MILITARY GEOGRAPHY
FOR PROFESSIONALS AND THE PUBLIC
16. MILITARY AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY
Abbott. Well, let's see now. We have on our team Who's on first, What's on second, I Don't Know's on third.
Costello. Well, go ahead! Who's on first?
Abbott. Who is on first.
Costello. What are you asking me for? I'm asking you who is on first? . . .
Abbott. Who.
Costello. I'm asking a simple question. Who's on first?
Abbott. Yes.
Costello. I'm asking you what's the guy's name on first base?
Abbott. Oh, no. What's on second.
Who's on First
Bud Abbott and Lou Costello
First Broadcast on NBC, 1942
MILITARY COMMANDERS AT EVERY LEVEL IN EVERY MILITARY SERVICE NEED TO KNOW "WHO'S ON FIRST?" because confusion can put formations at cross-purposes that at best cause wasteful duplications and at worst leave key terrain uncovered. Sensible answers to that question commonly call for cleanly-cut areas of responsibility (AORs) that foster unity of effort, afford sufficient room for armed forces of particular types to operate effectively, and avoid overlaps that could needlessly incur casualties from so-called "friendly fire."
Predominantly political, strictly military, or political-military considerations in some combination determine the size and shape of each AOR, depending on circumstances that feature physical and cultural geography. Areas of interest and abilities to influence actions usually extend well beyond assigned AORs, but plans and operations that overlap parts of neighboring bailiwicks require prior consultation and continuing coordination with all parties concerned.
GLOBAL SUBDIVISIONS
Nations that couple cosmopolitan interests with a global reach subdivide the world into areas of responsibility that best distribute military strength and maximize flexibility. The United States and Great Britain did so to mutual advantage during World War II. The U.S. Department of Defense has put lessons learned to good use ever since.
ALLIED AORs DURING WORLD WAR II
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in correspondence to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on February 18, 1942, opined, "The United States is able because of our geographical position to reinforce [Australia and New Zealand] much better than you can. . . . Britain is better prepared to reinforce Burma and India and I visualize that you would take responsibility for that theater."1
Two weeks later President Roosevelt proposed, and the British Chiefs of Staff agreed, that the Allies should subdivide the globe into three AORs to deal with Axis opponents: the Pacific (a U.S. responsibility); the Middle East and Far East (a British responsibility); and shared responsibility for Europe plus the Atlantic. Newly minted Major General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Chief of the U.S. Army's Operations Division in the Pentagon, thereupon prepared a War Department study that defined those three areas as follows:
Churchill advised President Roosevelt on March 18, 1942, that he saw "great merits in simplification resulting from American control over the Pacific sphere and British control over the Indian sphere and indeed there is no other way," provided operations everywhere be directed by "the Combined Chiefs of Staff acting directly under you and me." He accordingly concluded that U.S. "proposals as I have ventured to elaborate and interpret them will achieve double purpose namely (a) integrity of executive and operational action and (b) opportunity of reasonable consultation for those whose fortunes are involved."2 Implementing measures took shape almost immediately.
U.S. COMBATANT COMMAND BOUNDARIES
U.S. experiences during World War II demonstrated that commanders in chief (CINCs) of unified combatant commands can bring military power to bear most efficiently and effectively only if some rational system fosters joint operations, dampens jurisdictional disputes, avoids undesirable duplication of effort, and leaves no significant gaps. Related requirements became urgent at the onset of the Cold War, when apprehensive allies on six continents looked to the United States for leadership and global responsibilities settled on U.S. Armed Forces for the first time since their inception in 1775.3
Original U.S. Areas of Responsibility. President Harry S Truman on December 14, 1946, approved the first in a long series of unified command plans, the Outline Command Plan, which prescribed seven geographically oriented unified commands with the following fundamental missions and areas of responsibility:4
Subsequent U.S. Areas of Responsibility. Twenty-one U.S. unified commands have been established at various times since 1947, of which nine remained 50 years later. EUCOM, ACOM (formerly LANTCOM), PACOM, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), and U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) focus on geographic areas. All expressed intense interest in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, but none could apply military power selectively across such a huge AOR (map 50). The President and the Secretary of Defense therefore retained oversight responsibilities and delegated duties as they saw fit until UCP changes put Ukraine, Belarus, Moldava, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan within the EUCOM AOR (effective October 1, 1998), while CENTCOM picked up Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan (effective October 1, 1999). Only Russia among the former Soviet republics will remain unassigned.
