CONFERENCE Joint Air & Space Power 20 Conference 16 CONFERENCE JAPCC Preparing NATO for Joint Air Operations in a 16 20 Degraded Environment 4 – 6 OCTOBER Joint Air Power Competence Centre CONFERENCE2016 von-Seydlitz-Kaserne Römerstraße 140 | 47546 Kalkar (Germany) | www.japcc.org/conference Joint Air Power Competence Centre This page intentionally left blank. Preparing NATO for Joint Air Operations in a Degraded Environment This page intentionally left blank. PERATIONS IN T O A N DE OI G J R R A O D F E D O T E A N N V I G R O N I N R M A E P N E R T P J A 6 P 1 C 0 C 2 J E O C IN N T E ER AI F R A ON ND R C SPACE POWE CONFERENCE Preparing NATO for Joint Air Operations in a Degraded Environment Joint Air and Space Power Conference 2016 Joint Air Power Competence Centre © This work is copyrighted. No part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission. Inquiries should be made to: The Editor, Joint Air Power Competence Centre (JAPCC), [email protected] Acknowledgements This read ahead is a JAPCC product realized in collaboration with the authors of the essays contained herein. The JAPCC would like to thank the numerous authors who took the time to contribute to this product in an effort to advance this topic for discussion within NATO. Disclaimer This publication is a product of the JAPCC. The views expressed in this work are those of the authors. It does not represent the opinions or policies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), and is designed to provide an independent overview, analysis and food for thought regarding possible ways ahead on this subject. Release This document is approved for public release. Portions of the document may be quoted or reproduced without permission, provided a standard source credit is included. Published and distributed by The Joint Air Power Competence Centre von-Seydlitz-Kaserne Römerstraße 140 47546 Kalkar Germany Denotes images digitally manipulated Moderator’s Foreword Dear Reader, It is my great privilege and pleasure to act as the moderator for this year’s Joint Air Power Competence Centre (JAPCC) Conference, which will take place over the period 4–6 October 2016 in Essen, Germany. The theme for this year’s conference is ‘Preparing NATO for Joint Air Operations in a Degraded Environment.’ This is a broad topic and is one that has perhaps not had the visibility it deserves in recent years. Recent contemporary operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have been conducted in environments where our adversar- ies, though lethal and innovative in some areas, lacked the technical so- phistication to deny us the full spectrum access we need in order to successfully bring air power to bear. Put simply, modern air power is a high tech business and it is utterly reliant upon the ability to gain unre- stricted and assured access to the entire electromagnetic spectrum, space, and, increasingly, cyberspace. Environmental degradations, be they imposed by an adversary or created by natural phenomena, have a massively debilitating effect on the ability to successfully project air power across all its roles. When I began my military flying career during the Cold War, NATO took its air power preparedness extremely seriously. We anticipated degraded op- erating environments, both in regard to electronic counter-measures and to the potential need to continue to operate in a nuclear, biological or chemical environment. We equipped our forces accordingly and trained for the worst case scenario. After years of coalition operations in uncon- tested (and uncongested) environments, we must now ask ourselves if NATO has taken its eye off the ball in this regard. V In the pursuit of this question and in preparation for the upcoming Conference, the JAPCC offers the following food-for-thought pieces for your consideration. Designed to provoke thought and incite debate, the essays are written by leading thinkers from the military, industry, NGOs and academia and address various themes that should underpin any thorough discussion of preparing to operate in a degraded environment. In seeking to address the constraints NATO’s air power assets might face in a degraded environment, the JAPCC staff has also assembled a multi- disciplinary, multinational team of distinguished speakers and panellists for this year’s Conference. Crucially, the conference seeks to consider what NATO could and should do to improve its preparedness in this regard. This is your opportunity to contribute! I very much hope you will join us at Essen in October for what promises to be a fascinating and important two days. Ian Elliott Air Commodore (ret.), GBR AF VI This page intentionally left blank. Table of Contents Moderator’s Foreword ..............................................................V Are We as an Alliance Prepared I to Operate in a Degraded Environment? ..............................1 Joachim Wundrak, Lieutenant General, Executive Director, JAPCC, DEU AF Lawfare: Lowering Legal Thresholds II Because of a Degraded Environment? ..................................5 Colonel