|
|
Article: Air wars demand more inter-service coordination.
- Article from:
- National Defense
- Article date:
- September 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 National Defense Industrial Association. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Incidents of friendly fire would be easier to prevent if the military services followed common guidelines for planning air campaigns and fire-support operations, experts said.
Each service abides by meticulous procedures and precise rules designed to prevent friendly forces from entering each other's air space and being misidentified as enemies. But these time-tested procedures are likely to lose relevance, as U.S. forces increasingly will fight in multi-service formations, in a non-linear battlefield where demarcations are fuzzy at best.
Defense Department officials and military commanders have praised the U.S. services operating in Iraq for combining ...