It is perhaps appropriate that I take over the baton from Nigel Baldwin for this last section of your Air Power day. I took over No 50 Squadron from him in 1979 just as the period that I am to talk about began. I shall take a rather different approach to the task as I have a period which will be much more familiar to you. I shall certainly draw on the experiences of the Royal Air Force during this period of great change, but I need also to range more broadly. In particular, I shall want to develop a theme of the growing singularity of the United States as the leader in air power capability, and the implications of this for others.
The period since 1980 falls neatly into two halves: the Cold War and the post Cold War. It also has three operational milestones: the Falklands conflict, the Gulf War and the Kosovo Air Campaign, and for the UK it was marked by three major defence reviews. I shall also want to weave into this developments both in technology and doctrine, and the effect of politics on all of this.
We open the 80's with a Conservative government under Margaret Thatcher and John Nott as Defence Secretary. Nigel has told you of the 1957 Sandys review and its horror for the RAF. John Nott has become a similar figure for the Royal Navy. On arrival in office in 1979, the Conservative Government brought forward the staged increase in pay for the Armed Forces, and in their first White Paper reaffirmed the importance they attached to Alliance membership and collective defence. They announced a determination to replace the Polaris strategic deterrent, improve air defence provisions for the UK (a focus which was to last throughout the decade), a commitment to NATO longer-range theatre nuclear force modernisation proposals, and protecting of the increasing defence budget from cuts in government spending. In 1980, it was announced that the Polaris submarine force would be progressively replaced in the early 1990s by the Trident I weapon system which would be purchased from the United States. By 1981, pressures on government spending led to a reduction of £200 million in the defence budget. This resulted in abandoning plans for an extra air defence squadron of Lightning aircraft, cancelling the development of the Skyflash II air defence missile, and withdrawing a number of aircraft from operational service earlier than originally planned. Measures were taken to ensure that current expenditure in the defence budget did not exceed preordained fixed values in any given year.
In 1981 the Nott review reported. Having restated its commitment to NATO, it then went on to explain some concerns for the future. Even with the 3% real growth in defence expenditure, the current force structures could not be maintained and improved, and additionally,technological advance was changing the balance of advantage between large costly platforms, such as aircraft and surface ships, and the increasingly capable modern weapons. In the light of this there had been 'a fresh and radical look at the defence programme' to determine the roles and structure of forces necessary. The balance of advantage between expensive surface ships, and the relatively less costly anti-shipping weapons, was seen to have changed the optimum cost-effective maritime mix for the future. The best balance could be achieved by enhancing both the maritime-air and submarine effort, while reducing the size of the surface fleet and the scale and sophistication of new ship building. Had these plans come to fruition, the 59 destroyers and frigates would have been reduced to about 50, while the 12 nuclear-propelled attack submarines would have been increased to 17. New ships would also be to simpler and cheaper designs.
The Falklands crisis of April 1982 came to a government which was in the midst of directing its defence policy ever closer to the European mainland.
Let me start where Nigel left with the Falklands conflict. It sits slightly outside of the mainstream strategic concerns of the period. Yet it was an important landmark. Indeed, although we did not appreciate it at the time, some of the lessons were to be applicable to the post Cold War conflicts of the 90's. It was also the last time in which the UK was to mount an independent major operation without being supported by Allies. When we look at the difficulties of coalition operations, the simplicity of being in control of our own destiny, as we were in the Falklands becomes apparent.
Professor Lawrence Freedman has described it as:
'A curiously old-fashioned war. We have become used to wars of political complexity and strategic confusion- Such modern dramas were underway in the Middle East and Central America in 1982, compared with which the Falklands War came and went like something from the Victorian stage: a simple plot, small but well defined cast of characters, a story in three acts with a clear beginning, middle and end, and a straightforward conclusion that everybody could understand.'
While such an analysis has a comfortable academic ring to it, the student of this drama should not forget that over one thousand men died in the short engagement, in order to determine the future for the eighteen hundred inhabitants of these remote islands.