Periodic Boundary Revisions. Title 10, United States Code, requires the JCS Chairman not less than every 2 years to review "missions, responsibilities (including geographic boundaries) and force structures for the combatant commands and recommend [changes]." AORs in particular require close scrutiny in this rapidly changing world, taking political ideological, topographical, cultural, technological, and military considerations into account, because boundary revisions may create problems more serious than those they solve unless planners are sensitive to many subtle implications.5
The current Unified Command Plan, for example, assigns to three CINCs areas of responsibility that include parts of Islamic Africa, Southwest Asia, and neighboring bodies of water. CENTCOM's AOR covers the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Gulf of Oman, and 19 countries, all of which except Kenya are entirely Muslim or have Muslim pluralities. European Command's AOR incorporates Israel, Syria, and Lebanon, together with four Islamic states along Africa's Mediterranean littoral (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya). Pacific Command's AOR, which abuts CENTCOM at the border between India and Pakistan, embraces the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea.
Map 50.
U.S. Cold War Areas of Responsibility
(1983-1991)
Such rough seams complicate coordination and invite miscalculations when troubles crop up, yet adjustments that initially seem simple almost always appear complex after investigation. Some problems are traceable to Service chiefs and CINCs who prefer the status quo for bureaucratic reasons,6 while others have their roots in the region. Central Command's AOR indeed could cover all Middle Eastern countries, but redrawing boundaries to do so likely would alienate U.S. Arab allies who see Israel as their enemy, put a serious crimp in intelligence-sharing, and make coalition planning practically impossible. Similar friction would ensue if the Unified Command Plan put religious rivals like India and Pakistan within one AOR. Sensitivity for Muslim concerns ostensibly makes CENTCOM better suited than EUCOM to deal with explosive situations in Islamic North Africa, but land, sea, air, and amphibious assets assigned to European Command are located more conveniently. And so on. Few prima facie cases that favor AOR boundary adjustments are evident anywhere else.
REGIONAL AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY
Political sensitivities, traditional spheres of Service influence, threats, and available combat power as well as geographic circumstances commonly shape regional as well as global areas of responsibility. The subdivision of NATO's Allied Command Europe (ACE) into three major subordinate commands and repeated revision of AORs for U.S. unified commands illustrate associated problems.
AOR PROBLEMS IN NATO EUROPE
General of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his first annual report as Supreme Allied Commander, Europe (SACEUR), perceptively analyzed his area of responsibility:
Western Europe, from North Cape to Sicily, had to be surveyed as a whole. There is the main land mass, stretching from the Baltic to the Adriatic--a peninsula, when viewed in perspective, of that greatest of all land masses, which is Europe and Asia combined. On the flanks of this main peninsula we have two main outcrops--apart from the Iberian peninsula and the British Isles. The one is Denmark, almost touching the tip of Scandinavia, whose western half, Norway, is among our brotherhood of nations sworn to defend freedom. The southern outcrop is Italy, projecting into the Mediterranean, and affording us its strong position for flanking forces with valuable air and sea bases. It seemed sound to divide the command of Western Europe into three main sectors: Norway and Denmark as one buttress, Italy and the adjacent waters as the other, and the central mass as the main structure.7
NATO's Basic Subdivisions. NATO in April 1951 accordingly began to form three geographically oriented AORs, stacked from north to south (map 51). Allied Forces Northern
Europe stood guard on the Nordic flank, Allied Forces Southern Europe did likewise south of the Alps, while Allied Forces Central Europe became the bulwark in between.
Denmark and West Germany's Schleswig-Holstein Province, although topographically inseparable from NATO's center sector, were assigned to CINCNORTH because, in collaboration with Norway, they controlled straits that connect the Baltic and North Seas. U.S. Sixth Fleet furnished most combat power for the south flank, but interim command arrangements had to suffice until 1953, when the British Mediterranean Fleet became the nucleus of a new lashup under Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten whose status was coequal with that of NATO's CINCSOUTH, an American.8
Map 51. NATO's Basic Areas of Responsibility
Haphazard AORs in AFCENT. Three land corridors cut across the Iron Curtain from Warsaw Pact countries into West Germany, which was AFCENT's forward line of defense. The most dangerous avenue, tailor-made for armored thrusts, traversed the North German Plain over first-rate highways and rolling farmlands that facilitated cross-country movement, whereas rough, wooded terrain farther south generally restricted vehicular traffic to the Fulda Gap, which points toward Frankfurt-am-Main, and to the Hof Corridor which heads for Munich (map 52).
