The Airpower We Need for Irregular Warfare

Summary

Why does providing aircraft so often fall short of building an effective air force? Retired Lieutenant General Anthony Rock, Michael Horowitz, and Tobias Switzer join Kyle Atwell to examine the gap between acquiring technology and turning it into military power. Drawing on Switzer’s RAND report, Build Partner Airpower, Not Air Forces, the conversation explores what American air advisors learned in Iraq and Afghanistan and what future missions should do differently.

The guests discuss the appeal of prestige aircraft, the organizational demands of modern aviation, and the case for affordable equipment that partners can put to use quickly. They examine dependence on contractors, the risks facing advisors, and the tension between building partner forces and planning a complete U.S. withdrawal. Throughout, they ask how policymakers should define success when useful combat capability may still require years of outside support.

Takeaways

• Providing aircraft does not automatically create airpower. Effective capability also requires trained people, maintenance, logistics, doctrine, intelligence, and functioning bases.
• Building a Western-style air force and generating useful combat airpower are different objectives, particularly during an ongoing insurgency.
• Iraq and Afghanistan presented unusually difficult starting conditions, including war-damaged institutions, limited technical skills, and urgent operational demands.
• Technology transfers should reflect a partner’s ability to absorb and employ equipment, not just its ability to acquire it.
• Political loyalties, patronage, and rival institutions can undermine personnel decisions and create organizational barriers that outside advisors cannot control.
• Prestige aircraft can appeal to partner leaders even when simpler platforms better meet immediate operational needs.
• Switzer argues that “cheap, fast, and good enough” should guide aviation acquisitions for partners fighting insurgencies, with attention to availability, spare parts, and the problem at hand.
• Arms transfers also shape strategic relationships. Partners may turn to competing suppliers when American equipment is unavailable or restricted.
• Contractor maintenance and logistics may be enduring requirements rather than temporary bridges to full self-sufficiency.
• Policymakers should reconcile withdrawal plans with the continuing support that partner aviation capabilities may need to remain effective.
• Advisor and contractor protection is a strategic concern as well as a tactical one; casualties can erode the political support needed to sustain a mission.
• American use of simpler aircraft could improve advisor proficiency and demonstrate their value to partners, particularly in permissive operating environments.
• Militaries that define their missions around outcomes, encourage experimentation, and reward merit are better positioned to adopt new technologies.
• Success should be assessed against explicit political and military objectives, distinguishing immediate battlefield effects, lasting capability, and strategic influence.
• Preserving air-advising experience matters even when current priorities shift. Future advisors need access to earlier lessons before another crisis begins.

Guests

Lieutenant General Anthony Rock is a retired U.S. Air Force officer who led the Iraqi Training and Advisory Mission–Air Force and commanded the 321st Air Expeditionary Wing in Baghdad in 2011. He later served as Chief of the Office of the Defense Representative in Pakistan and as Inspecto