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Published Airpower Journal - Fall 1987
Air Vice-Marshal R. A. Mason, Royal Air Force
Promises, Promises ...
IT HAS frequently been the fate of airmen to be criticised for failing to meet their promises rather than to be congratulated on the reality of their actual achievements. The vision, determination, and dedication of the early air power pioneers were essential for the military exploitation of the skies, but it has taken longer for the dream of these visionaries to be realised because of the realities of the world, especially technological limitations. As the microcomputer revolution impinges more and more on air power, it is tempting to look forward to a golden age of instant communications, perfect navigation, unambiguous target identification, infallible weapon accuracy, and identification, target destruction, all flowing from a multirole, infinitely maneuverable, and probably invisible aircraft platform.
There is little doubt that many recent technological advances have brought the dreams of the visionaries closer to reality in the last decade than in the previous six. Their impact on airframe, engine, avionics, weapons, communications, and associated systems has been well documented. In aggregate they offer to airmen a decade of opportunity in which the most apparent dilemma is that of choosing where best to invest resources and manpower to ensure that air power sustains its pervasive influence on warfare well into the twenty-first century. If that dilemma should be resolved only by reference to technological promise, then the visions of the early pioneers may not be so much vindicated as betrayed.
With a shameless and selective application of hindsight, one may argue that air power could have made a greater, and earlier, impact on twentieth-century warfare had airmen placed more emphasis on continuity in warfare and less on the unique characteristics of air power, had they recognised that the traditional pendulum of offence and defence could swing in the third dimension as much as it had always done on land and sea; and had they not elevated a specific role or roles into a dogmatic raison d’être for air power itself. But that is not only shameless and selective hindsight, it is also unfair. If one is faced by army generals who cannot lift their eyes above the next trench, or over the latest tank, to appreciate that while occupying ground is frequently essential in combat, it may not be essential to achieving victory in warfare; and if one is vying for resources with admirals who fully understand the implications of command of the sea, asserting that 75 percent of the earth's surface is covered by it but overlooking the fact that since 1941 command of the sea has depended on command of the air above it, which, incidentally, covers 100 percent of the earth's surface; and if an infant service has to fight for its existence against jealousy, bigotry, narrow-mindedness, and a simple failure to appreciate that airmen not only work in a different dimension but must think in one also--then, under all these circumstances, it is very natural that airmen the world over have tended to emphasis the unique characteristics of air power and to minimise both its shortcomings and the principles it has inherited from warfare an land and sea.
To move from the easy confidence engendered by generalities bred of selective hindsight to the identification of opportunities, challenges, and difficulties in the last decade of this century is to offer several hostages to fortune. But on the principle that men who do not court fortune are unlikely to receive many favours from her, the likely major developments in air warfare and their implications for airmen must be assayed.
Ten quite separate developments in air warfare in the next decade can be confidently forecast. What is not so clear is their likely impact and their relationship one with another. This list is therefore in order of association rather than necessarily in order of significance.
Airborne early warning and control.
The example of E-3A and E-2C aircraft is being followed worldwide. The Soviet 11-76 Mainstay is the most notable competitor at present, but many of the world's air forces will likely seek an airborne warning and control system (AWACS) capability.
Real-time command, control, communication, and intelligence (C3I) Systems.
Secure, real-time, data-linked communications between airborne command posts, reconnaissance platforms--manned and unmanned--and units requiring the data to pursue their operational objectives will become increasingly prevalent.
Computerised exploitation of the electromagnetic spectrum.
"Electronic warfare," a term loosely used originally to describe the avionic activities of special units in World War II seeking to enhance friendly air activity and to degrade that of an enemy, has expanded to encompass most air operations. In the next decade, manipulation of all frequencies in the electromagnetic, spectrum will make the lessons drawn from the Bekaa campaign of 1982 seem relevant only to elementary operations.
Stealth technology.
The application of all aspects of stealth technology to aircraft and weapons (physical dimensions and shape, absorbent materials, self-screening transmissions) is likely to become an integral consideration in design.
Static target location.
The location of static targets will become possible well beyond previous visual or electronic ranges as a result of satellite and other airborne reconnaissance systems.
