88 // JANUARY 2018 #358 http://www.airforcesmonthly.com
Column Commander’s Update Brief^ ing
AD as a concept was essentially a
marketing ploy, a wake-up call to
the situation that had developed,
with the increasing potential for
an imbalance between attack
and defence. Of course, A2/AD
isn’t just about tactical missile
systems; other examples include
the more extreme tactical nuclear
or longer-range ballistic weapons,
or the Chinese construction of
manmade island chains, each of
which can add to a nation’s ability
to control or influence a region.
And, although A2/AD thinking is a
major consideration for air forces,
it is no less a concern for land
and maritime forces. One only
has to go back to the Falklands
campaign to see what a relatively
modest foe can achieve when the
opposition does not dominate the
skies. And today, the proliferation
of ballistic and anti-ship missiles
would make any admiral or
general think very carefully about
how to enter and operate within
the range of enemy systems.
So, in simple terms, the
offence is seeking to regain
the initiative by reinvesting in
countermeasures. Effectively, an
offence has three basic strategies
to employ against a sophisticated
A2/AD threat, namely: avoid,
deny/decoy, or destroy:
Avoid – staying out of range of
a system is the simplest form of
NEXT MONTH:
Standoff weapons.defence. However, this requires
you to know where a system
is and what its capabilities
are. Assuming you can do
that safely, you then have to
seek to engage your targets
from outside the engagement
envelope. This strategy drives
the employment of standoff
capability through longer-range
sensors or weapons and stealth.Above: As well as the more familiar surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft artillery, theatre ballistic missiles can play a
part in anti-access/area denial strategies, putting a rival’s troops, materiel and installations – including airfields – under
threat. This is a Russian Army Iskander (SS-26 ‘Stone’), as deployed to the Kaliningrad exclave from where it could
target NATO air bases. Russian MoD
Deny/decoy – jamming or
spoofing a system effectively
allows you to penetrate an enemy
system’s threat envelope without
being engaged. This requires
the ability to deny the enemy
use of the electromagnetic
spectrum through electronic
countermeasures, decoys or
swarms, or perhaps cyber attack.
Even in the event of a missilelaunch you can still use active
or passive measures combined
with aggressive manoeuvres to
decoy the missile far enough
away to miss its intended target.
Destroy – attacking any
element of an enemy A2/AD
system to either permanently or
temporarily disable it deals with
the problem head-on. However,
this requires the location and
precise targeting of the system
before it itself can engage. The
employment of longer-range and
higher-speed weapons is one
of the methods sought against
increasingly lethal A2/AD systems.
In practice, a sophisticated
force will employ a combination
of all three strategies to exploit
any weakness in an enemy’s
defence, but none of these can be
achieved without sustained and
strong investment in capabilities,
techniques, tactics and training.
What we are seeing now is
merely a new, more sophisticated
and lethal chapter in the age-
old struggle to control the air or
battlespace – a battle that once
lost can only lead to ultimate
defeat. Most importantly, this
is a battle that can be lost in a
military’s finance and acquisition
department, research and
development labs, and training
grounds – long before real combat
begins. Playing catch-up ‘in
contact’ is not an option.Above: Simply avoiding hostile air defence systems may be the simplest form of protection, but it arguably remains
relevant even for a sophisticated fifth-generation stealth fighter like the Lightning II. This Royal Netherlands Air Force
F-35A is making use of local terrain during a mission out of Edwards Air Force Base, California. Jamie HunterAFM