NATO's dispositions athwart those three approaches resulted from historical accidents rather than design, because British, French, and U.S. areas of responsibility generally paralleled their respective occupation zones at the end of World War II and all Allied forces took full advantage of West German peacetime garrisons. Northern Army Group (NORTHAG) covered the crucial North German Plain with four corps, of which the Netherlands, West Germany, Britain, and Belgium provided one apiece. Central Army Group (CENTAG), in sharp contrast, was positioned on far more defensible terrain and possessed far greater combat power that included two U.S. corps, two more that belonged to the West German Bundeswehr, and a Canadian mechanized brigade in reserve. Defense of the Fulda Gap might best have rested with a single command, but German and U.S. Army formations shared responsibility for that high-speed approach, which straddled the boundary between them. Such maldeployments were militarily unsound, but no adjustments of much consequence took place before the Cold War ended, because exchanges would have weakened defenses while in progress, diplomatic objections were discouraging, and moving costs would have been enormous.10
AOR PROBLEMS IN THE PACIFIC
Competition between the United States Army and the Navy over respective responsibilities and authority in the Pacific strained relationships during early stages of World War II and persisted until Japan capitulated. Jurisdictional disagreements that subsequently surfaced in Northeast Asia intensified after the Korean War erupted. Similar problems complicated military operations in Vietnam.
Disputes in the South Pacific. The Pacific area of responsibility that President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill agreed upon in 1942 was for the most part a watery domain best suited for sea services, but armies and land-based air forces had prominent roles to play when U.S. holding actions ceased and offensive operations commenced against Japanese Armed Forces entrenched on an arc of island strongholds that constituted the first line of defense for their homeland. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), after carefully considering recommendations from political-military officials in Australia and New Zealand, consequently established a Southwest Pacific Area (SWPA) and installed General Douglas MacArthur as CINC, with purview over Australia, New Guinea, neighboring islands as far east as 160 degrees east longitude, all of the Dutch East Indies except Sumatra, and the Philippines. Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, simultaneously designated Commander in Chief Pacific Ocean Area (CINCPOA), retained New Zealand and the rest of the Pacific Ocean in his area of responsibility, less a slice off Central and South America that remained within the Pacific Sector of Panama Sea Frontier (map 53).11
Map 52. AFCENT Areas of Responsibility
Competition between the two regional commanders in chief was keen from the start. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, after hearing all arguments, put Australia in the Southwest Pacific Area and New Zealand in the Pacific Ocean Area so the Navy could safeguard sea lines of communication between the United States and New Zealand, although the Army repeatedly pointed out that similar lines led to Australia and lobbied to control terminals in both countries. The JCS moved General MacArthur's eastern boundary from the 160th to the 159th Meridian before ink dried on their original directive and thereby divided responsibility for the Solomon Islands so Admiral Nimitz could direct operations against Guadalcanal. The two CINCs, already engaged in fierce rivalry for scarce resources, thereafter proceeded along roughly parallel paths toward the Philippines, each firmly convinced that his AOR deserved top priority, but in May 1943 the JCS approved a dual drive that satisfied neither of them.12
Disputes in Northeast Asia. Far East Command (FECOM) reported directly to the JCS throughout the Korean War (June 1950- July 1953), but in 1956 most of the Joint Chiefs concluded that FECOM had outlived its usefulness in light of dwindling U.S. deployments in Northeast Asia and voted to transfer all functions to Pacific Command. Army Chief of Staff General Maxwell D. Taylor, the lone dissenter, advised enlargement to include Taiwan, the Philippines, Southeast Asia, and Indonesia where, in his opinion, the Army was better prepared than the Navy to block communist encroachment. FECOM disappeared on July 1, 1957, only after the Secretary of Defense broke the deadlock and approved in its place a pair of unified commands subordinate to CINCPAC: a four-star Army general became Commander in Chief of the U.N. Command and Commander, U.S. Forces Korea; a three-star Air Force general became Commander, U.S. Forces Japan. Questions concerning the efficacy of a Far East Command nevertheless resurface periodically, most recently during the roles and missions review in 1995.13
