!"!#$$
Cover Photos 

Front—An F-111E mothballed at the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center, 

Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona (from http://www.dm.af.mil/amarc) 

Back—Pencil drawing of the Air Force Academy Falcon mascot perched on the glove of a 

cadet handler. Bruce M. Kuelz, USAFA ‘76. Courtesy USAF Academy Department of English and Fine Arts. 
	



Published by the 34th Education Group at the 

United States Air Force Academy 

Spring 2000 

Vol 6, No 1 

Commandant of Cadets 

Commander 34th Training Wing 

Brig Gen Mark A. Welsh III 

Commander and Permanent 

Professor, 34th Education Group 

Col Thomas A. Drohan 

________________________ 

Editor 

Charles Krupnick 

Assistant Editor 

Capt Ron Dains 

The 34th Education Group’s mission is to oversee curriculum development and instruction in Military Strategic Studies for the cadets of the US Air Force Academy. This consists of courses covering Military Theory and Strategy, Officership, Airmanship, Aerospace Theory and Doctrine, and 

Joint and Multinational Operations. Group personnel conduct research on a variety of topics, including international 

security, space-related issues, military service culture, and 

educational modeling. Research activities are coordinated 

through the 34th Education Group Research Office. 

The opinions expressed in Airman-Scholar do not represent 

any official policies of the Commandant of Cadets, US Air 

Force Academy, US Air Force, or US government. They 

are presented to stimulate discussion on current military issues and domestic and international affairs. 

Airman-Scholar is published twice annually. If you have 

comments concerning articles, would like to contribute an 

article for publication, or desire to receive Airman-Scholar, 

please contact us at: 

 34th Education Group 

 att: Airman-Scholar

 2354 Fairchild Drive, Suite 2A2 

 USAF Academy CO 80840-6264 

 (719) 333-3258 or DSN 333-3258 

 e-mail: 34EDGAirman.Scholar@usafa.af.mil 

Airman-Scholar is also available at the 34th Education 

Group’s web page: http://www.usafa.af.mil/wing/34edg 

Table of Contents 

4 From the Editor: 

 Do Air Forces Have a Future? 

 Charles Krupnick 

_______________________________________ 

5 New Era Security: The RAAF in the 

 Next 25 Years — Air Power 

 2025 

 Martin van Creveld 

16 Air Power: Rethinking the 

 Conceptual Framework 

 Tony Mason 

32 Air Expeditionary Force — Ready, 

 Aim, Fire 

 Richard E. Hawley 

38 A Revolution in Strike Warfare 

 John B. Nathman 

43 The United States Air Force, 

 B. 1947 — D. 2025 

 Brian Anderson 

51 Airpower 2025: A Response

 Patrick Giggy 

53 The Irrelevance of Airpower: 

 The Potential of Capability 

 Divergence on NATO Post- 

 Kosovo 

 Andrew Dorman 

59 On the Cusp of the Unmanned 

 Airpower Revolution 

 David Bookstaber 

62 The Airpower Taboo: Dialogue 

 Across Perspectives? Airpower 

 and Urban Operations 

 Alice Hills 
 Professor Martin van Creveld of Hebrew 

University in Jerusalem is well known for his 

scholarship on military logistics and technology. 

In 1996, he wrote a provocative piece on the future of air power and presented it to the Royal 

Australian Air Force; in fall 1999, he gave a 

similar lecture to members of the faculty and cadet wing of the US Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. Using impressive statistics and deductive logic, he argued that air forces around the 

world were in decline, both in numbers and in 

their importance to the conflicts likely to be 

fought in the 21st Century. These will be mostly 

intra-country affairs where high performance aircraft, even with precision weapons, will have little effect on outcomes. Van Creveld noted that 

air transport, helicopters, unmanned aircraft 

(UAVs), missiles, and space will retain or increase their relevance, but that the time for 

manned combat aircraft has come and gone. 

 At the US Air Force Academy — where 

the primary mission is to develop Air Force leaders, a good percentage of whom will become 

combat pilots — Dr. van Creveld’s comments 

were naturally controversial. Most Academy 

personnel believe the US Air Force is among the 

premiere fighting forces in the world and that, if 

anything, improvements in training, technology, 

and doctrine are leading Air Force combat aircraft to even more important roles in the future. 

The 1991 Gulf War provided strong evidence for 

this belief, although the 1999 air campaign over 

Kosovo gave perhaps more ambiguous lessons. 

Van Creveld’s conclusions encouraged future airmen at least to consider more varied ways of 

looking at the missions and future of air power. 

 This edition of Airman-Scholar hopes to 

further discussion on these important topics. Dr. 

van Creveld and the Royal Australian Air Force 

have graciously given permission to reprint his 

1996 article, titled “New Era Security: The 

as well comments by Air Vice-Marshal Tony 

Mason (RAF), General Richard E. Hawley 

(USAF), and Rear Admiral John B. Nathman 

(USN) that describe current air capabilities and 

certainly imply different views about the future 

of air forces from van Creveld. Captain Brian 

Anderson follows with a specific response to several of van Creveld’s points, as does Cadet Patrick N. Giggy. Lieutenant David Bookstaber updates us on UAVs, Andrew Dorman on allied air 

power capabilities post-Kosovo, and Alice Hills 

on air power and urban operations — all part of 

discussions on the future of air forces. Drs. 

Dorman and Hills are members of the faculty of 

the Joint Services Command and Staff College of 

the Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom 

and Air Vice-Marshal Mason is now a Professor 

at the United Kingdom’s University of Birmingham. The several articles by international authors led us, only half in whimsy, to consider renaming our journal Airman-Scholar International. 

 We hope this issue of Airman-Scholar 

will make a legitimate contribution to discussions 

about the future of air power and our Air Force. 

As always, we invite your comments. The issue 

also features several works of original “air 

power” art created by US Air Force Academy cadets over the years in what may become a regular 

feature of our journal. Our thanks to Dr. Pam 

Chadick of the Department of English and Fine 

Arts for making this possible. Please read our 

plans for the fall issue later in this volume and 

consider submitting an article for publication. 

CK 

From The Editor

Do Air Forces Have a Future? 
 The purpose of the present paper is to try 

and divine the way that air power may look in the 

year 2025 or thereabouts. It is not intended as a 

prescription for policy-makers; on the contrary it 

assumes that, globally speaking and disregarding 

local variations, history will march in the direction indicated regardless of whether individual 

policy-makers agree or not. To accomplish its 

purpose, it is divided into four parts. Part I discusses the relationship between air power and the 

political organization by which it is owned and 

which it has been used for the conduct of war, 

i.e., the state. Part II, based on work previously 

done by this author,1

 looks at the direction in 

which future war will probably develop. Part III 

attempts to understand the likely fate of air 

power within the context provided by these developments. Finally, Part IV represents our conclusions. 

 The most fundamental single fact about 

air power — so fundamental that it is seldom 

even noted, let alone questioned or investigated — is that it is owned and operated by the 

state. From the beginning of the twentieth century, which is when it all began, to the present 

day no organization other than the state has ever 

fielded an air force; conversely, no other organization could have done so even if it had wanted 

to. Political organizations that are not states —

for example, city-states, independent militias of 

the kind that used to battle each other in Somalia 

and Bosnia, guerrillas, and terrorists — do not air 

forces own. Thus the PLO has long been one of 

the most important and richest twentieth century 

terrorist organizations; yet the closest it ever 

came to owning an air force was when one or 

two attempts were made to reach Israeli targets 

by flying motorized hang gliders across the border with Lebanon. When the Lebanese civil war 

fought it were disarmed, the one commanded by 

Samir Jaja was found to own two light helicopters. The Syrians apart, these machines represented the sum total of air power employed by all 

sides — numbering some fifty different militias 

all told — in that long and extremely bloody conflict. 

 The reasons why no political organizations except the state have ever been able to develop air forces are obvious enough. First and 

foremost is the sheer expense and complexity of 

such a force.2

 A single modern attack aircraft, 

such as the F-15I, can cost almost one hundred 

million dollars if we include the kit — accessories and spare parts — with which it comes and 

without which it would be unable to operate. 

The price of an F-117 fighter, a B-2 bomber, let 

alone a J-STARS, is much higher still, running 

into several hundred of millions of dollars each. 

The machines in question are enormously complicated. The control system of one F-15 fighter 

engine (it has two) is said to consist of five thousand parts; whereas the number of different spare 

parts and items of equipment that have to be kept 

in store by a single air force base can easily run 

into the hundreds of thousands. Thus each aircraft must be supported by a vast organization 

consisting of logisticians, technicians, air controllers, meteorologists, communicators, and so on, 

to say nothing of the billions upon billions of dollars that must go into the physical structures and 

equipment required. It goes without saying that 

such complexity can be managed, and such sums 

raised, exclusively by the organization known as 

the state. In fact, so expensive and so complicated are modern air forces that they cannot be 

afforded even by the majority of states. Some 

three quarters out of the 185 or so now existing 

on this planet do not have such an air force; and 

New Era Security: The RAAF in the Next 25 Years 

Air Power 2025 

Martin van Creveld 
one reason or another, they wanted to do so in 

any kind of foreseeable future. 

 The other reason why air forces can only 

be fielded by states is the amount of space taken 

up by air bases, the vulnerability of aircraft, and 

the length of the runways they need in order to 

take off and land. Once in the air a combat aircraft is a potent instrument of war. It may be capable of flying at up to twice the speed of sound 

and of making the power of its weapons felt both 

against other aircraft and against ground targets; 

all this regardless of geographical obstacles and 

in some cases even if those targets are located 

thousands of miles away. So long as they remain 

on the ground, however, aircraft are extremely 

vulnerable owing to their relative immobility, the 

fragility of their structure (considerations concerning weight put strict limits on the amount of 

armor that can be provided) and the comparatively enormous quantities of fuel and explosive 

that, when ready for combat, they carry.3

 To be 

sure, history shows that airfields can continue to 

operate even when subjected to heavy air attack. 

For example, the Royal Air Force went on flying 

out of Malta throughout the period of the strongest German offensives in 1941-42; although, at 

times, the capacity of the airfields in question 

was greatly reduced, they were never quite shut 

down. On the other hand, no air base in history 

has been able to operate for long while subject to 

persistent artillery or rocket bombardment; which 

of course explains, if an explanation were 

needed, why such bases are normally located 

well in the rear where enemy forces cannot reach. 

In other words, any organization which wishes to 

operate an air force in war will first of all have to 

exercise sovereign control over a considerable 

territory measured in hundreds if not thousands 

of square miles. That in itself is no mean feat, 

and indeed it is suggested that any organization 

capable of accomplishing it would be a state or 

something very much like it. 

 Finally, the third reason why only states 

are able to operate air forces is because states 

have borders. During much of their short history 

the firepower which air forces were able to deploy was fairly indiscriminate. Either pilots were 

unable to locate their targets because the latter 

were mobile or because they were obscured by 

night, cloud, fog, or rain; or else they failed to hit 

them because the aiming devices with which they 

were provided were simply not up to the job. 

During the strategic bombing campaign of World 

War II only one in eight of all bombs dropped 

reached its target; not seldom misses could be 

measured in miles. Thus, to be on the safe side, 

air power was best employed across some state 

border or, at any rate, on the other side of some 

bombing line laid out in advance. In other 

words, in such a manner that a miss, whether 

large or small, would affect the enemy rather 

than friendly forces. 

 Though modern sensors on the one hand, 

and precision-guided weapons on the other, have 

gone a fairly long way towards solving the problem of identifying targets and hitting them, that 

of separating friend from foe remains. That is 

particularly true if the targets in question are not 

sophisticated; in other words, if they do not carry 

the transponders necessary for answering a 

friend/foe query. Under such circumstances it 

remains true that air power, especially that represented by the fastest-flying and most powerful 

systems (attack aircraft, bombers, and cruise missiles) is best employed across some kind of border line or, at the very least, inside a clearlymarked zone which is guaranteed to contain 

nothing but people and property belonging to the 

enemy forces. Otherwise its use is likely to be 

counterproductive or, in plain words, to result in 

friendly casualties. This happened very often 

from the time of the Normandy Invasion in 1944 

(when no less a personage than the Commander 

of the US [Army] Service Forces, General Leslie 

McNair, was killed by friendly B-17s carpetbombing the area which he was visiting) all the 

way to the 1982 Lebanon War (when an Israeli 

battalion was demolished by its own Air Force) 

and the 1991 Gulf War. 

 The above paragraphs already indicate 

why air power, besides being capable of being 

built, deployed, and operated solely by states, is 

useful primarily in the wars that those states 

wage against other states. Without exception, this 

basic condition applies to all the great air campaigns of history. For example, the various blitzkrieg offensives conducted by the Germans in 

1939-41; the early Japanese offensives against 

Pearl Harbor, the Philippines, etc.; the Allied 

campaigns against the German and Japanese 
forces; the Korean War; the 1967 and 1973 ArabIsraeli Wars; the Falkland War; the 1982 IsraeliSyrian War in Lebanon; and of course the Gulf 

War. Depending on the strength of the antiaircraft defenses and on numerous other factors, 

the usefulness of air power in each of these wars 

and its ability to affect ground operations, productive capacity, and civilian morale varied. By 

and large it was largest where the terrain was 

open and the ground forces mechanized; smallest, where it was closest and ground combat conducted by infantry assisted, perhaps, by artillery. 

Still there is no denying that all were greatly influenced by it. Not only did victory always go to 

the side that was able to obtain and retain air superiority, but some campaigns were decided by 

it.4

 On the other 

hand, where the opposition with which 

air power is faced 

does not consist of 

states with territories that are comparatively large and 

borders that are 

clearly defined; 

when it consists not 

of regular, stateowned armed forces 

but of militias, 

guerrillas, and terrorists operating in a decentralized manner; 

where combat takes place in close terrain, as in 

jungles or mountains, and where the belligerents 

mix with the surrounding civilian populations so 

that friend and foe are virtually indistinguishable; 

under such circumstances the use of air power is, 

as experience shows, much more limited.5

 Had 

air power been decisive or even very useful, then 

the Nazis ought to have succeeded in putting 

down the partisans in Yugoslavia, Greece, and 

many other places. The French ought to have defeated the insurgents in both Indo-China and Algeria; the British, those in places such as Kenya, 

Cyprus, and Aden; the Americans, the guerrillas 

in Vietnam (where, in Operations Linebacker I 

and II, they did succeed in beating back the 

North Vietnamese attempts to invade South Vietnam by conventional means) and Somalia; the 

Soviets, the Afghanistani Mujahideen; the Indians, the rebels in Sri Lanka; the South Africans, 

SWAPO; the Israelis, Hizbullah in Lebanon; the 

Turks, the Kurds; and the Russians, the 

Chechnyan rebels. These cases only represent a 

small selection of the dozens and dozens which 

have taken place and could be cited. All have this 

in common that command of the air was in the 

hands of the counterinsurgent power and was 

about as complete as one could wish it to be 

(although, in places such as Angola and Afghanistan, the insurgents had fairly effective antiaircraft defenses). In many of them it was employed ruthlessly, even to the point that, during 

the Vietnam War alone, the quantity of bombs 

dropped by the US Air Force was almost three 

times as large as that dropped 

on both Germany and Japan 

during the whole of World 

War II.6

 Even if we grant that 

the US Air Force could have 

done more to win the War in 

Vietnam if it had been given a 

free hand — which, contrary 

to the claims of its commanders, is by no means self evident — the same does not apply to the Soviet use of air 

power in Afghanistan where 

there were few, if any, holds 

barred. In this case, as in others, air power did not lead to 

victory. Nor, by most accounts, did it even bring 

the Soviets close to victory.7

 The long and the short of it is, the one organization capable of building a modern air force 

is the state; whereas the ability to use it effectively in war is critically dependent on that war 

being waged by one state against another. To put 

it in a different way, of the three services the air 

force is the one that is most closely associated 

with the state. Historically speaking many organizations that were not states have been able to 

conduct operations on land and were sometimes 

highly effective in doing so; as the recent revival 

of piracy on several parts of the world 

(particularly South East Asia and West Africa) 

reminds us, a few have even been able to operate 

sea power on a small scale. However, and with 

very minor exceptions such as the handful of 

B-52 operations during the Vietnam War. (Source: HistoricWings.com) 
hang-gliders, helicopters and light aircraft that 

are sometimes possessed by guerrillas and drugtraffickers, to date it is only states which have 

succeeded in developing air power, deploying it, 

and using it. Having done so, invariably they 

found that its main use was in fighting other 

states, whether in the air or on the ground; employed against organizations of a different kind it 

was found to be much less effective if not counterproductive. The principal reasons behind this 

situation are the cost of air forces, as well as their 

size and complexity. Next in line is the difficulty 

that they often experience in hitting their targets; 

especially if those targets are located in difficult 

terrain or among friendly forces and civilian 

populations.8 Should air forces some day be able 

to do without the vast ground facilities with 

which they are associated; should the vulnerability of stationary aircraft decrease and their ability 

to identify and hit targets from the air improve; in 

that case, perhaps, the situation will change. As 

of the present, however, the facts have spoken for 

themselves. 

 Given that air power is much more useful 

in some wars than in others — in war between 

states than in wars that take place between, or 

against, other kinds of organizations — which 

one of the two kinds represents the wave of the 

future? Obviously there can be no single answer 

to this question; from one part of the world to the 

other much will depend on geography, politics 

(both domestic and foreign) as well as economic, 

religious, and cultural factors. While this paper 

cannot presume to look at each region separately, 

it can take a global approach and look at the post1945 period as a whole. Once the question is put 

in such a way it is capable of being answered. 

The answer that emerges is as clear as any that 

we are likely to obtain by looking at history, employing the historical method, and assessing historical trends. 

 The facts, then, are as follows. By my 

count, since 1945 there have taken place approximately one hundred wars.9

 Of these wars, fewer 

than twenty were full scale conventional affairs 

fought by states against other states with the aid 

of their regular, uniformed, armed forces. Of 

those that did fall within this category, the majority took place in just two regions: namely, the 

Middle East and South Asia. Depending on the 

way one counts, the former witnessed six conventional interstate wars (1948, 1956, 1967, 

1969-70, 1973, and the three day clash between 

Israel and Syria in June 1982). The latter saw 

three wars between India and Pakistan (1947, 

1965, 1971). These regions apart, conventional 

war has become a comparatively rare phenomenon. I count the Korean War (1950-53), the 

Indo-Chinese War (1961), the Chinese Invasion 

of Vietnam (1978), the Falkland War (1982), the 

Iran-Iraq War (1980-88) and the Gulf War 

(1991). There have been numerous other cases 

when the armed forces of two states engaged in 

shelling or skirmishing as between China and 

Taiwan, China and the former Soviet Union, as 

well as India and Pakistan; however, few if any 

which led to full scale war. Given that, during 

the period in question, the number of states has 

increased almost four times over, these are astonishing figures. At the time of this writing in the 

spring of 1996, out of approximately thirty wars 

that are being waged all over the world, all are 

fought either between organizations that are not 

states or against them. As the names that are often applied to them — subconventional war, low 

intensity war, and the like — show, the members 

of regular, state-run, armed forces have long had 

a tendency to look down upon non-state conflicts, belittle them, and denigrate them. Given 

that the most powerful organizations and the 

most powerful weapon systems — including, 

specifically, air forces and their high performance combat aircraft — are usually absent from 

these wars such a tendency is understandable; objectively, though, nothing could be more mistaken than to regard the wars in question as small 

and harmless. In point of fact, they have proved 

far more destructive and far more bloody than the 

conventional ones; even to the point where there 

can simply be no comparison between the two. 

For example, Israel in all its wars combined only 

suffered some 18,000 dead; by contrast, and in 

spite of the fact that the Lebanese Air Force in 

1982 consisted of a mere half dozen obsolete 

Hawker Hunters, the number of dead during the 

Lebanese Civil War has been put at 151,000. 

Depending on which side one decides to believe, 

the Algerian War against France cost the lives of 

perhaps 300,000-1,000,000 people. The Soviet 

campaign in Afghanistan is supposed to have 
caused the deaths of another 1,000,000 — how 

many have died in internecine fighting since the 

Soviet withdrew cannot even be estimated —

whereas the independence and unification of 

Vietnam were bought at the cost of anything up 

to 2,000,000 dead. These are large figures indeed, but even they are exceeded by those of the 

Nigerian Civil War of 1967-69 which is supposed to have resulted in 2-3,000,000 dead. In 

fact, from 1945 on the only two conventional 

conflicts that even came close to matching subconventional war in terms of bloody casualties 

were the Korean War and the Iran-Iraq War. 

Judged by the standards of so-called subconventional war most of the interstate wars that did 

take place — such as the 1956, 1967 and 1973 

Arab-Israeli Wars, the 1982 Falkland War, and 

even the 1991 Gulf War — have been mere skirmishes. The reason being that, in subconventional war, it was not only combatants but entire 

populations which were considered legitimate 

targets and, consequently, often butchered in 

large numbers. 

 Wars, though, are neither games nor 

sporting matches. Although casualties do matter, 

wars are not judged in terms of the number of 

points gained or lost; nor is it a question of 

counting the number of rounds fought as in boxing and various other competitive sports. Instead, to quote a dictum so famous that it is 

known even by those who have never read its author, war is the continuation of politics by other 

means.10 This point of view obliges us to plan 

wars, prepare them, wage them and judge them 

by the political effect which they have on the international system. Take any other approach, and 

one risks reducing it to a game, a senseless thing, 

without an object. Judged from the political 

point of view, the gap which separates conventional interstate war from subconventional war 

that is waged by, or against, other kinds of organizations is nothing short of momentous. 

Since 1945, the year when the Soviet Union took 

for itself chunks of German, Japanese, and 

Czechoslovak territory, there has not been a single case when an interstate war has caused an international border to be moved by as much as a 

single inch; which, considering that the UN 

Charter as the most subscribed document in human history explicitly forbids any such action 

from being taken, is perhaps not as surprising as 

it appears at first sight. Of the above-listed conventional wars none has led to territorial changes, 

at any rate such as were recognized by the international community as well as the belligerents 

themselves. Even the one apparent exception, 

i.e., the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, is not really so. 

The borders of Palestine were fixed in 1920 by 

Winston Churchill in his capacity as Britain’s 

Colonial Secretary. The 1948 war led to the 

country being partitioned; approximately one 

quarter of the total territory was occupied by 

King Abdullah of Jordan (Trans-Jordan, as it 

then was). However, the change was only ever 

recognized by two countries, Britain and Pakistan. For the rest, no international border was affected by that war — or by the remaining ArabIsraeli Wars — and indeed the precise location of 

one of those borders is even now being contested 

by Israel and Syria. 

 Whereas conventional war has singularly 

failed to bring about territorial change, the results 

of subconventional war during the same period 

have been momentous. The largest, mightiest, 

and most sophisticated Empires that ever existed 

have been brought down; causing hundreds of 

millions if not billions of people all over the socalled Developing World to change the regimes 

under which they lived. Contrary to what one 

might expect, the defeat and retreat of the Empires in question were not brought about by vast 

fleets of tanks, naval vessels, and aircraft. Instead it was the handiwork of militias, guerrillas, 

and terrorists many of whom went barefoot and 

some of whom — notably in places such as Afghanistan — could not even read. The various 

movements that accomplished these feats did not 

amount to regular armed forces. Though often 

supported from outside they did not own large 

quantities of modern weapons, especially heavy 

ones, nor would they have been capable of operating such weapons even if, by some miracle, 

they had come to possess them. Above all, given 

that they did not possess large stretches of sovereign territory and often depended on stealth for 

their operations they were neither capable of running air forces nor desirous of having them. It 

would thus be no exaggeration to say that the 

most important wars fought since 1945 have been 

waged and won without the benefit of air power 
and, in a very great number of cases, in the teeth 

of everything that it could do. The reasons behind the shift from conventional to subconventional war are, once again, not difficult to find 

and indeed they were foreseen with some clarity 

by several people active during the years immediately following World War II.11 The period 

since 1945 has seen the introduction of nuclear 

weapons, first by one country and then by several 

others. As bombs and their delivery vehicles 

proliferated, for the first time in history the link 

between victory and survival was cut.12 It became possible for a state to win a war and still 

face the risk of being annihilated; indeed the 

more decisive the victory the greater the danger 

that the vanquished, like Samson, would either 

press the nuclear button or, with his command 

and control system in ruins, fall on it. Under 

such circumstances any attempt to wage full 

scale war against an opponent who possessed, or 

was even strongly suspected of possessing, nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles became 

tantamount to suicide. On both sides of the former Iron Curtain rivers of ink were spilt, esoteric 

doctrines designed, and countless wargames held, 

with the objective of finding ways to fight a nuclear war without necessarily blowing up the 

world. In the end, though, it became apparent 

that the one way to win this particular game was 

by not engaging in it. 

 With nuclear weapons slowly spreading 

to additional states, it is no wonder that large 

scale interstate war tended to disappear and indeed the larger and more powerful any state, the 

earlier and the more pronounced the inhibiting 

effect. Notwithstanding the very strong differences that separated them and the pronounced 

asymmetries that existed between them the US 

and the USSR never came to blows; by some accounts, particularly those written by former officials concerned to show how deeply responsible 

their own behavior had been, they never even approached the point where they were about to do 

so.13 In both Europe and the Far East the Superpowers’ close allies, coming under their protective umbrellas offered (or, in some cases, imposed) by Washington and Moscow were almost 

as safe against all out military attack as were the 

Superpowers themselves. Precisely because the 

armed forces fielded by those Superpowers were 

the most powerful in history they took very good 

care not to engage each other directly. At most it 

was a question of doing so by means of allies or, 

as they were sometimes known, “proxies.” Usually the proxies were Third World countries, located in parts of the world where nuclear weapons had not yet penetrated, and notable for nothing so much as their extreme military weakness 

compared to their patrons which handled them 

like puppets on a string. 

 As the example of both China and Israel 

shows, from the 1960s on any state capable of 

fielding reasonably large, reasonably modern 

conventional forces and weapon systems was 

also capable of producing nuclear weapons if it 

wanted to. First China and the USSR, then China 

and India, then India and Pakistan, and finally Israel and its neighbors were compelled to resolve 

their differences; if not to the extent of concluding full peace and engaging in brotherly love, 

then at any rate to the extent of refraining from 

full scale war against each other.14 As a result, 

what conventional wars could still be fought anywhere around the world tended to be extremely 

limited, as the 1973 one between Israel and its 

neighbors was; or else had to involve third and 

even fourth rate military powers on at least one 

side. Put in other words, a strong argument can 

be made (and has been made) that the proliferation of nuclear weapons has been a boon to mankind. While clearly incapable of putting an end 

to all wars, at any rate they have prevented 

World War III from taking place. As of the last 

years of the twentieth century they seem to be 

well on their way to pushing large scale, conventional interstate wars under the carpet.15 When it 

comes to wars waged by organizations other than 

states, however, nuclear weapons are simply irrelevant. Though differing greatly among themselves, all such wars have this in common that 

they tend to be waged at relatively close quarters. 

As Bosnia illustrated very well, the enemy, instead of being separated from us by some international border and firing at us with the aid of 

long range weapons, is represented by our 

neighbor; he is located in the next town, the same 

town, the next neighborhood, the same neighborhood, even the same street, the same house, and 

the same room. Under such circumstances the 

use of nuclear weapons becomes preposterous —
and the same is only slightly less true of the majority of heavy weapons and weapon systems, 

airborne ones specifically included. There thus 

exists a sense in which the spread of lowintensity war simply represents the sound tactician’s reaction to nuclear proliferation. Since the 

enemy, assuming he is in possession of nuclear 

bombs and missiles, is capable of annihilating 

any opposition provided only it is sufficiently far 

away, the logical method is to get as close as possible to him without being observed. 

 As has been stated in the opening paragraph of the present section, these developments 

affect various parts of the world to a very unequal extent. Partly because the proliferation of 

nuclear weapons is more rapid in some regions 

than in others, partly for other reasons, some 

countries are more likely to engage in conventional wars whereas others find that the main 

threat to their existence comes from organizations other than states. Globally speaking, nevertheless, the direction of change seems to be both 

uniform and easily understandable. Slowly, unevenly but inexorably nuclear proliferation is 

causing interstate war and the kind of armed 

forces by which it is waged to disappear. The future belongs to wars fought by, and against, organizations that are not states. Indeed in most 

parts of the world this form of war has already 

taken over. Recognizing the fact, in March 1996 

thirty one heads of states assembled in the Egyptian town of Sharm al Sheik in a meeting formally dedicated to finding ways of coping with 

it. 

 In view of the ongoing changes in the nature of war, what has happened to air power and 

what can be expected to happen to it in the future? The answer to the first of these questions is 

loud and clear: compared to what they were fifty 

years ago, the majority of air forces have already 

all but disappeared. During a recent meeting at 

the World Economic Forum in Davos this author 

was on a panel with General (ret.) Joseph P. 

Hoar, the officer who replaced Norman H. 

Schwarzkopf as COS, US Central Command, and 

who was consequently in charge when President 

Bush ordered America’s armed forces to rescue 

the Kurds in northern Iraq from Saddam Hussein’s clutches. In the course of a debate the 

General pointed out, quite rightly, that in the 

Gulf the Allies possessed approximately 2,000 

aircraft and carried out as many as 2,000 combat 

sorties per day without suffering a single collision.16 Undoubtedly doing so represented a very 

great achievement; what the General forgot, or 

perhaps had never known, was the fact that on DDay in 1944 the number of aircraft used was six 

times as large. In fact, during the period of most 

intensive air operations in 1943-44, any day 

which saw only 2,000 Allied sorties over Western Europe would have been regarded as a day 

wasted. To look at it in a different way, during 

each of the four years 1941-45 the US produced 

75,000 military aircraft on the average. By 1995 

the number purchased by all three services combined was down to exactly 127 — including helicopters and transports — and still falling.17 

Though the details vary from one case to another, 

by and large the experience of the US Air Force 

has been shared by its counterparts in other developed countries. With few exceptions the story 

of air power during the last half century is one of 

constant downsizing; albeit that some services, 

particularly those of the USSR, China and Israel, 

latched on to the trend much later than others. 

The rest of the story may be found in any set of 

data being published around the world. The 

USSR, which during much of the Cold War retained a comparatively enormous air force (as 

part of an equally enormous military establishment) ended up by collapsing under the financial 

burden and is now reduced to offering its most 

advanced aircraft as tourist attractions. Though 

technically less advanced, the air force which 

Communist China built up during the fifties and 

early sixties also counted several thousand aircraft; however, it has since been cut back very 

sharply to the point that, as of the time of writing, 

the sum total of modern attack aircraft that it possesses is fewer than one hundred.18 During the 

last decade or so even Israel, for a long time perhaps the most beleaguered single society on earth 

and one that always gave priority to its air force, 

has felt sufficiently secure to begin cutting back 

on the number of the military aircraft that it 

keeps operational.19 To anyone who is at all familiar with the cost of acquiring and operating 

modern air forces these cuts do not represent a 

mystery. Looking back, and taking into account 

the overwhelming power of nuclear weapons 
only a few of which are needed to devastate any 

country, the mystery is rather why they were delayed for so long. 

 Nor is the diminishing number of major 

weapon systems produced simply a function of 

growing capabilities, as has often been claimed. 

It is true that, thanks to increases in power and 

also in accuracy — the latter, the direct result of 

developments in electronics — the destructive 

capabilities of air power have grown by leaps and 

bounds. However, this only applies to operations 

which are directed against undefended targets; or 

perhaps one should say that the various calculations that have been made ignore the strength of 

the opposition that is likely to be encountered. 

