Vincent J. Curtis 16
March 2011
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates gave what he called his
last address to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs as Defense Secretary
in March. Why Canadians should pay
attention to his speech is that he described what he believed the USAF of the
21st century must look like, and experience and common sense say
that this vision will have impact on the Canadian air force, the equipment it
will have to purchase, and the training it will have to undergo.
Gates began the statement of his vision with the premise
that air supremacy will continue to be indispensable for the maintenance of
American military strength, deterrence, and global reach for decades to
come. That said, the traditional air
missions of air-to-air combat and strategic bombing have to make room for new
capabilities which unmanned aerial vehicles bring into being. UVAs provide intelligence, surveillance, and
reconnaissance capabilities undreamed of a decade ago, and now such
capabilities are so in demand by ground commanders in Afghanistan that it
outstrips supply.
Strategic and tactical air lift are, and will remain,
essential to future joint operations, according to Gates.
Gates warned against the Air Force sinking back into a complacency
he called the “Air Force normal.” He
asserted that stability and security missions, counterterrorism, persistent
battlefield ISR, close air support, search and rescue, and transport missions
are central to the role of air power for the foreseeable future, even without a
repetition of Iraq or Afghanistan.
But Gates does not see anything like Iraq or Afghanistan in
the future of the US military. He does
not see large US military formations on the ground in Asia for a very long
time. What he foresees instead are joint
missions between the USAF and the US Navy.
Gates foresees the emergence of high end, asymmetric
threats, such as long-range precision weapons, anti-ship cruise and ballistic
missiles, quieter submarines, advanced air defense missiles such as China,
North Korea, and Iran are developing. He
describes these as belonging to an “anti-access, area denial strategy” because
these capabilities strike at the unfettered ability of the US to project power
anywhere on the globe. Even now, Gates
has Pentagon strategists developing the Air-Sea Battle concept, akin to the
Air-Land Battle concept.
To meet these future threats, the US is developing a new
optionally-manned, nuclear-capable penetrating bomber, has built the F-22
Raptor, is building the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, is modernizing the F-15, and
is developing a new medium range air-to-air missile. He explained that the reason for developing
the F-35 is for its multi-role capability.
How does this vision impact Canada? The future uses of Canadian air power outside
of North America will be as an element of some US-led NATO or coalition
force. If so, where do we stand in
respect of these future missions in the face of an anti-access, area denial
strategy?
With our new C-17 Globemaster, C-130J Hercules, and our
Chinook helicopters, the Canadian air force has some capability in respect of
strategic and tactical air lift. One may
quibble about the numbers of aircraft and the volume of lift being inadequate,
but with these we have something with which to make a gesture towards our
alliances.
We are behind the curve in respect of a fully integrated ISR
capability with UAVs, but so is the US, according to Gates. This is a relatively inexpensive field to
enter, and a tactical ISR capability with an American-compatible UAV would make
the Canadian air force operationally relevant in an overseas contingency
operation. This field practically cries
out for the development of Canadian expertise and capability.
The final area to be addressed is the manned
fighter-bomber. This piece of the puzzle
is solved with one of three aircraft: the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the F-22
Raptor, and the F-16 Fighting Falcon, which is still in production. The F-35 will enable the Canadian air force
to participate in most of the manned fighter-bomber missions provided the
aircraft is equipped with the necessary electronic suite. At least some of the F-35s Canada is going to
buy need to be equipped with an electronic suite that will enable them to
engage in air to ground missions if we are to maximize the value of this
acquisition and render our fighters operationally relevant in overseas contingency
operations.
If Canada is going to use the F-35 strictly for the air
superiority role over North America, we might as well try to buy the F-22
Raptor, which is by far the better aircraft for that purpose. Granted, it would require an act of congress
and more money to buy the F-22, but future air superiority combats over North
America may be against Chinese or Russian equivalents to the F-22 and we might
as well have the very best aircraft to defend our skies.
One inexpensive option that no one has yet publicly
discussed is to buy the F-16, which is now in block 60 of its development. The F-16 is the most successful of the fourth
generation fighters, and it was the one we turned down thirty years ago in
favour of the CF-18. What we need here
primarily are new airframes, not necessarily new capabilities, and the F-16C/D
has capabilities which will make it operationally relevant for the next twenty to
thirty years. At $20 million a copy the
F-16C is less than half the cost of the F-35.
If we were to buy new F-16s to replace our aging CF-18s we would be
turning over the highest end of air superiority over North American air space
to the USAF; but with the F-22 Raptor the US already has taken that role. And the Canadian air force would not have to
fight with aircraft that are too precious to lose.
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