Military & Aerospace

IAF flying into the Future
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Issue Vol 22.4 Oct-Dec2007 | Date : 21 Sep , 2011

Nevertheless, technological advances have made it increasingly possible to execute precision strike from extended ranges without visually acquiring the target as long as accurate intelligence is available.

The shift in semantics, however, indicates that the role and missions of the IAF are changing. That this is happening in spite of the apparent paradox of expanding strategic reach and a rapid contraction of the combat force (from 39 to possibly as low as 27 squadrons by 2010) poses challenges of its own, not the least being those of resources and the time horizon in which they could be converted into capability. On the other hand, this makes it all the more important to relate the concept of strategic reach to the environment in which we would have to operate in peace and war, to the effects that would be sought and hence the capabilities that would be necessary to achieve those effects. In other words, we need to see the challenge of declining force levels not only as a challenge of restoring it, but also as an opportunity to shape the IAF for the coming decades and its operational challenges.

Our operational environment has been nuclearised for more than two decades.2 Its fundamental impact is that conventional war will have to remain limited in scope and effect, if the risk of escalation to nuclear weapons is to be avoided. In other words, the goal of a “decisive military victory” especially on land and at sea is passant. As it is, macro trends in geopolitics indicate that territory and its capture and occupation, which has historically been the primary object of wars and hence the central role of ground forces, is no longer a viable objective. Iraq’s invasion and occupation of Kuwait in 1990 was the last such war with known consequences. But the United States failed to learn the crucial lesson despite of the fact that it had employed alternate available means to influence the behaviour of Iraq, that is, a combination of economic sanctions and military containment from the air through the No-Fly-Zones and 300,000 air strikes during the five years before launching a military invasion.

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It does not imply that the ground forces have become obsolete. The effect sought to be achieved from the application of ground forces has been changing. The reality is that while capture and occupation of territory in the historical sense is no longer a viable option, the capture of small pockets of territory has become far more important for political-psychological reasons, essentially to be used for negotiating changes in policy. Wars have been fought in the past to change the behaviour of the target country, which required occupation of the capital and even a change of regime, a la Iraq in 2003.

Wars have been fought in the past to change the behaviour of the target country, which required occupation of the capital and even a change of regime”¦

This in turn required the enemy’s military forces to be first defeated decisively. But in a decolonised, increasingly inter-dependent world of today, the process of influencing the behaviour of another state is achieved through complex ways that ideally combine diplomacy, political action, economic measures and the discrete use of military power.

These, and other, mega trends have led to the change in warfare, limiting the prospect to local-border wars, that by themselves are unable to produce a decisive effect. The classical role of military power of applying punitive force to achieve political effect has not changed. What is changing is how that is to be achieved. This is why the role of the air forces has been changing; and some would even say, that is why there is a renewed effort to limit the influence and role of air forces (like the Indian Army chief was reported to have argued)3 and/or increasingly make it subordinate to the ground forces, whether through structural changes (like the CDS) or procedural impact (like the opposition to Aerospace Command in IAF).

Strategic Reach and Effect

The second major issue that we would like to address is that in an era of “effect-based-operations”, where effect is more important than the traditional approach of destruction as the objective, how is a strategic effect to be achieved? It is here that changes in technology have been providing the solution. The Revolution in Military Aviation has led to air-to-surface warfare, shifting from the traditional “line of sight” operations to BVR (beyond visual range) warfare. Air-to-air warfare had become all weather BVR combat with great precision soon after the Second World War.

Regardless of the contentions on the ownership issues, the reality is that IAF needs to build and exploit space assets and capabilities in space if it has to take full advantage of its inherent attributes and modern technology to function as a modern air force.

Air-to-surface warfare was however limited to line-of-sight operations. The ground target had to be visually located, identified, acquired in synergy with the weapon capability and weapon launched by the high speed attacking aircraft. Inevitably, this resulted in the attacking aircraft, mostly the old fighter-bomber, now termed a combat aircraft, over-flying the target exposing it to ground-based air defence weaponry. This in turn increased the premium on ground-based air defences and offensive support to land forces from the air became less effective and more costly. Nevertheless technological advances have made it increasingly possible to execute precision strikes from extended ranges without visually acquiring the target, as long as accurate intelligence is available. This has made it possible to transform air-to-surface attacks from line-of-sight to BVR warfare. And this points to the direction in which the IAF would have to increasingly invest in building future capabilities.

These developments have already led to weapon delivery for air-to-surface strikes being carried out from altitudes above the range of air defence weapons. This trend would make ground forces increasingly dependent on air forces, because ground based air defences would lose much of their potency against attacking an aircraft that could launch weapons from well beyond the range of air defence weaponry, and be able to do so with greater accuracy and lethality. The only method of protecting ground forces from hostile air forces would be to rely on air superiority by the own air force. In other words, the IAF would have to ensure that it is able to dominate in the air at an early stage of the war to ensure that ground forces have the freedom of action and protection from the skies. This has two major implications for the future.

First, dominance in the air would require to be included in any peace time plan for future procurement of aircraft and systems (especially with capabilities for airborne early warning and control, electronic warfare, ISR for accurate target intelligence, PGMs, etc.). Given the reality that the force level has already declined, and the costs of modern systems being high, this would require some hard decisions by the defence establishment where priority would have to be accorded to the  modernisation and restoration of the force level. Given the rapid and massive modernisation going on in China and Pakistan, the air power balance unfortunately has already shifted against us.

Indian_air_forceWhat is perhaps not adequately realised is that the Indian Army, would actually be facing the brunt of the effect of the adverse balance, since it runs the risk of a weakened future air defence, where the ground-based air defence systems may be of little value against hostile aircraft launching weapons outside their range. This problem has already changed the parameters of naval warfare; and it is now changing the nature of warfare on land in our region also. The IAF would no doubt battle it out with the hostile air force; but the effect of reduced ability (due to emaciated force level) would impact the Indian Army much more. This must be given due consideration now, rather than feel sorry later that the IAF was not able to support the ground forces adequately. In fact, the IAF air dominance would help the ground forces to achieve much more, and in lesser time, at lesser costs to the nation.

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The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the Indian Defence Review.

About the Author

Air Commodore Jasjit Singh

Director, Centre for Air Power Studies.

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