The Future of NATO Airpower: How are Future Capability Plans Within the Alliance Diverging and How can Interoperability be Maintained? (Whitehall Papers)

Airpower remains the cornerstone of NATO’s military advantage, so maintaining the ability to win air superiority over peer opponents in a conflict is key to long-term deterrence stability in both Europe and the Pacific. This Whitehall Paper examines the various modernisation and future capability development efforts being undertaken within NATO, and analyses the major threat systems and overall modernisation trends of the West’s main peer-competitors – Russia and China. US airpower capability development efforts are increasingly focused on countering the growing challenge from the Chinese military in the Pacific. To meet this challenge, the Pentagon is planning to transform the way it operates across all domains over the next 15 years. New platforms, weapons systems and increasing automation of command and control threaten to leave NATO allies behind. Current acquisition and modernisation plans of European air forces may eventually close the capability gap with current US theatre entry standard capabilities, but by then the US will have leapt ahead once more. Furthermore, many of the airpower capabilities which the US is pursuing for the Pacific theatre are significantly less relevant for the demands of deterrence against Russia in Europe. Given continuing dependence on US enablers on the part of other NATO members, a significant divergence in capability plans threatens to undermine crucial Alliance interoperability if not recognised and managed early. "This study argues that there are major changes on the horizon in terms of the way that the US wages war from the air and as a joint force. These are likely to make it significantly more technically difficult and politically complex for other NATO air forces to 'plug into' US-led coalitions as they have done for decades. From the way that sensor data, weapon allocation and targeting are cued within the kill chain, to a step change in how enablers like AWACS aircraft are provided, to the scale of cross-domain integration, the US is aiming to revolutionise the way it fights. In some cases, other NATO members may not wish to go down the same developmental pathways, even if they are able to do so. This might be because combat aircraft, concepts of operations (CONOPS) or weapons systems developed by the US with a Chinese threat in the Pacific in mind might be judged unsuitable for European needs. However, there are potentially more disruptive ethical and legal issues to do with fighting as part of a future US-led coalition as the latter pursues extensive automation to improve its lethality in a major war. For an alliance whose airpower edge is highly dependent on US enablers, command and control (C2) infrastructure and in some cases equipment, this has major implications. NATO is first and foremost a political organisation rather than a military one. However, this should not obscure the fact that it is a political organisation with a central purpose - mutual defence and deterrence against state opponents - which requires strong, interoperable military capabilities in addition to political will and unity." This book examines the modernisation and future capability efforts within NATO vis-à-vis those of the West’s main peer competitors, Russia and China.