Disputes in Southeast Asia. The Joint Chiefs of Staff, well before U.S. Armed Forces became deeply involved, debated two basic command arrangements for operations in North and South Vietnam: Option A left both nations within Pacific Command's area of responsibility, where they had been since their establishment in 1954, and activated a unified command subordinate to CINCPAC; Option B envisaged an independent command on the same level as PACOM. The JCS recommended Option A, CINCPAC concurred, the Secretary of Defense approved, and U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV) emerged in 1962, but the new lashup never worked the way official "wiring diagrams" indicated. COMUSMACV often bypassed CINCPAC to deal directly with superiors in Washington, DC, including the President and Secretary of Defense, who played active parts in daily operations. CINCPAC conducted the air war and surface naval operations, while COMUSMACV took charge on the ground.14
General William C. Westmoreland, who was Commander, U.S. Military Assistance Command Vietnam from June 1964 until March 1968, observed in retrospect that an independent unified command for all of Southeast Asia would have clarified responsibilities and increased operational flexibility. "Instead of five 'commanders'--CINCPAC, COMUSMACV, and the American ambassadors to Thailand, Laos, and South Vietnam-- there would have been one man directly responsible to the President on everything. . . . Such an arrangement would have eliminated the problem of coordination between the air and ground wars that was inevitable with CINCPAC managing one, MACV the other."15
AOR PROBLEMS IN THE MIDDLE EAST
A U.S. area of responsibility that formally embraced the Middle East and neighboring waters was unnecessary before the British Empire broke up in the late 1940s and British Armed Forces began to abandon outposts in that region. Secretary of Defense Thomas S. Gates, Jr., after heated JCS debates that pitted the Army and Air Force against the Navy and Marine Corps, in February 1960 officially put the Commander in Chief of U.S. Naval Forces Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean (CINCNELM) in charge of plans and operations for an AOR that enclosed lands east of Libya and south of Turkey, the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, and the Bay of Bengal. Secretary Gates concurrently enlarged Atlantic Command's AOR to include sub-Saharan Africa.16
Map 53. Pacific Ocean Area and Southwest Pacific Area
Those arrangements proved unstable. The JCS Chairman in 1962, with active support from the Army and Air Force, accordingly proposed that the Commander in Chief of newly created Strike Command be assigned responsibility for the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and southern Asia (MEAFSA). As it stood, they reasoned, CINCLANT and CINCNELM "are required to execute operations with forces they do not have, using force employment plans developed by other commands." The Navy, backed by the Marine Corps, resisted change because CINCNELM was thoroughly familiar with Middle East problems and the likelihood of major U.S. military involvement anywhere in Black Africa seemed remote. The Secretary of Defense found the Chairman's arguments persuasive, added MEAFSA to CINCSTRIKE's responsibilities, and disbanded NELM on December 1, 1963.17
Disputes nevertheless persisted, expedient operations predominated, and continuity was elusive. The President and Secretary of Defense discontinued Strike Command and CINCMEAFSA in April 1971, tacked the eastern Mediterranean littoral, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and Iran onto European Command, and left Africa south of the Sahara unassigned. Permanent improvements awaited the appearance of U.S. Central Command, which replaced an interim Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force on January 1, 1983. CENTCOM's geographic area of responsibility, which has endured since that date, consists of Egypt, Sudan, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, and Somalia, all in the Horn of Africa; Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Yemen, all on the Arabian peninsula; and Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf.18
AOR PROBLEMS IN THE CARIBBEAN
The Caribbean Basin and U.S. national security have been inseparable for more than 200 years, in peacetime as well as war.19 Command arrangements for that crucial region, which had been within CINCLANT's area of responsibility since 1956, worked smoothly during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 and U.S. operations in the Dominican Republic 3 years later, but heated debates about AORs began in October 1979 soon after President Carter deplored what he perceived to be ever greater Soviet encroachment and Cuban influence.20
CINCSOUTH and the Army Chief of Staff postulated that general war was a remote possibility, but if it did occur, LANTCOM would have to rivet attention on the Atlantic Ocean whereas Southern Command, armed with a wealth of Latin American experience, was ready, willing, and able to counter Communist activities that posed clear and present dangers to U.S. interests throughout the Caribbean. CINCLANT contended that it would be imprudent to pass responsibility for the Caribbean from his command to SOUTHCOM, given U.S. policies that encouraged greater vigilance and military capabilities in that volatile region. The Joint Chiefs found in favor of Atlantic Command, which they concluded was better able to safeguard vital sea lanes through the Caribbean to NATO Europe and from Venezuelan oil fields to the United States under emergency conditions. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger approved their recommendations on November 2, 1981.21