Dr. Joop Voetelink, NLD AF An Italian Perspective on Preparing NATO for III Joint Air Operations in a Degraded Environment .............13 Lieutenant General (ret.) Leandro De Vincenti ITA AF Agile Command and Control in a IV Degraded Environment ..........................................................17 Rear Admiral (LH) Thomas Ernst, DEU N, Commander, Maritime Air NATO A Quick Glance from the German V Macro-Political Perspective ...................................................25 Mr Christian Motzer, DEU VIII Air Operations in Contested Environments ........................33 VI Brigadier General Mehmet Yalinalp, TUR AF Introduction to a Degraded Environment ..........................41 VII Major General Claudio Gabellini, ITA AF Joint Air Operations in a Degraded Electromagnetic VIII Environment – An Operator’s Perspective ..............................47 Mr Ian Stuart Ead, GBR Special Operations in Degraded Environments ................57 IX Lieutenant General Brad Webb, USA AF The End of an Illusion .............................................................65 X Lieutenant General (ret.) Ton van Loon, NLD A Preparing NATO for Joint Air Operations XI in a Degraded Environment ..................................................75 Madelein Spit, Air Commodore, Assistant Director, JAPCC, NLD AF Conference Itinerary ...............................................................78 IX © USAF Are We as an Alliance Prepared to Operate in a Degraded Environment? I Lieutenant General Joachim Wundrak, DEU AF ince we have been involved in Afghanistan, we have unintention- ally let certain aspects of our overall mission capability degrade S as we’ve focussed on developing those skillsets we needed to be successful in that environment. Specifically, I do not think NATO is train- ing as hard as we used to for situations that will require us as Airmen to be flexible and innovative to counter the challenges of a near-peer adversary. When the JAPCC team briefed me about the topic for the upcoming Air and Space Power Conference, I was very supportive of the proposal. If we do not address our ability to operate in degraded environments through equipment procurement and by training at the most realistic levels we can manage, we may find future conflicts do not end favourably for our way of life. You could ask why are we addressing preparing for degraded environ- ments instead of contested environments or why not look more specifi- cally at the concept of preparing to defeat an Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/ AD) environment. While both these are essential conversations, from my perspective, A2/AD is a subset of contested, which itself is a subset of de- graded. So, an environment could be degraded as a result of an adversary 1 Are We as an Alliance Prepared to Operate in a Degraded Environment? contesting that environment. That adversary could use an A2/AD strategy to contest the environment. The use of degraded as opposed to contested opens the discussion to situations potentially caused by a wide variety of factors, not just those caused by enemy actions. However, as a senior NATO air commander, I am personally focussed on the impact that A2/AD might have on our ability to operate and think we need to pay particular attention to the A2/AD challenge. The term A2/AD itself is relatively recent, but the concept of controlling access to a battlespace or controlling an enemy’s freedom of movement within battlespaces is as old as human warfare. I won’t go into a long history of A2/AD here, but I do want to briefly address why today’s A2/AD is not what our predecessors dealt with. From an air perspective, the modern A2/AD area is built on the foundation of an Integrated Air Defence System, or IADS, and uses associated systems to extend their range. Modern IADS have ranges in the hundreds of miles and are supplemented by long-range surface-to-surface weapons and non- traditional weapons (such as cyber-attack) that can reach well beyond this distance. Thus, the adversary now has the ability to hold at risk our assets deep inside our territory without ever leaving their territory. This is Regional A2/AD, or A2/RD – an ability to deny access and control action across an entire region, which is a greater problem by several orders of magnitude. What concerns me about A2/RD is that we may not have superior technology available to us – stealth and precision weapons may not be enough, even when coupled with the most modern TTPs we can employ. The A2/RD ‘bubble’ is so large that our current long-range weapons are simply not long-range enough or are too easily defeated by modern systems. Of particular note, the threat is not static – it is persistently adapt- ing to match our capabilities. We cannot remain complacent and assume that our capabilities will remain effective against the changing threat. 2 Are We as an Alliance Prepared to Operate in a Degraded Environment? Regional A2/RD is here to stay and, as those charged with the collective security of our Alliance, we must be ready to counter its effects.