NATO’s Lessons From Unified Protector could have been a disaster, but NATO air forces managed to pull together a masterful operation. By John A. Tirpak, Executive Editor

Spanish F-18s flew from NAS Sigonella, Italy, during Operation Odyssey Dawn, the start of the NATO air campaign that led to the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi.

36 AIR FORCE Magazine / June 2013 AIR FORCEMagazine i Cmad t zi, uky He Turkey. Izmir, at Command Air NATO’sAllied of head II, Jodice J. Ralph Gen. Lt. said model,” the not It’sthis: recognized havemany think “I country, that in intervention style gested an Operation Unified Protector- mounting bloodshed in Syria, have sug- gress, alarmed at the two-plus years of the operationforlasttwo years. studied have who experts think-tank and commander air its to according be the template for a future operation, shouldn’t Protector Unified scribed. oversub-badly been has structure ary reality that the Air Force’s expedition- a new shooting war. It also exposed the sources and its lack of preparation for red flags about NATO’s inadequate re- Muammar Qaddafi from Libya—raised air campaign which led to the ouster of D lhuh oe ebr o Con- of members some Although seven-month 2011 seven-month Protector—NATO’s Unified Operation mandates, Nations United fulfilling in espite / June 2013 its success its

Photo by SSgt. Brendan Stephens of the assets to OUP.to assets refueling aerial the of reconnaissance platforms, and the bulk aircraft, intelligence, surveillance, and set upatransitionalgovernment. then which forces, opposition Libyan by killed and captured was Qaddafi 23 and ended on Oct. 31, shortly after March on started It shipments. arms on blockade naval a maintained and regime forces moving against civilians continuation operation which struck at NATO the was States—OUP United the by led Dawn, Odyssey Operation defenses— air Libyan of takedown of the Qaddafi regime. After an initial addition to sanctions on some members people from their own government, in Libyan the protect to mandate a and rized a no-fly zone, an arms embargo, March of 2011. The resolutions autho- 1970 and resolutions1973, adopted Council in February Security and UN of commander. (OUP) combined forces air component Protector Unified Operation the was h Ar oc cnrbtd strike contributed Force Air The The operation was the direct result tied toground maneuver. and commander ground a of direction the under are typically aircraft such attack helicopters on the ATO and integrating them in an felt the conflict air was entering a stalemate.campaign, Jodice said thewhen “first” was putting tack helos would send a strong statement to the regime, at a time when aircraft and they British Apaches. Those governments felt the appearance of at- insisted that OUP make use of attack helicopters: French Tiger and Cougar were French, flown by UAE and French pilotstrained in ground attack. eventualthe missionin four jets the of three eventuallybecause assented the pilots had not trained to do it. “This is not a test range,” Jodice said, but made Mirage 2000s on the ATO for a bomb-dropping mission, even though Qatar’sget to French-Franceunhappywaspushed that Jodice Qatar and targets for otherplatforms. Atlantique to a Predator, which would scout and sometimes laser-designate Frenchthe from ranging platforms by conducted but control forwardair to been shotdown, Jodice said. has someone if wait to time long hours—a fourwas Greece in base initial into Libya than were flown in most of the operation. The flying time from the Frenchship similar deployed aboard the British flattop British the aboard deployed thought.originally Sometimesthishappenedinsingledigithours. than time-sensitive more deemed were they if or them attack availableto unexpectedly were assets the if order tasking air 72-hour the on forward withFrenchconcert Rafale fighters. in sometimes 2000s, Mirage Qatari and French by flown were also pairs latter.the of Mixedcapabilities delivery weapons provenair-to-ground the sensor and connectivity capabilities of the former and combining them with the of advantage taking bombs, with with Tornadoladen “trucks”ers GR4 at Izmir, Turkey. Lt.to cording Gen. J.Ralph NATO’sof head II, Jodice CommandAir Allied There were a number of airpower “firsts” in Operation Unified Protector,ac- Innovative OverLibya Attack Helicopters and the Air TaskingOrder: the and Helicopters Attack Anger: in Bombs Dropped Qatar and Emirates Arab United The SCAR-C: strike, control, and reconnaissance coordination—a throwback CSARs on Flattops: Targeting: Deliberate Dynamic Mixed Pairs: Britain flew mixed pairs of Typhoon fourth