For example, much has been made of the fact 

that a modern attack aircraft can destroy a bridge, 

a headquarters, or a depot by means of a single 

laser or TV-guided “smart” missile instead of the 

hundreds or perhaps thousands of “dumb” iron 

bombs that were needed to achieve the same purpose back during the Vietnam War.20 On the 

other hand, if the targets in question are of any 

importance they are likely to be defended. Regardless of whether the defensive system consists 

of missiles or guns (or, a fortiori, interceptor aircraft) it is certain to rely on electronic guidance 

and contain circuitry very similar to, if not identical with, that which is incorporated into the attacking aircraft. In spite of the successes booked 

by air power in the Gulf War, it remains to be 

shown that, when confronted with each other, 

present-day air forces have grown more capable 

vis a vis a well-organized anti-aircraft defense 

system, i.e., one that is run by forces other than 

Iraqis, than they were in 1939-1945. Let alone 

that, given the lessons from that War, they will 

retain their superiority in the future.21

 As to air to air combat, had weapon systems really grown more powerful in relation to 

each other, then by conventional military logic 

the resulting high attrition rates ought to have led 

to larger air forces, not smaller ones. This is 

what usually happened in the past, e.g., before 

1914 when France and Germany raced each other 

to see which of them could field the largest number of artillery barrels; this, too, is what happened during the adolescence of air power between 1919 and 1939 when, against the background of galloping technological progress, the 

size of air forces grew and grew. This, no doubt, 

is what would have happened after 1945 if nuclear weapons had not appeared on the scene and 

overshadowed anything that mere conventionally-armed aircraft could do. 

 Once nuclear weapons were introduced 

and proved capable of turning the globe into a 

radioactive desert, however, the age-old rules of 

the game changed. The question as to “How 

Much is Enough?” took on a new and menacing 

aspect and, in the long run, admitted of only one 

answer. Though the process required time and 

was not without its fluctuations, in one country 

after another it caused orders of battle to shrink 

and armed forces, including specifically air 

forces, to melt away; in the same way that the escalating cost-quality cycle of suits of armor after 

1525 marked the imminent demise of knightly 

warfare in favor of others that were cheaper and 

more effective. 

 While the number of manned aircraft has 

tended to decline almost to the vanishing point, 

other systems which did not even exist in 1945 

but which were equally the responsibility of air 

forces underwent spectacular growth. On the one 

hand there was everything connected with space. 

This included long range ballistic missiles which 

in most countries were entrusted to the air force; 

as well as anti-missile defenses and satellites of 

every kind. By the late twentieth century the latter in particular had become vital to the conduct 

of conventional operations of the most advanced 

kind. Their usefulness for reconnaissance, surveillance, targeting, damage-assessment, communication, and navigation was brought out very 

strongly by the Falkland War and the Gulf War.22 

Yet the fact remains that most states, including 

specifically those which are in the forefront of 

				

	


	  	

	   
	 	
 	

	 
  	  	

   !
 	


""
"#$
military-technological development, do not possess them and are unlikely to acquire them in the 

foreseeable future. As in the case of aircraft, this 

is partly a function of escalating cost — to develop, launch, and control a satellite that is militarily useful may easily involve an outlay of hundreds of millions of dollars and is entirely beyond the means of all but a very small number of 

states. On the other hand, one reason why failure 

to incur those costs could be justified was precisely because the threat of large scale conventional interstate war seemed to be receding in any 

case. Another reason why most countries have 

failed to do much about the military aspects of 

space is the latter’s marginal utility in respect to 

the most important threat with which they are 

confronted, i.e., low intensity conflict. To say 

that space is altogether irrelevant to the kind of 

war that we saw in Somalia and Bosnia — let 

alone to guerrilla and terrorism — would be going too far; satellites have been known to photograph terrorist training camps, intercept their radio-communications, help commando teams 

navigate to their targets, and the like. On the 

other hand, there are clear limits to what can be 

done. The fact that the US possesses the most 

advanced space-warfighting systems of any 

country did nothing to prevent the World Trade 

Center and the Federal Building in Oklahoma 

City from being bombed, nor are such systems at 

all likely to prevent such incidents from taking 

place in the future. Whatever military capabilities which France, or Britain, possess in space are 

entirely irrelevant to the bombing campaigns that 

both have witnessed and are still witnessing in 

their own capitals. As one Intifada-related Israeli 

joke has it, why did Israel launch its satellite, 

Ofek I? Answer: to take pictures of Arab kids 

picking up rocks in real time. While the fundamental irrelevance of space to low intensity conflict is obvious, the same is not true of some 

other airborne platforms such as unmanned aerial 

vehicles (UAVs), light tactical transport, and, 

above all, helicopters of every kind. Not having 

to provide for a human operator, UAVs are relatively affordable. Their usefulness for reconnaissance, surveillance, and certain kinds of combat 

operations is evident and their employment in 

these roles growing all the time.23 Given that the 

ground installations that they require are not 

nearly as extensive or as expensive as that 

needed by combat aircraft or heavy transport, 

light transport aircraft represent an eminently 

suitable way for bringing troops into battle during a low intensity conflict; and this will be all 

the more the case if the aircraft in question can 

be provided with a vertical take-off and landing 

capability, as the American Osprey is. Above all, 

the usefulness of helicopters in various types of 

low-intensity war has been demonstrated time 

and again. They can bring troops and supplies to 

the spot, serve as flying command posts, locate 

targets from the air, and evacuate the wounded; 

being both much slower and more maneuverable 

than combat aircraft, they can also deliver devastating quantities of very accurate firepower at selected targets. During the last decade or so helicopters such as the Apache have been provided 

with highly sophisticated optronic gear, enabling 

them to locate those targets on a twenty four hour 

basis (although heavy vegetation on the one 

hand, and meteorological phenomena such as 

fog, rain and sandstorms on the other, still represent a problem). All of which may explain why 

several countries, particularly in Western Europe, 

keep on procuring them at a time when their air 

forces are rapidly shrinking or, as in the case of 

Belgium, being more or less shut down. 

 Looking into the future from the vantagepoint of the present, the age of manned aircraft 

which opened during the early years of the present century is almost certainly drawing to its 

end. In particular, today’s high performance attack aircraft and bombers, which for a long time 

constituted the backbone of any air force worthy 

of the name, are unlikely to have successors. 

This is because their cost is staggering and their 

usefulness in fighting both the most dangerous 

kind of war — namely, nuclear one — and the 

most common one — namely, low intensity conflict in its various forms — is marginal. By the 

year 2025 the missions that used to be entrusted 

to them will almost certainly be divided between 

missiles (including also cruise missiles) and 

space-based platforms on the one hand and 

UAVs and helicopters on the other. Everything 

in between is likely to disappear. Judging in 

quantitative terms, it has already all but disappeared as orders of battle in virtually every country are being cut, cut, and cut again.24 At the 
high end of the spectrum air forces, here understood as autonomous parts of the armed services, 

are likely to survive in those countries — no 

more than a handful — that possess the economic 

muscle and technological expertise that are 

needed for the purpose. Possibly they will come 

to represent some kind of cross between the former Soviet Strategic Missile Command and the 

US Space Command. Their principal weapon 

systems will consist not of manned platforms but 

of missiles, cruise missiles, satellites, and possibly anti-missile defenses of the kind currently under development in the US and Israel (the only 

two countries that seem to take them seriously); 

all combined with satellites used for communication, navigation, surveillance, reconnaissance, 

damage-assessment, and the like. Although, 

technologically speaking, these and similar systems are very sophisticated, they only require a 

very small number of people to operate them. 

Hence, in terms both of personnel and of the order of battle, whatever air forces remain in existence are likely to shrink very drastically. 

 At the low end of the spectrum the UAVs, 

helicopters and light transport (long range heavytransport, being too vulnerable to approach the 

battlefield, is likely to be civilianized) that are 

useful for fighting low intensity war will also 

survive; and, in terms of both budgets and numbers, prosper. However, and given the fact that 

they will operate in very close cooperation with 

the ground forces, it is not at all certain that they 

should be organized in a separate service as is 

still the case in many countries. Instead a very 

good case can be made for the need to group 

them in air cavalry regiments of the kind used by 

the Americans in Vietnam and the Soviets in Afghanistan; this, too, is already the road taken by 

the Australian armed forces. Beyond these generalities, much will depend on the nature of the 

threat, the size of the country, and the extent that 

it wants to project its military power beyond its 

borders. A country which is threatened mainly 

by subconventional conflict will naturally tend 

toward the low end of the spectrum and, with the 

possible exception of satellites, may well end up 

by more or less abolishing its air force. A country with large spaces and far-away interests will 

lean to the high end of the spectrum and put its 

faith in various systems that are either designed 

to operate in space or based in it. To provide a 

faster reaction capability than is provided by helicopters such a country may also want to maintain 

a few squadrons of attack aircraft, whether landor sea-based. And the same is also true for heavy 

transport. 

 Finally, the electronics on which modern 

weapon systems, airborne ones included, rely 

work better in simple environments than in complex ones. Hence logically countries whose primary defensive concerns consist of protecting 

their sea-lanes should be among the first to put 

greater emphasis on missiles and space-based 

systems for surveillance, target acquisition, and 

guidance. This movement is well under way in 

many places; in the long run is likely to put an 

end to sea-borne air power as we know it.25 One 

replacement currently under consideration is the 

so called “arsenal ship,” an entirely new kind of 

vessel which will carry not aircraft but perhaps a 

hundred or so missile launchers of various kinds 

including sea to air, sea to sea, and of course 

cruise missiles. Conversely manned platforms in 

the form of light transport and attack helicopters 

will prove most useful to countries whose main 

concern is with low intensity operations on land. 

While the details will have to be worked out by 

each national defense establishment separately, 

the overall direction in which change will move 

appears reasonably clear. Unless some yet to be 

designed system enables states to reliably defend 

themselves against nuclear weapons — which 

may very well prove to be a contradiction in 

terms26 — the writing for large-scale, interstate, 

conventional war, as well as the armed forces by 

which it is waged, is on the wall. If present 

trends persist, thirty years from now most air 

forces will have dissolved into space commands 

on the one hand and some form of air cavalry on 

the other. In between, most major combat aircraft 

will have disappeared. Like dinosaurs, they will 

be confined to musea where they will no doubt 

be admired by gaping crowds. Pilots will have 

hung their pressure suits in the closet, never to 

put them on again. An age in military history 

will be gone. It was glorious while it lasted. 

This article first appeared in a collection at the Royal Australian Air 

Force’s Air Power Studies Centre: http://www.defence.gov.au/apc96. 

Reprinted with permission of the author and Dr. Alan Stephens, Royal 

Australian Air Force. 
Notes 

1

 M. van Creveld, The Transformation of War (New York: Free Press, 

1991), particularly Chapters 1 and 7; also idem, Nuclear Proliferation and 

the Future of Conflict (New York: Free Press, 1993). See also E. Luard, 

The Blunted Sword: the Erosion of Military Power in the Modern World

(London: Tauris, 1988). 

2

 The most comprehensive analysis of the rising cost of weapon systems, 

both absolute and relative to GNP, remains F. Spinney, Defense Facts of 

Life (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1986). For the cost of military aircraft see 

also M. A. Armitage and R. A. Mason, Air Power in the Nuclear Age

(Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1985), 252-53; for that of operating them N. Brown, The Future of Air Power (New York: Holmes & 

Meier, 1986) Chapter 12. K. Hartley, “The Affordability of Air Systems,”

in Ph. Sabine, ed., The Future of United Kingdom Air Power (London: 

Brassey’s, 1988), 109 shows that, after almost a decade of steady rearmament, the number of RAF operational squadrons was actually twenty per 

cent smaller in 1986 than it had been in 1977. 

3

 For some figures and calculations see Brown, The Future of Air Power, 

89. 

4 “In twentieth-century war defeat will almost always be avoided (and 

outright victory very likely gained) by the side that has secured air superiority”; N. Brown, The Future of Air Power, 17. 5

 See also A. Gropman, “Operations other than War,” in this volume. 6

 The figures are: Europe, 2,000,000 tons; Japan, 153,000 tons; and Vietnam, 6,162,000 tons. R. Overy, The Air War 1939-1945 (London: Europa, 1980), 100-120; E. H. Tilford, Jr., Setup: What the Air Force did in 

Vietnam and Why (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1991), 282. 7

 For a short appreciation of the role that air power can play in war as 

waged against organizations other than states see O. Erez, “The Role of an 

Air Force in Counterinsurgency,” in M. Hugh and M van der Merwe, eds., 

Contemporary Air Strategy (Pretoria: Institute for Strategic Studies, 

1986), 19-26 

8

 The most recent demonstration of the problem was given by the Israeli 

Air Force in April 1996 when over a thousand strikes by the most sophisticated combat aircraft and attack helicopters fielded by any country in 

history failed to prevent the Hizbulla guerrillas from firing their Katyusha 

rockets at northern Galilee. 

9

 Definitions of what constitutes a war, and hence the number of wars, 

vary greatly. However, all observers are agreed that since 1945 wars between states have been greatly outnumbered by those that are fought between, or against, other organizations. See, e.g., K. J. Holsti, “War, 

Peace, and the State of the State,” International Political Science Review, 

Vol. 16, No. 4, 1995, 321 Table 1; also P. Wallensteen and R. Axell, 

“Armed Conflict at the End of the Cold War, 1989-1992,” Journal of 

Peace Research, Vol. 30, No. 3, 1993, 331-46. 10 C. von Clausewitz, On War, M. Howard and P. Paret, eds., (Princeton: 

Princeton University Press, 1976), 87. 

11 See above all B. Brodie, The Absolute Weapon (New York: Columbia 

University Press, 1946), Chapter 1; also J. Viner, “The Implications of the 

Atomic Bomb for International Relations,” Proceedings of the American 

Philosophical Society, 90, January 1946. 12 Much the best explanation of what becomes of strategy under such circumstances continues to be Thomas Schelling, Arms and Influence (New 

Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966.) 

13 See above all McGeorge. Bundy, Danger and Survival; the Political 

History of the Nuclear Weapon (New York: Random House, 1988), passim. 

14 For the effect of nuclear weapons on war in the two regions in question 

see M. van Creveld, Nuclear Proliferation and the Future of Conflict 

(New York: Free Press, 1993), Chapters 3 and 4. 

15 Among the first to suggest that proliferation might be a blessing was K. 

N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May be Better, Adelphi 

Paper No. 171, (London: IISS, 1980). His views, as well as those of his 

opponents, have been summed up very neatly in S. Sagan and K. Waltz, 

The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: a Debate (New York: Norton, 1995). 16 For more detailed figures on Allied air strength in the Gulf see P. Hine, 

“Air Operations in the Gulf,” in A. Stephens, ed., The War in the Air 

1914-1994 (Fairbarn UK: Air Power Studies Centre, 1994) 308-9. 17 World War II production figures from R. Overy, The Air War, 150; 

1995 figure from D. M. Snider, “The Coming Defense Train Wreck,”

Washington Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 1, Winter 1996, 92. 18 See International Institute of Strategic Studies, ed., The Military Balance 1995-96 (London: IISS, 1995) 178. 

19 For the current balance of forces in the Middle East see A. Karp, “The 

Demise of the Middle East Arms Race,” The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 

18, 29 Autumn 1995, A. Hashim, “The State, Society and the Evolution of 

Warfare in the Middle East: the Rise of Strategic Deterrence,” ibid, 53. 20 See Brown, The Future of Air Power, 88; J. A. Warden, III, “Air Theory for the Twenty-First Century,” in K. P. Magyar, ed., Challenge and 

Response: Anticipating US Military Security Concerns (Maxwell AFB, 

AL: Air University Press, 1994), 313 and 328; also D. T. Kuehl, “Air 

power vs. Electricity: Electric Power as a Target for Strategic Air Operations,” Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 18, No. 1, March 1995, 250-60. 21 For some comparative figures on lethality see Brown, “The Future of 

Air Power,” 123-36; also J. Clemens, “Air Defence Mythology,” RUSI 

Journal, Vol. 127, No. 3, September 1982, 27-32. 22 For the latest on the capabilities of satellites for these purposes see V. 

Gupta, “New Satellite Images for Sale,” International Security, Vol. 20, 

No. 1, Summer 1995, 94-125, as well as I. Lachow, “The GPS Dilemma,”

ibid, 126-48; for the future, see T. S. Moorman, “The Challenges of Space 

Beyond 2000,” in this volume. 23 An excellent analysis of what UAVs can do in war is S. M. Shaker and 

A. R. Wise, War Without Men; Robots on the Future Battlefield (London: 

Pergamon, 1988). Chapter 4, updated by M. Hewish, “Sensor Payloads 

for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,” International Defense Review, December 

1995, 53-8. 

24 The latest country to announce cuts is France. When the reorganization 

of the forces — including a switch from conscription to an all volunteer 

force — is completed in the year 2015 the number of combat aircraft will 

be down from almost 900 today to a mere 300, plus perhaps forty maritime aircraft. Source: Ministry of Defense, quoted in Le Point, Vol. 24, 

No. 2, 1996, 55. 

25 Once again, in quantitative terms the movement is already well under 

way. Only one navy around the world still possesses global capabilities; 

the rest are being reduced to coast-guards. Out of almost one hundred 

aircraft carriers which that Navy possessed in 1945 only twelve remain. 

The total number of aircraft that they can carry has also fallen, from perhaps 4,000-5,000 to fewer than 1,000. 

26 According to the would-be manufacturers, anti-ballistic defenses now at 

the “concept exploration stage” will be able to shoot down 90 per cent of 

incoming missiles; M. Hewish, “Providing the Umbrella,” International 

Defense Review, 28 August 1995, 33. Should those missiles be armed 

with nuclear warheads, though, 90 per cent is simply not good enough. 

Biography 

Dr. Martin van Creveld is a Professor at Hebrew 

University, Jerusalem. He is internationally acclaimed as a scholar on numerous military issues, including particularly his focus on technology and military logistics. He has authored several books including Command in War (Harvard 

University Press, 1985), The Transformation of 

War (Free Press; Collier-McMillan and Maxwell-McMillan International, 1991), The Sword 

and the Olive: A Critical History of the Israeli 

Defense Force (Public Affairs, 1998), and most 

recently, The Rise and Decline of the State

(Cambridge University Press, 1999). 
 In the last decade of the Century, air power 

has been used to great effect by western Coalitions 

in the Gulf War of 1990-91, in the later stages of 

the Bosnian conflict of 1995 and in the Kosovo Crisis in 1999. Not only have their circumstances 

been very different from those of the preceding period of confrontation between East and West, they 

have been very different from each other. 

 The collective difference between the circumstances of the 1990s and those of preceding periods stimulates the re-evaluation of several underlying concepts of air power which evolved during 

eighty years of air operations. The differences between the events of the 1990s themselves induce 

great caution in projecting conceptual frameworks 

or paradigms with validity for air power into the 

next Century. Nonetheless, alongside the differences in the circumstances of the 1990s, there have 

been significant similarities in achievements. From 

the similarities, a paradigm may be constructed 

which more clearly indicates, and explains, the 

overall contribution of western air power to contemporary defence and security policies. 

 At present, and for the foreseeable future, 

the full potential of modern air power can only be 

exercised by the United States. The new paradigm, 

however, is equally relevant to a state less well endowed than the US, or to a Coalition of states 

which did not include the USA. 

The Inheritance 

 Air power is a product of the 20th Century: 

a Century in which military evolution has been 

dominated by three wars which engulfed the globe. 

The first two were fought to bloody conclusions in 

1914-18 and 1939-1945. The Cold War mercifully 

ended virtually bloodless after fifty years, with the 

collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellites. All 

three were fought with the instruments of the industrial age. 

 In the struggles of World War I and World 

War II, and in sustaining deterrence in the Cold 

War, attacks on civilian infrastructure and populations were widely accepted as unfortunate but inevitable, when national will, government control, 

national resources and armed forces were inextricably harnessed to total warfare. At the same time, 

images of Guernica, Coventry, Dresden and Hiroshima never disappeared, at least from media 

memory. Underlying all was a residual, albeit minority and controversial, unease at the legal and 

moral justification for air attacks which inflicted 

heavy civilian casualties. Such casualties, even in 

the well remarked instances, were far less than 

those endured in the ravaging of civilian populations by contending armies. Such comparisons, 

however, had little apparent effect on entrenched 

critics of air power. 

 Militarily, the 20th Century ended with the 

Gulf War of 1990-91. In Desert Storm, the technology of the information age made its first dramatic impact in a conflict fought for limited objectives in one small geographical region. The technology was further refined in the unfamiliar surroundings of two very different wars in the Balkans. Air warfare throughout the last decade of the 

century, except in Chechnya, was conditioned by 

limited political objectives and the promise of precision munitions. 

 In the later stages of World War II, the 

United States came to possess the largest air forces 

in the world. There was not yet, however, a noticeable difference in the technology of aircraft, weapons and other systems from those of the United 

Kingdom, except for the possession of the atomic 

bomb. In the NATO years, the technology gap between the US and its allies progressively widened. 

Air Power: Rethinking the Conceptual Framework

Air Vice-Marshall Professor Tony Mason 
Its dimensions, however, lay largely unrevealed because of the absence of alliance or coalition warfare 

and periods of long operational stagnation in the 

shadow of nuclear confrontation. In 1991, Desert 

Storm revealed the real extent of United States 

dominance in the air. There were now two kinds of 

air power: that wielded by the US, and the capacity 

of the rest. The distinction was no longer simply 

one of scale. The United States had crossed the 

threshold of the information age in air warfare, 

marked by stealth, precision guided munitions 

(PGM), information systems, and command, control and communications (C3). 

 Meanwhile, the Russian Federation rapidly 

became a spent military force, with little prospect 

of conventional arms regeneration in the foreseeable future. With one or two honourable exceptions, the United States’ allies and putative coalition partners gave higher priority to consuming 

their post cold war peace dividends than to modernising or restructuring their armed forces to meet 

new technological and international realities. 

 Together, these factors changed the nature 

of air power and its environment. As a result, concepts which evolved in a century of operations require scrutiny to ensure their continued validity. 

Global War 

 “Global War,” the environment in which air 

power matured, was defined in the Royal Air Force 

Manual of Operations, AP 1300, published in 

March 1957, as “The unrestricted conflict between 

the USSR and its allies on the one side and the 

USA and its allies on the other. As the concept of 

global war envisages war without restrictions of 

any kind, it is unnecessary to qualify the term 

global war in any way. Throughout this manual it 

is, therefore, assumed that the kiloton and megaton 

nuclear weapons would be used from the outset”

1 

 Had a later Manual of Operations been published before 1989, the assumption of the use of nuclear weapons “from the outset” may have been 

dropped but not the nuclear dominance of strategy. 

In several fundamental respects, the “Global War”

envisaged in AP 1300 resembled World Wars One 

and Two with the addition of nuclear weapons. For 

the major participants, national survival was at 

stake. 

 In World Wars One and Two, national resources were harnessed and focused on the war effort. In Global War, similar conditions were expected but in a shorter time scale. In all three 

cases, “victory” entailed, or would have entailed, 

the capitulation and submission of the enemy. 

There were no limits to resources allocated, no limits to casualties inflicted or endured and, with the 

exception of chemical warfare in World War Two, 

no limits to the weaponry employed. On all sides 

the media was incorporated, with little or no demur, 

in support of national policy and to the favourable 

presentation of national operations. 

 In all three wars, the focus of the participants was on Central Europe, even after confrontation spread across the globe. The prize was territory. Strategies were ultimately directed at the occupation of territory by armies. Decision would be 

reached by the destruction of the enemy’s capacity 

to resist by battle. The symbol of that resistance, 

despite attacks by air power and submarine warfare 

on a state’s economic and political infrastructure, 

remained the enemy’s deployed ground forces. 

Had deterrence failed, Central Europe would have 

become a nuclear battlefield. 

 The 1957 Manual defined “Cold War” as 

simply “the continuing world wide struggle between Communism and the Free World, waged by 

all means short of armed conflict.”2

 The Cold War 

was the Global War which was never fought. 

Other conflicts, described as “Limited War” were 

defined by their relationship to Global War. “The 

reasons which limit any particular conflict may be 

many and varied; but in the background will inevitably be the fear of the war becoming global in 

A 1940s British Avro Lancaster B Mk1 Bomber. 

(RAF Photo: http://www.raf.mod.uk) 
scope, and thus laying open the homelands of the 

Great Powers to nuclear devastation.”

3

 Such a definition was perhaps a little simplistic. Nevertheless, the circumspection of the US 

in Korea and Vietnam, fears about Yugoslavia after 

Tito, and the tension induced by conflict in the 

Middle East in the 1960s and 1970s may be compared with the comparatively relaxed approaches of 

the great powers to the Gulf and the Balkans in the 

1990s, when international confrontation had dissolved. 

 The end of the Cold War has restored traditional sources of conflict to international relations. 

Interests have replaced survival in the foreign and 

defence policies of the western powers and friends. 

All our foreseeable scenarios are of limited war and 

limited commitment. All our armed forces have to 

readjust to these new circumstances, but for air 

power, they are especially significant. 

Wars of the New Era: The Gulf War 

 The transition from three global wars was 

made in the Gulf in 1991. Here, the concepts of the 

Cold War met the realities of the new era. Coalition political and military objectives, to restore the 

independence of Kuwait and to expel Iraqi forces 

from its territory, were agreed by all Coalition 

members and empowered by the UN Security 

Council. 

 Seldom have circumstances combined so 

favourably for one side in a conflict. Command 

and control of Coalition forces, under US leadership, was unified and unambiguously directed. Iraq 

enjoyed little international support or sympathy. 

Saddam Hussein was strategically blinkered. His 

armed forces were stifled by Soviet doctrine and 

practice. His air force was heavily outnumbered 

and technologically inferior. His ground forces 

were deployed in open, largely uninhabited territory. His lines of reinforcement were highly vulnerable to air attack. The Coalition could exploit 

its massive supremacy in the air by attacking from 

the South, West and North. The Coalition air 

forces were well trained and well led. Coalition information dominance was overwhelming. Only his 

air defences presented a serious threat to the Coalition. His surface to surface missiles would threaten 

the unity of the alliance, by tempting independent 

Israeli retribution. Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction would remain inert. 

 After Saddam Hussein was content to consolidate his position in Kuwait, in August 1990, 

and took no action to impede Coalition forces 

massing in the Gulf area, the Coalition determined 

the tempo of the confrontation. Poor weather 

slowed down the air campaign but had no influence 

on its outcome at the end of February 1991. Considerable synergy was achieved between air, land 

and naval forces. 

 It is likely that most of the significant facts 

about the Gulf War are now in the public domain. 

The impact of air power was greater than all but the 

most confident of believers could have imagined. 

Iraq, and its Soviet training mentors, were taken 

completely by surprise by the sustained intensity of 

the Coalition air attacks, sharpened in concentration 

by the combination of stealth and PGM. Iraqi air 

defences were neutralised, command and control 

almost decapitated and deployed ground forces cut 

off, demoralised and degraded. After forty three 

days of incessant Coalition air attacks, Iraq’s 

ground forces were expelled from Kuwait, not in 

“the mother of all battles,” but in a heavily one 

sided four day engagement. The war, as the present 

author later wrote, “marked the apotheosis of 20th 

Century air power.”4

 There was, naturally, widespread jubilation 

among air power enthusiasts about such an outcome. From the outset, however, there were extensive grounds for caution about projecting the air 

campaign of Desert Storm as a model for the future 

application of air power. The unusual combination 

of favourable circumstances which enabled the 

domination of air power in the Gulf War was not 

repeated in the remainder of that decade and is 

unlikely to re-occur in the next. 

Bosnia 

 In the Bosnian conflict, from 1992-1995, 

the circumstances were very different. For three 

years, the United Nation’s humanitarian objectives 

co-existed uneasily with the need to coerce the 

combatants, and especially the Serbs, to agree to a 

peaceful resolution of the disputes. There was no 

concensus among potential Coalition members 

about either political objectives or the role and nature of military force. The humanitarian origins of 

the Bosnian intervention discouraged the early employment of combat aircraft. Command, control 
and authorisation of air power were convoluted and 

constrained by the duplication of UN and NATO 

structures. Rules of engagement, designed to reduce friendly and hostile force casualties, inhibited 

pre-emptive air attack and delayed retribution. 

Such factors aggravated the inherent difficulties for 

air power when combatants were frequently in 

close contact with civilians in either built up areas 

or countryside which provided plenty of natural 

cover. Typical European weather produced some 

degree of cloud cover in the region for a large majority of the time. 

 In 1995 however, UN army and civilian 

units were withdrawn from vulnerable positions in 

Serb controlled territory. In the same period, Croatian and Bosnian Muslim ground forces increased 

their pressure on Bosnia Serb positions, while large 

scale NATO ground force deployments into the region began. For the first time in the conflict, joint 

force synergy could be achieved. After fourteen 

days of suffering intensive air attacks, the Bosnian 

Serbs accepted the Dayton Peace Accords. 

Kosovo 

 In the third situation, in Kosovo in 1999, 

several of the features of the Bosnia conflict reappeared. The topographical and climatic environment was very similar. While stopping Serbian 

persecution of ethnic Kosovars was widely supported within NATO, there was little agreement on 

the means to be adopted. The crisis unfolded, however, in a very different way from its predecessors. 

 Political and military objectives were defined, but without the clarity of those in the Gulf. 

NATO sought to persuade President Milosovic to 

put an immediate and verifiable end to violence, to 

withdraw all his troops from Kosovo, to agree to 

the deployment in Kosovo of an international force, 

to allow all refugees to return, and to accept an interim political solution. 

 Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Wesley Clark, announced that “The military 

mission is to attack Yugoslav military and security 

forces and associated facilities with sufficient effect 

to degrade its capacity to continue repression of the 

civilian population and to deter its further military 

actions against his own people. We aim to put its 

military at risk. We are going to systematically and 

progressively disrupt, degrade, devastate and ultimately destroy those forces and support unless 

President Milosovic complies with the demands of 

the international community.”

5

 After 78 days, only the “objective of an interim political solution” remained outstanding. No 

NATO combat casualties had been suffered and in 

approximately 35,000 sorties, unintended Yugoslavian civilian casualties probably numbered less 

than 1,000. Yet, from the first days of the conflict, 

at the end of March 1999, there were rumbles of 

criticism of NATO’s strategy, of the employment 

of air power and even of air power itself. 

 On 23 March, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon, in a Press briefing, announced, “We 

have plans for a swift and severe air campaign. 

This will be painful for the Serbs. We hope that, 

relatively quickly, ... the Serbs will realise that 

they have made a mistake.”6

 But the initial weight 

of air attacks on Yugoslavia was, compared to that 

of the Gulf War, relatively light. In the first week, 

an average of 48 air strikes sorties a day were 

flown.7

 In Desert Storm, the overall daily rate was 

approximately 1,300. To a certain extent, the sortie 

rates reflected the numbers of combat aircraft deployed to the Balkan theatre compared to the Gulf: 

approximately 400 as opposed to 2,600. 

 However, not only was the weight of attack 

much less, but the targets attacked in 1999 were 

very different from those of 1991. In the Gulf, the 

well known opening “parallel” attacks on air defence, political, infrastructure and other military 

targets were subsequently enshrined in official 

United States Air Force Doctrine: “... aerospace 

power is usually employed to greatest effect in parallel, asymmetric operations. This includes precision strikes against surface forces, information attack against command and control systems, or precision strikes against infrastructure and centers of 

gravity.”

8

 In the early days of the Kosovo conflict 

on the other hand, various air defence and military 

targets were attacked, including munitions factories 

and deployed Serbian forces in Kosovo. No attacks 

were made on political or other targets in Belgrade. 