Weapons capability.
Air-launched weapons will possess longer target-detection ranges, more refined target discrimination, greater terminal accuracy, and higher kill probabilities.
Twenty-four-hour operations.
With the widespread application of all-weather, day-and-night navigational, target-acquisition, and blind-landing systems, continuous air operations will be technologically sustainable.
Equalisation of technological application.
The superpowers, and hopefully the United States in particular, will retain a decisive edge over third world countries in the broad application and employment of advanced aerospace weapon systems. But although the gap may remain, these systems will move inexorably up the scale of technological sophistication. The briefest survey of specialist journals demonstrates the eagerness of Western aerospace systems manufacturers to peddle their advanced wares worldwide, quite apart from the inclination of an increasing number of "second-rank" powers to acquire their own indigenous expertise.
Constraints on manpower availability.
Much has been written on the increased unit costs of many modern aircraft and associated systems. However, there are clear signs that manufacturers, chastened by rigorous contract application, inspired by tight government budgeting, and stimulated by international competition, are beginning to recognise that escalating costs cannot indefinitely be passed on to naively appreciative customers. But as the third industrial revolution spreads worldwide, there is increasing competition with civilian industry and commerce for the highly trained manpower needed to operate and maintain the hardware. The problem can be solved by direction as in totalitarian states, or by market forces, or by ensuring that status and political influence remain the prerogative of the armed services, as in many third world countries. The problem will subside in due course, but in the next decade most air forces will need to look hard at their manpower requirements and how to meet them.
Increasing capability of surface-to-surface weapons.
Surface-to-surface weapons will become very much more accurate, and their ability to deliver submunitions designed to attack a wide range of targets will markedly increase.
The absence of one particular development from the list will probably prompt instant controversy. Contemporary advances in aircraft technology--aeroelastic airframes, aerodynamic instability, quantum enhancement of propulsion efficiency and avionics--are dramatic and will undoubtedly improve the operational effectiveness of the air superiority fighter, the strategic bomber, and the tactical transport alike in the next decade. However, the impact of any aircraft on warfare is not measured solely by its agility, endurance, or flexibility but by what it actually does with those attributes in the circumstances of its operational environment. If aircraft development and operation take these 10 developments into account, then the decade will indeed be one of opportunity grasped. If not, then the manned aircraft will pass into military history books to become a source of affectionate study alongside the knight in shining armour, the castles of Marshal Sebastien de Vauban, the Thin Red Line, and the traditional battleship.
It is very reassuring to be aware of the incessant discussions in professional air staffs and to read the equally vociferous opinions expressed in informed and not-so-well-informed aviation journals about all the likely developments and their implications. It is also very easy to be critical of decision makers. One yearns for the halcyon interwar years when in Britain the "10-Year Rule" postulated that armed forces were likely to have 10 years warning of any major conflict at a time when industry could produce a new front-line combat aircraft in little more than a year. Today, should deterrence fail, a major conflict could erupt in seven days, while the gestation period of a new aircraft or weapon system can take seven years.
Today, however, it is unlikely that an air force could equip for an offensive role without taking into account defensive research being carried out elsewhere in the system, which, if employed by an enemy, could have severely adverse consequences for its own offensive operations. It is readily apparent that the 10 developments noted above will have very contradictory implications for future air-operations. For example, airborne early warning, even at a relatively primitive stage, already enhances air defence considerably. It extends warning time and provides the defender an opportunity to concentrate defences in time and space. Because such warning reduces opportunities for surprise attack, a prospective attacker must in theory reassess the ratios required to achieve his own concentration of force at the decisive point of the engagement. However, that advantageous defensive position is unlikely to be any more permanent than Vauban's mutually covering parapets guaranteed perpetual invulnerability to his fortresses. When the attacker is similarly equipped, he will become aware of the position of intercepting aircraft and, assuming that his attackers have the necessary range redundancy and that he has secure communication with them, he can minimise the impact of the defensive concentration of force by unitary or mass rerouting. Or he may decide that the importance of the opposing AWACS platform is so great that lie will be prepared to allocate an apparently disproportionate amount of effort to its destruction or electromagnetic neutralisation.
