The Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) recently released a couple of reports that should be required reading for anyone thinking about future force structures. Although looking at different domains—one concerns itself with air combat and the other sea power—there are some common threads that are worth understanding before committing tens of billions of dollars on future forces.
John Stillion’s Trends in air-to-air combat looks at air combat in ‘the missile age’. From trends in air-to-air kills since the 1960s, Stillion shows that the ‘traditional’ strengths of manoeuvrability and speed required for air-to-air combat are increasingly being trumped by long-range sensors and weapons. Instead, he argues that a combination of low observability, situational awareness through powerful sensors and long-range weapons that can take advantage of that sensor range will be decisive factors in the future.