generation fight- Tonnerre Air Force HH-60s were for two days to support operations fardeeperoperations support daysto fortwo Ocean Some specific targets were moved were targets specific Some rvdn pronl n ast the assets and personnel providing by bacon” Force’s Air the “saved ing back to those wars, Owen explained. necessary training and reset, before go- getting deployments, Asia Southwest from up resting be to that supposed were units and equipment of force” without digging into the reconstitution ment” when the Libya crisis unfolded. commit- percent “100 at already was USAF said Owen February, in panel symposium ForceAssociation Air an on Speaking Fla. Beach, Daytona in Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University of Owen Robert said work,” doesn’t “really expeditionaryforce space and to respond. played a crucial role in USAF’s ability Reserve Force Air The campaign. air there was little Afghanistan, left over for and yet a third Iraq of out and in most wholly focused on rotating units al- was structure force expeditionary However,given spaceand air the that t a teAr oc Rsre that Reserve Force Air the was It “There were no assets to send forward the air proved Protector Unified for two weeks and aboard the aboard and weeks two for France and the UK the and France

37 Italy, and a French unarmed Harfang RPA. This was not nearly enough. For example, even when the AWACS fleet grew, only one was up at any time, and AP photo by Paul Conroy Paul AP photo by “to be able to cover from all the way to [the] west of Tripoli, you probably needed three or four AWACS across the front,” Jodice said. Similarly, there was one RC-135 available, and none of the solo Rivet Joint, JSTARS, or Sentinel aircraft flew more than eight hours a day. That meant the Alliance effort was fully effective across the ISR spectrum “for only about a third of a day,” he noted. Because of that, and a similar limita- tion on command and control assets, “we probably never had more than four fighters over Libya at any one time, doing weapons employment,” Jodice revealed. There were other oddities as well. Unified Protector essentially inherited Rebel fighters fire at a Libyan government MiG near the town of Ras Lanuf in March the basing structure of Odyssey Dawn, 2011. With the death of Qaddafi, fractious opposition forces came to power fairly and most of those arrangements were rapidly—and some elements don’t share US interests. made bilaterally, instead of as an Al- liance. With more time to prepare, a Active Duty USAF simply didn’t have by committee, it was tough even to more sensible basing structure could to spare, Owen said. The situation was define the mission to protect civilians. have been worked out—for instance, tougher than it looked due to the fact NATO’s military structure didn’t seek placing all common-configuration F- that Congress never got around to au- more clarification over the next seven 16s together. Belgium, Denmark, Neth- thorizing the campaign or appropriating months because “they didn’t want to erlands, and all have similar money to carry it out. This meant both open up that bucket of worms.” F-16s and indeed fly them together in Active Duty and reserve forces had to NATO members were not advocating mixed squadrons in Afghanistan. pull money from other operations and for regime change, he hastened to add. In OUP, these F-16s were located in maintenance accounts. The notion that “‘Qaddafi must go’—all three different places, which was far Overall, though, on the American 28 could never agree to that and would from ideal, although a single mega-base side, Unified Protector was a “rabbit- never agree to that,” he said. was not really an option either. Not ev- out-of-the-hat” operation that should be eryone could have deployed to a single recognized as a warning: that the Air Absent Space-based Support base, such as Sigonella on Sicily. “We Force was “already stressed” before The operation started slowly because would have sunk the island,” he joked. sequestration, “and the nation needs it took some time to marshal needed There were no air-to-air engagements to understand that,” Owen said. assets and because NATO was starting and no Libyan regime aircraft were shot “There wasn’t necessarily a lot of practically from scratch in terms of its down, but that doesn’t mean the no-fly guidance” from the NATO countries military understanding of Libya. For zone was completely uneventful. “At on how to fulfill OUP’s given mission, most air campaigns, there is a period least once,” Jodice said, opposition which came with a mandate to limit col- when “you have time to plan, and you forces managed to get a MiG-23 air- lateral damage and inflict zero civilian do IPOE: intelligence preparation of borne. It was intercepted and escorted casualties, Jodice noted. the operational environment,” Jodice back to its base, “and then we told them, Except for a NATO ministerial find- said. “Those first two to three months ‘Hey, you do that again, we’re going to ing that the operation would continue were really our IPOE.” shoot your ass down. It’s a no-fly zone; until hostilities in Libya ended, “it At the same time, there was a woe- we don’t care who’s flying.’ ” didn’t say how they were to end,” he fully undermanned ISR organization for Overall, the limited airpower assets observed. And “no one knew” how the operation and a sharp shortage of forced NATO to focus on one specific that would happen. In fact, there was actual ISR assets. For the US, platforms area at a time. The operation didn’t have the strong sense that when the smoke like E-8 JSTARS, E-3 AWACS, and even “a whole lot of space-based support” cleared, NATO would be dealing with remotely piloted aircraft were hard to either, Jodice noted, though some U-2 “some aspect of the regime—either spare from Southwest Asia. Initially, and Global Hawk missions were flown. Qaddafi himself or one of his sons” or just one JSTARS and one AWACS were NATO’s lessons-learned study of another regime holdover. available, but the operation gradually OUP came up with six major findings. However, “I don’t think they could added a British Sentinel ISR aircraft, Some of them are “not new,” Jodice have told us much more,” he added. a French Atlantique 2, two Predators, allowed, and he warned the problems Because Unified Protector was a war an unarmed MQ-9 Reaper provided by identified may pop up again. 38 AIR FORCE Magazine / June 2013 The first big lesson is that NATO appropriately trained” and having a into a conflict provided by global didn’t adequately train or organize database of subject experts across the media, commanders have to be able for an operation like OUP. The NATO Alliance, Jodice reported. to make confident decisions “in single Response Force—a sort of rapid- In his April confirmation hearing digit seconds,” he observed. reaction force—didn’t prepare the to be NATO’s new Supreme Allied Planners “see it time and time again,” combined force air component com- Commander, Europe, Breedlove said he said, “how a tactical-level decision or mander organization for what Jodice the Libyan operation taught NATO that ... event can have a huge strategic impact.” called “a small, joint operation” with the ability of partner nations to sustain In the first few months, when the op- “air-heavy” combat operations. The their contribution to the fight “is not very erating tempo was not as high, “we were structures in place were more geared deep.” He said the Alliance has “work able to meet the number of sorties that toward “humanitarian assistance-di- to do in weapons and the amount of were needed, based on the assets that we saster relief.” weapons,” and other “critical enablers” had,” Jodice pointed out. However, “as Secondly, the CFACC shop wasn’t such as in aerial refueling. time goes on, as we all know, the iron able to stand up an ISR division “that gets tired” and “some of our sortie rates was truly competent across all the pro- The Iron Gets Tired started to drop.” cesses that were required in supporting The ISR shortfalls were “probably This was due to many factors. NATO a very dynamic ATO [air tasking order] the most glaring thing we need to work countries had shrunk their air forces, cycle and a kinetic operation.” It was on,” said Breedlove. He added, “What they were committed in Afghanistan a lack of “butts in seats,” Jodice said. we don’t want to do is be the only sup- and Iraq, and their spending on things It took time to get specialists in, train plier of that superb capability.” like munitions had fallen. Adm. James them, and “get processes put in place.” Similarly NATO found it was defi- G. Stavridis, who was then the Supreme The fix is that under the new NATO cient in having other divisions of the Allied Commander, Europe, “did a great air command structure, there will be CFACC shop adequately trained and is job in trying to get the nations to give us a “standing JFACC” [joint force air taking steps to identify on-call people more,” said Jodice, but in general, “there component commander] inside the to reinforce it in an emergency. wasn’t more to be had.” new headquarters of the single air Another lesson was that NATO NATO is now exploring a new concept commander at Ramstein AB, Germany. must have enough “critical enablers” with