Latest news with #airpower
Forbes
11-07-2025
- Politics
- Forbes
What The War In Ukraine Reveals About The Future Of Space Warfare
Satellite imagery reveals the aftermath of a Ukrainian strike on a Russian airbase, with multiple ... More bombers destroyed. Nearly every war between major powers reveals enduring lessons for future strategists. World War II taught us that airpower had become the new high ground—and that the nuclear bomb was decisive. Vietnam taught us, painfully, that the will of the people matters at least as much as firepower. Unfortunately, we had to relearn that lesson in the conflicts that followed 9/11. Today, the Russia-Ukraine war is teaching us a critical lesson of the digital age, one we're still not discussing enough: the major operational and strategic impact that can be made leveraging highly proliferated and networked, commercially available technology. In Ukraine, low-cost, high-impact drones are enabling Ukraine not only to defend itself but to strike deep into Russian territory (and Russia into Ukraine) in ways that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. The true force multiplier isn't just the drones themselves — it's the network effect. Drones, sensors, and software working in concert enable real-time targeting, intelligence gathering, and high-volume precision strike capability. These tools, put to use by a fierce yet an only recently constituted military, are outmatching even an adversary like Russia, whose traditional and formidable warfighting doctrine has relied upon mass and attrition. The obvious implications are so profound we must reimagine the application of key principles of war, or risk ceding the next critical domain: space, before the fight even begins. Three of the classic principles of war must be fundamentally rethought for space, the newest warfighting domain, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict provides a preview of how: What does this mean for space? In the space domain, our ability to scale is now existential. Winning won't depend on how exquisite each satellite is, but on how many we have in orbit and how intelligently they operate as an integrated whole. The Space Force needs far more funding and far more U.S. commercial companies building and delivering its advanced technology at scale. Proliferation on orbit is no longer just a low cost way to deliver an extra measure of resilience. When properly networked, it becomes a new form of strategic deterrence. The side with the most agile, connected, and numerous platforms will dominate. Unfortunately, the United States military missed the ability to leverage the commercial drone revolution before it left for China — a nascent industry we invented and all but abandoned years ago. Today's U.S. Air Force, with all of its impressive bunker busting power, could not have pulled off the kind of victories Ukraine has achieved against Russia. Because of our abandonment, we now face the difficult task of rebuilding critical drone manufacturing for national security, a task far more difficult to accomplish than the rapid offshoring to China we enabled that helped to create the problem. But there is reason for optimism. Quietly, the Pentagon's Space Development Agency has been doing the hard work of reversing this trend. In just six years, it has certified nine new U.S. small satellite manufacturers — with more on the way — that are already competing, building and deploying for the Space Force. We must build on that momentum and not slow down as the GAO is calling for. We must broaden and scale these efforts even further, and ensure that American technology populates all useful orbits, from low Earth to cislunar space. The Russia-Ukraine conflict has made clear that success in modern war depends on resilience, speed, and the creative use of proliferated, connected technology. If we take those lessons to heart, we will secure the new high ground for generations to come.
Japan Times
09-07-2025
- Business
- Japan Times
Air superiority vs. air denial: Redefining U.S. airpower strategy
"Manned fighter jets are obsolete in the era of drones," Elon Musk, the world's richest man and until recently head of the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, posted on his social-media platform X last November. He even shared a video showing small drones flying in formation, captioned: 'Meanwhile, some idiots are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35,' a plane whose cost-effectiveness he also criticized. The Russia-Ukraine war offers compelling evidence for Musk's views. Russia had lost more than 400 manned aircraft, including its latest Su-35 fighters and A-50 airborne early warning and control aircraft. And just last month, Ukraine successfully targeted Russia's long-range bomber fleet by surprise drone attacks, destroying around 40 planes, according to some estimates, and causing damage in the billions. In the nearly three and half years since the invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022, Russia has never gained air superiority. Drones and missiles have largely replaced fighter jets in combat operations. And despite its airpower disadvantage, the Ukrainian military has used air defense systems, man-portable anti-aircraft missiles and other weapons to good effect, forcing a stalemate on the ground. The events in Ukraine have ignited a fierce debate among U.S. Air Force strategists, dividing them into the "air superiority" camp and the "air denial" camp. With budget constraints and quality issues plaguing the Air Force and a potential Taiwan contingency looming, how will the U.S. counter China's increasingly capable military?
