Let’s accomplish the objectives!

By Lt. Gen. Rod Bishop, USAF ret, USAFA ’74
STARRS Chairman Emeritus

Regarding the article on Military Times, Pentagon confirms elements from the 82nd Airborne Division to deploy to the Middle East:

Interesting (but also a so biased) media these days–all this talk about “boots on the ground.”

For those who may have forgotten, we deployed “elements of the 82nd Airborne” to Europe in 1999 as well.

I remember it very well as I was the CHS AFB Wing Commander (but also deployed at the time to Europe as the DIRMOBFOR for Operation ALLIED FORCE.)

General Duncan McNabb (then Brig Gen) (CC at the time of the TACC) called me to tell me the news that we (the 437 AW) had been assigned all 33/34 missions to get the 82nd from the states to Europe given we were the only C-17 Active Duty Wing at the time, the capabilities of the C-17, and the operating restrictions at Tirana. Four day closure of the force required.

The rest of the story is a great narrative about AF active duty/AF reserve associate invisible cooperation.

I called back home to my Vice Commander at Charleston to see how many of the missions we (the 437th AW) could handle–answer? “None.”

“We are out of Schlitz” as we had so many crews already deployed to Ramstein AB, flying a mission every hour, 24/7 into Tirana deploying Task Force Hawk (we did this for over 3 months).

Next call went to my Associate Reserve Wing CC. When I told him of my predicament–he responded “give me a few hours.” He called back after 2 hours and said “we have all the missions covered.” All missions closed on time.

Was it the threat of ground forces that caused Milosevich to eventually cave?

Or the switch in the bombing to Milosevich’s henchmen’s monetary interests (VERY Interesting discussions via VTC every morning with SACEUR (Wes Clark) on convincing him to stop focusing on “plinking tanks” and focus more on strategic targets (aka Zatar’s Desert Storm Plan))?

Or perhaps convincing the Russians to join with NATO in making it clear to the Serbians that a peace plan, not continued warfare, was the future?

Maybe a combo of all?

I can think of lots of similar lines of comparison here.

But wait–now some folks (including Republicans) are talking about a 60 day limit before the War Powers Act comes into play since we bombed Serbia for 78 days (a country a fraction of the size of Iran)–and I was involved at the tactical level at the time–I never heard of any talk about a 60 day requirement of the WPA back then for Pres Clinton.

You were in DC at the time–was there? Never bubbled to the surface in Europe that I was aware of–and I was spending an average of 6 hours/day of an 18-20 hour/work day in video teleconferences.

Interesting to note (I think largely due to the Russians being persuaded to support the NATO peace plan), “boots on the ground” (at least to any appreciable amount) were never a factor in this regime change–although the 82nd did eventually deploy to KOSOVO after Tirana and after the peace treaty was signed (as a part of TF Falcon and Operation JOINT GUARDIAN)–I am unaware of any of them ever deploying to Serbia.

I am not saying that precludes “boots on the ground” from being used in the current scenario–seizing the highly enriched Iranian uranium or perhaps Kharg Island (for the overwhelming leverage it would provide) might be worth it.

I am just saying, as Lani taught me some 33 years ago–we apply force to meet specific objectives.

The objectives we want to achieve should be the driving force of what tools in our toolkit we use.

Most of the time, when regime change is an objective that involves ground troops–but not always. Not in VZ (to any appreciable level that would meet the average American’s definition of “ground troops” (to date anyway. Maybe or maybe not here–send this to Nancy Mace. 🙂

Bottom line for me–an often stated objective in this conflict is an Iran that is incapable of producing a nuclear weapon. 7 presidents have said those words.

Every American, one would think, would want that mission to be accomplished–if only we had an honest press and a Democratic Party that wasn’t so obviously rooting against our military.

Just imagine–a world made more safe from terrorist attacks, the ability to travel to the Holy Land without fear, a huge part of the world no longer held hostage by the threat of a nuclear bomb from a rogue regime–a worthy accomplishment to pass to our kids and grandkids.

Can we do it without ground troops? I don’t know–but if we could make the issue about relying on our experts currently in the know (way more than we or the press are)–well then, it only makes common sense for us to leave it to those experts and not pontificate.

Let’s accomplish the objectives!