 Reports of disagreements between NATO 

members about targeting began to reach the media 

by the beginning of April.9

 The official NATO position was defined by a Deputy Chief of the UK 

Defence Staff in the second week of the conflict: 

“NATO’s plan had never envisaged beginning the 

air campaign with a massive application of air 

bombardment. This was not the start of a war 
where we were determined to win as quickly and as 

harshly as possible to overwhelm his entire military 

forces.”

10

 The difference between NATO’s position, 

summarised by Air Marshal Day, and the inclinations of many senior USAF airmen, was most succinctly illustrated by Lieutenant General Michael 

Short, Joint Forces Air Component Commander, in 

his statement to the Senate Armed Services Committee on 21 October 1999: “I believe the way to 

stop ethnic cleansing was to go to the heart of the 

leadership, and put a dagger in that heart as rapidly 

and decisively as possible ... I’d have turned the 

lights out on the first night. I’d have dropped the 

bridges across the Danube. I’d have hit five or six 

political and military Headquarters in downtown 

Belgrade ...”

11

 In interviews during the war, General Short 

had expressed similar opinions, raising the spectre 

of “gradualism,” the USAF memory of the air war 

in Vietnam. “Airmen,” he said, “would like to 

have gone after that target set (Serbian leadership) 

on the first night and sent a clear signal that we 

were taking the gloves off from the very beginning, 

that we were not going to try a little bit of this and 

see how you like it and try a little bit of that and see 

how you like it.”12

 The “gradualism” was well documented. 

On 31 March, General Clark requested an expanded range of targets.13 On 2 April, targets in 

Belgrade were attacked, apparently for the first 

time. In the following week additional British and 

US combat aircraft were deployed into theatre before General Clark requested an additional 300 on 

12 April.14 On 6 April, oil targets were struck for 

the first time; on 8 April a warning of attacks on 

TV antennae and “facilities” was given.15 On 21 

April, NATO spokesman Shea announced that “any 

aspect of Milosovic’s power structure is a target.”16 

On 23 April, Milosovic’s official residence and a 

TV station were destroyed. On 2 May, the electricity grid was put out of action by carbon fibre submunitions. Meanwhile, attacks on deployed Serbian forces in Kosovo were also intensified: facilitated by improved weather and an increase from 

120 to 550 strike aircraft.17 On 27 May, NATO reported that 308 strike sorties had been flown, including 50 against Belgrade and 74 on defence suppression.18

 Near its conclusion, the air campaign was 

summarised by USAF Chief of Staff, General Michael Ryan. He observed, “The campaign did not 

begin the way that America would normally apply 

air power — massively striking at strategic centres 

of gravity that support Milosovic and his oppressive regime. A month into the campaign, it became 

apparent that a constrained, phased approach was 

not effective. NATO broadened the campaign to 

achieve strategic effects. The result is that Serbia’s 

air force is essentially useless and its air defences 

are dangerous but ineffective. Military armament 

production is destroyed. Military supply areas are 

under siege. Oil refinement (sic) has ceased and 

petroleum storage is being systematically destroyed. Electricity is sporadic, at best. Major 

transportation routes are cut. NATO aircraft are attacking with impunity throughout the country. 

With the continued build up of aircraft and better 

weather, the attacks are intensifying and the effects 

are mounting.”

19 In a post war interview, the General added, “Air power could not stop the door to 

door thuggery and ethic cleansing that were going 

on directly. The only way you were going to be 

able to do that was by taking it to the heart of the 

matter — in this case, Belgrade.”20

 By this time, there were widespread reports 

of anti war sentiments within Yugoslavia and increased expectations of peace talks.21 Nonetheless, 

the alliance’s reliance upon air power as the only 

military instrument came under widespread fire. 

The general antithesis was that the contribution of 

ground forces would inevitably be required because 

air power had never won a war on its own.22 Arguments ranged from the simplistic, “In Vietnam, for 

example, the Air Force dropped some six million 

tons of bombs, almost triple the tonnage dropped in 

World War II, without breaking the Vietnamese 

will to resist,”

23 through the more debatable, “The 

challenge of just using air power is that you leave it 

in the hands of your adversary to decide when he’s 

been punished enough. So the initiative will remain with President Milosovic,”24 to the well 

founded, “Not having ground troops in place in the 

region, permitted Milosovic not only to accelerate 

his ethnic cleansing, but it precluded him from having to arrange Serbian defensive forces differently, 

to protect both northern and southern borders.”

25

 A rather diffident estimation of the contribution by the Kosovan Liberation Army to the final 

result, came from US army sources: “What you 
have, in effect, was the KLA acting as a surrogate 

ground force. It was a confirmation, of sorts, of our 

joint doctrine, which calls for using air and ground 

forces together.”

26 Others attributed Milosovic’s 

capitulation to the assembly of the NATO Implementation Force in Macedonia, the dispatch of 

Apache helicopters to the theatre, and the threat of 

a ground invasion. 

 It was left to one of the most trenchant and 

inveterate British critics of air power to refute the 

pretenders to air power’s achievements. John 

Keegan wrote, “After the war ... there will be no 

grounds for debate or dispute. Aircraft and pilotless weapons have been the only weapons employed. The outcome is, therefore, a victory for air 

power and air power alone.”27 In case any of his 

readers had missed the point, he followed up, two 

days later, “Already some of the critics of the war 

are indulging in ungracious revisionism, suggesting 

that we have not witnessed a strategic revolution 

and that Milosovic was humbled by the threat to 

deploy ground troops or by the processes of traditional diplomacy, in this case exercised — we 

should be grateful for their skills — by the Russians and the Finns. All to be said to that is that diplomacy had not worked before 24 March when the 

bombing started, while the deployment of a large 

ground force, though clearly a growing threat, 

would still have taken weeks to accomplish at the 

moment Milosovic caved in. The revisionists are 

wrong. This was a victory through air power.”28

 A similar sentiment was more circumspectly expressed by General Clark to the US Senate: “The victory over Yugoslavia was the result of 

a variety of factors, but the indispensable condition 

for all the other factors was the success of the air 

campaign itself ... Everything else hinged on 

that.”

29

 The conversion of a heretic is always a 

source of rejoicing, as long as it is accompanied by 

a broadening of the mind and not simply the replacement of one form of myopia by another. In 

fact, some earlier criticism of the air operations by 

John Keegan and others were accurately directed, if 

insecurely based. 

The Alliance Context 

 The initial air attacks were light. Even had 

overwhelming force been available, the Alliance 

would have been reluctant to use it. After many 

months of prevarication and clear evidence of oppression in Kosovo by Milosovic’s forces, some 

doubts remained about the legitimacy, purpose and 

extent of the use of force. At the outset of the conflict, British MOD media briefing notes included 

the comment, “Phased air operations (will be) conducted by Allied aircraft and UK and US cruise 

missile attacks. Phases could include a demonstration element, but, if no compliance, would extend 

progressively to military strikes throughout the 

FRY. The operations would be ‘controlled, minimal and proportionate.’ A possible NATO peace 

implementation force of 36,000 troops was being 

considered.”

30

 There was no provision for an opposed Alliance ground force invasion because the members 

could not agree to mount one. As US Defense Secretary Cohen explained to the Senate Armed Services Committee, “Let me say that the reason that 

we have gone forward as we have with an air campaign is that there was not a consensus within the 

NATO alliance to do anything but this. There was 

a year — nearly a year, let me say three quarters of 

a year — spent dealing with the NATO allies in 

terms of taking collective action.”31 Six weeks 

later, nothing had changed, “The President said he 

would not take any option off the table, but it’s 

clear to me that there would need to be a concensus. There is not a concensus for a major ground 

effort.”

32

 After the conflict, the British Chief of the 

Defence Staff described the frustrations and tensions within the Alliance during “the most complex 

political and military operation (I have) experienced in 40 years in the army ... It was an enormously complicated thing, with NATO’s 19 member nations — each with its own political view and 

varying public opinion — having to agree by concensus ... There were those who felt that the alliance would fall apart ... In the end, the ability of 

the alliance to remain united was pretty remarkable.”33

 The conflict began with a desire to end persecution in Kosovo. It ultimately threatened the existence of the NATO alliance itself. This was the 

overall context of the application of air power in 

the Kosovo crisis. It exposed air power adherents 

who have sometimes appeared to believe that military operations should not be constrained by political circumstances. Colonel John Warden predicta-
bly observed, “The way the air war has been designed suggests it was a very bureaucratised, compartmentalised and not very competent approach. 

The target list has clearly not been designed to have 

a systematic impact on the Serb forces ... This is 

very unprofessional on the part of the various political authorities.”

34

 Colonel Phillip Meilinger offered a refreshingly direct and perceptive alternative view: “This 

air war is different than any we have ever fought. 

There is a feeling of frustration among the Air 

Force about the way it’s going, but I say, ‘Tough. 

Grow up. That’s life.’ We aren’t in charge. The 

politicians are in charge because there are other larger considerations.”35 Colonel Meilinger was in 

good company. “No major proposal required for 

war,” wrote Clausewitz, “can be worked out in ignorance of political factors; and when people talk, 

as they often do, about harmful political influence 

on the management of war, they are not really saying what they mean. Their quarrel should be with 

the policy itself.”

36

 Nor were the larger considerations restricted 

to allies’ political sensitivities. Italian and other 

European bases were essential for the prosecution 

of the air campaign. Allied air space was used for 

several kinds of mission from multiple directions. 

Greek support was required for access to NATO’s 

ground forces in Macedonia. Other than the USA, 

twelve NATO members contributed over 40% of 

NATO’s bombing missions and 30% of the total.37

 The operational penalties of the “larger considerations” were identified by General Klaus 

Naumann, in the middle of the war, as he handed 

over his duties as Chairman of NATO’s Military 

Committee: “Quite frankly and honestly, we did 

not succeed in our initial attempts to coerce Milosovic through air strikes to accept our demands, nor 

did we succeed in preventing Yugoslavia pursuing 

a campaign of ethnic separation and expulsion ...

We need to find a way to reconcile the conditions 

of a coalition war with the principles of military operations, such as surprise and overwhelming 

force.”

38

 From the outset, air power was the only 

military instrument available to NATO, and it was 

applied in the only way possible. The alternatives 

were not a replay of Instant Thunder from the Gulf 

or Rolling Thunder from Vietnam. The circumstances of this coalition war dictated that there were 

no alternatives at all. It was not “the condition of 

coalition war” per se which precluded “surprise and 

overwhelming force,” as alleged by General 

Naumann, but one coalition which was not prepared to risk heavy casualties and costs either in 

pursuit of humanitarian objectives or to forestall a 

wider Balkan crisis. Just eight years previously, in 

very different circumstances in the Gulf, a coalition 

had required sensitive control and management, but 

surprise and overwhelming force had not been 

compromised. 

 The true extent of the success of the Kosovo 

action may be measured against two theoretical alternatives. The first would have entailed no military action against Milosovic at all. There is no 

evidence to suggest that ethnic cleansing of Kosovo 

would have been halted by diplomacy or by any 

other pressure and there remained a serious risk of 

an expanding Balkan war. The second alternative 

was of an opposed invasion by NATO ground 

forces at some unspecified later date. Assuming 

that sufficient troops could have been mustered, 

then transported and supplied over mountainous 

territory in winter, it is likely that Kosovo would 

have become a battleground of World War II proportions: all in a humanitarian cause. In comparison, the casualties and damage inflicted by NATO 

aircraft in Belgrade and elsewhere were small indeed. 

Gradualism and Responsiveness 

 Air power, like any other kind of military 

force, must be focused on and subordinate to, a political objective defined by political leaders. Limited objectives imply limits on the military force 

applied. If a political objective falls short of destruction or overthrow of a government, or occupation of territory, or destruction of economic infrastructure or total annihilation of armed services, coercive military force will be limited. In Kosovo, 

there was for a time a mismatch between the level 

of force required to coerce Milosovic and the willingness of NATO to apply it. That is not a weakness of air power but of a political judgement about 

the use of armed force itself. 

 Nevertheless, the accusations of 

“gradualism” in Kosovo, laid in many quarters 

against NATO planning staff, are well founded. 

Similarly, a widely held belief in the USAF that 
gradualism significantly weakened the US bombing 

campaign in Vietnam can be strongly argued. Undoubtedly, the pauses in the bombing campaign in 

Vietnam to allow diplomatic exchanges were exploited by the North Vietnamese to repair damage 

and reinforce defences. Prohibition of attacks on 

North Vietnamese airfields is difficult to understand. 

 A problem arises however, if “gradualism”

as a principle is considered to be incompatible with 

the effective use of air power. Air power exponents consistently and justifiably uphold flexibility 

as its primary characteristic. It can be applied 

swiftly in different ways, against different targets, 

in different directions and over different distances. 

It is that flexibility which arguably makes air power 

even more suited to limited warfare than it was to 

the previous era of global, unlimited conflict. In a 

period of hesitant and unpredictable political commitment, the apparent weakness of air power —

that it cannot sustain a presence — becomes a desirable attribute. 

 From a distance, air power can threaten, it 

can be applied, it can disengage. It can concentrate 

and it can select. It can be devastating on a large 

scale or it can, as in Iraq in 1981 or Libya in 1986, 

apply precise and limited force. Allied to such 

flexibility is speed, increasingly accelerated by the 

acquisition of relevant and timely information. The 

aggregate of those attributes is versatility and responsiveness, which enable air power to be swiftly 

coupled with a wide range of diplomatic activities 

and political decisions. Under these circumstances, 

gradualism becomes a significant and flexible option for the application of air power, not inferior to 

the high intensity “parallel, asymmetric” operations 

incorporated in USAF doctrine. 

 If, however, air power is to be applied in cadence with diplomatic and other pressures, it becomes essential to ensure that the target state or entity is not allowed to take advantage of pauses in 

the cadence. In Vietnam the weakness lay not in an 

attempt to coordinate bombing and diplomacy, but 

in failing to prevent North Vietnam exploit the 

pauses and in the erroneous allocation of sanctuaries to its airforce. The problem was not the principle of gradualism, but the failure in practice to harness air power tightly to the diplomatic process. 

By contrast, in the later stages of the conflict in 

Bosnia, a combination of clearly drawn “lines in 

the sand” and the close association of diplomatic 

pressure with the threatened destruction of Bosnian - Serb war stocks, swiftly brought the conflict 

to an end without any need to “go downtown Belgrade.”

 The virtues of intensive parallel air attack 

have been credibly argued, and in Desert Storm 

powerfully demonstrated. But only in the opening 

hours of the highly favourable circumstances of the 

Gulf War has air power been used in the manner 

described by General Ryan. Such intensity will not 

always be possible, desirable or acceptable. If air 

power can indeed only be used effectively with 

overwhelming force, it is difficult to envisage its 

frequent application in a sensitive and complex political environment. The USA, even without the 

constraints of an entangling alliance, may not always see highly intensive “parallel, asymmetric”

attacks as a productive military instrument. 

 Conversely, if air power is flexibly applied 

in concert with diplomacy, it can finally enter the 

Clausewitzian lexicon. Moreover, air power will 

not be just one of “the other means” which, in war, 

is added to “political intercourse,”

39 but increasingly will become “the means” of first choice. 

Shaping the Environment 

 Over the decade, air power’s effectiveness 

in the very different environments of the Gulf, Bosnia and Kosovo has been based on a versatility 

hitherto only available in doctrine and theory. It 

has contributed to the resolution of conflict in three 

ways: by shaping an environment, by providing 

support to surface forces and by operating distinctly. These three contributions of air power are 

not new, nor are the roles which they include, but 

such a classification highlights its inherent versatility, put at risk by undue concentration on overwhelming parallel attack. By placing air operations 

in a different conceptual framework, air power’s 

complete potential may be more easily recognised, 

explained and understood in a post global war environment. Such a conceptual framework sits well in 

joint service or multi-national operations, and is 

relevant to many levels of engagement, from low 

level peace support to traditional large-scale conflict. 

 Perhaps the most emphatic use of air power 

to shape an environment before the Gulf War occurred when allied air forces isolated and weakened 
sion in June 1944. Now, the combination of information dominance, precision attack and effective 

control offers much greater strength. In the Gulf 

and in Bosnia in 1995, air power shaped an environment for surface forces to exploit, and denied an 

opponent the opportunity to fight on his terms. In 

the Gulf, the “mother of all battles” disintegrated 

into large-scale demoralisation and defeat. In Bosnia, conventional operations were inhibited and 

threats of partisan style opposition were stifled by 

the severing of Bosnian Serb communications and 

destruction of war stocks. 

 Arial preparation will exploit air power’s 

reach, speed, penetration and concentration. Versatility can be exploited to attack political leadership, 

command and control and war stocks. The opponent’s war fighting capacity can be reduced by air 

attacks which deny him opportunities for concentration, manoeuvre, momentum and reinforcement. 

Air power used in this mode will, as in the Gulf, 

make the ensuing task of surface forces easier and 

cheaper, with reduced casualty risks and requiring 

smaller numbers for a given objective. This is an 

attractive proposition to politicians and one readily 

understood by tax-payers. 

 However, for air power to be employed for 

its maximum effectiveness in the “preparation”

mode, it should be incorporated in a joint service 

plan from the outset, with surface movement coordinated with air operations rather than vice versa. 

In Bosnia, without such coordination, surface force 

deployment actually inhibited air operations for 

many months, creating hostages rather than synergy. 

 The overall contribution of air power in 

shaping the environment is to determine the extent 

and nature of the battle-space. It now extends theatre-wide beyond the reach of ground or littoral 

forces. It is no longer the space above and behind 

an enlarged, old fashioned battlefield. Traditional 

battlefield fronts, lines, edges, depths and formations will become increasingly rare. Potential opponents will note the vulnerability to air power of 

conventionally deployed armies. As in the Balkans, “expeditionary” governments will be reluctant to expose their own ground forces in large 

numbers to unpredictable opposition on hostile territory. Under these circumstances there are opportunities to create new joint service synergies by the 

exploitation of air power by ground forces. 

Support 

 Traditionally, the synergy of joint service 

operations has been most obvious in direct air support of surface forces engaged in a traditional 

ground force engagement. It was effective in the 

Gulf War; much less so at first in Bosnia, for well 

rehearsed reasons of conflicting objectives, unrealistic constraints and convoluted command and control. In Kosovo, except for attacks on Serbian 

forces deployed against the KLA in the closing 

stages of the conflict, close air support of any kind 

was not required. 

 The Kosovo experience suggested that difficulties long associated with direct air support may 

increase if the traditional battle field is replaced by 

less definable, more fluid engagements. Discrimination between friendly and hostile ground forces 

in close contact has always been difficult, even 

with good visibility, definable “front lines” and local air control. In theory, precision attack capability reduces these problems. Ground forces however, when threatened by air attack, have quickly 

learned the value of proximity to non-combatants, 

rapid movement, small numbers and concealment. 

In Kosovo, the Serbs never had to confront an invading NATO force, but even had they done so, 

there is no guarantee that they would have obligingly taken up formal defence positions. The lessons of the Gulf War have been studied by many 

countries. 

 That said, while direct fire support may in 

some circumstances be problematical, protecting 

friendly forces from air attack, inhibiting hostile 

manoeuvre, concentration and reconnaissance and 

providing tactical airlift and re-supply will remain 

significant air power contributions to deployed surface forces. Airborne surveillance and PGM availability offer the Joint Force Commander far more 

options than his predecessors. Deeper vision, earlier warning and swifter communication will enable 

him to deploy both his ground and supporting air 

assets far more effectively. Hopefully, such roles 

will have been largely discharged in an earlier 

phase of aerial preparation of the battle-space. In 

both preparation and direct support, the roles are 

likely to have been carried out by similar aircraft or 

UAVs, with similar weapons and systems. 

Distinct Operations 

 In Kosovo, air power was NATO’s sole 
military instrument. In traditional language, it was 

“independent” of activity by naval or ground 

forces. Unfortunately, the term “independent” has 

associations which may impede, rather than enhance, air power’s versatility in post Global War 

age. 

 The British decision in 1917 to create an independent Royal Air Force flowed directly from 

the failure of the two existing air services, the 

Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service, to provide adequately for the nation’s home 

defence. At a most critical period of the war, the 

previous separation of the flying services was 

widely perceived to have generated wasteful duplication of procurement, training, infrastructure and 

operations to the detriment of activities not directly 

associated with the immediate needs of the Army 

and the Royal Navy. 

 The Second Smuts’ Report of 17th August 

1917 established the Royal Air Force. It explained 

how, unlike artillery for example, “Air Service ...

can be used as an independent means of war operations far from, and independently of, both Army 

and Navy. ... The day may not be far off when aerial operations, with their devastation of enemy 

lands and destruction of industrial and populous 

centres on a vast scale, may become the principal 

operations of war ...”

40

 Such a capability for air power lay far into 

the future, but up to that point Smut’s comments 

were visionary and positive. Unfortunately, the 

sentence concluded with the words “to which the 

older forms of military and naval operations may 

become secondary and subordinate.” By implication, air operations in support of armies and navies 

were also “secondary” and “subordinate.” First for 

the Royal Air Force, and later for the USAF, 

“independent operations” became synonymous 

with “independence.”

 In an age of coalitions and joint service 

components in expeditionary forces, there is a need 

to distinguish, carefully and publicly, between the 

need for an independent armed service whose professional raison d’etre is the military exploitation of 

air and space, and the misunderstanding that such 

independence depends upon a requirement for 

“independent” operations. 

 There are good grounds, therefore, to replace “independent” by “distinct” to describe air 

operations which are not accompanied by, or related to, surface or maritime action. The Oxford 

Dictionary definition of “distinct” is most appropriate: “Different in kind, unmistakable, positive.”

Thereby, the mind-set, which instinctively associates “independence” with “independent” action, can 

be broken. Consequently, “support” or 

“preparation” operations become “complementary,”

and not “subordinate” to action by armies or navies. 

 In the past, “distinct” operations have 

ranged from the Strategic Bomber Offensive 

against Germany, with its considerable influence 

not just on the German war effort but on surface 

operations elsewhere, to the pre-emptive Israeli attack on Osirak in 1981, or the punitive US attack 

on Libya in 1986. 

 In some respects, air power in Kosovo was 

a victim to its earlier success in the Gulf and Bosnia. It is difficult to exaggerate the impact of 

PGMs on air power in the last decade of the Century. Their operational cost effectiveness has been 

widely documented. They reduce the number of 

aircraft and weapons required to achieve a particular kill or destruction probability. That reduction 

may be taken back through numbers of air crew, 

numbers of ground crew, amount of infrastructure 

and support staff, fuel, logistics and, indeed, to all 

aspects of force size, shape and costs. But their 

well publicised impact in the Gulf War also coincided with a reassertion of humanitarian values in 

warfare, and with the unprecedented, international 

exposure by the media of war’s individual tragedies 

and brutalities. In these circumstances, the PGM 

has been welcomed as the harbinger of sanitised, 

bloodless conflict. Ironically, the technology 

which, more than any other has realised the promise of air power, is now stimulating a further level 

of expectation from believers which is likely to be 

at least as difficult to fulfill as its predecessor. 

 In Bosnia, the impact of air power was delayed by lack of UN concensus and political determination. Consequently, the Bosnian Serbs were 

not inhibited from escalation nor coerced to serious 

negotiations until operation Deliberate Force was 

launched in August 1995. The Kosovo experience 

reinforces the requirement in limited war, whether 

in coalition or not, to apply force commensurate 

with the objectives to be achieved and with considerations of post conflict reconstruction and rehabilitation. Dropping the Danube bridges may or may 

not have delivered a message to President Miloso-
vic but the attacks certainly blocked one of 

Europe’s most important trade arteries and damaged the economies of several countries dependent 

upon it. 

 Modern air power can attack strengths or 

weaknesses beyond the reach, capacity and responsiveness of friendly surface and naval forces. In 

the previous era, “strategic bombing” was a blunt 

instrument. Now, in distinct operations, PGMs 

have transformed the bludgeon into a rapier which, 

on many occasions, may be wielded directly in support of policy with a fraction of the resources previously required. It may be brandished for deterrence 

or coercion. It may be inserted or withdrawn in cadence with diplomatic and other coordinated pressures. Distinct, direct air action can be taken at all 

levels, from response to state inspired terrorism, to 

specific strikes in large scale conflicts. Its targets 

may range from the centre of government to an isolated and otherwise inaccessible terrorist training 

base. 

 An air force which is known to have a long 

reach, with or without flight re-fueling, can directly 

influence policy by its very existence. An increase 

in alert states and augmentation of front line personnel are the modern equivalent of Mahan’s “fleet 

in being,” except that diplomacy may now be supported without the expense of surface deployment. 

Deterrence by air power is as relevant to peace inducement as it is to major nuclear or conventional 

confrontation, provided it is accompanied by a 

manifest determination to use it, if necessary. 

 Nor are distinct operations associated solely 

with combat. Perhaps the most influential uses of 

air power in the entire cold war period were the 

Berlin airlift, which determined the political shape 

of Europe, and strategic reconnaissance, which continuously informed western political and strategic 

decisions. In activities such as disaster relief, the 

monitoring of Treaties and the early identification 

of crises, contributions may now be less spectacular, but they are still powerful projectors of the national or cooperative interest. 

Command of the Air 

 Within an overall conceptual framework, 

the oldest and most enduring air power concept, 

“command of the air,” also requires reexamination 

in the light of recent experience. At Chicago in 

1893, Major Fullerton observed that “command of 

the air would be an essential prerequisite for all 

land and air warfare.”

41 In 1911, in the first article 

on air power in the of the Royal United Service Institute Journal, Captain CJ Burke of the British 

Army Air Battalion wrote: “As aeroplanes employed on (such) reconnaissance duties will encounter hostile aeroplanes with a similar mission to 

themselves, ... one must be prepared for a struggle 

between hostile aeroplanes, similar in its object to 

the struggle between the independent cavalries of 

two hostile armies.”42 In that same year however, 

the first battle damage sustained by aircraft came 

from Turkish troops firing on Italian aircraft over 

Tripoli. From the outset, command of the air 

would also be challenged from the ground. 

 Opinions about how to achieve “command 

of the air” would vary, but all would focus on combat between aircraft. Trenchard believed in the offensive, against enemy aircraft on the ground and 

over their own lines.43 Churchill also envisaged 

“real mastery of the air” in 1918 by exploiting an 

expected allied numerical superiority of aircraft.44

 In World War One the “Archies” (antiaircraft guns) exacted a heavy toll on allied aircraft, 

but it was the fighter pilots who passed into legend, 

which was reinforced in World War Two. 

“Command of the air” came to denote a degree of 

control which allowed one side to operate with little or no enemy interference in a theatre of war. 

While denying the opponent similar opportunities. 

The diminutives, “favourable air situation” and “air 

superiority” suggested limitations of time or space 

on “command.” In each case, however, the concept 

denoted a relationship between aircraft. Despite the 

lethality of German surface to air defences in north 

west Europe for example, command of the air continued to be measured by defeating the enemy air 

force, either in the air or on the ground. 

 In 1960, the shooting down of Gary 

Power’s U-2 near Sverdlovsk focused attention on 

the impact of the guided surface to air missile 

(SAM). Western responses were to switch to low 

level offensive operations and to accelerate the acquisition of defence suppression measures. In 

South East Asia, the strength of the North Vietnamese air defences stimulated the creation of the 

USAF’s Wild Weasel role. It was estimated that 

surface to air defences accounted for 85% of all 

USAF losses during the Vietnam War, including 

637 shot down over North Vietnam.45 In 1973, the 
Israeli Air Force was surprised and seriously 

wounded by the coordinated medium and low level 

air defences deployed by Egypt and Syria at the 

outset of the October War. 

 Heavy aircrew losses in the two World 

Wars were accepted by grieving populations as a 

sacrifice justified by the immensity of the cause. 

In the nuclear shadows of the Cold War, potential 

casualties were seldom mentioned, but their scale 

may be assumed. But as protection of interests replaced national survival, the sacrifice in war of human lives was re-evaluated in western democracies. 

When protection of interests was itself followed by 

more nebulous humanitarian motivation, sensitivity 

to casualties would begin to shape operational behaviour. 

 By the time of the Gulf War in 1990-91, the 

attitude of the USA to casualties was no longer that 

of World Wars One and Two. Memories of losses 

in Korea and later in Vietnam were to influence political and military considerations about casualties 

in a conflict which, initially at least, did not receive 

unqualified public support in the USA. 

 Among many relevant comments was General Horner’s on the 7th February 1991, when he 

“stressed that American support at home for the 

war depended in large measure on the ability to operate ‘with less than anticipated’ losses of human 

lives among Coalition airmen, soldiers, sailors and 

Marines.”

46 In Washington, Congressman Lee 

Hamilton, Democratic Chairman of the House of 

Representatives sub committee on European and 

Middle Eastern affairs, warned, “Saddam Hussein 

does not need to win the war; he doesn’t need to 

win the battles. All he needs to do is keep this war 

going and to create casualties. If he does that over 

a period of time, then you are going to see an erosion of support for the war. That is a worst case 

scenario.”

47

 In one sense, the lessons had been learned 

by the time of the Gulf War. The massive attacks 

on Iraq’s air defence network and destruction of 

those IQAF aircraft foolhardy enough to attempt 

opposition led General Schwarzkof to declare after 

three days that Coalition air superiority had been 

achieved. 

 This was not strictly accurate. Control of 

the air had been established only against Iraqi aircraft and only above the range of low level air defences. It was estimated that 16,000 SAM and 

7,000 anti aircraft guns were deployed throughout 

Iraq and occupied Kuwait.48 Destruction of the integrated air defence system degraded the effectiveness of medium and high level SAM, but the sheer 

volume of mobile and hand held SAM, plus AA 

guns, restrained low level Coalition attacks until 

the end of the war. Throughout Desert Storm, most 

Coalition sorties took place above 10,000 feet except for A-10 attacks on Iraqi forces deployed near 

to the Kuwait-Saudi Arabian border.49

 Nonetheless, fighter pilots’ preoccupation 

with other fighter pilots died hard. Eight years 

later, General Horner wrote, “AAA and SAMs 

were dangerous, but the most lethal threat to our 

attack was the enemy’s interceptor aircraft.” He 

then allocated four pages of careful analysis to explain how easily, in the event, that threat had been 

overcome.50

 The Coalition was however, so superior in 

aircraft numbers and quality, in weapons, in aircrew skills, in electronic warfare, in strategy, in tactics, in training and in leadership, and Iraqi ground 

forces so vulnerable, that conceding the lower air 

space to Iraqi air defences had little or no impact on 

the outcome of the Gulf War. The overall loss rate 

of Coalition aircraft was approximately one fixed 

wing aircraft in 1800 sorties. At most, only one 

aircraft was lost to Iraqi fighters, in a 33 to one exchange, but 32 out of 38 Coalition losses were attributed to Iraq’s surface to air defences. 

 Circumstances were different in the two 

Balkan conflicts, when national interests among 

Coalition members became mixed with humanitarian considerations. As the first Balkan crisis unfolded in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995, disagreements over the use of air power were aggravated by 

the priorities afforded to force protection by air and 

ground force commanders. In June 1995, a single 

F-16 was shot down by an SA-6 missile. The pilot 

was recovered safely but the USAF commander readjusted his combat patrol routes away from hostile 

SAM range. In this same conflict, a British Defence Secretary asserted that, “our primary responsibility as the United Kingdom is obviously the 

safety of our own forces (ground troops).”

51 Such 

well publicised Coalition sensitivity to casualties 

relayed encouraging messages to the Bosnian Serbs 

but still did not affect the final impact of air power. 

 In the Kosovo crisis of 1999, there were insufficient aircraft to launch parallel attacks on air 
defences and deployed forces powerful enough to 

induce shock or paralysis. Priority was, in the traditional manner, given to achieving control of the 

air, while attacks on deployed Serbian forces were 

made from medium level for reasons of force protection. Moreover, there is strong circumstantial 

evidence to suggest that Coalition concern about 

friendly casualties was even more acute than during 

the Bosnian crisis. NATO Commander General 

Wesley Clark was reported as issuing a “no loss of 

aircraft” restriction in November 1998.52 Lieutenant General Short subsequently denied receiving 

such an order, but acknowledged that “zero losses 

were a major goal.”