Forbes
23-06-2025
- Politics
- Forbes
No, Israel's Air Campaign Isn't Futile: 'Airpower Alone' Is A Straw Man
Israeli Air Force F-35 fighter jet In his recent article 'Israel's Futile Air War,' Robert Pape argues that Israel's effort to destroy Iran's nuclear capability and pressure the regime through airpower is doomed from the start. He claims that only ground forces can achieve such goals, pointing to historical U.S. operations as cautionary tales. But Pape's central premise—that 'airpower alone' cannot accomplish strategic objectives—does not only misinterpret modern military history but also distorts understanding of the nature of joint operations and of how to best employ military forces to attain political goals. Furthermore, and fundamental to appropriately invalidating his conclusions, neither the civilian nor the military leadership of Israel claims that Israel can accomplish its strategic objectives using 'airpower alone.' Warfighting at a campaign level does not occur in any domain 'alone'—not on land, at sea, in space, in the electromagnetic domain—or from the air. Israel does not rely on airpower in a vacuum. It applies air and space capabilities in coordination with special operations, cyber operations, psychological warfare, and strategic messaging. That is the modern model of coercive power—and it has proven itself before. If boots on the ground were the magic ingredient, the U.S. would have prevailed in Vietnam at the peak of ground force employment in 1968; in Operation Restore Hope in Somalia (1993) against a hostile warlord; and in Operation Enduring Freedom (2001) in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003)—both extended ground occupations with hundreds of thousands of land forces—but they didn't. Military victory depends on a far more complex set of variables that characterize the desired effects associated with achieving the political objectives of a particular operation. Those variables include strategy, operational concepts, technologies, tactics, and of course the conditions and environment of the specific conflict. Pape is entirely wrong to suggest one set of means is superior to another absent this broader assessment. 'Airpower Alone' Is a Straw Man Pape argues that Israel is falling into the trap of believing it can achieve its goals through airpower alone. But this is not what Israel believes—it is Pape's mischaracterization. No credible strategist views any domain in isolation. Israel does not have to occupy Tehran to deter Iran's nuclear ambitions; it must impose high, repeatable costs that degrade capabilities, lengthen timelines, and keep the regime off balance. The idea that only land invasions can achieve military objectives belongs to a bygone era—one that has cost the United States dearly in blood and treasure. The blunders of U.S. ground-centric military strategies in both Afghanistan and Iraq offer the most recent evidence. Desert Storm: Airpower Was Decisive Pape's dismissal of airpower's effectiveness ignores perhaps the clearest counterexample—Operation Desert Storm (1991). During that campaign, U.S. and coalition forces employed airpower during all 43 days of the war, but it was only on day 39 that the first ground forces were committed. Airpower paralyzed Saddam Hussein's regime and rendered his military ineffective. Airpower negated the Iraq's command and control systems, obliterated its air force, suppressed its surface-to-air missile systems, and devastated its ground forces—all before coalition ground forces entered Iraq and Kuwait. When ground operations began, the Coalition soldiers required only 100 hours to finish the war and to reoccupy Kuwait. This largely involved rounding up Iraqi Army troops already defeated by airpower who were looking for U.S forces to whom they could surrender. Of the over 500,000 U.S. troops deployed to the Gulf, 148 were killed in combat. While any loss of life is unfortunate, that astonishingly low figure underscores the strategic value of using airpower to dismantle the enemy's warfighting machine before exposing ground forces to risk. Had the United States pursued a traditional attrition-based ground-centric campaign the death toll on both sides of the conflict would have been enormously higher. Yet as decisive as the air component was in Desert Storm, that does not diminish the necessity of using ground forces to execute the operation. Clearly, Desert Storm represents a successful example of using airpower as the principal instrument of war, with ground forces in a supporting role. Desert Storm was thus an exemplary demonstration of true jointness—using the right force at the right place at the right time to achieve a given objective. Enduring Freedom: Strategic Success, Undermined by Mission Creep Another example Pape ignores is the opening phase of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. The United States rapidly achieved its core national security objectives using airpower as the key force, supported by indigenous ground forces and a small contingent of U.S. special operations forces providing intelligence: 1) the Taliban regime was removed from power; 