The British public and parliament were affronted by the invasion of the Falklands by the Argentine forces on the morning of 2 April 1982. In the emergency session of parliament on Saturday 3 April, the Prime Minister announced that: 'The Government have now decided that a large task force will sale as soon as all preparations are complete. HMS Invincible will be in the lead and will leave port on Monday.'
Thus, in the first phase of the operation, the power projection necessary was seen publicly as a naval task, with the expectation that embarked troops would provide land forces for recapturing the islands should that prove necessary. What had air power to offer during this initial phase?
The Falkland Islands lie some 8,000 miles from the UK mainland, while only some 400 miles from Argentina. The nearest British territory with adequate port and airfield facilities for use as a base was at Ascension Island, just at the halfway point between the UK and the Falklands. Compounding the difficulties of such extended lines of communication, was the limitations of a force, which was primarily orientated towards defence of the NATO region and of the UK.The political imperative to get the task force sailing in such a short time - the invasion took place on Friday 2 April 1982, and the task force sailed on the Monday following - meant that much of the detailed organisation depended on the support which would be available from Ascension Island. Indeed the first aircraft of what was to become a massive and continuing airlift-operation was dispatched to Wideawake airfield on Ascension Island on 3 April. Air transport as an instrument of military power is sometimes undervalued- All armed forces are critically dependent on their logistics support, and as military technology has improved this dependence has become greater rather than less. While air transport will never achieve the lift capability of surface methods, its speed and range give it an irreplaceable role in all operations; particularly those over extended lines of communication.
The Ascension base expanded rapidly from 25 men to 800 personnel in three weeks, and peaked at some 1,400 including those in transit. C130 Hercules, taking eighteen hours to fly from the UK bases, and VC10 transport aircraft brought men, equipment and logistic support. For repositioning of payload, extensive use was made of rotary wing assets. This lifeline, propositioning equipment for the task force as it sailed south, and subsequently keeping the flow of supplies going, was arguably an element every bit as vital to success as the offensive operations. As the task force travelled south of Ascension, the air bridge extended to provide airborne supply drops to supplement the Royal Fleet Auxiliary and Merchant Navy shipping as a method or urgent resupply. Air transport offered an essential capability that suffered from its inherent lift limitations. Thus merchant shipping transported 9,000 people and 100,000 tons of freight, while fixed wing aircraft moved 5,800 people and 6,600 tons of freight.
If establishing a forward operating base was critical, then ensuring its security was also vital. While the Argentinean power projection capacity might appear limited, an undefended airfield on Ascension Island would have been a lucrative target for carrier-based aircraft, or even an Entebbe-style attack using C130s. An early warning radar was rapidly installed on the island's high point to provide good radar cover. Initially, Harrier GR3 aircraft re-equipped from their ground attack role with AIM-9L air defence missiles provided fighter support. When these were deployed south to the Falklands, they were replaced by Phantom air defence aircraft. The requirement to defend critical nodes in any supply chain remains a planning consideration for all future operations. For limited threats, economical solutions may be available through multi-role tasking of air resources.
Before hostilities commence, the acquisition of intelligence as to enemy intentions and force dispositions is an area of major concern to any commander. Air reconnaissance provides an important part of the overall intelligence picture. Yet again the vast distances involved in this conflict-made such reconnaissance difficult to mount. While the UK was fortunate had the Nimrod maritime reconnaissance aircraft in its inventory, it was tailored to a North Atlantic scenario. Before it could be used over the full area of maritime interest, it needed to be fitted with an air-to-air refuelling capability. It took just 21 days from the decision to install the equipment to its operational deployment. Additionally an offensive capability was added in the form of air-to-air missiles, gravity bombs, the anti-shipping Harpoon missile and the Stingray advance torpedo. In the interim, reconnaissance could be mounted where possible by Nimrods, supplemented by suitably modified Victor air-refuelling tanker aircraft. For the future, the need for extended operation capabilities for maritime reconnaissance aircraft is proven. Giving offensive capability to support aircraft where possible is also a sound principle for contingency planning.
