The Future of Allied Air Power

Defence Research and Development Canada Scientific Report

DRDC-RDDC-2021-R104

June 2021

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The Future of Allied Air Power

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Brad Gladman DRDC – Centre for Operational Research and Analysis Royal Canadian Air Force Aerospace Warfare Centre Prepared For: Commander of the Royal Canadian Aerospace Warfare Centre, Canadian Forces Base Trenton Terms of Release: This document is approved for public release.

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Template in use: EO Publishing App for SR-RD-EC Eng 2021-02-11.dotm © Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada (Department of National Defence), 2021

© Sa Majesté la Reine en droit du Canada (Ministère de la Défense nationale), 2021

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IMPORTANT INFORMATIVE STATEMENTS

This document was reviewed for Controlled Goods by Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC) using the Schedule to the Defence Production Act.

Disclaimer: This publication was prepared by Defence Research and Development Canada an agency of the Department of National Defence. The information contained in this publication has been derived and determined through best practice and adherence to the highest standards of responsible conduct of scientific research. This information is intended for the use of the Department of National Defence, the Canadian Armed Forces (“Canada”) and Public Safety partners and, as permitted, may be shared with academia, industry, Canada’s allies, and the public (“Third Parties”). Any use by, or any reliance on or decisions made based on this publication by Third Parties, are done at their own risk and responsibility. Canada does not assume any liability for any damages or losses which may arise from any use of, or reliance on, the publication.

Endorsement statement: This publication has been peer-reviewed and published by the Editorial Office of Defence Research and Development Canada, an agency of the Department of National Defence of Canada. Inquiries can be sent to: [email protected].

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Abstract

The purpose of this Scientific Report is to inform discussions of capability and concept development within both the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). This is the fourth in a series of reports written for the Commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force Aerospace Warfare Centre. The method adopted for this paper starts with an analysis of the policy and supporting strategy framework of, in this case, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Based on this understanding of the key tenets of NATO strategic thinking it is possible to identify those air power concepts and capabilities of importance to the alliance to meet the challenges of the anticipated operating environments. This analysis, in the context of the other Scientific Reports in the series, could serve a range of functions within the Department of National Defence (DND) and the CAF, from focusing RCAF capability and concept development to informing Joint Force Development

Significance to Defence and Security

This Scientific Report is the fourth in a larger analytical effort whose reports are being used in Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) joint-level force development (FD) activities, and have been distributed to the Five-Eyes (FVEY) joint FD organizations. When completed, this study will help to provide a focus for RCAF and CAF concept and force development. Through the development of a more comprehensive understanding of the orientation, threat perception, and capability and concept development efforts of Canada’s key allies, this analytical effort will identify areas that RCAF and CAF concept and force development communities need to explore to ensure the CAF maintains its position as a trusted and capable ally. Moreover, the general analytical approach developed in these reports, of creating and using an understanding of “future warfare” as the main method for force development across the services, has been gaining momentum within the CAF, and is recommended for wider use.

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Résumé

Le présent rapport scientifique vise à éclairer les discussions sur le développement de capacités et de concepts au sein de l’Aviation royale canadienne (ARC) et des Forces armées canadiennes (FAC). Il s’agit du quatrième d’une série de rapports à l’intention du commandant du Centre de guerre aérospatiale de l’ARC. La méthodologie adoptée dans ce rapport consistait tout d’abord à procéder à une analyse de la politique et du cadre de la stratégie d’appui de l’Organisation du Traité de l’Atlantique Nord (OTAN). En vertu de cette compréhension des principes clés de la pensée stratégique de l’OTAN, il est possible de déterminer les concepts et les capacités en matière de puissance aérienne qui sont importants pour l’alliance afin de pouvoir relever les défis des environnements opérationnels prévus. Cette analyse, dans le cadre des autres rapports scientifiques de la série, pourrait servir à un vaste éventail de fonctions au sein du ministère de la Défense nationale (MDN) et des FAC, qu’il s’agisse d’orienter le développement des capacités et des concepts de l’ARC ou d’éclairer le développement de la force interarmées.

Importance pour la défense et la sécurité

Le présent rapport scientifique est le quatrième dans le cadre d’un plus vaste travail d’analyse consacré aux activités de développement de la force (DF) interarmées des Forces armées canadiennes (FAC) et diffusé aux organisations responsables de ces activités au sein du Groupe des cinq (Gp5). Une fois menée à terme, cette étude aidera à orienter le développement des forces et des concepts de l’ARC et des FAC. En approfondissant la compréhension de cette orientation, de la perception des menaces et des efforts de développement des capacités et des concepts des alliés clés du Canada, ce travail d’analyse permettra de déterminer les domaines que les communautés responsables de leur développement au sein de l’ARC et des FAC devront explorer pour que ces dernières conservent leur statut d’allié digne de confiance et compétent. On recommande en outre l’utilisation à plus grande échelle de la démarche analytique générale élaborée pour les rapports de cette série. Cette démarche, de plus en plus en vogue au sein des FAC, consistait à acquérir et à utiliser une compréhension de la « guerre de l’avenir » comme principale méthode de développement de la force dans les différents services.

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Table of Contents

Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

Significance to Defence and Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

Résumé . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

Importance pour la défense et la sécurité . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii

Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

2 Background and Threat Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

2.1 A Word on Russian Resurgence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2.2 Russian Military Modernisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

2.3 Russian Hybrid Warfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

3 NATO Strategic Guidance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

3.1 The Future of the NATO Alliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

3.2 The 2% of GDP Debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

3.3 Strategic Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3.4 The Future Vector Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

3.5 NATO Air Power Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

4 Capability Development Expectations for NATO Member Nations . . . . . . . . . . . 23

4.1 Air Combat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

4.2 Fifth-Generation Fighters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

4.3 Unmanned or Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) in Combat Roles . . . . . . 27

4.4 Control of the Air . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

4.5 Command and Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

4.6 Attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

4.7 Air Mobility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

4.8 Air-to-Air Refuelling—The Multi-Role Tanker Transport Capability . . . . . . . . 37

4.9 Joint ISR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

4.10 Manned ISR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

4.11 Unmanned ISR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

4.12 Maritime Patrol and Anti-Submarine Warfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

4.13 Rotary Wing Aviation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

5 Effective Air Power in the Context of Strategy—Joint All Domain Operations . . . . . . . 46

6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

List of Symbols/Abbreviations/Acronyms/Initialisms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

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DRDC-RDDC-2021-R104 1

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1 Introduction

This paper is the final part of a larger analytical effort seeking to develop a comprehensive understanding of how Canada’s key allies see the evolution in warfare, with a focus on understanding their views on the future of air warfare.1 The method developed for this project, and used in this analysis, involves looking first at the subject’s strategic thinking in order to set an appropriate context with which to understand the path being charted with its investment in concept and capability development. In this instance it is not an ally but an alliance. Yet, while this complicates the analysis somewhat, an appreciation of The North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) understanding of the threats to European and world security, as well as the challenges and opportunities to meeting those threats, will help to understand NATO’s thinking on the future of air power. This, in turn, will offer useful insights for Royal Canadian Air Force’s (RCAF) own capability and concept development. Indeed, these insights are being used by the Royal Canadian Air Force Aerospace Warfare Centre’s (RCAF AWC) concept and future force development efforts.2 Moreover, they have been used in Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) joint-level force development (FD) activities and have been distributed to the Five-Eyes (FVEY) joint FD organizations.

This more comprehensive awareness of the direction NATO is taking also could serve as an important input into policy formulation discussions, which form the first crucial step in the preparation of a coherent national response to the threats facing the nation and its interests. How nations understand these threats in the context of their unique geostrategic imperatives orients their policy and focuses their strategy, the latter identifying in detail how resources will be applied and, inter alia, how military capabilities and concepts will be developed. Put simply, in order to understand NATO’s position, and thus the direction it would like the air component to take, it is necessary first to have a better understanding of its conception of the threats faced, and of its corresponding policy and strategy formulation. This will lead to a deeper understanding of the role and requirements for air power moving forward.

1 See footnote 78 for the other papers in this larger analytical effort. 2 The papers have been distributed as part of a read-ahead package for guided tabletop discussions to identify FAOC enabling concepts. Moreover, these papers were featured by the RCAF AWC in the monthly RCAF Flyer from March to May 2018, which was circulated to all RCAF personnel.

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2 Background and Threat Context

NATO was not formed solely to oppose the Soviet Union, although that is normally understood as the main motivation. As NATO’s first Secretary General, Lord Hastings Lionel Ismay, famously said, NATO was created to “keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.”3 In reality, the alliance was formed to serve three purposes: “deterring Soviet expansionism, forbidding the revival of nationalist militarism in Europe through a strong North American presence on the continent, and encouraging European political integration.”4 In conjunction with the Marshall Plan’s economic aid that helped to stabilise the economies of Western Europe, NATO provided the military security needed to allow Europe to recover from the devastation brought about by the Second World War. That military security came chiefly through Article 5 of the Washington Treaty that founded the alliance, and through the integrated command structure and headquarters that were established following the start of the Cold War that accelerated after the Soviet detonation of a nuclear weapon in August 1949.5

Since NATO’s founding in April 1949, the central feature of the North Atlantic Treaty has been its Article 5: “The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.”6 While seemingly strong and resolute, several faults stem from the process followed to invoke Article 5, and in the language used to describe the options available to NATO members. In short, there is no automatic military response to an attack on any NATO member. Indeed, Article 5 continues by saying the remainder of NATO “will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.”7 Not only does that allow for NATO members to offer only non-military support, but in the context of recent Russian “hybrid” warfare strategies practiced with success in Ukraine beginning in 2014, there are further uncertainties around what constitutes an armed attack before Article 5 could be invoked. In short, as one authors contends, “it raises the question of whether NATO is in fact a valid political tool for military deterrence, or whether the treaty is simply an empty statement of intent.”8 It was not always so, and it is important to note that this early understanding of the need for collective defence to both deter and contain Soviet aggression was central to allied thinking about the security environment at the time of NATO’s founding in 1949.

Despite what is often believed, the Cold War was not stable in terms of strategic thinking on either side, as this brief history of NATO hopefully will illustrate. Indeed, the policy of containment that stemmed from George Kennan’s so-called “Long Telegram” underwent substantial change over time and differed in

3 Timothy Andrews Sayle, “Enduring Alliance: A History of NATO and the Postwar Global Order,” (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2019), 3. 4 The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “A Short History of NATO,” https://www.nato.int/cps/ie/natohq/declassified_139339.htm (accessed 5 November 2018). 5 Ibid. The Washington Treaty is more commonly referred to as “The North Atlantic Treaty,” which will be used henceforth. 6 The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “The North Atlantic Treaty,” 4 April 1949, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_17120.htm (accessed 12 January 2021). 7 Ibid. 8 “The Mechanics of NATO’s Collective Self-Defense,” Stratfor Worldview, 25 March 2015, 2.

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important ways from Kennan’s initial ideas.9 So too did the concept of deterrence. For example, in its early days NATO adopted the strategic doctrine articulated in United States (US) President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s New Look policy, which was formalised by National Security Council Resolution 162/2, whereby any Soviet attack would be met with a massive retaliation using nuclear weapons.10 This obviated the need for large standing militaries, allowing Western Europe to regain its economic strength. Eisenhower’s successor, President John F. Kennedy, developed the idea of a “flexible response” that in theory provided flexible nuclear options and increased conventional capabilities with which to deal with a range of military crises. Francis Gavin has argued that this strategy did not convince senior military or even government officials, who were not convinced that controlled nuclear warfare was a possibility, but that it did serve the very real need to ease inter-alliance tensions over the prospect of nuclear war as the only option, even for smaller-scale conflicts.11 Realistic or not, by the time of the Berlin Crisis in late 1961, flexible response was already a reality for NATO.12

By the end of the 1960s and into the 1970s a new concept, détente—a desire to manage the emergence of Soviet power into world politics as the Soviets achieved nuclear parity with the US and NATO—was at the forefront of US and NATO strategic thinking.13 At the same time, and differing from the intent of détente, the Soviet Union was driven by the so-called Brezhnev Doctrine, which emphasised the maintenance of control of client states at the expense of long-term economic and political reform.14 Détente did not remain a consistent feature of the latter stages of the Cold War. Its failure was due to numerous reasons, including the long-standing incompatible views of the world order, and different conceptions of what détente actually meant.15 Following the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, tensions once again increased and new weapon systems were introduced into Europe. The Soviets brought in the SS-20 ballistic missile system, and the US countered with threats to introduce its own Pershing II and ground-launched cruise missiles beginning in 1983.16 In order to head off this next phase of competition, something the Soviet Union could no longer afford, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was signed in 1987, eliminating all intermediate range nuclear and ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles. By this time, the Cold War

9 Harry S. Truman Presidential Library, George M. Elsey Papers, Box 63, Foreign Relations—Russia (1946 report—“American Relations with the Soviet Union”) Folder 1, Telegram, George Kennan to James Byrnes, 22 February 1946; Diefenbaker Centre, MG01XIIF228 Volume 113, Foreign Affairs—Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Department of External Affairs report, “A Gloss on Kennan,” 30 Sept 1958, 31–32; John Lewis Gaddis, “Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War,” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1982). 10 Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, White House Office, National Security Staff: Papers, 1948–1961, Box 11, File NSC 162/2; The National Security Council Executive Secretary, “A Report To The National Security Council on Basic National Security Policy,” NSC 162/2, 30 October 1953, https://fas.org/irp/offdocs/nsc-hst/nsc-162-2.pdf (accessed 12 January 2021). 11 Francis J. Gavin, “The Myth of Flexible Response: United States Strategy in Europe during the 1960s,” The International History Review, 23:4 (December, 2001), 848. 12 Gregory W. Pedlow, ed., “NATO Strategy Documents 1949–1969,” Xxii, https://www.nato.int/docu/stratdoc/eng/intro.pdf#:~:text=The%20first%20NATO%20strategy%20document%20was%20known%20as,ted%20to%20their%20Chiefs%20of%20Staff%20for%20comments (accessed 21 January 2021). 13 Raymond L. Garthoff, “Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan,” The Brookings Institution Final Report to the National Council for Soviet and East European Research, 22 December 1982, 1. 14 Matthew J. Ouimet, “The Rise and Fall of the Brezhnev Doctrine in Soviet Foreign Policy,” (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003), 66–68. 15 Raymond L. Garthoff, “Détente and Confrontation,” 6–9. 16 NATO, “A Short History of NATO.”

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was drawing to a close, although that fact was not apparent to either side. Years of economic neglect and the costs of military investment were bringing about the disintegration of the centrally controlled economies of Warsaw Pact nations. Those economies of the Soviet Union were simply unable to respond to the latest round of US investment in the so-called “Star Wars” Strategic Defence Initiative and the house of cards began to collapse.17 In a reversal of the Brezhnev Doctrine, when the East German regime collapsed in 1989 the Soviets did not intervene, following Mikhail Gorbachev’s plan to opt for an overhaul of the communist system instead of maintaining direct control. The point to this narrative for this study is that at each stage of the Cold War, changes in strategic thinking drove clear NATO political guidance that, in turn, directly influenced its force structure, posture, and readiness.

The defeat of the Warsaw Pact forced an existential crisis on NATO and a re-examination of its role and relevance in the post-Cold War world. NATO endured after the fall of the Soviet Union in the main because “the Alliance’s two other original if unspoken mandates still held: to deter the rise of militant nationalism and to provide the foundation of collective security that would encourage democratisation and political integration in Europe.”18 This idea was soon put to the test in Yugoslavia. After offering its support to United Nations (UN) efforts to end war crimes, NATO deployed a UN-mandated force to enforce the Dayton Peace Agreement. In a similar way, NATO conducted a 78-day air campaign over Kosovo to enable the deployment of a NATO-led Kosovo Force, which remains in place today. These interventions began NATO’s evolution from a deterrent force, both in terms of nuclear deterrence and deterrence by denial, countering the Warsaw Pact to one of the deliberate use of military force to prevent conflict even outside of NATO’s traditional European and North Atlantic focus.19

That change in focus was soon tested with the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US. Almost immediately, and with some but not much opposition from NATO members, the article 5 collective defence clause was invoked for the first time.20 Most members were of the opinion that NATO could lose credibility as a serious defence alliance if it did not support its most powerful member at this critical moment. Some, however, felt that invoking Article 5 was risky, as it would tie NATO too closely with what would likely be a very strong US response involving action many would be hard pressed to accept. Moreover, would the US allow its freedom of action to be constrained by even its closest allies, since it was the only member powerful enough to act without the support of others? These debates symbolised the difficulties that all alliances face—that the desire for collective security is always tempered by the realpolitik demands of each nation’s interests. In the end, however, it was clear that these attacks “had subjected the transatlantic security relationship to

17 For a discussion of the evolution, composition, and major issues of the strategic defence initiative, see Cosmo Di Maggio, Arthur F. Manfredi, Jr., and Steven A. Hildreth, “The Strategic Defense Initiative: Program Description and Major Issues,” Congressional Research Service of The Library Of Congress Report No. 86–8, 7 January 1986, https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metacrs8416/m1/1/high_res_d/86-8SPR_1986Jan07.pdf (accessed 12 January 2021). 18 NATO, “A Short History of NATO.” 19 The idea of deterrence has regained importance recently, especially the concept of “deterrence by denial.” That concept is being advanced by some as a new interpretation of deterrence, and while the classic literature normally differentiates between punishment and denial, it must be said that preventing an adversary in achieving its goals has always been a part of deterrence theory. It is the first step in convincing an adversary not to take action by demonstrating that action will not succeed and that the costs of the attempt will be greater than the benefits. For two modern examples of the two sides of this debate see Mike Gallagher, “State of (Deterrence by) Denial,” The Washington Quarterly 42:2, 31–45; Michael J. Mazarr, “Understanding Deterrence,” RAND Corporation Perspective, https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE295.html (accessed 18 November 2020). 20 Michael Rühle, “Reflections on 9/11: A View from NATO,” in Hallams E., Ratti L., Zyla B. (eds), New Security Challenges (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 54.

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a test that it could not afford to fail.”21 The commitment resulted in NATO leading the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) from August 2003 to December 2014, which has been supplanted by its Resolute Support mission now training, advising, and assisting Afghan security forces and institutions.22

Along with pursuing the other missions central to NATO—countering the rise of militant nationalism and providing the foundation of collective security to encourage democracy and European political integration—NATO also substantially increased its membership in the Post-Cold War environment. The logic of NATO expansion has been debated since it began, with proponents arguing that enlargement is not a threat to any country. Rather, as NATO itself declares, it “is aimed at promoting stability and cooperation, at building a Europe whole and free, united in peace, democracy and common values.”23 Opponents of that expansion argue that it draws new lines of division in Europe, and weakens pro-democracy and market economy forces in Russia. Indeed, some argue it strengthens hardliners who point out that expansion breaks promises made in 1990 and 1991 that former World Trade Organisation members would be prohibited from joining NATO.24 In short, some have argued that NATO expansion in areas of Russia’s near abroad does not promote peace, democracy and common values. Rather, it forces Russia “to look to the south and east rather than to the west,” pushes Russia toward China instead of towards Europe and North America, and encourages its rearmament and aggressive stance in Europe.25

2.1 A Word on Russian Resurgence26

With NATO expanding to include former Soviet Union territories and areas of interest, and with the US and its allies focused on wars in the Middle East for the past sixteen years, Russia has not been idle. It has used the full range of instruments of national power to re-establish influence and outright control of areas where it feels particularly vulnerable. This has included the modernisation of its military as a tool with which to re-establish control in its periphery not seen since the end of the Cold War. The ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine has forced the US and its allies to think once again about how to deter Russian aggression and efforts to exert control over the nations in its periphery.27 As will be shown later, air power is central to these efforts, but so too is an understanding of Russian strategic culture.