2) a friendly government was established in Kabul; and 3) the Al-Qaeda terrorist training camps in Afghanistan were dismantled. The United States met all these objectives by December 31, 2001, without deploying tens of thousands of ground troops. The success was swift, efficient, and decisive—an exemplar of the asymmetric application of airpower and supplementary capabilities. But instead of recognizing success and withdrawing from the area with a warning not to repeat husbanding Al-Qaeda or we would return, U.S. political and military leaders defaulted to the traditional belief held by the Army-dominated leadership at Central Command headquarters and incorporated in U.S. military doctrine of the day: that only a traditional ground presence could secure the peace. As a result, the United States eventually deployed hundreds of thousands of ground troops—the ostensible 'decisive force.' In one of the costliest examples of mission creep in U.S. history, the objectives in Afghanistan shifted from disrupting terror networks to 'winning hearts and minds'—in essence, trying to transform a 16th-century tribal society into a modern Jeffersonian democracy. The result was a 20-year quagmire with over 20,000 U.S. casualties that ended with the Taliban returning to power following a humiliating U.S. capitulation—proving that the early air-led campaign had achieved more in three months than ground force occupation did in two decades. Contrast this with Operation Allied Force (1999), a 78-day NATO-led air campaign that unseated Slobodan Milošević and halted human rights abuses in Kosovo with no NATO lives lost in combat. Israel Understands the Lesson Unlike the ground-force-dominated leadership of the U.S. military over the past two decades, Israeli leaders today have no intention of changing Iranian society or democratizing Iran. They are applying precision air and space power to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, eliminate senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leaders who pose a threat to their country, damage critical infrastructure used to secure Iran's nuclear objectives, and erode the regime's ability to control events—all while minimizing their own exposure and the risk of escalation. This is not fantasy. It is the smart use of airpower—and, in conjunction with other means, it can achieve desired political outcomes. Strategic Delay Is Strategic Success Pape sets up a false binary: Either Israel eliminates Iran's nuclear program, or it fails. But this ignores how modern coercion works. Damaging Iran's nuclear facilities, decapitating its leadership structure, and repeatedly disrupting its enrichment efforts forces Tehran into a permanent state of caution. That amounts to success through delay—a repeatable outcome, sustained through intermittent precision attacks. With air superiority established over Iran, Israel has already secured the means to exercise this strategy option over and over again. This strategy also keeps Israel's alternatives open. Tehran must now reconstitute its nuclear program under threat. Iran would undertake any new effort to enrich uranium or build covert facilities under the shadow of Israeli air attack—which imposes a degree of strategic control over Iran. Boots on the Ground? No Thanks Pape implies that the only path to success is the deployment of massive ground forces—a strategy that would lead Israel into the exact kind of grinding occupation it seeks to avoid. The lessons of U.S. ground operations in Afghanistan and Iraq—where U.S. ground forces succeeded tactically but failed strategically—should warn analysts away from such logic. So should the results of the Russia-Ukraine war. Neither Russia nor Ukraine has proven able to secure air superiority in that war, resulting in a stalemate and devolution into an attrition-based struggle. Russia has suffered nearly a million casualties to date and that number is growing at a rate of 1,500 a day. Israel has no appetite for repeating America's or Russia's misadventures based on old paradigms of warfare. That is why it is leveraging the domains where it holds clear superiority: air and space. Conclusion: Control of the Sky Remains Vital Airpower does not offer a panacea. But it is also not the fragile fantasy Pape suggests. When applied strategically—as in terminating World War II in the Pacific, breaking the Iraqi army in Desert Storm, bringing down the Taliban in the early phases of Enduring Freedom, ending Serb atrocities in Allied Force, and now Israel's effective air operations over Iran—airpower can achieve real, measurable results with dramatically reduced risk and cost, providing strategic advantages not otherwise achievable. Pape's straw man of 'airpower alone' obscures the actual lesson: that modern conventional airpower integrated with intelligence, cyber-attacks, special operations and other tools can shift the strategic balance—without occupation, without regime change, without the illusion that democracies can be built with bayonets, and without masses of casualties. Israel's air campaign is not a mistake. It is a masterclass in 21st-century coercive strategy.
