Hey, Tom: The next time you write a book, try looking up from the ground

By Lt. Col. Tom
Cooper, USAF

Best Defense aerial
book critic

In order to support our Best Defense host's
desire to learn
more about Air Force history, I thought I'd
provide an airman's perspective on The Generals.
Many reviews of Tom's most recent book ping-pong back and forth against
the Army and in
favor of the Army but make no mention of the teamwork
required to execute military operations since World War II. I don't have much
experience working under direct Army leadership but I do know that the
contributions of the joint team were not fully accounted for in the book.

The subtitle of Tom's book, "American Military
Command from World War II to Today," is not a complete statement because it
neglects all naval and air leaders who have made significant contributions to
military operations in the same period. Fortunately for the nation, more than
just the Army and Marine Corps conduct military operations. The narrow vision
of "the military" presented in the book does not fully capture the lessons of
leadership for the way joint warfighting is conducted today. It is joint
teamwork that makes American military operations succeed. And it is
perspectives born from different service experiences that help broaden the
thinking of leaders and produce the high-level of trust needed for joint
success.

Unfortunately, many assume the strategic leader
ought to wear the same "boots" as the guys sent to fight -- probably tactically
appropriate, but unproven strategically. A single-service strategic perspective
does not take advantage of the joint force the nation has prepared to fight its
wars. The Joint Task Force Commander should be surrounded by a diversity of
thought, not same-service minions that benefit from agreeing and reinforcing
the same-service leader's way of thinking. The military successes (and military
failures) of the leaders highlighted by Ricks require deeper examination
through a joint warfighting lens. Each success in The Generals embraced diverse viewpoints of how to fight over
single-service concepts.

Many people assumed that the wars of the past
decade needed leaders with a ground perspective, but leaders who can approach
problems from other viewpoints might have led to different outcomes. A
different perspective might have created innovative ways to operate in Iraq and
Afghanistan that may have cost less and risked less. In My Share of the Task,
General Stanley McChrystal's descriptions of increasing the pace of operations
of Task Force 712 to hunt Zarqawi is similar to the military challenge General
Carl Spaatz faced when put in charge of achieving air superiority before D-Day.
I don't know if General McChrystal ever studied air operations over Europe, but
the challenge of generating an operational pace that can exhaust your enemy
while not exhausting your own was a significant lesson Carl Spaatz learned in
the skies over Europe in early 1944. Similarly, "it
takes a network" rings very closely to how airmen across
generations thought about generating an effects chain to disrupt enemy actions
before "effects-based operations" became a "concept
that should not be spoken of" by a respected
senior leader.

To understand the diversity of thought brought
by different military experiences, consider the following academic example. As
an airman, I chose a path that did not train me to understand the tactics of an
infantry squad, and I have no expectation that I should lead in the infantry. However,
in choosing the Air Force, I chose a
service that develops an innovative mindset not hindered by geography and more
conscious of range.  

This became particularly evident to me while
participating in a recent Army-led Antietam staff ride. The experience included the entire
South Mountain campaign and siege of Harpers Ferry,
giving a more strategic viewpoint than what happened in the individual, but
instructive, skirmishes. We began on a hillside looking north towards
Frederick, Maryland, where our leader, a well-respected, retired infantry colonel,
asked us what Lee was trying to do by moving towards Pennsylvania. My Army
counterpart, a SAMS graduate who has thought about these things at length,
responded, "The terrain in the valley was a natural funnel for Lee to take the
ground ahead of him and move into the North." I looked at the terrain, thought
of the geography, remembered my very slight skimming of Landscape Turned Red
and said, "Didn't Lee really want to get across Maryland into Pennsylvania to
gain access to the industrial capacity of the North and possibly show the
European allies that the Confederacy was for real?" Right or wrong, what struck
me was that I saw "terrain" across a broader distance like you'd see from the
air and my Army counterpart's view was shaped by infantry experience of being
on foot. It was the sharing of two diverse viewpoints that created a broader
view of what Lee was trying to accomplish.

Similarly, Ricks's most successful examples in The Generals used contributions of
diverse thinking airmen to strengthen the fight. General George Marshall's
embrace of the yet-unproven Army Air Corps and faith in its leader, General
Henry "Hap" Arnold, to strengthen the independent Army Air Forces early in
World War II is proof alone of the need for a broader viewpoint towards
warfighting. Marshall's
trust in Hap Arnold to grow the AAF to a robust,
independent fighting organization, sometimes at the expense of ground force
priorities, was critical to military success. Just as highlighted by Ricks, it
is Marshall's superior leadership that many look to for a superior example of
how a strategic leader should lead. Marshall's leadership skill is solidified
by the fact that all his ground Army subordinates in both theaters embraced the
contributions of airpower.