53

 Now, however, the operational circumstances were very different. In the Gulf war, Iraqi 

armour and other ground forces had been largely 

deployed in open terrain well away from civilian 

settlements. There had been no crescendo of persecution in Kuwait. In 1999, the world watched as 

Serbian repression accelerated in Kosovo, apparently impervious to NATO air power. Serbian 

forces were mobile and mingled with the population they were persecuting. General purpose unguided munitions could only be used when there 

was no risk of collateral damage or civilian casualties. The biggest single technological advantage 

possessed by NATO lay in its PGM, which also 

promised maximum target discrimination. But targets were frequently obscured by low cloud and 

bad weather. Even in clear skies, with considerable 

care, distinguishing between military and civilian 

vehicles in convoys from medium altitude proved 

difficult. 

 Yugoslavia was reported to have fifteen 

Mig-29s and forty-seven Mig-21s at the outbreak of 

the Kosovo crisis. Of these, fourteen and twentyfour respectively were destroyed. By contrast, the 

US Department of Defence subsequently reported 

that NATO aircrew observed almost 700 firings of 

various SAMs.54 Even then, it appears that the air 

defence operators, well aware of their vulnerability 

to counter-attack from anti radiation missiles, were 

reluctant to maintain illumination or guidance for 

any length of time. As a result, in the words of 

General Ryan, Serbia’s air defences remained 

“dangerous but ineffective.” Not surprisingly, one 

of the earliest “lessons” to be drawn by the USAF 

from the air campaign in Kosovo was the shortage 

of dedicated SEAD aircraft and electronic warfare 

systems.55 General Ryan observed, “To do any 

kind of military activity, whether that’s air or 

ground, we absolutely must have air superiority.”

56

 Handfuls of Migs and Sukhois, a few advanced western aircraft and weapons inherited by 

unfriendly governments, even a handful of obsolescent Galebs [fighter-bombers] could make life unpleasant for civilians or unprotected ground forces. 

Indeed, no expeditionary force, and especially one 

drawn only from European air forces, could afford 

to ignore any air to air threat. But the prospect of 

any opponent in the foreseeable future offering a 

serious challenge in the air to a western operation 

by a coalition led by the US using air power as its 

primary instrument is very remote. 

 On the other hand, the proliferation and 

evolution of SAM continue unabated. Systems 

such as the S-300 series, SA-14, SA-16, SA-18, 

Stingers, Rolands and other widely circulating 

western missiles supplement residual Cold War 

stocks. They are cheap and readily available for 

countries and factions who have the political will, 

but not the military capacity, to challenge the US 

and friends in the air. Their function is not to secure military victory, but to inhibit air-power effectiveness and to threaten unacceptable levels of 

casualties. So far in this decade, they have been 

more successful than they have been given credit 

for. 

 Superiority over hostile aircraft remains imperative, but the conflicts in this decade have demonstrated that defence suppression should be given 

as much priority in procurement, planning, and 

training as other more traditional offensive operations. Otherwise, while we may still be able to 

A British F-3 Tornado releases a missile during operations in Kosovo. 

(RAF photo: http://www.raf.mod,uk) 
power, we may not be able to exploit our own. 

Command of the air has, since the days of Captain 

Burke, been a means to an end, not an end in itself. 

Moreover, superiority is no longer required simply 

to operate, but now to operate with minimal or no 

casualties. That innovation, if sustained, has considerable implications for the effectiveness of air 

power. In the dynamic operational environment of 

Kosovo, because there were insufficient assets to 

achieve air superiority and to inhibit Serbian 

ground forces at the same time, the latter retained 

the initiative for several weeks. On this occasion, 

giving priority to gaining such a degree of air superiority weakened, rather than enhanced, air operations elsewhere. When, in addition, concern about 

aircrew casualties inhibited the use of PGMs below 

medium level, the total impact on air operations of 

modern surface to air defences could be clearly 

seen. 

 In sum, if air power is to fully exploit its 

versatility across the spectrum of 21st Century conflict, the fundamental concept of command of the 

air is now even more important. Political sensitivity to casualties suggests that it continues to be 

given the highest priority. If the prospect of single 

figure casualties should ever become a deterrent to 

the use of air power, the instrument of choice will 

be neutralised. Without air power, the opposition 

will be freed to determine the conditions of the battle-space. These are good grounds for reemphasising the fundamental concept of command 

of the air and, after almost a century, for elevating 

defence suppression to the same priority as the 

fighter aircraft. 

The Obsolescence of Strategic and Tactical Distinction 

 Finally, while command of the air is still an 

essential and meaningful concept, the equally venerable distinction between the expressions 

“strategic” and “tactical” to identify different kinds 

of operations is no longer quite so helpful. It may 

indeed be argued that the distinction has frequently 

inhibited the most effective application of air power 

and, in the new international environment, has lost 

its utility altogether. The distinction originated in 

World War One to distinguish between direct attacks on an enemy’s heartland and direct support of 

surface forces.57 After World War Two the concept 

was formally identified in the United States’

“Strategic Bombing Survey.”

 Subsequently, strategic air power became 

synonymous with long range nuclear attack on the 

USSR, the role allocated to Strategic Air Command. “Tactical” air power was used in “theatres”

such as Korea or Europe. Strategic air operations 

were defined in the USAF as attacks “designed to 

disrupt an enemy nation to the extent that its will 

and capability to resist are broken.” Such operations “are conducted directly against the nation itself rather than its deployed armed forces.”

58 In 

contrast, “theater” or “tactical” operations were 

conducted in a confined geographical area with the 

objective of destroying or neutralising the enemy’s 

military forces.59 The distinction persisted to absurdity with the advent of “tactical” nuclear weapons deployed by both sides in Europe. 

 In 1999, General Horner contributed a typically rumbustuous critique of the terms in his reflections on the Gulf War. “More recently,” he 

wrote, “‘strategic’ has come to mean nuclear strikes 

against the Soviet Union, or other powerful enemies, and ‘tactical’ all other forms of warfare ... I 

don’t understand tactical or strategic. The words 

have become meaningless and dysfunctional. In 

fact, in modern military speech, they are more often 

used to divide people and frustrate efforts than to 

illuminate and facilitate.”60 As General Horner’s 

comments imply, there are more reasons to reevaluate the concepts of strategic and tactical air 

power than mere pedantry or fashionable revisionism. 

 Strategic effect, in the sense of bringing 

pressure to bear on an opponent’s decision making 

process, remains a primary task of offensive air 

power. Now however, it can be achieved by 

“tactical” F-117s as well as by B-2s. Within the 

theatre battle space, any air attack which has a direct impact on that decision making process justifies the appellation “strategic.” It could be against 

the Iraqi Republican Guard, Bosnian Serb war 

stocks or oil refineries in Yugoslavia. In Kosovo it 

could have been to inflict unacceptable losses 

among Serbian ground forces or unacceptable damage to the infrastructure of the state. The accurate 

identification of the most productive and accessible 

pressure point to achieve “strategic” effect becomes 

an even more important precursor to operations. 

 When the confines of a theatre of operations 

are commensurate with the boundaries of the con-
flict as a whole, General Horner’s criticism is thoroughly well founded. The terms “strategic” and 

“tactical” have little further to contribute to the understanding of air power’s contemporary versatility. They may be confidently subsumed in the 

more helpful categorisation of roles which prepare 

an operational environment for surface force exploitation, or directly support surface forces or contribute distinctly to coercive diplomacy. 

Beyond The Millennium 

 Technology has transported air power from 

the industrial to the information age. For those 

states which may choose air power as their preferred military instrument, survival has been replaced as a primary security concern by the protection and projection of interests, tinged with hesitant 

humanitarian aspirations. A great deal of positive 

revision of air power doctrine has already taken 

place in the last decade to ensure that intellectual 

mastery of air power’s new environment is sustained. 

 There is however, a danger that the malign 

shadow of Douhet will be cast over the next millennium. There can be no single template for the successful application of air power. The versatility of 

air power application is as wide as the spectrum of 

conflict itself and the range of political objectives 

being pursued. There is now the need and opportunity to revisit some well-worn ideas and construct a 

conceptual paradigm appropriate to many different 

scenarios, in which air power can sustain coercive 

diplomacy and become a primary instrument reinforcing the ongoing political dialogue. Thereby, it 

may sometimes act distinctly and directly, with 

overwhelming strength or more gradually, against 

an opponent’s will to resist. On other occasions it 

may shape an environment for others to exploit. 

Elsewhere, it may protect and enhance other forces. 

These are contributions which can be made nationally or in coalitions, whatever the size and capacity 

of air forces. Provided air power is released from 

its strands of dogmatic inheritance, it can cross the 

millennium as a most versatile, effective, comprehensible and politically attractive military option. 

This article will be included in “Air Power21: Challenges for the 

New Century,” edited by Group Captain Peter Gray, RAF, to be 

published June 2000, by The Stationery Office, London. 

Notes 

1

 Royal Air Force Manual of Operations (London: Air Ministry, March 

1957), Chap 1, Para 5. 

2

 ibid., Para 7. 

3

 ibid. 

4 “The Air War in the Gulf,” Survival, Vol. 33, No. 3, May/June 1991, 225. 5

 NATO Briefing, Brussels, 25 March 1999. 

6

 Pentagon Briefing, Washington DC, 23 March 1999. 

7 Daily Telegraph [London], 2 April 1999. 8

 AFDD-2, “Organization and Employment of Aerospace Power,” USAF, 28 

September, 1998, 6-7. 

9 Daily Telegraph, 1 April, 1999. 10 Air Marshal Sir John Day, Deputy Chief of Defence Staff UK, Press Briefing, 3 April, 1999 as reported in the New York Times, 4 April 1999. 11 Washington Post, 22 October, 1999. 12 New York Times, 13 May 1999. 13 The Guardian, 1 April 1999. 14 Daily Telegraph, 13 April 1999. 15 Daily Telegraph, 9 April 1999. 16 The Guardian, 22 April 1999. 17 Air Force Magazine, August 1999, 62. 18 The Guardian, 28 May 1999. 19 Washington Post, 4 June 1999. 20 Air Force Magazine, August 1999, 23. 21 E.g., Daily Telegraph, 21 and 26 May 1999, The Guardian, 2 June 1999. 22 See “Kosovo or the Future of War” by Alan Stephens, [RAAF] Air Power 

Studies Centre, Paper 77, 2-8, for a selective list of notable critics. 

23 Colonel Harry Summers, USA, (Ret.), Washington Times, 12 May 1999. 24 General Colin Powell, USA, (Ret.), in press interview at Blackstock, Virginia, 3 April 1999. 

25 Major General Charles Link, USAF, (Ret.), National Journal, 8 May 1999. 26 An “Army General,” Washington Post, 22 June 1999. 27 John Keegan, Daily Telegraph, 4 June 1999. 28 ibid., 6 June 1999. 

29 Quoted in “The NATO Way of War,” John A Tirpak, Air Force Magazine, 

December 1999. 

30 UK MOD Media Contributors’ Briefing, 23 March 1999. 31 US Secretary of Defense William S Cohen, before US Senate Armed Services Committee, 15 April 1999. 

32 US Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, Department of Defense Briefing, Washington DC, 28 May 1999. 

33 General Sir Charles Guthrie, UK Chief of the Defence Staff, The Guardian, 

15 June 1999. 

34 Colonel John Warden, USAF, (Ret.), Washington Post, 16 May 1999. 35 Colonel Philip Meilinger, USAF, ibid. 

36 C. von Clausewitz, On War, Book Eight, Chapter Six B., ed. Howard and 

Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 608. 

37 “Washington Watch,” Air Force Association, 10 June 1999, 1. 38 General Klaus Naumann, NATO Briefing, 4 May 1999, Daily Telegraph, 5 

May 1999. 

39 Clausewitz, op.cit., 605 

40 Appendix II to Cabinet Minutes (WC 233) 24 August 1917. See the present writer’s Air Power, A Centennial Appraisal (London: Brassey’s 1994), 

20-27, for a more detailed appraisal of the Smuts Report. 

41 Cited in A F Hurley, in the Appendix “Additional Insights” to Billy 

Mitchell, Crusader for Air Power (Bloomington IN: Indiana University 

Press, 1975), 142. 

42 “Aeroplanes of Today and Their Use in War,” by Captain CJ Burke, Royal 

United Service Institute Journal, May 1911, 626. 43 E.g., RFC HQ memo, 22 September 1916, cited by present author in Readings in Air Power (Bracknell, 1980). 171. 44 W.S. Churchill, “Munitions Possibilities of 1918,” Memorandum 21 October 1917, cited in Emme. The Impact of Air Power (Van Nostrand, 1959), 

40. 

45 “Directorate of Management Analysis, USAF Management Summary: 

Southeast Asia Review,” 30 June 1973, quoted in Keaney and Cohen, Revolution in Warfare? (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press,1995) 52. 46 Quoted by Keaney and Cohen from the Checkmate Historian’s File, “Chain 

of Command,” op.cit. 53. 47 Cited in Philip M Taylor, War and the Media, Propaganda and Persuasion 

in the Gulf War (Manchester, 1992), 26. 48 Richard P Hallion, Storm over Iraq (Smithsonian, 1992), 147. 49 Clancy/Horner, Every Man a Tiger (Putnam, 1991), 479-482. 
51 UK Secretary of State for Defence, Malcolm Riffkind, Press Conference 

Transcript, London, 14 January 1993. 

52 Washington Post, 30 May 1999. 53 “Washington Watch” op cit. 5. 54 Air Force Magazine, August 1999, 61. 55 Interview in Air Force Magazine, ibid., 23. 56 ibid., 25. 

57 E.g., John Terraine, The Right of The Line (Sceptre, 1988), 9. 58 USAF Manual 1-8, “Strategic Air Operations,” 1 May 1954, 2, 6, cited in 

Clodfelter, The Limits of War (Free Press/MacMillan, 1989), 28, 29. 59 USAF Manual 1-7, March 1954, cited Clodfelter, ibid. 30. 

60 Clancy/Horner op cit. 15. 

Biography 

Air Vice-Marshal Professor Tony Mason, CB, CBE, 

MA, DSc, is Director of the Centre for Studies in 

Security and Diplomacy at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom. He retired from the 

Royal Air Force in 1989 where his last duty was as 

Air Secretary. He served an exchange tour at the 

US Air Force Academy on the faculty and as a Cadet Squadron Air Officer Commanding. Professor 

Mason has spoken worldwide to universities and 

military colleges on air power in warfare and international security. He has written 12 books, the 

most recent being The Aerospace Revolution: Revised Roles and Technology (London: Brassey’s/

Batsford, 1998). 

A formation of British Short Stirlings. (RAF photo: http://www.raf.mod.uk) 
 Today, I’d like to share with you the commander of ACC’s perspective on the status of our 

Air Force today and, particularly, the status of Air 

Combat Command. This really has been a tough 

decade for the United States Air Force and for 

ACC, and it remains so today. 

 We read a lot in the press about some of the 

difficulties we face. We read about adverse retention trends, the mission capability rates of our 

equipment, the personnel tempo that our people are 

carrying for the country as they go engage in operations all over the world. Any of us who have spent 

time in the air can’t help but cringe a little bit. 

Every morning we pick up the paper and read about 

the latest missile shoot-out in the Middle East, 

where we kind of have this Mexican standoff going 

on, with missiles firing back and forth at each other 

everyday. You wonder when is this going to stop 

working out so well. 

 About a year ago at this same symposium, I 

tried to describe the pain that some of our people in 

uniform are feeling, and what I think might be 

fairly described as the benign neglect of our military. What I was doing for our force was kind of a 

crude attempt to connect some of the dots among 

high OPTEMPO, declining spares inventory, and 

aging airplanes. As the Chief pointed out, we’re 

now at 20 years for the average age in our airplane 

fleets. And you’ve all heard a lot in the past year or 

so about eroding pay and benefits for our people 

and the emerging pay gap. And of course, all of 

that led to a pretty rapid decline in the rate at which 

we were retaining these wonderful young men and 

women who serve us so well in so many places, in 

so many odd environments all over the world. It 

really wasn’t a very pretty story. And given the nation’s preoccupation with achieving a balance in 

the federal budget, there wasn't much reason for optimism. 

 But you know, a lot has happened in the 

past 12 months. Keep in mind where we were a 

year ago. The federal budget has gone from where 

the people who account for such things were predicting a tentative balanced budget, I think, in 

2002. In fact, we achieved balance in 1998, and 

people are now predicting multi-billion dollar surpluses for about as far as the eye can see. That benign neglect that was causing me such concern over 

the past couple of years has been transformed into 

what I think is an emerging bipartisan support for 

better custody of these wonderful institutions that 

have served, and are serving, our nation so well. 

Hopefully, bipartisan support will make for substantial increases in the resources that we make 

available for our national security accounts, to include some of those space issues that General 

Myers just talked about. 

 A year ago, our deployments to the Gulf —

remember, that was February of last year — had 

risen to where Air Combat Command had 7000 

men and women deployed to the Gulf. Well, by 

late springtime, those deployments had fallen to 

about 4000 people — actually, below 4000 — for 

the first time in many years. Because at the end of 

that engagement that began in the fall of 1997 and 

extended through the spring of 1998, we actually 

drew the force down to below where it had been 

over the previous couple of years. And despite two 

build-ups since then, which culminated in the recent strike called Desert Fox, we still have fewer 

than 5000 ACC people deployed in the Middle 

East. Now, many more than that deployed, did 

their job, and then came back home. We’re beginning to learn some things about how to employ this 

great national resource called air power. 

 In the past year, we’ve also made substantial progress in sharpening some of the tools that 

our great men and women need to do their jobs. 

Air Expeditionary Force — Ready, Aim, Fire 

General Richard E. Hawley, USAF 
The first seven Block-D B-1s are on the ramp at 

Ellsworth. Now, you probably say, “Well, what’s a 

Block-D B-1?” All right, well, a Block-D B-1 

comes with integrated GPS, a towed decoy, the 

ability to spot moving targets from that fantastic radar that has always been one of the finest offensive 

radars ever put in an airplane, and the ability to deliver the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM). 

 A month or so ago, I went out to Ellsworth 

and flew the first operational JDAM drop. I take 

great credit for delivering that weapon on target. I 

want to tell you, I know many of you in this room 

have dropped a lot of bombs. This is a different experience; it’s almost ethereal. You climb up to 

26,000 feet, you fly the airplane to the black line, 

you put it on autopilot, and then somebody in the 

back does something, and you feel a “clunk,” as a 

2,000-pound bomb comes out of the bomb bay. 

Sixty seconds time of fall later, it shacks the target 

on the ground — an amazing experience. So, we 

need to keep it on track. It is delivering a capability that will give our bomber force ten times the lethality of the bomber force that migrated from SAC 

to ACC in 1992 — ten times. 

 We’ve transitioned to an all-Block-30 B-2 

fleet at Whiteman. We don’t have any Block-20s 

left. Every plane on the ramp at Whiteman is a 

full-up Block-30. And by the way, a year ago we 

were taking a lot of criticism about the deployability of the B-2. Well, since then it’s been on two deployments. In the springtime we sent it to Guam, 

mostly because I was sick of hearing about that 

criticism, so I called up the wing commander at 

Whiteman and said, “Go deploy that thing and 

prove to people that you can operate in a deployed 

status.” Well, they did that, and it did great. They 

went out there and they dropped a full load of Mk82s and shacked the targets. And this past summer, 

we sent some B-52s and some B-2s to Guam, and 

they spent 30 days there. They delivered JDAMs, 

they explored the territory all over the theater, they 

showed these tremendous global reach capabilities 

to many of our allies all over the region, and they 

gained some great experience in operating the B-2 

from a deployed status. 

 Then, of course, there’s our munitions modernization programs. As I recall, last year I showed 

you a film. I know most of you have seen the film 

of that amazing set of B-2 sorties, where we sent 

three B-2s over the Nellis ranges and dropped 16 

JDAMs, scoring 16 hits on 16 targets dispersed 

over several kilometers of desert out there. Well, 

those are progressing nicely. 

 This year, our inventory of sensor-fuzed 

munitions — my favorite tank-killer — has passed 

the 1000 mark. We took delivery of our first production JDAMs, and this year we’ll continue to 

build that inventory. By the end of the year we’ll 

have more than 1000 JDAMs in the inventory. So 

this is no longer pie-in-the-sky stuff; this is no 

longer programs and plans; this is no longer line 

items in the budget; this is real capability: all 

weather, day/night, near-precision attack capability 

anyplace in the world, anytime, against anybody 

who deserves to get “schwacked.”

 This year we took delivery of our fifteenth 

Block-30/35 AWACS at Tinker. You say “What is 

that?” Well, it’s a tremendous enhancement to that 

great, overworked workhorse of the surveillance 

world, because it gives it a lot of capability. It 

gives it the new Link 16 radio that improves the latency eight-fold. Latency of the AWACS picture 

will be reduced from 40 seconds to 5 seconds. 

What a quantum leap forward in capability! Integrated GPS will improve the accuracy of the targets 

that it feeds to the common operational picture, by 

a factor of 200, and it gains its own electronic systems suite, so that it can be a better informed platform. In EFX 98, which General Myers mentioned, 

we demonstrated the feed of all of our intelligence 

into the AWACS so that we could integrate all the 

“int” capabilities — space based, air based, and 

land based — into that picture. 

 Predator has continued its evolution. This 

month we take delivery of the sixth system. The 

B-2 Bomber conducting munitions testing. (US Air Force Photo) 
sixth system is a fully developed weapons system, 

complete with identification-friend-or-foe capability, much better capability to move data [through 

data links]. It will have an air traffic control voice 

link so it can begin to operate in that FAA environment, which has been such a challenge for us. It 

will have Mode 4, a better engine, and improved or, 

for the first time, a reasonable anti-ice/de-ice capability. 

 And by the way, it just became operational 

in its second theater. It’s been deployed almost 

non-stop for several years now, as you know, in 

Bosnia. Well, now it’s taking up operations in 

Southwest Asia in support of General Tony Zinni. 

So the Predator is getting out and about, and we 

will rapidly build to our full complement of systems over the next couple of years so that we can 

sustain three systems forward deployed at all times. 

And those folks are doing a great job. 

There are some things in development that 

have come along a lot in the past year: Global 

Hawk, for example. It has now completed 11 

flights. It has flown at 61,000-plus feet at 350 

knots, and it has demonstrated its move toward full 

endurance capabilities with a 9 [and] 1/2-hour sortie. 

 Great promise, but promise beyond reconnaissance and surveillance. Our battlelab down at 

Eglin, the UAV battlelab, is exploring many other 

missions with this and other unmanned platforms. 

Early on I think there will be a radio relay capability. It will begin to give us the capability to take a 

crew out of the back end of systems like the 

ABCCC [Airborne Command, Control, and Communications] and just move digits back and forth 

and move that communications flow from a radio 

relay on a high altitude platform. Suppression of 

enemy defenses — we’ve already demonstrated 

this capability on other UAVs with the precise geolocation of threats on the ground, and it won’t be 

long after that before we can locate them and attack 

them. 

 The Airborne Laser. A great system, and 

what potential! This is the future! Now, unfortunately, it suffered a $25 million cut as the Congress 

finished work on the ‘99 budget, but we’ve rephased the program; we’ve incorporated some 

added risk-reduction elements. It will slide about a 

year to the right and, of course, like all things that 

slide to the right, it will add to the cost. But it’s 

been a tremendous achievement this year because 

they’ve demonstrated 110 percent of the spec 

power output from the flight-weighted laser module 

that will form the firing element in that weapons 

system. And that’s just the start. So we are going 

to deliver this capability. We’ll take delivery of the 

747 platform that we’re going to integrate six of 

these laser modules on, later this year, and that’s 

the real test for the airborne laser programintegration of all this capability on a flying platform. The technologies are all in hand. 

 Our Aerospace Command and Control 

Agency made great strides this year, and on the 

first of January they morphed into an alphabet soup 

agency called the Command and Control Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Center. 

We now have an organization that is responsible 

for closing the loop from sensor to decision-maker 

to shooter, and it’s doing great work for our Air 

Force. It is integrating all those disparate command 

and control programs that we had across the Air 

Force into a program that makes sense and that we 

can afford. And now, we are tying in the surveillance and reconnaissance piece so that we close the 

loop. Great success! 

 They were responsible for pulling off EFX 

98, which was a great experiment in many areas, 

not just in how to do reach-back, as has already 

been mentioned. The deployment of what we’re 

calling collaborative tools to allow many dispersed 

nodes of the command and control system to integrate one to the other so that the members who are 

in those places don’t care where anybody else sits. 

Great advances — great advances in the ability to 

put sensor-to-shooter capabilities on our B-1 and 

other platforms so we can launch some of these 

Global Reach platforms without even giving them a 

target. We’ll assign them their target en route and 

send them their mission folder and all their target 

data so that we can accelerate the decision cycle, 

which is usually the slowest part of any command 

and control structure. 

 In our struggle to better manage the high 

OPTEMPO that is putting so much strain on our 

people and their families, we have had some successes. Two years ago, when we sent people to 

support operations in places like Prince Sultan Air 

Base in Saudi Arabia and Al Jabber in Kuwait, frequently they would be tagged to go off all by themselves. They’d put their duffel bag over their 
shoulder and go catch a hop to the Middle East and 

generally spend three or four days in Europe on the 

way, sometimes longer. They’d show up and they 

didn’t know anybody and nobody knew them and 

they didn’t know their boss. And it wasn't much 

fun. Frequently they did that with as little as seven 

or eight days notice. 

 We have changed the whole process. We 

have re-engineered the way that we do that kind of 

work. Now, 80 percent of the men and women in 

Air Combat Command who are given these assignments have 120 days notice so they can plan both 

their personal and their professional lives around 

that deployment. They also go as part of teams. 

Almost nobody goes as a single anymore. If the 

security force is called, it’s a 13-person team. Even 

if they’re a public affairs person, we try to get them 

married up so there’s at least two of them who go 

from the same unit, so they’ve got some mutual 

support. Great progress! 

 And then, of course, there’s the Aerospace 

Expeditionary Force concept, which we are in the 

process of fielding. General Cook talked about it. 

I think he gave you all that you’d ever want to 

know about AEF. So let me put a little different 

spin on it from my perspective at ACC. 

One of the real benefit of AEF will be for 

the warfighter. The warfighter will know that he is 

getting forces that have been tailored for his mission and specifically trained and prepared to do his 

work, rather than just stacked up in the middle of 

the country and stuck over there without any focused, tailored preparation. 

 And our people, will get predictability in 

their lives that they haven’t enjoyed in many years. 

Because they will now know well in advance — a 

year or a year and a half in advance — that they’re 

going to be deploying next June, July, or August, 

and they’ll know where and in what theater it is 

that they’re vulnerable to deploy. 

 We’ll get greater participation from the Total Force, because we’ll be able to give our Air National Guardsmen and our Air Force Reservists 

adequate notice so that they can plan to participate 

in these operations to an even greater extent than 

they have been in the past. And we’ve had great 

Total Force participation in these operations already, but that’s going to get even better. And that 

will relieve some of the stress on the active force 

that is causing us such grief. 

 We’ve even had some notable successes in 

the facilities area, which is, by any measure, the 

most neglected part of the DoD budget and of the 

Air Force budget. But even there, we’ve had some 

successes. When Howard Air Force Base closes in 

December of this year, ACC will no longer have a 

single gang latrine-equipped dormitory. 

 Then, of course, there is what I consider to 

be our most important modernization program: the 

F-22. Now you know you can’t invite me to the 

platform without hearing something about F-22s, so 

just gird your loins and be prepared for it! 

 You know, those who have to win control 

of the skies may have one of the most daunting 

tasks of any warfighter. Think about it. No terrain 

to hide behind — you can’t mask your movements. 

There aren’t any fields or forests to provide cover 

and concealment. When they enter battle, they are 

visible to everybody who has eyes of any kind to 

see them. So the only thing that assures their success is the technical virtue of their aircraft and their 

own confidence in their skills. 

 And today I might use the analogy of two 

very equally equipped foes facing each other in 

hand-to-hand combat, and the only thing that will 

assure our warrior victory today is the training superiority. 

 Because today we are matched equally in 

this environment. Some would say that we are 

sending our warriors into combat at a potential disadvantage against some of the systems that have 

already been fielded in other air forces around the 

globe. It’s not a very forgiving environment, and it 

grows more dangerous every year. 

 We have surface-to-air missile systems, 

with a 100-mile reach, that are proliferating. 

We’ve all read about the SA-10 that might show up 

in Cyprus, of all places, any day. And failure in the 

endeavor to control the third dimension will come 

at an enormously high cost for our nation. Our expeditionary forces that we’re working so hard on, 

both in concept and in reality, could be subjected to 

the awesome destructive power of modern aerospace forces before they even get to the ports and 

airfields from which they have to disperse when 

they get to the theater. They could be decimated as 

they get themselves organized to leave those air 

bases and seaports. And for the first time since the 

Korean War, Americans in battle could have to 

fight against an attacking enemy air force. 
 Our ability to dominate the air battle has enabled every military success from Normandy to 

General Schwarzkopf’s famous left hook in Desert 

Storm. But it gets tougher to do with every passing 

year, because technology is proliferating across the 

globe at a tremendous rate. Every day we see the 

fielding of systems with important capabilities that 

exceed our grasp today: missiles with tremendous 

reach, incredibly accurate radars, electronic countermeasures that are able to blind the eyes of our 

fighters — the radar eyes upon which they depend 

for their situational awareness and to employ their 

weapons. 

 So what we need is what we decided to procure back in the ‘80s, when we invented the F-22 

program. We sat down and thought through what 

we thought we were going to find in the next century in the way of threats. And we decided we 

needed an airplane that was very stealthy, that was 

able to sustain high-mach cruise for a sustained period of time. It needed the ability to give its aviators unmatched situational awareness and the kind 

of maneuverability that you have to have to survive 

in a close fight. 

 Now, that’s a tall order, but — fortunately — the F-22 Raptor will soon be in the hands 

of our air warriors whom we will ask to do battle 

for dominance of the skies over future battlefields. 

It will give them the stealth, speed, agility, lethality, and dominant situational awareness that will 

make them victorious over any foe in any place and 

at any time through the first three decades of the 

21st century. And the program is delivering. 

 What a year it has been for this Air Force! 

Now, this time last year, I was very proud to tell 

you that we had logged two flights and three hours. 

And of course there were some people who thought 

“You ought to do more!” Well, we did more. The 

airplane now has more than 200 hours on it. It’s 

been flown to six G’s and 26-degrees angle of attack, at 50,000 feet, airspeeds up to Mach 1.4, and 

it has refueled literally dozens of times. It is living 

up to its promise, both in performance and in the 

key areas of maintainability and reliability. 

 Because remember, when we hear about all 

those issues of supportability, that it’s not the affordability of a system when you buy it that counts; 

it’s the affordability of a system when you have operated it through its lifetime that’s most important. 

And the F-22 will give us an airplane that we can 

deploy with half the airlift of a comparable F-15 

squadron today, one that we will sustain with onethird fewer people. And when you can save airlift, 

that means combat power for the CINCs. And 

when you can save people, that’s money, because 

50 percent of the DoD budget goes to pay for our 

people. And by the way, that’s too little. They 

need more. 

 I guess the bottom line of all that is, unlike 

last year, when I was a purveyor of gloom and 

doom, that I am really optimistic. Now, that doesn’t mean that all our problems have gone away. 

