Air University Review, July-August 1982

The Compelling Requirement for Combat Airlift

The requirement for combat airlift is grounded in official statements by the national command authorities, threats to United States interests, and the history of international conflict since World War II. To achieve policy objectives, fighting forces must be carried to a potential war or battle site. This may be done by a combination of assets, but carrying a force part of the way—even if it is most of the distance—will not accomplish the political objective. Deterring or winning is the goal of the U.S. military, and the mission, given the guidance of the national leadership, is clear.

The Mission

In his inaugural address President Ronald Reagan warned our adversaries and, in so doing, charged the U.S. Armed Services. He admonished current and future opponents not to mistake American forbearance for a failure of will and pledged action in defense of U.S. security interests. The President implicitly directed the U.S. military to be capable again of supporting neighbors and allies free from foreign domination and to build the strength to win. It is clear that the new administration will seek to defend U.S. interests more assertively than in the most recent past. This restored tenor comes at a time when American interests are expanding in scope, and the United States is becoming increasingly dependent on resources from distant continents. These factors require the U.S. military to place greater emphasis on force projection capabilities than in the past.

Guidance from the Department of Defense and Joint Chiefs of Staff, while more detailed, is equally clear. The Secretary of Defense recognizes that U.S. military forces serve to defend U.S. interests. The most central interests are to maintain both a secure America and ensure that allies and friends do not live under the shadow of overwhelming threat. It is clear that while the basic interest of the United States—the protection of national sovereignty, territory, and well-being—will continue to dominate military planning, U.S. regional interests (driven by economic, political, and geographic factors) will grow in significance during the next two decades. Essential to protecting U.S. regional interests is the military’s role in preventing intimidation.

The Secretary of Defense recognizes that the 1980s will be a decade of global concern principally because of the continuing and massive growth in the military power of the Soviet Union and its demonstrated willingness to project and apply that strength. The disquiet is deepened by our increasing dependence on imported resources (especially petroleum), our access vulnerability, the even greater needs of our allies for raw materials, and indigenous instabilities in key regions that can be exploited by U.S. adversaries. Only the capability to apply force in distant regions in a timely fashion can continue to secure our interests.

Obviously, if this country cannot maintain forces everywhere in the world where U.S. interests can be threatened, it must then acquire the mobility resources to meet global challenges. U.S. forces stationed in Europe and Korea, furthermore, would require massive, rapid reinforcement should U.S. opponents attack with little or no warning, a capability that our adversaries have fashioned well.

Creation of the Rapid Deployment Force underscores the recognition by the Defense Department that the United States and its allies are increasingly vulnerable in locations other than Europe and Korea. The mission of the Rapid Deployment Force is to deploy quickly and employ effectively U.S. military forces wherever needed. Present attention focuses on Southwest Asia because of concentration on petroleum, but the Western Hemisphere is of growing concern, and other areas, such as Africa south of the Sahara, are certain to loom larger in our future. Mobility, while not the only required capability necessary to secure U.S. interests, is a key ingredient in improving the U.S. position in these regions.

Further Defense Department guidance directs the armed forces to develop the mobility capabilities to support concurrently the demands of a worldwide NATO-Warsaw Pact conflict and those of a non-NATO contingency. In building this mobility capability, the Department of Defense requires that the force be able to operate in an austere environment and support airdrop, over-the-beach, and other specialized operations. Execution of the U.S. force projection strategy urgently demands greater stress on combat airlift and fast sealift. The Defense Department recognizes that increased lift requirements have been created by an army that is becoming heavier and bulkier.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff have promulgated a strategy to support the directives of the President and Department of Defense. In building its strategy, the Joint Chiefs direct military forces to deter attacks against vital American interests worldwide, including sources of essential raw materials and associated lines of communication. The military must also be prepared to prevent political and economic coercion of the United States, its allies, and its friends by any enemy. Ultimately the United States must be capable of fighting and winning at any level of intensity. The Joint Chiefs direct the armed services to be visibly capable of rapidly responding to a wide spectrum of contingencies to deter would-be aggressors. They recognize that the key ingredient is a mobility capability to project forces overseas rapidly as well as sustain logistic support, which enables the United States to act independently to protect its vital interests when friendly support is not available or forthcoming.

