The Cassandra Effect

Future Perceptions on Air Power

Dr. Sanu Kainikara

• Publisher: VIJ Books (India) Pty Ltd
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9789385563829
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia militar y marítima

Air power has been an element of military power for just over a century. However, its ability to project power as part of a nation's quest for security and protection has now been acknowledged as second to no other element of national power. Air power's efficacy has been demonstrated time and again in the past few decades.Technology is the fundamental factor around which the development, application and sustainment of air power is built. This fundamental fact will hold true for the future. This book is a look at the possible future developments that could take place in air power. It provides considered perceptions of how air power will be driven forward by technology and examines the possibilities and pitfalls that will come with its inexorable movement forward. The only surety is that air power will continue to be a critical element of national power well into the foreseeable future.

Chapter 1

AIR POWER AND THE EVOLVING
CHARACTER OF WAR

‘We have before us the greatest task even faced by any generation on men in the fight to preserve peace. War, I say again, is no longer and evil. In this age it seems intolerable. There is nothing to be said in favor of war except that it is the lesser of two evils. It is better than appeasement of aggression, and it is far better than submission to tyranny and oppression, because without freedom and respect for human dignity, life would not be worth living.’

George C. Marshal¹

War is an indelible part of human history. History also demonstrates that the nature of war has not changed over the centuries—all wars have been fought to achieve political objectives through the use of force, and it has remained a fundamentally human endeavour. In other words, all wars are political, both in terms of the reason for their initiation as well as in laying down the desired end-state. However, the characteristics and conduct of war have been continually evolving. This never-ending process of evolution and development, which started from the earliest times in the history of mankind, has been influenced by a number of factors.

The major factors are—available technology; context in which the conflict is being conducted; and the cultural, behavioural, societal and religious ethos of the participants.

In broadly tracing developments in the history of war it is seen that for about two decades after the end of World War II, the conduct of war and its fundamental characteristics remained almost unchanged. Conflicts were almost always fought between the military forces of two or more sovereign nations that, by and large adhered to the accepted laws of armed conflict. However, with the advent of the Vietnam War in the 1960s, this status quo changed conclusively and forever. From the 1970s, a majority of conflicts have been fought with the legitimate military forces of a nation, or a coalition of nations on the one side and non-traditional, irregular adversaries on the other. Over the past fifty years, developments in the contemporary security scenario have impacted and changed the conduct of war. Today, the probability of a conventional state-on-state conflict taking place is extremely low.

In this monograph, the terms ‘war’ and ‘conflict’ have been used interchangeably. They only denote the employment of the military forces of a sovereign nation against adversaries who themselves may or may not constitute a regular military force affiliated to a nation. Although there is a distinction between the terms war and conflict, increasingly the term war is being commonly used to denote military operations and other lethal applications of force. However, it is noteworthy that no nation has declared ‘war’ on another for more than half a century. For example, during the Kosovo crisis in 1999, NATO mounted over 34,000 aerial sorties in 78 days against Serb forces and Belgrade and yet it was still not formally at war!²

Viewed from a different perspective it becomes apparent that the fundamental reasons for the employment of military force, at the very base strategic level, have not changed noticeably for centuries. Military forces have always been used to secure the nation and its interests through the enforcement of a cycle of strategies. This cycle ranges from the benign concept of influence and shape through the strategies of deterrence, coercion and the ultimate strategy of punishment and destruction. However, the employment of military forces, and air power within this overall capability, has altered considerably over the past decades because of two reasons. First, the capabilities of military forces are being continually improved and therefore are in a constant state of flux. Second, the characteristics and conduct of war have been evolving over the years along with the enhanced capabilities of the forces involved. These two factors are not mutually exclusive and form a remarkable and continuous cycle, of reasoned change in one bringing in a reactionary change in the other, and vice versa. The changes, in military capabilities as well as in the characteristics and conduct of war, do not occur at a constant rate and nor are they predictable with any level of assurance. However, there is no doubting the fact that the characteristics and conduct of war are constantly evolving and the capabilities of military forces are continually being enhanced.

The ascendancy of air power as an instrument of national power has been unprecedented in military history. When military competency across the full spectrum of conflict—encompassing the delivery on humanitarian aid and disaster relief on the one end to waging a war of national survival on the other—is considered to be a national necessity, air power emerges as a game-changing capability in a number of circumstances. However, despite the claims of over-zealous air power enthusiasts, it has never been, and never will be, the sole arbiter in winning a war. The changing characteristics and conduct of war reinforce this paradigm. In order to appreciate the further evolution of the conduct of war into the future, a few questions that have been thrown up with the introduction of irregular forces into the battlefield need to be answered in a considered manner.

Classifying Wars

The wars that a nation can embark upon can be classified broadly into two—either ‘wars of choice’ or ‘wars of necessity’. This bifurcation will hold true irrespective of characteristics or conduct of the current and also future conflicts. Wars of choice are the ones in which the strategic national security imperatives and broader interests of the participating nation(s) will only be indirectly or peripherally influenced by the outcome of the conflict. They are also ones from which a nation can withdraw at will, even if the desired end-state has not been achieved, without any serious or long-lasting prejudice to national security.

