The Icarus syndrome: the role of air power theory in the evolution and fate of the U.S. Air Force

237 Pages·2017·1.52 MB·English

by  Carl H. Builder

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CARL H. BUILDER

THE
ICARUS
SYNDROME

THE ROLE OF AIR POWER THEORY
IN THE EVOLUTION AND FATE OF
THE U.S. AIR FORCE

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First published 1994 by Transaction Publishers
Published 2017 by Routledge
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Library of Congress Catalog Number: 93-31554
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Builder, Carl H.
The Icarus syndrome: the role of air power theory in the evolution and fate of the
U.S. Air Force / Carl H. Builder, p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7658-0993-1 (alk. paper)
1. United States Air Force—Unit cohesion. 2. Air power—United States.
I. Title.
UG633.B79 1993
358.4’03—dc20
93-31554
This is a RAND study.
RAND books are available on a wide variety of topics. To obtain information on other
publications, write or call Distribution Services, RAND, 1700 Main Street, P. O. Box
2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138, [phone], ext. 6686.
ISBN 13: 978-0-7658-0993-3 (pbk)
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Contents
Foreword ..................................................................................................................... 004
Preface ........................................................................................................................ 005
Acknowledgments ...................................................................................................... 010
Part I. Taking Bearings ............................................................................................ 011
1. A View of the Air Force Today .......................................................................... 012
2. Is There a Problem? ............................................................................................ 021
3. The Icarus Syndrome .......................................................................................... 027
Part II. Creation ........................................................................................................ 034
4. The Precursors ..................................................................................................... 035
5. The Prophets ........................................................................................................ 041
6. The Theory .......................................................................................................... 048
7. Prophesy .............................................................................................................. 056
Part III. Exploitation ................................................................................................. 066
8. The Apostles ........................................................................................................ 067
9. Founding the Church ........................................................................................... 078
10. The Test of Fire ................................................................................................. 085
11. The Practitioners ............................................................................................... 097
12. Breaking Free .................................................................................................... 105
13. Realization ......................................................................................................... 115
Part IV. Erosion ......................................................................................................... 121
14. The Technology Janus ....................................................................................... 122
15. New Dimensions ............................................................................................... 130
16. Slow Fall from Grace ........................................................................................ 142
Part V. Failure Analysis ............................................................................................ 151
17. Picking Up the Pieces ........................................................................................ 152
18. Crash Analysis ................................................................................................... 158
Part VI. The Weather Ahead ................................................................................... 168
19. Making Painful Choices .................................................................................... 169
20. A Changing World ............................................................................................ 179
21. The New Security Environment ........................................................................ 189
Part VII. Setting the Compass .................................................................................. 197
22. Mission Desiderata ............................................................................................ 198
23. From Mission to Vision .................................................................................... 204
24. A Theory to Fly By ........................................................................................... 214
Index .......................................................................................................................... 222
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Foreword
The legend of Icarus aside, our experience with manned flight is brief. As this is
written, some still living were present at the Earth’s surface when the Wright Brothers
first managed to lift free from it. An independent U.S. Air Force has existed for only half
this brief period. Nevertheless, the impact of airpower has been so emphatic that today
few military professionals would like to contemplate active operations undertaken
without its benefits. Thus, no recent trend has had more important military consequences
than the increasing importance of air and space power.
The rise of air and space power has taken place against the background of international
violence that has characterized the 20th century. As we approach the end of this century,
we see, in retrospect, regional conflicts too numerous to list and three great world wars.
We do not yet fully understand the implications of Western victory in the last of these
great wars, which we call the Cold War. As a consequence, we have no clear view of
what the nation will ask its armed forces to do in the years ahead. One thing does seem
clear: the Air Force must prepare to meet whatever security challenges arise while at the
same time undergoing a rapid drawdown in every dimension of resource availability. This
is the central problem facing the contemporary Air Force.
Many serving airmen are convinced that we can best prepare for an uncertain future by
attending to institutional fundamentals—to our sense of identity and purpose. These can
provide a steady frame of reference as we work our way through an otherwise bewildering
set of changes. Enter Carl Builder.
Mr. Builder has been thinking about institutional fundamentals for some years. In this
latest effort, he traces the ideas and fortunes of airpower’s most influential advocates—
Billy Mitchell, Hap Arnold, and others who shaped the growth and employment of our
Air Force. He also looks to the future, to the shifting nature of warfare and to the impact
today’s trends may have on our organization.
I do not agree with all that Mr. Builder has to say in these pages. But I do believe that
he has raised the right questions. Has the Air Force abandoned air power theory over the
years? Have the fundamentals of air and space power changed in a world of new
technologies and new challenges? Does the Air Force, as an institution, grasp these
fundamentals? So I commend The Icarus Syndrome to you. These issues are important.