Different U.S. policies and priorities in response to different threats, however, appeared the following decade after possibilities of general war virtually disappeared for the foreseeable future. JCS Chairman General John M. Shalikashvili recommended, Defense Secretary William Perry concurred, and President Bill Clinton approved alterations that gave CINCSOUTH control over all U.S. military activities in the Caribbean basin as well as Central and South America effective June 1, 1997, primarily to remove troublesome seams that adversely affected counternarcotics operations. President Clinton on January 1, 1996, additionally transferred to SOUTHCOM responsibility for ocean waters around Central and South America from 300 West to 920 West to improve U.S. interactions with Latin American navies.22
USEFUL INSIGHTS
Members of the Strategic Plans and Policy Directorate (J-5) of the Joint Staff developed, and the JCS Chairman approved, six principles for use during the 1995 JCS review of the Unified Command Plan. All six still serve as yardsticks with which to measure how well assigned areas of responsibility suit each regionally oriented combatant command.23 Each AOR must:
Thoughtful application of those principles might have ameliorated many AOR problems in the past and similarly could reduce the incidence of international and interservice discord in the future. Points 3 and 6 have special significance, because areas of responsibility almost invariably are unsatisfactory if statesmen, Service spokesmen, or holders of purse strings (Congress in the United States) strongly oppose.
THEATER AND TACTICAL AORs
Theater commanders in chief, who exercise operational control over land, sea, air, and amphibious forces within respective jurisdictions, as a rule delegate to major subordinate commands authority and accountability over parts of their AORs for operational, logistical, and administrative purposes. Tactical areas of responsibility (TAORs) facilitate control and coordination at lower levels. The boundaries that CINCs and other commanders draw are designed to facilitate freedom of action within assigned zones, ensure adequate coverage of objectives and target suites yet avoid undesirable duplication of effort, prevent confusion, and reduce risks of fratricide from so-called "friendly fire."
Theater and tactical AORs differ from global and regional subdivisions in several important respects: international sensitivities tend to diminish (but do not disappear), whereas interservice rivalries remain strong; areas of interest and influence tend to blur boundary lines; and TAORs are subject to frequent change during fluid operations.
BOUNDARIES ON EARTH'S SURFACE
Operation plans and orders employed by land and amphibious forces at every level commonly prescribe boundaries and other control lines to prevent gaps and forestall interference by combat and support forces with friendly formations on either flank, to the front, or toward the rear. Well drafted boundaries wherever possible follow ridges, rivers, roads, city streets, and other geographic features that are clearly recognizable on maps as well as on the ground. They neither divide responsibility for dominant terrain between two or more commands nor position forces from one command on both sides of formidable obstacles unless sensible alternatives seem unavailable.
Boundaries During Offensive Operations. Overlays marked with lateral boundaries that extend beyond objectives help military commanders coordinate artillery and air strikes against enemies. Land boundaries moreover may "pinch out" elements, as shown in figure 38, to increase maneuver room for formations that are progressing toward objectives faster than adjacent units, to reconstitute reserves, or for other cogent reasons.
Boundaries During Defensive Operations. The linear frontage that any given size ground force can defend depends in large part on topography, vegetative cover, and soil conditions which, taken together, limit cover, concealment, observation, and high-speed avenues available for use by counterattacking forces as well as enemies. Abilities to overcome geographic adversities and capitalize on opportunities in turn hinge on states of technology. Frontages were invariably narrow when soldiers armed with muskets and short-range cannons stood shoulder to shoulder and the best control measures consisted of shouts, hand signals, semaphore flags, messengers, bugle calls, and pyrotechnics. Modern weapon systems, electronic communications, sophisticated sensors, and other technological innovations permit much greater dispersion, but defensive fronts still are (and probably will always be) severely restricted by rough terrain, forests, and manmade structures that afford poor fields of fire for flat trajectory weapons and attenuate radio waves. Bald flatlands conversely allow small forces with requisite mobility or long-range weaponry to cover relatively large areas.
