Preliminary note: The ideas and opinions in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the French Air Force or Ministry of Defence.

The Ministry of Defence in general, and the armed forces in particular, have begun a process of transformation and adaptation to the international environment in which they will be called upon to operate in the future. The Air Force is, of course, involved in this evolution, and in the same vein has begun its own transformation process, intended to carry it beyond 2025. It is quite logical that this transformation should occur hand in hand with a broader consideration of how the battlefield is likely to change over the same period. The ideas proposed in this article are intended to add to this broader consideration.

Recent interventions have borne witness to the role played by aerospace power in the nature of conflicts, the environment of interventions and the adversary, and, as a result, to the ways of using that power. The latter point shows a clear break from its use during operations in the nineteen-nineties. Should we therefore see this evolution as some defining trait in the character of our future commitments? Do all changes in the nature of the battlefield have a causal effect on the characteristics and use of aerospace power? The aim of this article is to detect the current and future changes in the battlefield which could have an impact on the exercise of aerospace power.

An increasing number of players on the battlefield

To say that the number and type of players on the battlefield is increasing is hardly new, and yet the changes in, and complexity of, this veritable mosaic of networks have accelerated since the phenomenon was identified several decades ago. On a wider scale, the state is no longer the sole organisation to possess the resources needed for acting internationally. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs), international organisations, trans-national movements, private companies and private military and security providers have also become significant players. Even those working in international relations have seen the collective nature of their vocation demolished. The role of the individual, be he tourist or terrorist, would seem to be the final sign of the blowing apart of international society. Through his action (perhaps an attack, or by posting a video on Internet) or simply by his presence (as a victim of some action, or of a kidnapping), the individual becomes a player in international relations. From a domestic point of view, each state is aware of competition from collections of players acting within that same state, who call into question the legitimacy of the political structure—sometimes to the extent of its collapse.

The battlefield therefore becomes a smaller reflection of the questioning of two conventional state monopolies: that of control of international relations, and that of domestic political legitimacy. The form taken by players on the battlefield confirms this fogging of the boundary between domestic and external issues, and is exemplified by those NGOs concerned with international solidarity, which appear on the battlefield via their operational divisions. They are financed by states and inter-governmental organisations by the action of their supporters and structures established principally in Western countries. They are not necessarily trans-national: indeed, they are occasionally identifiable with a single nation. Communication aimed at promoting their action on the battlefield has a two-pronged aim: fundraising, and expanding their media value for presentation to Western audiences. The legitimacy thus acquired helps them in their negotiations (mainly financial) with national and/or international public authorities. Private companies providing military support act on the ground and also develop contractual relations with some countries according to distinct systems of regulation and legal issues which are defined with each country concerned and which to some extent they bring onto the battlefield. Those two examples well illustrate how the state has lost its monopoly of control of the battlefield, a symptom of one of the consequences of the multiplicity of actors thereon. The other consequence which carries with it a growth in the complexity of the battlefield, is the confrontation between a similar multiplicity of and divergence in rationale. Each rationale identifies its own priorities and stakes, and each is different, be it based on, for example, military, political, media or regulatory issues.

From the belligerent parties’ point of view, one of the main, and perhaps most notable, developments on the battlefield in recent years clearly relates to the non-state nature of the adversaries that Western forces have to face. With the exception of the conflict between Georgia and Russia in August 2008, contemporary conflicts for the most part cast a collaboration of conventional forces against insurgents or non-state movements. Iraq, Afghanistan, south Lebanon, Libya and Mali are cases in point. The dominant question in many current analyses is that of the adaptability of aerospace power, which is essentially designed for confrontation with a state actor. This latter form of military engagement was formalised by Warden, in his theory of five concentric circles, in which he envisaged the adversary as a pseudo-organic decision-making system with the capacity for making decisions and action. How, then, do we organise ourselves when facing an adversary who, in principle, has no centres of gravity? Firstly, buy not having too truncated a vision of Warden’s model, which defined a strategic entity in terms of an organisation capable of operating autonomously—that is, of moving and supplying itself. If, as the Belgian political analyst, Joseph Henrotin, wrote, Warden’s typical adversary were a state, then one could identify a system which allowed understanding of insurgent groups’ rationale, since they, too, function with forms of leadership (leaders and ideological advisors), communication services (on-line media, for example), infrastructure (a financial system or smuggling network), population to support the insurgents, and deployed forces. Today’s crying need to design ways of responding to these situations will be no less crying fifteen years from now, when we can be sure that the non-state adversary will still be in a position of indirect action, fleeting in his appearances and hence fast, unpredictable, lightweight and difficult to identify and discriminate. These are of course the very things that characterise what Clausewitz referred to as irregular warfare. In postulating the existence of such conflict in the future, there must automatically be a supposition that an adversary might display these traits. That being so, we should also beware of another danger, which would be to consider counter-insurgency inevitably and invariably as the only form of warfare over the next fifteen years.

