Air University Review - September-October 1976

Air interdiction operations are conducted to destroy, neutralize, or delay the enemy's military potential before it can be brought to bear effectively against friendly forces.*

Doctrine or Dodo?

*AFM 2-1, Tactical Air Operations--Counter Air, Close Air Support, and Air Interdiction.

Interdiction has traditionally been one of the primary projections of air power. The very nature of air forces gives them the ability to attack important targets outside the range and surveillance of friendly ground forces, and the doctrine of air interdiction is well tried and more-or-less universally accepted.

However, when one considers the potential European battlefield of the future, several factors assume increasing significance, particularly with regard to the deep interdiction role of NATO's air forces. The Warsaw Pact forces now have an extensively deployed and relatively powerful air defence capability. They also have large military stockpiles near the borders adjoining NATO countries. These facts, coupled with an appreciation of the extent and multiplicity of the East European network of surface communications, must raise doubts about the utility of risking excessive losses of very expensive and highly sophisticated aircraft in attacking interdiction targets of possibly marginal value.

The purpose of this article is to examine the validity of the current U.S. Air Force doctrine of deep interdiction, in the light of the foregoing and of the inevitable high priority demands for other, and perhaps more urgent, uses of tactical air power in the European theatre.

Any attempt to forecast the exact nature of a future war in Europe is likely to be unsuccessful. There are too many imponderables. Factors such as cause (accidental, evolutionary, or premeditated), preparedness (surprise or identifiable "build-up"), area of initial attack (centre or flanks), and initial strategy (conventional or nuclear), would all have a bearing on the subsequent course of the battle. Although there are many different opinions as to the nature of such a war, there is almost total unanimity regarding its length. A future war in Europe would be a short war. And this must be a prime factor in determining the value of interdiction. For while its effectiveness is undisputed in a long war of attrition, it becomes open to question in, say, a thirty-day war.

The traditional targets for air interdiction operations are the sources of military weapons, supplies and equipment, and the lines of communication along which they and the troops must flow to sustain the enemy's war effort. In particular, concentration points and stockpiled supplies provided relatively lucrative targets for interdiction. In the past, the main benefits of interdiction have stemmed from its long-term effects in reducing the enemy's capacity to continue the battle. However, it has always had two major shortcomings. The first lay in the extreme accuracy or the heavy concentration of weapons required to deny effective use of communications systems to the enemy. The second lay in the relatively short time which elapsed before the enemy succeeded in reopening the route or in finding an alternative one. The former disadvantage has, to a large degree, been resolved by advent of precision guided munitions (PGM's).

In the European arena, the second disadvantage is compounded--at least in the Central Region--by the increasingly interlinked network of roads and railways of the Warsaw Pact infrastructure and the increased provision of tracked vehicles for their forces. In this environment it begins to look as though the results of long-range interdiction would achieve too little and too late to have a significant effect on the outcome of a "short" war.

All this is not to say that there would be no fruitful and important interdiction targets in a future European conflict. Weapon stockpiles and troop concentrations just to the rear of the main battle area could provide excellent short-range interdiction targets. However, although those nearest to the front line might be vulnerable to surface-to-surface attack, they would all undoubtedly be well protected against air attack. This raises the question of penetration and location.

The widespread deployment of fixed ground-to-air missile defences, coupled with the ever increasing numbers of Warsaw Pact fighter aircraft, has vastly increased the penetration problems of interdicting aircraft. Fortunately, the situation is somewhat ameliorated by the aircrafts’ additional freedom (in terms of speed, routing, and evasive manoeuvres en route to the target) brought about by the advent of greatly improved navigational and target-acquisition avionics.

However, all Soviet army divisions are now provided with highly mobile, indigenous air defence "systems"--in the form of AAA (ZSU 23/4), SAM 4 "Ganef," and SA-7 "Grail." In this environment, the prospect of relatively small numbers of interdiction aircraft successfully immobilising enemy reserve divisions, poised to the rear of the battle area, becomes increasingly remote. Moreover, the Yom Kippur War proved that concentrated air defences can take a heavy toll of attacking aircraft.

It follows, therefore, that penetration chances would be enhanced if interdiction forces could be provided with suppressive electronic countermeasure (ECM) escorts and could attack in large numbers. But the question now arises: Are sufficient aircraft likely to be made available for such tasks, in the face of other demands for their "services"?

Present Warsaw Pact conventional force deployments in Europe point to a strategy of large concentrations of armour, employed to achieve a rapid breakthrough of the NATO defences of the Central Region. NATO strategy is designed to slow down or halt such a penetration for a period long enough to allow a political dialogue before recourse to tactical nuclear weapons becomes inevitable.

In such a situation, it is probable that the main demands placed on air power would be for close air support and counterair operations. Multipurpose aircraft are most likely to be employed for these roles rather than for interdiction--particularly long-range interdiction-which would be of marginal utility in terms of its contribution to the immediate battle.

In light of the foregoing, adherence to the doctrine of interdiction in the early stages of a war in Europe becomes very questionable.

Nevertheless, there is a major role for interdiction aircraft at a later stage in the battle. For if the enemy's initial assault should prove to be uncontainable by conventional means, then his reserve troop and armour concentrations and his tactical nuclear weapon stores--behind the immediate battle area-- could become critical targets for interdiction with tactical nuclear weapons. To fulfill this role, it would be necessary to withhold certain interdiction-specific aircraft (and appropriate early warning [EW] penetration-support aircraft) from the conventional phase of the war.

In any future war in Europe, conventional attacks on traditional interdiction targets, while contributing little to the immediate battle, would probably result in significant losses of interdicting aircraft. It follows, therefore, that multirole aircraft are likely to be more productive in priority counterair and close air support than in interdiction. However, should conventional defence fail, short-range interdiction with tactical nuclear weapons would probably constitute an essential element of the subsequent battle.

Interdiction, therefore, unlike the Dodo, is not quite extinct. But its continued survival, in a European environment, probably depends upon its ability to lay nuclear eggs! Perhaps the present concept of interdiction should be amended to reflect this.