I’m optimistic because I see things coming into 

place that can make our problems go away. So I 

think we’re going to be on the uptake very soon. 

That doesn’t mean that mission capable rates for 

ACC’s fighter fleets, which last year were in a precipitous decline, have turned around — but they did 

level off. Our mission capable rates to date in 1999 

are identical to our average mission capable rates in 

1998. So that’s a start, and I hope soon to see them 

on the uptake. 

 I wish I had good news on retention, because retention rates are even worse today than they 

were a year ago, in all areas. The pilot shortfall, 

which I think last year we predicted would bottom 

out at about 1,800 short of our requirements, is now 

predicted to bottom out about 2,000 short of our requirements. So we’ve got some work cut out for 

us. 

 But the just-released presidential budget is a 

huge step in the right direction, especially the proposals to restore the value of military retirement as 

a career incentive and to arrest the erosion of military pay scales that have failed to keep pace with 

those in the rest of the economy for too many years. 

And last week, the Senate moved to enhance the 

President’s proposal in both of these areas, both in 

the value of retirement benefits and in the increased 

rate of compensation in general. This attention to 

the needs of our people is long overdue. It’s the 

right thing to do, especially when we are asking so 

much of military people and their families in this 

very turbulent world that General Ryan described. 

And it sends the message that our force has been 

yearning to hear for many years: it tells them that 

they’re important. 

 I spend a lot of time with our airmen, and 

most of that I spend listening. And what they have 

been telling me is pretty clear. They have been 
wondering whether the American people still value 

their service. Their service has not been an element 

of the national debate for a long time, so they wonder — as they see their compensation and benefits 

steadily eroding, as they struggle so hard to maintain the mission-capability rates of the equipment 

for which they are responsible, as they get asked to 

deploy countless times to far-off places under difficult conditions — they wonder whether the nation 

still cares about them. 

So these recent moves in Washington to enhance the pay compensation and benefits of our 

people, to restore some fairness to the compensation system, send exactly the right message. 

And it’s not the money that’s important to 

them. It’s the fact that we’re telling them for the 

first time in a long time that the nation really cares 

about their service — that the nation values their 

service — that the nation considers that what they 

do is important. 

The President has also committed to increased funding of spare parts for our aging equipment, and to buy new equipment to replace that 

which is simply too tired to continue. But more is 

needed, and some of the sources for the increases 

already proposed may never be realized. We are 

counting on continued low inflation to cover many 

of these needs. But inflation in the supermarket 

may not match that for military hardware. So we 

need to examine the assumptions very carefully, 

and should they prove false, we must be prepared 

to provide more direct sources of funding for these 

critical needs. I think we’re on the right track. 

Thank you for your continued support of 

our armed forces and for this great Air Force Association. And again, thanks for this opportunity to 

spend some time with such a wonderful group of 

people, talking about the Air Force and Air Combat 

Command. I hope my perspective has been of 

some use to you today. 

General Hawley delivered this speech at the Air Force Association’s 

Air Warfare Symposium, 4 February 1999, in Orlando, Florida. It is 

reprinted here with the kind permission of the Air Force Association’s Director of Policy and Communication, Mr. Steve Aubin.

Biography 

General Richard E. Hawley , USAF, (Ret.), served 

his country as an Air Force officer for 35 years. 

He was a 1964 graduate of the US Air Force Academy, and retired as the Commander of Air Combat 

Command in 1999. He was a command pilot with 

over 2,500 hours in 6 different aircraft, and flew 

435 combat missions as a forward air controller in 

South Vietnam. 

Painting by Ted Frazier, USAFA ‘98. Courtesy of the USAF Academy Department of English and Fine Arts. 
 On the night of January 17, 1991, more than 

100 Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched at 

pre-programmed targets by nine US Navy 

warships in the Mediterranean Sea, Persian Gulf, 

and Red Sea, marking the beginning of Operation 

Desert Storm. That same night, 228 combat sorties 

were launched from the decks of six aircraft 

carriers in the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the 

North Arabian Sea. The total American naval 

forces assembled in the region as part of the US-led 

coalition included six carrier battle groups, two battleships, and a 31-ship amphibious task force —

more than 100 ships in all — carrying nearly 

75,000 sailors. In addition, some 67,000 Marines 

comprised the Marine Expeditionary Force ashore, 

while another 18,000 Marines were embarked in 

the ships of the amphibious task force — bringing 

the total US naval contingent to 160,000 personnel. 

 During the next five weeks, the world was 

riveted by the astonishing success of coalition 

forces as they overwhelmed the world’s fourth 

largest military power and drove Saddam Hussein’s 

occupying army from Kuwait — thereby achieving 

one of history’s most visible and rapid victories. 

 In the United States, the images of the Gulf 

War, which included strike aircraft rocketing from 

the decks of carriers and Tomahawk missiles arching skyward from battleships, became fixed in the 

minds of many Americans and are now part of the 

national subconscience. The sound-bite and videoclip depictions provided by the news media of subsequent military operations, including the recent air 

campaign in Kosovo, are often so similar to the remembered images of Desert Storm that the public 

might naturally assume that little has changed in 

the past ten years in terms of the US-warfighting 

capability. For the US Navy and naval aviation, 

however, nothing could be further from the truth. 

A Factor of Ten 

 During the last decade, naval aviation has 

been engaged in a revolution — a revolution in 

strike warfare — which will culminate early in the 

new century with the introduction of the F/A-18E/F 

Super Hornet strike fighter into carrier air wings 

and with the stocking of carriers’ magazines with 

through-the-weather precision ordnance. Once this 

revolution is completed, the strike capability of an 

aircraft carrier and embarked air wing will be more 

than 10 times greater than that of their late-1980s 

predecessors — making a single aircraft carrier battle group (CVBG) nearly twice as powerful as the 

six that combined to enable victory during Desert 

Storm. 

 It is important to recognize that US naval 

aviation’s future does not derive solely from a single platform or weapon system. Although the Super Hornet and the critical warfighting systems that 

come with it are at the heart of the revolution in 

strike warfare, the vision for naval aviation goes 

beyond the strike fighters to include balancing and 

shaping our air wings, helicopter force, maritime 

aircraft and, of course, the aircraft carriers themselves. 

 In order for naval expeditionary forces to be 

decisive, naval commanders must have access to 

the battlespace and be able to build and sustain battlespace awareness and knowledge with a high degree of fidelity. Naval aviation is well suited for 

this: its platforms, systems, and sensors that support command and control, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, antisubmarine warfare, antisurface warfare, precision strike targeting, and electronic attack all are critical to making that vision a 

reality. 

 As has been the case for many years, most 

of today’s naval expeditionary forces work up and 

deploy as part of CVBGs or amphibious ready 

groups (ARGs). A typical CVBG is equipped with 

A Revolution in Strike Warfare 

Rear Admiral John B. Nathman, USN 
a total of 74 aircraft, 50 of which are strikers. Battle-group power-projection capability is augmented 

by Aegis guided-missile cruisers and destroyers 

that provide naval surface fire support, which includes the Tomahawk land-attack missile (TLAM). 

The nuclear-powered attack submarines that deploy 

as part of the CVBG are TLAM-capable as well, 

and add to the battle group’s ability to project 

power ashore — as demonstrated so effectively 

during NATO’s Operation Allied Force. 

 The striking power of an ARG is centered 

on the Marine Expeditionary Unit (Special 

Operations Capable), or 

MEU(SOC), embarked 

in the ARG’s amphibious assault ships. It includes 2,100 Marines 

plus heavy armor, artillery, and command and 

combat support elements. The ARG’s Air 

Combat Element (ACE) 

includes both fixed- and 

rotary-wing strike aircraft, including AV-8B 

Harriers, which are capable of vertical takeoff 

and landing, and AH1W Super Cobra attack 

helicopters. Other naval 

expeditionary forces 

that operate in support of CVBGs and ARGs, but 

which often deploy independently, include not only 

individually deployed warships and submarines, 

but also SEALs, special operations and coastal patrol craft, and forward-deployed land-based patrol 

and reconnaissance aircraft, such as the P-3C Orion 

and EP-3E Aries II. 

 World events since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War have demonstrated an increasing need for naval expeditionary forces and naval aviation. Despite the postCold War drawdown and widely anticipated “peace 

dividend,” the reality is that the Navy and Marine 

Corps are being called upon to respond with greater 

frequency — and at an accelerating pace. For example, during all the years of the Cold War, the 

Navy/Marine Corps team responded to 190 different crises, an average of one such operation every 

11 weeks. From 1990 through 1997, the team reacted 80 times to global hotspots — once every 

four weeks — nearly a threefold increase. In 1998, 

naval forces responded to a different crisis every 3 

weeks on average — a fourfold increase over Cold 

War crisis-response levels. The adage that the first 

question asked by the president during any crisis is 

most often “where is the closest carrier” has been 

borne out time after time as naval forces have responded around the world to crises from Iraq to 

Haiti, from Taiwan to the Balkans. For those who 

have participated in 

these operations and understand just how effective naval air power can 

be, the secretary of 

state’s observation that 

“the only thing that can 

replace a Carrier Battle 

Group is another Carrier Battle Group” rings 

absolutely true. 

Precise, Lethal, Coherent 

 As the centerpiece of naval expeditionary forces, naval 

aviation possesses several characteristics that 

make it uniquely suited 

for the full spectrum of 

military operations from humanitarian relief to sustained power projection. One important characteristic is the speed of response that comes with forward presence, aircraft carrier mobility, and the 

range and reach of its tactical aircraft, sensors, and 

weapons. Another is the independence and freedom of action that come from being a selfcontained total force and the ability to operate from 

international waters, free from issues of sovereignty, basing rights, and force-protection considerations that often diminish access by land-based 

forces. Most significantly, naval aviation brings 

the ability to conduct sustained power projection 

that is precise, lethal, and coherent. 

 The dramatic increase in power projection 

from the revolution in strike warfare is best illustrated by a direct comparison of striking power 

among carrier air wings from the 1980s, 1990s, and 

Carrier Air Wing Nine performs an airpower demonstration over the USS John C. 

Stennis (CVN 74) Battle Group ships, and South Korean naval vessels. (US Navy 

photo by Photographer’s Mate 3rd Class Brian A. Dunn: http://www.chinfo.navy.

mil) 
into the first decade of the 21st century. In the late 

1980s, a typical air wing included two squadrons of 

F-14A Tomcat fighters, one squadron of A-6E Intruder medium-attack aircraft, two squadrons of A7E Corsair II light-attack aircraft, one S-3A Viking 

sea-control squadron, one EA-6B Prowler electronic attack squadron, and one E-2C Hawkeye 

squadron providing airborne early warning, command, and control. In terms of striking a “punch,”

the mainstays of this air wing were the 24 Corsairs 

and 12 Intruders. 

 By the late 1990s, the A-6s and A-7s that 

fought in Desert Storm had been completely replaced by squadrons of F/A-18 Hornet strike fighters — a multimission aircraft that brings the air 

wing high-reliability, less intensive maintenance 

requirements, and the potential of greatly increased 

sortie rates. Concurrently, F-14 Tomcat has 

evolved from being an exclusively air-superiority 

fighter to the “Bombcat,” a LANTIRN-(Low Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night)-

equipped strike fighter having excellent day-andnight precision strike capability. Additionally, the 

EA-6B Prowlers are now High-speed AntiRadiation Missile (HARM) “shooters,” so they, 

too, have the ability to strike and destroy targets. 

Effects-Based Targeting 

 In less than a decade, the number of strikers 

in a typical carrier air wing has grown from 36 to 

50, while simultaneously moving from a “dumb 

bomb” to an all-precision force capable of much 

higher sortie-generation rates. Not only did this 

significantly increase the lethality of the air wing’s 

aircraft but — by every metric used to measure the 

strike capability of an air wing — a revolution in 

strike capability was in the making. Rather than 

calculating the number of targets put at risk per day 

by a particular air wing based on any given set of 

conditions, the introduction of precise weaponry —

which allows the surgical destruction of specific 

aim points within a target — meant that air wing 

effectiveness could be measured in terms of aim 

points at risk instead of targets struck. 

 In practical terms, rather than estimating 

how many sorties it would take to destroy a target 

(e.g., a refinery to be taken out by many aircraft 

dropping dozens of weapons), strike planners could 

employ nodal analysis to leverage the accuracy of 

precision weapons to achieve the desired effect 

(interruption of refinery production for a specified 

length of time) with far fewer weapons and aircraft 

sorties. As a result, the naval expeditionary forces 

that provided the preponderance of force for Operation Desert Fox in Iraq in December of 1998, and 

more recently contributed to the allied victory in 

Kosovo, enjoyed nearly a 3-to-1 advantage in effective striking power over that generated during Desert Storm. 

 The revolution in strike warfare will culminate as new weapon systems currently in development and production enter the fleet over the next 

several years. New families of precise through-theweather weapons, many with standoff capability, 

will further increase naval aviation’s lethality, effectiveness, and survivability. Two of these — the 

Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) and the Joint Direct-Attack Munition (JDAM) — have been combat-tested and proven in Iraq and the Balkans with 

stunning success. Both combine inertial/GPS 

(global positioning system) guidance to provide tremendous accuracy with an ability to attack despite 

bad weather conditions that obscure the pilot’s 

view of the target. These weapons also allow air 

crews to attack and destroy targets with precision 

from higher altitudes and at greater ranges than 

possible before. Other weapons, such as the enhanced response Standard Land Attack Missile 

(SLAM-ER), will provide even greater lethality by 

allowing strike aircraft to stand off outside the enemy’s area defenses. 

Decade of the Super Hornet 

 The final and most significant component of 

the revolution in strike warfare will be the introduction of the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, which is currently undergoing operational evaluation. As this 

aircraft replaces the F-14 Tomcat and current versions of the F/A-18 Hornet, it will bring significant 

increases in range, payload, survivability, weapons 

carriage capacity, and growth potential to carrier air 

wings. When its capabilities are combined with the 

new generation of sophisticated weaponry, the typical carrier air wing operating in 2001 will be able 

to strike 10 times the number of target aim points 

over any given period of time than was possible in 

Desert Storm. This, then, is the revolution in strike 

warfare for naval aviation — an order-of-magnitude increase in capability, achieved in less than a 

generation. 
A Seamless Battlespace 

 The challenge naval aviation now faces is 

how to maximize the combat performance of highly 

capable individual platforms by integrating them 

into a seamless battlespace-centered network. Continuing advances in information technology promise to give a revolutionary increase in combat effects by shifting the focus from specific platforms 

to a netted striking force. Netting geographically 

dispersed sensors and shooters into a coherent 

fighting force that can — almost instantaneously —

observe, orient, decide, and then act in response to 

enemy actions will dramatically increase the capability of deployed commanders to rapidly target and 

strike a diverse array of aim points, including the 

mobile short-dwell targets that pose such targeting 

difficulties today. In plain English, Network Centric Warfare (NCW) is about getting the right information to the right shooter at the right time. 

 For ease of understanding, the effects of 

NCW as a warfighting concept and organizing principle for naval forces can be thought about as occurring on three different levels or planes: the 

planning and coordination plane, the force command and control plane, and the engagement plane. 

On the planning and coordination plane, new stateof-the-art, network-linked, computer-based planning systems will compress the time it takes to do 

mission planning and significantly increase the fidelity of the product. On the force control plane of 

NCW, naval aviation will enable naval forces (as 

well as joint forces) to engage targets through the 

E-2C, equipped with Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC). Because of the uniquely mobile 

nature of aircraft, naval aviation has more dispersed 

platforms and sensors on the engagement plane of 

NCW than any other force. The potent newgeneration strike fighters, armed helicopters, and 

Standoff Land Attack Missile (SLAM)-capable 

maritime aircraft all deliver precision ordnance and 

provide today’s strike force an unsurpassed level of 

lethality and versatility. 

 Upcoming weapon system upgrades will 

dramatically increase the combat capability of these 

already potent platforms. JSOW and JDAM will be 

greatly enhanced with Automatic Target Acquisition/Recognition systems. 

 Synthetic-aperture radar and electronically 

scanned radar systems will provide high-resolution 

data for engaging targets at long range through all 

weather. These powerful systems will then be netted together via the next-generation network communication/information system, Link-16. Netting 

offboard and onboard sensors will not only give 

aircrews better situational awareness at the tactical 

level, improving their effectiveness, but will also 

contribute to building battlespace awareness at the 

operational level — enabling intuitive commandand-control decisions by operational commanders. 

CVNX: Smart Carriers 

 The central role of our aircraft carriers 

themselves, operating within a Network Centric 

Warfare environment, is another critical aspect of 

the vision for Naval Aviation. More than the 

“flattop“ at the heart of our striking capability 

which provides for fueling, arming, launch, recovery, and turnaround of our tactical aircraft (as important as that is), our carriers possess a tremendous potential to enable operational-level command 

and control of expeditionary naval and joint forces. 

The Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers 

of today’s fleet will continue to serve as the backbone of Naval Aviation to 2050 and beyond—their 

flexibility and capacity for adaptation to new aircraft, new weapons, new command-and-control 

systems, and enhanced communications and connectivity serve as a testament to the strength of 

their design and the foresight of the teams that conceived and built them. The next 10 years, however, 

will usher in the dawn of an evolution in carrier design, with a new generation of aircraft carrier currently known as the CVNX. 

 The CVNX will incorporate several major 

improvements over the Nimitz design based on today’s cutting-edge technology. These include new 

high-density nuclear reactors, a new electrical 

power-generation and distribution system, and internal redesign of spaces within the hull. This 

smart, reconfigurable design will be focused to 

fully support Network Centric Warfare and maximize the carrier’s capabilities as a command platform. Equipment will be installed in modules to 

allow selected computer and combat systems to be 

replaced or modified several times over the ship’s 

life span, giving CVNX greater flexibility and more 

longevity than even the highly successful Nimitzclass carriers.

 In summary, it is clear that there is an increasing demand for expeditionary forces and that 
this demand has placed a premium on the inherent 

flexibility and responsiveness of US naval aviation. 

The ability of carrier battle groups and amphibious 

ready groups to rapidly respond across the spectrum of conflict only reinforces their value and 

credibility to theater commanders and national 

leaders. 

 Revolutionary improvements in combat capabilities and effects, spearheaded by the men and 

women of naval aviation and supported by enablers 

such as the Super Hornet, are giving US forces the 

ability to dominate the battle space from the littoral. 

In addition to the presence they maintain in areas of 

national interest around the globe, naval forces 

bring the right mix of capabilities to be decisive 

upon arrival. Whether shaping the deep battle, supporting the Marine maneuver scheme, or simply 

demonstrating US resolve, no force is better suited 

to meeting the challenges faced by the United 

States at the dawn of the 21st century. 

This article was originally published in Sea Power on 19 January 

2000 and is reprinted courtesy of Sea Power magazine, the official 

publication of the Navy League of the United States, which retains 

all rights of ownership, including copyright restrictions. 

Biography 

Rear Admiral John B. Nathman is the Director, Air 

Warfare, Chief of Naval Operations (N88). He 

graduated with distinction from the US Naval 

Academy in 1970, and subsequently attended flight 

training whereby he was selected as Naval Training Command’s Outstanding Pilot Graduate in 

1972. He served as commanding officer of the nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, during 

which time the ship was awarded three consecutive 

Admiral Flatley Memorial Awards for fleet operational excellence and aviation safety. Rear Admiral Nathman has over 3600 hours flying 40 different types of aircraft and has over 750 carrier landings. 

The USS George Washington (CVN 73) (left) comes alongside USS Nimitz (CVN 68) in the Arabian Gulf in support of Operation 

Southern Watch in November 1997. (US Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 2nd Class Robert Catalano) 
In his address New Era Security: The 

RAAF in the Next 25 Years∗, Martin van Creveld, 

shocked airmen by stating, “If present trends persist, thirty years from now most air forces will 

have dissolved into space commands on the one 

hand and some form of air cavalry on the other.” 

USAF officers strongly believe in air power and 

in the need for an independent air force. These 

officers learned early in their careers how Brig 

Gen Billy Mitchell fought for an independent air 

force and consider it blasphemy to even suggest 

that an independent air force might not be necessary. There is a certain irony that today’s air 

force officers are as firmly entrenched in paradigm as those ground commanders that Billy 

Mitchell confronted seventy years ago. For these 

officers especially, van Creveld’s remarks deserve another look and serious consideration. 

Before examining the validity of van 

Creveld’s argument, some of the basic premises 

of his theory should be clarified. First, he does 

not offer his comments as the best way to organize the armed forces. Rather, he claims that 

“history will march in the direction indicated regardless of whether individual policy-makers 

agree or not.” It is important to note, as well, 

that his initial audience was composed of members of the Royal Australian Air Force, not the 

US Air Force. Second, he claims that only states 

have air forces, giving three reasons why: 1) 

sheer expense and complexity, 2) amount of 

space required, vulnerability of aircraft, and 

length of runway required, and 3) states have 

borders, greatly reducing the likelihood of 

friendly casualties from air strikes. Third, van 

Creveld states that very few wars will take place 

between states, largely due to the deterrence of 

nuclear weapons. Fourth, and perhaps most important, he assumes that air power is less effective in conflicts which are not state vs. state. 

 As we continue to examine van Creveld’s 

theory, we must remain focused on the future. If 

we apply these arguments based on today’s situation, they are certain to fall short. He is talking 

about the state of air power, and warfare 25 years 

in the future. A quick look at the last 25 years 

should be enough to convince anyone that things 

will be radically different in 2025. Think about 

the impact of the following events on how we 

wage war: 

1) The Defense Reorganization Act 

of 1986 (Goldwater-Nichols). 

2) The debut of CNN. 

3) The fall of the Berlin Wall. 

4) The end of the Cold War and 

break-up of the Soviet Union. 

5) The reunification of Germany and 

reduction of US forces in Europe. 

6) The rise of terrorism. 

7) The disestablishment of Strategic 

Air Command. 

8) Terrorism within the Continental 

United States. 

9) Operation DESERT SHIELD and 

subsequent US Air Force deployments in Southwest Asia. 

10) On-going deployments in the former-Yugoslavia. 

11) Expansion of NATO. 

12) The Internet. 

13) Employment of cruise missiles 

and stealth aircraft. 

14) India and Pakistan join the nuclear club. 

The United States Air Force, 

B. 1947 — D. 2025 

Captain Brian Anderson, USAF 

_________________________________ 

* All quotes attributed to Dr. Martin van Creveld are taken from his ad-
years ago? To shrug off the possibility that most 

air forces will dissolve in the next 25 years is 

shortsighted thinking; the same thinking that 

prompted one British colonel to state in 1908 

“we do not consider that aeroplanes will be of 

any possible use for war purposes.”

1

 To examine van Creveld’s claim better, 

we must explore the properties of airpower. In 

his handbook, 10 Propositions Regarding Air 

Power, Col Phillip Meilinger examines some enduring truths about the use of aircraft in combat. 

These will serve as a good measuring stick for 

evaluating Dr. van Creveld’s claims. 

The 10 Propositions 

 Meilinger’s Proposition 1 states: 

“Whoever controls the air generally controls the 

surface.”

2

 When we talk about controlling the air 

we mean either air superiority or air supremacy. 

Air Force Doctrine Document 1 (AFDD-1) defines the two: “Superiority is that degree of 

dominance that permits friendly land, sea, and air 

forces to operate at a given time and place without prohibitive interference by the opposing 

force. Supremacy is that degree of superiority 

wherein opposing air and space forces are incapable of effective interference anywhere in a 

given theater of operations.”3

 Two considerations for gaining air superiority: 1) is it possible 

to gain air superiority without an air force, and 2) 

if the opposition has no air force and cedes air 

superiority, do we still need to fight for it? Could 

the second situation ever happen? Two examples: Osama bin Laden and Chechnya. Osama 

bin Laden is suspected of financing the bombings 

at Khobar towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996 and the 

American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 

1998. He is the leader of a terrorist organization 

and has no air force. Likewise, the republic of 

Chechnya, which is fighting for its independence 

from Russia, also has no air force. When we 

look at these two examples the answer to “do we 

need to fight for uncontested air superiority” is 

an obvious “no.” But if we must fight for air superiority, can we do it without an air force? Perhaps not today, but in the future we will be able 

to arm US Army helicopters with a variety of airto-air missiles, and ground attack weaponry giving the Army this capability. However, the current Air Force paradigm says that air superiority 

is won by fighters. This begs the question of 

how many Scud missiles were shot down by 

fighters during the Gulf War? The next question 

then follows: could enemy integrated air defense 

systems (IADS) be taken down through information warfare rather than explosives? Col Meilinger answers this question by echoing AFDD-1: 

“the first mission of an air force is to defeat or 

neutralize the enemy air force so friendly operations on land, sea, and in the air can proceed unhindered, while at the same time one’s own vital 

centers and military forces remain safe from air 

attack.”

4

 Dr. van Creveld claims this mission 

could be accomplished by army, navy, or space 

assets. 

 Col Meilinger’s Proposition 2 states: 

“Air Power is an inherently strategic force.”

5

 Dr. 

van Creveld does not argue this point, but he 

notes that in future conflict strategic targets will 

be less significant. He explains: “where the opposition with which air power is faced does not 

consist of states with territories that are comparatively large and borders that are clearly defined; 

when it consists not of regular, state-owned 

armed forces but of militias, guerrillas, and terrorists operating in a decentralized manner; 

where combat takes place in close terrain, as in 

jungles or mountains, and where the belligerents 

mix with surrounding civilian populations so that 

friend and foe are virtually indistinguishable; under such circumstances the use of air power is, as 

experience shows, much more limited.” He is 

speaking primarily of the effects of air power at 

the tactical level, but it is clear to see that insurgents rely on the same power plants (read strategic targets) as not only the general population, 

but also the legitimate government. In these 

situations, taking out strategic targets related to 

infrastructure runs the risk of destroying a state 

in order to save it. If Meilinger’s claim is accurate then the assumption must be made that strategic targets are always available. Our two examples above, Osama bin Laden and Chechnya, 

seem to indicate that this may not always be the 

case. 

Proposition 4 states: “In essence, Air 

Power is targeting, targeting is intelligence, and 

intelligence is analyzing the effect of air operations.”6

 To avoid being sidetracked, let’s assume 

that there will be strategic targets identified in 
every situation. Do we need an air force to destroy them? Look again at what Meilinger says. 

He says that air power, not an air force, is inherently strategic. We used air power against 

Osama bin Laden in August 1998 by launching 

Tomahawk missiles against a chemical plant in 

the Sudan and suspected training bases in Afghanistan. Are these types of raids more likely 

or less likely in the future? I think even van 

Creveld’s harshest critics will agree that they are 

more likely. Advances in technology will potentially reduce the cost of such unmanned weapons, 

and most certainly will increase the effectiveness 

of the guidance systems to make them even more 

precise. Dr. van Creveld speculates on the role 

of high performance attack aircraft and bombers 

saying that “By the year 2025 the missions that 

used to be entrusted to them will almost certainly 

be divided between missiles (including also 

cruise missiles) and space-based platforms on the 

one hand and UAVs and helicopters on the 

other.” We must open our minds to the possibilities of alternate means for hitting these strategic 

targets. Just as we had to adjust our thinking 

when it became unnecessary to battle through the 

enemy’s front line to cause havoc in the rear, we 

must be open to alternatives to manned bombers 

when it comes to strategic attack. Perhaps in 

2025 it will be possible to take out strategic targets using artillery or electromagnetic pulse or 

some form of weaponry yet to be developed. 

The targets will still be viable, however the Air 

Force may not be the service of choice to strike 

them as it is today. 

One of the reasons targeting is so important is explained in Proposition 3: “Air Power is 

primarily an offensive weapon.”

7

 To sit and wait 

in defense robs air power of its innate advantages: speed, range, and flexibility. Therefore, 

on both the strategic and tactical levels air power 

goes after the enemy. This can be challenging 

when the enemy’s personnel and resources are 

intermingled with the local population. When 

Dr. van Creveld explains why only states have air 

forces, he maintains one reason for this is that 

states have borders. This is important because 

borders provide some separation between targets 

and friendly forces. He continues: “Though 

modern weapon sensors on the one hand, and 

precision-guided weapons on the other, have 

gone a fairly long way towards solving the problem of identifying targets and hitting them, that 

of separating friend from foe remains.” Imagine 

a cornered criminal who uses a hostage as a human shield. He may be outnumbered and outgunned, but his pursuers are frozen despite their 

firepower for fear of hitting the hostage. In the 

movies, the hero is usually a marksman who can 

make the miracle shot, but in reality a decision to 

fire is accompanied by the acceptance of killing 

the hostage. In the same way, the offensive firepower of air power can be paralyzed by the lack 

of a defined front found in state versus state conflicts. 

We’ve already mentioned Proposition 4, 

which explains how air power is dependent on 

“analyzing the effect of air operations.”

8

 When 

fighting against another state, we can see if the 

electricity is shut down, if the bridge is dropped, 

or if the pipeline is severed. When fighting organizations other than states, it may be much 

more difficult to determine the effects, especially 

on a strategic level. Despite the Tomahawk raids 

on his training camp in Afghanistan, Osama bin 

Laden is still at large, and still a threat. Furthermore, the Taliban continues to provide bin Laden 

with sanctuary. What did those raids really accomplish? Similarly, during Operation ALLIED 

FORCE, NATO forces enjoyed air supremacy, 

yet an operation expected to last only one or two 

weeks dragged on for three months. The desired 

effect of forcing President Milosevic to bow before NATO might didn’t happen immediately. 

The leaders of NATO counted on air 

power to send a message loud enough to force 

Milosevic to submit. This is in line with Proposition 5: “Air power produces physical and psychological shock by dominating the fourth dimension — time.”9

 Although Milosovic eventually relented to stop the bombing, the delay 

raised doubts on the ability of air power to produce shock effect in the asymmetric conflicts 

van Creveld discusses. Col Meilinger addresses 

the point in his commentary: 

This leads to an important insight 

regarding the effectiveness of air 

power in low intensity conflicts. 

Because guerilla war is protracted 

war, by its very nature it is ill-
suited for air power, denying it the 

ability to achieve decision 

quickly. Campaigns like Rolling 

Thunder during the Vietnam War 

indicate that air power is particularly ineffective when denied the 

opportunity to telescope time. In 

these instances the limitations of 

air power are magnified. Indeed, 

when robbed of its time dimension, the psychological impact of 

air power may be virtually negative.10

Proposition 6 covers some of the same 

ground as Proposition 2 on strategic attack. It 

states: “Air power can conduct parallel operations at all levels of war, simultaneously.”11 This 

is certainly true and will still be true in 2025, but 

parallel attack does not require fixed winged 

manned aircraft. We’ve already discussed how 

missiles and helicopters can attack strategic targets and provide close air support. Former Chief 

of Staff of the Air Force General Merrill McPeak 

went so far as to say that the theater air force 

commander need not control CAS assets. Specifically, General McPeak said, “the commander 

with responsibility for the close battle does not 

require systems or capabilities that reach across 

the boundaries into the deep and high battles. If 

there are such systems in the field or on the 

drawing board, they might be good candidates 

for retirement or transfer to another service. Alternatively, the commander with responsibility 

for the deep battle does not need forces that are 

configured for direct support of close combat operations. If there are any, they too could be 

transferred or cut.”

12 Three things should be considered when analyzing the general’s statement. 

First, Gen McPeak’s intention was clearly to further separate the missions of the Air Force, notably in counterair and strategic attack, from the 

other services and, therefore, emphasize the need 

for a separate air force — therefore opposed to 

van Creveld’s proposition. Second, he admitted 

that so-called air-to-mud assets could be removed 

from Air Force control. Third, to remember that 

van Creveld doesn’t claim that doing away with 

the Air Force is the best way, but rather that it is 

simply the direction we are heading. And for 

those who may not recall, General McPeak’s 

thoughts on relinquishing weapon systems such 

as the A-10 to the US Army were reviewed and 

dismissed as not being the best option for the current situation. 

