Political Airpower, Part I: Say No to the No-Fly ZoneBy Mike Benitez and Mike Pietrucha
There is an old adage about shortcuts: If they worked, they would simply be called “the way.” For military strategy, any shortcuts come with significant penalties. This is applicable across multiple domains, and it is the reason that operational flexibility is valued so highly in conflict.
Since before World War II, advocates have trumpeted airpower as a strategic and tactical shortcut — the way to win battles and even wars without the messy complications inherent in the operations of other military arms. After the rise of airpower in World War II, it was invigorated by the lopsided victory in 1991’s Operation Desert Storm and propagated through repeated limited military air-centric actions.
These conflicts reinforced the notion that airpower is the solution to all military challenges overseas. The problem with this view is that it is not supported by a century of evidence. Although airpower can prove decisive and has even been used as the primary method of settling conflicts, airpower is not the one-size-fits-all solution its most fervent proponents make it out to be.
Air campaigns, just like naval and ground campaigns, must be carefully tailored to political and military objectives, the adversary, the environment, and the prevailing conditions. Over the last 25 years, there has been an evolving political infatuation with two pillars of “political airpower”: airstrikes and no-fly zones. While each can be effective, neither is a shortcut around a need for a comprehensive strategy — both are merely elements of one.
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The success of a no-fly zone relies on the premise of conventional deterrence backed by the resolve to swiftly and ferociously enforce it if challenged. Attempting this today against a nation with any semblance of artillery, MANPADS (man-portable air defense systems), and/or advanced SAMs tends to indicate that the no-fly zone simply is neither operationally feasible nor politically appetizing. And by “advanced,” we mean anything built since the 1980s that boasts digital processing, multi-targeting, longer-range missiles, and higher maneuverability. The proliferation of modern air defenses since the 1990s dictates that more sortie apportionment and resources are required to negate these threats — much more so than counter-air fighters.
That’s the way it was in the Iraqi no-fly zones, where SEAD assets were available alongside aircraft tasked for defensive counter-air or reconnaissance missions. The fog and friction of war dictate there will always be ambiguity of timely, accurate, and correct intelligence in operations. Therefore, it is not only conceivable, but highly likely, that the conventional surveillance and reconnaissance constellation of aircraft will always remain at stand-off distances during a nation-state conflict — as they did in Kosovo to negate this uncertain threat risk — though at exponentially further ranges.
Today, the idea of establishing a no-fly zone inside Syria occasionally surfaces, a misguided response to the recent events surrounding the risk of U.S. special operations forces inside Syria to aerial attack, which in reality calls for defensive counter-air missions, not an no-fly zone. The no-fly zone is also broached as an idea to protect civilians on the ground in Syria — the same rationale behind the first such zone in northern Iraq. True, to date, the total civilian deaths now exceeds 400,000, and the number of refugees has surpassed 4.5 million — both more than Bosnia’s ethnic cleansing (100,000) and Kosovo’s refugee crisis (700,000).
However, the conditions could not be more different. In the case of Syria, an no-fly zone is problematic for both practical and policy reasons, as the majority of civilian casualties do not occur from air attack. The challenges of protecting civilian populations in a multi-faceted civil war are far more comprehensive than anything seen before.
Discounting the ground and political situation for the sake of analysis, Syria’s air defenses provide a case study in the obsolescence of the no-fly zone. By comparison to Kosovo’s 41 1960s-era SAMs, Syria’s robust air defenses total over 130 systems, most which are vastly more lethal than their older counterparts. As many as a dozen encompass the area surrounding Aleppo, the crucible of the civil war. Syria also has over 4,000 air defense artillery pieces and a few thousand portable infrared-guided missile systems.
In the world we live in today, a single system can completely invert this relationship overnight. This was notably seen in the Russian deployment of an S-400 system to Syria. This capability inverts both the risk imposition and the paradigm of power projection, thereby undermining the foundational premise of conventional deterrence (with parallels to the S-300 recently delivered to Iran).
The Cost of BusinessBack in 2013, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey described a Syrian no-fly zone cost at $1 billion a month — triple the cost of current operations and a tenfold increase compared to Iraq’s no-fly zone. He also cautioned:
We have learned from the past 10 years; however, that it is not enough to simply alter the balance of military power without careful consideration of what is necessary in order to preserve a functioning state. We must anticipate and be prepared for the unintended consequences of our action. Should the regime’s institutions collapse in the absence of a viable opposition, we could inadvertently empower extremists or unleash the very chemical weapons we seek to control.
And this is certainly not sustainable. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein states it best: “We have far more mission than we have Air Force today.” When the Iraq no-fly zone era ended in 2003, the Air Force possessed 450 more fighters than today in the inventory to perform this role, a 21 percent reduction.
To put this in perspective, the forces lost in this drawdown rival the size of some of the top 10 largest air forces in the world, none of which have ever attempted to establish a no-fly zone on its own. If the United States were to commit a preponderance of its Air Force to attempt a no-fly zone, what would be left to deter other countries lying in wait for just such an opportunity to seize (i.e. China, Russia, North Korea, or Iran)?
Beyond the ZoneJust as the shield was made obsolete by gunpowder-powered weapons, warfare has evolved beyond what the promise of the no-fly zone can provide. Attempting to draw parallels to prior no-fly zone efforts discounts the reality that warfighters must deal with in the 21st century. Still, the discussion occasionally resurfaces in political campaign dialogue, defense websites, and the water-cooler debate. After all, it is political airpower.
http://warontherocks.com/2016/10/political-airpower-part-i-say-no-to-the-no-fly-zone/An F-4G approaches Incirlik AB after a Provide Comfort III sortie in 1994. (Capt. Mike Pietrucha)
