Building the Eagle's Nest: Challenges in Basing the Air Expeditionary Force

The Air Expeditionary Force (AEF) is the centerpiece of the Air Force's strategic vision for the 21st century, called Global Engagement. While this vision calls for an improved expeditionary capability, the Air Force has found combat support at deployed locations difficult to execute. This paper examines the best means of improving the AEF s responsiveness by addressing the question: Whether the basing of expeditionary forces should be a sequential or parallel process? The problems of basing expeditionary air forces during a crisis illustrate how our doctrine relies upon a fundamental assumption that the Air Force s experience largely contradicts. Current doctrine holds that the service should maintain a mobile combat support capability, organized along functional lines, to rapidly respond worldwide. Moreover, these support units should precede aircraft to a base and prepare for follow-on forces by establishing living and working facilities to sustain operations. Although sending support units before operational ones may be the best way to employ, doctrine needs to prepare support forces for deployment to locations where people and planes are already in place. For the Air Expeditionary Force to respond rapidly, the fundamental assumption about the process of projecting air power should be that it occurs concurrently, not sequentially. The implications of changing this assumption are that the service should develop cross-functional units, that all personnel have more training in beddown skills, and a portion of Air Force fighters have a vertical take-off and landing capability.