1 Script – Speech Sqn Ldr Ashcroft Slide 2

SCRIPT – SPEECH SQN LDR ASHCROFT SLIDE 2 - INTRODUCTION While recent conflicts have demonstrated tactical excellence, military analysts such as Stringer and Ritchie have criticised the lack of scholarly input into this area of study that does not fully explain how AP will succeed at the operational level. It has become more pronounced since campaigning in Operation Telic (2003), where there has been a disruption from senior leaders on air centric strategies adopted since the end of the Cold War. I believe the issue is one of Command Leadership (or Generalship), more specifically airpower being used to its full exploitation at all levels of war. The corollary to this is that command ethos is somehow pushed down the line, and not explored as an organisation. Historiography provides a rich heroic narrative of successful Air Generals in the past; Trenchard, Douhet, Mitchell to name a few. The narrative certainly reflects the ‘big man theory’ and personalises the theorists by championing the warrior elite of the pilot culture. The cultural limitations Post Second World War suggests a lack of Air Generalship because there have been fewer people to inform and influence success. Instead, it would appear the void has been partly filled by extensive leadership studies and doctrine pamphlets without a firm grasp behind the nature of what it means. One of the key issues is that middle management of the air forces who can shape and influence strategic thinking and opinion, has been limited to literature that does not fully codify or interpret command leadership. It offers scholars little insight into the cultural relationship with its airman and how war is waged. The nature of warfare today needs to consider how command leadership has evolved in the new setting, particularly when and how to employ lethal force. I want to explore if there has indeed been a dénouement of Air Generalship since WW2. And, if so what can be done to prepare the RAF for contingent operations. SLIDE 3 – CIRCUMSTANCE OF WAR Clausewitz astutely discerned that war and its inherent complexity is inexorably changing. War is less distinct and slightly foreshortened than the traditional means of inter-state warfare, blurring compression lines between all three levels of war: strategic, operational and tactical. Events in Syria, and the intra-state conflict in Ukraine shows conflict has moved on from the ‘AfPak’ wars of the Obama Administration. Limited war and counter insurgency (COIN) now dominate the political agenda, where there is an increasing requirement to balance overseas presence with power projection aspirations in meeting national military objectives. The fictional world in Singer’s World War 3 novel ‘Ghost Fleet’ is a prescient view in how decisive strategic effect with tactical level actions using striking power of technology to find and locate critical targets in the littoral battle space is critical. There is a fundamental need to train and select Air Commanders to think for themselves in these future air and space environments, and to command their airman appropriately. SLIDE 4 – COMMAND LEADERSHIP There have been many attempts to interpret Generalship or Command leadership, understand scope of the term, and develop a baseline, past and present of what constitutes acceptable ‘Air Generalship’. The most compelling definition comes from Fuller, the last notable author to refer to it as ‘Generalship’. He argued it is made up of the physical, intellectual and moral, which can be synthesised into two generalisations: personal leadership and professional capacity. 1 My best interpretation is the Officers Trinity HERE. It represents the need for commanders to have vision to deal with complex issues, conceptual and abstract thought and the need to think above the tactical concerns of a unit commander. Only a few commanders will emerge who are outstanding on all 3 levels. The RAF recognises leadership as an intellectual activity to strengthen service ethos but has done very little in developing strategy above leadership style. Stringer confirmed this in 2014 arguing that ‘Air Generals’ (those who lead the RAF on operations), had presented a unique set of demands of commanding air operations that required an improved education and training focus for those destined to lead. Without it, Stringer asserts Air Generals would be destined to think like line mangers rather than airpower strategists. What training on operational design that does exist at military staff college plays a huge emphasis on campaign planning; criticised as linear in process and divorced from the strategic realities of the situation. There is also no provision for a specific ‘Generals course’ in the RAF to promote this knowledge and prepare air senior officers for their future Air General careers. Instead, this would be overcome from personal and professional experience. To get around the problem air forces promote their pilots in the hope that by accident it will help prepare them for the highest airpower appointments. Command leadership