21 Ibid., 55. 22 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “NATO and Afghanistan,” https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_8189.htm (accessed 16 July 2020). 23 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Enlargement,” https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49212.htm (accessed 17 July 2020). 24 Kenneth N. Waltz, “NATO expansion: A realist’s view,” Contemporary Security Policy 21:2 (September 2000), 30. 25 Ibid. 26 Some of the analysis in this section has appeared in other forms, although updated and modified for this paper. See Brad Gladman and Andrew Billyard, “Royal Canadian Air Force Functional Concepts: Advice and Example,” Defence Research and Development Canada, Scientific Letter DRDC-RDDC-2017-L346, Oct 2017; Brad Gladman, “The Anti-Access Area-Denial Challenge in the Russian Periphery,” Defence Research and Development Canada, Scientific Letter DRDC-RDDC-2015-L293, Sep 2015. 27 Justin A. Evison, “MIGS and Monks in Crimea: Russia Flexes Cultural and Military Muscles, Revealing Dire Need for Balance of Uti Possidetis and Internationally Recognized Self-Determination,” Military Law Review 220 (June 2014), 91; The National Military Strategy of the United States of America 2015 (Washington DC: Joint Chiefs of Staff, 2015), 1, 2, and 4.

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The saga of Russia is centralized on its geography, something that profoundly influences the Russian perception of the world. The core of Russia, defined by the former region of the Grand Principality of Muscovy, from the Russian perspective has always been indefensible. Its lack of rivers, mountains, oceans or other features upon which to secure its defence has seen Russia invaded repeatedly over its history along a few main routes. The first is along the North European Plain, which both Napoleon and Hitler used as their invasion route in 1812 and 1941, the second is along the southern plains that link central Asia to Russia. This route was used by the Mongols when they invaded the Kievan Rus in the 13th century.28 The final route has been through the Baltic states which are now NATO members. The only option open to the Russians in most of these invasions was to trade distance for time and to use Russia’s harsh climate and attacks on logistics to weaken invading forces. These experiences, especially the invasion by Germany in 1941, are still central to Russian thinking about the world and Russia’s place in it. While it might be unthinkable that NATO would contemplate invading Russia, the unthinkable has happened to Russia “once or twice a century.”29

In response to this central feature of Russian strategic culture, it has been motivated to seek either a controlling influence or outright occupation of certain territories on its periphery especially those areas along the typical invasion routes. On the North European plain, they have sought to anchor themselves as far west as possible and in Ukraine, which is part of the North European plain along the Black Sea. For centuries, Russia has attempted to control the Caucasus and territories in Central Asia, and has sought to anchor itself on the Baltic Sea, bringing Russia into possible conflict with the NATO members Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, as well as other Arctic countries.30 It is no understatement to say that Russia feels vulnerable when it is insecure in these areas, and this insecurity motivates their thinking and their actions. It is in these regions where Russia feels compelled to develop advanced anti-access / area denial (A2/AD) environments.

2.2 Russian Military Modernisation

A fundamental part of recent Russian military modernisation has been its navy, especially its submarine fleet. Its recent addition of a new Borey-class ship, submersible, ballistic, nuclear (SSBN) submarine to its fleet, equipped for nuclear and conventional launch capabilities with its Bulava (RSM-56) missiles, is also very adroit at anti-submarine warfare.31 These capabilities make it a key element of Russian anti-access strategy. It has also put to sea its newest nuclear powered attack submarine, the Yasen-class Kazan, armed with advanced torpedoes and long-range Kalibr cruise missiles.32 In total, the Russian navy possesses more than 210 surface and roughly 70 subsurface combatants. Included in this total are 11 nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, supplemented with fifty-nine submarines capable of deploying “a variety of conventional and nuclear payloads in cruise mode to engage targets at sea and on land.”33 All of these would be used in an anti-access role to prevent NATO action against Russian aggression—either in theatre or to

28 “The Geopolitics of Russia: Permanent Struggle,” Stratfor Analysis, 11/1/2011; U.S. Department of State Dispatch 10517693, “Russia at a glance,” Supplement Economic Summit 5, 2 (July 1994). 29 “The Geopolitics of Russia.” 30 Ibid. 31 Franz-Stefan Gady, “Putin’s ‘Red October’: Russia’s Deadliest New Submarine,” The Diplomat, 4 March 2015. 32 Loulla-Mae Eleftherious-Smith, “Russia launches most powerful nuclear attack submarine yet,” The Independent, 5 April 2017, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-nuclear-attack-submarine-yasen-class-tass-kalibr-cruise-missiles-east-europe-severodvinsk-a7667511.html (accessed 17 July 2020). 33 “Janes’ World Navies: Russian Federation—Navy,” https://janes.ihs.com/WorldNavies/Display/1322754 (accessed 17 July 2020).

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prevent the insertion of follow-on forces from North America. NATO air power should be central to responding to this kind of aggression, from the provision of adequate numbers of anti-submarine patrol aircraft capable of operating in A2/AD environments, to strike aircraft equipped with weapons capable of attacking Russian naval forces effectively.

Russian developments in the air and space domains show an evolution in Russian military thinking. In August 2015, then Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu announced the unification of Russia’s air and space forces into an Aerospace Forces Command.34 This followed the 2011 fusion of Russian space and air defence forces, whose purpose was to defend Russia’s airspace from air and space attack, into the Aerospace Defence Forces. This evolution from the Cold War organisation of Soviet air and space forces under the command of different branches of the Soviet military was prompted by what Shoigu referred to as a “shift in the combat ‘center of gravity’ toward the aerospace theater.”35 These arrangements continue the 2011 merger between Russia’s space and air defence forces into the Aerospace Defence Forces, whose purpose was to defend Russian airspace from air and space attack. The Aerospace Forces Command has streamlined the command and control of all of Russia’s air and space assets, including Russian long-range aviation (LRA), enhancing the Russian Federation Air Force’s (RFAF) ability to support an A2/AD strategy.36

The threat posed by Russian LRA to the potential generation and deployment of forces to oppose Russian military operations are significant. As part of any military action in Europe, it is entirely possible that Russian LRA would be used to threaten homelands and keep those forces in place. Recent efforts to modernise Russian LRA have enhanced its deterrent value, even if those modernisation programs are “progressing at a snail’s pace.”37 The upgrades have included avionics, precision, survivability, and have enhanced command, control and communications functions. All of which have improved the overall effect of Russia’s Cold War TU-95 Bear H, TU-160 Blackjack, and Tu-22M Backfire bombers. Added to these legacy platforms is the plan, announced by Vladimir Putin in September 2010, of the development of the next advanced Russian strategic bomber. The broad specifications of the Prospective Aviation Complex for Long-Range Aviation (PAK-DA) bomber are for it to be a “flying wing” low-observable design cruising at subsonic speeds, capable of carrying a range of precision-guided munitions including long-range hypersonic air-to-surface missiles with both conventional and nuclear payloads.38 Currently under development, this aircraft will not be in service for some time, but it represents Russia’s desire to be seen again as a Great Power.39

34 Matthew Bodner, “Russian Military Merges Air Force and Space Command,” The Moscow Times, 3 August 2015, https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/russian-military-merges-air-force-and-space-command-48710 (accessed 20 July 2020). 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid. 37 Matthew Bodner and Aaron Mehta, “Heightened Ops Tempo Reveals Russian Air Force Vulnerabilities,” Defense News (13 July 2015). 38 Franz-Stefan Gady, “Russia Moves Ahead With Future Strategic Stealth Bomber Project,” The Diplomat, 2 March 2017, https://thediplomat.com/2017/03/russia-moves-ahead-with-future-strategic-stealth-bomber-project/ (accessed 20 July 2020). 39 Defense Intelligence Agency, “Russia Military Power: Building a Military to Support Great Power Aspirations,” DIA 11-1704-161, 14, https://www.dia.mil/Portals/27/Documents/News/Military%20Power%20Publications/Russia%20Military%20Power%20Report%202017.pdf (accessed 20 July 2020).

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Adding to the capabilities of these aircraft are developments with precision strike weapons. Of these are new varieties of air launched cruise missiles (ALCM), examples of which include the KH-101 and 102 which have reduced radar cross-sections and improved range and accuracy.40 More recently, however, is the progress made on hypersonic weapons. While hypersonic flight is not new—the German V-2 rockets of World War Two approached hypersonic speeds and subsequent intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) achieved them—the new development is their controlled flight and increased precision. Hypersonic systems consist of two broad types—hypersonic glide vehicles and hypersonic cruise missiles.41 Missiles boost the hypersonic glide vehicles, which then separate and their momentum is used to glide through the upper atmosphere before maneuvering in an unpredictable path onto their targets.42 The hypersonic cruise missiles use a very sophisticated supersonic combusting ramjet technology (SCRAMJET) whose technological challenges neither Russia nor China seem to have overcome. The Russian Avangard glide vehicle, which the Russian military claimed to have deployed in late 2019, uses a modified missile to boost the glide vehicle to hypersonic speeds.43 These, and their Chinese counterparts, are designed to carry both conventional and nuclear warheads.44 The United States is not currently considering hypersonic weapons equipped with nuclear warheads, and thus US weapons likely “will require greater accuracy and will be more technically challenging to develop than nuclear-armed Chinese and Russian systems.”45 Should that approach change, and the Russians develop or acquire air launched hypersonic cruise missiles, then the efficacy of Russian LRA will be substantially enhanced.46 Moreover, deterring their use through denial must be a primary focus of both Canada and the US through North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) modernisation that, as it always has done, prevents an adversary from attaining its goals while preserving the ability to strike back. In any event, the development of these weapons has implications for the CAF in terms of ensuring the capabilities developed are able to make a credible contribution to coalition operations, and thus its vision (articulated for the RCAF through its Future Air Operating Concept) should consider both the positives and negatives of acquiring and defending against such weapons.

40 Sebastien Roblin, “Russia’s TU-95 Bear Bomber: Everything You Need to Know”, The National Interest, 4 May 2017, http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/russias-tu-95-bear-bomber-everything-you-need-know-20484?page=2 (accessed 20 July 2020). 41 Alan Cummings, Hypersonic Weapons: Tactical Uses and Strategic Goals,” War On The Rocks (12 November 2019), https://warontherocks.com/2019/11/hypersonic-weapons-tactical-uses-and-strategic-goals/ (accessed 20 July 2020). 42 Ibid. 43 Julian E. Barnes and David E. Sanger, “Russia Deploys Hypersonic Weapon, Potentially Renewing Arms Race,” New York Times, 27 December 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/27/us/politics/russia-hypersonic-weapon.html (accessed 20 July 2020). 44 Congressional Research Service, “Hypersonic Weapons: Background and Issues for Congress,” 1, https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/6796977/Hypersonic-Weapons-Background-and-Issues-for.pdf (accessed 21 July 2020). 45 Ibid. 46 For an examination of the development and intended uses of hypersonic weapons see Alan Cummings, “Hypersonic Weapons: Tactical Uses and Strategic Goals,” War on the Rocks (12 November 2019) https://warontherocks.com/2019/11/hypersonic-weapons-tactical-uses-and-strategic-goals/ (accessed 21 July 2020). For an analysis of the impact of these weapons on the global security environment see Heather Venable and Clarence Abercrombie, “Muting the Hype Over Hypersonics: The Offense-Defense Balance in Historical Perspective, War on the Rocks (28 May 2019) https://warontherocks.com/2019/05/muting-the-hype-over-hypersonics-the-offense-defense-balance-in-historical-perspective/ (accessed 21 July 2020).

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Russian fighters are a fundamental part of its area-denial strategy, and would confront NATO as part of an integrated air defence system (IADS) in any conflict in Europe. While its Soviet-era fighters are showing their age, numbers do matter and some upgraded models are entering service. For example, the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker’s latest variant, the SU-27 SM3, was delivered in 2011.47 Equipped with new and more reliable engines, avionics, and weapons, these aircraft are capable multi-role platforms. Moreover, other “fourth and fourth—plus generation” derivatives of the SU-27 family, like the SU-35 Super Flanker and SU-34 Fullback, are quite capable. With more than 1000 multi-role and attack aircraft in service, even when considering factors like questionable serviceability and pilot training levels, it is clear that the airspace above a conflict zone will be contested. It is not at all certain that, when combined with capable surface-to-air missile systems, air superiority is achievable and certainly not to the level NATO has come to expect. Russia’s latest fifth-generation fighters will only make the attainment of NATO’s air superiority more dubious and something for which NATO will have to fight throughout any campaign.

In 2011, the Russians first displayed their latest fifth-generation fighter. The Sukhoi T-50 Prospective Aviation Complex for Frontal Aviation (PAK-FA), since renamed the Sukhoi SU-57, represents a significant development sure to complicate US and allied air operations. While not on par with the United States Air Force (USAF) F-22 Raptor, which has a much smaller radar cross-section, it is substantially less visible to radar than any other Russian design.48 Constructed mainly from polymetric carbon plastics, it will be equipped “with a dual-band (X- and L- band) radar which should provide it with certain tactical advantages over the F-35.”49 It is also expected to be armed with a range of sophisticated air-to-air, air-to-surface, and cruise missiles. These weapons will give both improved stand-off range and increasing precision. This will be combined with the latest in a long tradition of Russian radars and surface-to-air missiles (SAM), which will further enhance the Russian A2/AD strategy. These systems, and the integrated air defence system to which they contribute, may blunt or take away one of NATO’s trump cards, its reliance on air power.50

Russian SAM systems have, some authors argue, some ability to detect and destroy even the best stealth aircraft NATO could deploy.51 The Russian National Air Defence (RNAD) troops, whose motto is “Don’t Fly, Don’t Let Others Fly,” have been equipped with the latest Russian radars and SAMS that might prove quite capable even against low-observable aircraft. The combination of SAM systems like the S400 Triumph, along with the development of the S-500 “Triumfator-Mor Prometheus” which is to be called a Space Defence System (SDS) instead of an air defence system, are all expected to be in service in 2021.52 While referring to it as an SDS, because of its ability to destroy satellites, medium range ballistic

47 “New Multi-Role SU 27 SM(3) Fighters Delivered to the Russian Air Force,” Defence Talk, 29 January 2011, http://www.defencetalk.com/new-multi-role-su-27sm3-fighters-delivered-to-the-russian-air-force-39215/ (accessed 23 July 2020). 48 Franz-Stefan Gady, “Russia to Receive 2 Fifth-Generation Stealth Fighter jets in 2017,” The Diplomat, 7 June 2017, https://thediplomat.com/2017/06/russia-to-receive-2-fifth-generation-stealth-fighter-jets-in-2017/ (accessed 23 July 2020). 49 Igor Sutyagin, “The Limits of Stealth” RUSI Defence Systems, 9 September 2014. 50 Gladman and Billyard, “Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) Future Air Operating Concept Functional Concepts: Advice and Example,” 13–14. 51 Sutyagin, “The Limits of Stealth.” 52 “Russia to Complete Development of S-500 ADS in 2021, Defense World, 27 November 2020, https://www.defenseworld.net/news/28411/Russia_to_Complete_Development_of_S_500_ADS_in_2021#.YEivyGZYYuU (accessed 3 June 2021). “Russian S-500 ‘Space Defense System’ to be deployed this year,” Defense World.net, 3 July 2020,

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and hypersonic weapons, its employment with Russian low-band radars like the Track Tall (55Zh6U) allow for the effective engagement of stealth aircraft.53

The effectiveness of these weapons when combined with low-band radars “is based upon the fact that the emission-absorbent materials used by the modern low-observable aircraft are only marginally effective against meter-band emission, while the shape of the aircraft is too small to conceal it from the meter-wavelength radar signals.”54 The F-35 is more liable to detection by low-band radars, and the F-22 and B-2 can be detected by Russian decametre-band 1,200 kilometre range Rezonans-NE radars.55 With these capable systems, the Russians have also developed a method of operating them using the low-band radar to guide a SAM close to a stealthy target flying a curved approach to aspects “in which its radar cross-section is higher…thus increasing the probability of the SAM seeker successfully locking onto the target.”56 The prospect of Russian proliferation of these technologies and training in these operational methods is concerning, as they are likely to pose a challenge to NATO and US air power until countermeasures are developed. These next SAM systems and radars, combined with capable and numerous Russian fighters, suggest that Russian IADS are going to be very costly to penetrate and destroy to gain even a degree of air superiority. The implications for RCAF FD include the need to discuss either capabilities allowing penetration of these systems, stand-off weapons allowing for precise engagement into those systems, or a combination of both should a NATO Article 5 conflict require them.

Such a conflict might occur in one of those previously described areas where Russia feels particularly vulnerable. Recent war games conducted by the RAND Corporation, “examined the shape and probable outcome of a near-term Russian invasion of the Baltic states.”57 The results showed that the longest it took for Russian forces to reach the outskirts of the Estonian capital of Tallinn or the Latvian capital of Riga was sixty hours against the NATO forces then facing the Russian advance.58 This is expected to be part of a Russian “strike, pause, and win” strategy, one used successfully in Ukraine.59 The strategy would see Russia taking part of a NATO member’s territory, pausing while NATO mobilised its forces, and win by undermining European will to retake the lost territory.60 This would be further complicated by the lack of a streamlined strategic decision-making process and the roughly one third of alliance members that would need parliamentary approval before conducting military operations.61 NATO air power would be a central

https://www.defenseworld.net/news/27340/Russian_S_500__Space_Defense_System__to_be_deployed_this_year#.XxwuHmZYaUk (accessed 25 July 2020). 53 Defense Intelligence Agency, “Russia Military Power: Building a Military to Support Great Power Aspirations,” 80; “Russia Eyes Early Delivery of Advanced S-500 Air Defense System,” The Moscow Times, 4 February 2020, https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/02/04/russia-eyes-early-delivery-of-advanced-s-500-air-defense-system-a69145 (accessed 25 July 2020). 54 Sutyagin, “The Limits of Stealth.” 55 Defense Intelligence Agency, “Russia Military Power: Building a Military to Support Great Power Aspirations,” 80. 56 Sutyagin, “The Limits of Stealth.” 57 David A. Shlapak and Michael W. Johnson, “Reinforcing Deterrence on NATO’s Eastern Flank: Wargaming the Defense of the Baltics,” Rand Corporation (2016), 1. 58 Ibid. 59 Hans Binnenjijk, “The Role of NATO Joint Air Power in Deterrence and Collective Defence,” Joint Air Power following the 2016 Warsaw Summit—Urgent Priorities, October 2017, 2. 60 Ibid., 15 (endnote 1). 61 Elisabeth Braw, “Why NATO Needs a Streamlined Decisionmaking process,” National Interest, 1 May 2018, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03071847.2020.1811140?needAccess=true (accessed 8 January 2021).

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feature in all stages of such a conflict – from deterring such action beforehand, to detecting the build-up before hostilities commence, through to interdicting and blunting the adversary once hostilities began. This would only be possible through the development of capabilities able to survive in or penetrate the advanced A2/AD environments that certainly would be established around and quickly in any seized territory. The air and space capabilities already outlined would be enhanced with cyber-attack and use of Russian LRA to prevent follow-on forces from out of theatre.62 Any consideration of an appropriate response by NATO would have to ensure a holistic, all domain response.

2.3 Russian Hybrid Warfare

Another means by which Russia might seek to confront, in its view, NATO’s encroachment on territories it sees as vital to its own security is through the so-called Hybrid Warfare method. This warfare method is not new, as adversaries have always tried to fuse covert and overt military presence, along with economic and informational warfare to attain desired goals. The addition of cyber warfare to the suite of tools has added a new dimension, but has not fundamentally shifted how those methods are employed. Russia’s use of all these tools against Ukraine has caused NATO some concern, in the expectation that hybrid warfare of this sort might be employed against a NATO member. Hybrid warfare does “not easily lend itself in all cases to fit squarely within the key NATO articles (V and VI), as it largely operates below the threshold of attribution, and therefore cannot provoke or allow for a collective military response or defence.”63 Effective response requires speed of decision-making at all levels, including the somewhat cumbersome strategic level, and is often in the purview of non-military elements of power. It is thus difficult to ensure a successful deterrence of such action without clear statements from the Alliance on what is considered an armed attack.

