The disintegration last year of the Soviet Union, following so closely upon the heels of the ending of the Cold War, has had quite an effect on world air power. In short, the West's air forces can no longer justify their existence to battling the "Evil Empire", and therefore must weigh their future potential missions and aircraft acquisitions carefully against what will be ever decreasing budget allowances. Take the USAF for instance. For the last four decades, it has been structured toward global nuclear warfare, with massive expenditures on strategic bombers, tankers, and missiles. Even the tactical element of the Air Force has had a secondary nuclear strike mission. Now, suddenly, the threat of nuclear war against the Evil Empire is gone.
The new Commonwealth of former Soviet Republics views the U.S. as their hope for the future and as a vital friend. China, North Korea, Cuba, and a couple of desultory Middle Eastern countries are the only current threats to the interests of the U.S. and none of these countries pose a direct threat to our populace. So how does the USAF intend to adjust? Obviously, we don't need a massive manned bomber retaliatory capability anymore. A mere dozen B-2s ought to suffice for any planned surgical strikes needed against any Third World troublemakers. The 100 or so B-Is can certainly take over the long range conventional strike mission from the tired and overused B-52s. Send those things to the boneyard! And tactically, the number of fighter and fighter bomber wings can be reduced significantly as we are not likely to be embroiled in a massive W.W.III-type war in Europe against the Eastern hordes where high attrition rates were envisioned. Nope, the USAF needs only to be able to respond to a situation like it faced last year against Iraq, but more efficiently with enough reserves to cover a second front if need be. This means its force structure must be such that it can rapidly deploy enough aircraft to achieve air superiority against any given threat country and still be able to cover its back.
For instance, suppose we must return to the Middle East like before but at the same time, North Korea invades the South. Hmmm, that would have been tough to accomodate under the old Air Force structure. Fortunately, some strategic thinkers in the Air Force are already contemplating these kinds of scenarios. In fact, as of last year the Tactical and Strategic Air Commands technically ceased to exist. There is now only the AirForce, composed of multi-mission capable composite wings. In the old days, you had to gather up a couple of different fighter and/or fighter bomber wings, a tanker wing, an airlift wing, and then borrow some squadrons from a reconnaissance and electronic support wing, and then meld them and all their individual command and control structures under a unified command headquarters - a complicated and time consuming task. With the creation of the composite force wing, the Air Force is placing a mix of fighter and strike aircraft, plus tanker, reconnaisance and airlift assets all together under a single headquarters. If possible, they will even be based together and deploy together in the future. It will be another couple of years before the restructuring of the Air Force is complete, but if you look around you will note some changes already occurring.
MiGs (and Sukhois) for Cash?
The Russian Republic and other members of the new commonwealth seem to be going on a selling spree of former military equipment. The reason is they need cash and they need it now! Modern former Soviet fighters seem to be well received in the international arms market. To date, China has already taken delivery of a number of Su-27 Flankers and Iran is receiving MiG-29s to augment those so thoughtfully donated by Iraq last year. Afghanistan is supposed to be receiving Su-24 Fencers in the near future (mighty long ranged strike aircraft for a guerrilla war don't you think!). Russia has also announced that it is willing to sell MiG-31s on the open market although there are no takers yet. All of this means that we as gainers can arguably create any scenario we want pitting the former Soviet Union's best jets against the best of the West anywhere.
Current Events 1991
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© Copyright 1991 by J.D. Webster
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