Transcript
Seminar Guide
The Future of Air Power 24 February 2015
Karlberg slott Karlbergs Slottsväg 171 73 Solna
Foreword
Dear Guests, It is with great pleasure that we welcome you to this air power seminar, hosted by the Swedish Defence University. Looking back over the last one hundred years, one of the most significant changes in the character of war is the increased role of air power. It has become an indispensable asset to the operational commander and a pivotal tool for our politicians. Although few will deny the significant contribution of air power in the Second World War, the asymmetric advantage that air power offered in Korea, Vietnam, and elsewhere has remained largely unappreciated because air power alone could not determine the outcome of those wars. When air power demonstrated its significance in Operation Desert Storm (1991) most analysts failed to comprehend why air power held such strategic value. It was not state-of-the-art technology alone that changed the character of war, but a concept that served as the basis of planning and application. The stunning effectiveness of offensive aerial operations showcased air power as an increasingly powerful and flexible instrument for the pursuit of political objectives – one with continuing relevance well beyond the total war context in which it was initially forged. Air power has since played an important role in operations such as Deliberate Force (1995), Allied Force (1999), Enduring Freedom (2001), Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003) and Unified Protector (2011). In the process, air power has become the topic of professional study in its own right, with various institutions offering academic degrees in the field. Military officers can now build on both a substantial body of research and ample empirical data to improve their mastery of air power. The Air Operations Section, as part of our War Studies Division, is devoted to education of officers, to strengthen their understanding of air power – past, present and future. This seminar is an extension of our educational programmes and ongoing research to improve insight into the role of air power in meeting tomorrow’s security challenges. Simply put, we encourage an informed debate on the future role of air power. We do so by offering presentations from, and discussions with, some of the world’s leading experts. Enjoy the seminar!
Bengt Axelsson Brigadier General Deputy Vice-Chancellor
Stephan Persson-Tyrling Lieutenant Colonel Chief, Air Operations Section 3
Program
The Future of Air Power Program 24 february, 0830-1530, Karlbergs slott, Samlingssalen 0900 Registration 0930 Welcome Remarks Brig. Gen Bengt Axelsson
Session I A New Air Power Concept Col. Professor John Andreas Olsen
The Role of Technology in Future Warfare Professor Dr. phil. Holger Mey
Panel discussion
1100 Lunch 1215 Session II Strategy and Air Power Col. ret. John A. Warden
A New Era for Command and Control of Aerospace Operations Lt. Gen. ret. David A. Deptula
Panel discussion
1415 Break 1430 Session III The Future Swedish Air Force Maj. Gen. Micael Bydén 1515 Closing Remarks Maj. Gen. Micael Bydén
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About the Air Operation Section
Swedish Defence University, Air Operations Section The Air Operations Section is responsible for teaching, education, and research in the command/control of air operations/air forces, both at the tactical and at the operational command levels and in warfare in general. The Section keeps up to date with and contributes towards the development of air-operational capabilities through participation in courses, studies and exercises on the optimum use of the air arena in an operational context. It also conducts research in War Studies particularly air power. Name, title/position, e-mail address: Lt Col. Stephan Persson-Tyrling, Head of Air Operations Section,
[email protected] Maj. Lars-Johan Nordlund, Tutor,
[email protected] Lt Col. Magnus Bengtsson, Tutor,
[email protected] Lt Col. Anders Nygren, Tutor,
[email protected] Susanna Melin, Research Assistant,
[email protected] Lt Col. Erik Bergkvist, Tutor,
[email protected] Maj. Johan Danko, Tutor,
[email protected] Maj. Caroline Ekberg, Tutor,
[email protected] Maj. Björn Johnson, Tutor,
[email protected] Maj (res.). Patrik Wiklund, Lecturer,
[email protected] Dr. Dan Öberg, Senior Lecturer,
[email protected] Dr. Kersti Larsdotter, Senior Lecturer,
[email protected] Lt Col. Anders Malm, Tutor (PhD. candidate),
[email protected] Maj. Lisa Justesen, Tutor (PhD. candidate),
[email protected] Prof/Col. John Andreas Olsen, (Guest professor War Studies),
[email protected]
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Speaker Information
Major General Micael Bydén is the chief of staff of the Swedish Air Force, a position he has held since 2012. Major General Bydén was born in Gnarp, Sweden in 1964. He graduated from the Coastal Artillery Academy in 1985 and then converted to the Air Force to start basic flying training. Most of the early part of his career was spent in the air as a fighter pilot. In 1999 he left F21 Wing in the northern part of Sweden and moved to Washington D.C to take post as Air Attaché at the Swedish Embassy for three years. Since then he has served as Commanding officer at the Swedish Air Force Flying Training School and at the Swedish Armed Forces Helicopter Wing. Among other commitments he served as Chief of Staff at HQ Regional Command North, ISAF, in 2011. In 2012 he was promoted Major General and took post as the Chief of Staff, Swedish Air Force. He has some 1500 flight hours in propeller and jet trainers and all versions of SAAB 37 Viggen (recce, ground attack and fighter). Part from this he has also basic helicopter training. His hobbies include golf, hunting, running, workout and skiing. He is married to Anita Carlman and they have three children; Ludvig, Lovisa and Harald.