The Threat

Over the next twenty years, United States regional interests are not likely to remain fixed. The probable shift in our regional interests will come in an era marked by the increased possibility of theater warfare, particularly at the lower levels of conflict in the developing world. This will happen because of increased Soviet global adventurism, continued ethnic and national rivalries, and increasing population pressures combined with rising political and economic expectations. Often such conflicts will threaten the interests of the United States. Planning, therefore, must take into consideration both the expanding interests of the United States in global politics and economics and the shifting focus of those interests.

Strategists now view the developing world, location of so many of the resources necessary to keep the free world economically sound, as the cockpit of crises for the l980s and 1990s. If one takes that viewpoint, the geographical proximity of the Soviet Union to countries of the developing world is disconcerting. The geostrategic location of the Soviet Union when combined with their burgeoning force projection capabilities (and the evident willingness to use them) properly causes alarm. This situation suggests that the United States may continue to have a greater need than the Soviet Union for very-long-range airlift capability, but the Soviets are enhancing theirs at a rate greater than the United States. The accompanying chart indicates the degree of geographic asymmetry vis-à-vis the Soviet Union (and it does not treat the increasingly important subject of U.S. strategic mineral deficiencies):

Resources Closer to the U.S.S.R.
than to the United States

Over the last several years, the Soviets have been increasing their capability to move men and materiel into countries in the developing world by sea and air. The Soviets continue to add large cargo aircraft to their fleet, and their sealift capabilities are much greater and more responsive than those of the United States. They have demonstrated their airlift capability, and an apparently increasing propensity to use it in crisis situations, by airlifting military aid to the Middle East and to several African destinations and by transporting Cuban forces and military equipment to Angola and Ethiopia. The airlift to the Middle East in 1973 was a stunning achievement, demonstrating a Soviet capacity previously thought lacking.

Given the new Soviet lift capabilities and their proximity to the Persian Gulf, the heightened threat to the petroleum-producing regions of Southwest Asia is disquieting. The Soviets could surpass the U.S. capability to airlift men and equipment to the region if they could realize a utilization rate for their airlift fleet greater than 18 percent of whatever utilization rate the United States could achieve. If they could equal U.S. utilization rates, they could carry to a war five times the equipment and men the United States could bring to a conflict. Time is as critical a factor in war as any. Distance is a less serious obstacle because of modern mobility capabilities, but time remains unconquerable. It cannot be expanded, accumulated, mortaged, hastened, or retarded. Airlift yields time, and even a cursory examination of crises in the recent past will demonstrate the value of airlift’s timeliness.

War is politics by other means, and securing political objectives is the military’s reason for being. The examples cited will demonstrate how timely airlift helped secure political objectives in activities all over the globe. In the face of a U.S. manpower shortage that will only worsen over the next decade, enhanced mobility permits the U.S. Armed Services to support the assertive foreign and military policies of the Reagan administration. Because the United States does not have the people or money to position troops and equipment in every country in the world in which it has interests, the United States must rely on a capability to deploy forces rapidly to every inhabited continent to protect its interests and those of its friends and allies.

One should not draw an artificial line between so-called strategic or intertheater airlift and tactical or intratheater airlift. Such a demarcation is too often a false distinction. Combat airlift is indivisible because airlift does more than deploy forces: it fights. That point must be understood in order to put both airlift and sealift in proper perspective. It is not that airlift can deploy some men and equipment to the battle faster than sealift that makes airlift essential, because sealift can deliver much more; it is also that airlift can move equipment and men around the battlefield in response to the demands of combat. Sealift is vital especially for the long-term sustaining of a combat force, but only airlift will permit a small U.S. force to fight outnumbered and win. It was airlift, after all, that allowed U.S. forces in Vietnam to be a mobile fighting force rather than remain static in garrison.

Given the nature of the nuclear capabilities of the two superpowers, furthermore, an open armed clash between Soviet and U.S. forces is not likely (even though possible). What is more probable is the likelihood of U.S. forces’ being engaged in assisting friendly governments in putting down coups, insurgencies, or attacks by regional neighbors. Airlift is critical in such low-level conflicts and essential when geography completely rules out sealift, such as in Chad, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Bolivia, Paraguay, Austria, Laos, and Afghanistan. Sealift is severely restricted by geography in such important countries as Zaire, Jordan, and Iran.