That consideration can be extended a stage further. The possession of an AWACS by an opponent poses complicated questions for the projection of friendly offensive air power. It is, for example, still possible to exploit the earth's curvature and terrain features to minimise aircraft vulnerability by high-speed, low-level penetration of hostile air space. However, an AWACS not only provides early warning, it will increasingly enhance look-down detection also. While range redundancy will permit variable routing and multidirectional approaches to targets, it will become increasingly difficult to do so without an opponent having an opportunity to prepare and direct his defensive assets for interception. Improvements in fighter look-down target acquisition are complementary, but the problems of destroying low-flying targets from above may prove less tractable.
Radar-guided and heat-seeking missiles continue to be susceptible to the natural "noise" of ground clutter, and few fighter pilots relish the additional stimulus of going down "among the weeds" for low-level, air-to-air combat. If, on the other hand, short-range, surface-to-air defences are prepared for an enemy's approach at a specific height, speed, and direction, the critical advantages hitherto possessed by the low-flying intruder are minimised. Moreover, while the defenders may be in some doubt until the later stages of an attack about which target is under threat, there will be little uncertainty about the destination of the intruders as they turn for home. It is sometimes forgotten that Royal Air Force and US Army Air Forces aircraft in the bomber offensives of World War II usually incurred heavier losses returning from their targets than while fighting their way towards them. In any future European scenario, relative combat attrition will be a significant factor in the air war, and the employment of an unimpaired AWACS could have a significant impact on the sustainability of deeper-penetrating operations.
It is therefore highly probable that an AWACS will assume pivotal importance for both defensive and offensive air operations. As a result, its preservation or destruction, depending on whose system it is, will become a prime consideration on all sides. It follows, therefore, that investment in resources to protect one's system and to destroy or neutralise that of the opponent should be given very high priority.
In assessing the significance of AWACS, an important assumption has been made that the data it acquires can be securely and speedily made available to the units that need to use it. The problem is not new to war in the third dimension. Timely warning of an enemy's disposition, direction, and strength has been of value throughout history, but only if the commander had the opportunity and the resources to take advantage of it. Ambush is ambush, whether achieved by the US Cavalry, by F-14 Tomcats, or by SA-12s. The difference lies in the speed and three-dimensional mobility of the air forces. In this context, the capabilities of AWACS resemble those of systems such as the TR-1 or SR-71, which can relay data on surface movements as well as those of aircraft. The better the C3I system, the more accurately can the location of even a highly mobile opponent be identified, monitored, and reported. The efficacy of mobility, especially on land or at sea, as a traditional defensive option is proportionately reduced. Thus, a strategy that relies on reinforcement to sustain offensive impetus could become more vulnerable to increasingly effective interdiction. On the other hand, so could an alliance strategy that relies on reinforcement to strengthen thinly stretched, forward-deployed, defensive forces. Therefore, there are strong incentives to develop weapon systems that can take advantage of the commander's realtime awareness of what is going on much farther "over the hill" than ever before. The inherent characteristics of air power--speed, reach, and flexibility--are well suited to the task as long as they are applied in a manner appropriate to the likely operational environment.
Even in the least-developed areas of the third world, that operational environment will be increasingly influenced by electronic warfare (EW). If it should involve confrontation between the superpowers or their immediate surrogates, then EW will be pervasive. Advanced technology for military exploitation of the electromagnetic spectrum is well documented and is increasingly enhanced by the impact of the computer. The acceleration of detection and target acquisition time has already prompted countervailing investment in the various components of stealth technology. Again, it is the technology that is novel, not the underlying principles. Camouflage and decoy targets are traditional responses to optical reconnaissance and visual attack. Electronic countermeasures and counter- countermeasures are their modern expressions, while "stealthy" technology speaks for itself. Stealth is a military attribute not only designed to take an enemy by surprise but, by minimising risks of detection, to also increase one's own survivability.