in the RAF can be summed in three veins: strategic leadership providing Grand - Strategic direction (Chief or Air Staff), C2 at the operational and tactical level (Air Officer Commanding) delivering grand strategic intent, and senior leadership teams. Fundamental to Generalship is C2 - the kernel of their activity. Command is an act of will, based on considerations outside the system it is commanding. Like a radiator, control is the ability to adjust, which means knowing what is actually happening and having some means of affecting it. Whilst both are separate entities, deciding what to do affects the act of command. In command, the aim for Air Commanders is to balance tactical joint air C2 in the Joint Operating Area (JOA). Execution of such activities would be decentralised through air command control systems (C2S). The challenge to this principle is how closely the Joint Force Air Component Commander (JFACC) wishes to manage its strategic efficiency at the expense of flexible campaign planning. Redefining how the RAF applies operational art in its strategic thinking within a JFACC appointment could arrest the problem. This would involve the application of JFACC’s strategy into an operational design integrating key activities at all levels of war. Like an artist creating a painting, the commander confronts the challenge by developing a campaign that is easily understood. Concept and practice of command leadership is therefore at the heart of the matter. Scholars such as Mahoney suggest lack of Generalship is attributable to low organisational confidence. The RAF as an organisation may not be helping. Stringer and Ritchie assert that since the Second World War the RAF has eschewed the need to develop strategic theory, which stems from its cultural beginnings as an independent air force from Trenchard himself. Post 1917 a counter culture existed where the public-school system (like the Army) filtered down permeating the organisation and encouraging maverick behaviour and high jinks. High confidence was seen through to the Second World War but following the Cold War it is suggested that organisational confidence has dipped during more frequent jointery in conflicts post 1990s. WHY IS THIS? The issue seems to be the Cold War itself yet to apply lessons from the past - such as Kosovo in the 1990s. Even the Coningham Keyes project (post Operation Telic) failed to resolve C2 issues in airpower as it prepared the RAF for fighting existential threats following 2 the Cold War. NATO and the air force had been designed to fight the Red Army as it swarmed over the plains of Europe. Everyone knew what to do in their Single Service (Ss) bubble and when it needed to be done. There was a broad acceptance of Ss capabilities and a high degree of organisational confidence: the Navy focused on deterrence with Trident, the RAF on strategic bombing in its airpower roles, and the Army on land manoeuvre. The rigid nature of airpower delivery during the Cold War was simple but understood despite question marks over its integration into a joint operational design. When the Warsaw pact collapsed NATO had to prepare for something else of which no one could specify. Traditional methods of C2 had to be replaced and it was done with mission command and joint operations. SLIDE 5 – ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE Command today covers those aspects of leadership with setting and giving direction predicated on delivering mission command. General Bagwell successfully introduced it into the Army during the mid-80s in response to the flexible response strategies against the Soviets. He also introduced the Higher Command Staff College for its best and brightest officers across all 3 services. However, it would seem mission command has not fully addressed the intellectual chasm with current airpower practice. Redressing the balance requires a review of airpower critical thinking, and much more could be done in the RAFs relationship in gaining the conceptual edge over its sister services. RAF culture is not so different to its sister services as they recruit primarily from the same social levels. There is a clear continuity of leadership influencing ethics post First World War. For example, RAF drill and ceremonial is based on straightforward leadership principles that are the same to the Army and Navy. Similarly, the projection of personality was deemed important to both services; it reflects underlying stereotypes that shape our character and ethos. Barnett suggested this spontaneous emergence of force derived from the basic will power of personality. Admiral Fisher used it to great effect when introducing widespread social justice and efficiency into the Navy at the turn of the century. Similarly, Air Marshal Park and Dowding fashioned a powerful and formidable partnership to help win the Battle of Britain. But here is where the similarities end. Ross Mahoney believes the cause is cultural immersion at initial officer training and how it flows down from senior leadership.

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