Achieving and Ensuring Air Dominance

This research paper advocates and explains air dominance. Air dominance goes beyond air superiority and supremacy in that it not only ensures that friendly aircraft can fly anywhere in enemy territory, but that they can also be effective at performing their mission. Suppression of ground-to-air attacks, prevention of attacks on our airbases, and overcoming domestic attacks on procurement are all important in ensuring the effectiveness, or dominance, of airpower. I chose this research topic because I had some experience with air dominance as a F-15C Eagle pilot from the Summer of 1989 to the Summer of 1992. I actively participated in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm with the 27th Tactical Fighter Squadron of the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing. I believe this research has particular value to the reader in that it reiterates the value of air dominance to the campaign planner, it reinforces that value through historical analysis, it closely examines the potential future threats (both foreign and domestic), then it proposes future courses of action. The goal is to ensure that the USAF's future air dominance requirements are being adequately addressed and that tomorrow's war fighters will continue to benefit from air dominance.