Wall Street Journal
20-06-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Israel Tests Theory That War Can't Be Won With Air Power Alone
Since last week, wave upon wave of Israeli warplanes has hit targets across Iran—testing the limits of what air power alone can achieve in conflict. Conventional wisdom among military thinkers has long been that missiles and bombs, while essential to modern warfare, are seldom enough to achieve victory on their own, especially if the strategic aims of the warring states are expansive.
News.com.au
04-06-2025
- Politics
- News.com.au
Satellite images show the extent of the damage after Ukraine's daring operation deep inside Russia
Satellite images analysed by experts have confirmed Ukraine's claim that it destroyed crucial elements of Vladimir Putin's air power during its surprise operation deep inside Russia earlier this week. The raid, codenamed Operation Spider's Web, took 18 months to plan and execute. Ukraine smuggled drones across the Russian border, hidden in trucks, which then drove to the sites of military bases. One penetrated as far as Siberia, more than 4000 kilometres away from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. At a co-ordinated moment, the trucks released their drones, which then attacked while being controlled remotely. Ukraine pulled off the extraordinary operation with near-total secrecy, and all its operatives successfully made it back across the border. Even the United States, whose intelligence and military aid have been vital throughout the war, was not warned beforehand. 'Planning, organisation, every detail was perfectly executed. It can be said with confidence that this was an absolutely unique operation,' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said when it was over. In the immediate aftermath of the operation, Ukraine's security forces claimed to have taken out about a third of Russia's strategic bombers, partially crippling Putin's capacity to launch long-distance missile strikes. Lieutenant General Vasyl Malyuk, head of the Security Service, put the tally at 41 aircraft, encompassing both Tu-95 and Tu-22 bombers. It turns out that was not even the full extent of the damage. According to American military correspondent David Axe (fitting name, no?), the Ukrainian attacks on Russian bases appear to have diminished Russia's already dwindling supply of A-50s – an expensive type of surveillance aircraft, equipped with a powerful radar, whose chief purpose is to co-ordinate operations involving fighter jets and bombers. When Putin first invaded Ukraine, in February of 2022, he reportedly had nine active A-50s. By February of this year, that had fallen to seven, or perhaps even fewer, as Ukraine claimed to have destroyed at least two of them. One of the air bases targeted in Operation Spider's Web, in Ivanovo Oblast, is known to have housed A-50 aircraft, as captured by satellite imagery last month. Another photographic image, taken after the attack, showed at least one of the craft damaged. A-50 AWACS base at Ivanovo via Mizar 🛰ï¸� At least 1 unit is destroyed possibly more — Húrin (@Hurin92) June 2, 2025 The reconnaissance planes are hard to replace, and the cost – hundreds of millions of dollars – is not the only problem. After the aforementioned pair were lost earlier this year, Ukraine said Russia was trying to replace their capability with drones, as a sort of stopgap measure. 'It's certainly plausible that Russians are scrambling drones to plug some of the gaps,' drone expert Steve Wright told Newsweek at the time. 'But it's certainly not a one-for-one replacement.' 'That is hard to replicate with drones which, even if equipped with radar, lack the size and power to provide comparable radar coverage,' agreed Frederik Mertens, an analyst at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. Satellite images from commercial firms have granted a valuable window into Ukraine-Russia war since Putin's invasion began. That these latest images show smouldering wreckage deep within Russia, though, is a fact that demonstrates the astonishing success of Ukraine's operation. Defence analysis website The War Zone this week reiterated its previous assessment that 'Russia would not have to lose very many bombers, as well as A-50s, to' suffer a significant negative impact. 'Even taking one or two bombers out of operation will impact the Russian Aerospace Forces. The bomber triad has played a key role in launching the barrages of cruise missiles that have regularly struck targets across Ukraine,' the site noted. 'At the same time, these aircraft are an integral part of Russia's nuclear deterrent. This makes them a matter of great prestige, but also a critical element in Russia's ability to launch nuclear or conventional air strikes against targets outside of Ukraine. 'These aircraft are also regularly used for long-range patrols over Europe and Asia, also venturing as far as the coast of Alaska, and for irregular visits to strategic allies. 'Wiping out a significant portion of one prong of the nuclear triad – the most flexible part of it – has an impact on the credibility of Russia's overall deterrent.'