Lateral boundaries for front line companies in defensive positions normally extend forward to the limit of observation from combat outposts, whereas divisional boundaries reach at least as far as the maximum effective range of organic or attached artillery. Division, corps, field army, and theater commanders also draw rear boundaries that identify areas of responsibility for forces with administrative, logistical, rear area security, and damage control missions.
Coalition Boundaries. National pride and political considerations other than military exigencies sometimes shape military areas of responsibility. The liberation of Paris was not one of General Eisenhower's immediate aims during the allied drive from beachheads in Normandy to the German border. But, after much bickering, the honor of first entry went to the 2d French Armored Division because the symbolic restoration of French freedom outweighed strictly military requirements.24 Arab ground forces within the multinational coalition that defeated Iraq in January-February 1991 for similar reasons were first to cross the border between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, then were first to enter Kuwait City while U.S. Marines, as planned, assisted their passage.25
Figure 38. Offensive Force Boundaries
Linkup Boundaries. Military operations that proceed through hostile territory to link up with friendly armed forces on the far side require careful coordination. Associated problems are doubly touchy when both sides are in motion, which often is the case, and increase severalfold when converging forces come from two or more countries that find it difficult to communicate face-to-face, much less over air waves. Standard procedures designed to prevent mishaps require units to report when they cross mutually recognized phase lines and to display prearranged recognition signs when contacts become imminent.
General Eisenhower, to cite one real world case, noted that "the problem of liaison with the Russians grew constantly more important as we advanced across central Germany." Converging commanders, "anxious to have an easily identified geographical feature" serve as the junction line, selected the Elbe River, where troops of the U.S. 69th Infantry Division safely met Russian counterparts on the afternoon of April 25, 1945, just 2 weeks before Nazi Germany surrendered unconditionally.26
BOUNDARIES ON WATER
Sea services as a rule abhor boundaries that inhibit freedom of action. Command and control lines on open water, however, often are convenient and are unavoidable during amphibious assault operations.
Boundaries Between Naval Areas of Responsibility. Naval forces en route from one AOR to another commonly change operational control (CHOP) at predesignated times or places. Ships home-ported on the U.S. west coast or in Hawaii pass from Third Fleet control to Seventh Fleet when they cross the International Date Line headed for the Far East and reverse that process upon return. Seventh Fleet ships bound from PACOM to CENTCOM become subordinate to Fifth Fleet a specified number of steaming hours north or west of Diego Garcia, Second Fleet ships based on the U.S. east coast CHOP to Sixth Fleet west of Gibraltar before they enter the Mediterranean Sea, and so on. Each ship at CHOP time electronically transmits to the receiving command a status of resources and training report that summarizes its readiness to perform anticipated missions.
Amphibious Assault Boundaries. Boundaries drawn to coordinate amphibious forces before and during assaults on defended shores establish areas of responsibility (often over-the-horizon beyond the sight of observers on land) where troops transfer from ships to air cushion vehicles, helicopters, landing craft, or other conveyances. Boundaries on water also demark lanes from the line of departure to designated beaches, tell underwater demolition teams where to clear mines, and ensure that AORs ashore include adequate exits inland. Map 54 depicts such arrangements at Tarawa atoll in 1943.
BOUNDARIES IN THE AIR
Air forces detest imaginary lines in the atmosphere as much as navies deplore boundaries drawn on the sea, but senior commanders sometimes assign sectors for reasons they rightly or wrongly believe promote the safest, most efficient use of airspace. Three instances, one related to airlift, a second to combat operations, and a third to peacekeeping, are illustrative.
The Berlin Airlift. Technically, four roads, four rail lines, and one barge canal tied Allied occupation forces in West Berlin to West Germany during the period of the U.S., British, French, and Soviet occupation after World War II, but only one railway and the Autobahn to Helmstadt were actually open, and Soviet Armed Forces sealed both from June 22, 1948, until September 30, 1949. Food and fuel for West Berliners were at a low ebb when Allied air forces with civilian air line assistance launched Operation Vittles over three 20-mile-wide corridors from Hamburg, Hanover, and Frankfurt-am-Main (see map 6, page 23). Transport aircraft flying night and day on split-second schedules delivered more than 2.3 million tons of desperately needed supplies before the Soviet Politburo allowed trucks and trains to resume shipments.27
Air AORs Over North Vietnam. Control problems arose as soon as U.S. Air Force squadrons in South Vietnam and naval aircraft based on carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin began Rolling Thunder bombing campaigns against North Vietnam in March 1965. A joint USAF-Navy Coordinating Committee thereupon advanced three optional control plans, all of which were controversial.