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Speaker Information
The Future of the Swedish Air Force Major General Micael Bydén The mission of the Swedish Air Force – and of the nation’s armed forces as a whole --- is to support Swedish security and foreign policy and help maintain peace and independence in accordance with four major tasks: helping to main tain territorial integrity, participating in various crisis response operations, defending Sweden against armed aggression, and safeguarding civilians and securing vital public functions. This means that the air force must be able to counter an advanced opponent through the whole spectrum of conflict and continuously maintain high readiness for various missions, which in turn means training and equipping the necessary standing units and ensuring their availability. The air force must be prepared to conduct operations independently or as part of a coalition, primarily in Sweden and the near abroad, but also in distant locations when appropriate. My current focus areas are threefold: personnel and recruitment, in both the short and the long terms; improved national defence capabilities and planning, with an emphasis on base operations and command and control; and long–term system (aircraft) development. The Swedish Air Force must aim to remain a well-organized, professional, and robust service that offers high availability and usability for both national and international operations. Successful application of air power requires interoperability with partner nations. Since the 1990s the Swedish Air Force has made significant progress in this area, as demonstrated by Sweden’s commitment to various exercises (such as Red Flag) and to missions in Congo, Afghanistan, Libya and the Gulf of Aden. Interoperability represents the way ahead: the Swedish Air Force has, among other things, procured command and control systems and purchased Link 16 to increase its capacity to work alongside other nations. Future force structure will include Gripen fighters, today C/D and tomorrow E models, that can perform missions which will help sustain security at home and abroad by delivering air power independently and in joint and combined operations. Mission First – Safety Always!
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Speaker Information
Lieutenant General (ret.) David A. Deptula is a world-recognized leader and pioneer in conceptualizing, planning, and executing national security operations from humanitarian relief to major combat. Deptula was the principal attack planner for the Operation Desert Storm air campaign; commander of no-fly-zone operations over Iraq in the late 1990s; director of the air campaign over Afghanistan in 2001; joint task force commander (twice); and air commander for the 2005 South Asia tsunami relief. He served on two congressional commissions charged with outlining America’s future defence posture. He is a fighter pilot with more than 3,000 flying hours – 400 in combat – including multiple command assignments in the F-15. He has a BA in astronomy and MA in systems engineering from University of Virginia and a master’s degree from National War College. He is a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Fighter Weapons School, Air Command and Staff College, and the Armed Forces Staff College. During his last assignment as the Air Force’s first deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), he transformed America’s military ISR and drone enterprises. Deptula, transitioning from the Air Force in 2010, currently serves as dean of the Mitchell Institute of Aerospace Studies; is a board member at a variety of institutions; and is a sought-after commentator around the world as a thought leader on military issues, strategy and ISR.