The nature of the adversaries aside, this type of conflict has put the spotlight on the importance of other, non-belligerent players. Among them figure principally the local or national population, the media and NGOs. Depending on the type of analysis undertaken these groups of individuals, whether or not they live in the theatre of operations, can be considered in three different ways yet simultaneously: as a tool, an objective or even a centre of gravity; as an autonomous player; or as a context in itself.

Territory can be held, but not a population. A population is not an inert object: it possesses its own character and advanced thought processes. And because it is a player it is susceptible to persuasion by one or other of the parties. Considering it solely as an object, or as an element of the physical landscape, risks its conversion into a willing ally of the asymmetric adversary, in terms of logistic support and as a recruitment pool, at least. Hence the population, or rather the support of that population, becomes a strategic objective for the parties in conflict.

The ways of gaining popular support, be they by persuasion or terror, vary from one protagonist to another and with their value systems, but the population nevertheless remains an element of conquest. The need to win hearts and minds is real and an important development on the battlefield. As General Sir Rupert Smith highlighted in his book The Utility of Force, the end states for which we fight today have changed, and the population has become the centre of gravity of contemporary operations. As a strategic goal, winning over the support of the population calls for a redefinition of the use of force and especially an evaluation of its impact on the population seen from the point of view of public opinion.

From this goal flows a number of constraints, principles and models, which can be summed up as follows:

• Understand the population in order to understand better how it perceives, or might perceive, the actions of conventional forces;
• Ensure the aims are understood, and gain the support of the population for them;
• Support the population, and bring it wide-ranging structural and medical assistance, (it seems evident here that air-mobility assets play an essential role in this support, in particular in bringing in supplies and in medical evacuation);
• Control violence, maintaining proportionality in the use of force and avoiding civil casualties. Possess in advance a strict set of rules of engagement and a wide range of weapons for progressive use if needed, so as to avoid the insurgents using such an armoury as an argument in their struggle for influence;
• Respond to the adversary’s persuasive arguments and actions point by point.

These rules and objectives make the population a significant constraining factor for Western forces, a situation the adversary will seek to turn to his advantage.

 On first sight, a number of factors might lead one to think that aerospace power is little concerned by this strategic focus on the population, and yet such a view is clearly erroneous. Preservation of the population and limitation of collateral damage have become a central challenge for aerospace power because of several factors: the major principles of the law of armed conflict (distinction, necessity, proportionality and humanity); the increasing recourse to judicial proceedings within warfare; the importance that has to be given not only to the legitimacy of action, but also to the perception of it by public opinion; and information warfare, and therefore, to a certain extent, the spin that can be put by the adversaries on the results of non-discriminatory strikes.

Additionally, it is clearly essential to keep in mind how political effects are taken into account, as we now have to remember that a tactical success can easily end up as a strategic failure. The destruction of an electricity distribution grid could, for example, lead to loss of power to a water treatment plant. Such failures could have consequences on the day-to-day life and health of the local civilian population.

These different aspects confirm that, if air power was once the central weapon in industrial warfare and of a North American concept of confrontation, developments (both technological and in use) have made it particularly appropriate to action within the population. Far from a rather Orwellian conception of technology that would lead to centralisation and to a break with operational reality, its sophistication is in fact bringing it back down to earth and to a human level through decentralisation of decision-making, reinforcement of horizontal links and a short decisional cycle, and close and discriminatory observation of the pattern of life of both population adversary by drones. It seems somewhat odd, perhaps, that the technology now used by air power offers substantial savings in men and machines.

The multiplication of players of many and varied nature, together with an ever-present state actor whose own methods may equally be broadly derived from methods of irregular warfare, form the main strong trend in the evolution of the battlefield.