Recent debates within NATO, at least amongst the Baltic NATO members, have focused on reinterpretations of what constitutes an armed attack that could invoke an article V response. The argument advanced is that in order to deter Russian hybrid warfare strategies a so-called “accumulation of events” or pinpricks doctrine should be adopted that “lowers the traditional threshold of an ‘armed attack’.”64 If, over a period of time, many political, economic, electronic, and military actions take place they can collectively constitute an armed attack.65 This doctrine has been adopted by countries facing attacks from non-state actors. For example, Israel has used this idea to justify its use of armed force in self-defence against Hezbollah in 2006, Syria in 1964, Lebanon in 1970 and 1972, and in the Gaza Strip in 2002 by arguing that an accumulation of events met the threshold of an armed attack.66

62 David Barno and Nora Bensahel, “The Anti-Access Challenge You’re Not Thinking About,” War on the Rocks, 5 May 2015, https://warontherocks.com/2015/05/the-anti-access-challenge-youre-not-thinking-about/ (accessed 27 July 2020); General Terrence J. O’Shaughnessy, “NORAD and USNORTHCOM Commander SASC Strategic Forces Subcommittee Hearing,” https://www.northcom.mil/Newsroom/Speeches/Article/1845843/norad-and-usnorthcom-commander-sasc-strategic-forces-subcommittee-hearing/ (accessed 27 July 2020). 63 Kathleen Abbott, “Understanding and Countering Hybrid Warfare: Next Steps for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,” University of Ottawa Research Paper, 2016, https://ruor.uottawa.ca/bitstream/10393/34813/1/ABBOTT%2c%20Kathleen%2020161.pdf (accessed 8 January 2021), 35. 64 Philippe Bou Nader, “The Baltic States should adopt the self-defence pinpricks doctrine: the “accumulation of events” threshold as a deterrent to Russian hybrid warfare,” Journal on Baltic Security 3:1 (2017), 18. 65 Ibid. 66 Ibid., 19.

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Such an approach has the potential to create an “entrapment” logic in the relationship between Russia and NATO, by which an “accumulation of events” might drag all NATO members into a conflict against Russia.67 The potential of other NATO members using this doctrine to destabilise regions around the alliance, like Turkey justifying its attacks on Kurdish groups in Iraq and Syria, might change the perception of NATO from a collective defence alliance to one of aggression. 68 Yet its use might actually bring some teeth to NATO deterrence against hybrid warfare.

The imbalance of potential power between Russia and the NATO alliance that has made hybrid warfare strategies attractive. While again potential power is not necessarily real power, any assessment of relative strength between Russia and NATO would have awarded any contest to a NATO alliance committed to collective defence. However, hybrid warfare strategies offer the possibility of sowing “doubt in the minds of target populations” and their governments before a Russian “strike, pause, and win” strategy to take part of a NATO member’s territory, pause while NATO mobilised its forces, and win by undermining European will to retake the lost territory.69 The adoption of a clear statement in NATO strategic guidance documents that a certain “accumulation of events” has the potential to trigger an Article 5 response likely would force a reconsideration by Russia of whether using hybrid warfare against alliance members was worth the risk. Moreover, there is precedent for this kind of approach. For example, in 2014 the alliance “made cyber defence a core part of collective defence, declaring that a cyber attack could lead to the invocation of the collective defence clause (Article 5) of NATO’s founding treaty.”70 Like all deterrent measures, the aim is not to need them, but should those measures fail the intent to act would benefit from a clear declaration of intent.

67 Ibid., 21. 68 Ibid. 69 Binnenjijk, “The Role of NATO Joint Air Power in Deterrence and Collective Defence,” 15 (Endnote 1). 70 Laura Brent, “NATO’s role in cyberspace,” NATO Review, 12 February 2019 https://www.nato.int/docu/review/articles/2019/02/12/natos-role-in-cyberspace/index.html (accessed 6 August 2020).

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3 NATO Strategic Guidance

NATO has long been (and remains) one of the most powerful military alliances in world history. Essential to its strength is the speed, reach, and striking power of its air forces. Contributing to both conventional and nuclear deterrence, as well as outright defence, the specific role and makeup of NATO air power has varied substantially over time. Yet some constants have endured, based on the unique principles and tenets of air power, such as the symbiotic relationship between air power and intelligence, and the corresponding need for effective command, control, communications with which to make use of it.71 At the same time, both the character of the threats facing NATO and its member nations have changed over time. Its expanding membership is at once a source of strength, but also a potential source of strategic weakness. The very different geostrategic imperatives of each nation complicate decision-making and make consensus difficult, and the alliance requires such consensus as a precursor to determined military action. The strength and steadfastness of the alliance membership, something ideally based on the alignment of national and alliance goals, influences the type and level of commitment of their forces to NATO operations, from the specific capabilities provided to the national caveats under which they are committed. The potential power of the alliance is not realised without that political agreement. As retired General Frank Gorenc has written, “NATO potential power is not real power.”72 This is a general feature of alliances, but something made more pronounced without a unifying threat perception and agreed plans on how to deter or defeat them.

3.1 The Future of the NATO Alliance

In the literature dealing with the nature of military alliance, two main factors compel the formation of alliances.73 The first of these is idealistic, where shared values and principles commit nations to fight in mutual defence. The second is more pragmatic. It is the result of a cost-benefit analysis whereby nations realise the costs associated with “going it alone” are greater than they can afford, and that alliances divide responsibilities and share costs.74 In the end, alliances normally involve countries of varying power levels, with weaker states allied with stronger ones. The benefit to all is felt most acutely when countering strong adversaries no single country could handle on its own. The burden is thus shared amongst all alliance members, with each partner doing what it can for the greater good. Authors like George Friedman and Jacob Shapiro are of the opinion that “NATO is not currently a coherent alliance. It is instead a collection of states disproportionately dependent on the US for security guarantees.”75 While this claim reaches too far, at its core there is some truth to the reliance of most NATO nations on the US. From a US perspective, it has been involved in wars against violent Islamist extremism since late 2001. In Afghanistan, NATO

71 Brad William Gladman, “Intelligence and Anglo-American Air Support in World War Two: The Western Desert and Tunisia,” 1940–43 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). 72 General (ret.) Frank Gorenc, “Deterrence and Collective Defence,” (Kalkhar: The Joint Air Power Competence Centre), 77. 73 For examples of this extensive literature see Stephen M. Walt, “The Origins of Alliances,” (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987); Robert Osgood, “Alliances and American Foreign Policy,” (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1968); Stephen M. Walt, “Why Alliances Endure or Collapse,” Survival 39:1 (Spring 1997): 156–179. 74 Bruno Tertrais, “The Changing Nature of Military Alliances,” The Washington Quarterly 27:2 (Spring 2004), 136. 75 George Friedman and Jacob L. Shapiro, “The Evolving NATO Alliance,” Geopolitical Futures (20 February 2017), http://www.mauldineconomics.com/this-week-in-geopolitics/the-evolving-nato-alliance# (accessed 20 August 2018).

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committed itself to fighting the Taliban, and some members like Canada committed significant military and other resources. Other NATO members heavily caveated their forces to prevent their contribution from being “anything more than symbolic.”76 While those nations likely would debate that argument, the caveats under which some NATO forces operated are a fact that caused some to question the alliance’s relevance.77 Moreover, NATO refused to support the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, which the US viewed as part of the same conflict against Al Qaeda. As pointed out in earlier papers in this series, many of those nations whose geopolitical imperatives force a close alliance with the US did fight alongside the US.78 The risk in not doing so is that it may fundamentally reshape the relationship with the US. In particular, the US was involved in Afghanistan and Iraq for fifteen years with no automatic support from NATO or most of the major European nations. Those that did not wish to become involved in what have been very difficult operations in an inhospitable part of the world were not compelled to do so by their alliance. NATO was not designed to operate outside of Europe, but until very recently “the wars that matter[ed] to the U.S. [were] being fought in the Islamic world.” As well, “this is not 1955, and Europe is not struggling to recover from World War II. It is a wealthy region, and its military capabilities should be equal to those of the U.S.”79

From that perspective, one can understand the long-standing aggravation of US Presidents that the US has shouldered a disproportionate share of the burden, and the demands that NATO member nations step up and contribute more.

In 2014, some NATO countries agreed to increase defence spending to 2% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2024, with twenty percent of that expenditure devoted to major equipment spending. This commitment was agreed in 2006, but in many cases has yet to be accomplished.80 Promises such as this “lose their worth when they have been broken in the past. A decade is a long enough time to wait for an ally to live up to a promise. And 18 years is an unreasonable amount of time.”81 While the resurgence of Russia is of high importance to many NATO members, it is not the same existential threat and unifying force as that of the Soviet Union to Europe. Whether NATO will remain the main vehicle for defence cooperation in Europe for the US is very much in question. Already, the US is developing bilateral and regional initiatives against a resurgent Russia in Eastern Europe outside of NATO, and the differing geostrategic imperatives of NATO members does little to make the prospect of retaining its position as the chief vehicle for European defence cooperation more likely.82 With that said, NATO has endured longer than many thought possible by its continual adaptation to the requirements of the security environment.83 The resurgence of Russia and its aggressiveness in its “near abroad,” including Ukraine, has provided some renewed focus across the

76 Friedman, “NATO and the United States,” 5. 77 Stephen M. Walt, “Is NATO irrelevant?” Foreign Policy, 24 September 2010, https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/09/24/is-nato-irrelevant/ (accessed 28 July 2020); Steven E. Meyer, “Carcass of Dead Policies: The Irrelevance of NATO,” Parameters, 33:4 (2003) https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1G1-111852939/carcass-of-dead-policies-the-irrelevance-of-nato (accessed 28 July 2020). 78 Brad W. Gladman, The Future of Allied Air Power: The United States Air Force, Defence Research and Development Canada, Scientific Report DRDC-RDDC-2014-R82; Brad W. Gladman, The Future of Allied Air Power: The Royal Australian Air Force Defence Research and Development Canada, Scientific Report DRDC-RDDC-2015-R212; Brad W. Gladman, The Future of Allied Air Power: The Royal Air Force Defence Research and Development Canada, Scientific Report DRDC-RDDC-2017-R043. 79 Friedman and Shapiro, “The Evolving NATO Alliance.” 80 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Funding NATO,” 5 May 2020, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_67655.htm (accessed 28 July 2020). 81 Friedman and Shapiro, “The Evolving NATO Alliance. 82 Ibid. 83 Rachel Ellehuus, “NATO at 70—Shaping the Future for the Next 70 Years,” Center for Strategic & International Studies, 2 April 2019, https://www.csis.org/analysis/nato-70-shaping-future-next-70-years (accessed 30 July 2020).

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alliance. Indeed, it has prompted an increase in defence spending for many NATO members, but many still fall short of what former US President Trump repeatedly, and somewhat inaccurately, referred to as paying their fair share.84

3.2 The 2% of GDP Debate

The lightning rod for US complaints about NATO and its relevance has long been the failure of many NATO members to spend 2% of GDP on defence.85 This complaint is nothing new. Even as early as 1953, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles warned alliance members that “an agonizing reappraisal” of US commitment to Europe would be necessary if those members did not substantially increase defence spending.86 Former President Trump’s strongly worded criticism of Canada and European NATO members for not meeting the 2% GDP level of defence spending has resulted in many once again agreeing to reach that level, but the question of whether 2% is what they should be spending is often glossed over too quickly. For example, as the Washington Post has noted, “Greece spent 2.36 percent of its GDP on defense last year, yet much of that went toward pensions for retired service members, which serves no defensive purpose. Most of Greece’s hardware is devoted toward defense against Turkey, a fellow NATO member.”87 Other countries, like France for example, spent less than 2% but the strength of its economy means that more Euros were spent on defence. Moreover, its forces have involved themselves in conflicts in Africa and the Middle East. The same argument is true of Canada’s spending and contribution to NATO operations. Therefore, while useful as a political bargaining chip, the 2 percent rule is a poor way to measure burden-sharing. It originated as a convenience, as “this was the level of NATO Europe’s spending in 2002, when the target was first agreed upon,” but its focus on inputs rather than outputs makes it a less than useful measure for burden-sharing.88 Former President Trump has focused a great deal of attention on this one aspect of the alliance, something which has frayed rather than strengthened the alliance, and it will be interesting to see if President Biden will follow through on his promise to strengthen the traditional alliance structure that has proved so useful to US interests. It is unlikely, however, that the long-standing complaint that NATO members are not sharing the burden for their own defence will dissipate entirely, as from a US strategic view the current state of affairs is intolerable.89

84 Marcus Hellyer, “NATO Defense Spending: Is 2% Really the Magic Number? National Interest 19 July 2018, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/nato-defense-spending-2-really-magic-number-26176 (accessed 4 August 2020). 85 It is important to note that this is not defence spending directly to NATO, but rather that spending should increase NATO’s competitive advantage. For a discussion of the value of the 2% of GDP defence spending see John Dowdy, “More tooth, less tail: Getting beyond NATO’s 2 percent rule,” McKinsey & Company, November 2017, https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Industries/Public%20Sector/Our%20Insights/More%20tooth%20less%20tail%20Getting%20beyond%20NATOs%202%20percent%20rule/More-tooth-less-tail-VF.pdf (accessed 4 August 2020). 86 Brian R. Duchin, “The ‘Agonizing Reappraisal’: Eisenhower, Dulles, and the European Defense Community,” Diplomatic History 16:2 (April 1992), 202. 87 Michael Birnbaum, “As Trump hammers NATO allies on defense spending, military planners worry about his ‘2 percent’ obsession,” Washington Post (10 July 2018), https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/trump-wants-all-of-nato-spending-2-percent-on-defense-but-does-that-even-make-sense/2018/07/10/6be06da2-7f08-11e8-a63f-7b5d2aba7ac5_story.html?utm_term=.33bf9b38654f (accessed 22 August 2018). 88 John Dowdy, “More tooth, less tail: Getting beyond NATO’s 2 percent rule,” in Nicholas Burns, Leah Bitounis, and Jonathan Price, (eds.), The World Turned Upside Down: Maintaining American Leadership in a Dangerous Age (Washington DC: Aspen Institute, 2017). 89 Joyce Kaufman, “The US perspective on NATO under Trump: lessons of the past and prospects for the future,” International Affairs 93:2 (2017), 251.

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The question remains how much should NATO’s members spend? While beyond the scope of this paper, it is clear that answering that question must be tied into a strategic concept that outlines the desired ends, and the ways and means to get there. A clear plan will focus effort far better than an arbitrary and unqualified 2% bar. Without this strategic concept, which will be admittedly difficult to develop by consensus within NATO whose large membership has very different geostrategic imperatives, it is questionable whether even significantly increased defence spending will satisfy the demands of NATO ambition.

A clear strategic concept is essential to understanding the anticipated operating environments—what NATO expects to do in the future—and will help it better focus the other benchmark to which NATO members have agreed, to spend twenty percent of their defence budgets on capital acquisition. Some have argued that for rebuilding capability necessary to meet a dynamic future operating environment, twenty percent is too low. Australia, for example, is spending “around 30% and increasing” on capital acquisition.90

If properly focused, NATO effort towards, for example, deterring Russia would be satisfied by achieving defence spending amongst NATO members close to the two percent goal, combined “with actions to use that power such as measures NATO is already undertaking to forward-deploy combat forces from its big members into the exposed Baltic states, forestalling a Russian coup de main.”91 Alternatively, it may be sufficient to focus NATO effort on countering terrorist threats in Afghanistan. But it may not be enough to do both.92 The US seems to be focusing on China as the longer-term and more difficult problem, whereas some NATO members are fixated (for understandable reasons) on Russia. Prioritisation between the ranges of threats arrayed against NATO will be essential. The two percent obsession might well be insufficient if NATO’s ambition is too broad. This is why a new NATO strategic concept is needed, but also why its development has been particularly difficult in the context of the previous US administration. It remains likely that President Biden will work to restore the strong relationship with NATO that the US has had since it was established in 1949.

3.3 Strategic Concept

NATO agreed to its last strategic concept in Lisbon, Portugal in 2010.93 At that time, it was hoped that Russia would become a partner with NATO, despite the strain after the Russo-Georgian war in 2008. Part of Barack Obama’s agenda as President was a policy of arms control, promising a new beginning in relations with Russia. The war in Afghanistan was ongoing with no end in sight, and the admission of Albania and Croatia to NATO in 2009 was supposed to increase Balkan stability. NATO thus saw itself less as a military alliance than as a crisis manager beyond its borders, as well as

an honest broker with regard to Russia and to global security cooperation, as well as a political transformation agent for aspiring member states in South-East Europe. While collective

90 Hellyer, “NATO Defense Spending: Is 2% Really the Magic Number?” 91 Ibid. 92 Ibid. 93 NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has undertaken a process to assess ways to strengthen the political dimensions of the NATO Alliance to face current threats. A report was written with analysis and recommendations for the way ahead. See “NATO 2030: United for a New Era,” 25 November 2020, https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2020/12/pdf/201201-Reflection-Group-Final-Report-Uni.pdf (accessed 3 June 2021). While an indication of a desire to develop clear strategic direction, an updated NATO Strategic Concept is still needed.

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defence in accordance with Article 5 of the Washington Treaty nominally remained the Alliance’s raison d’être, it was not regarded as a realistic scenario ever to be implemented. Armed forces were regarded as expeditionary forces for interventions outside NATO territory and were to be reorganized or transformed accordingly.94

Several developments since 2010 are noteworthy in illustrating how the seemingly unnoticed developments in the world had brought about a new strategic reality, and how out of step NATO’s extant strategic concept truly is.

First, Russia’s aggressive actions in Ukraine, coupled with statements that Russia could capture the Baltic States in days, alongside flights of nuclear-capable bomber aircraft probing the boundaries of European and North American airspace, have shown that NATO’s current focus should be on redeveloping credible deterrent measures and reinforcing the principle of collective defence even while it maintains a dialogue with Moscow.95

Second, the continuing disorder in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) has increased to the point where states are either dissolving or are unable to assert their sovereignty across their territory. In their place are numerous armed militias that cause civil wars, terrorism, and the movement of refugees towards NATO member states. At odds with the previous NATO Strategic Concept, it has become obvious that military interventions, like that against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, often cause more turmoil, often spilling over into neighbouring countries.96

Third, developments in the Asia-Pacific area have the potential to spark an Article 5 scenario. The unpredictability of the North Korean regime, for example, could see Article 5 invoked in response to a missile launch at North America. At the same time, disagreements over freedom of movement in the global commons between China and the US have the potential to spark a conflict that could see Article 5 used. While such scenarios may remain unlikely they cannot be completely discounted.97

Finally, Donald Trump’s tenure as US President has brought US dissatisfaction with NATO and with leading Euro-Atlantic security issues to a head. Even if used as a negotiation tactic, many of his early statements reveal a US President who viewed alliances, treaty obligation and other such commitments as unimportant. For example, early in former President Trump’s administration, he expressed strongly his dissatisfaction with NATO, calling the alliance “obsolete.” While complaining about the commitment of NATO members to sharing the burden is hardly a new complaint by US Presidents, this statement threw into question the US commitment to the Article 5 collective defence provision. Moreover, former Secretary of Defense James Mattis told the alliance that if its members did not make immediate increases in defence spending to reach the two percent of GDP spending quickly, the US might “moderate its commitment” to NATO.98 In the context of volatility in Europe over the UK’s decision to leave the European Union (EU), and the potential for the EU to disintegrate further and the chaos that would bring have not set the stage for a consensus on the threats NATO nations face and the ways it should combat them. The risks of a reduction

94 Karl-Heinz Kamp, “Why NATO Needs a New Strategic Concept,” NATO Defense College Research Report 09/16, (November 2016), 2. 95 Stanley R. Sloane, “Don’t Expect a New NATO Strategic Concept Any Time Soon,” Atlantic Council, 24 February 2017. 96 Karl-Heinz Kamp, “Why NATO Needs a New Strategic Concept.” 97 Ibid. 98 Sloane, “Don’t Expect a New NATO Strategic Concept Any Time Soon.”