Wars of necessity are different. They are conflicts that a nation is compelled to fight because not doing so would be directly detrimental to the overall well-being of the nation. Non-participation in such a war will ultimately impact on the independence and sovereignty of the nation. Further, the consequences of losing such a conflict could be dire and spans a very broad spectrum. Even at the lowest end of this spectrum, losing such a war could produce unpalatable security challenges and at the higher end it could even threaten the very existence of the nation. Even if such a war is not ‘lost’ but the outcome has been disadvantageous to a nation, there will be long-term consequences to the security situation of the nation concerned. At the high end of the spectrum, where ‘wars of national survival’ would be fought, are fortunately extremely rare occurrences. Even so, wars of necessity continue to be distinct possibilities. All nations must prepare for the eventuality that a war of necessity may have to be fought at some stage in its development.

The fact is that the global security environment has become more complex and exposed to the vagaries of actions by rogue states after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. This is indicated by the increased number of regional conflicts being fought in different parts of the world now as compared to the situation just two decades back. The Middle-East is currently going through its worst turmoil in history. However, from a Western perspective, all the on-going conflicts are wars of choice. In contemporary global politics, the default situation is that the democratic Western world bears the onus of responsibility to maintain the peace, and enforce it when required, in the hotspots around the world. The reasons for this situation are many and multi-faceted. The result is that these nations are therefore compelled to fight ‘wars of choice’ to stabilise volatile regions. The question that comes up is whether or not these ‘wars of choice’ have gradually crept into the lower levels of ‘wars of necessity’ since the prevalent instability in the volatile regions cannot be allowed to spread. Have the Western military interventions of the past two decades around the world been actually ‘wars of necessity’ for the more developed democratic nations? Both negative and positive answers could be logically argued, emphasising the complexity of global power projection. It also indicates the prevailing volatility of the global security environment.

The current indicators—evolving global security environment, the on-going conflicts around the world, rising anarchy in some regions, religious fundamentalism and intolerance that support violent extremism, sectarian divisions that invariably lead to violence, mass migration brought on by armed conflict, and the adoption of random acts of violence against innocent civilians as a tactic to further an ideological cause based on religion, politics or ethnicity—all point towards the entrenchment of the well-established trend for wars of the future to be irregular in its conduct and characteristics. It is highly unlikely that the world will witness the outbreak of a serious state-on-state conflict of any significance in the near to mid-term future.

However, the same cannot be said to be true of irregular warfare (IW). Irregular conflicts that have no fixed start point or end time, and which rapidly vary in its tempo and intensity will continue to manifest and fester in a number of regions. Although there is no assurance that conventional military forces of established democracies will always intervene when an irregular war erupts in any part of the world, the probability of such an intervention has become increasingly high in the recent past. At least for the foreseeable future military forces of the more developed world will be faced with the prospect of having to fight an irregular war in some remote and unstable part of the globe. In most cases, such an involvement will normally be as part of a coalition functioning under the aegis of the United Nations.

Irregular Warfare – Three Principles

In the prevailing geo-strategic environment, military forces of a sovereign nation will be forced to engage in irregular wars. Even in the volatile contemporary security environment, conventional wars adhere to certain accepted norms and characteristics. However, irregular wars will be conducted within very flexible and changeable principles and concepts. Even so, three very broad principles that are applicable to all irregular wars can be identified.

First is the permanency of the conflict. Irregular wars can erupt rapidly, even in stable nations. The reasons for the emergence of an irregular war are many and varied and is not germane to this discussion. Once an irregular war has set in, it blurs the distinction between a state of war and peace as understood in conventional thinking. The answer to the question, ‘What is a state of war?’ itself will vary in a nation where an irregular war is being fought. Since most irregular conflicts are the culmination of ideological discontent, the consequences of the conflict impact on social, political and economic well-being of the nation. Further, unless the ideological end-state is achieved, the conflict will not end. Permanency of the conflict, counted in terms of years rather than days or months, will be the result.

Second is that an irregular war is always multi-dimensional in its conduct. Like in any armed conflict, the participants in irregular conflicts also aspire to achieve strategic end-states. In order to do so, the combatants will strive to create strategic effects across all domains. This will require the employment of all elements of national power—economic, political and information. As a corollary, the irregular force will attempt to negate the effects that the conventional military forces can bring to bear through focusing on non-military means. The result will be a wider spread of the impact of irregular wars into different domains, relative to a conventional conflict.

The third principle is that success in an irregular war will depend on the ability of the state to conduct a whole-of-government campaign. The unified and optimised application of elements of national power is a foundational requirement for success. In addition, since irregular wars stem from a conflict of ideology, the strategic of influence and shape will have to be at the forefront of countering the irregular force. In this strategy, the role of military forces is only that of a facilitator and of support to the lead agencies. Historically, irregular wars have not been successfully contained by military actions alone, although the instinctive reaction of most governments at the onset of an irregular conflict is to employ the superior military power of the state to defeat the uprising. A carefully crafted whole-of-government approach is the only viable answer to mitigating the challenge of irregular wars.

