U.S. Forces Not Shaped for Quick Strike

Apart from the debate over its impact and necessity, the U.S. raid against Libya has sparked controversy about the kind of forces and weapons that this country should use for power projection and long-range strikes.

Some of the U.S. defense officials who praised the performance of our weapons during the mission have acknowledged privately that it raised severe questions about U.S. capacity to carry out a “quick-strike” approach to low-level conflicts and terrorism, and about the merits of trying to launch surgical strikes at long distances using current types of U.S. aircraft.

The “quick strike” concept is based on the thesis that, because of political costs, the United States cannot commit troops to multiple low-level actions or maintain a prolonged military presence to win minor gains. The lessons of Vietnam and Lebanon seem to be clear. The public and Congress will not accept the loss of American lives for confusing and uncertain political objectives.

At the same time, the United States must be able to act. This can best be accomplished with high technology air and missile strike forces that can cause quick and decisive damage, operate under tight rules of engagement that keep U.S. military losses and civilian casualties to a minimum, and produce carefully tailored or “surgical” damage.

The United States also cannot simply be reactive and let terrorists or minor Third World radicals choose their opportunity and targets. We must use all our intelligence resources to develop adequate warning and strike hard and decisively with advanced technology before our opponents act. We cannot take the time for consultation when that simply means leaking U.S. intentions or engaging our allies in public debate, raising the odds for U.S. military and foreign civilian casualties.

The validity of the “quick strike” concept is not an issue in the Reagan Administration; the majority of policymakers and military leaders support it. The question is choosing the right time and scenario for action and the right military means.

After the Libya raid, a great many U.S. experts were stunned by the fact that it required 32 bombers and nearly 70 support planes. These included 28 strategic airlift tankers, 24 F-111 strike fighters, 5 electronic warfare F-111s, several F-14A escort fighters, 14 A-6E all-weather and night-attack fighter bombers, 6 A-7E attack aircraft with anti-radiation missiles, 6 F-18A/Bs with shorter-range anti-radiation missiles, several EA-6B four-seat electronic warfare aircraft and 4 E-2C airborne control and warning craft. The raid also required two carrier task forces--about 17 ships with 155 aircraft and total personnel of 14,700.

What should have been a fairly simple operation ended in involving more aircraft and combat ships than Britain employed during its entire campaign in the Falklands!

U.S. experts also are struck by the fact that the 18 F-111s dispatched for the strikes against Libya delivered only about half the planned tonnage and had major accuracy problems. One aircraft was lost over target, seven had to turn back, and two had avionics that did not function properly over target and did not deliver their bombs.

No one can deny that flying 2,800 miles, carrying out four refuelings, flying 6 hours and 24 minutes to target, striking under extremely constrained rules of engagement, and then flying 8 hours and 10 minutes back to base imposes a nearly impossible burden.

France’s refusal to grant overflight rights forced the United States to fly 1,200 miles around the Iberian Peninsula, and to use fighter-bombers to perform roles best suited for long-range interdiction bombers.

The broader point, however, is that the F-111 was not only selected for the raid because it was the only aircraft capable of both penetrating at 200 to 1,000 feet and delivering its payload accurately at night. The F-111 was selected also because it is the only high-payload long-range fighter-bomber in the U.S. military inventory.

Our inventory of F-111s is very small for a global power--there are fewer than 300 in U.S. tactical forces and 61 in U.S. strategic forces, plus 36 electronic F-111s. Worse, the F-111 is a 1960s vintage aircraft that has been heavily modified for nuclear strike missions, and it never has achieved great operational reliability desite constant upgrading and improvements. It is no longer in production, and it does not perform well enough to justify restarting production should there be heavy losses.

The United States no longer can substitute bombers for a long-range strike fighter as it did in Vietnam. The B-52 is in its final years and no longer suitable for penetrating with conventional bombs against heavily defended targets; the B-1 is not well-suited for conventional roles and will never be delivered in the numbers required; and the F-15E Strike Eagle simply does not have the range, payload or night-bombing capacity for a wide range of interdiction missions.

Unfortunately, there have been many recent U.S. Air Force advocates of advanced dogfighters, multi-role fighters and strategic bombers, but few advocates of long-range heavy strike aircraft; now that United States needs one, it doesn’t even have one on the drawing board.

The Navy encountered some disturbing problems of its own. Although Navy Secretary John F. Lehman Jr. has given several speeches claiming a flawless performance, the truth is that only the air defense and air defense suppression missions were relatively trouble-free. Two of the 14 A-6s were turned back because of mechanical problems. The entire A-6 force on the carriers America and Coral Sea were not in the best overall operational readiness for demanding attack missions. While many of the A-6s on the carriers are of fairly recent manufacture, the basic design is nearly 15 years old.

After the Libya raid, the United States is discovering what one former commander of U.S. Central Command had long privately contended: A critical weakness in our force structure is the lack of a high-payload, long-range interdiction aircraft.