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in US commitment to NATO, its lack of a resolute strategic concept, and different strategic priorities within the alliance all serve to reduce the effectiveness of NATO’s deterrence policy. Moreover, while some uncertainty within the mind of Vladimir Putin on whether NATO will honour the Article 5 provision using military force may exist, the indifference shown to NATO by former President Trump cannot help but weaken its deterrent stance, given how central the US is to NATO nuclear and conventional deterrence. Uncertainty around how NATO may respond could be useful in countering Russian aggression, but uncertainty about US intentions regarding Article 5 might prompt Russia to attempt “covert intervention in European elections, agitating Russian-language populations in Baltic States, or even winning concessions from Western states by rattling nuclear sabers, Moscow could be tempted to take a chance.”99

The other aspect to the difficulty in defining a new strategic concept comes from the nature of NATO itself. The question of NATO’s viability has been around since the Soviet Union collapsed nearly thirty years ago. Its original purpose was to deter and respond to a Soviet invasion of Western Europe. That goal served the interests of all NATO members, and united and focused their thinking. The military structure and assigned forces were directed to that aim. The Europeans knew the war would be fought on their territory, but unable to build a force capable of repelling such an invasion, they turned to the US to provide substance to their conventional deterrence, and to create a nuclear deterrent to dissuade and if necessary defeat the Soviet threat. In the absence of this unifying threat, NATO expanded to bring the new members “into the framework of the Western defense system to give them confidence in their independence and help support the development of democracies on the Continent.”100 The expansion of NATO to thirty nations has proved somewhat problematical to its decisive decision-making—something of which potential adversaries seem fully aware.

The 9/11 terrorist attacks by militant Islamists on the US was the first time NATO invoked Article 5. This led the way to missions in Afghanistan and Iraq that have overcommitted the US to combating terrorist tactics and the Islamist threat at the expense of re-emerging and new conventional threats elsewhere. Those nations, namely Russia and China, have used US preoccupation with the Middle East as breathing room in which to act in their own regions. At the same time, NATO expansion into the Baltic states and the pro-Western colour revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine have convinced Russia it is under threat, and to it have revealed the alliance’s intentions on Ukraine which it cannot abide. Ukraine has always been a source of concern for Russia, especially its position to cut off Russian access to the Caucasus. The prospect of a loss of influence in Ukraine, following the overthrow of the pro-Russian government, forced Russia to act. It is the resurgence of Russia, and its economic ties with certain NATO members, which has focused but not unified NATO views. Therein lies the problem with the expanded NATO.

The lack of a NATO strategic concept that is relevant to today’s strategic environment is that it prevents the focusing of subordinate documents on clearly defined “ends.” Thus, one tends to find subordinate strategies devoting too much time to defining those ends and ensuring coherence between them, rather than articulating a clear roadmap by which resources should be committed to develop the means to attain the goals.

3.4 The Future Vector Project

Beginning with the Present Paradox—Future Challenge paper, the NATO Joint Air Power Competence Centre (JAPCC) embarked on a comprehensive assessment of NATO air power to chart a future path and

99 Ibid. 100 George Friedman, “NATO and the United States,” Stratfor, 18 January 2017, 2.

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provide a range of recommendations for NATO air power out to 2040.101 Subsequently, in 2014, the Director of NATO’s JAPCC formed a team of subject matter experts to continue that examination and to recommend specific near and longer-term goals towards which the alliance should strive to attain the necessary air and space power to meet anticipated challenges.102 The two-part Future Vector Project, pointed to the inherent value of air power and its ability to “go over not through” with the attributes of speed, reach, flexibility, and precision that provides NATO (and national leadership) with a flexible tool of unmatched responsiveness and power. Despite this, the study continues, NATO faces the risk of not having the needed quantity or type of air power capabilities to deal with the operating environment’s challenges. The Future Vector Project identified that NATO air power is at risk, due to reductions in defence budgets and diminishing air and space power capabilities in NATO. Its recommendations likely set the stage for the development of a NATO air power strategy.

3.5 NATO Air Power Strategy

The utility of air power has always been profoundly situational, with its decisiveness often being tied to the strategy that unifies the component parts of the whole.103 As Dr. Colin Gray has written, a “failure to think and behave strategically is near certain to be fatal for the proper employment of airpower.”104 If true, one might be surprised to find that NATO has only just recently published its first joint air power strategy (JAPS).105 Ideally, this strategy would be a detailed plan to attain the goals outlined in its strategic concept and other direction. However as discussed, the extant NATO Strategic Concept is somewhat dated and likely will not be updated any time soon, so the strategy is thus hampered by a lack of a clear target. As a result, NATO has structured its strategy along its key objectives of collective defence, crisis management, and cooperative security, with air power described as the ability to control and exploit the air domain in the pursuit of these objectives.106

It is, perhaps not surprisingly, a strategy of consensus rather than one intended to realise a strategic vision. In many ways, this is both the advantage and the challenge of the NATO alliance. On the one hand, differing perspectives offer unique insights into challenges. However, the differing geostrategic imperatives of the various nations offer unique vulnerabilities that can be exploited by adversaries to paralyse strategic decision-making. Moreover, the need to achieve consensus amongst those nations has the potential to blunt what should be very clear statements of, inter alia, air power strategy.

Several things stand out from this strategy. First, few could argue with its assumption that “the future operating environment may be one in which air superiority can neither be assured at the onset of operations nor, once obtained, be an enduring condition.”107 Other authors, some of whom argue that the USAF “no longer has any substantive experience in how to fight and win in a highly contested environment,” have

101 Joint Air Power Competence Centre, Present Paradox—Future Challenge, http://www.japcc.org/wp-content/uploads/Future_Vector_web.pdf (accessed 25 March 2019). 102 Joint Air Power Competence Centre, Air & Space Power in NATO: Future Vector Part 1, http://www.japcc.org/wp-content/uploads/Future_Vector_II_web.pdf (accessed 25 March 2019), 1–3. 103 Edward N. Luttwak, “Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace,” (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001), 188. 104 Colin S. Gray, “The Airpower Advantage in Future Warfare: The Need for Strategy” (Maxwell AFB: Airpower Research Institute, 2007), 2–3. 105 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “NATO’s Joint Air Power Strategy,” 26 June 2018, 2. 106 Ibid., 3–4. 107 Ibid., 4.

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echoed this sentiment.108 Of equal importance is that “its current airmen have never experienced serious losses of people and machines in air combat.”109 The same can be said of the air forces of all NATO members. This fortunate state of affairs is due to the lack of capable adversaries in all the conflicts in which NATO air power has been used since the end of the Cold War. This likely will not endure, and NATO can no longer afford to assume air supremacy in future operations, as the experience since the end of the Cold War will be unrepresentative of likely future operations. To make this point more clearly one need only look at historian Tim Travers’s analysis of Sir Douglas Haig during the First World War (WWI). Travers argues that Haig was neither indifferent nor foolish, but he was the product of the ideals of war predominant in the British army of the late Victorian period. He had “learnt, and clung to, an ideal of war that formed a paradigm of what ‘normal’ war should be.”110 He tenaciously carried these ideas with him from the nineteenth century into the First World War.111 The lesson is that experiences from operations not representative of modern high-intensity conflict can endure and be difficult to overcome, especially when they form the basis for decisions governing investments in capabilities to deter and defeat more capable opponents, or in preparing an air force to suffer losses in meeting those formidable challenges. The NATO Joint Air Power (JAP) strategy’s acknowledgment that it “has to be able to conduct operations against any peer-state actor” in environments from permissive to highly-contested is refreshing, and hopefully will influence the force development of its member states.112

The strategy is somewhat vague in terms of identifying the threats to which NATO may have to respond, preferring to identify the ways by which JAP will support NATO’s core tasks and political objectives. It is here that the lack of a clear strategic concept, as a target for the strategy, is most keenly seen. Instead of specifics, the core tasks and objectives are identified as collective defence, crisis management, and cooperative security.113 The strategy does make it clear that potential adversaries will target the alliance’s Achilles heel of network dependency, and the need to reduce vulnerability. Moreover, it identifies an important need for improved exploitation of the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS), even if it is somewhat lacking in specifics of how to do so effectively.114

In terms of collective defence, the strategy identifies specific missions from integrated air and missile defence to the conduct of operations “to contain or delay an adversary when the Alliance is either surprised or engaged elsewhere.”115 Included alongside these missions are both nuclear and conventional deterrence, useful to the alliance by providing “options to address the challenges of facing a nuclear capable adversary in peace, crisis and conflict.”116 Again, while lacking in specifics necessary to tie policy goals to actions, the strategy identifies specific air power capabilities of strategic lift and air-to-air refuelling as essential to not only reinforcing the transatlantic link, but to demonstrating the solidarity and cohesion of the alliance by reinforcing allies in an agile and responsive way.

108 David Barno and Nora Bensahel, “The Catastrophic Success of the U.S. Air Force,” War on the Rocks, 3 May 2016, https://warontherocks.com/2016/05/the-catastrophic-success-of-the-u-s-air-force/ (accessed 21 February 2019). 109 Ibid. 110 Tim Travers, The Killing Ground: The British Army, the Western Front & the Emergence of Modern War 1900–1918 (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military, 2009), 95. 111 Ibid. 112 “NATO’s Joint Air Power Strategy,” 2. 113 Ibid., 3. 114 Ibid. 115 Ibid. 116 Ibid.

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In responding to and managing an anticipated but not clearly articulated range of potential crises, NATO JAP is expected to provide flexible options to alliance leadership. The agility, speed, reach, and flexibility of air power allows it to be a force of first resort to deter by demonstrating NATO resolve and ability to respond quickly, and also to regain the initiative if deterrence fails. Yet again, the strategy fails to provide details on the exact ways in which JAP will do this, something necessary to link political ends to military means. However, it does identify strategic lift, air-to-air refuelling and contribution to Joint Information, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (JISR) as being critical to supporting the crisis management core task. These capabilities support “international event monitoring, and intelligence gathering and decision-making pre-, during and post-crisis.” Moreover, JAP provides air mobility and direct and indirect support necessary for stabilisation and reconstruction in these complex environments.117

In cooperative security, the third NATO core task, JAP “plays an important role in projecting stability and building the air power related resiliency of partners.”118 NATO air power also assists in developing civil-military airspace utilisation, information sharing and enhancing interoperability with NATO partners such as the EU. As well, the NATO strategy asserts that the attribute of flexibility of NATO air power supports “arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation, including the possibility to verify and monitor compliance with agreements using JISR.”119 Once again, the strategy offers very little in terms of the “ways” in which this will be done aside from the possible use of JISR to verify and monitor compliance with various agreements.

In each of these core tasks there are common, although varied in importance depending on the operation, roles for NATO air power. These are familiar to most air forces, consisting of counter-air, attack, air mobility, and contribution to JISR. Moreover, each of these interdependent roles is “enabled and synchronised through a secure (command and control) C2 layered network,” needed to exploit the full potential of the air environment.

For some time, modern warfare has required the NATO alliance to be ready to fight as a joint force towards the attainment of its strategic goals. Doing so requires a high degree of interoperability, enabled by flexible command and control arrangements and systems to exploit the air environment effectively at all stages of conflict. This comes in pre-conflict phases through deterrence, enabled by air power’s speed, reach, and responsiveness, and in warfare employing the speed and power that air forces can provide. NATO’s strategy acknowledges these characteristics of joint air power, arguing that it is “one of the strongest drivers for the integration of multi-domain operations, including the capacity to conduct C2 from the air.”120 Critical to this ability, and indeed to all the characteristics of air power, is the effective exploitation of the space and cyber environments. The “effective integration of Cyber into JAP operations will leverage the Alliance all domain approach in a synergistic way both in kinetic and non-kinetic effects.”121 So too space-based capabilities. Modern air power relies on space assets, including their provision of early warning, intelligence, surveillance and intelligence (ISR), satellite communications, “and the provision of Position, Navigation and Timing information.”122 This reality is both a blessing and a curse. Because of the reliance on these capabilities, they are certain to be among the first targets in a conflict against a capable adversary.

117 Ibid. 118 Ibid. 119 Ibid. 120 Ibid., 5. 121 Ibid. 122 Ibid.

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The degradation of space-based capabilities at the outset of hostilities should be anticipated, and solutions to those problems should be a key focus of capability development.

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4 Capability Development Expectations for NATO Member Nations

Despite the enormous military (and economic) potential of NATO, that potential only translates into military capability if investments are made and forces are allocated for NATO use without caveats on their employment. Moreover, forces allocated must be sustainable, robust, deployable, interoperable, and capable of conducting the full range of military operations. Air power’s characteristics of speed, reach, and flexibility make this all the more important, as it has become the force of first resort in many cases. It is important that NATO members maintain an awareness of the evolution of air power theory, and the direction key members such as the US are taking, to ensure they can remain credible alliance partners.

Central to NAT O’ s conception of future air warfare are the four c o r e roles it has defined. Specifically, the “interdependent core roles of JAP are counter-air, attack, air mobility, and contribution to JISR.”123 These roles are similar to those used by the RCAF, but for continuity the air power functions (control of the air, attack, surveillance and reconnaissance, and air mobility) will be used to outline the main areas of NATO thinking on what it would like from its member nations.

All of Russia’s efforts to modernise its military and to re-establish a presence in its region have the potential to give NATO the common threat and unifying mission lacking since the end of the Cold War. This has snapped NATO’s attention back to Eastern Europe from its post-Cold War focus on combatting terrorism in operations outside Europe. Even with this clear threat evident to certain member nations, their diverse interests have undermined NATO cohesion and complicated the development of a common strategy. German and French interests, for example, are less directly threatened by Russian aggression than those of the Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, or those states like Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania that border Russia. Even in the context of Russian resurgence it has been difficult to convince NATO members to increase defence spending uniformly and, in the context of a common appreciation of the anticipated operating environments, to provide those credible capabilities to the alliance.124 Even so, should NATO invoke Article 5 it could muster a force without equal, and if it did so air power would be a central feature of countering of conventional attack.125 It is thus all the more important to seek ways to align the thinking of alliance members towards a strategic concept that takes into account the threat environment and the direction the US is taking in terms of warfighting concepts.

As it has with previous generational shifts, the US is on the verge of leaving its key allies behind in capability terms. The reasons for this include that the US cannot “afford to continue trying to maintain a dominant military position over China and Russia in their own immediate neighbourhoods by pursuing incremental upgrades to existing capabilities.”126 The recent developments discussed, like surface-to-air missile (SAM) and other missile systems (including hypersonic), have been combined with other

123 “NATO’s Joint Air Power Strategy,” 4. 124 W. Bruce Weinrod, “The Future of NATO” Mediterranean Quarterly 23: 2 (2012), 7; Joint Air Power Competence Centre, “Air and Space Power in NATO,” Future Vector Project Volume 1: Present Paradox—Future Challenge (March 2014), 61–62. 125 “NATO: The Future of the Alliance,” Stratfor 30 April 2014, https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/nato-future-alliance (accessed 30 July 2020). 126 Justin Bronk, The Future of NATO Air Power (London: Routledge, 2020), 67.

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technologies such as improved sensors and are much cheaper to produce than to counter.127 During the US and allied focus on the Middle East and that style of warfare, both China and Russia have studied the US and allied methods of waging warfare and have found vulnerabilities and cost-effective ways to counter their advantages. While China likely will be the more difficult and longer-term adversary with which to contend, Russia remains a serious threat to Europe and the Arctic, something many NATO nations take very seriously.

The new direction the US is taking may well be more troublesome for allies attempting to keep pace, something that will complicate NATO defence planning but which could also provide a focus. Moreover, unlike the previous generational shift brought about by F-22 and B-2, the US seems to be changing the way it fights in the air. In developing new combat air systems, the US has made it clear it must account for the so-called all domain battlespace “where air, space, and cyberspace converge.”128

The intent is to not only bring raw combat power to and across those domains, but also to exploit Third Offset strategy technologies to develop new command and control capabilities, ISR in various forms, as well as new basing and logistics concepts. All of this to deal effectively with conventional conflict at the high-end of the conflict spectrum where operating environments are their most challenging.129 As already stated, this new direction offers challenges to NATO, but perhaps also opportunity to shape the future of NATO air power.

4.1 Air Combat

Air-to-air combat developed in World War I, where pilots quickly learned the most effective means by which to manoeuvre into a position from which to attack an opponent without being detected, and then escape. This required them to observe, using the human eye, orient on the target, decide how best to engage, and then act. This “observe, orient, decide, act (OODA)” loop, formalised by Colonel John Boyd, remains a valid means to describe air combat, but the scale has increased with the advent of sophisticated sensors. As late as the early 1960s pilots still manoeuvred their aircraft to an advantageous location to, ideally, launch a surprise attack and escape before an opponent was able to do the same.130 Even the development of aerial weapons and sensors in the mid-1960s did not fundamentally alter this paradigm, as the early infrared missiles required close engagement and were effective only “within a 30-degree cone behind the target at ranges approaching the 2nm effective visual search radius.”131 Early radar guided missiles allowed for all-aspect attack, but were notoriously unreliable.132

Nonetheless, there was a continual, evolutionary improvement in sensors and weapon technology that saw air combat change from close-in manoeuvring to longer ranges, to now where beyond visual range (BVR) missiles have become predominant in air-to-air engagements. This evolution might change the desired attributes of fighter aircraft from high speed and manoeuvrability to the ability to carry sensor and weapon payload long distances. The performance of fighter aircraft seems less important

127 Ibid. 128 Alex Grynkewich, “The Future of Air Superiority, Part 1: The Imperative,” War on the Rocks (3 January 2017) https://warontherocks.com/2017/01/the-future-of-air-superiority-part-i-the-imperative/ (accessed 19 March 2020). 129 For a discussion of the US Third Offset Strategy see Brad W. Gladman and Andrew Billyard, “The Implications of the US Third Offset Strategy for the RCAF of the Future,” Defence Research and Development Canada, Scientific Letter DRDC-RDDC-2017-L272 (August 2017). 130 John Stillion, “Trends in Air-to-Air Combat: Implications for Future Air Superiority,” Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (2015), 3–10. 131 Ibid., 13. 132 Ibid., 28.

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now that aircraft can be detected and engaged from dozens of miles away. At the same time, non-traditional attributes such as minimal radar and IR signature; space, payload, and cooling capacity; power for large-aperture long-range sensors; and very-long-range weapons seem to be of increased importance.133

These changes in the character of air combat should be of interest to nations, like Canada, seeking to replace fleets of older generation fighters to ensure they are able to make a meaningful contribution to operations conducted over great distances, or where stand-off weapons may be of particular value to assist in destroying adversary IADS. This has implications for the domestic and continental air defence of Canada, or in a range of expeditionary operations.

