Wargames have traditionally been the purview of the operational community, but the Pacific Air Forces have put intelligence into the driver’s seat with a new series of wargames called Pacific Vision.

   It builds in a couple of key, new concepts. It weighs future budgets against new capabilities being fielded by potential foes. It also looks at near-term issues rather than threats anticipated beyond the future years defense plan. Some of the issues are advanced aircraft and missiles, satellite attack and authorless cyber warfare.

   A key subject was dispersal of aircraft, in particular, during a military emergency since bases in Okinawa, Guam, Hawaii and Alaska are now considered vulnerable to attack by ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, cyber weapons and directed energy such as lasers and high power microwaves.

   “Not all these things [related to dispersal] cost a lot of money,” says Gen. Howie Chandler, PacAF’s commander. Affordable options include “basing alternatives, rapid runway repair, electronic warfare and counter-EW.”

   “The answer is both [getting access to additional] bases and how you organize and equip yourself on a particular installation,” Chandler says. “The possibility is there [in an emergency to break up large units without crippling them operationally].”

  “One of the reasons we’re out there building partnerships throughout the region, in addition to good will, is access,” agrees Lt. Gen. Chip Utterback, commander of 13th Air Force. “That’s important.”  

   The Philippines, for example, is receiving focused attention.

   “We took intelligence officers, pilots and maintainers whose primary job is to teach [to the Philippines],” Utterback says. “They taught basics of air control, command and control of small forces and close air support. And there are opportunities for the Philippines to upgrade their OV-10 force with modern technology. They are already employing modern GPS [using what] they’ve learned from us and purchased on their own. It allows them to take a small, limited force and apply it to great effect.”

   The Pacific Vision wargames also examines more esoteric threats.

   “Looking at some of the cyber activity in the world and some of the space or anti-space capabilities that are emerging, we will have to determine how we secure communications, both through networks and space,” Chandler says.

   Part of that examination is understanding is how to conduct pre-emptive cyber and kinetic attacks.

   “Today we spend a lot of time thinking about rules of engagement for cyberwar, electronic targeting and collateral damage that might come out of it,” Utterback says. “You build target folders against anything that can hurt you, but the rules still apply. If I go after a capability, what’s the collateral damage?”

   Those decisions will be aided by advanced and integrated intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR).

   “As important as those [types of attack] are, you can’t conduct them unless you have done the preliminary ISR,” says Pacific Air Forces former intelligence chief, Col. Marty Neubauer (ret.). “Electronic attack and warfare, all the different pieces of cyber – the things we have to do to win in a high-tech environment – spring from an understanding of a potential opponent’s technological capability and their ability to outflank you. Jamming is a classic example. If you don’t know what jammers they have, their capabilities and what bands they operate in, you are going to be surprised. Your stealth could be compromised by over the horizon HF-frequency radars.”

   As precision strike assets increase, they creates a staggering load on the ISR community to provide target data intelligence collection with the same sort of precision and instantaneous information processing that allows real-time operational response.

   “Those require huge investments, and if you don’t make them, soon your air force is little more than a static display,” Neubauer says. Tactics also have to be examined. For example, “if we put all our assets forward, we create an irresistible temptation [for a foe to attack them]. What we need to do is create incentives for stability. So we need to work on improving alliances now and building partner capabilities. If you want to land on their airfields [during a future emergency], you have to engage them now, not when the bullets are flying.”

   The most recent Pacific Vision also examined low visibility problems such as logistics, communications, ISR, traffic flow, air refueling and resupply during a conflict in the South China Sea.

   That presented wargamers huge power-projection problem. They had to decide who could deploy and where they could be based. Moreover, there was a need to figure out alternatives for being so far forward, particularly into the volatile South China Sea, but not too far away.

   “If you look at the potential [for facing] surface-to-air missiles, it’s even harder,” Neubauer says. “You can very easily – with new air defense systems – cover the whole area. It doesn’t take a lot of work to get an SA-20. A lot of people are buying them [including Vietnam, China and Iran]. It’s suddenly a very complex problem with a very big ISR load.”

Cheers, df.