Minimum Force: Airborne Special Reconnaissance in War

N.T. Narbutovskih
(Click the title above for the full article). Historical case studies of airborne reconnaissance from World War I through Operation Enduring Freedom validate that airborne reconnaissance is critical to war fighting. The dilemma is that airborne special reconnaissance does not formally exist in doctrine. Despite the Joint Force’s increasingly heavy reliance on light fixed-wing reconnaissance platforms in the last two decades, there is no authoritative guidance on how to best integrate these platforms.