Several characteristics of future high-intensity conflict will alter the requirements for systems designed for offensive and defensive air combat operations, including control of the air and strike warfare. The first will be the difficulty in entering contested airspace undetected due to the increasing resolution of adversary sensors, on the ground and in the air. This, coupled with “post-processing analysis on the data those sensors generate,” will make it more difficult to hide aircraft moving at high speeds, generating heat and other emissions in the “relatively empty, and transparent atmosphere.”134 The increasing numbers of transmitting devices create an opportunity for adversaries and allies alike “to leverage reflected electromagnetic waves from background interference such as mobile phone, television, and Wi-Fi networks, as well as more traditional radio-frequency background noise to generate a radar-like track.”135 While stealth technologies will remain valuable, elements like weapon range and precision, electronic warfare capabilities, as well as “sufficient combat mass to absorb attrition—may well regain some of their traditional importance.”136

Going along with sensor improvements is the likely proliferation by China and Russia of these systems, combined with advanced SAMs and aircraft in service or under development. All of this will often make the prospect of unchallenged air supremacy unlikely even in a “small wars” context. The lethality of peer-adversary air and surface launched missiles, relying on multispectral sensors to guide them, may be more difficult to evade or counter with current suites of defensive systems.137 As some have argued, the success of Western air forces in the conflicts since the end of the Cold War have “perversely made the service much less ready to fight the next big war.”138 This is something with which the US has started to come to terms, and it is important that NATO and its other member nations do so as well.

A by-product of the focus on small wars in the Middle East and elsewhere since the end of the Cold War has been the reliance on fixed airbases often far from the operating environment, enabled by aerial refuelling. This comes with a high cost in terms of fuel, spare parts, and a long logistical tail. In future operations against capable adversaries, these fixed airbases, scarce manned aircraft, and the associated critical enablers like aerial refuelling tankers are likely to be held at risk “by both kinetic and in some cases non-kinetic means much further away from the traditional battlespace than ever before.”139 All of these

133 Ibid., iii. 134 Justin Bronk, “Next Generation Combat Aircraft: Threat Outlook and Potential Solutions,” Royal United Services Institute Occasional Paper, November 2018, 31. 135 Ibid.; also see Hugh D. Griffiths and Christopher J. Baker, “An Introduction to Passive Radar” (Norwood, MA: Artech House Publishers, 2017), Chapters 6 and 7. 136 Bronk, “Next Generation Combat Aircraft: Threat Outlook and Potential Solutions,” 31. 137 Ibid. 138 Barno and Bensahel, “The Catastrophic Success of the U.S. Air Force.” 139 Bronk, “Next Generation Combat Aircraft: Threat Outlook and Potential Solutions,” 32.

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factors are likely to combine to impose significant attrition both at the fixed airbases through hypersonic and ballistic missile attack, as well as other means, to more traditional attrition due to SAM and enemy counter-air activities. Since attrition from combat losses attempting to penetrate IADS and attacks on vulnerable air bases can be expected, Western air forces need to be prepared, both psychologically and through additional combat mass, to absorb those losses without dramatic reductions in combat power. Next-generation combat air systems need to be developed with this in mind, making use of both manned and unmanned platforms.

4.2 Fifth-Generation Fighters

The term “generation” was traditionally applied only to fighter aircraft. In each new generation, there were additional capabilities or systems that distinguished it from the previous generation. The latest “fifth-generation” fighter aircraft is no different. What differentiates them from fourth-generation fighters are mainly the multi-spectral low observability design features, which include “radar, infrared sensors, and visual situational awareness tools” that combined with radar jamming and other self-protection systems prevent enemy systems from detecting and targeting the aircraft.140 Recently, the term “fifth-generation” has expanded to describe more than just fighter aircraft. To that list has been added other technologically sophisticated aircraft types, and to even describe fifth-generation as an environment enabled by those aircraft.141 That broad-brush approach will be avoided here, and the term fifth-generation will apply only to fighter aircraft. It is important to note, however, that one could envision an air force without fifth-generation fighters still being a credible coalition partner in a high-intensity war against capable adversaries by employing advanced weapons on its older generation aircraft, or on a fleet of advanced fighters that do not fit into the “fifth-generation.”

The development and increasing numbers of fifth-generation fighters in the inventories of NATO nations is changing the character of various types of air combat operations. According to former Air Combat Command chief General Herbert Carlisle, the ability of these advanced aircraft to conduct offensive and defensive counter-air operations while collecting and managing information, and passing targeting information “has even exceeded our expectations.”142 There are reasons why many of the world’s air forces are focusing on the development or acquisition of fifth-generation fighters, not only because of their unique capabilities like low-observability (LO), but also because of the sensors and processing power that “provide situational awareness of a conflict that is unparalleled in modern war”.143 Many NATO nations are equipping their air forces with the F-35 Lightning II fighter, but others are (or may) not. Indeed, Canada is engaged in a competition to decide which of three choices will be purchased to meet the Strong, Secure, Engaged (SSE) defence policy commitment “to acquire 88 advanced Fighter aircraft to defend Canada’s Sovereignty and to meet Canada’s NORAD and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

140 Jeff Harrigian and Max Marosko, “Fifth Generation Air Combat: Maintaining the Joint Force Advantage,” The Mitchell Forum, No. 6 (July 2016), https://03236830-405f-4141-9f5c-3491199c4d86.filesusr.com/ugd/a2dd91_bd906e69631146079c4d082d0eda1d68.pdf (accessed 18 August 2020), 2. 141 Chris Thatcher, “Operation Innovation,” 28 February 2017, http://rcaf-arc.forces.gc.ca/en/article-template-standard.page?doc=operation-innovation/izkjopk9 (accessed 18 November 2020); Jeff Harrigian and Max Marosko, “Fifth Generation Air Combat: Maintaining the Joint Force Advantage,” Joint Air Power Competence Centre Journal 24 (Spring/Summer 2017), 54–62, https://www.japcc.org/wp-content/uploads/JAPCC_J24_screen.pdf (accessed 18 November 2020). 142 Jeff Harrigian and Max Marosko, “Fifth Generation Air Combat: Maintaining the Joint Force Advantage,” 2. 143 Ibid.

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commitments”.144 The emphasis on domestic and continental operations might see an aircraft with increased range and speed being preferred over one with LO capabilities.

Since some NATO members are not planning to acquire F-35, including the French air force that is one of NATO’s strongest, efforts have been made to ensure it can “share information through existing data links with fourth-generation fighters to improve situational awareness and combat effectiveness.”145 Ongoing work on this capability enhancement, known initially as the Jetpack 5th to 4th joint capability technology demonstration (JCTD), enables the linkage between and translation of “both the F-35’s Multifunction Advanced Data Link and the F-22’s Intra-Flight Data Link to common Link 16 messages.”146 Link 16 is a secure, jam-resistant, high-speed digital data link used by both NATO and the RCAF, meaning that depending on the RCAF vision for future air combat capabilities, while the F-35 may be the best option it is not the only way play a credible role in future air combat. The discriminator might well be where the RCAF places its emphasis between domestic, continental, and expeditionary operations and their somewhat different requirements.

4.3 Unmanned or Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) in Combat Roles

RPAS have a number of advantages over manned platforms, including endurance, relatively simple manufacture—at least compared with advanced manned aircraft—and most notably their expendability. The latter feature would be particularly important in high-intensity combat situations where losses are almost inevitable. Moreover, their ease (and relatively low cost) of upgrade in response to changing threat environments would make them a potent combat asset for the RCAF. At the same time, it is clear from policy direction and from “a variety of political, ethical, and practical factors…operational requirements short of high-intensity, existential conflict are likely to continue to require manned combat aircraft for the foreseeable future.”147

The reality of a mix of manned and unmanned capabilities to deliver effects across the spectrum of conflict is reflected in Strong, Secure, Engaged. While directed in the policy, what type of RPAS will be acquired is not specified. Some authors argue that a mix of advanced, manned combat aircraft with

a stable of regularly evolving UCAV [Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles] in low-rate production, could offer both a way to rapidly expand NATO airpower if a crisis appeared imminent, and in a worst-case scenario at least offer a latent capability to replace losses and draw the worst attrition away from scarce manned assets in a high-intensity conflict.148

To have a mix of advanced manned fighters, either fifth-generation or aircraft with more advanced weapons, along with combat RPAS whose production could be increased in a crisis would be a viable option for the RCAF and likely would be a way to rapidly expand air power options available to NATO to deal with a range of crises. Indeed, the Royal Air Force (RAF) is exploring the “loyal wingmen” concept that is linked 144 Department of National Defence, “Strong, Secure, Engaged: Canada’s Defence Policy” (Ottawa, 2017), 13. 145 “Northrop Grumman Demonstrates Fifth-to-Fourth-Generation Aircraft Communications Capabilities During Flight Tests,” News Releases 27 May 2014 http://www.globenewswire.com/newsarchive/noc/press/pages/news_printer.html?d=1008 (accessed 19 December 2019). 146 Ibid. 147 Bronk, “Next Generation Combat Aircraft,” 6. 148 Ibid., 7.

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to the Tempest Future Combat Air System programme. It aims to develop swarms of “loyal wingmenˮ combat RPAS through its Lightweight Affordable Novel Combat Aircraft (LANCA) technology demonstrator initiative that would operate with manned combat aircraft.149 These options are worthy of consideration as the RCAF selects its next combat aircraft fleets.150

4.4 Control of the Air

Control of the air is not an end unto itself. It is needed to allow air power to operate as freely as possible to conduct ISR, attack, mobility, and to prevent the adversary from doing the same. Indeed, control of the air is normally identified as an air force’s top priority. The old saying attributed first to Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery “If we lose the war in the air, we lose the war, and we lose it very quickly” is certainly true, but it is not as simple as saying that nothing else can happen until control of the air (and now space) has been achieved. Indeed, the very reason for the development of the key principle of centralized control / decentralized execution (CC/DE) for the employment of air power, one that requires effective command and control relationships and systems, is to ensure air power’s flexibility in responding to a range of potential challenges normally with limited resources. The history of air warfare shows quite clearly that in most conflicts against capable adversaries, control of the air is normally hard fought over a long period and that other effects can be delivered with only limited or local air superiority.151 The NATO air power strategy identifies this requirement as coming primarily through offensive and defensive counter-air operations, kinetic or non-kinetic, enabling the freedom of manoeuvre of air and surface forces across the domains.152 In a departure from the expectation of Western militaries since the end of the Cold War, the strategy makes it clear that air superiority may well be both a localised and a temporary condition. As already stated, air forces in conflict against peer-state adversaries will have to fight for control of the air throughout a campaign, and may find it difficult or impossible to attain air superiority for an extended period. Indeed, it may only succeed in establishing localised air superiority around its attacking aircraft, despite the adoption of advanced or fifth-generation fighters by many NATO air forces.153 It seems that this reality, and the concomitant possibility of suffering losses in an ongoing fight for air superiority, has been forgotten by Western air forces accustomed to operating with air supremacy.154

149 Tim Ripley, “Remote take-off,” Janes Defence Weekly, 56:48 (27 November 2019), 24. 150 The RAAF has also just flown its prototype “loyal wingman,” indicating at trend amongst key allies. See, Greg Waldron, “Boeing, RAAF ‘loyal wingman’ raises the bar down under,” Flight Global, 5 March 2021, https://www.flightglobal.com/military-uavs/boeing-raaf-loyal-wingman-raises-the-bar-down-under/142738.article (accessed 3 June 2021). 151 For an example of literature pointing out that control of the air, while important, is something that spans a conflict and that other types of operations can be conducted simultaneously see Brad W. Gladman, “Intelligence and Anglo-American Air Support in World War Two,” 84, 107, 177. 152 “NATO’s Joint Air Power Strategy,” 4. 153 The NATO member nations Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States have received their first F-35s. Belgium and Denmark have also selected the F-35 to replace its older generation fighters. See Aaron Mehta, “As it takes on F-35, Denmark prepares to halt global operations,” Defense News, 14 July 2018, https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/farnborough/2018/07/10/as-it-takes-on-f-35-denmark-prepares-to-halt-global-operations/ (accessed 14 August 2019); Valerie Insinna, “F-35 officially wins Belgian Fighter contest,” Defense News 25 October 2018, https://www.defensenews.com/air/2018/10/25/f-35-officially-wins-belgian-fighter-contest/ (accessed 14 August 2019); “The Centerpiece of 21st Century Global Security,” Lockheed Martin, https://www.f35.com/global (accessed 14 August 2019). 154 Barno and Benshel, “The Catastrophic Success of the U.S. Air Force,” 2–3.

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Some NATO nations have identified the possibility that control of the air may not be a certainty in future conflict. The USAF, for example, studied the problem from mid-2015 to mid-2016 to determine how control of the air would be maintained to the level where joint operations can succeed.155 Given the importance of the US to NATO combat power, and the speed with which it is developing ways to deal with the need to establish control of the air, it would be well for the air forces of NATO nations, including the RCAF, to take note of its thinking and to determine a way to make a meaningful contribution.

In coming to terms with the problem of controlling the air, the USAF (similar to most allied air forces) identified that air superiority must account for an all domain battlespace and the convergence of air, space, and cyberspace. Capabilities will be needed to engage air and missile threats, as well as threats to space-based capabilities and the use of cyberspace to prevent the control of the air and space. Third Offset strategy technologies should be exploited to provide a decision advantage that can be used to gain control of the air when needed.156

The main points that emerged from the Air Superiority 2030 Enterprise Capability Collaboration Team (ECCT) efforts made it clear that modernising the current USAF would not solve the problem, key upgrades could keep the force relevant, and that increased reliance on stand-off weapons would be feasible provided the problem of providing the right degree of targeting information could be achieved. It was also determined that future capabilities featuring persistence, range, and survivability were critical, as was the need to move from an air domain-centric perspective to one that includes space and cyber-based capabilities. The integrated and networked family of air superiority capabilities pairs both stand-off and stand-in assets, with the former operating outside enemy defences and the latter inside, will be necessary to defeat future A2/AD strategies.157 The character of these environments will vary, but there are similarities between those faced by NATO in Europe and by the US and its allies in the Pacific. Both require similar capabilities to counter effectively. Those capabilities must thus be able to operate over long distances, from bases outside most anti-access capabilities, and supported by “a robust logistical backbone capable of delivering key commodities—fuel, spare parts, weapons—even while under attack.”158

Supporting the application of air power of all types has been the ability to gather, process, and make use of intelligence from a variety of sources, maintaining a comprehensive understanding of the situation in all domains to enable the most efficient application of air power. That requirement will continue, although the means by which it will be achieved may change in response to adversary technical development. The tradition of using large battle management command and control platforms like the airborne warning and control system (AWACS) may be countered by the “increasing lethality and reach of adversary weapons,” and efforts to “disaggregate this capability using multiple sensor platforms, including teamed manned and unmanned systems, a robust battlespace information architecture, and dispersed command and control” are

155 Grynkewich, “The Future of Air Superiority, Part I: The Imperative.” 156 Ibid. 157 United States Air Force Enterprise Capability Collaboration Team, “Air Superiority 2030 Flight Plan,” May 2016, https://www.af.mil/Portals/1/documents/airpower/Air%20Superiority%202030%20Flight%20Plan.pdf (accessed 6 January 2021); Alex Grynkewich, “The Future of Air Superiority, Part III: Defeating A2/AD,” War on the Rocks (13 January 2017), https://warontherocks.com/2017/01/the-future-of-air-superiority-part-iii-defeating-a2ad/ (accessed 5 January 2021). 158 Ibid.

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being investigated.159 These will be areas of future investigation as part of its Alliance Future Surveillance and Control capability, prior to NATO’s retirement of the AWACS in 2035.160

4.5 Command and Control

An effective system of command, control, communications and intelligence has always been central to the effective employment of air power.161 This will continue, as likely will the main tenet for that employment—centralized control and decentralized execution. Indeed, the purportedly new concept of joint all domain command and control do not invalidate the principle of how air power has been employed over its history. The specific means by which this is accomplished will change, but this central principle remains valid and should be defended strongly as it preserves the inherent flexibility of air power that it perhaps its greatest advantage in modern warfare.162

It should be accepted that defence planning must focus on the military implications of Great Power competition, as these reflect the possibility of wars nations cannot afford to lose.163 Proponents of joint all domain operations (JADO) for NATO argue that given the challenges of operating against capable militaries in contested, degraded, and limited operating environments (CDO) require that the alliance “must learn how to employ its joint capabilities as a cohesive multi-domain force.”164 Indeed, the aim has always been to empower the joint force commander (JFC) with “real-time situational awareness of all assets in the battlespace and the ability to communicate and direct forces as the environment dictates.”165 What has become known as joint all-domain command and control (JADC2) is, according to General John Hyten the Vice Chief of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), really “just an expansion of the combined arms problem to air, land and sea, plus space and cyber.”166 In terms of air power, its long-standing principle of CC/DE has aimed at doing exactly what JADC2 intends.

159 USAF, “Air Superiority 2030 Flight Plan.” 160 NATO, “NATO’s Capabilities,” 19 June 2020, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49137.htm (accessed 6 January 2021). 161 For examples of this, see Brad W. Gladman, “Intelligence and Anglo-American Air Support in World War Two: The Western Desert and Tunisia 1940–43” (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); John Ferris, “Fighter Defence Before Fighter Command: The Rise of Strategic Air Defence in Great Britain, 1917–1934,” in Geoffrey Jensen, ed., Warfare in Europe 1919–1938 (London: Routledge, 2008); Brad W. Gladman, “Air Power and intelligence in the western desert campaign, 1940–43,” Intelligence and National Security, 13:4 (1998): 144–162. 162 Brad Gladman, “The Implications of Operations in Contested, Degraded, and Limited Operating Environments for the Royal Canadian Air Force,” Defence Research and Development Canada, Scientific Letter DRDC-RDDC-2020-L097, April 2020, 2. 163 Kathleen Hicks, “Defense 2020: Great Power Competition,” Center for Strategy & International Studies, 15 January 2020, https://www.csis.org/analysis/great-power-competition; Terri Moon Cronk, “DOD Must Rethink, Prioritize Strategic Deterrence,” US Department of Defense, 21 October 2020, https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/2389931/dod-must-rethink-prioritize-strategic-deterrence/ (accessed 3 June 2021). 164 Aaron Sprecher and Sameek Parsa, “Command and Control: The E-3A Final Lifetime Extension Program,” The Journal of the JAPCC, 25, (Winter 2017/2019), 13 165 Ibid. 166 Colin Clark, “Gen. Hyten On The New American Way of War: All-Domain Operations,” Breaking Defense, 18 February 2020, https://breakingdefense.com/2020/02/gen-hyten-on-the-new-american-way-of-war-all-domain-operations/ (accessed 14 August 2020).

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The goal of exchanging relevant intelligence to enable effective air power is not a new phenomenon to be overcome, although modern systems can develop data loads that risk choking the system without a means to find only the relevant needles in the haystack.167 The principle of decentralized execution has always been a way to link commander’s intent with the right kind of tactical action that will achieve the desired effects. Linking an understanding of explicit or implicit command intent “to tactical action, employing the right amount of force, at the right time, in the right place with the right method of choice for maximum effectiveness”168 has been central to the effective and efficient use of air power across its history.

An early example of this can be seen in the North African campaigns of the Second World War. In that theatre, allied air power was established under principles that made best use of its limited resources in a context where enemy attack on communications was expected. One of the architects of this system for the use of air power for strategic effect was Air Marshal Sir Arthur Coningham, who led the design of an admirable weapon that struck at the heart of the enemy’s weaknesses. His system of air support at its height exploited various sources of strategic intelligence—from signals intelligence, traffic analysis, captured enemy documents and the interrogation of prisoners of war—to focus operational intelligence gathering efforts primarily through aerial visual and photographic reconnaissance to locate specific targets.169 The intelligence was gathered, processed, and disseminated very quickly by mid-late 1942, creating a clear picture on which strike decisions could be made. The resulting orders flowed with equal speed along reliable communications, and aircraft were airborne or diverted to best effect very rapidly. Those principles offer lessons for potential operations against capable adversaries, although those lessons have to be extracted carefully.170

Each service contributes capabilities towards the overall aim of effective command and control. In austere locations, this contributes to efficiency, and in intensely contested environments, efficiency in the use of resources becomes an important way to ensure effectiveness. Central to NATO efforts have been a series of upgrades to the venerable fleet of E-3A AWACS aircraft. The first of these upgrades occurred in the early 1990s, but the return of Great Power competition and the possibility of warfare against capable opponents has required another set of upgrades to continue the advantages this aircraft provides.

