While U.S. Air Force doctrine experts were analyzing the performance of air power over Kosovo in the summer of last year, another significant conflict half a world away was ending. This was the Indian Air Force (IAF) operation to evict Pakistani-supported insurgents from the mountainous Kargil region in its remote northern state of Kashmir. It is significant—not least because it has many implications for military aviation strategy. The following article points out the main lessons that may be drawn from this conflict for the employment of air power in mountainous areas.
There is no question that the ability to operate effectively in mountains is crucial for U.S. air power. The early 1990s saw widespread concern in the defense-analysis community about drawing lessons from Operation Desert Storm to use in future conflict in mountainous Yugoslavia. What is crucial is not only the sheer height of mountains but the existence of steep terrain. Weather conditions—typically low temperatures, reduced visibility at times, and low air pressure—are yet another major factor. In the developing world, other treacherous ranges include notably the Andes, stretching the length of South America. In some places, they cannot be crossed by helicopters. Because of drug lords and the ever-present insurgents, the possibility of low-intensity conflict there cannot be discounted.
In Africa, important mountains include the East African Rift Valley system. This range passes through Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi. On the northern edge of the continent lie the Atlas Mountains, within Morocco and Algeria. In Asia, the Himalayas include Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Myamnar. Central Asia also contains significant mountain ranges.
Strategy: The Indian Air Force emphasizes air superiority as its the first priority, as does the U.S. Air Force. This presumes a traditional campaign where the conflict is between nation states, often with substantial armored forces. Conflicts in mountainous regions, however, do not lend themselves to the employment of massed armored forces. Instead, infantry trained in mountain warfare and cold weather operations including special operations forces—supported by elements of other arms and artillery and engineers—dominates the scene. The enemy centers of gravity are not automatically leadership, production, infrastructure, and population as in present U.S. Air Force thinking; enemy military elements are more appropriate as targets.
It is notable that in this conflict on several occasions air strikes were canceled because of army requests. The reason could have been that soldiers were advancing rapidly; it also could seem to indicate that the army was not fully confident of the air force's ability to avoid fratricide. Effective close air support for land forces is still a highly contentious issue for the U.S. armed forces. In the more constrained, less tolerant regime of mountain flying, such weakness would be even more apparent.
The real lesson here is that Western air forces, like their Indian counterpart, should develop doctrine to fight in mountains. This new doctrine would not necessarily minor the John Warden-inspired current doctrine, but concentrate more on joint air-surface cooperation and be heavily influenced by the ground forces' targeting.
Training: The first conflict the IAF faced as an instrument of the Indian government was the Kashmir operation in the 1948 border war, but it has not trained regularly for mountain missions. Training is doubly important for mountain operations. This type of training is expensive and admittedly accounts for a limited part of the air-power spectrum. Accordingly, the IAF probably should assign the mission to only a few of its combat squadrons. The Indian Army Aviation Corps, in contrast to the IAF, regularly operates in mountainous areas in transport roles, but would require more training to assume offensive missions.
For the U.S. Air Force, mountain operations-qualified units may consist only of a few wings of F-16s and A-10s.
Aircraft and Basing: India's Mi-25/35 Hind attack helicopters could not operate at the altitudes required in Kargil, so the service used Mi-17s as gunships; even these, however, had an operational ceiling of 17,000 feet. Capable helicopters can be critical under these conditions.
Few fighters have proved effective in such conditions. Jets need good low-speed, close-to-the-terrain performance, and handling characteristics. They need plenty of excess power. Mirage 2000s, with good low-speed characteristics, were relatively effective. Future aircraft for this mission should feature the armament protection of the A-10 but would require much more excess power than that aircraft.
Many aircraft used today for close air support are single-Beaters. The nature of mountain flying, however, means that pilots often have their hands full just avoiding the ground, let alone acquiring small, fleeting targets—this is the province of the second crewman, a hard requirement for all future mountain-warfare aircraft.
The IAF operated from bases at Srinagar, Avantipur, and Udhampur. The closest, Srinagar, was still more than 70 miles away from the fighting. This is too far to react responsively against targets that move quickly and may be vulnerable for a comparatively short time. This may encourage the use of high-performance, vertical or short takeoff and landing aircraft
Aircraft, Weapons, and Equipment: The IAF's MiG-21s, MiG-27s, and Mi-17s did not have flare dispensers or electronic countermeasures. As a result, the surface-to-air missile (SAM) threat forced them to operate at higher, less-than-optimum altitudes. Even precision-guided munitions, which depend on aerodynamic control surfaces to maneuver, mushed through the thin air and often missed their targets by considerable margins.
Apart from these more general lessons, there are more specific points:
Reconnaissance and Bomb Damage Assessment: The Indian Army had a brigade in the sector and the IAF has MiG-25s, Canberras, and Jaguars capable of medium-/high-altitude photography, plus MiG-27s with low-level capability—yet the insurgents were first detected by a civilian. Although India has spy satellites, these lack high resolution.
In more temperate mountains, infrared photography will be relevant.
Communications and Joint Coordination: Communicating is a challenge in mountainous terrain, to say the least. The IAF and the Indian Army force used different communication systems, and only the army's were digital.
Light helicopters, forward air control aircraft, or long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles could be modified or developed to relay communications, while monitoring hostile positions to allow strikes to be called in when they would be most effective.
Targeting: The IAF flew many interdiction missions. Eventually, these began to have an effect and Indian Army troops gradually were able to overrun enemy-held areas. Again because the targets would not be those chosen under the Warden (U.S. Air Force) model, the opposition would not be systematically paralyzed. The tactics were closer to attrition warfare.
Joint Combat Operations: Tactics probably would involve strikes on supply lines. In the mountains, however, the term "supply lines" often equates to individuals carrying stores. Attack and troop-carrying helicopters would be more useful against these targets than fixed-wing aircraft. Helicopters could deploy soldiers by assault landings, parachute, or fast-roping. Units relying on stealth and skill and requiring minimal support would able to achieve disproportionate effects.
Conclusion: There is much that U.S. armed forces could learn from these operations that would apply increasingly to low-intensity threats in mountainous terrain.
Author's Notes: See V. Anand, "India's Military Response to the Kargil Aggression," Strategic Analysis, Vol. XXIII, No.7, October 1999, pages 1,053-1,069, for a concise overview of the political and military aspects of the conflict. Lieutenant General S.F.S. Lodi, RAF (Ret.), "Indian Air Force in Kargil Operations," Defence Journal, Jan. 2000, includes a more subjective anti-IAF analysis from a Pakistani perspective. B.M. Chengappa, "Pakistan's Compulsions for the Kargil Misadventure," Strategic Analysis, Vol. XXIII, No.7, Oct. 1999, pages 1,071-1,082, is an Indian analyst's study of the background to the Pakistani decisions that led to the conflict.
The lessons in this piece are derived from operations against an enemy with a limited number of forces (up to a few thousand insurgents)—that is, the operations are at the lower level of the conflict spectrum and the lessons must be seen in this light. In particular, the author suggests targeting the opposition's fighting forces (Pape model). In other operations at higher levels of the spectrum, such as the Russian experience in Afghanistan, the choice of axis of gravity will have to be reassessed. The Warden model, considering also the support base of the enemy and treating its leadership and civilian capacities as prime targets, applied to the particular conditions, may become increasingly relevant. For a stimulating discussion of the two divergent air power theories, see Major C. Bence, USAF, "Warden Vs. Pape," Air Power Chronicles, 28 February 2000, accessed on 13 April 2000.
Mr. Pustam writes from Trinidad.