This monograph investigates the extent to which current US and NATO air-land doctrine provide for the effective integration of air power and land power at the operational level of war. The research hypothesis of the study is that significant differences exist between current doctrine and the doctrine that the US Army Air Forces and Ground Forces employed during World War II, and that these differences adversely affect the US capability to prosecute successful air-land operations. To test this hypothesis, the monograph analyzes three World War II campaigns (Northwest Africa, Sicily, and France) and compares them to the current US and NATO doctrines. The study finds that certain fundamental principles govern the prosecution of air-land operations; and that these principles include: (1) There can be only one campaign in a theater of operations at any given time, and the theater commander must synchronize the actions of his subordinate commanders to achieve unity of effort in that campaign; (2) The theater commander must provide for an acceptable level of air superiority as a precondition for successful air-land operations; and (3) The key to successful air-land operations is the collocation of coequal and interdependent air and land force headquarters for joint planning and execution, not at the theater strategic level, but at the operational level (field army/tactical air force). Based on its findings, the study examines several decision issues concerning the doctrinal roles of the air and land component commanders; the importance of apportionment, allotment, and allocation to centralized control and decentralized execution of air operations; the need for an intermediate operational-level air headquarters between the numbered air force and the air wing; and the utility of current US and NATO air-land battlefield control measures.
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