Aerospace power and a complex adversary: rustic with high-tech

In a similar way that has been outlined for the players involved, it is not possible to understand technological change in just one single context. Air power is going to have to remain in a position to confront adversaries who possess comparable technological potential, others who may be technologically asymmetric, or yet others who, depending on the time and the place, ally the high-tech with the completely out-dated.

That said, and on the assumption that technological advance remains a key factor in the conduct of warfare and central to the third dimension, in which the law of survival of the fittest applies, the issue remains of the number of competitors and of exactly how they challenge the air superiority of the most advanced armed forces. It comes down to considering two sources of tension: their financial backing and availability of material (which to some extent brings us back to the state or non-state nature of the adversary in question), and their level of technological sophistication.

Because of the ever-increasing costs of research and development of sophisticated technology, and of the numerous fields of expertise that have to be coordinated, the entry fee to the air power club is very high. It follows that the only members are state actors, with the exception, perhaps, of embryonic ‘air forces’ such as that of the Tamil Tigers. But to be a state actor is not a sufficient condition: the number of members is even smaller if one only counts those states that can generate an air force capable of doing something other than conducting purely self-defence missions. Seen from this angle, the landscape shows a dramatic contrast between a reducing number of credible competitors (because of escalating costs) and a sort of technological desert. The broader reality of the situation is much more complex.

First of all, there is, and will continue to be, proliferation of aeronautical technology—principally Russian and Chinese—even if the proliferation of those countries’ aircraft does not necessarily or inevitably call into question Western forces’ air superiority, since it is more an issue of quantity than quality. This development is directly linked to the entry into service of fourth generation aircraft and, not so far off, the arrival of the fifth generation, even though the latter will be limited to just a few states.

Next, we should note that, between 2005 and 2015, 4,000 combat aircraft (including light aircraft) will be produced across the world, of which two-thirds will be multi-role combat aircraft. This will be followed between 2015 and 2025 by the replacement of third generation fleets. There will probably be a global reduction in the total number of combat aircraft as a result of research into greater multi-use of equipment and better overall performance. Moreover, research into the advantages of drone systems will not only increase but also be more generalised and will certainly no longer remain the privilege of high-tech forces.

Aerospace power will therefore have to develop highly effective detection and identification systems in order to face up to the simple systems that are deployed in particular by non-state adversaries. That being so, the statement regarding the proliferation of aerospace technology does not automatically mean that credible competitors will emerge, and even less that they will be numerous and widespread fifteen years from now, essentially for three reasons:

• These weapon systems require very specific competencies, which are acquired through initial training, the acquisition and transmission of significant operational experience and the maintenance of such expertise through regular participation in joint and combined exercises. The fact is that there are few states capable of combining advanced technology with all of these requirements;

• These weapon systems must additionally be integrated within a high-performance C2 system in order for their full potential to be exploited;
• Finally, apart from the fact that these weapon systems must of course have adequate armament, they must also be closely linked to an efficient and effective network of air surveillance and air defence.

Despite all that, it is right to consider the trend towards proliferation of anti-air systems as well, even if, once again, ground-to-air missiles are likely to pose less of a threat if they are distributed piecemeal, than if they are integrated into a defence structure.

To sum up this review of technology on the battlefield, three potential axes of development become apparent:

• Pursuit of, and acceleration in the proliferation of weapon systems, including those of the latest generation;
• Proliferation to the advantage of non-state actors;
• The ever more striking capability of actors, non-state in particular, to adapt, convert and divert weapon systems and/or civilian technology.

Air power therefore has to account for a wide range of threats and great unpredictability. Quite apart from responses in terms of strategy, assets and action, it seems essential that we remember that the adversary is not necessarily our technological inferior at all times and in all places on the battlefield, and also that even if he were, he could still have considerable nuisance value.