The lethality of many current air-to-air, air-to-ground, and ground-to-air weapons is such that to afford an opponent an opportunity to attack is to risk destruction or severe degradation. The radius of lethality is continuing to increase as detection and acquisition ranges are extended and warhead efficiency is enhanced. All-aspect, highly agile air-to-air missiles are, when launched within the parameters of the overall weapon system, likely to be far more manoeuvrable reactive than their manned aircraft targets. Weapon lethality depends increasingly less on the judgement of the pilot and more on the artificial intelligence of the missile's guidance system. The need to neutralise or impede such a system has led to demands on electromagnetic exploitation far in excess of that required for traditional distortion of navigational aids or communications. Therefore, a future combat aircraft will still need to be highly agile and to have an extremely responsive aircrew, but unless it carries systems that can detect and engage threats beyond visual range, its contribution to the essential struggle for air supremacy is likely to be severely constrained. That leads to the further reflection that in the not-too-distant future, air force strength comparisons may need to concentrate more on the relative performance of missiles than on the derivatives of Eagle and Flanker.
The implications of improved air-to-ground missile performance are no less significant. The possible impact of well-coordinated AWACS, SAMS, and interceptors has been explained. Therefore, the farther away from the target the manned aircraft can, release its weapons, the greater the reduction in its vulnerability. At this point, however, there is a danger of allowing priorities to be obscured.
In societies that place high premiums on human life, attrition rates rightly have an important subjective value. But in combat their importance lies primarily in relation to the overall means required to achieve an overall objective. Modern combat aircraft are indeed expensive, but apprehension about attrition rates and exchange values should follow, not precede the basic question: what exactly is the contribution of the attacking aircraft to the overall combat objectives?
Certain characteristics of air power, not shared to the same degree by land or naval forces, have always been emphasised by its proponents, and with good reason. These characteristics include not just long reach and high speed, already mentioned, but the ability to deliver very heavy firepower concentrated in space and time against a wide variety of target arrays. But the application of force has traditionally been concerned with more than massive destruction. If war remains a rational instrument of national policy--and it at least continues to be when waged with conventional weapons--then destruction of the enemy's assets is still only one way of imposing one's will on an opponent.
A modern military theorist can quote Clausewitz with the same selective abandon displayed by a religious bigot dipping into Ezekiel, and with equally inappropriate conclusions. But the central tenet of Clausewitz's philosophy does remain valid: every armed force has a centre of gravity, an element upon which all else depends. It may be in an engagement, or in a theatre of operations, or in the larger conflict itself, but it will be there. Success will ultimately depend on its identification and neutralisation. Although the early air power theorists did not use the same expression, they pursued the same idea in the belief that the enemy's morale, or his industrial capacity to wage war, should be the legitimate target of offensive air power. Indeed, such beliefs are still inherent in the concept of deterrence by mutually assured nuclear destruction.
Clausewitz suggested that the enemy's centre of gravity would tend to be his armies, or as we would translate it, his armed forces. However, that concept in the context of offensive air operations in the 1990s should be refined, with pertinent implications for the consideration of attrition. For example, if a potential opponent has manifestly adopted an offensive military strategy based on surprise and on the impetus of sustained and closely coordinated combined arms, at least three critical hinges are readily apparent: first is his ability to achieve surprise, second is his ability to sustain the necessary momentum of his offensive, and third is his ability to coordinate his activities. These hinges become more sharply defined if one focuses on a European scenario in which the longer the conflict the greater the opportunity for Western superior military and economic strength to be brought to bear, the greater the risks to the aggressor f nuclear escalation, and the greater the possibility of dwindling enthusiasm among his acolytes for his venture.
The advent of AWACS and other technology for "over-the-hill" reconnaissance has reduced the opportunities for even the limited covert transition to war preparations needed to launch a surprise attack by in-position forces. The other two hinges, impetus and coordination, depend on the opponent's ability to control the timing of events, and both are vulnerable to accurately directed offensive air power. Complete destruction of an opponent's military strength remains an ideal solution to a defensive problem, and on many occasions it may be feasible. But if not, neutralisation will achieve the same objective, which is to deny an opponent the use of his military instrument to achieve his political goal. Military victory is not an end in itself.
