Agility, Flexibility, Teamwork: Key Components Of Airpower

SOUTHWEST ASIA --- Examine most successful business or sports teams, and you may find their foundation is based on flexibility, agility and teamwork. The success of airpower in Iraq and Afghanistan incorporates these three traits on a daily basis, through the interaction with coalition forces and U.S. sister services.>> Before an aircraft can be sent on a mission, a plan is developed to decide where and how the airpower is going to be used. These plans, which take months to develop, feature an overall plan with specific objectives, and they always take into account the long-term impact airpower has throughout the area of operations.>> "For centuries, military strategists have observed that in any war, no strategy survives first contact with the enemy. In irregular warfare, this is even more true," said Lt. Col. Michael Kometer, the strategy division director at the Combined Air and Space Operations Center in Southwest Asia. "Insurgents are looking to catch their enemy in a situation that puts the insurgent at an advantage -- surprise allows them to have the initiative.>> "Airpower's flexibility allows us to rapidly swarm to a scene with overwhelming firepower that transforms the situation from surprise and initiative on the insurgent side into a significant advantage for our forces," he said.>> This success does not happen by chance. With strategic objectives in hand, a plan is developed to carry out those missions. The planning process builds an air plan, known as the master air attack plan, and is formed with the inputs and guidance from the joint and coalition forces operating throughout the theater and gets published in the form of a daily Air Tasking Order. When talking of the theater, the emphasis is in Afghanistan and Iraq, where upward of 400 combat sorties are flown a day, from both land and sea based locations, and include airlift, air refueling, airdrop, intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance and strike/close-air-support sorties.