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Speaker Information
A New Era for Command and Control of Aerospace Operations Lieutenant General (ret.) David A. Deptula The challenges of emerging threats, new technologies, and the velocity of information demand more than a mere evolution of current C2ISR (command, control, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) paradigms. We need a radically new approach that capitalizes on the opportunities inherent in those same challenges. We cannot expect to achieve future success through incremental enhancements à la CAOC 10.x upgrades – that method evokes an industrial-age approach to warfare that has lost its currency and much of its meaning. We cannot meet the requirements of information-age warfare with “spiral development”; rather, we must have modular, distributed technological maximization that permits and optimizes operational agility. That kind of agility calls for dramatic changes to our C2 CONOPS; our organizational paradigms for planning, processing, and executing aerospace operations; and our acquisition processes. It also demands a determined effort to match the results to the three critical challenges and opportunities while simultaneously fitting them seamlessly into the context of joint and combined operations. We will not meet future national security issues in a fiscally constrained environment by simply buying less of what we already have. We must embrace and invest in innovation, creativity, and change – a charge that applies not only to the systems we procure in the future but also to the ends, ways, and means that we command and control them. In the future, we need to invert the paradigm of large, centralized theatre C2 nodes and develop a system that issues specific direction to particular elements of combat power according to a paradigm of multiple nodes responding in parallel to guidance designed to produce desired theatre-wide effects. Determining how to do that should be the focus of the time, effort, and resources we spend on C2. This is how we should prepare for the next war rather than rely on the methods we used to fight the last one.
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Speaker Information
Professor Dr. phil. Holger H. Mey is Vice President, Advanced Concepts, Airbus Defence and Space, Munich, Germany. Before joining – which was then EADS Defence & Security, then Cassidian, and now Airbus Defence and Space in June 2004 – Mey worked for twelve years as a security policy analyst and consultant in Bonn. He began his professional career in 1986 as a research associate at Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. From 1990 to 1992 he served as an analyst on the policy planning staff of the German minister of defence. He then founded the Institute for Strategic Analyses and became chair and director; for two years he was also the security policy adviser to the chair of the Defence Committee in the German parliament and directed and conducted well over thirty studies for various Ministries and Government Agencies. Professor Mey is an honorary professor at the University of Cologne and a member of many international and national foreign and security policy associations, including the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London and the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. He is also honorary Ancien of the NATO Defence College in Rome. Professor Mey has published over 150 articles. He is editor, co-author and author of a number of books, including Deutsche Sicherheitspolitik 2030 (2001).
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Speaker Information
The Role of Technology in Future Warfare Professor Dr. phil. Holger H. Mey Historically, humans have always used and developed new technologies for military purposes. New technologies have usually created new military options which, in turn, required new procedures and concepts. The latter is the key to assessing whether technological superiority can be translated into winning the war. Technological superiority as such does not win wars. Germany did not lose the Second World War because it was technologically inferior (which it was not) and the United States did not win the Vietnam War despite its technological superiority. Obviously, many other factors come into play. Actually, winning a war is less related to technology per se; it is more about the skillful exploitation of the opportunities that technology creates. And above all, technology is only as useful and relevant as the task and mission it serves. At the end of the day, the issue at stake is less about how precisely one can destroy a target; it is all about what difference its destruction makes. Any application of military power should be in one way or another related to furthering the war objective. Technology can, and is likely to, play a significant role in accomplishing war objectives, but only if the application is done in a skillful manner and with a good understanding of what exactly it is that one wants to accomplish. Technology needs to be understood in its dynamics. The advantage of today is the standard of tomorrow. For any measure that is being taken a counter-measure will follow soon. Sometimes technology favors the defence and sometimes the offense – and this applies to the strategic, the operational, and the tactical levels of war. Hence, one needs to look at the overall context in which technology is being applied. What also matters is quantity: firstly, quantity is a quality in itself. And secondly, quality is better than quantity – especially if deployed in large numbers!
