Information-age terrorism and the U. S. Air force

Terrorists, especially those operating under a war paradigm, have

every reason to seek out and target U.S. military personnel,

installations, and equipment. The inability to pose direct opposition

to American power may stimulate ethno-nationalist and religious

revivalist movements—both types of actors may feel inherently

threatened by the preeminent position of the United States in

current world politics. Using a war paradigm allows terrorists an

easy rationale for striking at American power, even in the absence of

specific demands and without the need to claim credit for actions.

Further, the high profile of the Air Force suggests that attacks upon it

will be a way to grab worldwide public attention and strike at what is

perceived, by some, to be a “conditionally fragile” American public

ability to accept losses and casualties.

The U.S. Air Force, which in many ways epitomizes American

power—as the Royal Navy did in the heyday of British Empire—has

symbolic value as a target of terror. It also has expensive and sophisticated

equipment that increases its attractiveness to the terrorist.

Further, air assets are a quintessential element of the balance of

power in any region of the world, as they are an available form of

American military power that may be exercised in support of U.S.

interests. Given a U.S. air mastery that precludes direct challenges, a

terrorist commando strategy against U.S. air assets might prove an

attractive option for potential adversaries.

This option poses the prospect of a campaign with low costs and

risks—much like the British use of the Special Air Service (SAS) in

North Africa during World War II. In that campaign, British

commandos were sent against Luftwaffe airbases, destroying over

400 aircraft between 1941 and 1943 and helping to mitigate the effects

of German air superiority early in the desert war with deep

strikes of up to 400 miles behind the front.85 This irregular approach

to weakening an enemy’s air power has remained a vibrant strand in

British strategic thought, and the SAS would reprise its role in the

1982 Falklands War, most notably by destroying 11 Argentine

ground-attack aircraft in the raid on Pebble Island. The potential of

this type of threat to USAF bases has been acknowledged, and

mitigation measures explored, in recent studies on ground-based

threats to airbases.

For the USAF, the prospect of terrorist attack exists across the spectrum

of operations and across the types of asset—from personnel to

equipment, and, increasingly, against command and control nodes.

In peacetime, for example, the USAF plays a key role in maintaining a

sense of American presence around the world. It is often a part of

shows of force, and is an element in the American grand strategy of

being open to the world regarding its military prowess—an important

part of extending deterrent protection to U.S. friends and allies.

Small-scale contingencies (SSC) range, on their lower-intensity end

of the spectrum, from humanitarian aid delivery to peace enforcement

(e.g., of “no fly” zones). Finally, the USAF will always play a key

role in major theater wars (MTW), shoring up indigenous forces and

multiplying the strength of other American military forces arriving in

theater. U.S. air power, in this last category, may be the only viable

hope of slowing down a numerically superior aggressor—and the aggressor

may realize this, raising his interest in a terrorist commando

strategy against the USAF.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-21