Re-Defining the Radio Operator

The purpose of this paper is to clearly demonstrate the urgent need for dedicated airborne communications expertise throughout the Air Force Special Operations Forces (AFSOF) enterprise and to propose a comprehensive solution to that need. This need is driven by an enduring Irregular Warfare-focused (IW) strategic environment and an increasingly net-centric operational environment that sustain pressing airborne communications standardization, integration, and interoperability requirements. This paper's primary argument is that the Airborne Mission Systems Specialist (AMSS, aka "Radio Operator") skillset is a critical component for sustained AFSOF success in these strategic and operational environments, and thus AFSOC must reorganize its AMSS cadre into centrally controlled pools to provide standardized net-centric communications integration and interoperability capability to all of its maneuver elements and staff agencies worldwide. The wide-ranging strategic impact of re-defining the AMSS' role in AFSOC is universally decreased risk of mission failure, particularly on short-notice, "no-fail" national-level IW taskings.