Air Force members first proposed time-sharing arrangements that would reserve 3-hour periods within which one service, then the other, could attack approved targets. The Navy counterproposed responsibility on a north-south axis that reserved coastal targets for carrier aircraft, which lacked enough range to reach far inland without in-flight refueling, but some targets in that case would have received too little attention and others too much. The Coordinating Committee, despite Air Force objections, compromised with so-called "Route Packages," as follows (map 55): 28
Map 54. Amphibious Boundaries at Tarawa
Those AORs remained in effect until October 1972 when, "to improve efficient use of resources and to attain mass application of force where indicated," Admiral Noel Gayler, in his capacity as Commander in Chief Pacific, designated Route Package VI around Hanoi as "an integrated strike zone" wherein USAF and Navy aircraft could "schedule strike missions into one another's geographical area."29
Not everyone was satisfied with that decision, which pertained to only one AOR in North Vietnam. Skeptics such as General William W. Momyer, who commanded U.S. Seventh Air Force at the time, soon thereafter wrote that "any arrangement arbitrarily assigning air forces to exclusive areas of operation will significantly reduce airpower's unique ability to quickly concentrate overwhelming firepower wherever it is most needed."30 He concurrently cited the following words of British Air Marshal Tedder to buttress his case: "Air warfare cannot be separated into little packets; it knows no boundaries on land or sea other than those imposed by the radius of action of the aircraft; it is a unity and demands unity of command."31
"No Fly Zones" in Iraq. The United Nations Security Council in April 1991 passed Resolution 688, which directed Iraq to cease repressing Kurdish communities within its northern borders and Shi'ite Muslims in the far south. The United States and key allies shortly thereafter imposed two air exclusion zones to ensure compliance. U.S., British, and French aircraft that participate in Operation Provide Comfort from bases in Turkey have flown daily sorties since May 1991 to deny Iraq any use of its airspace north of the 36th Parallel. Patrols associated with Operation Southern Watch in August 1992 began to "sanitize" Iraqi airspace south of the 32d Parallel, mainly from Saudi Arabia, then expanded coverage to include the 33d Parallel in September 1996. Such flights, as a bonus, perhaps help deter rash moves by Saddam Hussein toward Kuwait and other countries on the Arabian Peninsula.32
Map 55. Route Packages in North Vietnam
"NO MAN'S LANDS"
Every U.S. military service seeks to stake out claims beyond tactical areas of responsibility in a "no man's land" where areas of interest, areas of influence, and the reach of long-range weapons overlap. Competition is intense, because the winners receive more money and a larger share of scarce resources with which to perform related roles, functions, and missions. Lack of mutual trust makes each supplicant loath to rely on others and prompts each, like the Prophet Isaiah, to plead, "Here am I; send me."
Land forces almost everywhere establish fire support coordination lines (FSCLs) or equivalents thereof designed to maximize freedom of action for air forces and long-range weapons yet simultaneously minimize interference with ground schemes of maneuver and forestall fratricide by aerial weapon systems that deliver munitions in direct support of front-line troops. Land- and carrier-based aircraft as a rule may strike surface targets on the friendly side of FSCLs only after consultation with and approval of appropriate land force commanders but, in most cases, are authorized to conduct air-to-surface and surface-to-surface attacks on the hostile side as they see fit.33
Those rules of engagement were reasonably satisfactory until land forces armed with missiles began to impinge on air force and naval preserves. The U.S. Army, for example, currently is armed and equipped to identify targets at 185 to 310 miles (300 to 500 kilometers) and engage targets regardless of weather conditions at ranges that exceed 60 miles (100 kilometers). Army spokesmen justify the use of such systems with quotations from U.S. joint doctrine, which prescribes areas of operation large enough for land commanders to protect their forces and fight at extended ranges.34 Air Force rebutters contrarily contend that only USAF and naval airmen should fight high and deep, because Army interference fosters interservice coordination problems, invites disastrous collisions between aircraft and projectiles, promotes senseless redundancies, and incurs unconscionable costs. It would be equally "absurd," one critic said, for the U.S. Air Force to insist on its own tank battalions to defend air bases in event of enemy breakthroughs.35 Deep battle disputes nevertheless will likely linger in the United States and elsewhere until senior decisionmakers determine how much (if any) overlap is advisable and prescribe crisply-demarked areas of responsibility for each military service.
