Counter-Air Power in International Politics

The issue of developing counter-air capabilities, though extremely important in modern global politics, has been paid yet little attention in the literature. “Counter-air” includes not only air and missile defense. This technical problem was successfully solved during World War I and since then has been constantly improved. The main problem is to design such an air-defence system that could efficiently resist massive hostile air-action. In other words, the aim is not just to cause irreversible damage to the enemy, but to nullify its effectiveness. It is also important either to completely avoid or, at least, suffer no great losses. To achieve this effect, there should be both defensive and offensive anti hostile air-action. The development of such a system would revolutionize the military arts because it would automatically nullify counter-air power and revive the key role of land and naval forces. We must distinguish between air power and counterair capabilities due to their different political implications. The former aims at demoralizing the enemy, suppression of its morale, thus leading to accepting the imposed conditions. The political implications of the latter include two main goals. First, it is counter containment, which helps to minimalise the potential damage. Second, it is securing the national sovereignty in the aerial dimension. In today's world, counterair power can become not only the guarantee of aerial dimension safety, but also that of the state as a whole.

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