On 30 April 1982 the Total Exclusion Zone (TEZ) around the Falkland Islands came into effect, and the campaign moved into its second phase. The task force was in place and its continuing safety was a major concern for its commander. The threat was from submarines, surface vessels and offensive air. The Royal Navy was well practised in its anti-Submarine warfare role, and could use its organic air assets (its Sea King helicopters), in their normal operational role as part of the anti-submarine defensive screen. Once the Argentinean cruiser, the General Belgrano, had been sunk on and the Argentinean navy withdrew to coastal waters, the surface ship threat was much diminished. The major problem remaining for the security of the force became the maintenance of control of the airspace. Sea Harriers embarked on HMS Hermes and Invincible, armed with guns and AIM-9L Sidewinder missiles were small in number and - previously unproven in combat, air defence force.
The 28 Sea Harriers flew over 1,500 combat air patrol missions, with a 95% daily availability and 99% of planned missions were flown. The Argentinians could field over 200 frontline aircraft of varying capability. The British could not provide airborne early warning cover, which made it prudent for the carrier to operate well to the east of the Falklands, thus limiting the patrol time of the Sea Harriers. The analysis of dissimilar fighter engagements, Sea Harrier v Mirage, is limited by the reluctance of the Argentinians to engage the Sea Harriers after 1 May 1982. On that day, 2 v 2 engagements, showed that the Mirage's early B-variant of Sidewinder were easily avoided by the Sea Harriers. The combination of manoeuvrability and the effectiveness of all aspect AIM-9L with laser proximity fuzing gave no such opportunity to the Mirages when Sea Harrier pilots positioned for attack. Two Mirages were downed and another probably hit that day. By the end of the conflict Sea Harrier had twenty confirmed kills and three probables and had sustained no losses from air-to-air combat. The Government report on the lessons learnt from the conflict drew the conclusion that:
'The battle for air superiority was vital to the success of the Campaign.'
No successful military operation can be confined to purely defensive measures. The establishment of the TEZ was also the signal for the commencement of offensive operations by the British forces. On 1 May, the first attack against the Argentinians on the Falklands Islands was undertaken by a Vulcan B2 bomber which dropped twenty-one 1,000 lb conventional bombs on the airfield at Port Stanley. To mount this attack from Ascension island had required an enormous effort. The Vulcan had celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in service the previous year. Much of its equipment dated from the Sixties, and its air-to-air refuelling capability had not been used for many years. The refuelling system was rapidly refurbished, the conventional bombing system reinstalled, and crew training undertaken. A self-defence electronic counter measures pod was fitted under one wing, and precision navigation equipment for the eight thousand mile round trip was installed. On a high-low-high profile attack, the Vulcan refuelled six times en route to the target. This required a massive Victor tanker support operation to provide the necessary cascade refuelling. The radar bombing attack was made from ten thousand feet and achieved a cut of the runway, as well as other damage to the airfield. Subsequent Vulcan sorties were used against the airfield and on defence suppression missions. Much discussion has ensued about the merits of mounting such an effort to bomb an airfield at such extended ranges. While the damage sustained was limited, the effect of showing Port Stanley to be at risk meant that the Argentinians could not afford to deploy their expensive air assets forward. Additionally, a capability to attack the mainland had been demonstrated, and this undoubtedly meant that a proportion of the Argentinean air defence effort had to be directed towards defending possible main- land targets. Sea Harriers needed to be conserved for their primary role of air defence, and in any event their weapons could not penetrate the runway so effectively.The Sea Harrier was supplemented by the arrival of ten RAF Harrier GR3 aircraft, which have a primary role of air-to-ground offensive missions. Four of these Harriers were deployed by flying them down to the fleet from the United Kingdom to Ascension Island and on for a deck landing at sea.