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Speaker Information
Colonel John Andreas Olsen is currently assigned to the Norwegian Ministry of Defence and is a visiting professor at the Swedish Defence University. He was the deputy commander and chief of the NATO Advisory Team at NATO Headquarters, Sarajevo, from 2009 to 2012. His previous assignments include tours as dean of the Norwegian Defence University College and head of its division for strategic studies. Colonel Olsen is a graduate of the German Command and Staff College and has served both as liaison officer to the German Operational Command in Potsdam and as military assistant to the Norwegian Embassy in Berlin. He has a doctorate in history and international relations from De Montfort University, a master’s degree in contemporary literature from the University of Warwick, and a master’s degree in English from the University of Trondheim. Professor Olsen is the author of Strategic Air Power in Desert Storm (2003) and John Warden and the Renaissance of American Air Power (2007); coauthor of Destination NATO: Defence Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2003‒2013 (2013); editor of On New Wars (2006), A History of Air Warfare (2010), Global Air Power (2011), Air Commanders (2012), European Air Power (2014) and Airpower Reborn (2015); and coeditor of The Evolution of Operational Art (2011) and The Practice of Strategy (2012).
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Speaker Information
A New Air Power Concept Colonel Professor John Andreas Olsen NATO members need to develop military-strategic concepts that better link the application of force in general – and air and space power specifically – to the endgame objective of fostering good governance as the defining legacy of any NATO-led intervention. This requires a conceptual approach that views the state of interest as a system, a strategy that seeks systemic empowerment of the supported ally and systemic paralysis of the opponent, using both lethal and non-lethal means in pursuit of strategic effect. Systemic paralysis seeks to prevent a state, government, or key forces form doing something while systemic empowerment seeks to create better conditions for friendly actors. While the former sets out to degrade, disintegrate and damage, the latter seeks to encourage, enhance and establish. The concept follows two lines of operations, conducted simultaneously and in parallel: one process-oriented to achieve psychological impact, and the other form-oriented to achieve physical effect. The former centres on the intangible – mental and moral – aspects of war, while the latter deals with the material sphere. To be successful, airmen must capitalize on traditional and non-traditional intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and highly precise targeting, in addition to the other roles and missions. The new notion focuses on control rather than occupation, targeting from a distance rather than in-theatre fighting, and strengthening local political structures and processes in pursuit of good governance. To succeed, airmen must master their profession, connect air power directly to end-state objective, adopt a new language for this purpose, and match new technology with innovative strategic through. Airmen should propose a generic, system-level approach to warfare and subsequent statebuilding that challenges military planning, which is usually ground-centric and battlefield oriented. It is an air-minded concept that focuses on war-ending criteria rather than war-fighting skills per se.
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Speaker Information
Colonel (ret.) John A. Warden III is an executive, strategist, planner, author, and motivational speaker whose work has had a worldwide impact in business, in the military, in government, and in education. After earning his fighter wings in 1966, he flew 250 combat missions in Vietnam. Warden held several staff and command positions, including commander of Detachment 4 at Decimomannu, Italy (1984‒85) and commander of the 36th Tactical Fighter Wing at Bitburg, Germany (1986‒1987). While in charge of the Warfighting Concepts Division at the Pentagon he developed the “Instant Thunder” plan, which became the foundation for the Operation Desert Storm air campaign. Warden next served as the special assistant to the vice president of the United States, and then as commandant of the U.S. Air Force Command and Staff College (1992‒1995). Warden received a BSc in national security affairs from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1965 and an MA in political science from Texas Tech University in 1975. While attending the National War College (1985-1986) he wrote the seminal work on modern airpower theory, The Air Campaign, which has been translated into at least seven languages. Warden has published several articles, including “The Enemy as a System” (1995) and is the coauthor of Winning in Fast Time (2002). He is the chairman and chief executive officer of Venturist, Inc.
