It’s Not Airpower Vs. Boots On Ground Any More « Breaking Defense - Defense industry news, analysis and commentary: As the Ukrainian and Middle Eastern crises roil our world, the debate quickly turns on which path will work best to deal with the evolving threats: boots on the ground, or planes in the air operating without boots on the ground. The specter of responses to the 9/11 attack and the various engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq naturally shade everyone’s perspectives.
But changing capabilities and concepts of operations are obliterating the classic distinction. The Marines have become the only tiltrotor enabled force in the world; the Air Force and Navy have shaped highly integrated air grids, and advances in both the lethality and effectiveness of manned and unmanned aviation have grown.
The past decade’s experience of the need to shape a very large and expensive ground grid from which to feed Special Forces and ground operations is not one the US is going to repeat anytime soon.
At the same time, conflict is evolving as well. The evolving pattern of 21st century conflict is emerging. It is a pattern in which state and non-state actors are working to reshape the global order in their favor by generating conflicts against the interests of the democracies but which the democracies are slow to react.