Dr. van Creveld gives us his thoughts on 

close air support. One of his central assumptions 

is that the nature of warfare is changing. As warfare moves from the front line battles of World 

War II to the low-intensity conflicts seen in Bosnia and Somalia, the requirements, nature, and 

methods of employing CAS will change. He explains: “At the low end of the spectrum the 

UAVs, helicopters and light transport (long range 

heavy-transport, being too vulnerable to approach the battlefield, is likely to be civilianized) 

that are useful for fighting low intensity war will 

also survive; and, in terms, of both budgets and 

numbers prosper. However, and given the fact 

that they will operate in very close cooperation 

with the ground forces, it is not at all certain that 

they should be organized in a separate service as 

is still the case in many countries.”

Dr. van Creveld points out that the actual 

number of airframes has decreased dramatically 

in the 50 years since WWII. He uses this as 

proof that the expense of maintaining an air force 

is driving their extinction. Most airmen will immediately point out that B-17s had to drop over 

9,000 bombs to ensure target destruction where it 

would only take one bomb from an F-117.13 Dr. 

van Creveld counters the bomber argument by 

saying the one target-one bomb assumption applies only to lightly defended targets and that Desert Storm did not prove that modern air power is 

more capable versus an integrated air defense 

A-10 “Warthog” firing a missile. (US Air Force photo) 
system. What is often not mentioned and not addressed by Dr. van Creveld is that 120 C-17 aircraft, each with a payload of 130,000 lbs, will replace 207 C-141 aircraft with payloads of only 

68,000.14 The decrease in the number of airframes due to increased efficiency is not limited 

to bombers. 

An F-117 was shot down during Operation Allied Force. Regardless of why it happened, the casualty indicates there is a vulnerability to stealth aircraft. But this is not enough 

to deny that the F-117 has definitely forced a reevaluation of mass as principle of war. 

Col Meilinger’s Proposition 7 states: 

“Precision air weapons have redefined the meaning of mass.” Air Force Doctrine Document 1 

(AFDD-1) explains that “mass is an effect...not 

just overwhelming quantity.”

15 This takes exception to van Creveld’s claim that shrinking number of airframes means the disintegration of air 

forces. The US Air Force is able to concentrate 

combat power as never before. The circular error 

of probability* for a 2,000-pound bomb has decreased from 3,300 feet in WWII to less than 10 

feet in Desert Storm, a level of accuracy now expected. Meilinger points out that this puts more 

pressure on our political leaders because the public now expects us to be able to drop a bomb 

through the window of one room without injuring 

anyone in the next room. That may be a little exaggerated, but it points out that the need to minimize collateral damage is a political reality. We 

have already discussed the difficulty of bombing 

forces which are mixed with, and often indistinguishable from, the local populace. The precision of today’s munitions has become both a 

benefit in efficiency and a limitation based on expectations. 

What is an Airman? 

Proposition 8 is the “Big Daddy,” the 

“Ace-In-The-Hole,” the “Silver Bullet” that ensures van Creveld's premonition will never come 

to pass. “Air Power's unique characteristics necessitate that it be centrally controlled by airmen.”17 To test van Creveld’s theory against this 

proposition we must define the term “airman.” 

According to the AeroSpace Basic Course mission briefing, “every [Air Force] officer is an airman.”

18 However, that is not what Col Meilinger 

means when he uses the term “airman.” In his 

explanation of Proposition 8, Col Meilinger does 

not define what an airman is, but he addresses 

those who are not airmen as “non-aviators” and 

“non-flyers.”19 Those two terms apply to approximately 89 percent of the active duty Air 

Force.20 In practice, “airman” has come to mean 

“Air Force pilot.” So if van Creveld is correct, 

and the Air Force as an organization is dissolved, 

there would be no airmen left. This can not be 

true. Col Meilinger alludes to the real meaning 

of “airman” as “those who understand airpower.”21 If we take this in its pure form, the key 

would be the understanding of airpower not the 

color of the officer’s uniform, nor his occupational specialty. If we define “airman” as someone who is air-minded, or as someone who understands airpower, then we open up the control 

of airpower to non-flyers and aviators in our sister services. Certainly there is a challenge here 

to get the naval aviator to think past fleet defense, and the army aviator to think faster than 3 

mph. However, the argument could be made that 

an Army aviator who is intimate with the capabilities of helicopters would better understand 

airpower as van Creveld imagines it will be, focusing more on helicopters and unmanned aerial 

vehicles. Understanding what constitutes being 

an “airman” should alleviate the intra- and interservice battle for control of the airpower assets. 

 The reason air power must be controlled 

by airmen lies in the inherent advantages of air 

power, such as speed, range, and flexibility. This 

is best accomplished through centralized control 

and decentralized execution. AFDD-1 explains: 

Centralized control and decentralized execution of air and space 

forces are critical to force effectiveness. Air and space power 

must be controlled by an airman 

who maintains a broad strategic 

and/or theater perspective in prioritizing the use of limited air and 

space assets to attain the objectives of all US forces in any contingency across the range of operations. During the initial en- * Circular error of probability (CEP) = radial distance from a point in 
gagements of World War II and 

through the entire Vietnam conflict, command of US airpower 

was fragmented and controlled by 

competing commanders. The results taught airpower leaders that 

centralized control was the best 

way to effectively employ airpower. The outcome of the Gulf 

War stands in stark contrast to that 

of Vietnam.22

So the concern is that air power be centrally controlled by someone who understands the capabilities of air power. During Desert Storm this was 

accomplished through the position of joint force 

air component commander. The Joint Doctrine 

Capstone and Keystone Primer says, “The joint 

force air component commander (JFACC) is a 

functional component commander that the JFC 

will normally designate to exploit the capabilities 

of joint air operations. The JFACC directs this 

exploitation through a cohesive joint air operation plan for centralized planning and a responsive and integrated control system for decentralized execution.”23 It is important to note that the 

JFACC is not defined as an Air Force pilot. The 

JFACC should be an airman, however an airman 

is someone who is air-minded, who understands 

the benefits and limitations of air power in all 

forms, and who understands how to employ air 

assets. We should not assume this mindset is 

limited to pilots or members of the Air Force, nor 

should it be assumed that being in the Air Force 

guarantees this mindset. 

The highest-ranking airman in our country’s history, General of the Air Force Henry H. 

“Hap” Arnold, knew that air power and technology were tied together. In 1944 he wrote: “I believe the security of the United States of America 

will continue to rest in part in developments instituted by our educational and professional scientists.”

24 The importance of technology to air 

power was recognized then and it is affirmed in 

Proposition 9: “Technology and air power are 

integrally and synergistically related.”25 This 

concept ties in closely with Dr. van Creveld’s basic assumptions. The emergence of UAVs, missiles, and cruise missiles may make it possible 

for states to get rid of manned aircraft. Certainly, 

advances in guidance, propulsion, and miniaturization will only increase the use of unmanned 

aircraft through a wider scope of missions. As 

the technology of UAVs progresses, the distance 

that separates the operator from the aircraft will 

also increase. Of course, we will still need someone on the ground to replace film or munitions 

and refuel, but the aircraft can be monitored from 

anywhere in the world via satellite. Bomber missions directed at targets in Europe and South 

West Asia can already originate and terminate in 

CONUS, freeing them from the limitation and 

hazards of being based in the theater of operations. Likewise, UAVs will be monitored and 

controlled from home station in the CONUS. 

Once that is possible, the pilots of UAVs will be 

contracted civilians such as those who serve as 

simulator instructors at flying training bases. 

The line between what is done by uniformed service personnel and what is done by civilians will 

shift. 

The relationship between the military and 

civilian communities can determine the strength 

of a nation’s air power. In the late 19th century 

Alfred Thayer Mahan began to write about sea 

power. He explained that sea power is not confined to purely military issues, that it “includes 

not only the military strength afloat, that rules the 

sea or any part of it by force of arms, but also the 

peaceful commerce and shipping from which 

alone a military fleet naturally and healthfully 

springs, and on which it securely rests.”

26 Likewise, air power is not purely military strength as 

explained in Proposition 10: “Air Power includes not only military assets, but an aerospace 

industry and commercial aviation.”27 Meilinger 

goes on to point out that one reason for this is 

that skills associated with civil aviation such as 

maintenance and air traffic control are similar 

enough to allow those technicians to easily cross 

over from one sector to the other. These areas 

are already being converted from military personnel to contracted civilian personnel. How 

much more will they be able to do in the future? 

Will air traffic controllers still have to be in the 

back of AWACS aircraft, or will they be able to 

operate from Tinker AFB in Oklahoma while the 

aircraft circles over Saudi Arabia? In the future, 

the question is less likely to be “what can we 

contract out?” but rather “what are we allowed to 
Will Civilians Fly Combat Missions? 

Dr. van Creveld never goes so far as to 

say that fighter pilots will someday be civilian 

contractors; he thinks they will become obsolete. 

But could they be contractors? The limit appears 

to be a legal one. I’ve heard the argument that 

combat missions could not be outsourced because civilians will not fly into combat zones. 

History has shown that there have been Americans willing to put themselves in harm’s way 

even though not on active duty in the US armed 

forces. Two examples that come to mind are the 

Lafayette Escadrille to France in World War I 

and the American Volunteer Group (The Flying 

Tigers) to China in World War II. Mercenaries 

have been around for centuries. Machiavelli 

wrote about the use of condottieri in the 16th 

century (although his opinion of them was not 

favorable).28 This opens the door for the possibility that our warriors would not necessarily 

even be Americans. This would probably help 

public opinion during strikes since we wouldn’t 

be sending our own people to die. However, 

Congress might not go so far as to allow contractors to operate outside US borders (and their 

home districts). It is important to remember two 

things about using mercenaries in this situation: 

1) Machiavelli had good reasons for not liking 

mercenaries, and 2) van Creveld didn’t say not 

having an air force is the best way, but the direction states are moving. The new breed of civilian 

contractors would specialize in combat operations. They would want to go into combat because that is when they would make their money. 

How much they would charge would be determined by their operating costs and computed before signing the contract. The government would 

still save money in personnel costs. The contractor would also save money. Their war-fighters 

wouldn’t be full time employees, but follow the 

lead of the reserves by working one weekend a 

month for proficiency. There would be no retirement plan, no medical benefits, and no commissary to subsidize. Experience in World War II 

and Korea demonstrated that boldness usually 

outweighed a college education when it came to 

combat flying. Judging by the number of extreme sports on television, it doesn’t seem the 

military has cornered the market on audacity. 

Conclusion 

 As we measure Dr. van Creveld’s theory 

against accepted principles of air power we see 

that he doesn’t really break any, although he does 

bend some paradigms. It is doubtful he will convince any of our generals to start making plans 

for the disestablishment of the USAF. However, 

it may be possible for him to catch the attention 

of members of Congress. They have a much bigger picture to look at and many more things to 

take into account. Providing for the common defense is only one of their priorities. They are 

concerned about the rest of the budget, about saving social security, about keeping jobs in their 

districts, and about relationships with other nations. Procurement of weapon systems, base realignment and closures, and the push for outsourcing and privatization all indicate that our 

political leaders do not always see eye-to-eye 

with our military leaders. Our military leaders 

have a “can-do” attitude, and our military has 

shown that we will do whatever we are asked, 

even if it is not the best thing to do. Even so, the 

death of the Air Force is still not enough of a 

possibility for us to consider seriously. What 

may apply is this statement by van Creveld: “At 

the high end of the spectrum air forces, here understood as autonomous parts of the armed services, are likely to survive in those countries —

no more than a handful — that possess the economic muscle and technological expertise that 

are needed for the purpose.” History shows 

Americans are egocentric when viewing global 

issues. So Americans will naturally assume Dr. 

van Creveld is saying the USAF will be gone by 

2025. That is not exactly what he is saying. The 

US will be part of the “handful” of states who retain their air forces. Other possible members of 

the “air force club” may be found in the permanent members of the UN Security Council: Russia, China, and Great Britain, with Israel replacing France as the fifth member. 

 Imagine how different the world would 

be if the British were the only member of the 

European Union with an air force. Imagine what 

the balance of power would be in Asia if air 

forces were replaced with nuclear arsenals. Who 

would be called to respond to unrest in Africa? 

Will the Cold War return with all players choosing which air power umbrella to stand under? 
The US Air Force is not going away. On the 

contrary, in 2025 we will be doing even more 

than we are today. 

NOTES 

1

 Raymond H. Fredette, The Sky On Fire: The First Battle Of Britain 

1917-1918 (Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991), 9. 2

 Phillip S. Meilinger, 10 Propositions Regarding Air Power, (Washington 

D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 1995), 3. 

3

 AFDD 1, September 1997, 29. 

4

 Meilinger, 3. 

5

 Ibid., 8. 

6

 Ibid., 20. 

7

 Ibid., 14. 

8

 Ibid., 20. 

9

 Ibid., 28. 

10 Ibid., 33. 

11 Ibid., 34 

12 Merrill A. McPeak, “Roles and Missions of the United States Air Force: 

The Allocation of Responsibilities,” Vital Speeches 60, 1 September 1994, 

684. 

13 Edward C. Mann III, Thunder And Lightning: Desert Storm and the 

Airpower Debates (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 1995), 107. 14 Susan H.H. Young, “USAF Almanac, Gallery of USAF Weapons,” Air 

Force Magazine, May 1998, 148-149. 15 Meilinger, 41. 

16 Mann, 107. 

17 Meilinger, 49. 

18 http://www.maxwell.af.mil/au/asbc/briefing.htm 

19 Meilinger, 50 

20 “Career Field Breakdown,” Airman Magazine, January 1999, 47. 21 Meilinger, 55. 

22 AFDD 1, 23. 

23 Joint Doctrine Capstone and Keystone Primer, 15 July 1997, A-42. 24 Dik Daso, Architects of American Air Supremacy: General Hap Arnold 

and Dr. Theodore von Kármán (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 

1997), 317. 

25 Meilinger, 56. 

26 John B. Hattendorf, ed., Mahan on Naval Strategy: Selections from the 

Writings of Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan (Annapolis MD: Naval 

Institute Press, 1991), 31. 

27 Meilinger, 61. 

28 Peter Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy: From Machiavelli to the 

Nuclear Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986), 14. 

Biography 

Captain Brian Anderson is the Course Director 

for the Commanders Leadership Course at the 

US Air Force Academy. He is a member of the 

34th Education Squadron’s faculty which is responsible for the development and instruction of 

Military Strategic Studies to 4000 cadets. Captain Anderson graduated with military distinction 

from the US Air Force Academy in 1991 and is a 

Distinguished Graduate of Squadron Officer 

School. He has served in numerous positions 

within the Security Forces career field in the 

United States and overseas. 

%"		


	
			


&
		


		


				"


	




		#$

—General of the Air Force Henry “Hap” Arnold 

Photo from Arnold Engineering and Development Center: http://www.

arnold.af.mil/aedc/images 
In a 1996 article, Martin van Creveld attempted to convince his readers that there will be 

little use or need for any state to have an air force 

by the year 2025. He saw the only military air 

assets of importance for the future to be light 

transport aircraft, helicopters, unmanned aerial 

vehicles (UAVs), and cruise missiles. Van 

Creveld pointed out that there were an incredible 

number of casualties in the large-scale wars 

fought earlier in the 20th century. Since the nuclear age began at the end of World War II, however, conflict between major powers has diminished; the threat of World War III — an Armageddon the people of earth would not survive —

made the United States and Soviet Union very 

cautious. With no large interstate wars to be 

fought, van Creveld argued that there will be little need for air power since it will not be decisive 

in the small wars likely to be fought in the future — such as the multiple insurgencies of the 

developing world the past 50 years. But his 

analysis failed to emphasize sufficiently a number of important factors and recent events that established air power as vital to the military of the 

future and to the survival of the state. 

Van Creveld should reexamine the Principle of Mass when it comes to air power. He 

compares numbers from World War II, where the 

United States was producing up to 75,000 aircraft 

per year, to today’s figures of roughly 125 aircraft per year — concluding that this clearly describes how the need for air power is declining. 

What he fails to emphasize is how the concept of 

air power “Mass” has changed in the past 55 

years. No longer are 200 B-17s manned by 2000 

airmen required to drop thousands of dumb 

bombs over a city to destroy a factory. The task 

can be performed by a single pilot and his F-117 

loaded with two 2000-pound laser-guided bombs. 

day, simply more efficient due to technology. 

This improvement in air power technology has also led to a reduction of casualties in 

conflict — both friend and foe. During the 1991 

Gulf War, air power made it possible for the 

ground invasion of Kuwait and Iraq to last a mere 

100 hours and to minimize the amount of collateral damage. Allied high-tech air power allowed 

the timely destruction of vital centers of gravity, 

bypassing the need for a prolonged period of killing people as in past wars of attrition; the war 

was shortened dramatically from what was expected. 

A major objective in any conflict is the 

establishment of air superiority. This was discovered during World War II if not earlier in 

World War I. Without air superiority, ground 

troops have difficulty advancing and taking territory. In Vietnam, the United States had air superiority forcing the North Vietnamese to resort to 

guerrilla warfare tactics. As soon as the United 

States pulled out of Southeast Asia and gave up 

air superiority, the North Vietnamese were able 

to take over the South. In Kosovo in 1999, the 

Serbs had difficulty taking over new territory and 

re-supplying their forces once the United States 

and its allies had established air superiority in the 

region. Although air superiority may not win the 

war, as was the case in Vietnam, it is essential to 

any conflict the United States is likely to enter. 

UAVs or helicopters cannot establish air superiority; fighter aircraft must be employed to perform the task they were designed to do. 

Van Creveld also implied that the need 

for military heavy transport aircraft was declining or could be conducted by alternate means. 

Here he failed to point out how much of our 

ground forces and support equipment depended 

of military transport to deploy to regional battleAirpower 2025: A Response 

Cadet 2d Class Patrick N. Giggy, USAFA 
military lift was absolutely essential to the allied 

effort in Desert Storm and is likely to remain so 

for future theater conflicts. Most of these tasks 

cannot be performed by light aircraft such as the 

V-22 Osprey, as van Creveld suggested. Even 

during smaller more limited engagements like the 

US involvement in Somalia, ground forces 

needed equipment such as armored personnel 

carriers, tanks, and helicopters. US Air Force 

heavy transport aircraft performed the job and 

remain absolutely vital in ground support operations, as they have in every conflict and many 

other support operations since World War II. 

Throughout the history of warfare, technological advantages in weapon systems have 

proved to be the decisive factor in the outcome of 

conflicts. From the development of the longbow, 

rifle, cannon, machine gun, and airplane, all have 

played an enormous role in the conflicts following their invention. There have been many advances in aircraft technology made in the past 10 

years, such as in advanced avionics, weapons 

systems, and stealth, that have pushed the United 

States far ahead of all other countries. It is only 

prudent for the United States to build on this advantage. History has shown that dulling one’s 

sword is rarely the best path to peace and that a 

strong and vigorous military deterrence is much 

more successful. The US air power advantage 

can help deter war; if that fails, it can virtually 

assure victory in major campaigns, as was demonstrated in the Gulf and the Balkans. 

Van Creveld argued that since nuclear 

weapons prevented World War III and that since 

most conflicts now happen within states not between them, there will be little use for air forces 

in the future. He bases his argument on examples like Bosnia, where fighting occurred across 

streets and in small villages. He must recognize, 

however, that the United States uses its military 

for many other forms of security enforcement. It 

is the “tool of choice” for our presence around 

the world. It is neither practical nor possible, for 

example, for ground troops or ships to enforce 

the No-Fly zone over Iraq. Clearly and simply, 

manned fighter aircraft must patrol the No-Fly 

zone. As long as the United States has objectives 

such as this, there must be an air force to carry 

out the missions. 

The Gulf War and the air campaigns in 

the Balkans demonstrated that the shock of modern massed air power can win on the battlefield 

while at the same time minimizing collateral 

damage to lower levels than ever thought possible. Because the Principle of Mass has been consolidated into fewer planes with smarter and better weapons, it is even more important that the 

United States keeps its Air Force well-manned 

and well-equipped. There will be a strong need 

for all types of aircraft and air power in the future. If the United States hopes to continue to defend its interests and values, it must continue to 

keep the US Air Force the best in the world. 

Works Cited 

Martin van Creveld. “New Era Security: The RAAF in the Next 

25 Years. Air Power 2025,” http://www.defence.gov.au/apc96. 

US Air Force Academy cadets march past the F-15 static display during 

the 2000 Sponsor’s Day Parade. (US Air Force Academy photo) 

Biography 

Cadet Second Class Patrick N. Giggy is a member of the Mitchell Class, USAFA 2001. He is a 

Human Factors Engineering major and plans to 

be a fighter pilot after graduation. Cadet Giggy 

is a member of the USAFA Men’s Club Volleyball Team. He is a 1997 graduate of Longmont 

High School in Longmont, Colorado. 
 According to John Keegan “there is a new 

date to fix on the calendar: June 3, 1999, when 

the capitulation of President Milosevic proved 

that a war can be won by air power alone.”2

 This 

evocative statement represents a remarkable admission for the Daily Telegraph’s [London]

defence correspondent, and supports the view of 

those who claim that Kosovo finally proved that 

air power can win a conflict on its own. This 

view is held within the Royal Air Force (RAF). 

At the Royal United Services Institute Air Marshal Sir John Walker went so far as to boldly 

state that: 

Air Power has won a war! ... Clearly to 

some it came as a surprise, to others as a 

shock, to even others as an irritation. Yet a 

small, un-loved group has been preaching 

the capabilities of air power in the new 

technological age for two decades or more 

and it came as no surprise to them. The capability has been there for some time now. 

It was the will to apply air power properly 

that has been lacking.3

Notwithstanding the debate about whether these 

claims are true, the obvious relief when Slobodan 

Milosevic agreed to NATO’s demands was clear. 

This article does not seek either to critique or 

support the proposition that air power alone won 

the Kosovo War. Instead, it aims to consider 

what is probably the most important trend to 

have emerged post-Kosovo from an air perspective — the increasing capability divergence 

within NATO. Since the termination of the air 

campaign a number of commentators have drawn 

attention to this point, but few have considered 

the implications of the continuation of this trend 

either for the United States or for the rest of 

4

 The emergence of this division was somewhat surprising. When the air campaign began 

the level of commitment within NATO was relatively balanced. 112 US and 102 Allied strike 

aircraft were committed to a short air campaign 

lasting a few days.5 Few foresaw that a much 

longer campaign, requiring significantly enhanced force levels, would result. Many believed 

that Slobodan Milosevic would rapidly back 

down when confronted by a NATO air campaign 

as he had apparently done when he was eventually confronted by NATO’s air force over Bosnia. However, the failure of the initial attacks 

forced the NATO members to significantly increase the scale of their air campaign. As a result, the dependence of the other 18 member nations of NATO upon the United States quickly 

became apparent. The rest of NATO had to rely 

upon the United States for both a qualitative and 

quantitative increase in the air effort. At the 

same time the US decision to restrict the level of 

its commitment on the ground caused severe 

problems for the alliance.6

 This situation has not gone unnoticed on 

both sides of the Atlantic. George Robertson, 

now NATO’s Secretary-General and then British 

Secretary of State for Defence during the conflict, was the first to express his concerns.7

 

Whilst the statistics he used emphasized the 

quantitative imbalance in force commitment, 

they hid the qualitative dimension. US forces 

were frequently required to furnish protection for 

the other NATO members in order that they too 

could undertake operations over Kosovo and Serbia. In other words, the 18 were entirely dependent upon the 1. The result of this, according to 

US Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, is 

that: “Many Americans are saying: ‘Never again 

should the USA have to fly the lion’s share of the 

The Irrelevance of Air Power: The Potential Impact of 

Capability Divergence on NATO Post-Kosovo 

Andrew Dorman1
the biggest bill.”’8

 Such a situation is politically 

difficult to sustain within an alliance, where risk 

and burden are supposed to be shared, and can 

only serve to cause divisions within the alliance. 

Militarily it is problematic as General Wesley 

Clark, Admiral James Ellis, Jr., and LieutenantGeneral Michael Short argued in a combined 

statement submitted to the Senate Armed Services Committee.9

 So why has capability divergence 

emerged as an issue? Partly this is a result of different responses within NATO to the end of the 

Cold War. Drawing upon its experiences during 

the Gulf War, and the requirement to down-size 

in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War, the 

United States has significantly altered the size 

and shape of its air forces.10 It has emphasized 

the need for precision attack capabilities and the 

ability to avoid casualties through the use of its 

technological lead.11 In other words technology 

should compensate for diminishing force numbers and help to guarantee the US victory in any 

conflict, preferably at a low cost. 

 Nevertheless, the Kosovo War did reveal 

some weaknesses which the United States now 

wishes to address.12 The danger for the rest of 

NATO lies in how these areas are addressed. For 

example, a number of authors have noted how 

thinly spread the SEAD [Suppression of Enemy 

Air Defenses] forces were,13 whilst others have 

acknowledged the success of stealth technology, 

particular in the second generation B-2.14 Drawing these two experiences together the logical solution might be to have an increasing emphasis 

on Stealth technology and thus place less reliance 

on the SEAD requirement.15 Whilst this may 

make eminent sense for the future construction of 

US forces it would pose particular problems for 

the rest of NATO who do not currently have a 

stealth capability and who are generally reliant 

upon the United States for the provision of 

SEAD. Thus a measure designed to enhance the 

protection of US air assets may well increase the 

vulnerability of its allied counterparts and restrict 

their future use. 

 Why should this be a cause of concern for 

the United States? Although the Kosovo War 

witnessed the launching of strike sorties against 

targets directly from the United States using B-2 

bombers there is still a military need for the rest 

of NATO. The most significant contribution 

made by America’s NATO allies on the military 

front was the provision of forward bases. The 

scale of the effort to support the strike sorties in 

terms of air-to-air refuelling tankers, etc., would 

not have been possible without these. Moreover, 

NATO was forced to respond to the humanitarian 

disaster that emerged. Any sensible opponent 

will, in future, use unconventional responses to 

US air power and ethnic cleansing may well fall 

into this category. This cannot be confronted 

without forward operating bases and the support 

of allies. 

 Secondly, and more importantly, there remains the political dimension. Although the involvement of the United States in a coalition may 

place limitations on the conduct of the air campaign, with Kosovo being a prime example of 

this, the political involvement of allies has a 

number of advantages. During Operation Desert 

Fox the RAF attacked 11 out of 100 targets with 

support provided by the US.16 Their military 

contribution was not the main issue, it was their 

involvement that prevented the US from becoming politically isolated. In contrast the strikes 

against targets in Sudan and Afghanistan left 

America vulnerable to world opinion. Whilst 

this may be acceptable as a one off, in the longer 

term such a policy simply undermines the international system which America wants to sustain. 

The British involvement in Desert Fox allowed 

the political fallout to be shared and thus diffused. The consistent unilateral use of US air 

power in the long term is politically unsustainable and liable to make air power increasingly 

irrelevant. In part, General Clark admitted this: 

The loss of unity would have ended the 

campaign. Sustaining unity in the face of 

efforts to destabilise the countries around 

Yugoslavia, a sustained propaganda campaign, ethnic cleansing, and the efforts of 

certain nations to halt our actions sent a 

powerful message to the international community in general, and Slobodan Milosevic 

in particular.17 

 Thirdly, there is a financial incentive for 

the US to retain compatibility with the rest of 

NATO. As alluded to in the first point, the 
United States cannot afford to sustain its present 

defence goals alone. It is worth bearing in mind 

that the Europeans spend over $160 billion a year 

on defence. Whilst this neither matches the US 

defense budget, or represents an equivalent share 

of gross national product, it remains a considerable sum.18 Whilst US defence policy continues 

to plan for two major regional conflicts occurring 

almost simultaneously, Kosovo highlighted the 

inability of the US to furnish the support for this 

force goal in a number of key areas. NATO, 

therefore, remains important as a force multiplier 

for the United States. If incompatibility becomes 

the issue that in de facto terms destroys NATO as 

a military alliance then the United States will 

lose out considerably. 

 The concerns expressed in the United 

States have already been acknowledged on the 

European side of the Atlantic. United Kingdom 

and France have been noticeable in insisting on 

enhancements to European capabilities. In a 

speech made shortly after the war Prime Minister 

Blair acknowledged the unreasonableness of the 

European dependence on the US.19 To be fair, 

these weaknesses had been recognized before the 

war. The Western European Union had already 

undertaken a study, which formed the basis of 

NATO’s Defence Capabilities Initiative announced in April 1999.20 These seek to bring 

NATO collective capabilities into the 21st century.21 These give specific prominence to five 

areas: mobility; sustainability; precision engagement; C3; and survivability — with an emphasis 

on inter-operability.22

 Nevertheless, the Kosovo experience has 

led to a re-appraisal of both the direction of defence policy and individual programmes on both 

sides of the Atlantic. The Anglo-French meeting 

in November 1999 re-invigorated earlier attempts 

at improving Europe’s defence capability and resulted in the EU agreeing to commit itself to concrete goals at the subsequent Helsinki Summit in 

December 1999.23 Unfortunately both these only 

referred to appropriate air forces to support a 

self-sufficient corps,24 although the French and 

British did agree to the use of each other’s strategic air, sea and land transport assets.25 The European focus is, therefore, very landcentric. 

 NATO, as it is presently comprised, can 

be sub-divided into three broad levels of capability.26 At the top level of military capability lies 

the United States on its own. The next level 

down comprises the major states of Europe, such 

as the United Kingdom and France. The third 

level incorporates NATO’s smaller and/or newer 

members. The new EU initiative, which is supported by the US, raises important questions for 

the key level two players. Given the continuing 

financial restrictions in defence, should they prioritize their compatibility with the level three 

members as part of an EU force or attempt to 

maintain compatibility in certain areas with the 

US. In the long term such a stark choice appears 

unavoidable. 

 This raises the question of their likely response. The United Kingdom is a good example 

of the problems confronting the rest of NATO. 

Britain’s traditional close relationship with the 

United States would imply that it would want to 

remain compatible with the US. The Gulf War 

Air Power Survey noted that “The British would 

add capabilities that just did not exist in other 

coalition forces ... When the war came, the RAF 

contribution was second only to that of the US in 

variety and scale.”

27 At the same time, Britain 

has also been one of the chief instigators of the 

new EU initiative and therefore has a significant 

amount of political capital invested in it. It is, 

therefore, a good test case of which direction 

level 2 states are likely to head. Moreover, the 

United Kingdom has a long history in the use of 

air power and would therefore be more likely to 

take a lead in the adaptation of air power to the 

new millennium. 

 So what is the current British position. 

During the Kosovo War the UK’s contribution 

amounted to 1,618 out of 38,004 sorties. With 

the strike element comprising 1,008 out of 

10,484 sorties.28 Initially 8 Harrier GR7s were 

deployed with supporting tanker aircraft. This 

was increased ultimately to 16, together with 12 

Tornado GR1s and additional supporting aircraft.29 The Royal Navy also fleetingly provided 

7 Sea Harriers, based on a transiting carrier, and 

TLAM’s were launched from one of its submarines. This force level was markedly down on 

the contribution made during the Gulf War and 

reflected the changes that the air force has undergone since the end of the Cold War. Overall, the 

RAF’s build-up was slow and disjointed and ex-
cessive reliance was placed upon the United 

States in areas such as the provision of SEAD 

support. 

