Just a few comments about your article on Joint warfighting.
First, if fighting breaks out in Korea, we still won't hear much from Admiral Fargo in PACOM, because the outfit charged with handling Korea is US Forces Korea (USFK), a subunified command under PACOM. USFK is the US element within United Nations Command, a UN leftover from the Korean War, and Combined Forces Command, the bilateral command arrangement between the US and South Korea. USFK is commanded by General LaPorte (US Army); he's formally charged with handling Korea, according to the Unified Command Plan. He has the Eighth US Army and Seventh Air Force as his on-hand major components. PACOM, while the parent command over USFK, will actually be in a supporting role. If Fargo tried to stick his hand in, he'd get slapped. As the commander of a subunified command, LaPorte will deal directly with the SECDEF during war; he doesn't have to go thru PACOM.
Now, about joint warfighting and the Air Force...... [description of credentials removed to protect my reader's identity; yes, he knows what he's talking about - SCDB] So your comments about the Air Force got my attention.
You said, "Over the last 20 years, one of the biggest and most important revolutions in our military has been the adoption of a much more unified way of looking at things, where the branches of the military thought of themselves as being part of a team instead of as being individual stars. It's been a traumatic change, especially in the Air Force, which had long held an institutional opinion that air power alone could win wars. Having previously been part of the Army, the Air Force as an institution wanted to forge a separate path from the Army."
Dead wrong, Steven. Of the four Services, the Air Force has been the only one to espouse a joint model as its preferred warfighting paradigm. We prefer to fight not as a single Service (i.e., as the US Air Force, all by ourselves), but as part of a joint force air component, led by a joint force air component commander (JFACC). [Apologies in advance for the ensuing acronyms] A JFACC commands not just the AF stuff, but also the aviation components of the other Services, especially the Navy. The JFACC model provides unity of command and unity of effort of airpower across the entire joint force. Also, the JFACC can easily morph to a CFACC (combined force air component commander), thus also commanding the air assets of any allies in the fight. We've used the JFACC model rather successfully since Desert Storm. This model is called a functional component. So, contrary to your statement, we have had zero problems adapting to this "new" joint warfighting. Zero.
The Army and Marines, on the other hand, have long preferred to fight as separate Service components; i.e., a US Army component and a US Marine component. Joint doctrine has for some years provided for a joint force land component commander (JFLCC), as well as a maritime component (JFMCC), but until very recently, the Army and Marines fought the establishment of any JFLCC in any theater (or in any exercise, for that matter). [And the Navy has always done what it damn well wanted]. In fact, until about two or three years ago, the Army and Marines successfully stonewalled the development of a joint doctrine pub on the JFLCC. Only until very recently have they thought seriously about how to fight jointly, using the JFLCC model. Afghanistan was the first time they actually used it.
The thing to understand is that the Army and Marines fight "organically," that is, they retains a sort of sovereign control over everything they each bring to the fight. According to joint doctrine, they are allowed to retain operational control (OPCON) over those forces necessary for their "organic maneuver," and may surrender control to a JFLCC only those forces deemed excess to their organic needs (as a practical matter, they never offer up anything as "excess"). The Navy works similarly with regard to their aircraft; they are allowed to retain what they deem necessary for fleet defense, and any excess air can be offered to a JFACC (if one is appointed; it's optional). For the Army especially, it seems a testosterone thing; to allow a JFLCC above them presumes they would somehow "lose control." Lord, they freak out about that.
So, in short, the Air Force has been the only Service to consistently insist on fighting under a joint component command model -- it retains nothing for "organic" maneuver, instead it gives everything up to the joint force commander through the JFACC -- and it gets zero credit. The other Services fight organically, and require support "from other joint forces" (read: air power). In fact, we are frequently assailed as "not being joint," while the other Services have claimed on occasion they are "inherently joint." Go figure.
As for what we prefer to strike and how we approach warfare: In "Every Man A Tiger," Tom Clancy's book about the air piece of Desert Storm, he describes at one point the doctrinal debates between the land and air proponents. He used one line that jumped out at me: "Landmen think about defeating the enemy army; airmen think about defeating the enemy." Read that carefully. In everything you read about the Army, they always focus on closing with the enemy's ground forces. Always. In fact, many in the Army still claim that, in an
