Air Superiority Remains a Fundamental Tenet of Airpower
September 24, 2025
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Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.):
Well, good morning ladies and gentlemen. I’m Dave Deptula, Dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies, and I’m delighted to welcome you all here for our panel on air superiority. Now, I think most of you in here have heard me say it before, but this fundamental truth cannot be emphasized enough. Air superiority is a fundamental prerequisite for any military operation, because without control of the air, operations on land, at sea, and in space just simply will not succeed. While other services operate combat aircraft, they do so to support their core functions, and it’s only after those core functions are satisfied do they allocate aircraft to joint operations. Conversely, all US Air Force combat aircraft are allocated to joint force operations, and the Air Force contributes the preponderance of air superiority capacity to the combatant commands. Now, there’s some out there misled for whatever reason, but they question whether traditional air superiority still matters. They cite the proliferation of small drones in places like Ukraine and the Red Sea, and they tend to discount over a century’s worth of proven warfighting reality. I won’t question their motives here, but read my stuff and I’ll question their motives there. But we’re here to explore the fundamentals tied to air superiority. Does it still matter? Do the critics have a point? Spoiler alert, no. How should the Air Force steward its future air superiority capabilities and capacity? So, with that, let me introduce our panelists. I’m joined today by Major General John Klein, Assistant Deputy Chief of Staff Operations here at Headquarters USAF. Major General William Betts, Director of Plans, Programs, and Reconnaissance Requirements at Headquarters Air Combat Command. Major General Parker Wright, Commander Curtis LeMay Center for Doctrine Development and Education and Deputy Commander of Air University. And last but not least, Colonel John “JV” Venable, Senior Fellow at the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. So, all of you, thanks very much for being here, and let’s jump right into the discussion. My first question for you, General Wright, I’d like to open it up to make sure you level the playing field in the context of definitions, because, believe it or not, there are a lot of people that don’t understand the difference between air superiority, air supremacy, and air parity. So, why don’t you give our audience a bit of background on the definitions of those three topics?
Maj. Gen. Parker Wright:
Yes, sir, thanks. So, we definitely assert that control of the air is a precondition for control of the surface. Now, control of the air is a relative measure between adversary and friendly forces. So, parity is that state in which neither side has effective control of the air, which means that both sides could be attacked either in air, land, or sea, really at will by the other side. That’s parity. That’s a state that’s like the Wild West. At the other end, you’ve got air supremacy. That’s a state in which one side has near full control of the air, which means that an adversary cannot mount an effective interference in your operations in that domain. Now, in between the two is air superiority, and that’s the state in which control of the air is such that the adversary cannot give prohibitive interference into your operations. That means you’re able to conduct operations at a time and place of your choosing without the adversary being able to significantly impede those operations. Now, it’s capped in time and space. That can be either geographically or in time, but it’s a relative measure, and it applies both in offense, when you need to clear the air so that you conduct operations, or in defense, when you need to control the air over your friendly spaces.
Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.):
Thanks very much for that. Now, we’ve all watched Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the air campaign over Iran, and each conflict’s unique, but both hold very important lessons when it comes to air superiority. Major General Klein, what are your thoughts when it comes to these two conflicts and lessons that the Air Force ought to take away?
Maj. Gen. John M. Klein, Jr.:
Thanks, General Deptula. I’m thrilled to be part of this panel. I just want to say up front thanks to AFA for hosting this event, bringing the Air Force Space Force together with industry. So it’s a great forum. Very simply, I would say the Ukraine-Russia scenario is what happens when a military does not have air superiority. It very quickly devolves into a war of attrition, which is exactly what we’re seeing. What I would call trench warfare a couple hundred feet above the ground, and that’s kind of what it’s devolved into. So are there some good lessons learned that have come out of that conflict? Absolutely. When it comes to innovation, technology development, wartime adaptation, absolutely. And so there’s some lessons to be learned about that. But that’s been born out of necessity. Necessity is the mother of invention. And so as we look at the predominance of one-way attack UAVs or first-person view drones, they were not conceptualized or built to replace air superiority. They emerged because they were unable to achieve air superiority in their predominant role. So either side had it, both sides had an insufficient capability and capacity to craft an air campaign that could achieve air superiority, or they simply failed to do so. And this is a—it’s essentially largely a stalemate. It’s the air parity that Parker talked about. And I don’t believe, as an Air Force, that that’s a space we want to be in. And it’s a strategically—it is strategically defensive in character. And we don’t want to fight that way. So I think we have to ask ourselves, is this how we want to fight the next war? Surely that technology, the drone technology, can be used offensively and to our advantage, but should be as part of a larger campaign. Israel and Iran, a 12-day war in conflict, offers a stark difference to that. So Israel did have the capability and capacity to put together a well-crafted and synchronized air campaign. If you look at Operation Day of Repentance and Operation Rising Line, those are essentially a classic dismantling of an integrated air defense system and the disruption or destruction of key command control nodes, which were extremely enabling for follow-on operations, particularly Operation Midnight Hammer, where the United States Air Force attacked Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. But there was a lot of long-term planning that took place there. We had to do the threat mitigation, and the conditions had to be set for that. And so we achieved localized, episodic air superiority, which allowed some follow-on strategic objectives to be met. So air superiority absolutely remains essential for large-scale combat operations.
Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.):
Thank you very much. Go ahead, JV.
Col. John Venable, USAF (Ret.):
Can I pile on to that, boss? Before I go on, I’m part of the Mitchell Institute, part of the Air Force Association, so I can’t thank us for putting on this event. But I can say this is one of the smartest and best-looking bosses I’ve ever had in my life. So just to ride on what General Klein said, this idea of air denial is a crutch. It’s what the Ukrainians and the Russians have fallen back on, because it’s not that the Russians didn’t have the capacity, they didn’t have the capability that we have. The F-35 is the most dominant platform. And what the Israelis were able to do a couple of weeks ago was just absolutely level the playing field. I would argue that it wasn’t a localized air superiority. They established air supremacy. There wasn’t a thing flying. There wasn’t a thing firing at our bombers and our strike package when we came in. And that allowed us to execute that those years of planning in order to take down Fordow and the like. So this idea of air denial just basically overlooks the fact of what we have been doing and what we are capable of doing today. So the second side of these pundits who are coming in and piling on and finding really great genius ideas out of this war is this aerolatorial concept. And joint doctrine, and I’m not nearly as steep as my boss is in it, but this idea of having a coordination altitude where things that have to fly low and fast like mortars, artillery, and drones, helicopters and the likes, we’ve had that coordination altitude since I was a lieutenant, which was about the 1940s. So it’s not something that we need. But then they pile on and say these drones, they’re making it so crazy in the battlefield that it’s going to redefine air superiority. This airspace is incredibly competitive is what they say. And that there’s going to be a fight for air superiority there in this low altitude structure. The only fight that’s going on there is if a collision takes place between two drones going back and forth. There is no concept where you can look at this and say we as the United States as we have it right now in our Air Force cannot establish air superiority when we need to because of the systems we have. Now the capacity thing is something that we need to address and the readiness is another thing that we need to address in the near term. And in the long term, that F-47 is going to ensure that we can do this with the iterations of SAMs that follow. I’ll stop there.
Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.):
Thanks, JV. General Betts, I’ll give you an opportunity to chime in here on your thoughts.
Maj. Gen. William Betts:
I think I can add probably one or two things. I mean, I agree with all the points that JV and General Klein made. Ukraine is definitely an example of a consequence of not having air superiority. That was foot stomped well, I think. It is a reminder that we have to continue to emphasize that air superiority is not a manifest destiny. It is something we have to fight for. It is something that we should fight for. I think the — I’ll pick on for a second, even though I think the drone warfare that we’re seeing was born out of necessity and we’ve shown it as an example of something we don’t want to have to do, there are some lessons we can learn from what’s going on in the drone warfare there, and particularly I’m talking about command-guided drones. So both — and a command-guided drone is an operator that has a remote control, right, and they’re controlling every action of the drone from point A to point B where its target is. And both the Russian and Ukrainian sides found that it is easier to interrupt that command signal or to find and target the operator than it is to actually, right, combat the drones in the end game. And so they made some rapid iterations, and honestly, their adaptation is something to look at and admire. So where they used to have centralized control centers where many drone operators would be in the same facility, they have — they’ve spread those out and now are doing more of a — what do we call that? — distributed control type of architecture for their drones. Another move that they made is they are trying to reduce the dependency on that command-guided signal by moving to more autonomous systems that can drive themselves and that can do end-game targeting with seekers with automatic target recognition, for example. Those lessons are things that we are looking at carefully as we at ACC are developing the requirements for the next generation of unmanned systems that will team with our manned systems. And then just one quick point on Midnight Hammer. I think, right, we can all agree that the competence of our Airmen during that operation was incredibly encouraging, inspiring. It’s the reason I believe that if we find ourselves in major combat operations, we will prevail. But as, like, someone who operates in my space, a staff officer, I also have to take a hard look at the things that went wrong during that operation behind the scenes. And as a staff officer, I’ve got to commit myself to making sure that we lower the degree of difficulty for our Airmen for operations like that. Thank you, sir.
Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.):
I think those have been — those are outstanding on-the-spot remarks. I would just take the opportunity to comment here. And, General Betts, you kind of hit on it when highlighting the rapid nature of the evolution and the innovation that’s occurring in Ukraine. Well, facing an existential threat will do that to you. But it’s also something we have to be cautious about when you hear folks talking about, well, you know, they’re producing 4.5 million drones a year. Shouldn’t we build that and mount and stock them in, you know, warehouses? We have to be real careful with that mentality because the real key piece here of what they’re doing very well is innovating and changing on a rapid basis. So putting a stockpile of a million-plus drones in a warehouse waiting for four years or whenever we’re going to use them is probably not the right model. We have to work on the rapidity of being able to innovate quickly. So let me turn to General Wright here for a second and talk a bit about military doctrine. Now, yeah, it’s wisdom that’s distilled from warfighting experience accumulated through great sacrifice, and it shouldn’t be ignored. However, it must also be adaptive to technological advancements and realities from actual combat. So, General Wright, how should Air Force leadership strike this balance between adhering to proven airpower principles while at the same time adapting to meet the challenges of the day?
Maj. Gen. Parker Wright:
Yes, sir. Thanks. So we’ve talked a bit about drones, and so over the past year we’ve put out a couple of doctrine advisories, one talking about how we do point defense of our air bases and also how we control airspace below the coordinating altitude. Oftentimes when we’ve gone to those conversations, we have folks who say, “Well, we’ve never seen this before,” and that the doctrine has to be thrown out and totally rewritten. And what I find is that’s often someone who hasn’t read the recent doctrine. And so I think it’s incredibly important as we have these discussions about new technologies and new concepts that we start with that foundation of doctrine, which is a set of proven best practices. As you said, that we’ve learned through experience. We know they work because we’ve seen that they work. At the same time, our doctrine has to stay supple and adaptable. I often tell the team, “I don’t want our doctrine to defend the Maginot Line and the battleship. I want it to be Blitzkrieg and aircraft carrier.” How do we take those technologies and update our doctrine so that it remains relevant? We do that by learning through experimentation, by learning through exercises, by learning through war games, and then fold back on top those best practices. We can also learn from proven battlefield successes from what’s going on in other conflicts. So that’s a constant iteration, but I’m just very, very cautious when we say it’s all got to be thrown out and it all has to be new.
Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.):
Thanks very much for that. Air superiority isn’t a constant in warfare. We touched upon that earlier. It’s got to be sustained during a given time and place of our choosing. Now, I think we’re all very much aware that today’s Air Force is stretched very thin, given the demands of the national security strategy, particularly against a pure adversary. General Klein, could you inform our audience a bit on just how the Air Force is planning to correct this capacity challenge?
