Ramstein, 27 August 2024
Russia’s war in Ukraine reaffirms that air superiority remains job number one to allow conducting successful air operations. Consequently, NATO and its air forces need to be prepared to achieve air superiority early on in any potential conflict.
“Training Allied forces to establish air superiority is a key requirement, and during the upcoming NATO live-fly exercise Ramstein Flag 2024 in Greece in October, this will be one priority for participants from 13 Allied Nations,” said General James Hecker, Commander Allied Air Command.
Deterrence by denial first is an essential task that depends upon having the right forces—equipped, trained, and proficient—that can win.
“But we must be clear about our purpose. The air component does not simply pursue air superiority for its own sake. Air superiority is not just the first thing we work toward,” General Hecker wrote in his recent senior leader perspective on the topic for U.S. Air University. “It will typically remain our top priority—even if it becomes a low weight-of-effort later in the campaign—because it grants us freedom of manoeuvre to accomplish all other tasks and because attrition rates would otherwise become prohibitive,” he continued.
This has been known since the combined bomber offensive of World War II, and the current situation in Ukraine is a constant reminder of the terrible cost of a stalemate in the air. Battle management areas are rightly intended to increase flexibility and independent action, but it must also be ensured any changes do not impinge on the air component’s freedom of action or negatively impact its support to operations on the ground.
“Deterrence by denial first is an essential task that depends upon having the right forces—equipped, trained, and proficient—that can win,” General Hecker went on to say. “In other words, when asking what force posture provides a credible deterrent, the answer is to be able to readily demonstrate that NATO possesses the forces it would take to forcibly deny the adversary their objectives. Authoritarian regimes are not likely to be constrained by public disapproval of military adventurism, so we must appeal to their rational interest that conflict with NATO is not worth the cost and risk to their national forces or regime,” he explained.
“Balanced Effort second – we can derive many lessons from the relative stalemate in Ukraine. NATO nations cannot count on high-end capabilities alone to win the fight, as the proliferation of low-cost threats makes engagement with high-end weapon systems unsustainable,” General Hecker stipulated. “In order to counter this, NATO – in its 75th anniversary year, now stronger by virtue of its new members Sweden and Finland – will need to depend on overall economic strength and resiliency, the ability to adapt and innovate, and the strength of political will and social cohesion,” he added.
General Hecker finished by saying that “our Alliance has tangible strengths in this area: A diverse and overlapping set of capabilities from various national defence industries is our strategic strength—as long as our Allies have taken an integration-by-design approach from the beginning to achieve day-zero interoperability.
Read the full article by to find out more:
https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/Portals/10/AEtherJournal/Journals/Volume-3_Number-2/Hecker.pdf
Source – U.S. Air University / NATO Allied Air Command