Moreover, the generally poor intelligence preparation of the battlefield (IPB) occasioned by the faulty assumption that Milosevic would capitulate after just a few days of token bombing complicated both planning and execution. NATO’s failure to anticipate and prepare adequately for a range of adverse enemy actions, such as the commingling of Kosovar Albanian civilians with Serb military convoys and the highly successful VJ and MUP camouflage, concealment, and deception measures, made air operations against both fixed and mobile targets far more difficult than they had been in Desert Storm. In addition, IPB in the KEZ was hindered by the absence of a land component commander in the Allied Force chain of command, which meant that some of the attendant organizations that could have helped the JFACC with this mission were also absent.[84] On top of that, the nonstandard target nomination and approval process, SACEUR’s unusually heavy involvement at the micro-level of targeting, and a de facto requirement for zero friendly losses and an absolute minimum of collateral damage hindered the application of classic doctrinal solutions, limited the choices that were available, and put extra stress on systems such as UAVs and other ISR assets that always seemed to be in insufficient supply. Finally, the extended timelines created by the demands of the target approval process, as well as the multiplicity of players at senior levels who had managed to insert themselves into that process, frequently rendered operations against fleeting targets downright impossible and further attested to the poor integration of ISR management practices with the command and control functions required to respond within those timelines. Because the process was so time-consuming, it was frequently impossible to balance the competing priorities of target development and battle damage assessment.
Yet another source of friction in the orderly execution of the daily ATO was the complex overlay of institutional roadblocks and delays, the net result of which was an information-sharing arrangement described by one participant as “cumbersome. It really means we were unable to get timely intelligence to our allies, particularly the British…. It’s not that the information is so secret. It’s that we have a bureaucracy, and the way we transfer from ‘U.S. Secret’ to ‘NATO Secret’ takes a little bit of time.”[85] As a rule, each allied nation had its own levels of security classification, and each of these had to be downgraded in order for the information to be released to other allied participants. Frequently the computer systems that operated with these different levels were not mutually compatible, and there were instances, notably in the area of information operations, but also including B-2 and F-117 operations, in which the very nature of the activity meant that information could not be widely released.[86]
Over time, the CAOC went from badly understaffed to packed with a surfeit of personnel as a result of the rampant inefficiencies of the target planning and apportionment process. On one occasion, there were as many as 1,400 people in the small and cramped facility, producing a staffing level that bordered on gridlock.[87] Some augmentees from other USAF commands brought only limited experience with high-intensity operations, further hampering the CAOC’s operational effectiveness. In a representative example of the needless inefficiencies that ensued, a PACAF colonel, say, serving as senior duty officer, would overrule something decided at a lower level with a “we don’t do that in PACAF,” only to have a lieutenant colonel on the permanent CAOC staff reply, uneasily, that that was the way it was done in Allied Force, for good reason.[88] In general, the abnormally large number of senior officers (lieutenant colonels and colonels) populating the CAOC limited the effectiveness of the often more expert junior officers in shaping key decisions. As a rule, the CAOC and General Short mainly performed battle management and support functions rather than operating as a master planning center and high-level command and control entity along the lines of the Air Operations Center and General Horner in Desert Storm.
Yet for all its eventually ramped-up staffing and improved organization, according to its director at the time, the CAOC remained “target poor” throughout much of Allied Force. Because it was denied any opportunity to apply an overarching strategy in shaping the air operation’s plan owing to the slowness and randomness of the target approval process, “as targets were approved, we’d go hit them…. We had plenty of targets [in principle to go after]—850 or 900—but no authority to hit them.” Indeed, the CAOC was reportedly so lacking in available targets and BDA feedback that by Days 55–65, planners were “putting the same targets up [for approval] two and three nights in a row, hoping we could give you different DMPIs from the night before.”[89]
As for the flexible targeting effort against VJ forces in the KEZ, the CAOC at first lacked any on-hand Army expertise to help develop the ground order of battle. With no land component in place, the Army’s TPQ-36 and TPQ-37 counterbattery radars in Albania required a direct feed to the CAOC, yet information from them was not provided until the very end because Army doctrine had planned for those systems to be used in a different manner and the CAOC was not configured to take advantage of them. Worse yet, TF Hawk and its parent command, the U.S. Army in Europe (USAREUR), evidently elected not to provide processed intelligence data to the JFACC and JTF Noble Anvil until circumstances and senior-official intervention occurred later.[90] Eventually, Clark sent a 10-man Army team to the CAOC to provide such assistance, which aided considerably in the flexible targeting effort. By mid-May, TF Hawk finally began sending the CAOC useful real-time targeting information collected by its counterbattery radars, and a battlefield coordination element staffed with TF Hawk representatives was established in the CAOC to provide additional ground intelligence and operator input into the flexible targeting cell concerned with dispersed and hidden enemy forces in the KEZ.