BOUNDARIES IN AND THROUGH SPACE
Article IV of the Treaty on Outer Space, in force since October 10, 1967, states, "The moon and other celestial bodies shall be used by all [signatories] for peaceful purposes. The establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons, and the conduct of military maneuvers on celestial bodies shall be forbidden."
No treaty, however, forbids military activities in free space. U.S. Space Command wants the President to declare that void as a regional AOR.36 Geosynchronous, geostationary, polar, lunar, and other prearranged orbit patterns probably would determine tactical areas of responsibility should he choose to do so, at least until technologists devise maneuverable spacecraft at some unpredictable future date. Military boundaries on the moon or other celestial bodies likely would share most attributes of those on Earth if any nation eventually deploys armed forces in such places.
A few of the 650 Kuwaiti oil wells that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein torched in February 1991 burn brightly and blacken the sky with acrid smoke. Unprecedented efforts were required to extinguish the flames, restore production, and cope with an ecological disaster of grand proportions (U.S. Air Force photograph).
Local laborers in Assam and Burma routinely transferred supplies and equipment from ox carts to U.S. C-46 cargo aircraft bound for Kunming, China, via perilous routes over the Himalayan Hump. Nationalist Chinese divisions were the principal beneficiaries at that destination (U.S. Army photograph).
The Berlin Airlift (Operation Vittles) supplied beleaguered West Berlin under trying circumstances during a protracted Soviet blockade that lasted from June 1948 until May 1949. Grateful citizens, who depended almost entirely on that aerial lifeline for food and fuel, lined high ground in good weather to cheer the arrival of precious shipments (U.S. Army photograph).
Allied and captured enemy quarries equipped with rock crushers come in handy when military requirements call for materials with which to construct, repair, or maintain roads, railways, airfields, and other military infrastructure that demand solid foundations (U.S. Army photograph).
Expeditionary airfields, such as this one in the midst of a South Pacific palm grove, facilitate the rapid exploitation of land-based airpower for diverse purposes. Emergency strips may be operational within a day or two. Greater capabilities demand longer times that depend on local topography, land clearance requirements, soil stability, the availability of construction materials, and the early arrival of bare base kits (U.S. Navy photograph).
Hastily constructed helipads surrounded by triple canopy rain forests look like holes blasted in green blankets when viewed from above. Observers at ground level see a tangle of felled trees until chain saws complete the clearance process (U.S. Army photographs).
Dragons' Teeth were merely the most visible defenses along the Siegfried Line that buttressed Germany's borders with France, Luxembourg, and Belgium during World War II. Some U.S. troops rolled through almost unopposed in September 1944 when the Wehrmacht was in disarray and those fortifications were lightly manned, but six more months elapsed before breakthoughs occurred on a broad front (U.S. Army photograph).
Cobblestones such as those on this stretch of Utah Beach in Normandy multiply the effects of artillery fire, because ricocheting rocks can be just as lethal as metal shards and high explosives (U.S. Army photograph).
Armored vehicles trapped on narrow lanes between hedgerows atop steep earthen banks were easy targets for antitank gunners in Normandy, as the crew of this German Mark-5 tank discovered (U.S. Army photograph).
Mulberry "A", an expedient port installed off Omaha Beach shortly after D-Day, was an engineering marvel. A devastating storm that struck on June 19, 1944 (D+13) reduced the primary structure to twisted wreckage, but not before thousands of troops, vehicles, and tons of supplies passed through its portals (U.S. Army photographs).
Top: This scene near the border between Laos and Vietnam illustrates a typical bypass and ford where Route 9 crossed a shallow stream in 1968. The rickety bridge that engineers installed when Laos was a French colony would no longer support even light vehicular traffic (U.S. Air Force photograph).
Bottom: A Marine Lance Corporal astride a baby bulldozer seeks to improve "Highway" 9 between Khe Sanh and the Laotian border. The badly eroded right of way, paralleling a shallow stream on one side and precipitous slopes on the other, was barely 6 feet (2 meters) wide in that locale (U.S. Marine Corps photograph).
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