The Northrop Grumman AN/APY-2 high-performance, multimode look-down radar can separate airborne and maritime targets from ground and sea clutter, detecting low-flying targets or maritime surface contacts from 30,000 feet within 215 nautical miles, as well as medium-level airborne targets at ranges in excess of 280 nautical miles.171 The AN/APY-2’s multi-mode attributes provide look down “surveillance to the radar horizon and an electronic vertical scan of the radar beam provides target elevation and beyond-the-horizon operation for long-range surveillance of medium and high-altitude aircraft” allowing it to determine the location, altitude, course, and speed of large numbers of airborne targets.172 Recent upgrades to the AWACS radar under the radar system improvement program (RSIP), completed for the NATO fleet of E-3A aircraft, have enhanced its capabilities. The “RSIP modifications enhance radar performance characteristics, add new capabilities, improve the user interface, and lower the life-cycle cost

167 Gladman, “Intelligence and Anglo-American Air Support in World War Two.” 168 Sprecher and Parsa, “Command and Control: The E-3A Final Lifetime Extension Program,” 14. 169 Gladman, “Intelligence and Anglo-American Air Support in World War Two.” 170 Brad Gladman, Peter Archambault, and Neil Chuka, “Accepting—and Understanding—Uncertainty: The Use of History for Military OR&A,” Proceedings of the 36th International Symposium on Military OR (2019), 13. 171 “E-3 AWACS (Sentry) Airborne Warning and Control System, United States of America,” http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/e3awacs/ (accessed 19 August 2020). 172 Ibid.

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of the AWACS radar, while improving reliability.”173 The E-3’s mission systems can manage and display targets within the aircraft, or transmit them via its multiple data-links to forces on the ground, in the air, and at sea.

NATO’s final upgrade for the E-3A will address six major areas to improve its JADC2 capabilities. The first of these will be a modernisation of secure communications “to ensure secure communications and interoperability with NATO partners.”174 These systems will be “anti-jam” capable very-high frequency (VHF) and ultra-high frequency (UHF) radios to establish and maintain secure communications with air, ground and surface naval forces “in contested electromagnetic environments.”175 Along with these radios will be a wide-band satellite communications (SATCOM) antenna capable of increasing data streaming capability to two megabits per second, which will enable transmission of large volumes of sensor data required to support operations in the anticipated operating environments. As well, the electronic surveillance measure system will be improved to allow for faster “emitter identification and reduction of unknown emitters” to allow for more accurate and timely identification of potential threats.176 Part of this upgrade plan includes “a modern, crypto-compliant terminal capable of Concurrent multi-netting and add IP-based, beyond line-of-sight capability with Joint Range Extension Applications Protocol C encapsulation,” which will alleviate the capacity constraints of the network environment.177 Finally, the platform’s mission computing system will be updated with new hardware and a new software architecture that will make the handling of large volumes of data provided by the aircraft’s sensors easier.178

The latest update, which will be the last for this platform, will keep the NATO E-3A relevant until a replacement is selected. That replacement might be the Boeing E-7 Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) first designed for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).179 These aircraft and supporting systems deliver a highly advanced airborne early warning and control and an air battlespace management capability, are one of the most advanced pieces of technology in the Australian Defence Force. Based on a 737–700 commercial airliner, the E-7A has an advanced multi-role electronically scanned array and other sensors that gather information displayed on ten mission crew consoles able to track airborne and maritime targets simultaneously.180 Its radar provides “superior capability against low altitude targets, compared to the E-3 AWACS.”181 The Royal Air Force (RAF) is acquiring three E-7 AEW&C aircraft to replace its fleet of E-3D aircraft,182 and NATO is no doubt looking at the aircraft to replace its own E-3A fleet.

There is no plan for the RCAF to develop such a capability; it is noteworthy that the RAAF, an air force similar in size to the RCAF, has done so with its E-7A “Wedgetail” aircraft. Indeed, during a Red Flag exercise in 2012 the aircraft achieved 100% mission availability, and according to an F-22 Squadron

173 Ibid. 174 Sprecher and Parsa, “Command and Control: The E-3A Final Lifetime Extension Program,” 16. 175 Ibid. 176 Ibid. 177 Ibid. 178 Ibid. 179 Brad W. Gladman, “The future of allied air power: The Royal Australian Air Force,” 17. 180 Ibid. 181 Ibid., 11. 182 Ben Wallace, “Defence Secretary oral statement on the Defence Command Paper,” United Kingdom Ministry of Defence, 21 March 2021 https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/defence-secretary-oral-statement-on-the-defence-command-paper (accessed 3 June 2021).

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commander “provided the best controlling he had ever seen.”183 Wedgetail is thus a vital capability for the Australian Defence Force (ADF) in pursuing its geostrategic imperatives of surveillance and control across Australia’s north, a requirement Canada shares over its own austere northern regions, and “the Wedgetail is the only credible AEW&C system available which can deal with the developing strategic environment.”184 The Canadian strategic environment bears little similarity to that of Australia or the UK, except for their relationship with the US, but an aircraft with the E-7A’s capabilities could well make a valued contribution to Canadian NATO and NORAD commitments. It is worth a serious evaluation for the RCAF of the future.

4.6 Attack

NATO’s air power strategy argues that JAP’s decisive influence can be exercised very promptly and precisely through its attack role. Attack, through kinetic or non-kinetic means, generates effects across the spectrum from the tactical to the strategic levels with speed, reach, and power. It has a role before conflict through nuclear and conventional deterrence, or if deterrence fails through the actual delivery of kinetic and non-kinetic effects from the air.185

Always an essential capability for deployed operations and one that has been defined as central to the air operations over Iraq and Syria against Daesh, the NATO air power strategy identifies that an attack or strike capability will remain a key foundation of NATO air power.186 However, it is important to note that advances in, for example, smart artillery weapons offer a more cost-effective means to provide supporting fires in certain circumstances. Their high-readiness, persistence, increasingly accurate and effective fire, and ability to operate in all-weather make them at times a more attractive option.187 Still, this foundational role for NATO air power is not likely to disappear, especially with advances in the speed and precision of the munitions available. Given that many of the same platforms that provide this strike capability are those that contribute to the control of the air role, the focus here will be on NATO thinking on the future of precision-guided munitions (PGM).

Those precision munitions will vary greatly, from the RAF’s Brimstone and Storm Shadow to the myriad of USAF operated weapons like the AGM-158 joint air-to-surface standoff missile (JASSM) and AGM-154 joint standoff weapon (JSOW).188 All of these weapons, and those used by other alliance members, will be a central part of the attack capability of NATO air power. One of the key long-standing alliance advantages is its work on standardisation of munitions and interoperability of the capabilities from all NATO members. In response to deficiencies noted in the 2011 NATO operation “Unified Protector,” analysis began to look for solutions aimed at “increasing the availability of air-to-ground Precision Guided

183 Kym Bergmann, “Wedgetail,” Asia-Pacific Defence Reporter, (8 April 2013), http://www.asiapacificdefencereporter.com/articles/298/Wedgetail (accessed 6 January 2021). 184 Carlo Kopp, “Wedgetail: Australia’s eagle-eyed sentinel,” Australian Strategic Policy Institute, (2006), 14. 185 “NATO’s Joint Air Power Strategy,” 4. 186 Brad W. Gladman, “Air Power Employment in Operation INHERENT RESOLVE: A Preliminary Assessment,” Defence Research and Development Canada, Scientific Letter DRDC-RDDC-2017-L041 (2017), 8 and 10. 187 Andrea Lopreiato, “How is Close Air Support Changing?” The Joint Air Power Competence Centre Journal, 19 (Autumn/Winter 2014), 33–35. 188 Gladman, The future of allied air power: The Royal Air Force, 15–17; Gladman, The future of allied air power, the Royal Australian Air Force, 15.

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Munitions.”189 In terms of precision-guided munitions, the development of a NATO standard allowing aircraft from different nations to use PGMs began as a Canadian-led initiative.190 This and other efforts have resulted in a framework for the cost-effective procurement of PGMs amongst the thirteen partner nations (which currently does not include Canada), and an expedited way to share these munitions. The US has supported this effort under its “Lead Nation Procurement Initiative” (LNPI) for those munitions produced in the US and acquired under the air-to-ground precision guided munition (A2G-PGM) framework.191 Under this plan, participating nations specify their orders, and the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) places one aggregate order, and the US government executes the order under the LNPI.192 This effort will help bridge its identified interoperability gap in this area, and also will reduce the dependence on the US military supply of such weapons when it comes to air missions. This framework has shown considerable cost and time-savings to the thirteen participant nations over several rounds of multinational procurement of PGMs.193

The NATO future vision for how attack aviation will be employed is constructed around expectations of an all domain battlespace. An example of this future vision is as follows:

A mixed flight of a forward air controller (airborne) (FAC(A)) F-35, multi-role F-16s (SEAD and attack), F/A-18Es (SEAD and attack), and embedded EA-18Gs (EW) terrain mask away from the fight. The F-35s climb just enough to ensure digital communications are established with the Joint Fires Support Coordinator (JFSC) of the supported brigade combat team so the aircrew can build situational awareness of the battlefield and report the aircraft status to the Multi-Domain Command and Control System (MDC2S). The F-35s, in turn, relay the battlefield picture to the F-16s, F-18s, and EA-18s through various data protocols.

With hardly a spoken word, the JFSC calls for fire through digital means. The MDC2S has data about all connected weapon systems across all domains and processes the request in real-time. While considering time-on-target and weapon effect radii, the MDC2S presents a computer prioritized list of available attack options together with the respective Collateral Damage Estimate (CDE) to the JFSC. The JFSC confirms the MDC2S proposal of assigning the F-35’s mixed flight to the fire mission. All ‘players’ acknowledge the data and follow the F-35’s lead as he/she ‘quarterbacks’ the attack and coordinates each asset’s roles.

On cue, the team executes a coordinated attack on a motorized, enemy fire team. The aircraft attack under a protective bubble provided by the F-35, EA-18s and UAS. These aircraft jam enemy radars and enemy communications and sweep the skies for enemy aircraft. The F-16s and F-18s use their multi-role capabilities to release network-enabled weapons, which are subsequently guided by the JFSC to the target, while simultaneously searching for radar threats

189 The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Wales Summit Declaration,” 5 September 2014, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_112964.htm?selectedLocale=en (accessed 3 June 2021), paragraph 66. 190 Julian Hale, “Canada Leading Effort On Development of NATO Standard To Allow Aircraft From Different Nations To Use Precision-Guided Munitions,” Ottawa Citizen, 22 January 2014, https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-watch/canada-leading-effort-on-development-of-nato-standard-to-allow-aircraft-from-different-nations-to-use-precision-guided-munitions/. 191 The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Air-to-Ground Precision Guided Munition Factsheet,” October 2020, https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2020/10/pdf/2010-factsheet-a2g-pgm.pdf (accessed 3 June 2021). 192 Ibid. 193 Ibid.

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to target with their hypersonic ARMs (anti-radiation missiles). The aircraft are in and out of the most lethal threat envelopes in minutes and one of the JFSC’s joint fires observer (JFOs) confirms the enemy fire team has been neutralized.194

In a perfect world, where all the various links can connect weapons systems across all domains and process requests in real-time, this system should allow for the rapid response of attack aviation, and the precision brought about by PGMs. However, warfare is never this perfect, something the authors of this scenario admit. Not only will adversaries continue to attempt to sever data and communication links, but often requests for such support will have to be assessed against the other possible targets available.

Something noted by many senior RCAF officers involved in the coalition operation against Daesh, “Operation Inherent Resolve,” was that air power was too frequently used as “flying artillery,” when it was capable of much more.195 As the concept of Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) evolves into joint all domain operations (JADO), air power professionals will have to engage strongly to ensure air power of all types, but attack aviation in particular, retains its flexibility.

4.7 Air Mobility

One of the key uses of air power has been moving supplies, troops to and casualties from operational areas. Indeed, most air forces now view it as a core capability, a critical component of a balanced air force. It enables the global deployment of military power and with its characteristics of speed and responsiveness, and is a fundamental enabler for surface manoeuvre. Indeed, it is often a capability of first choice by political leadership in a time of crisis, as demonstrated repeatedly in recent years.196

In NATO’s air power strategy, air mobility supports all of NATO’s core tasks, and yet it is another capability area suffering from an acute shortage of capacity.197 The functions of air mobility “include the deployment, sustainment, relocation, and recovery of military or civilian personnel and materiel, including those engaged in Special Operations.”198

194 Daniel Cochran, André Haider, Panagiotis Stathopoulos, “Reshaping Close Support: Transitioning from Close Air Support to Close Joint Support,” Joint Air Power Competence Centre, June 2020, 1–2, https://www.japcc.org/wp-content/uploads/JAPCC_CAS_2020_screen.pdf (accessed 3 June 2021). 195 This trend was identified by many senior RCAF and allied personnel interviewed for their perspectives on air power employment. See Brad W. Gladman, “Air Power Employment in Operation INHERENT RESOLVE: A Preliminary Assessment,” Defence Research and Development Canada, Scientific Letter DRDC-RDDC-2017-L041, 16 February 2017, 4. 196 One example is the Canadian government’s provision of airlift support from France to Bamako, Mali from January to March 2013. In support of France’s operation SERVAL, a military intervention in Mali to combat an Islamic insurgency, the RCAF contributed one CC-177 Globemaster III aircraft from 429 Transport Squadron and traffic technicians from 2 Air Movements Squadron. See “Support to French operations in Mali,” http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/operations-abroad/support-mali.page (accessed 28 February 2018). 197 That assessment is made in the context of US global interests. Should a conflict occur in Europe with NATO alone, it is likely (but not a certainty) that additional capacity from the US would be forthcoming. For a discussion of the strategic airlift gap see Lee Hages, “Europe’s Strategic Airlift Gap: Quantifying the Capability Gap and Measuring Solutions,” Joint Air Power Competence Centre Journal, 19 (2014), 21. 198 “NATO’s Joint Air Power Strategy,” 4.

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In order to overcome capacity issues, NATO members have pooled their resources to charter aircraft to “give the Alliance the capability to transport troops, equipment and supplies across the globe.”199 While access to chartered aircraft in a war is far from certain, there are currently two initiatives seeking to provide NATO with strategic airlift capabilities—the Strategic Airlift International Solution (SALIS) and the Strategic Airlift Capability (SAC). SALIS is a consortium of nine NATO nations (Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia) who have signed a contract with Antonov Logistics Salis to provide assured access to strategic airlift capabilities.200

The SAC initiative is based around the Heavy Airlift Wing based at Pápa Air Base, Hungary, which operates three C-17 Globemaster III aircraft.201 Ten NATO member nations (Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovenia and the United States) and two NATO partner nations (Sweden and Finland) to use the aircraft for the following priorities:

1. Employment or deployment of forces in support of NATO, EU or UN military operations.

2. Response to actual or anticipated armed conflict or crisis where a SAC nation is involved.

3. National emergencies in direct support of a SAC nations’ citizens.

4. National support of NATO, EU, or UN operations not covered in No.1.

5. National support of humanitarian operations.

6. Other national requirements.202

Obviously, there is the potential for conflicting interests to cause confusion should a conflict threaten a NATO member nation as well as a partner nation, which is one of the potential problems with such arrangements, but the memorandum of understanding (MOU) governing the arrangements includes measures to address such conflicts.203

The main way of meeting air mobility requirements remains the assignment of capabilities to NATO from its member nations. Currently, there are national procurement programmes in place in many NATO nations to improve their own airlift capabilities. Seven NATO nations are, for example, acquiring 180 Airbus A400M aircraft, as well as the purchase by Canada and the UK of the C-17 Globemaster III. Those capabilities would prove of immense value in responding quickly to crises or contingencies in Europe involving NATO. Facilitating the movement of air mobility aircraft to and across Europe in such crises is NATO’s Rapid Air Mobility (RAM) initiative.204 This initiative is part of a wider mobility effort to improve the readiness and speed of deployment of NATO forces by providing air mobility aircraft with priority handling by the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation (EUROCONTROL). The authority

199 NATO, “Strategic airlift,” 13 October 2020, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_50107.htm (accessed 6 January 2021). 200 Ibid. 201 “Heavy Airlift Wing,” https://www.sacprogram.org/en/Pages/Heavy-Airlift-Wing.aspx (accessed 6 January 2021). 202 Ibid. 203 Ibid. 204 NATO, “Rapid Air Mobility,” 27 April 2020, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_175432.htm (accessed 6 January 2021).

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to activate and run RAM operationally belongs to the Supreme Allied Command Europe (SACEUR), with political oversight from the North Atlantic Council.205

4.8 Air-to-Air Refuelling—The Multi-Role Tanker Transport Capability

In March 2012, the EU Defence Ministers declared air-to-air refuelling a critical capability shortfall. Only seven EU member states had deployable tanker aircraft, and that capability was delivered by twelve different aircraft types.206 The remainder rely heavily on the US to provide air-to-air refuelling (AAR), something less certain given US global interests. This is a capability shortfall also identified by NATO.

As a direct result of the operations over Libya in 2011, operation UNIFIED PROTECTOR, it was agreed at the 2012 NATO Summit that the European Defence Agency (EDA) would lead efforts to address the shortfall of air-to-air refuelling (AAR) capacity, and reduce the reliance on US capabilities.207 The initiative led the EDA to select the Airbus A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport Capability (MRTT-C) aircraft, a heavily modified Airbus A330 airliner. By November 2012, a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for two aircraft with an additional five options was signed by Luxembourg and the Netherlands, and a contract for two aircraft followed shortly. In June of 2017, Germany and Norway joined the MOU and the five options became firm orders, for a total of seven aircraft with the possibility of another four. In early 2018, Belgium joined the MOU, bringing the total orders to eight with three options still available. In October 2019, the Czech Republic joined the MOU, but no additional orders have been placed.208 The aircraft are owned by NATO and managed by the NATO Support and Procurement Agency with the support of the Organization for Joint Armament Cooperation.209

The first MRTT-C aircraft was delivered in June 2020, with an expected final delivery of all eight aircraft in 2023. The aircraft are operated by a multinational unit of military personal from the participating countries, with a Main Operating Base in Eindhoven and a Forward Operating Base in Cologne-Wahn Germany.210 The MRTT-C, also operated by the RAAF as the KC-30A and by the RAF has the benefit of being able to refuel through a boom as well as a “probe and drogue” system.211 NATO has “a standardised valve system to ensure aircraft across the Alliance can be refuelled.”212 The RCAF should investigate this platform for the strategic air-to-air tanker-transport capability called for in SSE to replace the CC-150 Polaris.213 Not only is there tremendous value in a common airframe shared with both NATO allies and the RAAF, but also in an AAR capability that can refuel through both a boom and probe and drogue systems.

205 Ibid. 206 Gustavo Cicconardi, “First Collective AAR Clearance Trial: An Outstanding Best Practice for Truly Collective Development,” Joint Air Power Competence Centre Journal, 19 (2014), 11. 207 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Multi Role Tanker Transport Capability (MRTT-C),” May 2020, 1. 208 Ibid. 209 NATO, “First aircraft of NATO’s future multi-role tanker transport fleet lands at Eindhoven airbase,” 30 June 2020, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_176992.htm?selectedLocale=en (accessed 19 November 2020). 210 Ibid. 211 It is important to note that the RAF does not own its aircraft, see Gladman, “The Future of Allied Air Power: The Royal Air Force,” 18. 212 “Multi Role Tanker Transport Capability (MRTT-C),” 2. 213 Department of National Defence, “Strong, Secure, Engaged,” 39.