Airlift was essential, for example, in landlocked Berlin in 1948 and 1949. During 15 trying months the United States Air Force and Royal Air Force carried more than 2,225,000 tons of coal, food, raw materials, and consumer goods to sustain the population of Berlin. The aim was more than subsistence, and the goal was achieved. The Soviets gave up the blockade when they became convinced that Berlin could not be taken short of military attack, that the population could be provisioned entirely by air, and that the United States was determined to preserve its political position in Europe. The Berlin Airlift is a prime example of airlift used politically.

The earliest combat use of massive airlift in the post-World War II era was during the Korean War. In that conflict, airlift was crucial in the opening days to evacuate U.S. advisory troops and their dependents and to fly reinforcements into the Pusan area. It was critical to maintain at least a toehold on the country or an invasion would be required. Although not all the troops that were carried into the defensive stronghold were airlifted (most came by sea), substantial numbers were, and for the first few days all ammunition sent to Korea went by air because sealift was not available. After the breakout from the Pusan perimeter, which occurred simultaneously with the Inchon landing that was supported by airdrops, airlift supplied the troops as they moved up the Korean peninsula all the way to the Yalu. Airlift also rescued thousands and supported thousands more as U.N. forces retreated in front of the Chinese. Had it not been for the airlift during the retreat in 1950 and 1951, much more of the armies would have been lost and the tide perhaps permanently turned.

Later in that decade, President Dwight Eisenhower used airlift as a political instrument to deter hostile forces bent on taking over Lebanon. Lebanon’s absorption by Syria and Egypt could potentially jeopardize Israel’s security and also establish a negative political trend for the entire region. The Muslim population in Lebanon had been encouraged by Radio Cairo to riot against the incumbent regime that favored neutrality in Mideastern affairs. Syria was sending supplies and troops into Lebanon to support insurgent forces hostile to the government.

After a violently anti-Western group successfully overthrew the government in Iraq, murdering the king and crown prince, Eisenhower took action. He feared that the loss of Lebanon, too, might lead to the complete elimination of Western influence in the Middle East. He sensed a compelling need to dispel the Arab belief, as he saw it, that Americans were capable only of words. Thus, when invited by the constituted Lebanese government to send troops, he did so.

A small detachment of U.S. Marines from the Sixth Fleet secured Beirut Airport to be followed in the next three days by the airlifting of thousands of American troops from West Germany with tanks and Honest John nuclear artillery. Eventually, the total American force reached 14,000 (half of them airlifted). A consolidated air strike force had been simultaneously airlifted to nearby Turkey to be ready for ground support operations, should such missions be required. Eisenhower, however, did not think it would be necessary to fight if U.S. actions were seen as decisive and strong. He wanted to show the flag: to demonstrate clearly that the United States was prepared to defend its interests in the Middle East. Political influence, not military victory, was his goal; and he acted out of a clear sense of the strategic value of Persian Gulf oil. It is, of course, impossible to say what might have been the consequences of U.S. inaction, but Arab leaders were suitably impressed and deterred with the decisive buildup of strength. In less than 110 days after the arrival of the first C-130, the troops were removed, having suffered no combat casualties.

In the next decade President Lyndon Johnson used airlift as a deterrent, similar to Eisenhower’s use in Lebanon. A political crisis in the Dominican Republic flared into revolution in late April 1965, and it appeared that a new Cuba might be created in the Caribbean. In a seven-day period more than 1702 airlift sorties carried elements of the 82d Airborne Division into San Isidro Airport. These American forces were able to stabilize the political situation rapidly and were soon withdrawn. It is significant that in the almost 16 years since that timely reaction by the United States, the political left has been unable to cause major trouble in the Dominican Republic.

Since the end of World War II, U.S. airlifters have been instrumental in moving U.N. forces to keep peace in the Congo several times in the 1960s, in Cyprus in the 1970s, and in the Middle East in the 1960s and ‘70s. In the Congo in 1960, airlift prevented the possible takeover of the country by hostile forces. In the late 1970s, airlift was again instrumental in preventing the loss of Zaire’s (formerly called the Congo) most productive raw-materials-producing area, this time carrying Belgian and French forces to assist the Zairian government.

In all the previous cases, airlift’s role was to deploy forces to prevent political loss. In Vietnam, however, airlift from the start of the conflict responded to the tide of battle and contributed constantly to preserving the tenuous hold that the Saigon government had on the country. In an insurgency the ruling government is at a disadvantage because it must appear capable of securing the entire population and thus spreads thin its defensive forces. Insurgents, on the other hand, can mass at the point of their choosing to overwhelm defenders in static positions. Even with a smaller force overall, guerrillas can wreak havoc for extended periods, and—over time—make the government appear impotent. It was airlift that helped hold the Communists at bay for more than a decade, carrying everything imaginable in response to the needs of the forces. The best example of timely missions was during the Tet offensive of 1968, in which airlifters were able to carry as much as 92,500 tons monthly in response to the needs of the battle, and 70 percent of that tonnage was carried by the C-130.