These ground support elements became progressively more integrated with CAOC operations over time, but their contribution was disturbingly slow in coming. In his postwar briefing to the Pentagon leadership, Admiral Ellis suggested that even though no ground operation had been planned for Allied Force, having an assigned joint-force land component commander in place from the very beginning would have gone far toward obviating these and most other related deficiencies.[91] There was also a sentiment in the CAOC toward the end of the air war that the many other units involved in the war effort, including naval air and the B-2 and F-117 communities, needed to send their most experienced operators to the CAOC where their expertise was most badly needed, even if they risked hindering the operational performance of their parent units as a result. As it was, the best use of certain systems available to the JFACC was not always made. For example, the 6th Fleet battle staff consistently felt that its Carrier Air Wing 8 deployed aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt was improperly treated by the CAOC merely as just another allied fighter squadron, rather than the integrated and independent strike force with ISR and command-and-control backup it actually was. Navy planners and operators also pressed repeatedly to have the F-14 TARPS capability employed for direct mission support, whereas the CAOC persisted in using it primarily for BDA.[92]
84
The problem was not just the absence of a land component per se, but that no component whatsoever undertook the task of IPB until far too late in the operation. What is required are clearer stipulations regarding whose responsibility it is to conduct IPB, as well as new approaches and processes for doing so. At present, only the land component is resourced and prepared to meet that responsibility. Comments on an earlier draft by Hq USAF/XOXS, July 11, 2001.
85
Rowan Scarborough, “Kosovo Target Data Stalled in Transit,”
86
As for information operations, one Allied Force participant commented that “due to the involvement of a few compartmented programs, the entire planning effort was classified at an unnecessarily high level, unreleasable to all but a very few U.S. planners. Unfortunately, implementing the overall plan was critical to the success of the operation, but because of the excessive classification, those charged with implementing it could not be told of the plan until it was too late.”
87
The CAOC’s normal peacetime manning was around 250 assigned personnel. It had a reinforced staff of 375 on March 24, the night the air war began, which was finally ramped up to more than 1,400 as Allied Force peaked at more than 900 sorties a day.
88
Conversation with Major General P. J. M. Godderij, deputy commander in chief, Royal Netherlands Air Force, Scheveningen, the Netherlands, June 7, 2000.
89
Brigadier General Randy Gelwix, USAF, “Oral Histories Accomplished in Conjunction with Operation Allied Force/Noble Anvil.”
90
During an after-action presentation by the USAREUR battlefield coordination element, Hq USAFE’s AWOS study team learned that JTF Noble Anvil had prepared a memorandum of agreement for USAREUR coordination expressly stipulating that TF Hawk would provide the CAOC with processed intelligence data from the TPQ-36 and TPQ-37 counterbattery radars. In the ensuing coordination process, the USAREUR intelligence directorate reportedly excised pertinent language from the text. Comments on an earlier draft by Hq USAF/XOXS, July 11, 2001.
91
Amplifying on this point a year after the air war ended, Ellis further remarked that because air power had been the only force element actively used in Allied Force, the JFACC naturally had a heavy air emphasis. Yet, he added, the planning and execution system badly needed land and maritime component commanders deep in the loop as well, so they could explain to the JFACC, as authoritative equals, what their services were able to bring to the planning table. Noting how the “J” in JFACC was all too often silent, Ellis recalled that the contributions of other services were not invariably made the best use of. For example, he said, the EA-6B, TLAM, and F-14 TARPS all brought good capabilities to the fight and the JFACC needed to know about those capabilities directly from their most senior operators. TARPS, in particular, offered excellent potential value, but the Air Force, now out of the manned tactical reconnaissance business, sometimes gave the impression of believing that if the information did not come from space, it did not have an obvious use. Ellis’s overall point was that the services have not yet become sufficiently joint-minded at the operational and tactical levels, let alone the strategic level. Interview with Admiral Ellis, May 30, 2000.
92
Conversation with Vice Admiral Daniel J. Murphy, USN, 6th Fleet commander, aboard the USS