Military Review English Edition March-April 2015 | Page 128

(U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer1st Class Trevor Welsh)

Ships from the George Washington and Carl Vinson carrier strike groups and aircraft from the Air Force and Marine Corps operate in formation 23 September 2014 following the conclusion of Valiant Shield in the Pacific Ocean.

The Air-Sea Battle Office argues that such technological capabilities in the hands of adversarial state and nonstate actors can not only threaten the global commons
but also can obstruct U.S. expeditionary operations by
employing anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) strategies.2 (Anti-access activities slow or prevent movement
into a theater; area denial activities impede movement
within a theater.)
To counter these threats, the ASB Office proposes
the establishment of a joint Navy-Air Force capability—
one that is networked, integrated, and designed to attack
in depth—to accomplish the goals identified in the ASB
lines of effort:
Disrupt adversary command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance
Destroy adversary A2/AD platforms and weapons
systems
Defeat adversary-employed weapons and
formations3
The ASB concept in itself seeks to create greater
joint synergy and is ostensibly aligned with U.S. strategic
planning documents. However, the ASB Office goes a

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step further, calling for radical institutional changes in
doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership,
personnel, and facilities to guide how the services organize, train, and equip.4 Naturally, the ASB Office denies
it is calling for the creation of a “new force,” seeking only
to reduce risk and increase flexibility for senior policy
makers and joint force commanders. But, the concept
relegates the Army and the Marine Corps to conducting stability operations or, at best, mopping up enemy
resistance after the joint Navy-Air Force conducts the
decisive operations. Hence, ASB is conceptually flawed
because it violates unity of command and unity of effort.
In the process of making their case, ASB advocates cite some historical examples to underscore
the relevance of ASB. The ASB Office references the
AirLand Battle doctrine of the 1980s as a progenitor
of ASB, though AirLand Battle was an operational-level response to Soviet massed mechanized operational maneuver and not a realignment of service
roles and responsibilities. Air Force Gen. Norton
A. Schwartz and Navy Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert
add that the ASB concept is not new, recalling Navy
and Air Force cooperation during the battle of the
March-April 2015  MILITARY REVIEW