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The value of AAR to long-range missions is obvious. Moreover, the aircraft can assist in response to crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic by moving medical supplies and conducting medical evacuations. The pooling of resources by six NATO nations, with support from both the European Union and NATO, is “an example of effective cooperation between the two organisations when delivering critical capabilities for their members.” It also sends a clear message to the US, which has recently pressed NATO members to increase defence spending, by demonstrating a clear commitment “to a fairer transatlantic burden-sharing at NATO.”214

While this effort will do something to ease US pressure on NATO, and address a NATO transport and AAR capacity gap, future thinking about the AAR capability includes novel concepts like one tactical fighter refuelling another through “the so called buddy-buddy refuelling” system. However, this sort of refuelling is currently difficult and susceptible to bad weather. To combat these and other problems, automated AAR (known as A3R) systems are being developed which also may allow RPAS to conduct AAR.215 This may be beyond the RCAF’s plan to acquire RPAS, but it will be important to explore options to enable the RCAF to conduct such operations should the capability be developed.

4.9 Joint ISR

The ability to see over the next hill or across the electromagnetic spectrum has long been a central feature of warfare. In the modern context, the volume of information collected by the various ISR systems poses significant problems to making sense of it and acting on the relevant pieces. Doing so requires a robust ability to direct, collect, process and assess, and finally disseminate intelligence to commanders at all levels in a timely manner. Despite the challenge doing so poses, its importance in modern warfare is difficult to exaggerate. It provides the ability to gain and maintain strategic and situational awareness to enable informed decision-making. NATO air power contributes to the picture produced by JISR through specific platforms and the supporting system of systems to provide what decision-makers require from the strategic to the tactical levels.

It is fundamental to gain and maintain situational and strategic awareness in order to support proactive decision-making, increased flexibility, and effectiveness. JAP’s continuous contribution to JISR allows for the rapid collection of information and the awareness and understanding necessary for decision-making, planning, preparation and execution of operations at all levels.216

Beginning in the early 1990s, NATO established a Joint Capability Group on ISR through its air force armaments group to find methods to link its various air and ground ISR assets. This effort has continued in the NATO ISR Interoperability Architecture (NIIA) that outlines a high-level architecture that provides both a context and a structure for interoperability initiatives for the manned and unmanned aircraft systems that contribute to the Joint ISR enterprise.217 Complementing these efforts has been a feasibility study

214 NATO, “First aircraft of NATO’s future multi-role tanker transport fleet lands at Eindhoven airbase.” 215 “Multi Role Tanker Transport Capability (MRTT-C),” 2. 216 “NATO’s Joint Air Power Strategy,” 4. 217 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “NATO modernises standard architecture for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance,” (29 January 2018), https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_21539.htm (accessed 8 December 2020).

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looking at the establishment of creating a Joint ISR unit as either a multinational arrangement or a NATO procured and operated capability.218

4.10 Manned ISR

The evolution of technology has seen a blurring of the lines between once very distinct bomber, fighter, airlift, tanker, and ISR platforms. The history of air power shows that pilots flying fighters and bombers have typically contributed to ISR, through general reconnaissance of enemy movements and target selection, and new sensors have further enhanced this long history.219 Moreover, tactical and strategic airlift aircraft and aerial refuelling tankers have been configured recently for an ISR role, and to serve as communication nodes.220 The need for persistent aerial surveillance to keep pace with enemy movements and to track sometimes fleeting targets will remain of prime importance in conflict across the spectrum; so too will be the ability to process and communicate the results of that surveillance to enable reconnaissance and action. Those requirements are as old as air power itself.221

One platform not originally designed for an ISR role which can nonetheless contribute to the Joint ISR mission is the E-3A AWACS. Its “organic sensors such as Air-to-Surface Surveillance Radar and electronic support measures (ESM)” enable it to provide both maritime and ground surveillance.222

4.11 Unmanned ISR

The use of unmanned aircraft has a long history. The first pilotless vehicles were developed in the US and Britain during the First World War. The British ‘Aerial Target’ and the US aerial torpedo known as the “Kettering Bug” were tested during the war but not used operationally.223 In the inter-war period, development continued with both the British and Americans developing radio controlled aircraft mainly for anti-aircraft gunnery training. During the Second World War both Germany, with its V-1, and the US, with its modified B-17 Flying Fortresses packed with explosives, sought to use unmanned aerial vehicles. This trend continued after the war, with the first reconnaissance RPAS developed by US Army, followed by the USAF’s AQM-34 which “flew tens of thousands of missions over North Vietnam, parts of China, and even the Soviet Union, obviating the risk posed by manned reconnaissance flights.”224 The evolution of

218 Joachim Wundrak, “NATO/Multinational Joint Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Unit: A Feasibility Study,” Joint Air Power Competence Centre, (2015), https://www.japcc.org/wp-content/uploads/JAPCC_MJISRU_web.pdf#:~:text=NATO%E2%80%99s%20Intelligence%2C%20Surveillance%20and%20Reconnaissance%20%28ISR%29%20capability%20and,the%20entailed%20Processing%2C%20Exploitation%20and%20Dissemination%20%28PED%29%20processes (accessed 9 December 2020). 219 See Brad Gladman, “Intelligence and Anglo-American Air Support in World War Two.” 220 This is the so-called “smart tanker” concept that is being extended to the next generation tanker. See Sandra I. Erwin, “Air Force Takes Steps Toward ‘Smart’ Tanker,” National Defense, June 2003,” https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2003/6/1/2003june-air-force-takes-steps-toward-smart-tanker, (accessed 11 December 2020). 221 See Brad Gladman, “Intelligence and Anglo-American Air Support in World War Two.” 222 Joachim Wundrak, “NATO/Multinational Joint Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Unit,” 15. 223 Imperial War Museum, “A Brief History of Drones,” https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/a-brief-history-of-drones (accessed 10 December 2020). 224 Wundrak, NATO/Multinational Joint Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Unit,” 5.

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technology in the 1980s saw the development of lighter and smaller RPAS like the RQ-2 Pioneer that was employed effectively in the 1991 Gulf War.225

Bringing the considerable national experience of both Britain and the US with RPAS to the alliance, NATO has long recognised their importance in the delivery of airborne ISR.226 The operation “Allied Force” in response to Serbian actions in Kosovo in violation of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1199,227 saw the first large-scale use, and perhaps misuse, of RPAS in a NATO context. According to one USAF officer, during this campaign Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Wesley Clark, was reported to have been willing to take action on what he viewed on a terminal in his office that showed what Predator RPAS were seeing. Once, he viewed “three vehicles he thought tanks, he picked up a telephone, called the joint forces air component commander, and directed that those tanks be destroyed. With a single call, based on incomplete information, all the levels of war, from strategic to tactical, had been short-circuited.”228

This worrying trend of very senior military and political leadership has not lessened over time, with recent non-NATO operations against Daesh in Iraq and Syria equally impacted by its effects.229 As John Ferris has written, the near real-time transmission imagery from RPAS has been

crack cocaine for national military and political leaders, convinced they can direct a strike within seconds against targets 10,000 miles away; and then take another hit, and deliver a further blow. The combination of these sources and strike leads those folk to imagine themselves political surgeons wielding a military scalpel. In war, alas, one operates with a battleaxe and without a medical licence, in the dark on a patient who is trying to amputate your arm, while some of your colleagues pull at your hand.230

While none of these factors is expected to diminish, the value of RPAS to both ISR and strike operations is clear and likely only to increase. NATO has long recognised this trend, and has moved to develop this capability to contribute to Joint ISR.

Originating from the Defence Planning Committee in the early 1990s, the Alliance ground surveillance (AGS) programme was designed to provide near real-time ground surveillance data to the Alliance that included both an airborne and ground-based system of sensors that were connected through high-performance data links.231 The AGS programme gained traction in 1995 after NATO Defence

225 John F. Keane and Stephen S. Carr, “A Brief History of Early Unmanned Aircraft,” Johns Hopkins APL Technical Digest, 32:3 (2013), 569. 226 Friedrich Wilhelm Ploeger, “Strategic Concept of Employment for Unmanned Aircraft Systems in NATO,” Joint Air Power Competence Centre (January 2010). 227 United Nations Security Council, “Resolution 1199 (1998),” (23 September 1998), http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/doc/1199 (accessed 10 December 2020). 228 John Ferris, “Netcentric Warfare, C4ISR and Information Operations: Towards a Revolution in Military Intelligence?,” Intelligence and National Security, 19:2 (Summer 2004), 220–221. 229 Brad Gladman, “Air Power Employment in Operation INHERENT RESOLVE: A Preliminary Assessment,” DRDC-RDDC-2017-L041 (2017), 9. 230 John Ferris, “Targeting, Air Intelligence and Strike Warfare: Theory and Practice, Part II,” Royal Canadian Air Force Journal, 8:1 (Winter 2019), 11. 231 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS),” (25 November 2019), https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_48892.htm (accessed 8 December 2020).

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Ministers agreed that “the Alliance should pursue work on a minimum essential NATO-owned and operated core capability supplemented by interoperable national assets.”232

The initial plans for the airborne part of this system of systems included a combination of manned and unmanned aircraft. In 2004, for example, the unmanned Global Hawk RPAS was to be complemented with an Airbus A321 manned aircraft, both equipped with versions of the Transatlantic Cooperative AGS Radar (TCAR).233 In 2007, the reality of declining defence budgets forced a reconsideration of the mixed-fleet approach, and the airborne portion of the AGS became what would be designated the AGS NATO RQ-4D, which is a high altitude long endurance RPAS based on the USAF Block 40 Global Hawk. 234 This RPAS is equipped with “state-of-the-art multi-platform radar technology insertion program (MP-RTIP) ground surveillance radar sensor, as well as an extensive suite of line-of-sight and beyond-line-of-sight, long-range, wideband data links.”235 A group of fifteen alliance members have agreed to acquire the AGS system, and NATO will operate and maintain those systems on behalf of all NATO members.236 Just as the NATO E-3A AWACS serves as the alliance’s “eyes in the sky,” the AGS will provide essential intelligence on what is happening on the surface.

4.12 Maritime Patrol and Anti-Submarine Warfare

The resurgence of the Russian Federation Navy described earlier has caused NATO to focus attention on re-establishing its once formidable capabilities in anti-submarine warfare (ASW) in order to maintain the advantage of freedom of movement in the maritime domain. Initial assessments, as NATO Maritime Command (MARCOM) began to seek additional maritime patrol aircraft (MPA) capable of ASW to counter Russian submarine activity and found the cupboard bare, were sufficiently bleak to cause NATO to identify ASW as a crucial focus area at both the 2014 Wales and 2016 Warsaw summits.237 Part of the explanation for the lack of resources available for ASW was the change in focus, post-Cold War, to re-equipping MPA to provide overland ISR. Indeed, although the RCAF has maintained an ASW role for its CP-140 Aurora aircraft, it began to modify those aircraft to an overland ISR role as early as 2006.238 This is a by-product of assessments of the reduction in Russian submarine activity in the North Atlantic as being the “new normal,” and that naval conflict between states was increasingly unlikely.239 In its place would be conflict with Islamist insurgents and terrorists, where an overland ISR capable aircraft would be of particular value.

232 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Final communiqué,” (29 November 1995), https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_24729.htm?selectedLocale=en (accessed 10 December 2020), paragraph 20. 233 NATO, “Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS).” 234 Ibid. 235 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Alliance Ground Surveillance Fact Sheet,” (July 2016), https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2016_07/20160627_1607-factsheet-ags-en.pdf (accessed 10 December 2020). 236 NATO, “Alliance Ground Surveillance (AGS).” Those NATO members do not include Canada. 237 William A. Perkins, “Unmanned Air Systems in NATO Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW): Potential Future Applications and Concepts,” https://www.japcc.org/unmanned-air-systems-in-nato-anti-submarine-warfare-asw/ (accessed 19 November 2020), 1. 238 Iain Huddleston, “Changing with the Times: The Evolution of Canada’s CP-140 Aurora,” Royal Canadian Air Force Journal, 5:1 (Winter 2016), 45. 239 Rolf Tamnes, “The Significance of the North Atlantic and the Norwegian Contribution,” in John Andreas Olsen, ed. NATO and the North Atlantic (London: Royal United Services Institution, 2017), 17–18; Ben Lombardi, “The Future Maritime Operating Environment and the Role of Naval Power,” Defence Research and Development Canada, Scientific Report DRDC-RDDC-2016-R085 (May 2016), 15.

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States like Russia and China were not idle with the Western focus on the Middle East and that style of warfare. As NATO refocuses on Russia and what it sees as a disturbing pattern of behaviour, which has reinforced the idea of collective defence and the need for credible nuclear and conventional deterrence measures, it has drawn attention to critical capability shortfalls.240 One of those deficiencies is sufficient numbers of MPA capable of ASW.

In 2016, the Alliance possessed 120 fewer MPAs than it did at the end of the Cold War, and many of those have been converted to an overland ISR capability.241 The ratio of NATO MPA to submarines has fallen from 1.8:1 to 1:2, something made more concerning since while “MPAs are certainly expensive assets, they cannot be replaced solely by a layered federated system of sensors…Indeed, to maintain 24-hour coverage of a single submarine, a country needs about seven to eight MPAs.”242 Moreover, the majority of Allied MPAs are approaching the end of their operational lives, with many already considering replacement capabilities.

On 15 February 2018, Canada and Poland joined a NATO sponsored multinational effort, already consisting of Spain, Italy, Greece, Germany, France, and Turkey, to develop replacement capabilities to provide “maritime anti-submarine and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.”243 The eight nations in this Maritime Multi Mission Aircraft project (M3A), which began with a first step taken by France and Germany through the development of a Maritime Airborne Warfare System (MAWS), set a shared start point for future development with a common set of requirements.244

Those replacement capabilities likely will include both manned and unmanned aircraft, and it should be noted that there is considerable advantage in a common platform approach. Unmanned systems have advantages over manned platforms, including their expendability in degraded or denied environments, but also a potential lower unit cost than manned platforms, a higher proportion of the platform dedicated to payload, as well as its ease of modularity. More importantly, however, is their ability to conduct

certain time consuming functions, such as loitering in a designated search area to monitor the ocean and conduct initial detection of a submarine moving through the area. This specific function has consumed a significant amount of the life-span of manned systems, such as the P-3 Orion series Maritime Patrol Aircraft (MPA), yet remains the most critical link in the ASW kill chain, as it is hard to engage a submarine with a torpedo if you have not yet determined its location.245

240 Jens Stoltenberg, “Adapting to a changed security environment,” Speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 27 May 2015, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_120166.htm (accessed 20 November 2020). 241 William Perkins, “Alliance Airborne Anti-Submarine Warfare: A Forecast for Maritime Air ASW in the Future Operational Environment,” Joint Air Power Competence Centre (2016), https://www.japcc.org/wp-content/uploads/A-Forecast-for-Maritime-Air-ASW-in-the-Future-Operational-Environment.pdf (accessed 23 November 2020). 242 Leona Alleslev, “NATO Anti-Submarine Warfare: Rebuilding Capbility, Preparing for the Future,” NATO Science and Technology Committee Special Report, 150 STC 19E rev.1, (October 2019), 14. 243 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Canada and Poland join six NATO Allies in developing next-generation maritime multi mission aircraft,” (15 February 2018), https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_152066.htm (accessed 8 December 2020). 244 North Atlantic Treaty Organization, “Multinational capability cooperation,” (22 October 2020), 4–5. 245 William A. Perkins, “Unmanned Air Systems in NATO Anti-Submarine Warfare,” 2.

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Unmanned systems offer, with sensors appropriate to the ASW mission, the advantages of extended duration and sensor coverage, and the potential for data fusion and dissemination early in the submarine detection and engagement process. The development of technology “for swarming systems as well as potential developments in a reliable high-bandwidth optical link capability make the future of unmanned systems a viable near-term solution for aiding in the ASW mission.”246 In the short-term, while there are technical difficulties with the bandwidth required to process the acoustic data, solutions are being sought and the “persistent multi-sensor coverage provided by a single UAS can then cue in a manned system to conduct the next level of submarine prosecution, be it continued tracking or engagement with torpedoes.”247

While NATO has acknowledged that such maritime unmanned systems are increasingly important “to secure NATO’s ability to actively respond [sic] to threats in the maritime area” Canada has so far not participated in the multinational Maritime Unmanned Systems (MUS) initiative that aims to develop “solutions including, but not limited to, systems for detecting and clearing mines, and tracking submarines.”248 This is something worthy of consideration given the SSE commitment to acquire a fleet of remotely piloted aircraft systems, including at least a fleet of medium altitude RPAS.249 These systems would enhance the maritime patrol and ASW capabilities of the current and planned maritime patrol aircraft.

Being part of the NATO sponsored M3A project brings with it the likelihood of the selection of a common platform through which the desired capabilities are delivered. While no decision has been made on which aircraft will replace the CP-140 Aurora, the requirement for “extended capabilities” limits the options. There is tremendous value in selecting a single platform common across the air forces of Canada’s key allies, and it must be noted that the RAF, RAAF, and United States Navy all operate the Boeing P-8 Poseidon.250

4.13 Rotary Wing Aviation

Another of the capability requirements identified first in the Wales summit of 2014 was rotary wing aviation, where it was identified that the current military helicopter fleets in many NATO nations will need to be replaced around the 2030 timeframe.251 This was echoed in 2015 by a Bilateral Strategic Command (Bi-SC) report on Joint Air Power capability requirements that further specified the critical requirement for rotary wing aviation.252 Flowing from these requirements is a need for NATO to “formulate a concept for the future employment of rotary wing assets” that should guide NATO nations towards “a widely harmonized helicopter development programme.”253

Like many of the capabilities already discussed, the mix of aircraft types that will comprise the Battlefield Rotorcraft Capability (BRC) will be advanced new generation aircraft operating with less capable “legacy”

246 Ibid., 5. 247 Ibid., 2. 248 NATO, “Multinational capability cooperation,” 5. 249 The Department of National Defence, “Strong, Secure, Engaged,” 15 and 39. 250 Gladman, “The Future of Allied Air Power: the Royal Air Force,” 27; Gladman, “The Future of Allied Air Power: The Royal Australian Air Force,” 19–20. 251 Miklos Szabo, “The Future NATO Rotorcraft Force: Capability Requirements through 2030 and Beyond,” Joint Air Power Competence Centre Journal, 23 (2016), 57. 252 Ibid. 253 Ibid., 58.

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aircraft. At the same time, some authors expect an increase in the ratio of rotary-wing RPAS to crew-piloted aircraft. Thinking around the Future Battlefield Rotorcraft Capability (FBRC) is focused on how to operate this range of aircraft to deliver the desired effects. This is further complicated by the likely increased speed, range, and weapons the next generation rotary wing aircraft will be able to use. Several questions quickly emerge from these possibilities. First is how they will be operated, whether they will be manned, remotely piloted, or autonomous, whether they will comprise smaller numbers of durable types or larger numbers of disposable assets? Similarly, with enhanced performance and weapon types carried what are the corresponding command and control requirements to better integrate their effects into the air campaign? The exploration of these questions is still in its infancy, but some insights relevant to future RCAF FD are possible even at this stage.

There are a number of NATO organisations exploring helicopter capability development with which the RCAF should engage. These include

the Science and Technology Organisation, Applied Vehicle Technology Panel, the NATO Army Armaments Group—Joint Capability Group Vertical Lift, the NATO Standardization Office’s helicopter related working groups and panels. And…the NATO Helicopter Design and Development Production and Logistics Management Agency.254

Of particular importance was the launch, by France, Greece, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom, of a multinational project on the Next Generation Rotorcraft capabilities, one of NATO’s high visibility projects (HVP).255 This effort aims to develop solutions to the anticipated end of life cycle of medium, multi-role helicopter capabilities in the 2035–2040 period.256 The work of these organisations, as well as those of key partner nations, academia, and industry, are important sources of information for RCAF force and concept development to ensure the RCAF rotary wing capabilities remain interoperable and at the forefront of alliance air power thinking.

