Short-Range Air Defense SGM John M. O’Connor
The War on Terror has diminished the capabilities and expertise of Short-Range Air Defense (SHORAD) Soldiers and Leaders in maintaining a comprehensive understanding of their Military Occupa- tional Specialty (MOS). Over the past two decades, SHORAD Battalions have down- sized or deactivated, with Air Defenders focusing on missions such as Counter- Rocket, Artillery, and Mortar (C-RAM), force protection, route clearance, and other counterinsurgency (COIN) oper- ations. This shift in focus has produced a generation of Air Defenders ill-prepared for transitioning to Large-Scale Combat Operations (LSCO) against near-peer adversaries.
The necessity for all ground units to possess anti-aircraft artillery followed Operation Torch in North Africa during World War II, when then-General and Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower identified this need (Negrete, 2023). Subsequently, in the 1950s, Army Divisions incorporated Air Defense Artillery (ADA) Soldiers, a structure that lasted
until the early 2000s. At that time, the prevailing belief that the United States Air Force would maintain air superiority led to a significant reduction in SHORAD forces, leaving only two active-duty SHORAD battalions post-2005 (Feickert, 2020). Between 2004 and 2018, under COIN doctrine, the Army pursued a misguided strategy in managing the SHORAD popu- lation and capabilities, as the perceived threat from rotary and fixed-wing aircraft had diminished. However, this percep- tion has changed, as evidenced on the eastern flank of the United States Army Europe and Africa (USAREUR-AF) area of responsibility.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has refocused attention on conven- tional warfare. With this shift, the Depart- ment of Defense (DOD) and the United States Army have moved away from COIN doctrine to prioritize LSCO. Concurrently, the transition from SHORAD to Maneu- ver-Short Range Air Defense (M-SHORAD) began with the development of four ad- ditional M-SHORAD battalions, also known as Divisional Air Defense (DivAD) Battal- ions. These changes coincide with the
Army’s ongoing challenges in meeting its recruitment and retention targets. The skills and institutional knowledge of today’s SHORAD Soldiers eroded due to years of counterinsurgency and counter- terrorism operations, leaving them unpre- pared for LSCO as they shift from SHORAD to M-SHORAD, at a time when Anti-Ac- cess/Area Denial (A2/AD) technologies increasingly threaten the Army’s capacity to achieve air and land dominance.
Transition from Counterterrorism to Large Scale Combat Operations Counterterrorism operations had become synonymous with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s. LTG William Caldwell, who was once charged with writing Army doctrine, was quoted as saying, “The future is not one of major battles and engagements fought by armies on battlefields devoid of popula- tion; instead, the course of conflict will be decided by forces operating among the people of the world” (Gentile, 2009). While LTG Caldwell accurately assessed that future combat operations would commence among civilian populations, he is incorrect to think the days of large
The Forgotten Art of
A Stinger missile launches from the new Maneuver Short Range Air Defense system on Oct. 7, 2021. 5-4 ADAR be- came the first Army unit to live-fire M-SHORAD at the tactical unit level and the first-ever to live-fire the system in Europe. The week-long training took place at a Bundeswehr range on the Baltic Sea coast of Germany. (U.S. Army photo by Maj. Robert Fellingham)
Fall 2024 CAVALRY & ARMOR JOURNAL 17
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