Afghanistan needs our Air power not our boots on the ground

[attachment=17396]
Introduction
Air power supporters spend a disproportionate amount of their time defending the independence of air forces, or explaining why air power may not have delivered success as quickly as some had believed possible. As a consequence of this unnecessarily defensive mindset, those who present air power solutions to operational challenges face a difficult audience, particularly when the options proposed promote the use of air power over other forms of arms. Most commentators tend to view the success of air power in a binary fashion: it either succeeds or fails. After Kosovo, where Milosevic’s intransigence exposed the politicians’ over-optimistic expectations of the effects of a short air campaign, the ‘boots on the ground’ mantra re-emerged; the argument that you cannot win any conflict without soldiers on the ground became prevalent, oft repeated and, to many, an intuitively obvious truth.



Competition for Defence Resources
The Defence Secretary reminded us that Afghanistan must continue to be our main effort in the period ahead.3 The joint statement from PUS and CDS ‘Strategy for Defence’ requires planning within Defence to be ‘…based on the assumption of a rolling three-year military commitment to Afghanistan, reviewed annually.4 In attempting to match planned activity with the resources available, there is an obvious danger that strategic requirements become subordinate to resource management, and that the Commanders Strategic Intent may not be achievable due to lack of money.


The Population may be the Prize … but
In his operational design for counterinsurgency in Helmand Brigadier Andrew Mackay explained that there were active minorities supporting both the government and the insurgents.8 He noted that ‘…to be successful we must influence the uncommitted middle who make up the majority and which contains passive supports of both sides.’9 How do we do this effectively? One essential element is that we are able to understand how to influence the local population.