In order to diffuse an irregular war, the state needs strategic depth in geographic territory, political acumen and economic strength. Lack of any of these will detract from the ability to contain and then defeat an irregular adversary.

Military Forces and Irregular Wars

Ever since World War II, the military forces of the Western nations have demonstrated overwhelming superiority in force projection capabilities and the quantum and destructiveness of fire power that they can bring to bear against an adversary. These capabilities tend to become demonstrably focused when applied in conventional battles and traditional theatres of operations. The outcome of this situation has been a gradual but pervasive shift in the conduct of war, irrespective of the nature of the two or multiple adversaries. When the adversary has acknowledged greater power than what is possessed by oneself, the trend has historically been to resort to asymmetry to neutralise the advantage of the adversary, to whatever degree possible. This trend has now manifest itself in the conduct of armed conflict and turned most of them into Irregular Wars.

It has now come to pass that almost all contemporary conflicts have assumed at least some of the characteristics of IW and there are almost no instances of purely ‘regular’ or conventional wars being fought. The adoption of non-traditional means to wage war by even a single participant in a conflict introduces the concept of asymmetry into it. The employment of asymmetry changes the character and conduct of the war irreconcilably. For the foreseeable future, all wars or conflicts that conventional military forces will be involved in, will have some form or the other of IW and one or more participant will be a non-state or sub-state actor(s).

Over the years irregular wars have been called by other names—small wars, low-intensity conflict, guerrilla war, asymmetric warfare etc.—however, none of these terms convey an understanding of the full spectrum of secondary and tertiary warfare that is associated with IW. In a sort of a reverse definition, IW could be considered to be all kinds of wars and conflicts other than state-on-state, military-versus-military encounters. The characteristics of any conflict are defined by the inherent capabilities, fighting ethos and operational concepts of the combatants and by their preferred modus operandi. This combined factor directly influences all analyses of IW. It is seen that the conduct of IW varies with a number of factors and is in a state of great flux most of the time. The innate asymmetry that comes with adopting the strategies, concepts and tactics that are germane to IW is an attractive prospect for non-state groups to adopt, especially when they lack sufficient conventional capabilities. By adopting and emphasising asymmetric concepts ad tactics they stand the chance of at least partially neutralising the, normally more dominant, military power of a sovereign state. This is one of the major reasons for almost all insurgencies to start as irregular wars.

At least for the foreseeable future, conventional military forces will be engaged in IW. However, they will simultaneously have to maintain the high-end capabilities necessary to fight and win conventional wars. The current trend suggests that conventional wars will invariably be wars of necessity and therefore will leave the military forces with almost no choice but to fight them. The sovereignty and integrity of the nation’s geographic borders cannot be assured by any other means in the face of direct threats. The necessity to maintain high-end capabilities that can be adapted for the lower end of the spectrum of conflict is a tall order for air forces that are normally forced to function at the minimum level of capacity, mass and capability because of extraneous influences.

Regular, meaning traditional or conventional, military forces struggle to adapt to irregular conflicts since their doctrine, concepts, training and fundamental fighting ethos are oriented towards fighting an adversary organised in a similar manner as themselves. Although in the past two decades giant strides have been made by national military forces in adapting to the greatly changed conditions in which contemporary wars are being fought, the conduct of IW is still not a fully entrenched capability resident in regular military forces. However, the fundamental reason for the existence of a military force is to defend the nation against any and all attacks. This creates a quandary, which is double-edged. One is that only a numerically large military force with assured resource-availability will have the inherent capacity to train sufficient forces in the art of IW—the newfound characteristics and modus operandi associated with IW—while continuing to retain forces with adequate high-end capability. This would essentially mean creating and sustaining two differently capable forces within the same umbrella. Since most democratic governments have reduced the size and resource allocation of their military forces, cutting the fat close to the bone, it is highly unlikely that sufficient spare capacity, mass and resources will be available to most military forces to indulge in this luxury.

The second aspect flows from the first. The challenge is for numerically small military forces to be able to adapt quickly to the new paradigms of warfighting in the IW arena, while still being able to perform their core function. The core function involves the protection of national interests even if forced to enter wars of necessity against adversaries who may have both IW and conventional capabilities in equal measure. In simple terms, a conventional military force should be able to fight and win a war of necessity against an opposing national force who could bring to bear all conventional warfighting capabilities; and be also capable of containing subversive irregular forces simultaneously, to be able to fulfil its primary responsibility to the nation. This in turn would involve the force being agile enough to maintain high-end capabilities that are rapidly tailorable to the IW environment. This is the future and smaller military forces will find the dual demands placed on them extremely difficult to fulfil adequately, an unenviable situation to be in when national securit...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Author’s Preface
• Introduction
• 1. Air Power and the Evolving Character of War
• 2. Politics and Air Power
• 3. The Challenge of Cutting-Edge Technology
• 4. Air Power Systems—Inhabited, Uninhabited and Autonomous
• 5. Air Force: Future Focal Points
• Conclusion
• Selected Bibliography
• Index