Changing Missions Change More Than Air Force Tactics

Throughout its existence, the U.S. Air Force has seen its missions transform with technology. In the tactical realm, this often has entailed both supporting ground troops below and ensuring superiority against enemy air forces. Technologies influenced the Air Force by providing new capabilities that could help it accomplish its missions better. But now, the influx of new technologies is changing those missions significantly and forcing the Air Force to consider new ways of warfighting.

This is not to say that the Air Force’s primary goals are obsolete. Air superiority remains at the top of any air force’s list. Without air superiority, an air force cannot achieve any of its aims. Any warfighting force that operates in the atmosphere must ensure its own survivability, and it must maintain the means of denying an adversary the same airborne capabilities.

Nor has support for ground forces lessened. Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have brought home both the need for, and the effectiveness of, air support. But it is the change in how that air support is provided that is contributing to a major shift in air operations. Simply providing an airborne weapons platform with coordinates to deliver kinetic weaponry—as was done so successfully in the early days of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan—no longer suffices in the age of asymmetric warfare.

And the nature of airborne weapons platforms has changed as well. Swift ground attack aircraft and high-altitude heavy bombers have been supplemented by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that combine features of both—long loiter times and rapid response. These UAVs provide a new element in both warfighting and surveillance and reconnaissance.

It is not just the weapons technologies that have changed. Networking capabilities may be providing the greatest changes across the spectrum of Air Force operations. Greater connectivity is altering the relationship both among ground and air forces and within those forces.

The Air Force is integrating airmen into operations at a more decentralized level. In addition to providing tighter integration at the air support operations center division level, this effort will bolster the presence of Air Force personnel and data with land components possibly as far down as battalion levels.

Existing sensor platforms such as the E-3 Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) and the E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) are receiving upgrades that will change their roles in the airborne battlespace. Some of these changes are in response to newly determined requirements, but others will be change drivers themselves.

While new networking capabilities have driven the land component presence, the move is generating technology requirements of its own. For example, ground tactical elements will need smaller and more capable communications equipment so that they can exploit vital network-centric information sharing fully.

The traditional sensor-to-shooter paradigm is in flux. More advanced sensor suites integrated into the growing network are providing warfighters with real-time information directly instead of only in products generated by a headquarters. Here again, UAVs are changing the way of warfighting as they downlink directly to land components. Even sensor pods now can downlink directly to ground forces.

And even greater changes lie ahead. When the Air Force’s next combat aircraft, the F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter, enters service, it will revolutionize air intelligence. In addition to its warfighting capabilities, the aircraft virtually is a flying network node rimmed with various sensors providing real-time information to nearby aircraft and ground facilities.

The Air Force is restructuring its command and control to incorporate these new missions and capabilities. But part of this effort is the recognition that these changes have only begun. The definition of air power may be tweaked, but its importance is increasing in scope dramatically.  

—The Editor

More information on Air Force technologies is available in the June 2009 issue of SIGNAL Magazine, in the mail to AFCEA members and subscribers June 1, 2009. For information about purchasing this issue, joining AFCEA or subscribing to SIGNAL, contact AFCEA Member Services.