Why the Nation Needs Air Force Research

Victory in Desert Storm in early 1991 was not just the result of a punishing 38-day air campaign, followed by a 100-hour ground action. The seeds were sown years before in investments made in research and development. Desert Storm's dramatic military success owed much to systems like the E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System, E-8A Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, Low-Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night, AGM-65 Maverick TV-guided air-to-ground missile, AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile and the F-117 stealth fighter. All of these systems were products of research and development in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s:

• E-3, the Airborne Warning and Control System, based on a 1963 requirement, used radar and communications concepts tested in the mid-1960s. Over Iraq, AWACS was essential in establishing initial air superiority and coordinating precision air attacks.

• E-8A, the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System, a prototype then being fielded provisionally, provided timely coordination of ground and air attacks on tactical surface targets. JSTARS originated from the PAVE MOVER studies of the 1970s.

• LANTIRN, the Low-Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night system, carried as pods on F-15E Strike Eagle aircraft, had been fielded only in the late 1980s after a tough, technology-stretching development program beginning in the late 1970s. At times the program seemed destined to flop, but here at last it provided the ability to pound surprised Iraqi ground forces in bad weather and at night.

• The AGM-65 Maverick TV-guided air-to-ground missile was used to great effect by A-10s, F-4G Wild Weasels and F-16s. Based on early-1960s research and development, the Vietnam vintage Maverick had added infrared guidance in the mid-1980s and was a major factor in the A-10s' destruction of over 4,000 tanks, vehicles and artillery.

• The AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile had been "touch and go" through several years of turbulent development and testing in the early 1980s. But here in its first combat, it claimed aerial kills that helped render the Iraqi Air Force ineffective.

• And most important of all perhaps was the F-117 stealth fighter-bomber, used to strike targets in Baghdad with deadly precision through dense Iraqi air defenses. And without a scratch. Its low-observable stealth technologies emerged from research first funded in 1974.

After their victorious use in Desert Storm, and their repeat performance in Operation Allied Force against Yugoslavia, these systems continue to provide reliable, effective service and will be around for the foreseeable future, but their technology is aging, and the threat to U.S. interests is becoming ever more complicated, leapfrogging into state-of-the-art technologies.

The Question. Desert Storm proved, and subsequent conflicts like Kosovo have confirmed, that technology provides a dependable way to counter high-risk threats. The question is whether, when they are needed, those technologies will be available in the future. Does the U.S. Air Force have the resources and resolve to create today the technological solutions that may be needed in another 20 or 30 years?