Evolving Joint Intratheater Airlift

<p>The non-sexy nature of intratheater airlift does not draw much attention to its results. Thousands of personnel have returned home safely from two wars sustained half way around the world for almost a decade. Still it is not truly a Joint enterprise. The Army and Marine Corps have their own organic fleets and the Air Force has none. Air Force planes are dedicated to the common user system which sees little contribution from the other services. This system is managed by Air Force command and control and it falls under the umbrella of Joint doctrine. There are significant gaps between the doctrine and actual outcomes. This paper examines the underlying issues and context to distill lessons aimed at better Joint intratheater airlift. Six enduring narratives are presented: roles and missions debates effectiveness versus efficiency support for the ground component strategic versus tactical centralized versus de-centralized and common user versus direct support. This framework in turn generates several broad recommendations: 1) The Air Force should resolve the direct support issue once and for all; 2) Intratheater airlift should be managed strategically while enabling de- centralized success; and 3) The key is execution management.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p>