—Merrill A. McPeak 24 August 1993

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Preface
All that is written here has relatively short roots in time; but like a vine, it has traveled
a long distance from where it started. It started out as an essay to remind midcareer Air
Force officer-students of the fundamentals of their profession. It ended up, instead, as a
call for their institution to return to its basics—to its historic devotion to air power theory.
My original plan for an essay turned into an analysis of the institution that had
requested it. The analysis centered on the role air power theory had played in the early
development of the Air Force and the role it might still play in a host of problems that
have come to plague that institution. Was air power theory more important to the Air
Force than even the Air Force realized? The theory, of course, explained what air power
could do and how it must be wielded to be effective; but was it also the glue that bound
the Air Force together and inspired its direction? Those are the questions pursued here.
The thesis that has emerged is that
• air power theory was a crucial element in the evolution and success of the
Air Force as an independent military institution; but
• the subsequent abandonment of air power theory in the face of competitive
means (missiles and space) and ends (deterrence theory) cast the Air Force adrift
from precisely those commitments that had propelled it to its institutional apogee
in the 1950s.
Supporting that thesis is the burden of the analysis presented in the following two dozen
chapters. But a brief explanation of how the original enterprise was transformed from a
simple essay to an analysis of an institution is appropriate here, if only to reveal what
motivated those who instigated and executed the analysis.
Genesis
At the end of 1990, my colleague Ted Warner approached me about my interest in
fulfilling a request he had from the Air University located at Maxwell Air Force Base in
Alabama. The Air Command and Staff College (ACSC) wanted an essay that would
remind incoming students of the obligations of the profession of arms, their heritage in
history, and where those obligations might carry them with the future of the Air Force.
Ted knew my interests in military history, values, and speculation about the future; he
didn’t have to bait the hook.
In the early months of 1991, through a series of phone conversations with Major John
Loucks and Colonel Rod Payne of ACSC, I assembled a terms of reference and an outline
for the essay, which they could take to their commandant, then Brigadier General Phillip
Ford, for approval. When we seemed to have a meeting of minds, I made plans to visit
the Air University (AU) and try out some of my ideas in the form of a briefing, before
putting them to paper.
My briefing, in March 1991, was deliberately designed to provoke. I wanted to put
ideas in front of the ACSC faculty, much as a fisherman might cast flies on the water for
trout. I didn’t think all of the ideas would “fly,” but I wanted to find out how the faculty
saw things and where they were coming from in approaching the subjects I had agreed to
write about. Thus, I loaded my briefing with one-liners about the history and future of the
Air Force and about the significance of its heritage.
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To my surprise and disappointment, the faculty was polite and very quiet. I couldn’t
seem to cast anything on the water before them that would provoke much argument or
disagreement. I couldn’t get a bite, even though I knew they couldn’t agree with
everything I was saying. I was almost glad when the allotted time for the briefing and
discussion came to an end.
The faculty had arranged for me to meet with a group of students—one representative
student from each of the class (seminar) rooms—so that I might learn some of the student
views about the subjects to be covered in the essay. It quickly became apparent to me that
the students, typically majors, didn’t think they needed to be told what the Air Force was
about after having served in it for a dozen or more years. As one of them put it, “If we
don’t understand the profession of arms and the Air Force by this time, we never will.”
I had some doubts about that statement, but adopted a less direct approach. I began
asking them what they thought was the most important Air Force problem they would
address if they were magically made chief of staff tomorrow. Suddenly, the group became
very animated, and they started to talk as if I wasn’t there. They agreed—without
exception as I remember—that they would set out to fix the promotion system. I asked
what was wrong with it. The answers were quick and ratified with much nodding of heads:
• The promotion system doesn’t work as advertised.
• The difference between how it is supposed to work and actually works is
so large as to invite contempt.
• Having a flag officer as a mentor is an invisible but widely acknowledged
prerequisite to the good jobs and, hence, to promotion.
• Just when junior officers have figured out how they need to get their tickets