the blanket name “Smart Defense” Jodice’s position inactivates at the be- on hand to go directly into operations which will explore the Alliance’s real ginning of this month, and its functions on short notice. An adequate stable of minimum required capabilities. “It’s a will transfer to Ramstein and to the on-call ISR assets is critical because continuation of ‘interoperability,’” Jodice head of US Air Forces in Europe-Air “the speed and the flow of information Forces Africa. is so fast that a fused ISR picture from Libyan men show a leaflet that was dropped from NATO air assets during Gen. Philip M. Breedlove, then com- strategic [to] operational to tactical Operation Unified Protector. Officials mander of USAFE-AFAFRICA, has levels is required,” Jodice asserted. would have liked more expertise ap- been emphasizing “having the people Given the practically instant window plied to information operations. USAF photo

AIR FORCE Magazine / June 2013 39 USAF photo by Maj. Andra Higgs Andra Maj. USAF photo by

noted, “realizing that no one nation can from public affairs to EC-130 broadcasts A C-17 positions for air efueling from a do it on its own.” to leaflets to cyber, although there was KC-135 over the Atlantic Ocean in Oc- tober 2011. The C-17 was transporting One of the goals to come out of this no cyber warfare applied. wounded Libyan opposition fighters to concept will be that no one NATO mem- Unified Protector wound up as a Massachusetts for medical care. ber should have to provide more than 50 NATO-plus-four operation which was percent of the capacity in any particular more a collaboration than a coalition, he The Libyan operation ended with a specialty. “That could be difficult,” said. Decisions and campaign planning fractious opposition force coming to Jodice said, as the US provided nearly largely came out of the NATO chain of power relatively rapidly. Many of its 70 percent of all the aerial refueling command, with the consent of the non- elements don’t share the interests of capacity for Unified Protector. It’s one NATO participants, Jodice explained. the US, and this outcome posits yet of USAF’s “unique enablers,” along with another hazard for using the Libya ISR, that no other nation can provide in No Repeat in Syria model in Syria. At the AFA panel, such capacity. “Every nation is going to have its Karl P. Mueller of the RAND Corp. Likewise, the US ability to stockpile own political will,” he noted, and the asserted that permitting the opposi- large numbers of precision guided weap- additional partner nations had restric- tion to take power “allowed NATO ons (PGMs were the only weapons used tions about what they would and would to walk away from responsibility” in OUP) is unique. Jodice said it’s unre- not do. The lesson is to stay aware of for managing the post-Qaddafi Libya. alistic to expect smaller NATO partners the big picture. That cost avoidance probably made to maintain months’ worth of precision “The will of the Alliance and the goals the operation politically feasible, he munitions. But the 50 percent rule is still and objectives of the Alliance always allowed. However, the OUP-aided a discussion point; “the nations haven’t have to be greater than the individual victory conferred legitimacy on the agreed to it,” he said. goal or objective of an individual na- fractious opposition forces. Non-CFACC staff military represen- tion,” he said. Fellow RAND analyst Christopher tatives from every country were enor- Despite the shoestring nature of the S. Chivvis said the fact that the US mously helpful in smoothing the action, operation, Jodice doubts success would was not in the lead when OUP wound Jodice said. Liaison officers explained have come about any faster. down removed the stigma of what what their nations could contribute, NATO needed time for intelligence would have been seen as a US-installed helped with the air tasking order, and preparation and “to really mature our new government. But the quick vic- were on hand to answer questions when overall plan and mature the strategy,” he tory also likely made inevitable the their country’s aircraft were flying. said. NATO wasn’t working directly with “highly fractured security” in Libya Jodice said it would have been helpful anti-Qaddafi forces, “but they needed today, Chivvis said. to have more staff expertise on how de- time for their abilities to mature and for That is an outcome the West would sired effects might be achieved through them to figure out ... what they needed probably rather not see repeated in nonkinetic means. Those means range to do,” he surmised. Syria. n 40 AIR FORCE Magazine / June 2013