 This situation is somewhat surprising 

given the recent Strategic Defence Review’s 

(SDR) had emphasised providing an expeditionary capability. Officially the creation of the Joint 

Rapid Reaction Force (JRRF) incorporated the 

ability to deploy approximately 100 combat aircraft, 100 support aircraft, and 60 support helicopters.31 A number significantly higher than 

that deployed to Kosovo. Although the failure to 

deploy such a force level could, in part, be attributed to SDR still being in the early implementation and the number of commitments elsewhere, 

the Kosovo experience raises doubts about the 

RAF’s contribution to the JRRF.32 In addition, 

the new command structure announced at the end 

of the year raises serious doubts about the RAF’s 

ability to command such a force if it were to be 

deployed. Whereas the US Air Force is shifting 

towards 10 Air Expeditionary Forces in order to 

allow the rotation of forces, the RAF has shifted 

to a peacetime orientated command structure. It 

comprises three operational groups:33 

No.1 Group tactical fast jet forces; 

No.2 Group Air Transport, Air Refuelling and 

Strategic Reconnaissance, RAF Regiment; 

and, 

No.3 Group Joint Force 2000, Nimrod MPA, 

SAR Helicopters — uniquely with a naval 

commander. 

Support for individual operations will be drawn 

from each of these groups and the normal practice has been to assign a particular air base to a 

mission and for it to rotate its squadrons through. 

Thus, the Harrier force at Wittering was tasked 

with support of the Bosnian air exclusion zone 

and later Kosovo, whilst the Jaguar force at Coltishall has frequently run the Northern Watch operations.34 The problem of this structure is its 

ability to oversee the deployment of more than a 

single squadron to a particular operation. A substantial deployment will result in the RAF having 

a series of separate support lines to each unit deployed rather than a more operationally efficient 

composite formation. In addition, the deployment of aircraft remains problematic, with the 

squadron of 12 Tornado GR1s taking a week to 

move from Germany to Corsica.35

 More significantly, the RAF remains 

wedded to its main base concept of operations, a 

hangover from the Cold War, and thus lags a 

considerable distance behind the other two Services in forward thinking.36 The lack of an operationally deployable formation headquarters 

above squadron level needs to be addressed. 

Here the reinstatement of Wings may be the solution, especially if the issue of squadron size is readdressed. In some respects the Joint Force 

2000, comprising the RAF and Royal Navy’s 

Harriers, could be a forerunner for this. It could 

be made to evolve into the basis of the first expeditionary air force, especially once the Harrier 

force is replaced by a single aircraft type. 

 Solutions to the RAF’s technological deficiencies have begun to be sought. For example, 

the RAF is reported to be seeking conversion of 

up to 1,000 of its stock of Paveway II laser 

guided bombs into satellite guided munitions via 

the US Global Positioning System.37 Other systems have already been ordered, such as a new 

air to surface missile and the ASTOR aircraft for 

battlefield management. However, the sustainability issue will remain. The Royal Navy was 

reported to have used over a third of its stock of 

Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles and has sought 

to purchase a second batch of missiles to offset 

those used, but even if these are replaced on a 

one-for-one basis, the number capable of deployment at any one time is small in comparison to 

the number used in both the Kosovo and Gulf 

Wars. 

 In stark contrast to the paucity of its air 

commitment the UK was the leading contributor 

of land forces, which included responsibility for 

the ARRC headquarters.38 Britain’s land and sea 

forces have undergone far more significant 

change since the end of the Cold War than the 

RAF. In part this reflects national priorities and 

an unwillingness for the RAF to adapt to the 

changed strategic environment. The principal 

lesson of the Kosovo campaign for Britain and 

the rest of NATO lay in the provision of sufficient ground forces. This is clear from the EU’s 

emphasis upon the ability to deploy and sustain a 

corps level formation at Helsinki. It is difficult 

for the European’s to imagine undertaking an in-
dependent air campaign on the scale of Kosovo 

without the active support of the US. Moreover, 

the US needed the rest of NATO to be involved in 

the air campaign politically and thus, in the eyes of 

the Europeans, will have to make compromises in 

order to be able to work with the Europeans. As 

Tony Mason has concluded “the ultimate measure 

of a weapon’s effectiveness is its value as a political instrument, which may not equate to its operational impact.”

39 

 To conclude, this emphasis on the political 

element is key and needs to be heeded before any 

state or coalition of states embarks on military action. If nothing else the involvement of the United 

Kingdom in Operation Desert Fox against Iraq 

helped divert some of the hostility of the international community away from the United States. 

The participation of coalition partners, whether in 

NATO or beyond, is essential in the long term even 

for the world’s only superpower. If this premise is 

accepted then the compatibility issue immediately 

follows. However, it is not as one-sided as currently made out, in any coalition there is mutual dependence of a kind. The United States cannot expect or assume that its NATO partners will remain 

compatible with it. The British example has shown 

that there are problems keeping up with American 

capability improvements. Moreover, the new European initiative on defence. States, such as the 

United Kingdom, which have been firm allies of 

the United States, may well be forced into accepting that they cannot [keep pace with] the technological capabilities of the US and remain compatible with the remainder of the EU. The United 

States, therefore, has an equal obligation to ensure 

that its armed forces remain compatible with the 

major states within NATO. A failure to do so will 

leave it isolated and increasingly unable to use air 

power in support of its foreign policy objectives. 

Moreover, a fundamental capability division between the United States and the rest of NATO can 

only serve to undermine NATO as a military alliance. 

 Equally the Europeans are in danger of emphasising the wrong weaknesses and, as a result, 

make some fundamental errors. Post-Kosovo, too 

much attention has focused on the inability of the 

European members of NATO to put together a sufficiently large ground force in time. At Helsinki 

they publicly announced force goals for land 

forces, but left the issue of supporting air and sea 

units unclear. The only aspect of air power they 

have examined is strategic lift since this links into 

the deployment of land forces. Such an omission, 

if left uncorrected, will merely exacerbate the technological divide with America as the various European states concentrate their defence spending on 

non-air programmes. Whilst some would argue 

that role specialization may financially be the most 

attractive option to NATO, with the US providing 

the air assets and the Europeans the ground forces, 

such an approach undermines NATO’s philosophy 

of equal risk for all members and would be very divisive. The result of the trends outlined above 

would suggest that moves towards a European defence identity will only serve to hasten the capability divergence as the leading military states within 

Europe are confronted with the choice of either remaining compatible either with the rest of Europe 

or America. 

Notes 

1 Andrew Dorman is a Research Associate at the Centre for Defence Studies, 

King’s College London, and a Senior Lecturer in the Defence Studies Department, Joint Services Command and Staff College. His publications include 

(co-edited with Mike Smith and Matthew Uttley) The Changing Face of 

Maritime Power (London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1999); (co-authored with 

Adrian Treacher) European Security: An Introduction to Security Issues in 

post-Cold War Europe (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing Co. Ltd, 1995); 

and (co-edited with Thomas Otte) Military Intervention: From Gunboat Diplomacy to Humanitarian Intervention (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing 

Co. Ltd, 1995). The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author 

and should not necessarily be regarded as representing those of the United 

Kingdom’s Ministry of Defence. 2 John Keegan quoted by Rebecca Grant, “Airpower Made it Work,” Air 

Force Magazine, Vol. 30, No.7, November 1999, 37. 3 Air Marshal Sir John Walker, “Air Power for Coercion,” The RUSI Journal, 

Vol. 144, No. 4, August 1999, 13. 

4 Kitfield, James A., “Another look at the air war that was,” Air Force Magazine, October 1999, 22. 5 Rebecca Grant, “Air power made it work,” Air Force Magazine, November 

1999, 30.

6 Lt General Sir Mike Jackson, “KFOR: The Inside Story,” The RUSI Journal, Vol. 145, No. 1, February 2000, 13-8. 7 Lord Robertson, Speech to the RIIA Conference: “European Defence: The 

Way Ahead,” 7 October 1999. 8 Ed Foster, “Imbalance of Power,” Janes’ Defence Weekly, 5 January 2000, 

25. 

9 Combined prepared statement of General Wesley Clark, Admiral James 

Ellis, Jr., and Lieutenant-General Michael Short before the US Senate Armed 

Services Committee, 21 October 1999. 

10 Braybook, Roy, “USAF - A View to the Future,” Air Pictorial, October 

1997, 515-8. 

11 See, John A. Tirpak, “The State of Precision Engagement,” in Air Force 

Magazine, March 2000, 24-30. 12 Prepared Statement of the Hon. William S. Cohen to the US Senate Armed 

Services Committee Hearing on Operations in Kosovo, 20 July 1999. 

13 John A. Tirpak, “Dealing with Air Defenses,” Air Force Magazine, November 1999, 25.

14 John A. Tirpak, “With Stealth in the Balkans,” Air Force Magazine, October 1999, 22.
15 Lt Col Edward Mann, “One target, one bomb: is the principle of mass 

dead?,” Airpower Journal, Spring 1993, 41. 16 John Spellar, British House of Commons Parliamentary Debates, 10 June 

1999. 

17 Combined prepared statement of General Wesley Clark, Admiral James 

Ellis, Jr., and Lieutenant-General Michael Short before the US Senate Armed 

Services Committee, 21 October 1999. 

18 Quoted in James A. Kitfield, “Another look at the air war that was,” Air 

Force Magazine, October 1999, 22. 19 Blair, Tony, Speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, London, 22 November 

1999. 

20 “Statement on the Estimates, 1999,” www.mod.uk/policy/wp99, para. 17. 21 “Defence Capabilities Initiative,” Press Release NAC-S(99)69, 25 April 

1999. 

22 “Defence Capabilities Initiative,” Press Release NAC-S(99)69, 25 April 

1999. 

23 “

Joint Declaration of the British and French Governments on European 

Defence,” MoD Press Release no. 421/99, 25 November 1999; “Statement on 

the Estimates, 1999,” www.mod.uk/policy/wp99, para. 17. 24 Joint Declaration by the British and French Governments on European 

Defence, Anglo-French Summit, London, 25 November 1999. 25 “Moving Forward European Defence,” MoD Press Release 421/99, 25 

November 1999. 

26 See A.M. Dorman, “Western Europe and Military Intervention: Unity in 

Diversity,” in Military Intervention: From Gunboat Diplomacy to Humanitarian Intervention, ed. by A.M. Dorman & T.G. Otte, (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing Co. Ltd., 1995), 109-34. 

27 Gulf War Air Power Survey Vol. V - A Statistical Compendium and Chronology, (Washington DC: US Printing Office, 1993), 42. 28 George Robertson, “Kosovo: An Account of the Crisis.” http://www.mod.

uk/. 29 Idem. 30 See “The Strategic Defence Review,” Cm.3,999 (London: The Stationery 

Office, 1998). 

31 “Statement on the Defence Estimates, 1999,” para. 31. 32 House of Commons Defence Committee, “Second Report: Ministry of 

Defence Annual Reporting Cycle: Report and Proceedings of the Committee 

with Minutes of Evidence and Appendices,” HC.158, session 1999-2000, 

para. 82. 

33 “New Millennium - New Strike Command: Royal Air Force Headquarters 

to Restructure,” MoD Press Release 430/99, 1 December 1999 34 IISS, The Military Balance, 1999-2000 (London: Oxford University Press 

for the IISS, 1999), 78. 

35 “Tornados to attack from French Base,” in RAF News, No. 974, 28 May 

1999, 1 & 3. 

36 For current air force doctrine see “British Air Power Doctrine,” AP3000, 

Third edition, Ministry of Defence, 1999. 

37 Evans, Michael, “MoD strikes deal for satellite bombs,” The Times

[London], 6 March 2000, 4. 

38 Lt General Sir Mike Jackson, op.cit., 13-8. 39 R. A. Mason, Air Power: A Centennial Appraisal (London: Brassey’s, 

1994), 160. 

Biography 

Dr. Andrew Dorman is a Research Associate at the 

Centre for Defence Studies, King’s College 

London, and a Senior Lecturer in the Defence 

Studies Department, Joint Services Command and 

Staff College. 

See endnote 1 for list of publications. 

No. 112 Squadron, Royal Air Force, by David R. Borngman, USAFA 16 

February 1995. Courtesy of the USAF Academy Department of English and 

Fine Arts. 

The Royal Air Force Crest. (http://www.raf.mod.uk) 
 Something is rattling in the war machine 

of the United States. Second-rate Yugoslav air 

defenses shot down a stealth fighter last year. 

Uncannily, in the same conflict US commanders 

nearly exhausted the nation’s stockpile of cruise 

missiles, and refused to let even a B-2 enter enemy airspace without jamming escorts. The Kosovo air campaign demonstrated that the possibility, however remote, of losing a manned aircraft 

over enemy territory was overwhelmingly unacceptable. But that lesson is not new. In recent 

years despite having Carrier Battle Groups 

(CBGs) and deployed Air Force squadrons in 

theater, America has chosen to fire hundreds of 

cruise missiles in attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan, 

and Sudan. Evidently, even when they have 

manned forces on hand, leaders prefer spending 

hundreds of millions of dollars on unmanned 

weapons to putting any Americans in the line of 

fire. 

 These trends signal the need for a radical 

change in the structure of US airpower. It is time 

for unmanned ordnance delivery systems to replace manned aircraft. This will keep air warriors at safe distances in a paradigm shift that 

could be as revolutionary for airpower as the development of precision artillery was for ground 

war. Technology has already proven that you 

don’t need a man at the scene to carry out either 

tactical or strategic air missions. In fact, when 

the moment of truth approaches, leaders scramble 

for unmanned alternatives. There are powerful 

motives for this tendency, and, fortunately, there 

are unmanned technologies in the wings ready to 

meet the demands. 

Vicious Cycles of Risk 

 To begin with, large, expensive, manned 

military systems are prone to a vicious cycle of 

ensure that a multi-million dollar pilot in a single 

$50-million plane is not on a one-way mission, it 

is now necessary to furnish a vast strike package 

of jamming, SEAD [Suppression of Enemy Air 

Defenses], refueling, and interceptor aircraft. 

This mass of manned aircraft requires an extensive forward support infrastructure, including 

elite rescue forces for both man and machine. As 

the tolerance of the American public for risking 

its warriors tightens, it becomes increasingly difficult to ensure their security since every manned 

precaution is also a liability. In fact, our experience in Kosovo suggests that US tolerances are 

becoming so demanding that practically no 

amount of support can reduce our warriors’ risk 

to an acceptable level. 

 Aware of this vicious cycle, the Air Force 

maintains that it was worth $40 billion to buy 20 

B-2 stealth bombers. In theory, these planes take 

off from a single base to any point on the globe, 

rendezvous with a few tankers, and penetrate enemy airspace without escort to drop up to 32 

bombs. In this extreme case of investment to reduce risk to warriors, we are told that the ability 

to put only 2 pilots in harm’s way is worth 

spending $2 billion on a single airplane — even 

one that is notoriously hard to maintain and effective only at night! Surely this can’t be the 

most cost-effective means of putting ordnance on 

target. 

 This vicious cycle hits Navy airpower 

even harder because its mobile hardware is more 

limited and vulnerable. Not only do naval warriors require additional nautical support personnel, 

but every person and dollar of hardware floating 

in a hostile theater demands some extra amount 

of security to protect the investment. Once the 

US has put a $4 billion aircraft carrier at sea and 

loaded it with $1 billion of arms and 5000 sailOn the Cusp of the Unmanned Airpower Revolution 

Lieutenant David Bookstaber, USAF 
protection ships. The result is the US Navy’s 

modern Carrier Battle Group which ties up tens 

of billions of dollars in resources. The mission 

of the CBG is to maintain air superiority and project airpower with its F-14 interceptors and F/A18 bombers, yet these aircraft are a tiny part of 

the support and security machinery of the CBG. 

Though they are massive and inefficient at projecting airpower, the Navy is trying to maintain 

twelve CBGs! 

 The only way to break the vicious cycle 

we currently face is to remove warriors from ordnance delivery systems. Fortunately, current unmanned weapons technologies promise to do this 

while saving money. The goals of maintaining 

air superiority and projecting airpower can be 

handled completely by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and long-range missiles. The solution to America’s airpower quandary is ripe for 

the picking. 

Promises of Unmanned Weapons 

 While America’s only operational longrange UAV is the Predator, even this relatively 

unremarkable reconnaissance system was in such 

high demand during the Kosovo conflict that 

there weren’t nearly enough Predators to go 

around. These UAVs proved so useful that, had 

the air campaign run any longer, emergency 

plans were equipping them with laser targeting 

devices to guide smart bombs onto the targets 

they found. Unmanned aircraft have the capacity 

to fill every role currently handled by manned 

airplanes — from reconnaissance to SEAD, airto-air combat, and bombing — while keeping pilots out of danger. In a day in which pilots rarely 

see their targets and increasingly defer to automated systems, the value of a pair of eyeballs in 

the cockpit is actually a liability. Designs for 

combat aircraft without cockpits (UCAVs) promise order-of-magnitude increases in stealth with 

triple the maneuverability and a third the price 

tag of manned variants. Whether pictured as glorified cruise missiles in which the motor, guidance, and control systems fly home for reuse, or 

as fighters minus-the-cockpit, UCAVs are not 

only more capable than manned aircraft, but also 

uniquely expendable. 

 The adoption of unmanned airpower 

would allow the Navy to replace its CBGs with 

arsenal ships; stealthy, armored vessels capable 

of delivering as much firepower as an aircraft 

carrier. The benefits in terms of both dollars and 

vulnerability of such a substitution are astounding: it could cut hardware at sea by at least 90%, 

and deployed personnel by up to 99%. Aside 

perhaps from a submarine escort, an arsenal ship 

stands alone, able to launch missiles and UAVs 

in all weather and at any time of day to reach targets well over 1000 miles away. In contrast, the 

new F/A-18 aircraft — the keystone of CBG airpower — have a combat radius of about 400 nm 

at best, and prefer not to fight during the day or 

in severe weather. 

What Are We Waiting For? 

 Although these unmanned technologies 

are widely acclaimed, acceptance by those in 

power has been unenthusiastic, at best. Northrop 

Grumman designed a $500 million arsenal ship 

requiring a crew of only 50. The Navy decided 

not to build any, although it recently commissioned a $4.5 billion Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, 

is building another, and plans to begin a third in 

2001. DARPA committed $116 million this year 

to pay Boeing for a demonstration of UCAV 

technology. Meanwhile, however, the Air Force 

has spent close to $20 billion on engineering and 

manufacturing development of the F-22 air superiority fighter (which will cost at least $100 million per copy to produce). Plans are in motion 

for a manned Joint Strike Fighter program to cost 

$1 trillion over the next 35 years. 

 UCAVs are clearly not a priority with decision-makers; arsenal ships, for the time being, 

are dead in the water. This is a devastating loss 

for the United States. From a purely financial 

perspective, arsenal ships and UCAVs are less 

expensive to buy, less expensive to train on, and 

less expensive to employ than any of the hardware they replace. Never mind the fact that they 

drastically reduce the number of American warriors at risk to practically zero for the types of air 

operations performed recently. 

 We have become accustomed to the application of military force from increasingly safe 

distances. In a time when the alternative to using 

a dozen aircraft for a single bombing mission is a 

$2 billion airplane, it is clear that the only way to 

continue reducing the risk/force ratio is to com-
pletely remove warriors from ordnance delivery 

systems. Today we can say that there are unmanned alternatives to manned weapons. And 

while the capabilities of the human being are not 

changing very rapidly, the technologies behind 

unmanned weapons are advancing at a fantastic 

rate. It is clear that in the near future unmanned 

weapons will so dominate manned variants in 

every measure that unmanned will be the standard, not the alternative. 

 In the place of one CBG, we could deploy 

a dozen arsenal ships. In the place of one B-2 we 

could deploy a hundred UCAVs. With such 

compelling numbers, it cannot be long before the 

services embrace these new technologies to save 

both money and lives. Indeed, for the Nintendo®-war generation, UCAVs look like an obvious technological step. It would not surprise 

those accustomed to cruise-missile warfare to see 

a missile return home after releasing its payload, 

nor would it surprise a person accustomed to 

playing computer games or riding in computercontrolled commercial planes to have a remotelyoperated aircraft perform a reconnaissance or 

SEAD mission. The casualties associated with 

traditional war will no longer be tolerated as it 

becomes clear that unmanned military platforms 

are both effective and economically attractive. 

Biography 

Lieutenant David Bookstaber, USAF, graduated 

from Yale Universiy with a degree in Computer 

Science and Mathematics. He is a scientist with 

the Electronic Systems Center (ESC) at Hanscom 

AFB, Massachusetts. 

Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. (US Air Force photo)

This article can be found at the Aerospace Power Journal website: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles. It will 

also be published in the June 2000 issue of the Armed Forces 

Journal. 
 Images of a badly injured American pilot 

captured in Mogadishu, bombed houses in the 

Yugoslav city of Nis, and residents in Grozny 

hiding in cellars to escape bombing by aircraft 

and artillery provide a stark contrast to the sterility of videos showing NATO precision-guided 

munitions destroying specific military buildings 

in Belgrade. Such imagery is generalised and 

emotive but it is also symbolic of the current debate concerning the employment of air power in 

contemporary conflict. It not only emphasises 

that the successful application of air power requires an effective campaign plan, and achievable political and military objectives, but it also 

highlights the fact that, if demographers and geographers are correct, many of the military operations of the next 25 years will take place in urban terrain. 

The advantages and disadvantages of 

fighting in urban terrain are notorious, with the 

advantages appearing to belong to the West’s unorthodox enemies — not least because such operations are likely to involve the commitment of 

large numbers of forces, the presence of many 

civilians, high casualty rates, and extensive collateral damage. Even this list of factors may 

oversimplify the problems urban operations will 

present to the West. It is easy to assume that operations, especially combat operations, in urban 

areas simply involve different terrain and tactics 

to those the military normally use, but this is to 

under-estimate the difficulties that cities in particular will present to Western forces. As a recent commentator notes: “However central terrain may be to the solution of tactical problems — a city’s complex set of systems and high 

population densities poses the most daunting 

problems in urban combat.”

Not surprisingly Western forces prefer to 

at all possible. Unfortunately, this is likely to 

prove difficult in the future. The emphasis on 

expeditionary forces increases the likelihood of 

urban operations at the same time as urban 

sprawl blocks many military communication 

lines. The Ruhr and Korea’s western corridor are 

cases in point. It is increasingly problematic to 

avoid urban areas, for their populations have increased many fold (especially in Asia and Africa) 

over the last 30 years and the UN predicts that up 

to 75 per cent of the world’s five billion population will live in urban areas by 2025. Urban operations are also increasingly likely because, as 

the Gulf War showed, the West’s possession of 

high precision weapons threatens operational and 

tactical manoeuvre in open terrain; enemies without such weapons, whether state forces or insurgents, are more likely to exploit cities they know. 

And while precision strikes can target specific 

military facilities as part of an overall manoeuvrist plan, they cannot occupy or hold a city such 

as Baghdad or Belgrade. And even if Western 

forces are successful at entering and managing 

most of a city they may (at least according to the 

US Marine Corps) then be involved in a “three 

block war,” comprising a simultaneous mix of 

humanitarian assistance, peace keeping or peace 

enforcement, and medium level intensity combat.1

Baghdad, Dili, Freetown, Grozny, Khafji, 

Kinshasha, Mogadishu, Pristina, Sarajevo — all 

suggest that it will be difficult to avoid urban operations in the future. It seems sensible, therefore, to consider what the implications of this 

trend are for British forces; to ask: what are the 

likely missions? what can we do today in terms 

of doctrine, technology and training? and what 

will be needed tomorrow? The answers to such 

questions are likely to be complex but what can 

The Airpower Taboo: Dialogue Across Perspectives? 

Airpower and Urban Operations 

Alice Hills 
logue across military perspectives; even if the occupation and control of cities is primarily a land 

operation, air support will be needed. Air power 

cannot seize or hold territory, nor can it patrol 

cities, but its inherent capabilities and characteristics mean that it can provide (or enhance) the 

operational capabilities needed to control enemy 

actions. Air power should engage with the fact 

that urban operations are likely to be a defining 

characteristic of future conflict. It will be unfortunate if we fail to identify the means by which 

air power can best be applied across the urban 

element of the conflict spectrum or if we rely on 

past experience in our preparations for possible 

coalition or integrated urban operations in 2025. 

It will be equally unfortunate if we simply accept 

the USA’s reliance on technological solutions 

when conceptual and doctrinal issues are also 

critical. 

We need to look beyond the reactive and 

retaliatory use of precision guided weapons and 

ask what the trend towards urban operations 

(especially in major cities or in mountainous regions) will mean for air power. This could be 

significant. For the role of air power has grown 

as the West increasingly reacts to unpredictable 

threats after they have occurred; air power is attractive in such circumstances because it appears 

to project force rapidly, selectively and with less 

risk than land power. Urban operations may 

challenge this understanding. If they do it seems 

likely that air doctrine will need to develop by 

using concepts more akin to those of manoeuvre 

warfare than those currently associated with the 

exploitation of air power over urban terrain. 

Urban Operations 

The title “urban operations” refers to 

many different types of operations and terrain, 

including policing, raids or combat in high-rise 

canyons, shanty towns, ports, sprawling industrialised conurbations, on plains or in mountainous 

regions. While the core competencies of air 

power (such as flexibility, rapid delivery and, 

more arguably, precision) suggest its general applicability to most of the coercive or punishment 

operations likely to take place under the heading 

of urban operations, the nature of urban operations is, however, likely to confine its role to that 

of the provision of support to land forces which, 

though they may provide humanitarian aid or security, are primarily fighting an asymmetric enemy exploiting manoeuvre warfare to the detriment of the West. (Indeed, it is possible that 

Western cities could be the scene of such operations in 2025, for it would be short-sighted to assume that the West will always be the attacker —

or that current Western norms will always prevail. Thus the support air power can provide to 

land forces is likely to be essential even though 

its use may be limited by both military and political imperatives; despite impressive technological 

developments, it is probable that war in such terrain will be as much about dust, flame and civilian casualties as it ever was. But although there 

are no easy solutions it is also likely that welltrained all-arms groupings, co-ordinated with 

joint fires and ISTAR[*] will provide a suitable 

basis on which planning for most urban scenarios 

can take place. 

There is currently little evidence that the 

RAF intends to play an intellectual part in developing a coherent doctrine for this. Yet a fundamental question for both the UK and the USA remains how best to use air assets in the context of 

urban operations and of the nature of the resulting air-surface balance. The RAF air power doctrine AP 3000, for instance, refers to the effects 

of the terrain cover available for the concealment 

of surface forces and to considerations affecting 

ease of surface movement. There is passing acknowledgement of the fact that lack of terrain 

cover will make it easier for air vehicles to detect, locate and track surface targets, but there is 

no acknowledgement of the problems an abundance of cover will present. There is no acknowledgement of the fact that contemporary air 

power appears to offer few alternatives between 

bombing for strategic effect and close air support, that the presence of many non-combatants 

will make precision fire difficult, and that air 

power does not appear able to coerce either civilians or regimes. 

It is almost as if a combination of the intellectual legacy of the Second World War and, 

more especially, the technological developments 

[*] ISTAR is an acronym used by the author for the combined activity of 

intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance. 
of the 1990s have hindered thinking about anything except the employment of technology. In 

the case of the first factor, that the experiences of 

strategic bombing in the Second World War remain influential in shaping the way we think 

about air power is understandable because, despite recent technological advances, urban fighting is likely to remain infantry based, manpower 

intensive, slow, costly and very destructive; 

flame is likely to remain the most useful weapon. 

Reliance on these experiences is then reinforced 

by the fact that although the UK has significant 

expertise in the low-level tactics associated with 

internal security in counter-insurgency, the lessons are heavily infantry based, though true combined arms training (in the sense of Russian 

Storm Groups, for example) is rarely practised.2

The current reliance upon technological 

means of waging war is the more serious and insidious weakness because it encourages shortsightedness and an over-reliance on US developments in particular. This can be symbolised by 

the common belief that lessons apparent in the 

Chechen war of 1999 are of peripheral concern to 

the UK because it was fought with out-dated 

weapons.3

 Such a belief suggests that not only 

are we in danger of under-estimating the resolve 

and ability of unorthodox opponents but that we 

also tend to ignore the fact that the geometry of 

urban terrain is an extremely testing environment; the performance of ISTAR assets will be 

degraded in cities, for example, while reconnaissance and intelligence gathering will be extremely difficult. The current UK tendency to 

follow the US lead in developing doctrine and 

technology for urban operations is likely to exacerbate such representative weaknesses, for the 

US approach is based on the premise that technological (and doctrinal) solutions must be sought 

so as to ensure low casualty rates among the few 

troops conducting operations.4

 Such a reliance upon technology is understandable when future urban operations present 

many problems associated with scale at the same 

time as military forces have shrunk. When the 

Americans recaptured Seoul in l950, for example, the combined US Army and Korean population was about one million. Today the population of Seoul is 13 million while the American 

Army has shrunk to half a million. The population of a megalopolis such as Mexico City 

(perhaps 20 million), Cairo or Karachi could easily absorb a complete army. At the same time, 

the US Marine Corps (USMC) estimates that 70 

percent of the world’s cities are on the littoral 

and that more than 60 percent of all nuclear reactors are also on the littoral. Unsurprisingly, these 

figures, taken in conjunction with the fact that 

recent USMC experiments indicate infantry casualty rates of about 46 percent in urban operations, 

encourage a reliance on technology even when 

that technology is unproven. Several industry 

presentations at a recent conference on urban 

warfare in London, for instance, focused on technology as a panacea.5

 The immature technology 

presented addressed training, sniper detection 

systems, non-lethal weapons and unmanned air 

vehicles (UAVs) in particular. A memorable example was that of biobots, such as cockroaches 

with sensors embedded in their abdomens, as a 

means of overcoming the difficulty of acquiring 

accurate intelligence in urban terrain. Too many 

of the examples were presented as accomplished 

fact whereas they are unproven. This willingness 

to look for a technological solution, combined 

with the technological emphasis of the Advanced 

Concept Technology Demonstrations (ACTD) 

conducted by the USMC and US Army to provide near-term solutions to urban combat, suggests a readiness to believe in technological solutions at the expense of considered thought and 

past experience.6

US soldiers from the 212th Military Police (MP) Company conduct routine checkpoint duties in an effort to confiscate weapons and contraband 

in Kosovo. (US Army photo by Spc Sean A. Terry: http://dodimagery2.

afis.osd.mil) 
The lure of technology is understandable. 

Some aspects of control technology, such as the 

electronic simulation of nerves, for instance, appears to be a potentially rewarding area for research in both military and police urban operations, and it is believed that the Russians have 

considered using less than lethal chemical warfare (rather than infantry) to clear buildings. But 

we still need to address the fact that our high 

technology may be negated by a determined enemy’s exploitation of low technology and high 

motivation. Rocket propelled grenade (RPGs) 

and snipers remain the most immediate threats to 

Western forces in contemporary urban operations 

no matter what Lockheed Martin or DaimlerBenz Aerospace claim. The RPG is still considered the definitive weapon in urban warfare by 

many of our likely opponents. It can be fired 

over buildings like a high-projectory mortar, used 

as an area weapon when fired over troop formations, and as a precision weapon when fired directly at armoured vehicles. In Somalia it was 

adapted with a metal plate to act as the SAM 

which brought down two Black Hawk helicopters 

in 1993. In Chechnya the sniper was a weapon 

of choice for both Russians and Chechens in 

1994-96 because a few well-placed shots caused 

disproportionately great effects.7

Joint Vision 2010 

The trend to use sophisticated technological innovations (and, in the USA, ACTDs to leverage in technology) and thereby encourage the 

belief that there can be clean solutions to urban 

operations is very strong, as is the idea of molding the unique characteristics and strengths of 

each service to complement the others so that the 

whole is more than sum of parts. Both are, in 

many respects, admirable, and both are encouraged by the continuing influence of US Joint Vision 2010 (JV2010) on UK forces. Although the 

RAF has not publicly referred to this document 

in the light of urban operations, it seems reasonable to assume that it will be influential on future 

doctrinal developments since the RAF appears to 

allow the British Army to take the UK lead on 

urban operations, and the director of infantry has 

stated (at the London conference referred to 

above) that land forces are using it as the framework for developing relevant capabilities. 