During that protracted countrywide battle, intratheater airlifters repositioned tens of thousands of troops to defeat widespread attacks and routinely delivered by airland, airdrop, and extraction thousands of tons of ammunition and supplies to sustain isolated forces. Airlift was essential because the enemy had thoroughly cut the ground lines of communication. Often troops were carried from one small austere airfield to another—missions that the C-141 and C-5 are incapable of performing. The successful repulse of the Communist attack during January, February, and March 1968 is in large measure the product of timely combat airlift.

During the first days of the offensive, Communist forces in II Corps seized the civilian airfield at Ban Me Thuot and threatened the military airfield. Tactical airlifters began an emergency airlift of ammunition and supplies to the cut-off garrisons, and later troops were lifted directly into the battle to retake the area. In the next days several airlifters made night airdrops to a beleaguered force north of Ban Me Thuot at Kontum that was desperately short of ammunition, saving the position. Also in the central region, Pleiku and Dak To II had been cut off from road resupply and had to be sustained entirely by airlift until air strikes and ground attacks from the government-controlled positions could defeat the enemy.

Activities in IV Corps were similar. Soc Trang was running out of fuel for its helicopter force until tactical airlifters began regular fuel shuttles to keep it supplied. The base was similarly supplied with ammunition. Previously, in the Delta region, the troops had relied overwhelmingly on the road supply, but during Tet this proved impossible, and airlift was there to sustain the force. Soc Trang, Can Tho, Vinh Long, and numerous other fields might have been lost had it not been for the air resupply. The most vicious fighting, however, and the most critical airlift missions came in I Corps.

The enemy reserved its best-equipped and best-trained forces for attacks in the northernmost provinces. Here enormous and prolonged pressure was put on Quang Tri, Hue, and other important cities. Combining airlanding and airdropping the intratheater airlift force sustained beleaguered forces all over I Corps, preventing the permanent loss of any outpost or the capture of any major body of troops. In February alone, intratheater airlifters made 1500 landings at Hue Phu Bai to support the allied troops in their successful attempt to recapture the northern capital. The rapid movement, mostly by C-l30s, of a brigade of the 101st Airborne and its equipment from III Corps to I Corps at the outset of the campaign was instrumental in stemming the enemy advance. As the Tet offensive faded out, tactical airlifters helped allied forces pursue the enemy by airdropping munitions and food to troops as they forced the enemy out of the A Shau valley. That area had been the major route for the attack on I Corps cities.

Perhaps the best known airlift mission of the Vietnam War was Khe Sanh. Here 6000 Marines held off an enemy of more than 20,000 for months. Road resupply to Khe Sanh had been impossible since mid-1967, and the enemy began a sustained artillery and ground assault during January 1968, yet the Marines, supplied by air (and supported by air strikes), were able to hold out despite daily assaults on their position.

Khe Sanh looms large in the campaign because of the psychological and political success the Viet Minh gained from the defeat and capture of a similar outpost at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. At Khe Sanh the same Vietnamese general was in command, and President Johnson took a direct interest in the daily situation. Intratheater airlifters, mainly C-130s, airlanded until the field was in such poor shape that landing was impossible; they then airdropped and extracted munitions and food into the outpost until the siege was broken three months after it began. It is important to note that while the Marines were almost unreinforcable during the attack, Communist forces, with their extensive road net, were able to bring in reinforcements and replace those who were killed or wounded.

Khe Sanh was only 30 minutes by air from a major aerial port, Da Nang, but that became a long 30 minutes. The airland and extraction missions performed by the C-130 could not have been accomplished by the C-14l, then in the inventory, nor the C-5 that arrived later. In other words, getting loads 99.9 percent of the distance from the West Coast of the United States to Khe Sanh accomplished nothing until intratheater airlifters brought the munitions and supplies to the battle. During the last two weeks of February 1968, C-130s delivered by airdrop and extraction 148 tons of critical supplies daily (90 percent of everything reaching Khe Sanh). Khe Sanh would have fallen without such support. From 20 January 1968 until the siege was broken at the end of March, the U.S. Marines suffered fewer than 200 killed and 1000 wounded, and probably more than 10,000 enemy troops died trying to take the camp.

