NATO’s Lessons From Libya 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 espite its success was the Operation Unified Protector However, given that the air and space in fulfilling United (OUP) combined forces air component expeditionary force structure was al- Nations mandates, commander. most wholly focused on rotating units Operation Unified The operation was the direct result in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan, Protector—NATO’s of UN Security Council resolutions there was little left over for yet a third seven-month 2011 1970 and 1973, adopted in February and air campaign. The Air Force Reserve Dair campaign which led to the ouster of March of 2011. The resolutions autho- played a crucial role in USAF’s ability Muammar Qaddafi from Libya—raised rized a no-fly zone, an arms embargo, to respond. red flags about NATO’s inadequate re- and a mandate to protect the Libyan Unified Protector proved the air sources and its lack of preparation for people from their own government, in and space expeditionary force “really a new shooting war. It also exposed the addition to sanctions on some members doesn’t work,” said Robert Owen of reality that the Air Force’s expedition- of the Qaddafi regime. After an initial Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University ary structure has been badly oversub- takedown of Libyan air defenses— in Daytona Beach, Fla. Speaking on scribed. Unified Protector shouldn’t Operation Odyssey Dawn, led by the an Air Force Association symposium be the template for a future operation, United States—OUP was the NATO panel in February, Owen said USAF according to its air commander and continuation operation which struck at was already at “100 percent commit- think-tank experts who have studied regime forces moving against civilians ment” when the Libya crisis unfolded. the operation for the last two years. and maintained a naval blockade on “There were no assets to send forward Although some members of Con- arms shipments. It started on March without digging into the reconstitution gress, alarmed at the two-plus years of 23 and ended on Oct. 31, shortly after force” of equipment and units that mounting bloodshed in Syria, have sug- Qaddafi was captured and killed by were supposed to be resting up from gested an Operation Unified Protector- Libyan opposition forces, which then Southwest Asia deployments, getting style intervention in that country, “I set up a transitional government. necessary training and reset, before go- think many have recognized this: It’s The Air Force contributed strike ing back to those wars, Owen explained. not the model,” said Lt. Gen. Ralph aircraft, intelligence, surveillance, and It was the Air Force Reserve that J. Jodice II, head of NATO’s Allied reconnaissance platforms, and the bulk “saved the Air Force’s bacon” by Air Command at Izmir, Turkey. He of the aerial refueling assets to OUP. providing personnel and assets the Innovative Over Libya There were a number of airpower “firsts” in Operation Unified Protector, ac- cording to Lt. Gen. Ralph J. Jodice II, head of NATO’s Allied Air Command at Izmir, Turkey. Mixed Pairs: Britain flew mixed pairs of Typhoon fourth generation fight- ers with Tornado GR4 “trucks” laden with bombs, taking advantage of the Photo by SSgt. Brendan Stephens SSgt. Photo by sensor and connectivity capabilities of the former and combining them with the proven air-to-ground weapons delivery capabilities of the latter. Mixed pairs also were flown by French and Qatari Mirage 2000s, sometimes in concert with French Rafale fighters. Dynamic Deliberate Targeting: Some specific targets were moved forward on the 72-hour air tasking order if the assets were unexpectedly available to attack them or if they were deemed more time-sensitive than originally thought. Sometimes this happened in single digit hours. CSARs on Flattops: Air Force combat search and rescue HH-60s were deployed aboard the British flattop Ocean for two weeks and aboard the similar French ship Tonnerre for two days to support operations far deeper into Libya than were flown in most of the operation. The flying time from the initial base in Greece was four hours—a long time to wait if someone has been shot down, Jodice said. SCAR-C: strike, control, and reconnaissance coordination—a throwback to forward air control but conducted by platforms ranging from the French Atlantique to a Predator, which would scout and sometimes laser-designate targets for other platforms. The United Arab Emirates and Qatar Dropped Bombs in Anger: Jodice was unhappy that France and Qatar pushed to get Qatar’s French- made Mirage 2000s on the ATO for a bomb-dropping mission, even though the pilots had not trained to do it. “This is not a test range,” Jodice said, but eventually assented because three of the four jets in the eventual mission were French, flown by UAE and French pilots trained in ground attack. Attack Helicopters and the Air Tasking Order: France and the UK insisted that OUP make use of attack helicopters: French Tiger and Cougar aircraft and British Apaches. Those governments felt the appearance of at- tack helos would send a strong statement to the regime, at a time when they felt the conflict was entering a stalemate. Jodice said the “first” was putting attack helicopters on the ATO and integrating them in an air campaign, when such aircraft typically are under the direction of a ground commander and tied to ground maneuver. AIR FORCE Magazine / June 2013 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 Benghazi 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 Norway 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.