Maj. Gen. John M. Klein, Jr.:
I think there’s a number of things we’re doing. I would say fundamentally, though, it’s about making the most of what we have as we incorporate new technologies and new systems. We’ve enjoyed air supremacy for a long, long time, ever since through the Gulf Wars, through the global war on terror. And so we’re not accustomed to having to fight for it, but it’s something we’re probably going to have to do. I think some of the key words here are a time and place of our choosing, which means air superiority can be episodic. And so part of making the most of what we have is making sure that we can design a — have a well-designed air campaign that’s sequenced and sustained using pulse operations to create the episodic and synchronized and temporal air superiority as we need it. And that’s where operational art in building an air campaign comes in. So I would argue it’s not about the first pulse. It’s about the second and third and the fourth, or as required. And so our ability to stitch all that together is part of sustaining the air superiority. And it’s this series of compounding efforts that each is providing these increasingly strategic effects as the campaign rolls along. So in the past, particularly 20th century, we relied a lot upon volume and mass — and numbers to account for mass. Modern technology has allowed us to achieve effects with less physical mass. And so creating localized mass through the integration of the tools that we have is another way that we sustain. And so we’re optimizing our capacity that we have through the modernization of fourth, fifth gen aircraft, through unmanned, through asymmetric, through new force presentation models like the units of action that we’re putting out there. And it’s the combination, how you stitch all that together that helps you sustain your superiority. So General Allvin talks about having more Air Force. And that’s not just about numbers. Yes, we do need a bigger Air Force to do the things that our nation is asking us to do. But there’s more Air Force to be found within as we integrate all that we have. So another thing is the mission command, is that philosophy, that leadership philosophy of the Air Force gets more and more inculcated into the formation in the ranks. But that needs practice. It needs mindset shifts. It needs cultural change. Schemes of maneuver like agile combat employment provide additional offsets with resilience, with complicating adversary targeting and planning. And then providing more options to a joint force commander. So probably most importantly is we don’t fight alone. We are great at team sports. Our Airmen are phenomenal team players. Whereas some of our adversaries are really good at ping pong and diving. We’re good at team sports. And so whether that’s our sister services, folks operating in other domains, coalition partners and allies, we know how to do team play. And so each of those domains is interdependent upon each other. And when you achieve effects in one, it opens up options and agility in all the others. And so air superiority absolutely remains a primary mission and core function of the Air Force. We’re not walking away from that. We’re continuing to make the most of what we have to sustain it.
Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.):
Very good. I would just emphasize your point on partnership with an example I’ve used before. And that’s if you go back and you take a look at Desert Storm, we had 34 coalition partners. And each one of them contributed. But I’m here to tell you we had such a panoply of assets. And that means a lot. We had a lot of stuff. We really could have done that all on our own. But it’s very different today. We require our partners and allies to succeed regardless of where we’re going to be faced with conflict around the world. General Betts, you and your team are force provider for the combatant commands. I don’t think we see the demand signal for air superiority declining. Could you talk to us a bit about how you see these issues from an air combat command perspective?
Maj. Gen. William Betts:
Yes, I think so. By these issues, I’m going to kind of pick on the capacity for a second, Greg, because I see that as an issue. It’s one of the main reasons that we need more Air Force. General Deptula, you’re absolutely right. The demand is not going down for air superiority. Where I tend to focus and where ACC tends to focus on this problem is by looking at what’s right in front of us in terms of the fleets that we have now. So if you look at a Jane’s book, you would see a number of fighters, a certain capacity, number of fighters that the U.S. Air Force has. But the reality is that on any given day, there’s significantly less of those aircraft that are actually available and ready to fly. The age of our fleet, as I think it was either the secretary or the chief brought up on Monday, is the age of our fleets are about as old as they have been, and we need to replace our aging fleets for sure. But I think the fastest way to have an effect is to try to go after the aircraft availability of the fleets that we own now. The new aircraft that we have, we haven’t bought enough spare parts for. And the old aircraft that we have are going through something called diminishing manufacturing sources, means they’re not making the parts anymore. General Klein yesterday talked about his five-band equalizer boom box from the ’80s, and I wish I still had mine, but if I did, they don’t make parts for those anymore. It’s the same thing that’s happening to our aircraft that started flying in the ’80s and before that. And so getting after those two things, right, buying the Airmen the parts they need to fix the jet when it breaks, and then making sure that those parts are available through the supply chain are the two things that I’m most focused on in increasing our capacity.
Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.):
Very good. Thanks for that. Let’s shift gears a bit and talk about the ability to fight tonight. We’re not going to be able to fight tomorrow if we can’t fight today. And right now the Air Force is stretched on the capacity modernization and readiness fronts. We’ve heard that a lot. JV, could you speak to the need to address these key issues?
