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By Norman Friedman, Author, Naval Institute Guide to World Naval Weapons Systems
U-S. Air Force Plans for Peace
. The U.S. Air Force has thrown down the gauntlet in the developing ■nterservice war over the shrinking defense budget—a White Paper entiled “The Air Force: Global Reach-Global Power.” It embodies two ‘Jj'guments designed to answer or deflect those advanced by the U.S. Navy.
First, where the Navy argues that, as a maritime power, the United tates clearly needs a powerful fleet, the Air Force argues that, as an Aerospace power, the United States needs a strong aerospace industrial ase- By implication, this base can be maintained only if the Air Force’s new technology is bought in quantity.
Second, where the Navy argues that it provides the nation an unequalled ability for power projection, the Air Force lists a series of power projection cases of its own, either historical or postulated.
Both Air Force arguments are faulty but both will undoubtedly be raised repeatedly in the near future. The industrial base argument is probably more potent, since aircraft exports are among the few current U.S. export success stories. The question is the extent to which advanced military aviation technology really drives exports, most of which will probably be in civilian areas. In the past, it was certainly true that the Air Force-financed Boeing KC-135 aerial refueler was the prototype for subsequent U.S. commercial jet airliners.
It is difficult, however, to imagine a civil version of the B-2 stealth bomber, or for that matter, a civil application of stealth technology.
It is by no means clear that government investment automatically nurtures a successful commercial industry. In recent years the United States has invested very heavily in space, yet U.S. launchers reportedly enjoy a shrinking fraction of the world market. That shrinkage may be traced in part to the governmental decision to emphasize the reusable Space Shuttle rather than one-shot, expendable boosters, which have turned out to be more reliable and cheaper. A cynic might suggest that government investment in new technology often goes to projects that are technologically exciting but commercially disastrous. British and French taxpayers have not realized any return on the Concorde, and recent proposals for a Concorde follow-on have revived memories of just how disastrous the first one was. Yet Concorde was originally promoted as a means of regaining the commercial airliner superiority ceded to the United States in the 1950s. Again, a cynic might see in Concorde an attempt, a quarter- century ago, to make some civilian use of the resources spent on supersonic military aircraft. Can we be so sure that future military-oriented technology is so valuable in a commercial sense?
The Air Force recently raised a related question. It hopes to buy the advanced tactical fighter (ATF), of which there will be a naval version. The projected cost is sufficiently gruesome to give the Defense Department pause, and procurement has been set back by four years. It is also possible that the ATF will be canceled in favor of improved versions of the F-14 and F-15. One Air Force argument in favor of the new fighter is that cancellation of the ATF might well bankrupt the industrial teams investing in it, thus eliminating a major part of the U.S. aerospace industrial base. Northrop and McDonnell Douglas are building an ATF prototype—the YF-23—that is scheduled to compete against the YF-22, which is being developed by Lockheed, General Dynamics, and Boeing.
Another argument is that the Soviets are well on their way to fielding advanced fighters that can easily overwhelm current F-I4s and F-I5s. Here the implication is that, whether or not the Soviets are about to fight us, they will wipe out the current U.S. export advantage in military aircraft unless we develop superior fighters immediately. This argument avoids the widespread indications of current Soviet industrial and economic failure.
These claims beg another major question. The Air Force is not the sole guardian of U.S. aerospace power. Some would suggest that the Navy represents at least as much advanced aerospace technology, heavy transports and heavy bombers excepted. Even if the Air Force vanished, the Navy would still be buying advanced fighter and attack aircraft. Moreover, it can easily be argued that the civilian economy by itself will support continued development of heavy transports; Boeing, with a multibillion dollar backlog of orders, does not seem threatened with bankruptcy. By far the greater threat to the U.S. aerospace industry would seem to be protectionism and government support of the European-built Airbus airliners. That issue has little or nothing to do with the future of the B-2 and the ATF.