The JV2010 force can be taken as an 

ideal. Unfortunately it is a vision which is 

unlikely to encourage the conceptual work required to fully develop a potentially realistic and 

successful urban doctrine. For JV2010 (issued in 

1996) is based on a fundamentally flawed premise: that full spectrum dominance can be 

achieved — and exploited — using the four concepts of dominant manoeuvre, precision engagement, focused logistics, and full dimensional protection, supported by information superiority. 

Unfortunately there has been insufficient public 

debate about the relevance of these concepts in 

light of what we know about contemporary (let 

alone future) war.8 And there is little acknowledgement that urban operations will challenge 

each concept and that small integrated Western 

forces will be most unlikely to be able to execute 

the missions during the coming decades. Dominant manoeuvre in three-dimensional urban operations, for instance, will require greater detailed knowledge of urban infrastructure than is 

usually available, especially in the developing 

world, while precision engagement within a city 

may remain merely an aspiration; precision engagement cannot, in any case, take place without 

the accurate information for targeting and battle 

damage assessment often missing in urban operations. And restricted fields of fire will mean that 

many sophisticated direct-fire weapons or those 

with arcing flight will be of little use. 

A JV2010 force is small, depends on almost omniscient C4ISR [Command, Control, 

Communication, Computer, Intelligence Surveillance, and Reconnaissance], and requires the 

rapid mobility which air power can provide. According to American analysts, the key contribution air power can offer such a force is “a series 

of mutually supportive core competencies..., 

linked by space-based global awareness and 

command and control,” thus providing the critical airpower and spacepower needed to preserve 

the West’s existing advantages.9

 But this is aspirational rather than attainable, requiring levels of 

battlespace knowledge which do not yet exist. 

Moreover, it is the role of air power and, indeed, 

the nature of the West’s “advantages” in urban 

operations, which are at issue here, for they are 

not necessarily self-evident. 

Commentators such as Richard Hallion 
have gone some way to addressing the issue but 

it appears that the potential problems urban warfare presents to such a vision remain only partially understood.10 Hallion considers that “In the 

wars of tomorrow, a new paradigm for military 

force will predominate, not the old infantryarmor team. Except for a few scenarios, the need 

(as opposed to the ability or the desire) to commit 

friendly ground forces to close combat with an 

enemy simply will not exist. Air weaponry —

such as battlefield missiles, attack helicopters, 

fixed-wing aerial attackers, and remotely 

launched cruise missiles — will not only suffice 

but will be the most desirable means of confronting an enemy.”11

Hallion may be right, such weaponry will 

be desirable, but, equally, he may mislead if one 

of those “few scenarios” proves crucial or if one 

of the aspects of air power he mentions is insufficient or unacceptable. Take the case of fixedwing aircraft and helicopters. The Russians, for 

example, used many fixed-wing aircraft to provide support while artillery was moved into range 

in Grozny in both of the recent wars in Chechnya, and Russian sources have recently claimed 

that there are now plans to use a small number of 

their most recent attack helicopters, the Ka-50 or 

Hokum-A, as part of an experimental combat 

unit.12 But although air bombardment, in conjunction with artillery, was effective at inflicting 

punishment, there is no evidence that any forms 

of Russian air- or fire-power can necessarily 

bring the war to a conclusion. Fixed-wing aircraft were only of real value to the success of the 

latest war in attacking targets outside the city and 

attack fighter bombers were most efficient only 

in large free fire zones outside Grozny.13 More 

importantly, the nature of the terrain and the enemy and its fighting methods meant that air 

strikes could not be targeted precisely anyway. 

Hallion’s argument is stronger in relation to Russian use of helicopter gunships, which the Russians used against snipers and weapons on upper 

floors in the 1994-96 war. But even so the helicopters had to fly to and from the engagement 

area using the shelter of high-rise buildings. Furthermore, Hallion is selectively ignoring the fact 

that Black Hawk helicopters were brought down 

in Mogadishu by ingeniously adapted RPGs. 

The US OH-58 and AH-I Cobra helicopters 

might have proved superbly responsive in Somalia, while the USAF AC-130 Specter gunships 

undoubtedly provided excellent support to 

ground forces, but terrain matters; the infrared 

searchlights of the AC-130s may have allowed 

the rapid search of fields of fire around bases in 

Somalia but they are unlikely to do so inside industrialised cities such as those in the southern 

Caucasus. 

Joint Vision 2010 is not the conceptual 

guide British air power needs to help it develop 

doctrine appropriate for urban operations. Even 

if there is dominant battlespace knowledge it is 

still short-sighted to assume that the precise application of air power, leveraged by space assets, 

can rapidly halt an initial enemy offensive and, 

perhaps, deliver a serious psychological blow to 

the adversary.14 What JV2010 (and comparable 

American publications and concepts such as the 

Air Force’s Air Expeditionary Force, the Marine’s Operational Maneuver from the Sea and 

the Army’s Force XXI Operations) can do is 

stimulate thought in order to develop and validate 

new operational concepts, allowing a shift in focus from the concentration of forces for attritional purposes, for instance, to placing dispersed 

synergistic forces to achieve strategic or tactical 

objectives. If the US Marine Corps and Army 

are correct in their assumption that future warfare 

will be essentially urban then it is timely for the 

RAF to consider the role of air power in urban 

operations now, as a means of discussing how air 

assets might be best used in a future war. 

The Use of Air Power: Current Doctrine 

The value of air power’s competencies in 

urban operations is not at issue: projection, responsiveness, manoeuvre, mass and situation 

awareness are clearly useful attributes. Precision munitions are undoubtedly an efficient way 

to strike point targets even if they are ineffective at shaping the progress of land campaigns 

when infantry are thinly deployed and there is 

pressure to avoid casualties. But equally 

clearly, their use will be constrained by their inability to coerce or target in cities or urbanised 

areas, especially those with high-rise buildings, 

dense vegetation or mountainous terrain.15 

Even if we disregard the psychological elements 

associated with manoeuvre- and asymmetric- 
war, the urban environment is likely to render 

many of air power’s attributes irrelevant; masking and multi-pathing delude electronic signals 

in dense terrain, inner-city air currents limit 

helicopter operations, and so on. In fact much 

of the intellectual confusion surrounding the 

proper use of air capabilities results from the 

continuing gap between the technical possibilities and what is expected of it. 

 The terminology used to debate this issue 

has varied over time but there has always been a 

basic choice between polarised alternatives. 

The first is the tactical versus strategic argument, which questions whether airpower is best 

used in conjunction with other arms or as an alternative, independent and offensive operation. 

The second results from the choice of objectives 

for attack becoming entangled in a debate about 

whether the targets should be precise or diffuse.16

 The first is the most important for the development of doctrine because both US and UK 

concentrate on the tactical level to the exclusion 

of developing operational or strategic concepts or 

doctrine. This is both a cause and result of the 

desire for technological solutions. It may be that 

the tactical dominates because of the nature of 

urban operations or because of the current state 

of technology or because such operations have 

not attracted sufficient political or service attention. Whatever the case, a result is that air power 

is confined to partial roles such as offensive or 

defensive counter-air, anti-surface attack and 

close air support. The emphasis remains on air 

responding to requests for precision fire, escort, 

medevac and so on, even though it is likely that 

air power needs to be exercised as a whole for 

the medium to be fully exploited. This is admittedly most unlikely to happen in urban operations 

because urban conflict is usually resolved at the 

level of the squad and platoon. The result is that 

both British and American armies largely ignore 

air power, except in the context of small-scale 

stability and support operations, treating urban 

operations as essentially a series of small-unit 

combat actions designed to seize individual 

buildings or rooms. And when air power is 

needed it tends to be army aviation which is used 

to adjust artillery fire, provide battlefield command and control, mark and co-ordinate boundaries, evacuate and insert air assault forces at critical points. Ironically, the only purpose built 

CAS urban training centre (‘Yodaville’) in either 

country is, however, the result of a US Navy 

sponsored initiative managed by the Marine 

Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron 1 

(MAWTS-1).17

 The result is a flawed circle. The focus in 

both the USA and UK is on the tactical level; 

both militaries agree that future urban operations 

are likely to be fought primarily by dismounted 

infantry operating in small, dispersed groups at 

squad and fire-team level; high casualties are 

likely; the resultant risks lead to an insistence on 

technological solutions which reinforce the tactical emphasis. But perhaps this is unsurprising, 

for urban engagements in Vietnam and Somalia 

were tactical and there have been no large-scale 

operational level missions in urban areas since 

the Second World War. 

 The result is that doctrine for the operational level of war in an urban terrain is more or 

less non-existent.18 To some extent this is surprising, given that current American doctrine remains grounded in attrition war, attacking forces 

are still to surround and isolate a target city before using large numbers of ground forces, supported by artillery and aviation, to carry out a 

methodical linear sweep. (Hence the risk of 

casualties and hence the insistence on technological solutions.) Yet, apart from notable work by 

the USMC battle lab, there has been remarkably 

little attention given to conducting large-scale 

operations on urban terrain or to the joint, coalition and interagency integration requirements 

likely to be associated with it.19 The question of 

whether the fundamental operational principles 

required for successful urban operations are compatible with the demands of coalition warfare 

usually keyed to the lowest common denominator has not, for instance, been publicly asked or 

answered. Political considerations related to the 

desirability of city fighting, infrastructure issues 

or the world-wide integration of economic assets 

are rarely considered. Yet it is likely that it will 

be a combination of these factors which will 

drive operations and therefore tactics. Such a development will represent much more than a variant of existing ideas about bombing for strategic 

effect. Thus strategy for urban operations needs 
to be considered now, by all services, for strategies for future operations cannot be developed in 

isolation from the fact that cities and conurbations are political, economic, and social epicentres. 

Preparing for the Future 

Two fundamental (and linked) questions 

remain: how best to use air assets in future urban 

operations, and what is the nature of the resulting 

air-surface balance? That air power can inflict 

punishment on cities is not in doubt but its coercive abilities remain controversial, in Kosovo as 

in Nazi Germany.20 And there is no suggestion 

that air power played anything other than a supportive role in Moscow’s second Chechen war; 

Russian operations centred on the use of fixedwing aircraft and attack helicopters, in addition 

to towed and self-propelled artillery systems, in 

an attempt to use firepower to avoid close infantry combat. The tactics may have paid off in 

Grozny because most Russian casualties appear 

to have been cause by sniper bullets fired from 

up to a mile away.21

 Of course Chechnya is unique and the 

weaknesses (and strengths) of forces from the 

Russian Federation are very different to those of 

the Western forces. However, taken as a whole, 

Russia’s recent experiences in Chechnya suggest 

that, while air- and fire-power are very useful at 

softening opposition, especially outside cities, it 

cannot make a decisive contributions to the successful conclusion of war within cities — or to 

the aggressive street fighting likely to remain at 

their heart.22 It probably remains the case that air 

power is best used in the open countryside surrounding urban areas, where tactical strike aircraft (perhaps tied to unmanned sensor assets), 

high precision weapons, and helicopters can 

threaten the more conventional forms of enemy 

operational and tactical manoeuvre before sustained urban operations take place. In this way, 

air and space power may play a pivotal role by 

bringing overwhelming firepower to bear on urban operations, perhaps through precision strike 

and perhaps by achieving direct operational-level 

effects against key adversary nodes. It would, 

however, be short-sighted to assume that F-117, 

F-16, Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, and future generations of smart weapons can be used 

with minimum destructive effects against noncombatants and the civilian infrastructure of cities or that, if they are used, they can ensure the 

capitulation or defeat of an opponent. 

In other words, air power’s role is likely 

to remain supportive and enabling during urban 

operations, rather than decisive or strategic, because success — for the West as much as for 

Russia — will continue to demand a physical 

ground presence which air power cannot provide.23 However, air power’s role within threeblock wars may expand if industry promises can 

be delivered: if overhead 3D imagery systems 

developed for ISTAR can detect underground 

bunkers and weapons sites, if UAVs can track 

friendly forces, or if Predator imagery can be 

combined with a JSTARs platform. The US Air 

Force UAV Battlelab, for instance, is refining the 

operational concepts that allow Predator UAV 

sensors to overlay real-time video onto highly accurate satellite imagery provided by high resolution systems. Precision munitions such as the 

Joint Direct Attack Missile (JDAM) could also 

be useful because they are likely to prove capable 

of traveling through urban canyons to hit their 

targets. And the existing US Marine light/attack 

helicopter attack squadron (HMLA) claims to be 

uniquely suited to accomplish all six functions of 

Marine aviation in a three-block war: precision 

fire, medevac, command and control, confined 

area insertion and extraction, forward reconnaissance, and escort.24

But the inescapable fact remains that the 

current concensus of opinion, even in the US, is 

that urban terrain negates technological advantage, slowing tempo, creating casualties and 

breaking the will to fight of liberal democracies. 

In other words, the West’s technological superiority will not ensure success because its enemies 

need only avoid defeat. Moreover, amongst the 

lessons from Chechnya identified by American 

Army analysts at the Foreign Military Studies 

Office, Fort Leavenworth, is the fact that, paradoxically, the really effective use of technology 

(in the immediate future at least) may be at a 

much lower level than expected. The Chechen’s 

weapons of choice included a multitude of IT 

gadgets, such as cellular phones and commercial 

scanner systems, which acted as force multipliers; mobile TV stations were used as weapons to 
override Russian transmissions, and the Internet 

was used to raise overseas funds and assistance. 

Of equal value to Chechen fighters were the 

RPGs, flame throwers and snipers referred to 

above. In other words, the typical use of air assets in urban operations, and the air-surface balance, is unlikely to change in the near future. 

The circumstances in Chechnya are 

unlikely to be repeated but they serve to dramatically emphasise the military and political limitations of air power in an asymmetric war: the destruction of their materiel failed to shatter the 

Chechen’s cohesion or will to fight in either 

1994-96 or 1999.25 Attritional or high tempo 

forms of urban war by an authoritarian government in its own territory may succeed in the short 

to medium term but political settlements are required in the long term. This is likely to be as 

true of Chechnya as it was of Afghanistan. In the 

early 1980s, for instance, the Soviets considered 

future war to be a high tempo event in which 

force and firepower could be carefully choreographed. Afghanistan emphasized the flaws in 

this approach and the eventual Soviet withdrawal 

was prompted by political, rather than military, 

factors. Interestingly enough, air power’s contribution to that war was crucial; fixed wing operations carried out most of the operations designed 

to destroy Afghan society or for bombing and 

strikes, while helicopters were associated with 

very successful tactical ground operations.26 Significantly, however, the closeness of mountains 

to almost all major cities and airbases in Afghanistan allowed the mujahidin to approach 

within mortar and rocket range at night. This 

meant that the Soviet Army never solved the 

problem of urban security. 

Manoeuvrist Approaches 

 What do these representative experiences 

and trends mean for current UK doctrine? The 

fact that AP 3000 states that “it is axiomatic that 

any exploitation of air power is inherently manoeuvrist” suggests it may mean trouble. For urban operations will present difficulties for a manoeuvrist approach expressed in terms of tempo 

and with core functions of find, fix and strike.27 

Air power proponents pride themselves on the 

fact that air power’s characteristics of reach, 

speed of response, ubiquity and flexibility are 

relevant to manoeuvre at all levels of war but 

they may underestimate the environmental constraints of urban terrain. A culture “encouraging 

freedom and speed of action” may have difficulty 

in adapting. At the same time its norms and 

methods may become predictable and exploitable 

by an opponent. 

The manoeuvrist approach to war dominates British military culture. To some extent it 

should be ideal for urban operations because it 

encourages an exploitive attitude of mind. Ironically, it appears especially suited to the exploitation of technology — which remains a more 

plausible way to develop the favoured indirect 

approach than many of the suggested alternatives, such as siege warfare.28 Its flaw is that it is 

a style of warfare intended to destroy the enemy’s cohesion and will to win through a series 

of rapid violent and unexpected actions that create a turbulent and rapidly deteriorating situation 

with which he cannot cope.29 Unfortunately such 

an approach, directed towards a decisive point or 

centre of gravity, is notoriously difficult to execute on unorthodox enemies. Its successful execution depends (partially at least) on getting inside the enemy commander’s decision-making 

cycle, but this may be impossible if cultural orientation is especially difficult, opponents do not 

prove amenable to coercion or Western rationality, there are many commanders (as amongst the 

mujahidin), or if the political economy of a conflict is misunderstood. Furthermore, an enemy 

may be better at exploiting such an approach 

(and more unscrupulous) than we are, and it is 

unclear as to how a Western commander will be 

able to force such an enemy “to make decisions 

at a faster rate than he can cope with.”

30

 It continues to be assumed (especially by 

the proponents of air power) that the indirect approach can gain advantage from the speed of its 

associated culture of decision making, though 

such means as synchronised information systems, 

robotics and high-speed combat vehicles, even 

though high operational speed, let alone manoeuvre, is much more than this. And operational 

speed, as any commander present at Calais or 

Caen knew, is slowed by urban terrain. In the 

same way, the links between technology, command and control in the future, and the practical 

problems of manoeuvreing in urban terrain may 
also be different from what is expected. Such basic reminders are important because although air 

manoeuvre capabilities may improve significantly in the next 25 years, making a significant 

increase in tempo possible, the effect of urban 

operations will be to degrade the effect of such 

core capabilities in a digitised military. 

Implications for Air Power and Dialogue 

Air power is thus relatively ineffective at 

coercion in urban operations but is likely to remain attractive to planners because of the continuing political pressure for seemingly quick or 

cheap solutions to difficult security policy problems. Bureaucratic interests may also be influential. A major reason for the independence of air 

power originally was that it made a unique and 

vital contribution (through strategic bombing) to 

war. But integration is now a strong trend, air is 

effectively an arm of surface forces, and is likely 

to remain supportive of land forces in the near 

future. Technological developments will not reverse this process for, if technology means anything, the advent of unmanned vehicles and smart 

missiles may give the army the capability to 

strike at strategic centres without requiring a traditional air force. While technology may have 

caught up with ideals of strategic bombing, the 

nature of war appears to have changed so as to 

make such theories less relevant. 

Despite this strategic air power continues 

to be seen as capable of reducing the costs land 

and theatre air forces must pay on the urban battlefield, while theatre air power, especially when 

combined with simultaneous pressure from 

ground forces, appear a potentially powerful tool. 

Until recently air-land battle doctrine assigned air 

power a supporting role during intense ground 

engagements but contemporary urban operations 

suggest it is timely to revisit the potential of theatre air power. This may be in order to develop 

strategies for controlling urban territory, including cities. Or it could be in order to exploit enemy ground vulnerabilities, perhaps by looking at 

the susceptibility of armies to air attack. It may 

involve reconsidering whether joint air operations in cities require special tactics, techniques 

or procedures. It will certainly involve acknowledging recent experiences, such as the fact that 

air strikes in Mogadishu were useful only as suppressive fire, for they failed to destroy buildings 

which were usually reoccupied by Somali militiamen within minutes.31

Because of the experience represented by 

operations in Somalia, Chechnya and the former 

Yugoslavia, attack helicopters and offensive air 

support capabilities have attracted significant attention, though a recent review of urban operations literature concluded that calls for improved 

doctrine have only been partially met.32 One area 

which has received attention, and which may 

prove critical if predictions of three-block wars 

prove realistic, is that of close air support (CAS). 

CAS was certainly vital in Mogadishu, especially 

as a force multiplier in the face of rules of engagement (ROE) which were very restrictive for 

mortars and other indirect means of fire. There 

may therefore be a real need to exploit it as a 

force multiplier. The only fire support element 

available in Mogadishu was the attack helicopter 

company that was part of the quick reaction force 

but, as the US Task Force Rangers learned, air 

support cannot be used with impunity. CAS still 

needs considerable work to make it a useful force 

multiplier. 

Perhaps the most significant factor about 

such developments is that they emphasise that air 

power cannot be developed in isolation; it must 

build on a dialogue across perspectives. It was 

the experience of the US Army Rangers in 

Mogadishu that proved valuable for CAS in urban terrain in the developing world while the 

various experiments of the USMC have suggested ways in which CAS can be developed. 

Such dialogue should be used to stimulate consideration of the fundamental role of air power in 

future urban operations, rather than its technological expression. In the same way doctrine 

must take a broader — and more integrated —

approach to urban operations. 

Conclusion 

 British thinking about the role of air 

power within urban operations remains fixed on 

the tactical level and is over-reliant on technology, American experience and contemporary political constraints. This is short-sighted given 

that urban operations probably represent a defining characteristic of future war. Considerable 
conceptual development is required but some 

trends are clear. Analysis of air power in urban 

terrain now tends to focus on operations in the 

former Yugoslavia at the expense of those in Somalia or Chechnya, yet all the operations of the 

past decade suggest that air strikes in particular 

are not especially effective at coercion in cities, 

that fixed-wing aircraft are best at attacking or 

providing support outside cities, and that helicopter gunships, suppressive fire and CAS are potentially more valuable. To adapt AP 3000: “In 

such scenarios, air power remains highly relevant, but air operations for strategic effect may 

cascade to other platforms such as attack helicopters or support helicopters used to deploy special 

forces.”

33

 Air power may be best seen as a key 

lever, though the constraints of urban operations 

suggest that its ability to affect essential missions, such as those associated with reconnaissance and observation, are constrained, ISTARS 

or not. Yet tactical weaknesses are, in the long 

term, less significant that the weaknesses evident 

in the current reliance on a potentially formulaic 

manoeuvrism which under-estimates how urban 

operations may negate technological superiority 

or resources. One way to lessen this danger is to 

encourage dialogue across perspectives, whether 

bureaucratic or cultural, and to consider the ways 

in the strategic or operational use of urban operations can be exploited. Limitations in thinking 

about the potential roles of air forces in future 

operations should not be self-imposed. 

The opinions expressed here should not be regarded as representing those 

of the Ministry of Defence of the United Kingdom. 

Notes 

1

 Lester W. Grau and Jacob W. Kipp, “Urban Combat: Confronting the 

Specter,” Military Review, July-August 1999, 9. 2

 Command and control is difficult in urban operations, so there is a need 

for tactically self-sufficient sub-units. The Soviet/Russian solution is the 

motor rifle battalion, reorganized and reinforced to form a storm detachment. Combined arms storm groups are also formed at company level. 

3

 There was no air-to-air threat in the war of 1994-96 either. The Russian 

air force was confronted with only an antiquated ZSU-23/4 air defence 

artillery yet, despite the occasional effective use of precision-guided 

weapons against key targets, it was unable to significantly effect the outcome of the fighting. See Timothy L. Thomas, “Air Operations in Low 

Intensity Conflict: The Case of Chechnya,” www.amina.com/article/

thomas.mil:htm. 

4

 It is also likely that as technical capabilities increase so will politicians 

demands – while awareness of the destructive nature of urban warfare 

lessens. 

5

6

 The USMC, which launched its “Urban Warrior” series of experiments 

in September 1997, claimed the field of urban operations as its own but 

the Army then incorporated urban combat into its “Army After Next”

study. The ACTD project between the two forces was developed in response to criticisms that rivalry had led to unnecessary and expensive 

duplication in both R&D and exercises. 

7

 For Somalia see Mark Bowden, Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern 

War (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1999). For Chechnya see 

Timothy Thomas, “The Battle for Grozny,” Slavic Military Studies, 10:1

(1997), 50-108; Timothy L. Thomas, “The Battle for Grozny: Deadly 

Classroom for Urban Conflict,” Parameters, Summer 1999, 87-101; Lester Grau, “Changing Russian Urban Tactics: the Aftermath of the Battle 

for Grozny,” INSS Strategic Forum, July 1995, 38, www.edu/inss/

strforum/forum38.html; Carlotta Gall and Thomas de Waal, Chechnya: A 

Small Victorious War (London: Pan, 1997), 204-227. 8

 This is not the case in the USA. See, for instance, Robert E. Podlesny, 

“MOUT: The Show Stopper,” Proceedings, February 1998, 50-55. 9

 Glenn A. Kent and David A. Ochmanek, Defining the Role of Airpower 

in Joint Missions (Washington, DC: RAND, 1998). Kent and Ochmanek 

consider current doctrine to be an unnecessary constraint, stopping airmen 

from “thinking expansively about how they might play a greater role in 

missions traditionally relegated to surface forces.”(4) For challenges to 

JV2010 see also Podlesny, ibid. 

10 See, for instance, Richard Hallion, “Airpower and the Changing Nature 

of Warfare,” Joint Force Quarterly, Autumn/Winter 1997-98, 39-46. 11 Ibid., 46. 

12 “Analysis: Russia's fighting tactics,” BBC World News, Europe, http://

news.bbc.co.uk/hi, 25 November 1999. 

13 The use of air power (and artillery) in Grozny 1994-96 was often counter-productive because it turned the local Russian population against their 

own government; many Russians lived in the centre of the city where the 

heaviest fighting took place and so many casualties were Russian. The use 

of the same weaponry in 1999 may, however, achieve Russian ends, 

though it currently appears inconceivable that the USA or UK could follow such a policy. 

14 To paraphrase claims by the Department of Defence at www.

defencelink.mil, 15. 

15 In the case of Kosovo it appears that NATO achieved political success 

as a result of a combination of political and military factors, primarily 

Russian incentives to Mr. Milosevic and the threat of using the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army as a ground force, rather than to air power alone. It 

is unlikely that either 1991 or 1999 were turning points in air warfare. 

16 See G. J. Ashworth, War and the City (London: Routledge, 1991). 

From 1911, when the Italians made use of planes to bomb a settlement in 

their campaign against the Turks in Libya, through the publication of 

Douhet’s Command of the Air in 1921 and Spaight’s Air Power and the 

Cities in 1930, to the Second World War, the potential for attacking cities 

from air has received serious attention. 

17 See Floyd J. Usry and Matthew T. Sampson, “MAWTS-I Urban CAS 

Initiatives,” Marine Corps Gazette, May 1999, 33-36. 18 Yet strategic decisions by Stalin and Hitler ensured the strategic significance of Stalingrad and Berlin. 

19 The Coalition Warrior of the MCWL innovation and experimentation 

process is designed for 2001. 

20 Thus suggesting that air power should be considered decisive only in 

combination with land and political factors. By January 1945 it was primarily the threat of Russian occupation which drove Germany to accept 

unconditional surrender. See also Albert Kesselring, The Memoirs of 

Field-Marshal Kesselring (London: Cornhill, 1988), 281. In 1999 the 

decisive effects of air power must be balanced against those of the threat 

of ground invasion by KLA forces and inducements from the Russians. A 

different kind of coercive failure occurred when the Apache attack helicopter, promoted as the most potent weapon in the US arsenal and intended as a coercive gesture towards Serb positions, failed to fly combat 

missions in Kosovo because it could not cope with the region's 10,000 ft 

mountains without fitting additional fuel pods that would have reduced its 

weapons payload and ability to defend itself. See also Robert A. Pape, 

Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996). Mogadishu showed how vulnerable helicopters are in 

urban space. They may be most effective as air platforms firing remotely 

at targets designated by soldiers in the direct fire zone. 

21 Daily Telegraph [London], 11 December 1999. 22 Thus suggesting that it offers little to the American (or British) way of 

war – or necessarily to the Russians, given the Chechens use of defence-
23 The US Army intends that this presence will be provided by the 2025 

Urban Warfighter System. See Robert F. Hahn and Bonnie Jezior, “Urban 

Warfare and the Urban Warfighter of 2025,” Parameters, Summer 1999, 

74-86. The use of air power to perform policing duties during post-conflict operations may amend such intentions. But while experiences in 

Panama and Haiti have encouraged the US military to take post-conflict 

operations seriously, this has not been the case in the UK where they have 

received even less attention than urban operations. 

24 See Harry J. Hewson, “Light/Attack Helicopter Operations in the Three 

Block War,” Marine Corps Gazette, April 1999, 25-27. Hewson emphasizes that the USMC “trains and fights as an air-ground, combined arms 

team.” However, he then discusses the future capabilities of the HMLA in 

the context of technology being “a driving factor in determining the capabilities of the Marine Corps in the urban environment” (27). 25 The causes of the wars are likely to be typical of many future conflicts 

in that long-standing grievances, personal ambition, criminal interests, and 

terrorism played a part. According to Mr. Putin, the Russian prime minister, the first war was about Chechen independence and the second is about 

the suppression of international terrorism. Financial Times, 2 December 

1999. 

26 See Scott R. McMichael, Stumbling Bear. Soviet Military Performance 

in Afghanistan (London: Brassey’s, 1991), 80-96. 27 RAF, Air Power Doctrine, AP 3000, 3rd edn. (1999), 1.2.13. 28 See Robert H. Scales, “The Indirect Approach: How U.S. Military 

Forces can avoid the Pitfalls of Future Urban Warfare,” in Future Warfare: Anthology (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College, 1999). 29 British Defence Doctrine, JWP 0-01 (London: MoD CS(M)G, 1996), 

G.8. 

30 Ibid., 4.8. 

31 See Bowden, Black Hawk Down; Charles P. Ferry, “Mogadishu, October 1993: A Company XO’s Notes on Lessons Learned,” Infantry 84: 6 

(1994) 31-38. 

32 Russell W. Glenn, Marching Under Darkening Skies: The American 

Military and the Impending Urban Operations Threat (Washington, DC: 

RAND, 1998), 5-8. Service participants at a conference in Washington 

DC in 1998 considered joint urban doctrine to be little more than lip service to the needs of operational level doctrine. See also Peter A. Costello, 

“A Matter of Trust: Close Air Support Apportionment and Allocation for 

Operational Level Effects,” (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, 

1997); Bob Stephan, “The role of aerospace power in Joint Urban Operations,” paper presented at SMi conference on urban warfare, London, 3-4 

November 1999. 

33 AP 3000, 2.6.9. 

Biography 

Dr. Alice Hills is a Senior Lecturer in Defence 

Studies at the United Kingdom’s Joint Services 

Command and Staff College, and a Research Assistant at the Centre for Defence Studies, University of London. 

“Death” by Tris Sevdy, USAFA ‘74. Courtesy of the USAF Academy Department of English and Fine Arts. 
Next in Airman-Scholar: 

The Fall 2000 issue of Airman-Scholar will not have a specific theme and is therefore 

open to all proposals dealing with the journal’s broad purpose of stimulating discussion on 

current military issues and domestic and international affairs. We are particularly interested, however, in articles concerning military officers in contemporary American society. 

We intend as well to publish worthwhile papers prepared in the context of the Air Force 

Academy’s cadet summer research program (CSRP).

Airman-Scholar invites both full-length articles and short “letters to the editor” comments. 

Please submit in accordance with the following guidelines:

1. Full-length articles should be approximately 6,000 words in length, although all submissions will be considered. 

2. Articles should be submitted as hard copy with accompanying 3.5 inch disk (not returned). 

3. Articles will be edited to conform with Airman-Scholar format; proofs will not be sent 

to authors prior to publication. 

4. Articles are encouraged from all knowledgeable members of the academic and military 

communities. Publication of outstanding papers by USAFA cadets and other service 

academy students is a particular goal of Airman-Scholar. 

5. Articles must be received by 1 November 2000. 

6. Send articles to: 

34th Education Group 

Attn: Airman-Scholar 

2354 Fairchild Drive, Suite 2A2 

USAF Academy CO 80840-6264 


34th Education Group 

Att: Airman-Scholar 

2354 Fairchild Drive, Suite 2A2 

USAF Academy CO 80840-6264