing a reduction by half, “we are going to be in desperate need, in my command, of a significant retrenchment in commitments for a significant period of time. I think we have a real problem facing us three, four, five months down the road in the readiness of the stateside units.”[170] Earlier during Allied Force, even before SACEUR’s twofold force increase request was approved, Hawley cautioned that because of the existing strain on the system, “if we deploy the additional forces that are under consideration, those strains will become more evident,” causing a “significant decline in the mission-capable rates” of the remaining forces to as low as 50 percent or less for some aircraft types.[171]
A second indication of the extent to which the U.S. military had come to find itself strapped as a result of the force drawdown was the sharply increased personnel tempo that was set in motion by the air effort. In all, some 40 percent of the active-duty U.S. Air Force was committed to Operation Allied Force and to the concurrent Operations Northern and Southern Watch over Iraq. That was roughly the same percentage of Air Force personnel that had been committed during Operation Desert Storm, when the total force was much larger. Among other things, as noted earlier in Chapter Three, the heightened personnel tempo obliged President Clinton to approve a Presidential Selected Reserve Call-Up authorizing a summons of up to 33,102 selected reservists to active duty.[172] It further prompted the Air Force chief of staff, General Michael Ryan, to insist that the USAF needed a recovery time no less than that routinely granted to the Navy every time one of its carriers returns from a deployment. Ryan flatly declared that “we are not a two-MTW [major theater war] Air Force in a lot of areas, and one of them is airlift.” That shortfall made for one of many reasons why the Air Force later insisted that it needs 90 days to reconstitute its forces between MTWs.[173]
Earlier, as Allied Force entered its second month, Ryan told reporters that “the U.S. Air Force is in a major theater war.” (He later amended that remark to indicate that he had meant to say that the Air Force’s commitment level included Operations Northern and Southern Watch over Iraq.)[174] In the eight years since Desert Storm, deployment demands on Air Force assets had never before exceeded the level of two AEFs of around 175 aircraft each. NATO’s air war for Kosovo, however, demanded four AEF-equivalents’ worth of USAF assets. Then-acting Secretary of the Air Force F. Whitten Peters declared that as a result, the AEF concept would need to be reexamined.[175]
Third, the demands of Allied Force placed a severe strain on such low density/high demand (LD/HD) aircraft as Joint STARS, AWACS, the U-2, the B-2, the F-16CJ, and the EA-6B.[176] So many of these scarce assets were committed to the air effort that day-to-day training in home units suffered major shortfalls as a result. The most acute strains were felt in the areas of surveillance, SEAD, and combat search and rescue. Almost every Block 50 F-16CJ in line service was committed to support SEAD operations, necessitating a virtual halt to mission employment training in the United States. (Figure 6.4 shows the overall USAF commitment to Allied Force, broken down by aircraft type.)
Similarly, Vice Admiral Daniel Murphy, the commander of the 6th Fleet, which provided the U.S. naval forces that were operating in the Adriatic, reported that there was an insufficiency of EA-6B jammers and they, along with their aircrews, were being worn out by the air war’s demands.[177] Almost half of the initial batch of 11 EA-6Bs used to spearhead the air operation had been drawn from assets previously committed to Operation Northern Watch at Incirlik Air Base, Turkey. Navy and Marine spokesmen declined to admit that their EA-6Bs were being stressed to the danger point, but they did concede that they were being run ragged trying to marshal enough aircraft out of the total inventory of 124 to support the launching of Allied Force.[178]
An even greater demand was imposed on the Air Force’s various ISR platforms, which left none available for day-to-day continuation training once the needs of Allied Force were superimposed on preexisting commitments. During the time in question, the Air Force had only four operational E-8 Joint STARS aircraft, two of which were committed to Allied Force (it has since acquired a fifth). As a result, the Joint STARS community found itself so stripped of its most skilled personnel that there was no instructor cadre left to work with new crewmembers who were undergoing conversion training. The low Joint STARS availability rate made for a typical Allied Force E-8 mission length of more than 17 hours, with the longest missions lasting 21 hours. It took two or more inflight refuelings and backup pilots and crews to sustain each mission.[179] Some Joint STARS aircraft were flown at more than three times their normal use rates, creating a major maintenance and depot backlog that would take months to clear up. In all, U.S. LD/HD assets were stretched to their limit with tasking demands whose reverberations will continue to be felt for years in the areas of platforms, systems, reliability, parts, personnel, retention, and replacement costs. On this point, Admiral Ellis cautioned that the trend line is working in precisely the wrong direction—the demand for these assets in the future will only grow and they should be viewed as national assets requiring joint funding, irrespective of service, as the highest priority.[180]
Finally, Operation Allied Force exposed the extent to which U.S. forces are being stretched to the limit to support real-world peacekeeping and peacemaking commitments on a routine basis, while also meeting the demands of engaging successfully in two simultaneous or near-successive major theater wars. In the prevailing defense lexicon, Kosovo was supposed to be only a “smaller-scale contingency.” Yet the number of U.S. aircraft committed to Allied Force quickly approached the level of a major theater war and exposed shortcomings in the availability of needed assets in all services. For example, the diversion of the USS Theodore Roosevelt from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic to support the air effort deprived U.S. Central Command of a vital operational asset. Likewise, the later redeployment of the USS Kitty Hawk from the Pacific to the Persian Gulf deprived U.S. Pacific Command of a carrier in the western Pacific for the first time since the end of World War II.
159
Bradley Graham, “General Says U.S. Readiness Is Ailing,”
162
“U.S. Mobilizes Guard, Reserve for Balkan Duty,”
163
Vince Crawley, “Air Force Needs 90 Days Between Wars, Chief Says,”
166
Characteristics of LD/HD include single-unit asset, limited numbers of aircraft and pilots, and likely tasking in more than one theater. Joint Vision 2010, the “revolution in military affairs,” improved sensor to shooter links, and decisive attack operations all depend on more support to LD/HD assets. They transcend individual service and weapon system boundaries.
167
Dale Eisman, “Kosovo Lesson: Navy Says It Needs More High-Tech Tools,”
168
Greg Seigle, “Prowler Jammers Used to Aid NATO Air Assault,”
169
Edmund L. Andrews, “Aboard Advanced Radar Flight, U.S. Watches Combat Zone,”
170
Briefing by Admiral James O. Ellis, USN, commander in chief, U.S. Naval Forces, Europe, and commander, Allied Forces Southern Europe and Joint Task Force Noble Anvil, “The View from the Top,” 1999.