As for military aircraft exports, the main challenge to the next generation of U.S. fighters is probably either the French Rafale or the European Fighter Aircraft (EFA). At this writing both seem likely to become victims of glasnost.
Then there is the power projection argument, which goes like this: F-2s, Hying from three secure bases, can with a single aerial refueling strike anywhere in the world. As a corollary, six B-2s could have dropped the same weight of bombs as the mass of carrier aircraft and F-l 1 Is that attacked Libya in 1986. As proof of such a contention, B-52s flying from the United States dropped bombs on practice targets in Egypt ■n 1983 during Exercise Bright Star. The Air Force also points out that, in the past, it has been able to deploy tactical aircraft very rapidly to areas °f crisis, as in the mass flight of F-4s to Korea in 1976, or in the flight of F-15s to Saudi Arabia in 1983.
All of these examples are grossly misleading. In virtually all cases, the last thing the United States wants to do is actually drop bombs. It wants a Presence, benign or threatening, which will convince local powers not to act against U.S. interests. The presence must be able to threaten convinc- mgly, but the threat is almost always more important than actual destruc- don. That is the meaning of the Libyan raid. The actual destruction was limited (which is why six B-2s could have done much the same thing). The threat was that the carrier aircraft and, to a lesser extent, the F-l 1 Is, could come back at will. That would not have applied nearly as much to B-2s flying thousands of miles. Moreover, since the value of the B-2 tests on its stealth, it cannot be used for presence; submarines suffer from tttuch the same limitation.
The operation in Panama demonstrated that long-distance tactical attacks suffer from other serious limitations. By definition, planning takes Place far from the scene of the action, which inevitably renders the attackers less responsive to sudden changes in the tactical situation. Misunderstandings and outright communications failures can have devastating effects. In Panama, the F-l 17s missed their targets by about 100 yards; not a gross error, but not pinpoint accuracy, either. There were no friendly troops waiting to storm the target barracks just after the bombs hit, but greater miss distances might easily have killed friendly troops in another situation. In the past, ground commanders have insisted on communication with aircraft supporting them, precisely for fear of devastating errors. Such communications may prove difficult to coordinate with a flying from a base 6,000 miles away. Also, communications between the planners, the on-scene commander, and the B-2 must be 100% feliable if the aircrew is to respond to changes in the tactical situation.
The reasons advanced for the failures of the F-l 17s are suggestive of •he problems of future tactical support applications of long-range air power. First, the pilots’ training proved insufficient for local conditions. Given that the crux of the Air Force position is that B-2 crews can cover •he world to react instantly to any crisis anywhere, this makes disturbing readmg. Just how specialized can their training be? We are also told that the F-l 17 pilots found it difficult to designate their rather vaguely defined targets, particularly given local ground mist. In future, will all targets be well-defined buildings or roads? That seems rather unlikely. Ftnally, there was the communication problem—which also seems un- hkely to abate in future.
There is no question whatever that heavy bombers can fly great distances and drop bombs approximately on given geographical coordinates. As many victims of bombing can attest, however, merely drop- P'ng a small number of bombs—and even a B-52 carries a small number ‘n this sense—does not guarantee useful military results. The farther the bomber has to fly, the less its capability to reattack when the first attack ■nls to destroy the target —which is the rule, not the exception.
The big bombers are well adapted to one wartime mission: nuclear attack. No local conditions and no local errors are likely to cause them to ttnss so badly as to waste their weapons. Moreover, given the rigidity of . overall national attack plan, the bombers' crews can indulge in exten- Slve training on a relatively small number of target. This is hardly the sort 01 capability needed for future limited warfare.
