The “Aggressive Air Campaign” Prescription

The head of US Forces Korea, Army Gen. Burwell B. Bell, says that he envisions future “US military support to the alliance to be air and naval-centric.” Bell was explaining to lawmakers that the South Korean push toward an independent combat command would eliminate the need for a huge US ground force. He went on to say that the US is prepared to respond to an attack on the South by the North, “first and foremost with an aggressive air campaign.” (Read our 2004 article on air operations in Korea.) Any future war on the peninsula, says this senior soldier, would not be “a war like 1950;” instead, it would be “concluded on the alliance’s terms fairly quickly.”