punched (i.e., the successful career paths), someone changes the rules and
promising careers are sidetracked.
• Some careers are dead ends from the beginning because they don’t involve
wearing a flight suit or wings.
None of these complaints were new to me; however, their force and approbation were
quite unexpected. This was, in contrast with my previous briefing for the faculty, a very
animated and interesting discussion; but the students’ passion for the topic disturbed more
than enlightened me about what I needed to write in my essay.
At lunch with a few of the faculty, I related my experience with the students that
morning (the faculty had considerately, deliberately chosen to remove themselves from
my session with the students, lest they inhibit the student views that might be helpful to
me). Instantly, the lunchtime conversation changed; the faculty members became
animated and they were unified in their assessment:
• I had just seen a good example of what is wrong with midcareer officers
in the Air Force.
• The students are focused on their career tracks and promotions rather than
their education or institution.
• The students are constantly on the phone to personnel managers trying to
learn or negotiate their next career assignments.
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Again, these complaints from the faculty were not so surprising, but their strength and the
unanimity of views took me aback.
By the time I went to see the commandant that afternoon, I was disoriented about my
mission. Three or four intense hours had revealed very little about what I needed to do
when I sat down to write an essay. General Ford put me at ease and I laid out my confusion
from the morning’s events. He said that I was being exposed to the very problem he
wanted me to address; I was seeing, firsthand, the careerism, the “stovepiping,”1 the loss
of professionalism at arms that needed to be changed. He then proceeded to tell me several
vivid stories from his own experiences that illustrated the problems the Air Force was
having with the values, motivations, and commitments of its officers. These stories, more
than anything else, rooted the problems in my mind. One of them will suffice as a concrete
example of his concern:
Taking over as a new wing commander, General Ford was alert to any opportunity to
demonstrate to the wing personnel and their families his interest in them and concern
for their well-being. While making his first tour of the base with some of his staff, he
noticed a set of bleak looking living quarters in naked brick. He asked his facilities
manager if those buildings could be painted to improve their looks. The answer was
yes. Did the wing have the paint to do the job? Yes. Did the manager think it was
practical to paint these brick buildings? Again, the answer was affirmative. How long
would it take? Perhaps a week or ten days. As wing commander, Ford said, “Then let’s
do it.”
Several weeks later, General Ford noticed that the buildings were still unpainted. He
called his facilities manager to say, “I thought we had agreed to paint those buildings.
What happened?”
The facilities manager concurred with the wing commander’s recollection, but then
went on to explain: When the facilities manager had called the facilities staff at the
higher command headquarters, they didn’t like the idea of painting the naked brick
buildings and advised against it. The wing’s facility manager took the higher
command’s staff advice as overriding since he had to deal with them as fellow
professionals on facilities issues.
This was an example, in General Ford’s view, of how the Air Force had become
“stovepiped.” Specialists tended to look up the pipe of their own profession rather than
the chain of operational command. As specialists, they would be evaluated by fellow
specialists; and their loyalties followed their profession rather than the operational
mission.
General Ford’s vivid examples didn’t solve my orientation problem for the requested
essay; but they gave me firm footholds on the kinds of problems he wanted addressed in
the essay he had requested. And he provided me—although I didn’t see it at the time—
with two important keys when he used his whiteboard to suggest the two parts of the
problem he saw, “air power” and “profession of arms,” were somehow related.
I flew home and spent the weekend mulling over what I had heard, but the pieces didn’t
come together. The problem I was being asked to address was somehow different and
larger than the one I had contemplated in my terms of reference and outline for an essay.
General Ford called me early the following week, upbeat about our discussion and
encouraging me to press on, stressing how important the problem was and how much
might be riding on our effort to address it. When I got off the phone and took my noontime
walk, the pieces began to “click” into place, one after another. Within an hour, a
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hypothesis had begun to take form. Within a few days, I wrote a letter to General Ford
outlining my new perception of the problem:
As you indicated, air power is one piece, the profession of arms is the other. One is