There remains the Air Force’s success in deploying tactical aircraft °verseas, to respond to sudden crises. After all, short-range tactical aircraft should overcome the limitations cited. Here the problems multiply.
tte tactical aircraft need prepared local bases from which to operate; Without them, they are lost. In the case of the F-l5s, it took weeks or m°nths to negotiate overflight rights. In addition, Saudi Arabia imposed sPecific conditions on the aircraft: that they fly without ammunition, and 'v'th their cannon taped over. The demonstration was hollow, and its hollowness must have been obvious to anyone visiting them in Saudi Arabia.
The United States buys forces for limited operations in support of its own interests, which may not coincide with those of other sovereign nations. There is no particularly good reason to imagine that, if the Cold War is indeed over, the United States will long retain base rights anywhere. The Libyan raid is an interesting case in point. The British government did indeed allow the F-l 1 Is to operate from a British base, but the subsequent outcry was such that it seems unlikely such permission will again be granted. Indeed, some might suspect that the only reason the F-l 1 Is were used at all, was to force the British government publicly to support the U.S. position on Libya—the French denial of overflight rights was used to castigate the French government.
Voices in Washington loudly proclaim that the Cold War is over. That may be; the Soviet problem may be over or it may be in temporary abeyance. If our allies no longer feel threatened by the Soviets, however, then they may well refuse to allow us to use bases—granted originally to protect them against the Soviets—to advance our own purposes in the Third World. It would surely be naive to imagine that the U.S. system of foreign bases is a permanent one. Yet the Air Force claims for projection capability rest very strongly on just such a claim. That goes not only for tactical aircraft but also for the use of AWACS aircraft to support local friends or to intimidate potential enemies.
The Air Force advertises one other capability: its long-haul transports. They certainly have been extremely useful in the past, particularly in quasi-civilian roles such as hauling food and medicine. That, however, raises another question. Should the United States operate such aircraft on a continuous basis, or should it subsidize air freight operators to maintain sufficient numbers of heavy-lift aircraft against emergencies? This is the same question often raised in the context of merchant fleet capability, and there is no easy answer. Currently, the transports exist because there are specific national plans, such as Reforger, which require very large numbers to be instantly available. There is also, however, a civilian reserve air fleet.
If the Air Force’s industrial argument is a reasonable one, ought the United States not use a civilian reserve air fleet as a vehicle to maintain and enlarge the economically important and related aerospace and commercial airline industries?
Incidentally, the Air Force is also advertising the B-2 as a formidable future maritime surveillance aircraft, to replace the B-52s now equipped with Harpoons. Here the point is that surveillance of the sea surface is not the problem; there are few situations in which such an activity would be so valuable as to justify the procurement of such expensive aircraft. Moreover, extensive exposure on surveillance missions would surely give away vital stealth characteristics of the B-2 — if there are any such characteristics.
Interservice Rivalry—Soviet Style
As one might expect, the United States is not unique in enjoying interservice rivalry. The Soviet press now reports that the Yak-41 fighter, the intended successor to the current Yak-38 Forger, is behind schedule because of interservice rivalry. The Soviet Air Force is responsible for the aircraft’s design and development. Faced with shrinking resources, however, it is not particularly interested in a naval airplane destined for only a short production run. For its part, the Soviet Navy is unwilling to spare procurement funds that are typically spent only for ships and shipboard weapons. The problem is reminiscent of that faced by the Royal Navy before World War II. At that time, British shipboard aircraft were all owned by the Royal Air Force—although the Royal Navy bought them. As in the Soviet Union, overall aircraft development resources were painfully finite, and the Royal Air Force managed them. Even after the Royal Navy took over its Fleet Air Arm, controversies over development and production resources continued, at times with very unfortunate wartime consequences. This system was one reason for the poor performance of so many wartime British naval aircraft.
In the Soviet case, the Yak-41 is needed because its predecessor, which is the only airplane that can fly from the four AVer-class carriers, has suffered an unusually high attrition rate. Apparently, the automatic stabilization system has been much less reliable than expected. The Soviet press reports that the crew of one carrier hung a sign on a Yak-38 on deck proclaiming that it was “unfit for human use.”