Air-Sea Battle: Service Collaboration to Address Anti-Access & Area Denial Challenges

From its inception, the U.S. military has continuously adapted itself to meet evolving threats. At its core, the Air-Sea Battle Concept is about reducing risk and maintaining U.S. freedom of action and reflects the Services’ most recent efforts to improve U.S. capabilities. Similar to previous efforts, the Concept seeks to better integrate the Services in new and creative ways. It is a natural and deliberate evolution of U.S. power projection and a key support component of U.S. national security strategy for the 21st century.https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/csf/1000/thumbnail.jp

Confronting the anti-access/area denial and precision strike challenge in the Baltic region

The Baltic States are once again worried that their security is under threat. The US and NATO have responded with air patrols, joint exercises, and battalion-sized groundforce deployments. As important as these efforts have been, they do not fully address Russia’s anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) and precision strike capabilities, both of which undermine NATO’s stratagem for deterring aggression in the first place. Alexander Lanoszka and Michael A Hunzeker assess the current military imbalance and describe two conflict scenarios to show how A2/AD and precision weapons threaten extended deterrence. They conclude with a discussion of the policy implications

Simulating Autonomous Cruise Missile Swarm Behaviors in an Anti-Access Area Denial (A2AD) Environment

The increasingly sophisticated anti-access area denial (A2AD) threat imposed by the modern integrated air defense system (IADS), coupled with the decreasingly potent advantage provided by high-end stealth platforms, has prompted Air Force senior leaders to invest in radically changing the nature of air power for the year 2030 and beyond. A prominent element of this new vision is weapon swarming, which aims to address this challenge by overwhelming the IADS with huge numbers of low-cost, attritable aerial assets emboldened by autonomous capabilities. This research proposes a framework for classifying the different levels of autonomous capability along three independent dimensions—namely ability to act alone, ability to cooperate, and ability to adapt. A virtual combat model is constructed using the Advanced Framework for Simulation, Integration, and Modeling (AFSIM) in order to simulate the engagement between a friendly air strike package, featuring a manned penetrating bomber and an autonomous cruise missile swarm, and an enemy IADS acting in an A2AD role. The influence of varying levels of autonomy on the strike package’s performance is evaluated by using the autonomy framework as the basis for a designed experiment. Analyzing the experimental results reveals which dimensions and levels of autonomy are most impactful in promoting survivability and lethality for this simulated scenario

Impacts of Anti-Access/Area Denial Measures on Space Systems: Issues and Implications for Army and Joint Forces

The 2018 National Defense Strategy and National Space Strategy both reaffirm the vital interests that the United States has in the domain of space. However, space remains an inherently hostile environment that has become congested, contested, and competitive among the nations. What are ways for the U.S. Army to assure the success of its space-dependent warfighting functions in an anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) environment where space systems are degraded for significant periods of time?https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1395/thumbnail.jp

China’s Anti-Access & Area-Denial operational concept and the dilemmas for Japan

The People's Republic of China is developing a sophisticated Anti-Access/Area-Denial operational concept utilising a variety of defensive military capabilities, entwined with offensive components. The United States, Japan and other Asia-Pacific countries remain sceptical about China's defensive rationale for developing this operational concept because it threatens to undermine Asia-Pacific security. Specifically, the threat posed by China's military modernisation to the security of Japan may force the Japanese Government to adopt a more self-reliant defence posture. However, there are a variety of factors that complicate Japan's perception of China and restrict the number of feasible response options open to the Japanese Government. As such, this sub-thesis will examine the nature of China's Anti-Access/Area-Denial operational concept in addition to the factors complicating Japan's response and finally the ways that Japan may respond to the rising power of China

Global Title X Series \u2714

At the direction of the Air Sea Battle (ASB) Office, and with the concurrence of the Chief of Naval Operations, Global ’14 continued to focus on the Air-Sea Battle (ASB) Concept. While Global ’12 looked at the war fighting implications associated with concept implementation, Global ’13 and Global ’14 examined the command and control (C2) of cross-domain operations (XDO) in future Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) environments. After evaluating the three possible C2 structures developed in Global ’13 – a functional component commander based model, a “Domain Commander” based model, and a “Cross-Domain Commander” based model – a fourth “hybridized” system was proposed using the current functional component C2 structure incorporating specific features identified during Global ’13

Control of the Syrian airspace: Russian geopolitical ambitions and air threat assessment

Russia has mounted its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) footprint in the Levant and also boosted the Syrian Arab Air Defense Force’s capabilities. Syrian skies now remain a heavily contested combat airspace and a dangerous flashpoint. Moreover, there is another grave threat to monitor at low altitudes. Throughout the civil war, various non-state armed groups have acquired advanced man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), which pose a menacing challenge not only to the deployed forces, but also to commercial aviation around the world. In the face of these threats, NATO needs to draw key lessons-learned from the contemporary Russian operational art, and more importantly, to develop a new understanding in order to grasp the emerging reality in Syria. Simply put, control of the Syrian airspace is becoming an extremely crucial issue, and it will be a determining factor for the war-torn country’s future status quo. (author's abstract

China's Long Range Bombers a Strategic Challenge to the Region

The Long-Range Strike Bomber (LRSB) fleet is a legacy left behind by the Cold War era when trans-regional and inter-continental range bombers were part of the nuclear triad. The United States (US) and the Soviet Union maintained LRSBs primarily to support nuclear missions but during the height of the Cold War, these bombers were also kept ready for conventional missions. China has been working for a long to develop LRSBs to put in place a credible nuclear triad. China has redefined its strategic boundaries and is asserting to break the myth of the ‘first and second island chains' to project power beyond these geographical bottlenecks through maritime and air power. The strategic bombers give China flexibility to gain access to the Western Pacific and north-south movement along the Asian seaboard to complement its Anti-Access/Area Denial (AA/AD) strategy

Rethinking SEAD: Employment of contemporary Fighter Aircraft Capabilities against an A2/AD-System of Systems of a peer Adversary in Europe

The Russian full scale invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated, how relevant the discussion about a potential NATO article 5 intervention in Europe is. A frequently used term in this context is Anti Access/ Area Denial. While this term is not existent in Russian strategy, the Integrated Air Defense System it encompasses poses a major challenge to NATO’s freedom of movement in case of a conflict. The air power role Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses can provide means to tackle the threat the Russian IADS poses to NATO. This thesis elaborates on NATO’s capabilities to counter the Russian IADS with SEAD capabilities. The topics SEAD and A2/AD are analyses in an extensive literature review. A qualitative small-N study based on subject matter expert interviews is conducted in order to identify, how the way SEAD operations are executed must be adjusted based in the present SEAD capabilities in NAT

Die Militarisierung der Oblast Kaliningrad und die Bedeutung für die Sicherheit Polens

Die Oblast Kaliningrad ist für die Russische Föderation von großer Bedeutung. Dort ist die Baltische Flotte stationiert und werden die Strukturen der Landstreitkräfte ausgebaut. Seit einigen Jahren betreibt Russland eine starke Militarisierung der Exklave. Dazu gehören die Dislozierung des Luftabwehrsystems S-400, die Ausstattung der Marine mit Kalibr Lenkwaffen sowie der Beginn der Dislozierung von Iskander-Raketensystemen, was den Aufbau einer Anti-Access Area Denial (A2AD)-Zone ermöglicht. Für die angrenzenden NATO-Staaten, so auch Polen, bedeutet das, in unmittelbarer Reichweite russischer Massenvernichtungswaffen zu liegen