HMM: Toward a New Understanding of Air Dominance.

In a 1998 U.S. Air Force report titled, Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21st Century Air Force, the overall objective of air dominance was outlined as such: “[I]f air dominance is achieved and joint forces can operate with impunity throughout the adversary’s battle space, the Joint Force Commander will prevail quickly, efficiently and decisively.”

Thus, according to this interpretation of air dominance, the baseline objective for air power is to clear the way, so to speak, for all levers of military power to operate with “impunity.” In this new age of unmanned warfare, such as we’ve seen on Ukraine’s battlefields, I’d argue that this concept needs some re-examining.

Even if American F-35s and B-21s crush an enemy’s air force, that does not guarantee command of the air littoral — that low-altitude layer of airspace within which small, tactical drones fly. In other words, an enemy force totally defeated in a traditional air war can still maintain lethal pressure on American forces through unmanned operations conducted at low altitude.

Really, only China would dare directly oppose the US Air Force in the skies. But damn near anyone can contest us in the “air littoral,” as Nolan Peterson called it, but we aren’t taking the threat seriously enough.