Aerospace power on the battlefield and the front line

In addition to looking at the players and assets, analysis of evolution of the battlefield has to look in depth at the terrain on which armed forces in general, and air power in particular, are engaged. Such analysis will then bring out the resulting constraints on the assets deployed and their desired and actual effects. Once again, recent events highlight the evolution of one particular space—the town, more generally referred to as the urban environment. Again, our initial reservation, that current developments are not necessarily tomorrow’s realities, leads us to maintain a certain distance from an ‘all urban’ perception: confrontation in mountainous regions, for example, calls for the application of certain aerospace assets in manners peculiar to that complex environment. This has very clearly been demonstrated in operations in Mali, especially in the offensive phases which targeted the strongholds of armed groups in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains. They led to the mobilisation and coordination of a large number of different types of aircraft (including Rafale, Mirage 2000D, C135 Stratolifter, Harfang drones and Atlantique 2) in order to conduct simultaneous strikes on several targets. Moreover, confrontation of the willing is no longer limited to the surface of the earth, and does not necessarily imply the use, even limited, of armed force. Any physical space, like cyberspace, is now a space for confrontation, an extension or component of the battlefield, whose resident nature and threats, and those transiting through it, call for very special consideration.

Contemporary conflicts show a shift of the battlefield in the general direction of complex, especially urban, environments. Afghanistan, Iraq, Israeli confrontations with Hezbollah and Hamas in southern Lebanon and Palestinian regions, and, of course, Libya, all bear witness to this trend. For sure, neither town nor mountain is new to fighting forces: indeed, can there be any environment in which man has not already fought? Military history is full of examples of battles or wars waged in such environments as a direct consequence of the fact that a town has an intrinsic value because of the concentration of political, economic, social and cultural bodies within it, which endow it with symbolic status. It is natural that towns will continue to represent an important stake in future conflicts, but more than that, the urban battlefield will certainly become more ‘usual’, not only because of the predicted increase in urbanisation throughout the world, but also because of the deliberate choice of certain actors. Adversaries of Western forces are therefore inclined to seek a position of better balance in this environment by turning the military technology of those same Western forces against them. Urban combat—fighting in built-up areas, in an enclosed space—is now tending to become a preferred mode for the weaker party because, for one thing, the adversary has far better knowledge of the environment in which he lives and in which he has been able to prepare for his fight, and, for another, the other party’s intervention is made infinitely more complex. The town environment therefore offers great advantages to the defender: refuges, mixing with the population, obstacles to the deployment of armoured vehicles and to the use of air power. Moreover, apart from the geographical location of the town itself (in a dip, on a summit or on a plain, for example), the geography within it can be very varied, with perhaps a Western-style centre, an ancient one, residential suburbs, housing schemes, industrial zones and so on. In a broad sense the town is therefore tending to become a more complex physical environment as a result of its own evolution.

In his treatise on air power and the urban environment, Olivier Zajec points out that urban combat will unquestionably be the most likely type of combat in the future, and the most demanding for Western armed forces. Air power is not the only force to try to resolve the difficult problems it raises: for both aviation and ground forces, says Zajec, the complex and changing urban theatre presents a major challenge. That being so, aerospace power plays an eminent role in the urban milieu for several reasons. On one hand its permanent ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) capability provides fundamental situational knowledge of the complex environment via the use of drones. The advantage of drones is that they can be kept out of range of threats from lightweight ground-to-air weapons and MANPADS, unlike rotary-winged aircraft, which find it difficult to hover in that environment without being exposed. The use of drones here, but in advance of armed action is equally justified, as was illustrated particularly well during the four months of intelligence gathering and mapping that preceded the second offensive on Fallujah in November 2004, and also during the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in the summer of 2006. On the other hand, aerospace power allows for ‘atypical’ modes of action in order to limit collateral damage, such as the use of non-explosive munitions to penetrate concrete, as used by the French Mirage 2000Ds in Libya.

But once again, we must recognise that the urban environment is not the be-all and end-all: it does not represent the sole stage on which future confrontations will be played out. Any attempt to define ‘the battlefield’ would tend to expose just how difficult it is to map it out, partly as a result of its intangible characteristics. The latter have not suddenly appeared, but are the result of the development, and now maturity, of technology with increasingly high performance.

Digitisation of the battlefield, and its key advantage of linking players in a single network, is proof of another confrontation in which the adversaries seek to gain control or, at least, to challenge our control, over the advantages it offers. This prime space, generally known as cyberspace, is an increasingly strategic environment in which threats are growing, and upon which military operations are increasingly dependent, as, in a more general sense, are our modern societies. For this reason it is also important to have a clear grasp of this sphere of confrontation. In other words, even if the Air Force is to a very large extent dependent on this sphere, and even if it falls to that Force to ensure the security of its own information networks and systems, cyberspace itself nevertheless remains a domain common to the various military players and, more broadly, to everyone—civil and military. Furthermore, acknowledgement of vulnerabilities and threats, and therefore application of surveillance, results from cooperation between authorities, including forces, agencies, services and ministries.