Similarly, in 1972, intratheater airlifters, mainly C-130s, sustained another beleaguered force, again avoiding the serious political consequences of a major defeat. In that campaign the enemy attacked An Loc in III Corps with the openly stated intent of making the city the seat of government for a "liberated" province. In many ways the lift to An Loc was a greater challenge than Khe Sanh because the force to be supplied was Vietnamese, because there were no U.S. ground controllers to guide the aircraft in foul weather, no USAF detachment on the ground to support the mission, no airstrip within the defended perimeter, and the enemy used the entire panoply of antiaircraft artillery including surface-to-air missiles to defeat the lift. For nearly three months, 20,000 defenders at An Loc were supported entirely by air against a sustained Communist attack that included tanks in good tank terrain. Without the C-l30 resupply, the garrison of An Loc could not have survived, and the psychological and political implications of a defeat would have been great.

The most dramatic example of timely airlift after Vietnam was the emergency resupply of Israel in 1973. Israel, its armory depleted and its forces pressed on two fronts by enemies supplied by the Soviet Union, was desperate. The first C-5 landed at Lod Airport on 14 October, after the Soviets had already air-delivered about 4000 tons of supplies to Israel’s attackers. Between 14 October and mid-November, MAC delivered in 145 C-5 and 422 C-141 sorties more than 22,000 tons of essential military equipment and supplies, and the war ended before the first sealift supplies from the United States could reach Israel.

This survey has omitted air evacuations of which there were many—Kham Due, Saigon, Phnom Penh, etc.—and the lifesaving aeromedical evacuations performed by airlifters both in wartime and peace. It has also left out the numerous lifts of men and equipment in response to domestic violence in the United States such as during the civil rights era that demonstrated the federal government’s resolve and prevented more widespread bloodshed. Also omitted were the rapid lifts to Korea in response to several provocations such as during the Pueblo incident in the late l960s and the tree-cutting episode in the late 1970s. Airlift also played a major role in the rapid buildup during the Cuban missile crisis. Also not mentioned were the numerous humanitarian lifts that are often used for political purposes, such as carrying Muslim pilgrims to Mecca, disaster relief, and carrying emergency snow removal equipment around the United States during winter crisis, etc. Also omitted were pre-1945 uses of timely airlift, such as the German lifts of Francisco Franco and his troops during the Spanish Civil War and the successful but very costly airborne invasion of Crete.

Given the national guidance, the world into which we are moving, and the experience with successful airlifts in the past, combat airlift is essential. Given the assertiveness of the administration, the Lebanon, Dominican Republic, and Vietnam examples are especially pertinent. The United States needs an enhanced airlift capability because of its far-flung interests, the clear call by the new administration that these interests will be protected, and the demonstrated yields of a capable airlift fleet. But what type of airlift enhancements?

The United States needs more than air freighters: it needs airlifters that can fight. The C-130, soon to be the only fighting airlifter in the inventory, is an aging aircraft built using l950s technology, and it is becoming more and more constrained by an army that is becoming heavier and bulkier. While the C-l30 can operate into small, austere airfields close to the battle, it cannot lift outsized loads. Enhancing the airlift fleet by building an outsized-capable airlifter that cannot be used in a combat tactical role is a mistake. Building an aircraft that can move cargo into small, austere airfields brings the supplies closer to the battle, vastly expands the number of available airfields, reduces major debarkation airfield congestion, eliminates transshipment of cargo, and compounds the enemy’s interdiction problem. An outsized-capable airlifter with tactical capabilities is crucial to support the foreign and military policies of the Reagan administration in the threatening world of today and tomorrow.

Colonel Alan L. Gropman (Ph.D., Tufts University) is Director of Research and Associate Dean of the National War College. He has been a staff officer, Hq USAF, DCS/Operations, Plans and Readiness; a staff officer and branch chief at Hq USAF/DCS Operations, and served in the C-130 in Tactical Air Command and Pacific Air Force. Colonel Gropman has taught military, minority, and European history at the USAF Academy and was director of Military History Instruction. He is the author of The Air Force Integrates, 1945-1964 and Airpower and the Airlift Evacuation of Kham Duc, and a previous contributor to the Review. Colonel Gropman is a Distinguished Graduate of Air War College.

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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