To survive in the hostile environments anticipated, current NATO thinking suggests that “every single rotorcraft will need to be equipped with a combination of passive and active defensive systems incorporated in a purely military platform design aimed at maximum autonomy and survivability.”257 With the proliferation of a variety of weapons systems like rocket propelled grenades (RPG), man-portable air defence systems (MANPADS), and SAMs, every helicopter should have a “a state-of-the-art and fully autonomous ‘Defensive Aids Suite’ (DAS) providing the capability to detect threats at a very early stage and eliminate them by either non-kinetic or kinetic means.”258 The DAS should be comprised of sensors able to detect enemy systems based on their electro-magnetic and infrared signatures and, in addition to traditional chaff and flare systems, decoys and low-energy lasers to confuse or destroy those launched weapons.

Options for employing the FBRC include teaming with RPAS with extended loiter times and sophisticated sensors and weapons, or eventually “fully autonomous weapon systems able to select and engage targets

254 Ibid., 60. 255 NATO, “Five nations join forces to develop the Next Generation of Medium Multi-Role Helicopters,” 19 November 2020, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_178952.htm?selectedLocale=en (accessed 3 June 2021). 256 Ibid. 257 Wim Schoepen, “Future Battlefield Rotorcraft Capability: Operating in the Land and Littoral Environment Anno 2035,” Joint Air Power Competence Centre Journal, 24 (2017), 31. 258 Ibid.

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without human intervention.”259 As the speed and weapons available to the FBRC advance, some thought will have to be given to their C2 arrangements to better integrate their effects into campaign planning. This will be especially so when these aircraft are capable of carrying and effectively employing long-range and high-speed munitions. All of these developments should be of interest to RCAF FD, and emphasis should be placed on exploring their development to define appropriate requirements for the future RCAF rotary wing capabilities.

259 Ibid., 32.

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5 Effective Air Power in the Context of Strategy—Joint All Domain Operations

The US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, once asked “What’s after joint?” While one might debate whether the answer should have been “the ability to conduct effective joint warfare against capable opponents,” the answer has recently become “Joint All Domain Operations” (JADO).260 From an alliance perspective, how NATO would like its member nations to think about the future of air power is one thing, but ultimately those capabilities must be stitched together into a whole greater than the sum of those parts. In an attempt to redefine military operations in response to adversaries with capable militaries, the US is pursuing the JADO concept and NATO is following their lead. Yet a first step should be a commonly understood and accepted strategic concept that outlines a framework that will pit alliance strengths against adversary weaknesses.

A coherent strategic concept is an important first step in countering the three advantages Russia has exploited over NATO in its recent campaign of operations short of armed conflict—mobility and speed of operations; its consistency in attaining its objectives; and the exploitation of the different strategic interests and imperatives of members in an expanded NATO.261 A clear strategic concept will set the stage for appropriate alliance strategies, including an air power strategy that brings together and sharpens statements on how alliance air power will be employed to meet the aims of the strategic concept. By focusing attention on specific adversary actions and how those will be countered, including its operations in the so-called gray zone short of armed conflict, such a concept will set the “basic parameters for more specific policies and operations” and leverage “the strengths of democratic and liberal states against the weaknesses of autocratic ones.”262 It is an important way to shape the application of NATO air power in a precise manner. As stated previously, a “failure to think and behave strategically is near certain to be fatal for the proper employment of airpower.”263

How that air power will be applied should not be revolutionary in nature. Indeed, it will be important to extend the concept of air power employment to meet MDO requirements, rather than abandoning those principles altogether. As the MDO concept advances, it will be important for air power professionals to prevent the growing tendency for air power to be viewed only as flying artillery.264 This trend observed in Iraq and Syria against Daesh has been described as a “whack-a-mole” strategy where air power was used in a close air support role with the missing piece being deep interdiction against supplies of ammunition

260 This concept originated as Multi-Domain Operations (MDO), but it is now referred to as Joint All Domain Operations. See “NATO JADO: A Comprehensive Approach to Joint All-Domain Operations in a Combined Environment,” Joint Air Power Competence Centre, https://www.japcc.org/wp-content/uploads/NATO-Joint-All-Domain-Operations.pdf (accessed 15 March 2021). 261 Tyler Wesley, “Multi-Domain Operations and Lessons from NSC 68 in the Competitive Space: A Framework for NATO and Western Democracies for Defence Against Russia,” The Royal United Services Institution Journal, 165:4 (June 2020), https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03071847.2020.1811140?needAccess=true (accessed 8 January 2021), 25. 262 Ibid., 29. 263 Colin S. Gray, “The Airpower Advantage in Future Warfare: The Need for Strategy” (Maxwell AFB: Airpower Research Institute, 2007), 2–3. 264 Gladman, “Air Power Employment in Operation INHERENT RESOLVE: A Preliminary Assessment,” 4.

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and fuel, the two critical elements Daesh needed to continue fighting.265 Air power scholar Benjamin Lambeth has echoed this sentiment by writing that air power’s subjugation to the will of ground forces has

had the pernicious effect of inclining many younger Air Force Airmen who have been exposed to no other form of operational commitment during their relatively short time in the ranks to infer from their limited experience that their service’s main purpose is to support land warfare by US Army and Marine Corps combatants.266

Air power has always been capable of far more than this, something enabled by the principle of centralized control and decentralized execution, and it will remain imperative that air force personnel engage in the evolution of the MDO concept to ensure the flexibility of air power—perhaps its greatest advantage in modern warfare—remains intact.

265 Ibid., 16. 266 Benjamin S. Lambeth, “Foreword to Colin Gray,” Air Power for Strategic Effect (Maxwell AFB: Air University Press, 2012), ix.

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6 Conclusion

This detailed analysis into NATO strategic thinking and where it is leading the alliance’s capability requirements has direct implications for the RCAF, but also for the joint force development and Canadian policy development communities. That said, this report is part of a series and needs to be considered with the other three reports. Even a comprehensive understanding of the air power thinking of one of Canada’s core alliances, one in which Canada was an original member and played a significant role in its development, is an insufficient base upon which to draw recommendations for Canadian defence policy and military force development. Canada has interests outside of Europe and NATO’s traditional area of responsibility, although admittedly that area has expanded in the post-911 world. It is for this reason that the larger study began with an analysis of the USAF, and this study’s conclusions will emphasise its development in areas where Canada has shared interests. Those include NORAD and the North American context, through to shared interests with NATO, something that will likely receive new attention and emphasis from President Biden.267 Despite this study’s analysis needing to be brought together, which will be this project’s next step, there are some preliminary and provisional recommendations which can be made from this look at NATO air power.

There are some direct implications for the RCAF from NATO concept development, and the alliance’s identification of key capability shortfalls. These areas align with the four main roles identified in the JAPS—control of the air, attack, air mobility, and contribution to the ISR system of systems. The implications of each of these should be considered within the context of Canada’s commitment to NATO, as well as its re-emphasis on the defence of Canada and North America.

In terms of “control of the air,” the RCAF needs a balanced set of manned and unmanned aircraft able to monitor and secure Canada’s vast airspace, while defining a role for its 88 advanced fighter aircraft to enhance the defence of North America through NORAD, and provide a credible contribution to NATO operations. This could take the form of aircraft capable of penetrating sophisticated IADS to conduct precise attacks on enemy air defences, through advanced stand-off weapons that enable required precision from a distance, or both with two separate fleets. The requirements for the defence of Canada and North America may be the deciding factor.

The ability to gather intelligence to build understanding and locate targets, as well as assess the effects of attack from the air has always been critical to air operations, and will remain so. Both manned and unmanned ISR platforms are key to a balanced air force, and the Strong, Secure, Engaged defence policy directs the RCAF to invest in these capabilities.268 How that investment will be made should be shaped in part with NATO thinking and requirements in mind. So too will its thinking on the requirements for the RCAF’s Canadian Multi-Mission Aircraft (CMMA), its replacement fighter fleet, and its aerial refueling aircraft, all of which should be equipped to contribute to the ISR system. NATO requirements for space systems should also be considered in the exploration of options to replace the current radar satellite (RADARSAT) system to improve situational awareness of Canadian territory, and to develop a space surveillance capability.269

267 Gladman, The future of allied air power: the United States Air Force. 268 The Department of National Defence, Strong, Secure, Engaged, 39. 269 Ibid.

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Throughout the history of aerial operations, ISR has been an essential enabler of action from the air. Often that action takes the form of kinetic effects delivered from the air. Another key area of capability for a balanced air force is a credible form of aerial attack all types of operations including North American air defence. A combination of armed RPAS and the acquisition of 88 advanced fighter aircraft will provide this capability for use in all types of operations and also North American air defence. The decision on which aircraft will be purchased for these roles has yet to be made, but some lessons from the ongoing operations in Europe would be of value. Many NATO nations understand the need to make a meaningful contribution to confronting advanced A2/AD environments and air forces with their own advanced capabilities, and a growing number are committed to purchasing the F-35. As the United States Air Force pursues a range of new and sophisticated capabilities, including the F-35 and Next-Generation Strike Bomber, advanced and stealthy ISR capability, advanced cyberspace defence and attack, and increases its emphasis on stand-off and long-range weapon systems while maintaining stand-in resilience,270 those nations lacking such capabilities may find themselves a liability to future coalitions. The pursuit of so-called “game-changing technologies” like hypersonic missiles, directed energy weapons, nanotechnologies, and the next cohort of unmanned and autonomous systems will only intensify this condition.271 Similar to considerations for “control of the air,” the RCAF should consider capabilities to enable the penetration of IADS to conduct precise strikes, or the emphasis on long-range weapons to enable that precision at a distance. These factors should form the context around which the decision on which advanced fighter, as well as potentially armed RPAS, to procure for the RCAF. It is clear from the SSE defence policy that these issues are understood, and the experience of ongoing NATO operations in taking those decisions should be exploited.

Another key element of a balanced air force is its air mobility fleet, which often (but not in the case of the RCAF) includes aerial refueling. In terms of transport aircraft, the RCAF is in fairly good shape. Its recent acquisition of the CC-130J and the CC-177 Globemaster III, although it is clear that its fleet size of both should be investigated, will allow it to contribute effectively to NATO air mobility missions. The identification by NATO of the A330 aerial refueling aircraft is instructive for the RCAF, as the aircraft can refuel aircraft through its “probe and drogue” and “boom and receptacle” systems. The RCAF’s close interaction with the USAF in the air defence of the continent should suggest the need for both systems, and for flexibility in ongoing and future NATO operations.

In terms of how to take all this information and use it to determine specific capability requirements, the RCAF should continue using its Future Air Operating Concept (FAOC) as its most comprehensive vision with which to develop the RCAF of the future. It has just published its own FAOC, outlining three subordinate air operating concepts (Domestic, Continental, and Expeditionary), and eleven functional concepts.272 In order to define reasoned requirements for specific capabilities flowing from these concept areas, it is recommended that the RCAF conduct advanced war gaming and modelling and simulation of each of these functional areas as realistically as possible. Moreover, it is recommended that concept developers, with the support of operational research and strategic analysis, mine the rich data set of operational experience to supplement information drawn from the war games and other methods with which to test these concepts. In so doing, the experience of allies will be essential in developing reasonable

270 United States Air Force, America’s Air Force: A Call to the Future (Washington DC: Department of the Air Force, 2014), 14–16. 271 Ibid., 18–19. 272 Royal Canadian Air Force, Future Concept Directive Part 2: Future Air Operating Concept (Ottawa, 15 August 2016). This FAOC was drawn almost entirely from Brad Gladman, Bruce Chapman, and Andrew Billyard, The Development of a Future Air Operating Concept: Proposed Process and Example Defence Research and Development Canada, Scientific Report DRDC-RDDC-2017-R043, 2017), Annex B.

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scenarios, and in exploiting their experience. Doing so with the context provided by this study will assist with RCAF capability and concept development as it shapes the future RCAF.

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List of Symbols/Abbreviations/Acronyms/Initialisms

A2/AD anti-access / area denial

A2G-PGM air-to-ground precision guided munition

A3R Automated Air-to-Air Refuelling

AAR air-to-air refuelling

ADF

AEW&C

Australian Defence Force

Airborne Early Warning and Control

AGS Alliance ground surveillance

ALCM air-launched cruise missile

ARM anti-radiation missile

ASW anti-submarine warfare

AWACS airborne warning and control system

AWC Aerospace Warfare Centre

Bi-SC Bilateral Strategic Command

BRC Battlefield Rotorcraft Capability

BVR beyond visual range

C2 Command and Control

CAF Canadian Armed Forces

CC/DE centralized control / decentralized execution

CDE collateral damage estimate

CDO contested, degraded, and limited operating environments

CMMA Canadian Multi-Mission Aircraft

DAS Defensive Aids Suite

DND Department of National Defence

ECCT Enterprise Capability Collaboration Team

EDA European Defence Agency

ESM electronic support measures

EU European Union

EUROCONTROL European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation

EW Electronic Warfare

FAC(A) forward air controller (airborne)

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FAOC Future Air Operating Concept

FBRC Future Battlefield Rotorcraft Capability

FD force development

FVEY Five Eyes

GDP gross domestic product

HVP high visibility projects

IADS integrated air defence system

ICBM inter-continental ballistic missile

ISAF International Security Assistance Force

ISR intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance

JADC2

JADO

joint, all domain command and control

joint all domain operations

JAP Joint Air Power

JAPCC Joint Air Power Competence Centre

JAPS Joint Air Power Strategy

JASSM joint air-to-surface standoff missile

JCS Joint Chiefs of Staff

JCTD joint capability technology demonstration

JFC joint force commander

JFO joint fires observers

JFSC Joint Fires Support Coordinator

JISR Joint Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance

JSOW joint standoff weapon

LANCA Lightweight Affordable Novel combat Aircraft

LNPI Lead Nation Procurement Agency

LO low observability

LRA long-range aviation

M3A Maritime Multi Mission Aircraft

MANPADS man-portable air defence system

MARCOM Maritime Command

MAWS Maritime Airborne Warfare System

MDC2S Multi-Domain Command and Control System

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MDO Multi-Domain Operations

MENA Middle East and North Africa

MOU memorandum of understanding

MPA maritime patrol aircraft

MP-RTIP multi-platform radar technology insertion program

MRTT-C Multi-Role Tanker Transport Capability

MUS Maritime Unmanned Systems

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization

NIIA NATO ISR Interoperability Architecture

NORAD North American Aerospace Defense Command

NSPA NATO Support and Procurement Agency

OODA observe, orient, decide, act

PAK-DA Prospective Aviation Complex for Long-Range Aviation

PAK-FA Prospective Aviation Complex for Frontal Aviation

PGM precision-guided munition

RADARSAT radar satellite

RAF Royal Air Force

RAM Rapid Air Mobility

RAAF Royal Australian Air Force

RCAF Royal Canadian Air Force

RFAF Russian Federation Air Force

RNAD Russian National Air Defence

RPAS remotely piloted aircraft system

RPG rocket-propelled grenade

RSIP radar system improvement program

SAC Strategic Airlift Capability

SACEUR Supreme Allied Command Europe

SALIS Strategic Airlift International Solution

SAM surface-to-air missile

SATCOM satellite communication

SCRAMJET supersonic combusting ramjet technology

SDS Space Defence System

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SEAD suppression of enemy air defences

SSBN ship, submersible, ballistic, nuclear

SSE Strong, Secure, Engaged

TCAR Transatlantic Cooperative AGS Radar

UCAV Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle

UHF ultra-high frequency

UN United Nations

UNSC United Nations Security Council

US United States

USAF United States Air Force

VHF very high frequency

WWI World War 1

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DOCUMENT CONTROL DATA *Security markings for the title, authors, abstract and keywords must be entered when the document is sensitive

1. ORIGINATOR (Name and address of the organization preparing the document. A DRDC Centre sponsoring a contractor's report, or tasking agency, is entered in Section 8.)

DRDC – Centre for Operational Research and Analysis Defence Research and Development Canada Carling Campus, 60 Moodie Drive, Building 7S.2 Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0K2 Canada

2a. SECURITY MARKING (Overall security marking of the document including special supplemental markings if applicable.)

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2b. CONTROLLED GOODS

NON-CONTROLLED GOODS DMC A

3. TITLE (The document title and sub-title as indicated on the title page.)

The Future of Allied Air Power: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization

4. AUTHORS (Last name, followed by initials – ranks, titles, etc., not to be used)

Gladman, B.

5. DATE OF PUBLICATION (Month and year of publication of document.)

June 2021

6a. NO. OF PAGES (Total pages, including Annexes, excluding DCD, covering and verso pages.)

70

6b. NO. OF REFS (Total references cited.)

157

7. DOCUMENT CATEGORY (e.g., Scientific Report, Contract Report, Scientific Letter.)

Scientific Report

8. SPONSORING CENTRE (The name and address of the department project office or laboratory sponsoring the research and development.)

DRDC – Centre for Operational Research and Analysis Defence Research and Development Canada Carling Campus, 60 Moodie Drive, Building 7S.2 Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0K2 Canada

9a. PROJECT OR GRANT NO. (If appropriate, the applicable research and development project or grant number under which the document was written. Please specify whether project or grant.)

00aa - Strategic Military Planning Analysis

9b. CONTRACT NO. (If appropriate, the applicable number under which the document was written.)

10a. DRDC PUBLICATION NUMBER (The official document number by which the document is identified by the originating activity. This number must be unique to this document.)

DRDC-RDDC-2021-R104

10b. OTHER DOCUMENT NO(s). (Any other numbers which may be assigned this document either by the originator or by the sponsor.)

11a. FUTURE DISTRIBUTION WITHIN CANADA (Approval for further dissemination of the document. Security classification must also be considered.)

Public release

11b. FUTURE DISTRIBUTION OUTSIDE CANADA (Approval for further dissemination of the document. Security classification must also be considered.)

12. KEYWORDS, DESCRIPTORS or IDENTIFIERS (Use semi-colon as a delimiter.)

NATO; Concept Development; Air Power; ISR; Command and Control

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13. ABSTRACT (When available in the document, the French version of the abstract must be included here.)

The purpose of this Scientific Report is to inform discussions of capability and concept development within both the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). This is the fourth in a series of reports written for the Commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force Aerospace Warfare Centre. The method adopted for this paper starts with an analysis of the policy and supporting strategy framework of, in this case, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Based on this understanding of the key tenets of NATO strategic thinking it is possible to identify those air power concepts and capabilities of importance to the alliance to meet the challenges of the anticipated operating environments. This analysis, in the context of the other Scientific Reports in the series, could serve a range of functions within the Department of National Defence (DND) and the CAF, from focusing RCAF capability and concept development to informing Joint Force Development

Le présent rapport scientifique vise à éclairer les discussions sur le développement de capacités et de concepts au sein de l’Aviation royale canadienne (ARC) et des Forces armées canadiennes (FAC). Il s’agit du quatrième d’une série de rapports à l’intention du commandant du Centre de guerre aérospatiale de l’ARC. La méthodologie adoptée dans ce rapport consistait tout d’abord à procéder à une analyse de la politique et du cadre de la stratégie d’appui de l’Organisation du Traité de l’Atlantique Nord (OTAN). En vertu de cette compréhension des principes clés de la pensée stratégique de l’OTAN, il est possible de déterminer les concepts et les capacités en matière de puissance aérienne qui sont importants pour l’alliance afin de pouvoir relever les défis des environnements opérationnels prévus. Cette analyse, dans le cadre des autres rapports scientifiques de la série, pourrait servir à un vaste éventail de fonctions au sein du ministère de la Défense nationale (MDN) et des FAC, qu’il s’agisse d’orienter le développement des capacités et des concepts de l'ARC ou d’éclairer le développement de la force interarmées.

The Future of Allied Air Power

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