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Speaker Information
Strategy and Air Power Colonel (ret.) John A. Warden III War is an attempt to force an opponent to do something he does not want to do. There are two possible objectives: promote a change in enemy beliefs, or prevent an enemy from being something or doing something. Military force can accomplish the latter objective, but cannot reliably accomplish the former. Thus, wars should be designed to ensure that force is appropriate and can do the job. Wars and campaigns must be strategic which is best ensured by an open planning and operating process. For wars to be strategic, they must address four basic questions: 1) Where do you intend your enemy to be at war’s end? (High Resolution Future Picture) 2) What are you going to put your resources against? (Required System Effects and S-trategic Centers of Gravity) 3) How much time do you have to be successful? (short Parallel Operations) 4) Exits planned in advance for both success and failure? (Exit Plans). The Required System Effects represent the functionality of the enemy necessary to realize your Future Picture. The Centers of Gravity which need to be addressed to convert the enemy system to the required state should be as directly strategic as possible and are best identified through using the Five Ring methodology. The appropriate force (air, sea, land, cyber or some combination) should be applied in parallel so as to induce paralysis on the enemy to allow time to convert his system as required and to prevent effective counter attack. At some point, the war will either conclude successfully or will be proceeding in the wrong direction. For both cases, it is imperative to have clear exit plans prepared and approved at the highest level before the commencement of hostilities. Once overall war strategy is developed, the same methodology can be used to develop component or joint campaigns as indicated.
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Air Power Essentials
10 Propositions Regarding Air Power Phillip S. Melinger, Ten Propositions Regarding Airpower, 1995 1)
Whoever controls the air generally controls the ground
2)
Airpower is inherently a strategic force
3)
Airpower is primarily an offensive weapon
4)
In essence, airpower is targeting, targeting is intelligence, and intelligence is analyzing the effects of air operations
5)
Airpower produces physical and psychological shock by dominating the fourth dimension – time
6)
Airpower can conduct parallel operations at all levels of war, simultaneously
7)
Precision air weapons have redefined the meaning of mass
8)
Airpower’s unique characteristics necessitate that it can be centrally controlled by airmen
9)
Technology and airpower are integrally and synergistically related
10) Airpower includes not only military assets, but also an aerospace industry and commercial aviation
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Air Power Essentials
8 Attributes of Air Power Richard P. Hallion, “The Future of Airpower”, 2001 1)
Airpower today, and for the foreseeable future, possesses some innate synergetic qualities and advantages that have matured over a half century of development and refinement – airpower has the virtues of speed, range, flexibility, precision, and lethality
2)
The time compression inherent to airpower
3)
Only airpower has the ability to bring strategic and other high-value targets an enemy holds most dear under rapid attack in simultaneous or near-simultaneous fashion
4)
Fulfilment of this parallel, simultaneous attribute of airpower requires information mastery of such magnitude as to constitute a fourth attribute itself
5)
Thus a fifth aspect of modern airpower is that air power is really air and space power
6)
A sixth attribute of air power is its duality, for both combat and humanitarian purposes
7)
A seventh attribute of airpower is its dominance over other forms of warfare. Today and for the foreseeable future, it is no longer possible to state with any certainty that surface forces are the primary instruments whereby a nation secures victory in war
8)
Historically, airpower works best when it is projected by a genuine air force
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Air Power Essentials
9 Characteristics of Air Power RAAF, Air Power Manual, 2013 1)
Perspective. The greater field of view and extended horizon of the operational environment obtained by virtue of a platform’s operating altitude
2)
Speed. The ability to cover distance quickly and to create an effect with minimal delay
3)
Reach. The ability to project military power over long distances, largely unconstrained by physical barriers
4)
