It’s important that the United States prepares to deal with anti-access, area-denial threats as the Pentagon scrubs its budgets and programs, say Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert. “Less funding will compel us to reprioritize our efforts and make some hard choices with respect to the size and shape of our forces,” they write in a Foreign Policy Magazine article published on May 16. Accordingly, the United States should focus “our investments and operations on our most important interests,” they state. AirSea Battle is a concept for defeating A2/AD threats and enabling follow-on operations ranging from military to humanitarian-assistance operations, they state. Normally, commanders develop operational concepts to carry out a set of actions in their region, they write. In contrast, the services are using the Joint Operational Access Concept to guide their efforts to organize, train, and equip the forces that they provide to commanders. This will require new thinking about old capabilities, write the two service Chiefs. ASB involves ideas such as defeating missiles with electronic warfare, disrupting surveillance with cyber attacks, and defeating air threats with submarines, in what is dubbed “networked integrated attack,” they state. It will require a force that is designed for, and practices, these operations regularly, they write. (See also AirSea Battle’s Battle from Air Force Magazine’s 2013 archive.)
The U.S. conducted a series of airstrikes against Islamic State camps in Syria on Oct. 28, as the Pentagon continues its efforts to thwart the militant group from making a comeback.