In Europe, Eisenhower clearly understood the
use of airpower to change the situation on the ground. Eisenhower had
significant trust in RAF Air Marshall Arthur Tedder and AAF commander in Europe
General Carl Spaatz. Tedder
was Eisenhower's second in command for the invasion of Normandy.
Spaatz
was "Eisenhower's Airman" as he commanded United States Strategic Air Forces in
Europe. Eisenhower understood the integration of
ground and air forces so well that when it came to establishing his
headquarters in England, he co-located his with Spaatz. Eisenhower rated Spaatz
and General Omar Bradley as the two leaders who did the most to defeat the Germans,
specifically describing Spaatz as an "Experienced and able air leader: loyal
and cooperative; modest and selfless; always reliable." A final testimony of
this trust is in what Eisenhower wrote to Spaatz in 1948: "No man can justly
claim a greater share than you in the attainment of victory in Europe." General
Omar Bradley, when asked by Eisenhower to rank top generals in prioritized
order based on their contribution to the defeat of Germany, listed Spaatz as
number two and General Elwood R. "Pete" Quesada as number four. Two in the top
five were airmen. (Bedell-Smith was one, Courtney Hodges was another, and
Patton didn't make the top five.)

In the Pacific, General Douglas McArthur's
relationship with General
George Kenney is one of the more interesting stories of how
an innovative air leader changed the way we fought on the ground during World
War II. Kenney's
ability to integrate both air and ground fighting to hop through the southwest
Pacific is what MacArthur's success was built on.
From innovative new bombing techniques to airdrop methods using bombers and
cargo aircraft to cutting trucks in half to move them into the fight, at every
turn Kenney used his unique experience and perspective to strengthen the fight
on the ground. MacArthur's own words about Kenney are the most descriptive of
what he contributed: "Of all the commanders in the war, none surpassed him in
those three great essentials of successful combat leadership: aggressive
vision, mastery over air tactics and strategy, and the ability to exact the
maximum in fighting qualities from both men and equipment." It is clear that
Kenney had MacArthur's trust to use his unique viewpoint on how to fight to
achieve military victory.

Numerous examples exist and all become clear in
a recently released volume of biographies titled Air Commanders.
This book's detailed descriptions of air commanders in conflicts ranging from
World War II to Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom highlight the role played
by airmen and the contributions of airpower to these conflicts. The unique perspective
provided by these air leaders to achieve military effects differently than what
would have been achieved by fighting through a single-service lens is a
critical lesson for future commanders. Each example is stronger or weaker based
on the teamwork between the ground commander and the air commander. Our most
successful military operations tend to have leaders that understood fighting in
the air as strengthening the fight and not as threatening to the Army as they
increasingly have since the early 1950s. A couple of the less lauded Army
leaders in The Generals begin to
exhibit fear of airpower during the Korean War. Maj. Gen. Ned Almond was
opposed to the Air Force's concept for conducting air operations and Gen. Mark
Clark advocated that tactical air forces should operate purely under the
command of the ground commander. In both cases, airpower's flexibility was not
embraced and may have limited airminded solutions for fighting in Korea. Just
look to one of the heroes of The Generals
for what a dose of airmindedness can achieve -- General O.P. Smith's first
action during fighting at the Chosin Reservoir was to build a runway.

Services don't fight wars, the nation does. The
nation fights wars by the application of the full capabilities of joint force to
achieve a military outcome. Ground combat should not be the goal of military
leaders when they develop plans, in fact it might be argued that we should
fight in a way that makes forces on the ground engaging the enemy a last
resort. By discussing generalship and its effectiveness purely in terms of the
Army, it discounts the strength of the joint team and what our nation expects
and deserves. Our nation invests heavily in building a trained joint force that
integrates diverse warfighting perspectives across the spectrum of military
operations. Using examples from one service viewpoint, without recognizing
joint teamwork, is half the story and does not strengthen future leaders with
examples of leadership that truly strengthens how we fight today. As we
continue toward a smaller, more capable, more adaptable military for the United
States, leadership examples with unique perspectives, teamwork, and, most
importantly, trust are increasingly important and should be emphasized.

Lt.
Col. Tom Cooper is deployed from Headquarters Air Force to the Office of
Security Cooperation -- Iraq, where he works to build more than just one strong
Air Force.