Sometimes low-tech wars require low-tech solutions to win them. Unfortunately for the United States, that hasn't been the strategic underpinning since the end of World War II saw America as the undisputed technological powerhouse in military hardware.

The idea was that American technology would make up for Soviet brute strength and sheer numbers. One F-15 could take out five MiG-21s given the Eagle's advanced radar and combat systems. When air superiority became obsolete because of it, high-tech advocates homed in on precision air-to-ground weaponeering as the new strategic game changer. A $1 billion B-2 could drop multiple $20,000 satellite-guided bombs on separate targets through any weather from 40,000 feet to within inches of the bull's eye.

And thus "Effects-based Operations" were born. By accurately bombing from high altitude the right strategic and tactical targets, air power could cause an effect that would force the enemy into submission. The Gulf War proved the thesis, the wars in Yugoslavia and Kosovo furthered it, the Iraq war threw it into doubt -- and now the Afghan war has tossed it out the window.

From a dimly-lit room in the bowels of the Pentagon, a champion of the bare-knuckled street fighter toiled in vain. In his ramshackle office, perched on a rusty filing cabinet sat a model airplane. It was an A-10 Thunderbolt II ground attack plane with the word "Marines" stenciled on the fuselage. That man -- Chuck Spinney -- had always been an advocate for airpower that made sense, and to him a force that depended on austerity and simple fighting tactics had no use for a complex ground attack plane that relied on vectored thrust.

It was the clean and simple and deadly "Warthog" that fit the Corps' bill in his mind. But men like Spinney were regarded as the red-headed stepchildren of DoD planning. The glamorous gizmos of phased array radars, JDAMs and JASSMs wowed the budget gurus, pilots and their congressional budget masters. That's not to say these wonder weapons didn't actually work, but they tended to work best in a much more antiseptic battlefield than we're seeing today.

What's the most requested close air support aircraft on the battlefield in Afghanistan (or in Iraq for that matter)? The mighty AC-130 Spectre gunship. Nothing fancy here, just a bunch of big guns mounted to one side of a 1960s-era transport that spits out responsive, accurate, proportional fire from low altitude with good situational awareness for both pilot and ground pounder. Same goes with the A-10  --  you can't have too many of those unglamorous planes on today's battlefield (and let's not forget that back in the late 1990s the Warthog was almost erased from the Air Force's inventory).

Just as the counterinsurgency strategists toiled in the background while the Iraq war crumbled in America's old-school tactical grip only to be showered with laurels as military leaders accepted their plans as a last ditch effort to save a losing war, now the advocates for counterinsurgency airpower are clamoring to be heard. And with a small, shadowy effort conducted by an obscure Navy office fighting for its very existence in a climate of American war apathy, the COIN plane is slowly gestating into something that may save our war in Afghanistan like the COIN strategy saved us in Iraq.

In a country as vast and austere as Afghanistan -- with road networks comprised largely of dried up riverbeds and high mountain passes choked off by winter snows -- air power has proven key to a rapid response with troops in contact. But as a recent investigation into the deaths via aerial bombing of civilian Afghans in Farah province demonstrates, the Gulf War model of high altitude precision bombing will only help America lose that war.

Does a slow-moving, prop-driven, low altitude attack plane make pilots more vulnerable? You bet. During the Vietnam War, the Air Force and Navy lost more than 260 A-1 Skyraiders during close air support missions. But weighed against the risks to civilians and the effects those deaths would have on America's quest for victory in Afghanistan, it's a risk that needs to be taken to win the most crucial front in the war against those who attacked us on 9-11. 

When air power can see the enemy with its own eyes, stay over the battlefield for five hours, carry a variety of weaponry that allows for a gradual escalation of force in proportion to the threat and is slow and low enough to patiently identify friend from foe, that's when pilots can execute their version of the ground pounder's mission to prevail in counterinsurgency warfare.