Combat Pair

This report documents the exceptional cross-service harmony that the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy have steadily developed in their conduct of integrated strike operations since the first Persian Gulf War in 1991. That close harmony contrasts sharply with the situation that prevailed throughout most of the Cold War, when the two services maintained separate and unique operating mindsets and lacked any significant interoperability features. The most influential factor accounting for this gradual trend toward integration was the nation’s ten-year experience with Operations Northern and Southern Watch, in which both Air Force land-based fighters and Navy carrier-based fighters jointly enforced the United Nations-imposed no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq that were first put into effect after the conclusion of Operation Desert Storm. That steady-state aerial policing function proved to be a real-world operations laboratory for the two services, and it ended up being the main crucible in which their eventual merger of operational practices was forged. The results were finally showcased by the all but seamless Air Force and Navy performance in their joint conduct of integrated aerial strike operations in the largely air-centric war in Afghanistan in late 2001 and early 2002. They were further dramatized by the similarly near-seamless air-warfare performance of the two services during the three-week major combat phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom that ensued a year later. These real-world experiences suggest that the U.S. Air Force and U.S. naval aviation should now consider each other natural allies in the roles and resources arena, since they did not compete but rather mutually supported and reinforced one another in the achievement of joint strike-warfare goals.