Lieutenant Colonel Eileen M. Isola, Usaf
A huge portion of the military burden in support of these operations falls on the shoulders of the Mobility Air Forces (MAF). Lt Col Eileen M. Isola’s Leading Air Mobility Operations in Complex Humanitarian Emergencies provides just such an educational foundation for MAF war fighters charged with leading CHEs. She provides a superb synthesis of a dozen years of lessons learned from many resources and institutions, sifting through the tactical and operational lessons learned so as to focus her research into the most important tenets for strategic success in a CHE: build a team of teams, gather and share information (not “intelligence”), and establish centers for interagency success. She reviews key joint and service doctrine manuals, culling critical nuances that would likely be overlooked by war fighters new to the CHE environment, or rushed in a crisis deployment. Her cultural comparison of the military and nongovernmental organizations is insightful and valuable. Throughout her work Colonel Isola provides tangible, real examples from past operations of what worked and what did not—and why. The implications for the future are clear.
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