ABSTRACT
In addition to counterforce parallel attack, the changed strategic landscape of the Twenty-first century invites other transformational concepts that go beyond traditional methods of strategic attack. AirLandBattle21 advocates one such idea labeled “strategic cordon.” This new approach is designed to provide a range of options for the JFC to seal off-or “cordon”—large areas on the surface such as national borders and geographic regions. By way of explanation, there are similarities between an aerial strategic cordon on land and a naval blockade at sea. While this study recommends BAO as a new Air Force mission along with CAS, air interdiction and strategic attack, strategic cordon and counterforce parallel attack should be viewed as operational concepts that complement these pre-existing missions or as innovative methods of achieving them. As with counterforce parallel attack, strategic cordon is arguably far more compatible with the changed operational environment likely in Twenty-first century warfare than were methods espoused in the past. Rather than attacking strategic targets in the enemy’s capital, this new approach will have strategic effect by attacking targets of a more military nature that threaten dispersed BCTs conducting distributed operations across the battlespace. It will allow the JFC to “draw a line in the sand” with airpower, severing avenues of approach between friendly ground forces and enemy troops, such as bypassed forces, who aim to attack smaller, lighter, and geographically separated U.S. Army BCTs. In this way, strategic cordon is not only an alternative to strategic attack and air interdiction but, in a sense, has brought this study full circle with its close tie to the integral AirLandBattle21 concept of BAO.