The beach-head at San Carlos was established by 3 Commando Brigade on 21 May, and General Menendez surrendered in Port Stanley on 14 June. During that period, the requirements of securing the task force continued unabated. Air operations were also now necessary to:support the land battle by providing information, tactical transport, air defence and offensive support.
Providing information for the land forces through air reconnaissance should have been a major contribution to the success of the operation, but it is not clear that this was the case. Assets available included army and naval helicopters as well as the Harrier force. The helicopters were vulnerable to ground fire, and the Harriers lacked the appropriate support organisation for tasking and processing information. As the Government's study concluded:
'Air Reconnaissance. The absence of a dedicated overland air reconnaissance capability was a handicap in the campaign, and the resulting lack of precise information on enemy dispositions presented an additional hazard to ground forces. We plan to improve our tactical reconnaissance capability.'
Given the nature of the terrain, the ground forces were heavily dependent on helicopters for mobility. About two hundred helicopters were deployed south, but the loss of the container ship, Atlantic Conveyor, with three Chinooks and six Wessex aboard, meant that there was an acute shortage of tactical transport. A squadron of the anti-submarine warfare Sea Kings were reroled to assist, and as was the case for all rotary wing assets, the sole remaining Chinook flew at unprecedented rates of activity. Based at Port San Carlos, this helicopter had to be operated and maintained without its support equipment which had been lost with the other Chinooks. In 150 flying hours it carried a total of 600 tons of equipment and 2,180 passengers. This started the slow change in UK thinking about the importance of rotary assets.
Offensive support of the land forces, as they moved across the islands, was an important air power task. For the landings at San Carlos, the Harrier GR3s were armed with cluster bombs, rockets, free fall and retarded 1,000 lb bombs, and 30 mm canon. The assault on Darwin and Goose Green was again supported by Harriers using cluster weapons. Once Goose Green had been recaptured, the Harriers were tasked with attacking the defensive positions around Port Stanley.
As the final report stated:
'The campaign exposed the limitations of the traditional method of forward air control of close air support operations. In the later stages laser target marking from the ground was used, enabling laser guided bombs to make direct hits on their targets.'
Again it is interesting to see nearly two decades on in the Kosovo air campaign that we were still lamenting lack of precision weapons.
I have spent some time on the Falklands because it has passed into history, and I think many of the air power lesson were slow to be implemented. The lack of a useful AEW capability was slowed further by the debacle over the Nimrod AEW. There are also lessons about how easily we can be surprised, and how air power assets can be turned round, used in unexpected ways, in extraordinary short timescales and perhaps save the day.
The annual White Paper of April 1981 (just one year before the conflict) has a single entry in the index against The Falklands. When you look it up at para 419 it says:
"419. The Services have helped in various relief activities over the past year, including assistance after floods in Belize; building projects in the Falkland Islands; .........."
The White Paper of March 1982 has no mention of the Falkland Islands at all!
Defence expenditure was at 5% of GDP (twice its current proportion), and the Nimrod AEW was a major feature of the forward equipment programme. It was cancelled at a cost of nearly £1 bn and E3A's re-ordered. So much for the prescience of White papers and defence reviews. The air defence variant version of the Tornado was ordered for the mid 80's. An aircraft more suited to Cold War long range interception, than the agile needs of small wars. The need for support capability had been shown in the Falklands and investment in tanking, transport and helicopters was increased in this period.