Flexibility. The ability to create a variety of lethal and nonlethal effects across the full range of military and military-supported operations to achieve desired outcomes
5)
Precision. The ability to employ lethal or nonlethal force and achieve effects accurately, with discrimination and proportionality
6)
Dependency. The reliance on support to enable the generation, employment and sustainment of air power
7)
Fragility. The vulnerabilities inherent in the sophisticated materials of which air platforms and technologically advanced systems are composed
8)
Payload. The total weight and volume of passengers, cargo, sensors and weapons that an aircraft can carry
9)
Impermanence. The temporary nature of an air platform’s ability to maintain an influence or effect through its presence
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Air Power Essentials
Strengths and Weaknesses of Air Power Colin S. Gray, Airpower for Strategic Effect, 2012 1)
What uniquely can airpower do? • Directly assault physical centers of gravity regardless of their location, attack the enemy inside to outside from his center to his periphery • Project force rapidly and globally • Observe “over the hill” from altitude • Transport people, modest levels of equipment, and supplies rapidly and globally • Insert and sustain small isolated expeditionary, raids, and even garrisons
2)
What can airpower do well? • Project friendly land and sea forces and other assets from enemy airpower • Deter and be the decisive strategic agent for high-level and mid-level regular and conventional conflicts • Compensate effectively for (some) deficiencies in friendly land and sea forces • Deny or seriously impede enemy access to particular land and sea areas • Deny enemy ability to seize, hold, and exploit objectives
3)
What does airpower tend to do poorly? • • • •
“Occupy” to control territory form the air alone Send a clear diplomatic message Close with and grip the enemy continuously Apply heavy and potentially decisive pressure for conclusive strategic effect in (largely) irregular conflicts • Discriminate with thorough reliability between friend and foe, guilty and innocent 4)
What is airpower unable to do? • Cost-effectively transport very heavy or bulky cargo • Seize and hold contested territorial objectives • Accept, process, and police an enemy’s surrender
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Air Power Essentials
12 Lessons from Modern War Benjamin S. Lambeth, Lessons from Modern Warfare, 2013 1)
Airpower will inevitably be pivotal in future wars
2)
Airpower alone can sometimes achieve desired goals
3)
A ground input will usually enhance airpower’s potential
4)
Airpower will not always be preeminent in joint warfare
5)
The major combat roles of air and land power have been reversed
6)
Carrier airpower can sometimes substitute for land-based fighters
7)
Effects-based operations outperform simple attrition every time
8)
Coercion works best with modest goals and expectations
9)
For regime change, planning just for the takedown will not suffice
10)
Even the best force imaginable cannot make up for a flawed strategy
11)
Mission creep usually comes at a high price
12)
We do not get to pick our wars that matter most
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Air Power Essentials
12 Recommended books on Air Power 1)
Corum, James and Wray Johnson, Airpower in Small Wars: Fighting Insurgents and Terrorists (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003)
2)
Cox, Sebastian and Peter Gray (eds.), Air Power History: Turning Points from Kitty Hawk to Kosovo (London: Frank Cass, 2002)
3)
Gray, Colin S., Airpower for Strategic Effect (Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: Air University Press, 2012)
4)
Hallion, Richard P., Storm over Iraq: Air Power and the Gulf War (Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992)
5)
Lambeth, Benjamin S., The Transformation of American Air Power (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000)
6)
Mason, Richard A., Air Power: A Centennial Appraisal (London: Brassey’s, 1994)
7)
Meilinger, Philip S. (ed.), The Paths of Heaven: The Evolution of Airpower Theory (Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: Air University Press, 1997)
8)
Olsen, John Andreas (ed.), A History of Air Warfare (Washington DC: Potomac Books, 2010)
9)
Olsen, John Andreas (ed.), Global Air Power (Washington DC: Potomac Books, 2011)
10)
Olsen, John Andreas (ed.) Air Commanders (Washington DC: Potomac Books, 2012)
11)
Stephens, Alan (ed.), The War in the Air: 1914‒1994 (Fairbairn, Australia: Air Power Studies Centre, 1994)
12)
van Creveld, Martin, The Age of Airpower, (New York: Public Affairs, 2011).
