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The devastating effect of
modern airpower was demonstrated repeatedly in recent conflicts -
in the continued confrontation in Iraq, from 1991 through 2003,
the successful application of allied airpower brought some
analysts to argue that airpower alone could win a war. However,
military planners are less enthusiastic about the airpower's "silver
bullet" and see its best application as part of a joint operation,
extensively networked with combat formations on land, at sea and
in space. For armies other than the US, the air warfare
demonstrated in the two recent conflicts with Iraq was somewhat of a
peek into the distant future – and not a realistic scenario they
can "copy and paste" into their operational planning. The
coalition forces had several unique advantages - political and
technological - on their side. These included the decade long ability to pound
the Iraqi air defenses, by offensive patrols operated
over the "no flying zones", the use of stealth weaponry, including
strike aircraft and cruise missiles, during the initial phase of
the conflict and virtually unlimited access to intelligence
information, provided by platforms operating beyond the reach of
conventional defenses – including spy satellites of various types
and high flying UAVs like Global Hawk UAVs. A more restricted use of
the same assets, during the Kosovo conflict, was executed under
strict operational and political limitations and yielded less
dramatic results.
 In 100 years of operation, harnessing leading edge technologies
and advanced science, airpower has matured and became efficient,
precise and devastating. Most evidently since the end of the cold
war, the characteristic profile of the aerial threat changed
dramatically, from direct, over the target attack by large masses
of bombers, or nuclear attacks with long range ballistic and cruise
missiles, to attacks by a small number of precision guided weapons,
launched from aircraft beyond the effective range of the target's
defenses. Cruise missiles have also evolved, to become stealthier,
fly lower, faster and attack with higher precision. Unmanned
aerial vehicles are maturing as well, and are expected to replace
some of the manned attack missions in the near future. The main
differentiators between modern and past capabilities are the
growing separation between the attacker and his intended target,
by the use of autonomous or guided, standoff weapons. Supporting
technologies are ensuring high probability of target hit, by
evading detection of the strike aircraft and the attack
weapons, by the application of stealth techniques, use of
electronic warfare for confusion, deception and seduction of enemy
defenses, and the suppression and destruction of radars and air
defenses, prior to the attacks of key strategic targets.
In some combat scenarios, dedicated weapons are tailored to
challenge the target's characteristics, defenses and
countermeasures. For example, point targets such as air
surveillance radar sites, command centers and communications
nodes, are being targeted by a wide range of high speed,
anti-radiation missiles, some of which can "memorize" the
emitter's locations even after the radar shuts down trying to
evade such attack. Precision guided munitions are employed in
attacks of fixed sites. Stationary targets, whose locations are
known, are targeted by autonomous weapons that can sense the
targets at the predicted location - modern cruise missiles will
fly autonomously and seek the target by their integral sensors as
well as scene matching techniques. Typical attacks are performed
from long range and high to medium altitude, to achieve maximum
standoff range. It is expected that by the year 2010 half of the
attacks of such targets will be performed by autonomous weapons
such as cruise missiles and Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAV).
The remaining half will consist of manned missions, utilizing
standoff precision guided weapons, to minimize the risk for the
attacking aircraft. The modern technology enables attacks of
"surgical" precision, with smaller weapons, resulting in lower
consumption of munitions, increasing the total number of
attackable targets. Due to the use of such smaller warheads, these
"surgical" weapons cause less collateral damage and therefore,
more targets can be engaged in or near civilian environment, including
power, energy and communications centers, as well as the classic
military targets.
Effective air defense systems are imperative to contain such
threats. Therefore, each of the recent campaigns began with the
crippling and destruction of enemy air defenses, starting from blinding
and destroying the "eyes and ears" – radars and command centers,
following with a systematic hunting and destruction of Surface to
Air Missiles (SAM) and Anti-Aircraft Artillery (A3).
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