The Falklands was taken as an aberration from the main thrust of the Cold War demands. The Thatcher/Reagan years of the 80s focused on the ever greater needs of systems to defeat the Soviet Union. Reagan's 1983 call for a missile defence system - Star Wars -was an indication of the American belief in technological solutions to every defence problem. As important perhaps was the extraordinary agreement by NATO to seek a 3% real growth in defence budgets year on year. This was something which the UK achieved for nearly 7 years between 1979 and 1985. The Tornado GR1s began being delivered in 1979, and so the Vulcan last fling in the Falklands saw its nuclear role replaced by Tornado. The first Chinook Squadron formed in 1982. Nor were the weapon lessons from the Falklands learned. The RAF focused on runway denial and area weapons for its conventional capability rather than developing the precision weapons which were available. Again the emphasis on low flying tactics rather than electronic countermeasures and SEAD are themes of the period. Investment was ploughed into air defence of the UK in the mid 80's with upgrades to radars, SAMs, and AEW, with extra Phantoms, air defence roles for Hawk trainers all to supplement the F2's. Most of this investment was to be nugatory for the post Cold War period.
The next generation of air defence aircraft was beyond a single European nation and the project definition for a new European Fighter Aircraft, eventually to become Eurofighter/Typhoon, was agreed in 1985. The first deliveries will not be with us until 2002 - some 17 years between specification and reality. Other collaborative projects were less successful. The value of STOVL was recognised by the replacement of the Harriers with AV8Bs.
The accelerating pace of CFE and arms control, the fall of the Berlin Wall heralded the end of the Cold War and the start of a new decade, which looked initially pretty bleak for air power proponents.
The end of the Cold War left NATO with a vast and expensive set of military forces, which had been practising to fight a single campaign for over 40 years. The planning assumptions for an all out war in Europe were relatively simple. The enemy was well defined and consisted of the aggregate forces of the Warsaw Pact. The exact locations, strengths of forces, tactics to be used and phases of the war were studied by generations of soldiers. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the unification of Germany, the demise of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, all changed the strategic landscape in Europe in little more than a 3 year period. NATO's purpose was suddenly in question as nations scrambled to cash in on the peace dividend. Yet in the event, the decade of the 90's has had more diverse military action by the Western nations, under various banners, than at any time previously. Kuwait, Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Haiti, Albania, Kosovo and East Timor have seen western military force deployed to less than benign environments. A new doctrine for peace support operations has replaced the manuals on flexible response in the military staff colleges of the Alliance.
NATO nations raced to reduce their military spending as the threat from the Soviet Union disappeared. There was little agreement on the necessary level that would be needed in the future. Indeed, there were predictions that, without the common threat of the Warsaw Pact, defence would revert to minimum national needs. In the UK, the government launched an early review of its defence spending and in broad terms cut about one third of the front line of each service. The fact that little money was saved was a measure of how overheated the defence programme was at the time. The RAF was generally reckoned to have come out of the Options review process less damaged than the other two services.
However ( in an bizarre parallel with the Nott/Falklands event) while the UK was carrying out the Tom King Options review in August 1990, before most governments had completed their post Cold War defence reappraisals, Iraq invaded Kuwait. This was a clear breach of international law and was also in an area of considerable economic interest to the major powers. The United Nations imposed economic sanctions, intense diplomacy was undertaken, and this was underpinned by the build up of a US-led military coalition of 29 countries in the theatre. Following failure of diplomatic solutions to the crisis, an air campaign (Operation Desert Storm) was launched against Iraqi forces on 17 January 1991. Although massive ground forces had been assembled nearby in Saudi Arabia, the force commander, General Norman Schwarzkopf, continued a purely air offensive operation for 6 weeks. Precision weapons were used extensively against infrastructure targets. Attacks were orchestrated with appropriate air defence systems, refuelling tanker aircraft and a mix of offensive capabilities. Cruise missiles, with terrain mapping navigation, were used in quantity. Massive area bombing was used against armour in the desert.
On the 24 February, Schwarzkopf assessed the Iraq forces as sufficiently degraded to launch the ground campaign. It was still assumed that there would be a difficult fight to free Kuwait. In the event, the Iraqi forces were routed and Kuwait freed in under 4 days. Air power advocates had found a new role. They claimed that modern precision air systems in overwhelming numbers would in future win wars, leaving ground forces the easier task of moving in afterwards to secure territory. However, even in the Gulf, it was a limited victory. Air operations of various kinds continued against Iraq for the rest of the decade.