One or two examples will illustrate the practical implications of the principle. First, in offensive air-to-ground operations the relative merits of close air support, battlefield air interdiction, and deeper interdiction continue to be hotly debated. An obvious factor in the discussion is the ability of the air forces to have an effective choice between the three. But assuming that such a choice does exist, perhaps the decision should depend not on the absolute destruction that each mode could achieve but on their relative impact. In the European scenario already described, for example, the impetus of an offensive may be more deleteriously affected by the delayed appearance of a complete armoured regiment than by the timely arrival of one-half of it. Or put another way, delay, disruption, and dislocation of a greater number may have more impact on the "hinge" than destruction of only a proportion. Again, of course, destruction of the whole is the ideal, and if practically attainable, all well and good. But whereas destruction of the current generation of heavily armoured vehicles calls for the large-scale use of accurate and penetrative firepower, tank formations disrupted by minefields lose impetus and cohesion, and tanks unsupported by infantry become themselves vulnerable to infantry-borne antitank weapons. Even in an age of increased self-containment, armoured divisions require extensive logistic support for sustaining their momentum. Such support, which does not have the same heavy armour protection, is already vulnerable to contemporary air-launched missiles with submunition warheads and is likely to remain so.
Several air-launched anti armour weapons are under development in the West for employment in the next decade. All are faced with the same problems, Assuming the current location of the enemy armour is known, how can submunitions be launched by missiles from the stand-off range with sufficient dissemination to hit different targets and with sufficient lethality to destroy them? That ideal solution, however expensive, obviously needs to he pursued, but the question must be posed, is it the only solution? Will not delay, disruption, and dislocation in foreseeable scenarios be equally effective? And will not the reach, capacity, and flexibility of air power be eminently suited to attack and disrupt highly mobile targets well beyond artillery and helicopter range? All Western assessments of Warsaw Pact forces acknowledge their numerical superiority and their ability to increase them by reinforcement. A battle of attrition, either in the air or on the ground, does not seem an ideal Western option. Time, on the other hand, favours the defence and with it the implications for the offensive of dislocated impetus.
Direct contribution to the air-land battle is one significant offensive role of tactical air power; the other is offensive counterair (OCA). It should not be necessary to stress the continued critical importance of securing a favourable air situation, but sister services still occasionally seem to regard OCA as a uniquely air force interest. In fact, as every airman knows, OCA makes two critical contributions to the air-land battle. First, by denying the opponent sanctuary to rearm and return aircraft to the air superiority contest, it reduces the task of friendly air superiority fighters. One has only to reflect on the impact on recent air wars in the Middle East if Israeli aircraft turnaround times had been extended, or worse, if Israeli aircraft had been unable to intervene in the 1973 and 1982 conflicts.
In possible European scenarios, the traditional objective will remain, but the Warsaw Pact's emphasis on combined arms operations introduces another objective, one relating to the third hinge-coordination. The concentration of tactical air power, either to coincide with a ground force surge or to produce a saturating air attack on a particular target array well behind the ground battle area, requires well-coordinated timing. An armoured regiment can hold for several hours if necessary to await reinforcing units, but tactical aircraft cannot. Even third-generation Warsaw Pact aircraft have finite limits to their unrefueled endurance. If OCA can delay takeoffs by as little as 30 minutes, massive disruption can ensue, leaving either piecemeal forces to be dealt with by air defences or numbers of aircraft in holding patterns that are visible to AWACS and that have had their subsequent flexibility of routing seriously degraded.
A principle similar to that in offensive air Support or interdiction therefore applies to OCA. While ideally OCA will destroy enemy aircraft on their bases, the mere delay of operations could in many circumstances have equally important results. That assumption affects considerations of resource allocation to OCA in the next decade.
To close airfields for several hours or even days is at present very costly. Even with the imminent generation of airfield-attack weapons such as the JP233 and the Durandal, it requires comparatively large numbers of aircraft per target. The advent of standoff OCA weapons will reduce the vulnerability of attacking aircraft but not the amount of effort required to achieve a given closure capability. Here again, "over-the-hill" reconnaissance must be synchronised with OCA, which hits specific airfields at critical times to achieve the objective of neutralising the contribution of enemy air power to both the air superiority and combined arms battles.
