I. The Context: Home-Grown Problems and Adversary Innovations

Abstract

Aside from the US, NATO’s air forces have suffered a considerable decline in their ability to conduct sustained combat operations against a near-peer or peer state opponent since the end of the Cold War. Badly delayed modernisation plans, inadequate weapons stockpiles, inflexible C2 arrangements, reduced fleet sizes, and pilots highly experienced in dropping munitions on insurgent groups but lacking the intense training required for proficient operations in highly contested airspace are problems that affect all Alliance members. NATO efforts to reverse these trends, such as the so-called ‘Four Thirties’ force generation and readiness plans, still sit largely in the realm of political statements of intent rather than concrete programmes to generate increased military power. Increased readiness levels, while necessary, are also not a solution in and of themselves to the gulf in combat capability and enablers between the US and other member states. While Russia has also seen a significant decline from over 2,650 to around 1,250 modern combat aircraft compared to the Soviet Union, its greater reliance on a mixture of heavy ground forces and modern ground-based air defence systems in large numbers renders it less dependent on large-scale airpower than NATO. Almost three decades of discretionary, limited wars against sub-peer threat states and long counterinsurgency campaigns since 1991 have served to demonstrate many of the inherent strengths of airpower,