The key lesson from the Gulf War was that the US was both quantitatively and qualitatively in a different capability league from all the other nations involved. As the French discovered to their annoyance, if you could not operate to US/NATO procedures, then you were kept out of the action. In the air, it was a war of offensive air operations, and these had to be conducted from medium to high altitudes. Air defence fighters had little work to do. The European nations had invested heavily in fighters to protect themselves from the long range Russian bombers of the Cold War. For their offensive operations, they had depended on low flying tactics to improve their survivability against Warsaw Pact air defence systems, while accepting that there would be a significant attrition rate. In a war that was expected to last only days before going nuclear, training and equipment were posited on achieving rapid results.
Somalia reinforced the perception internationally that the US was only prepared to remain engaged if their troops were kept safe. The pre-dominance of airpower solutions to international crises was underlined by the continuing air operations over both Northern and Southern Iraq. Operation Provide Comfort had successfully, through air operations, rescued the displaced Kurds who had fled from their homes in Northern Iraq. It was less clear that the results for the Marsh Arabs in the South were as positive. While there was a need for some fighter capability to police the air exclusion zones, it could be carried out as the secondary role of either bomber or reconnaissance aircraft.
The sequence of events in Bosnia reinforced the US view that offensive airpower could provide the necessary coercion to bring recalcitrant leaders to the negotiating table. That the history of the region up to the Dayton accord is considerably more complex is unimportant. There is a widespread perception among American decision makers that the threat and application of air strikes was critical to obtaining Milosevic's agreement to the Dayton proposals. Again, in this short air campaign, the world expected precision attacks with no collateral damage and no losses to our own side. When an airman was lost over hostile territory, combat search and rescue effort became the over-riding priority. Operation Alba, the response to the breakdown of law and order in Albania, showed that there were crises which required a European coalition of the willing response. In this case, it was clear that the mechanisms for putting together such a coalition were imperfect, and that a successful outcome was only possible because of the relatively benign environment.
The 1990s saw a series of operations, mainly under UN auspices, to try to restore order in failing states around the world. Air power had few answers to mass killings in civil wars in Africa. Where agreements were achieved, such as in Bosnia, the peace could only be maintained by the long term presence of international ground forces. Yet the decade was to finish with a war that was even more important to the air power dominance school of thought. For the third time the Uk conducted a major defence review (this time George Robertson's SDR) and found itself at war shortly afterwards.
Having come to an uneasy settlement over ethnic divisions in Bosnia, the focus moved to Kosovo. Serbia was increasing its repression of the ethnic Albanian community in this province; the UN and OSCE tried unsuccessfully to negotiate an acceptable peace agreement. For the first time NATO nations agreed, without a formal UN resolution, to use military means to solve a growing humanitarian crisis within a sovereign state's boundaries. The instrument of choice was explicitly solely air power. NATO leaders, when they launched an air offensive on 24 March 1999 against Serbian forces, ruled out an offensive ground campaign. Air power was being used to bring the Serbian leadership back to the negotiating table. Over 23,000 munitions were dropped in the ten weeks of operations. From the 38,000 NATO missions flown, there was not a single casualty to the alliance forces. On the other hand, a combination of political constraints on targets, limited poor weather capability and good Serbian defensive measures meant that the military effectiveness of this prolonged air operation was limited. Nevertheless a peace settlement was made in the June, before ground operations became necessary.