An aside to the main themes of this article, but not to the effectiveness of OCA, is the need for comprehensive and readily available signals intelligence (SIGINT) to track the employment, recovery, and possible dispersal of enemy formations. Occasionally in the past, airmen have concentrated on the need to procure the best possible combat aircraft to the extent that resource allocation to, and support of, the more esoteric intelligence systems has been grudging and short-sighted. Unbelievers should be dispatched to study, F. E. Hinsley's studies of intelligence in World War II.
If, however, the need for selective OCA throughout the next decade is beyond dispute, the methods to be employed will become debatable. Critical installations aircraft shelters, fuel and weapon storage, and operations and air traffic control centres--can all be hardened against all but the heaviest direct conventional weapon attack. Short and vertical takeoff and landing capability, rocket-assisted takeoff, aircraft carrier-type arrester gear, dispersal, and runway and taxiway redundancy can make dislocation of operations by OCA a complex operation, But in the last resort, airfield locations are known, as hopefully are the aircraft types being flown from them. They may be heavily defended and protected but they cannot evade an air attack. The question must therefore be asked, are they in the longer term appropriate targets for attack by highly flexible manned aircraft or by surface-to-surface missiles (SSMs)? At present, surface-to-surface missile accuracy is adequate to hit an airfield--and indeed, the threat from Warsaw Pact chemically armed SSMs is already being studied by NATO commanders. But conventional warhead payload is considered inadequate, and terminal accuracy insufficient, to allocate the OCA role comprehensively to SSMS. If, however, one pursues the previous logic that neutralisation of enemy air effort does not necessarily imply its destruction, then a combination of SSMs with conventional submunition warheads becomes a more attractive proposition. Indeed, assuming accurate and timely intelligence on enemy operations, swift ballistic missile attack could be very effective.
Clearly, many other factors impinge upon the resource-commitment equation, Aircraft can be allocated either to OCA or to many other roles; OCA missiles, on the other hand, would be far less flexible. Attrition rates permitting, aircraft could make repeated attacks at the cost of replacement weapons; missiles could be used once only. What should be avoided, however, is the belief that to replace the aircraft in the OCA role is somehow to erode the importance of air power. As was stated at the outset, air power is far too comprehensive to be tied indefinitely to one specific role. Indeed, it could be argued that its reach, flexibility, and concentration of firepower would in any event be more appropriately directed against more flexible, unpredictable, and mobile target arrays.
Whatever its role, the manned aircraft has got to be able to leave the ground and sooner or later return to it. This is not the most original of observations but it is one whose implications are giving rise to numerous studies by Western air staffs and, presumably, by those farther east also. A great deal has already been done to make the targeting of main bases more problematical, including hardened shelters, duplicated operating surfaces, and soft-field, short-field, and off main-base operations. For the foreseeable future, however, aircraft will be at highest risk in two out of three locations--in hostile airspace and on the ground. The third location is friendly airspace. The theory is therefore simple: minimise the time spent in two and maximise the third.
In practice, in-flight refuelling, integral range redundancy, and combat air patrols can all facilitate airborne loitering as well as enhance reaction speed in time-sensitive missions. However, if specific aircraft always have to return to specific airfields for refuelling, rearming, servicing, and crew handover, they will remain vulnerable to the hostile OCA described in the previous paragraphs. If the opposition does come to possess real-time surveillance of the airfield and surface-to-surface missiles with submunition warheads sufficiently accurate to "buckshot" the area, then all the many qualities of air power will count for nothing.
There is one approach to reducing dependence on main base facilities that has very respectable roots in military history but that for several good reasons has tended to be neglected by air forces until very recently. The traditional concept is simply dispersal, or as Napoleon would have said, division. Concentration of force at the decisive point does not require concentration of force either at the point of origin or at points en route unless there is a need for mass saturation of intermediate defences. But permanent dispersal of aircraft is expensive. It demands duplicated support, maintenance facilities, weapon and fuel stocks, transport, and, above all, manpower.
