But the air war in Ukraine, where neither side controls the skies, suggests that denying air superiority is sometimes a smarter operational objective than trying to gain it outright. These founding fathers of airpower theory championed winning and maintaining “ command of the air,” or, in today’s doctrine, “ air supremacy.” Douhet suggested “to have command of the air means to be in a position to prevent the enemy from flying while retaining the ability to fly oneself.” This understanding was based on a popular reading of Alfred Thayer Mahan’s command of the sea, in which the goal is to seek out and destroy the enemy fleet in a decisive battle.Ī century later, this vision remains firmly entrenched in the doctrine and ethos of Western air forces. Billy Mitchell, and the Royal Air Force’s Air Marshall Hugh Trenchard. Western air forces still follow a path first laid out by Italian Gen. But the puzzlement is a sign of military myopia more than anything else. And many Western analysts are surprised and bewildered. Despite having one of the largest and most technologically sophisticated air forces in the world, Russia has failed to establish air superiority over Ukraine. Ukraine’s success in contesting the skies turns the West’s airpower paradigm on its head - it offers an alternative vision for pursuing airspace denial over air superiority.
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