Col. John Venable, USAF (Ret.):
Yes, sir. I’d be happy to. Just to run down this path of capacity and what we’re capable of doing today, ladies and gentlemen, if you don’t think we could do an Iran today or if you don’t think we could do an Iraq or a small contingency like that, I think you need to think again. We’re solid that way. We’ve got enough depth where we can handle that. But when you start comparing our capacity, capability, and readiness against the pure adversary like China, we fall short, woefully short. Today the Chinese Air Force has refit their entire frontline fleet. We talk in terms of what the fleet availability is. We have more than 2,000 fighters in the United States Air Force as a total force. But of those, the ones that are combat capable, that’s very important terminology, the ones that are in mission oriented squadrons that are supposed to go and fight our fight, the last numbers that the Air Force would give me were two years ago. And we had 750 of those. The numbers have gone down since. The Chinese, on the other hand, have refit their entire front line fleet with fourth and fifth generation fighters. And they have 1,100 that can sortie over Taiwan without refueling. We would be challenged with that on that side. And our sortie durations would be much longer. So capacity is in their side. Capability, 24% of our fighter fleet is stealth. We got there not by adding more fighters, but by subtracting the older fighters. And we are divesting to invest still to this day. I think the number that I last saw was something on the order of 300 more fighters that are going on the chopping block. And you can say that they’re not viable for a fifth generation war. But they are viable to go and fight the other fights that we will need to fight should the balloon go up with China. The Chinese, on the other hand, are fielding 120 J-20s every year and another 170 fourth plus generation fighters every year while we are fielding as an Air Force less than 60 total, less than 30 this year of the F-35s. And as far as the President’s budget, we’re fielding zero F-15EXs. So they are rising on capability as well. We still have the edge on that, but they are competitive. Make no mistake about it. The anecdotal stories that are coming out of the J-20 is it is far better than what we assessed it to be earlier. And the last side I’ll give you is readiness. We’ve got a lot of stories to talk about on that. But during the Cold War when General Deptula and I were flying, my first year as an F-16 guy, I got 350 hours. The average pilot got over 200. And we considered anyone who got less than 150 hours non-combat capable. We would not send them to war. The numbers that the Air Force has for minimum thresholds for sorties is eight for an experienced fighter pilot a month and nine for an inexperienced. We haven’t met that in several years, ladies and gentlemen, and that’s the minimum. The numbers of hours our guys are getting are less than 120. And I would beg you to think about this. We’re approaching 110 a pilot right now, while the Chinese pilots are flying 200 hours on average a year. Capacity, they’ve got it. Capability, they’re competitive. Readiness, it is no longer a wash, ladies and gentlemen, and that was our big edge during the Cold War. So our ability to fight tonight and the future of our capability begins today. It doesn’t begin in seven years. We’ve had this idea that we’re going to RDT and E or data our way out of the next fight. Data has never deterred anybody. “I’ve got a spreadsheet that will roll your socks down” doesn’t impress Xi at all, right? These Putin and Xi, they understand global strategic power, and unless they see something on the other side of the line that looks vicious and looks like it could do grave damage to their military and their forces writ large, ladies and gentlemen, it gives them the opportunity to move. And we need to start reversing that trend now.
Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.):
Well, thanks, JV. Let’s segue. That kind of segues into a related topic. History presents us with some countless challenges and examples of how giving the enemy sanctuary carries huge negative consequences for us. So General Wright, could you discuss this dynamic and why it’s critically important to ensure that we don’t fall into the trap as we did in Korea and Vietnam and as we see what’s happened in Ukraine with Russia as we prepare for the potential of pure conflict?
Maj. Gen. Parker Wright:
Yes, sir. Thanks. So when we give an adversary sanctuary, we are largely conceding air supremacy over that particular spot of territory, right? We’re telling the adversary we will not hold targets at risk inside that sanctuary. And the reason we do that is because they’ve convinced us that an attack inside the sanctuary may cross a red line or a threshold that they would escalate beyond where we want them to. And so what does that do? Well, it means that inside their sanctuary, an adversary can reconstitute. They can build forces. They can plan. They can operate with impunity inside that space. At the same time, when we give them the sanctuary, we’re communicating very clearly with them that we won’t take the fight further. And so we’re communicating, right? War is violence and violence is a dialogue between these warring states. And so when we communicate our own limits, we’re sending a really powerful signal to the adversary. And that can be dangerous. We tie our hands behind our backs for what the Air Force brings and the ability to attack strategically to go deep into an adversary’s territory and to help change their decision calculus for how they want to prosecute, to attack their capacity to be able to continue the fight. And I think most importantly, we give them refuge that they don’t have to defend. They don’t have to put resources to the defense, and they can in turn be offensive. And so a sanctuary is certainly a decision that you make based on escalation management, but it’s dangerous and we should consider it very, very carefully.
Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.):
Thanks very much for that. I’ll be a little bit more blunt. In the context of deterrence, the Chinese need to understand that their mainland is not off limits and that they will be attacked and they will suffer. And if they want to enter into a conflict with the United States, regardless of where it is, their homeland’s at risk. Okay, let’s shift gears a bit. As we look to tomorrow’s Air Force, there’s some of those out there who believe that the fielding of inhabited aircraft like the F-47 or B-21 should be superseded by uninhabited aircraft. At the Mitchell Institute, we like to think in the context of and, not or. And we see manned-unmanned teaming as a way of the future. General Klein, could you speak on the continued relevance of manned aircraft and how uninhabited aircraft like CCA will serve as a critical force multiplier?
Maj. Gen. John M. Klein, Jr.:
Absolutely. Thank you. So human-machine teaming is not futuristic. I would argue it’s historic and very present. You know, from the early days of radar, from aircraft identification to some of our modern technologies of fly-by-wire aircraft and even target recognition software, the Air Force has led the way in integrating technology and human teaming concepts. So the CC, Combat Collaborative Aircraft, is simply another iteration of the same methodology. And I think we would be foolish to not stay on the loop and to be able to integrate that technology with what we already have. So I personally believe it’s going to be fascinating to watch this technology develop. We have some platforms. We have some ideas. But what we don’t have are concepts of employment, tactics, techniques, and procedures. It’s going to be fascinating to watch that stuff get figured out. And it’s going to be the young lieutenants and captains that are going to do that, and in industry as well, as we put these new toys in their hands and they learn how to play with them. So I just can’t wait to see the employment of these teamed aircraft at a red flag or at a weapons school integration or a Bamboo Eagle. I think that’s going to be fascinating when you’ve got a mission commander with a force package and he’s got F-22s and F-35s that may each have two, four, eight CCAs on their wing. What could we do with that? So it’s a fascinating look ahead as we do that. And then tell me why we can’t eventually pair some of that technology with other types of platforms to enable them, whether that’s bombers or tankers. Industry has a huge, huge role in this. The Secretary said Monday, just talking about innovation and the high-low mix that we’re going to have to have that we realistically will have. It’s not just about being innovative with technology. It’s about being innovative with new concepts and new tactics, techniques, procedures, new thinking, and how we put it all together in the force packaging. And this is where some of that, again, operational art in designing an air campaign comes in. So the chief talks about more Air Force. Like I said, there’s more Air Force to be found within. And the CCAs are really just a new ingredient in the air superiority batter. And I think that’s going to make for a better recipe as we bake all that in. So I also see CCAs as flax or utility players, just to use a sports analogy. If they are multi-role, they can be utilized in many ways, which gives the Joint Force Commander a whole lot more options. And that’s what we want to do as an air component. So it is 100% an and discussion and not an or decision. So war will remain a human endeavor. And so having humans on the loop is critically important.
Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.):
Thanks very much for that. General Betts, there are some major variables out there that we need to respond to when it comes to harnessing data, turning it into actionable information, and then prioritizing effective command and control. How does that all tie into 21st century air superiority?
Maj. Gen. William Betts:
It’s probably a question that deserves probably more time than we’ve got. As I look at the clock, I’ll try to summarize kind of three of the major variables that you’re talking about there. So sensing, sense making, and then communications or data transport. And think of these variables as right there, knobs. You can make choices to do a lot of one or less of one or try to do both in some cases from a sensing perspective. General Schneider, if you’re at 35,000 feet and I’m at 35,000 feet, at 400 miles is where the earth starts to get in the way. So past 400 miles, you don’t have line of sight to me. If we want to make weapons that go further than that in the future, then we have to cue them with something besides line of sight sensing, if you will. So that’s something that we’ve got to keep in mind. Sense making is how we fuse the data together into knowing what is out there. Not just there’s a dot, there’s an aircraft out there, but what that aircraft is. Is it friendly or is it enemy? And where we do that sense making is another choice to make. Do we do that centralized or do we try to move that to the tactical edge as much as possible? And then the last one is communications. There is, right, our beyond line of sight communications are coming closer and closer to ubiquitous. However, I would contend that in warfare, the enemy always tries to disrupt the communications. And so if we make it, I would caution us against making a choice toward non-organic and centralized sensing and sense making, because I think we’re going to devolve to organic kill chains. We have to work to preserve credible organic kill chains as well.
Lt. Gen. David Deptula, USAF (Ret.):
Very good. And you hit it on the time mark too. So unfortunately, we’ve come to the end of our time. But thank you, gentlemen, for a fascinating discussion. On behalf of the Mitchell Institute, we thank you and the audience. We wish you a great Air and Space Power kind of today. Please join me in thanking our panelists.