the heart of the Air Force, the other is its soul. The senior leadership of the Air Force
is the trustee of the heart; but everyone in the Air Force is a trustee of its soul. The
heart is about organizational purpose or mission—air power—and the soul is about the
profession of arms—the absolute and total commitment to mission (what sets the
profession of arms apart from other professions is the commitment to mission, even
unto death).
The problem, as I see it, is that the two—heart and soul—have failed each other: The
senior leadership has failed to keep the heart—the mission of air power—alive and
vibrant by keeping it at the forefront of all its actions. And without that mission, the
members of the Air Force have had nothing to commit themselves to except their own
careers or specialities.
The leadership can’t dedicate the organization to its mission just by lip service; its
decisions (including promotions and rewards) must reflect that dedication, or its
followers soon detect the duplicity. Given that dedication of the organization to its
mission, everyone joining the organization can appreciate and elect (or not) to commit
to the mission.... To be sure, not everyone who joins an organization will commit to
its mission; but those persons are not professionals at arms and they are not the people
that the organization should normally seek and reward. If the organization sends out
mixed signals about its mission or its dedication to its mission, it can hardly complain
if professionalism and commitment to the mission falter among its people.
Thus, I think that both the heart and soul have failed each other in the Air Force. It is
kind of like the mutual failure of loyalty, up and down, at CBS, as described by Peggy
Noonan in What I Saw at the Revolution (pp. 37, 38). Obviously, I think that
dedication has to start at the top and flow downward until people gain confidence and
faith that the organization is worthy of commitment.2
General Ford’s reaction was immediate and positive; he thought these ideas were worth
pursuing with a wider audience at the Air University. At the end of May, General Ford
sponsored my briefing (which I titled, “In Search of the Air Force Soul, Take II”) to the
senior leadership of the Air University, including its commander, Lieutenant General
Charles Boyd. In that briefing, I advanced the thesis of this analysis: Many of the Air
Force’s current institutional problems could be laid at the doorstep of its neglect of air
power theory as the basis for its mission or purpose.
General Boyd thought that the thesis was worthy of further investigation to see if it
could be supported by evidence. He asked me what I would propose to do next in the
absence of instructions from him. I asked for time to think about his question and get back
to him, which he granted. It became clear that there was more than one essay here; and I
started listing them by topic and argument. When the list quickly exceeded five, I knew
that there was a book-length analysis lurking in the thesis. And that is what I proposed to
General Ford a week later. By early June, I had my marching orders from General Boyd;
and this analysis is a direct consequence.
A first draft was available by the first of the following year (January 1992) and
distributed to a few in RAND and the Air Force for their comments and suggestions. Even
at that early stage, the analysis probably had some influence on the ongoing debates in
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the Air Force leadership about the future of air power. In a sense, this analysis became a
part of the intellectual developments it sought to explain or urge; the analysis and the
object of analysis had begun to merge. At that point, an analysis ceases, not because it is
completed, but because the analyst has become transformed into a participant.
Hence, this story ends with the recognition, in the final chapter, that the analysis
presented here was beginning to influence Air Force policy-making by the spring of 1992.
The evolution of air power theory and the fate of the U.S. Air Force are far from resolved,
even for the decade just ahead, but this analysis has been carried to a point where it must
be exploited to shape those events, not extended simply to chronicle them.
Notes
1. Richard Szafranski, in “Desert Storm Lessons from the Rear,” Parameters, (Winter
1991-92): 39-49, defines stovepiping as “the condition that exists when staff or support
personnel forget that they are subordinate to a line commander.” With an edge to his humor,
Szafranski goes on to observe that “There’s a lot in the stovepipes, but most of it is
smoke.” (p. 45, emphasis in the original).
2.Taken from my letter to Brig Gen Phillip J. Ford, USAF, Commandant, Air Command
and Staff College, on 12 April 1991. The full citation for Peggy Noonan’s book is, What I Saw
at the Revolution: A Political Life in the Reagan Era, (New York: Ivy Books, 1991), 37,38.
On those pages, Peggy talks about what happened when new management at CBS News shifted
the basis for its actions from journalistic professionalism to financial profitability.
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