The Air Force's 4 Biggest Fears

• Air Force
• warfare
• aircraft
• missiles
• Iran
• Russia

The United States Air Force is the most capable, best trained and most expensively equipped in the world. They can reach across the globe to deliver humanitarian supplies or a 2000-pound bomb, defeating any enemy airplane or radar system that stands in the way. So what is there to worry about? Plenty, says David Deptula, the Air Force's deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, who briefed attendees of a recent conference on the dangers facing American warplanes. For now, given the low-tech nature of the insurgent enemies the nation currently faces, the service's technology has outpaced the threats. But in the near future, every part of a USAF mission could be compromised by a foreign military using sophisticated gear or a guerrilla force employing clever strategies. "Threats aren't standing still," he says. "We can't afford to stand still, either." Here's how Deptula says an enemy can counter the Air Force, each step of the way:


The biggest threat to operations is espionage conducted in the United States. Espionage does not have to be in the form of shadowy moles wearing trench coats. Media coverage, satellite imagery and open-source scientific studies can all telegraph U.S. preparations and hint at military technology. "There are commercial satellite images available for sale that were considered classified a year ago," Deptula says. He adds that cyber attacks are a large vulnerability. During the 2008 campaign against Georgia, attacks traced to Russian criminal and civilian computers helped to disrupt the Georgian power grid, hampering the nation's ability to mobilize its armed forces and demoralizing its citizens. A similar slate of intrusions aimed at American bases or domestic civilian infrastructure could delay logistics that are critical to any Air Force action.


Airfields are at risk from the growing number of cruise and ballistic missiles in the world. Short- and medium-range missiles—especially if tipped with chemical or biological warheads—could wreck havoc on an airbase. As U.S. and NATO missile defense technology improves, weapons designers in Russia and China have been developing "missile defense penetration aids" meant to spoof the sensors of missile shields. Deptula says that in 1999 Serb airplane spotters watched U.S. warplanes leave an airbase in Italy and contacted anti-air missile batteries in Serbia. The method helped Serbs down an F-117 Nighthawk, despite its stealth profile, helping the warplane missile crews aim their long-wavelength radar by providing them with an approximate time the warplane would be overhead.


One radar array can be beaten, but it's harder to beat many of them linked in an integrated system. Making matters worse, the radar ranges are ever-increasing. "The area that we operate in free of detection is rapidly shrinking," Deptula says. Over-the-horizon radar can alert foes that a U.S. warplane is on the way, while passive radar can provide enemies with rough tracks of an airplane's location, direction and altitude. If enemies know that the airplanes are coming and where they are heading, they can fire up their radar, hide military assets, warn targets and scramble warplanes.


American air superiority is considered a given, but there is a boom industry in antiaircraft missiles and warplanes that are specifically designed to defeat U.S. and NATO stealth technology. Surface-to-air missiles have destroyed more Air Force warplanes since 1991 than any other weapon system. SAMS (pdf) are only getting better—Russia's S-300 can track hundreds of targets at ranges of more than 250 miles. The system can shift the balance of power in favor any nation that deploys it. That's why the Israelis are so interested in a possible deal to sell S-300s to Iran, and may launch an airstrike on nuclear facilities before they arrive. Deptula also says that the spread of new Russian and Chinese fighters, which are sold on the open market, could overwhelm the superior American warplanes like the F-22 Raptor and yet-to-enter-service F-35 Lightning II. These new fighters have great radar and stealthy features that could cause problems for the U.S. fleet. "The days of operations in permissive airspace are over," Deptula says.

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