The “Air Sea Battle” concept developed by the Air Force and the Navy a few years back has not been very well understood either by pundits or even by many in the military. In an effort to give greater clarity to the concept, The Chief of Naval Operations and Chief of Staff of the Air Force offer a detailed explanation. As they explain, the Air Sea Battle is a joint war fighting operational concept geared toward defeating efforts by our potential enemies to deny access to particular areas of the globe:
Nations seeking to intimidate their neighbors are turning to anti-access strategies because they are cost-effective. Merely threatening to close key maritime crossroads such as the Strait of Hormuz or demonstrating the ability to cut off a country from cyberspace or international airspace can be an effective tool for regional and international coercion. Similarly, these capabilities can be applied to prevent or slow U.S. or allied assistance from arriving in time to stop or repel an attack — providing an aggressor much greater leverage over neighbors who depend on allies for security.
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The Air-Sea Battle concept, approved by the secretary of defense in 2011, is designed to assure access, defeat anti-access capabilities, and provide more options to national leaders and military commanders. Air-Sea Battle is one of the operational concepts nested within the overarching Joint Operational Access Concept (JOAC) — the Joint Force’s approach to defeating threats to access. Air-Sea Battle is not focused on one specific adversary, since the anti-access capabilities it is intended to defeat are proliferating and, with automation, becoming easier to use. U.S. forces need a credible means to assure access when needed to help deter aggression by a range of potential adversaries, to assure allies, and to provide escalation control and crisis stability.
Some examples of where Air-Sea Battle may apply include the Arabian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, where a favorable location provides Iran the ability to threaten the production and passage of almost 20 percent of the world’s oil. If Iran can demonstrate or credibly assert that it can prevent or slow a U.S. response to its aggression, it is more able to coerce its neighbors or the international community. In the eastern Mediterranean, the government of Syria has deployed an array of modern anti-air missile systems to raise the costs of outside intervention in its ongoing civil war. And in the Pacific, North Korea has already demonstrated its willingness to employ anti-access capabilities with the sinking in 2010 of the South Korean ship, Cheonan.
Air-Sea Battle is not a military strategy; it isn’t about countering an invasion; it isn’t a plan for U.S. forces to conduct an assault. Air-Sea Battle is a concept for defeating threats to access and enabling follow-on operations, which could include military activities as well as humanitarian assistance and disaster response. For example, in the last several years, improved integration between naval and air forces helped us respond to floods in Pakistan and to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
The article is well worth a full read. You can find it here.
Charles A. Blanchard
General Counsel
United States Air Force