The difficulty with his significant overemphasis on UAVs is that even more fundamental changes occurring in air power in support of joint operations were not addressed. The shift from a classic division of labor between air and ground operations was being replaced by a new approach: one in which services were operating together to exploit all the domain components and capabilities to accomplish combat objectives.
In passing Gates mentions that the Air Force was contributing to the efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but does not focus at all on the basic change whereby airpower was able to hold adversaries at risk throughout Afghanistan through air ground integration. Indeed, air strikes were responsible for some 80 percent of all adversaries killed in action in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
He also failed to discuss two radical Air Force innovations to the land wars, namely the ROVER system, a key technology enhancing the ability to connect the air and ground forces into a revolutionary air strike support capability; and the emergence of precision air dropping to improve the movement of ground forces in a radically new manner. And Gates does not even mention the introduction of new systems like the V-22 Osprey. And in his later harangues about the perceived slowness of delivering support on the battlefield to injured soldiers, the USMC innovation to already have included Ospreys in support of that mission is not mentioned either.
In fact, allied forces operated in Afghanistan with complete air superiority and often with an overhead strike and ISR grid, which could deliver on demand from the ground support. This was the revolution; not a few Predators.
One issue Gates does not discuss is the fact that he changed the rules of engagement (ROE) for U.S. forces in Afghanistan. As the late Jack Wheeler, Vietnam War veteran and a major force in gaining support for a Vietnam War memorial, underscored in a piece shortly after the change in the ROE:
“COIN provides a set of techniques appropriate to operations in close proximity to civilian populations when combating insurgents. Unfortunately, an older interpretation of COIN prior to the air-ground revolution is being applied strategically in Afghanistan. With the fielding of systems which allow for 360 degree situational awareness, Rover, and time tested (over the last decade) air-ground communications and release systems, the ground combatant commander now has actually tools for survival and effectiveness unknown in previous wars.
“We should be concerned lest adopting older COIN rules, where the ground troops are in equivalence with the insurgents, add needless US and allied casualties. With the tool sets, which have evolved over the past decade, we should pursue greater air-ground integration in support of COIN, not pursue a ground operation per se.
Addressing the ‘four tyrannies’ of the Pacific to keep logistics flowing
Predictive artificial intelligence and autonomy will reshape how forces are sustained across the Pacific.
“The current interpretation of US defense counterinsurgency means organizing US defense heavily around support of “boots on the ground” in Vietnam-like war. It is a slow-paced mode of operations, personnel-intensive, expensive in personnel costs, and centered on nation building.”
Wheeler was concerned that the new Gates strategy would lead to increased loss of American and allied lives in conducting operations in Afghanistan. It did. The data is conclusive. In Operation Enduring Freedom 1,150 Americans lost their lives in combat between 2001-2008, about 144 per year. Since 2008, 1,679 have died, an average of 280 per year. This represents a doubling of fatalities in Afghanistan under the ROE established as a result of the Gates strategy.
Gates accuses the Obama Administration NSC of micromanaging military operations and “experts” like Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power of undercutting the U.S. military.