Air "Supremacy" Seems To Have Been Achieved--Its Results Could Be Dramatic

The Israel-Iran Air War Could Go A Number Of Different Ways

Hello All,

As many of you know, I started my career as an air and sea power historian. Writing about air power has always been one of my specialties and its something that I think gets unfairly pigeon-holed and misunderstood (Strategic Airpower is a Failure!; You Need Boots on the Ground!). There are more misconceptions and false aphorisms about airpower than arguably any other facet of warfare (though space power might be catching up).

Anyway, I thought it would be worth writing for subscribers a short precis of what we are seeing in the Israeli-Iran air war—which looks to be an “air” war almost exclusively and, moreover, is shaping up as an example of what one power might/can do if it has air “supremacy”. Other than the USA, air “supremacy” has rarely been achieved, and even for the USA its been more of a rarity than one thinks. In World War II, for instance, only at the very end did the USA achieve supremacy in the air—but by that point the war was basically over.

That is not the case here at all. As such, I thought I would try to present what are the key air power issues that we are seeing.

The “Highway of Death” in Kuwait, 1991—This is What Air Supremacy Can do