Not surprisingly, it takes more than just the perception of an uncertain threat to overcome Western habits engendered by decades of operations mounted from relatively secure bases either in peacetime or in third world conflicts. But one may reflect on the Falklands campaign and consider the implications for the British task force if the Argentinean air force had had three airfields, instead of just Port Stanley, from which to operate both heavy transports and fast jet aircraft. The inestimable advantage of air power, because of its ability to concentrate heavy firepower or indirect support over long ranges from many different directions, is that there is no military need for the individual components of any missions to launch from, or return to, a small number of locations. Therefore, the imperatives would seem to be the maximum standardisation of support facilities, reliable multistrand communications, and widespread use of both civilian and military airfields. In periods of tension and transition to war, lateral as well as forward dispersal to as many locations as possible is desirable. There should be an adequate prestocking of special-to-type weapons, but dispersed forces should draw upon common fuels and locally recruited reserve manpower, vehicles, and basic logistic support.
If it is accepted that air power is and will increasingly become the dominant factor in most conflict scenarios, the opponent must be given the credit for also recognising that fact and placing its neutralisation at the top of his priorities. There is ample evidence to suggest that along with the destruction of Western nuclear capability, Soviet military doctrine has for some time reached that conclusion. If, ideally, every mission had alternate launch and recovery bases, then the task of their neutralisation by airfield attack would demand an almost prohibitive allocation of resources.
There are two inherent characteristics of air forces that can lead to an almost subconscious underestimation of the importance of people in warfare. First is the preoccupation with technology--with aircraft and supporting systems. Second is the fact that the actual fighting or other air operations are carried out by only a very small proportion of all the people in uniform. From that small proportion is drawn the executive and higher command of the entire force. In the Royal Air Force, for example, only some 7,000 out of 93,000 are aircrew. In dispersed operations, the same number of aircrew may be required as for missions launched from main bases, but the overall manpower bill will be considerably larger. Moreover, the increasing introduction of aircraft and weapons with 24-hour, all-weather capability demands not only more aircrew, but proportionate increases in ground personnel also. This comes at a time when manpower costs for training and quality retention are, in the Western world at least, rapidly increasing and when high-technology skills are in even greater demand in the commercial and industrial marketplace. Finally, the unwelcome impact of early casualties on groundcrew and aircrew personnel alike is easy to underestimate.
Groundcrew do not enjoy the exhilaration and satisfaction of flying in peacetime, and they will seldom see the successful conclusion of their efforts in wartime. Indeed, in Europe at least some may suffer the fate of those British, French, and Russian groundcrew in the early years of World War II whose airfields were devastated by the Luftwaffe with little opportunity on the ground to fight back. Quite clearly, an air force that does not procure inadequate aircraft and weapons will stumble to a rapid defeat against a better-equipped opponent. However, if resource allocation has also failed to provide for adequate numbers and quality of ground crew, even the most sophisticated aircraft are unlikely to get airborne at all. "Quality of life" is a cliché that ships easily into a sentence. It means many things to many servicemen and women but it cannot be neatly quantified in a cost-effectiveness equation, it is sometimes difficult to include in arguments about resource allocation. And yet, the one asset possessed by an air force that actually appreciates rather than depreciates over a period of time and operations is its people.
It is natural that air force planners, resource allocators, forward thinkers, and all who are concerned with the continued effective application of air power into the twenty-first century will focus sharply on the 10 developments--or a similar collection--listed earlier in these reflections. But the application of air power is not just about the military exploitation of the third dimension above the surface of the earth. It must also take into that dimension the traditional characteristics of warfare itself. Perhaps one could add to the 10 possible developments in air warfare 10 thoughts of a more traditional nature:
And then we must make sure we get the best available next-generation fighter....
Contributor
Air Vice-Marshal R. A. Mason C.B.E (MA, King's College, London; MA, University of St. Andrews, Scotland), is air secretary of the Royal Air Force. His previous assignments in the Royal Air Force include director of Defence Studies; director of Personnel Management, Policy, and Plans; and exchange officer on the faculty of the US Air Force Academy. He has been a visiting lecturer to Air War college, National War College, and other universities and military colleges worldwide. Air Marshal Mason is the author of several books and was a frequent contributor to Air University Review. He is a graduate of Air War College.
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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