The contributions from the 14 NATO nations which took part were varied, but all were overshadowed by the US. For example, the UK carried out 1618 of the total of 38,004 NATO sorties flown, or just over 4%4 . 102 of these sorties were the Sea Harriers doing little more than defending the small anti-submarine warfare carrier that they are deployed on. 324 were air-to-air refuelling aircraft aircraft mainly supporting the Tornados that operated from their bases in Germany. The UK E3-D airborne early warning aircraft clocked up 184 sorties. The sorties which mattered were those carrying out offensive attacks, and here the total UK effort was in the range 4% to 10% depending on the method of calculation (the lower figure reflects munition numbers and the higher missions flown)5 , and we know that in many of these cases it was not possible to release weapons. From 1008 RAF bombing sorties just 1011 weapons were released. Of these three quarters were non-precision weapons. The story is similar for the other non-US NATO air forces. The US provided 70% of the total aircraft and 80% of the total weapons delivered. Europe was shown to be good at providing political support for the operation, but poorly equipped to contribute to an offensive air campaign in an effective way. Again a large international force was needed to police the settlement in Kosovo. Shortly afterwards, Russia followed NATO's example of the use of air power in its rather less surgical approach to quelling rebellion in Chechnya.
While air power studies have concentrated on the offensive operations in the Gulf and the Balkans, a growing need for humanitarian intervention worldwide has had other implications. Rapid response to sudden crises requires deployable forces. Nations are restructuring their military capabilities to provide such forces more easily. Strategic airlift and helicopter lift have in a much quieter way contributed greatly to international responses to crises in Africa and Asia. Planners in defence ministries around the world finished the decade with a much clearer view of the need for the full range of air power capabilities than they had had in 1990.
The twentieth century was one of extraordinary progress in the application of air power. Most air power forecasters failed to make the right projections. This was scarcely surprising as the technologies advanced rapidly, the tactical implications were poorly understood and the strategic context changed. Air power enthusiasts often overstated the capabilities of their systems, and found it difficult to make their case for resources in opposition to their land and maritime colleagues. Successful air power nations needed a good technological and industrial base, as well as institutional understanding of what air power could offer.
The surges in practical military utilisation of air power took place in fighting wars of the 20th century. Theorising was extensive in the periods of peace, but was often based on unjustified extrapolation of available data.
Currently, the United States has an overwhelming military capability which is, to a large extent, based on its modern air power forces. It can carry out precision offensive operations on a world-wide basis from its home territory. It can deliver conventional or nuclear weapons from aircraft or from submarines. It also has the most advanced space and information capabilities, and it outspends all other nations on military research, procurement and deployment. Given this focus of air power, it will be inevitably be a prime influence for all other nations, when looking at their own forces.
Analysts argue whether the air campaign for Kosovo has set a precedent which will mean many more such humanitarian interventions. Some believe the political difficulties of maintaining NATO cohesion mean that it will not be repeated, and that only UN authorised operations will be possible. These are more likely to be at the lower intensity end of the spectrum and thus be less dependent on combat air power. There are still however areas where serious conflict is possible. The division of the Korean peninsular remains. India and Pakistan remain fiercely confrontational over Kashmir, and are both nuclear capable. China has the potential to cause difficulty, particularly over Taiwan. Russia is not yet a stable market economy. Ethnic problems erupt without warning, and sometimes with great ferocity. In any of the possible scenarios, air power is almost certain to have a part to play. However, the costs of air systems remain a problem for all governments including the United States. There are signs that regional co-operation at providing air capabilities may be the pattern of the future. NATO nations clubbed together to procure an expensive airborne early warning system in the past. European nations are looking at how they might provide such capabilities as intelligence satellites and strategic airlift on a co-operative basis.
Air power has become an increasing attractive option for western nations, which wish to minimise the risk of casualties to their own forces. This will increase the pressure for the developing air systems and tactics which keep the operator out of harm's way. Unmanned air vehicles will provide some solutions as will greater stand off range for weapon systems. However, the increasing concern about unintended collateral damage will ensure that the man or woman is kept firmly in the decision-making loop.
Military air power began as a form of support for armies and navies. It grew to have strategic influence on its own. Many of the problems of development have come from the division of labour between armies, navies and, latterly, air forces. Recognising this, the most recent moves have been towards joint military organisations, which are designed to makes most efficient use of all resources. This comes just at the time when doctrine seems to be moving more towards the independent use of air power for serious operations.