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Air Power Essentials
Reflections on Air Power ___ Air power history has become respectable. There is now a body of scholarly academic literature, which has not only succeeded in placing air power in its proper historical context, but in pushing the subject beyond the fighting front to embrace a whole range of different historical issues and approaches. There is now an extensive intellectual history of air power that focuses on the development of doctrine in many differing contexts, thanks in no small part to the interest of air force history offices in understanding the historical roots of current air power thinking. . . . The most distinctive aspect of the new air power history is the growing emphasis on the social, cultural and political dimension of the subject. Professor Richard J. Overy ___ It is a triumph neither for good history nor for theoretical rigor to leap from denunciation of the thesis that airpower will always deliver victory to the antithesis that airpower can never deliver victory. Moreover, if one intellectually addresses the meaning of victory, indeed of decision, then it becomes evident that there is, certainly can be, far more merit in the claim that airpower can be a more strategically decisive force than critics generally allow... Indeed, it is defensible to argue that among the revolutions in military affairs more and less constantly carried through since 1900, that effected by airpower has been the most significant... Airpower is one of history’s most impressive success stories. Professor Colin S. Gray
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Air Power Essentials
Reflections on Air Power ___ Air power is an unusually seductive form of military strength, in part because, like modern courtship, it appears to offer gratification without commitment. Francis Bacon wrote of command of the sea that he who has it “is at great liberty, and may take as much and as little of the Warre as he will,” and a similar belief accounts for air power’s attractiveness to those who favor modest uses of force overseas. Statesmen may think that they can use air attacks to engage in hostilities by increments, something ground combat does not permit. Furthermore, it appears that the imminent arrival of so-called nonlethal or disabling technologies may offer an even more appealing prospect: war without casualties. Professor Eliot A. Cohen ___ The ubiquity, perspective and reach of aerospace platforms liberate them from the obligations to engage in sequential patterns of operations. Whereas ground forces have to achieve tactical breakthroughs in order to fulfill operational objectives which in turn leads to progress at the strategic level of war, in theory at least air power can undertake missions on all three levels from the very outset of a conflict. Furthermore, not only has the accuracy and lethality of modern weaponry endowed aerospace forces with unprecedented scope in terms of the spectrum of targets they can engage with a good prospect of success, but also such forces remain, for the time being at least, less vulnerable to destruction by terrestrial ones than the other way around. Professor David Gates
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Air Power Essentials
Reflections on Air Power ___ The advent of air power, which can go straight to the vital centers and either neutralize or destroy them, has put a completely new complexion on the old system of making war. It is now realized that the hostile main army in the field is a false objective, and the real objectives are the vital centers. Brigadier General William Mitchell ___ We must not start our thinking on war with the tools of war—with the air planes, tanks, ships and those who crew them. These tools are important and have their place, but they cannot be our starting point, nor can we allow ourselves to see them as the essentials of war. Fighting is not the essence of war, nor even a desirable part of it. The real essence is doing what is necessary to make the enemy accept our objectives as his objectives. . . . We have moved from the age of the horse and the sail through the age of the battleship and the tank to the age of the airplane. Like its illustrious ancestors, the airplane will have its day in the sun, and then it too shall be replaced. Colonel John A. Warden III ___ During the opening days of Desert Storm, we could not precisely hit targets because all we had for precision attack were laser-guided munitions. So when the worst weather in 14 years rolled into Iraq, we could not drop any weapons. Today, that does not matter. We conquered the night in the late 1980s and we conquered weather by the early 2000s. Now, weather, night, distance are no longer constraints to force application; the constraint is where is the target, what do you want to hit? Lieutenant General David A. Deptula
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Air Power Essentials
The Swedish Air Force The Swedish Air Force is tasked with organising and training aircraft units and base and command units and completes its tasks by means of fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters. These tasks include protecting Swedish airspace, conducting rescue operations, performing air transport duties and gathering intelligence. Air Force units specialise in completing tasks in Sweden and abroad. They do this in collaboration with the Navy and the Army. Together, they protect Sweden’s borders and defend the country against external threats. Air Force units are categorised into: Fighter Aircraft Units • Fighter aircraft units can strike against ground, air or sea targets with great precision, force and flexibility. They can also be deployed for intelligence gathering to assert Sweden’s territorial integrity. Transport Aircraft Units • Transport aircraft units undertake air transport duties and are deployed in e.g. humanitarian missions, nationally and internationally. Signal Reconnaissance Units • Signal reconnaissance units perform electronic combat reconnaissance and intelligence gathering duties. Radar Surveillance Units • Radar surveillance units are primarily deployed to enhance data obtained from land and seaborne sensors. Helicopter Units • The helicopter units undertake land and sea operations and air and sea rescue services. Base and Command Units • Base and command units primarily support and command combat aircraft units.
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