Superiority, Not Supremacy
Understanding a key advantage.

By Charles W. Miller, a retired Air Force colonel .
October 11, 2001 11:00 a.m.

magine being in the Taliban army, knowing that soon bombs could be falling right on you, and you can't do anything about it, except dig deeper. Five-thousand-pound bombs dropped on troops sends a powerful message to the rest of the force; it is in-your-face psychological warfare. One can hope that the message also gets to the al Qaeda network hiding in the caves.

Air superiority, especially in the hands of a professional military, is an awe-inspiring capability. Apparently, after only a few days of a very basic air campaign, the U.S. has air superiority over Afghanistan. Generally, that means the U.S. military and its coalition partners can fly practically anywhere they want over Afghanistan, and the Taliban cannot (even if they had the aircraft to do so). However, there are some limits on this freedom.

The U.S. and its coalition partners worked for the air advantage. They successfully targeted Taliban aircraft, command and control centers, radar, and SAMs (surface to air missiles). They will keep their eyes open for surprises and traps. But U.S. pilots must understand that they now enjoy air superiority, not air supremacy. Flying within range (at lower altitudes) of the anti-aircraft guns and shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles is still very dangerous. Known and discovered gun sites will soon be targeted.

Given the technical capabilities of U.S. aircraft and their highly trained crews, the altitude restrictions should not pose immediate problems — at least for the fixed-wing aircraft. Confident target identification will be the greatest problem.

Military helicopters, by the very nature of their missions, are more exposed to fire from guns and shoulder-fired SAMs. They usually overcome these risks through a combination of terrain masking, self-defense technologies, offensive tactics, and maintaining situational awareness — or — being alert. But it is a risky business.

What will the U.S. likely do with this air superiority?

• Pursue more, and safer, humanitarian airlift operations. Guns and missiles are still a concern, but more air routes and drop areas can be accessed.
• Increase attacks on artillery, tanks, combat vehicles, convoys, and other emerging targets.
• Attack troop concentrations, supplies, and suspected enemy hiding locations.
• Bomb command and leadership bunkers, military supply centers, and troop concentrations.
• Begin operations designed to find, capture, and/or kill al Qaeda cells.

Close air support for forces of the Northern Alliance will be a sticking point. This support will include an extremely difficult set of military tasks for a well-polished team that has trained together and who thoroughly understand the military tactics, techniques, and procedures that have evolved over time. If you don't do it right, the enemy gets away — and the friendlies on the ground often catch the ordinance.

Instead of this direct kind of support, we are more likely to see advanced, pre-planned strike missions, but even that might come a bit slowly at first. Both sides have to build trust and mutual knowledge of procedures for this kind of operation to come together.