Exo-atmospheric and extra-atmospheric space is also emerging as an environment in which rivalries and power struggles are being played out: they are currently embryonic in terms of threat, but are nevertheless a cause for concern. This is understandable, given the vital nature of space both to the conduct of military operations, and to its strategic importance to the development of our societies. One of the main reasons is linked to the fact that mastery of space, rather like mastery of nuclear weapon technology, represents high stakes for any country. The race between the United States and the USSR to launch the first satellite, unmanned then manned, then the conquest for the moon, is just such an example. Such motivation is still with us today, and can be seen in the debates over the space programmes of certain countries such as Iran, now the tenth space power in the world, following the launch of its satellite Omid (Hope) on 4 February 2009, during the celebrations of 30 years of the Islamic Republic.

Beyond issues that guide space programmes, such as sovereignty and influence, there are also strategic, tactical and operational interests which encourage countries or groups of countries to gain access to space, to try to control it and even to go as far as preventing others from having access to it. Because of this, the spatial domain as an extension or development of cyberspace has become essential, something no military operation can do without, by virtue of its use in the fields of telecommunications, observation, navigation and advance warning. In the same way that they are dependent on cyberspace, modern armed forces are obliged to use space in broad support of ground-based military operations. Space capability now appears as a sensitive issue, given that its neutralisation in the broadest sense would undoubtedly hinder the conduct of operations. It therefore seems logical to incorporate it into the overall analysis of the battlefield and hence to try to identify future developments.

More than any other force component, the Air Force has a special responsibility here, albeit one that might seem natural for that service. It is simply a practical reality, in spite of the scientific debate regarding the physical continuity (or not!) of the third dimension into space.

The adaptations needed can be summed up as the development and hardening of satellite fleets, either on a strictly national level or, more likely, on a European level. The effort already made this field has promoted France and Europe into top-ranking space powers. Continuing effort is needed if we are to have true and total autonomy of decision-making and conduct of operations. In light of the rate of technological and political developments, and of what has been achieved by some countries, the least budgetary and technological—and even doctrinal—retrenchment risks highly prejudicial consequences. With the Graves system (Grand réseau adapté à la veille spatiale), France now enjoys a real advantage in spatial situational awareness. It is, of course, important not only to maintain and protect this advantage but also to expand it in order to be in a position to anticipate any risk of threat in this domain, which is likely to see considerable challenge in the next fifteen years. Thought needs therefore to be given to responses and mechanisms for spatial deterrence, in the event that certain states start working towards possible arming of space. Strengthening surveillance and detection capabilities would have a deterrent effect in that they would allow pinpointing of the origin of an attack against a satellite body.

Time—the central element on the battlefield

When examining developments in the battlefield and the effects they are likely to have in the coming years, one unavoidably comes back to the age-old central notion of time. And central is indeed the right idea, since it has become a significant factor in conflicts in which each party seeks to control it and to impose his rhythm on the other. To maintain a temporal advantage over the adversary, to keep a step ahead of the game and to retain the initiative all relate to one of the classic conditions for military success. And yet the acceleration of time, the evolution in the nature of the adversary and the way in which he acts, are all imposing a slight change in this basic tenet.

One of the challenges for aerospace power in a future environment notable for the fleeting nature of targets and the avoidance by adversaries of direct confrontation, would seem to be that of bringing together control of force, situational knowledge and reactivity. The last two of these brings us back to the need for aerospace power to have mastery of long (permanent air patrols) and short periods of time. From this point of view, recent operations have shown the central role given to drones for this task. Apart from the fact that they remove man from risk zones, they offer the special advantage of mastering long periods of time—on-task endurance. In other words, they have the advantage of permanence, a characteristic that is even more vital, given that time has become a significant factor in contemporary conflicts, and is likely to form a structural element of future ones. The adversaries operate on two different timescales: on one hand they seek to stretch out the commitment of forces in order to exhaust them while benefitting more and more from media channels in their long-term strategy of influencing public opinion, of steering perceptions on the legitimacy of the intervention, or even attempting to gain an advantage from their ‘weak’ capacity for resistance. On the other hand, they operate on a short timescale, tactical level: having no assets with which to confront the force head-on, they prefer, as we have seen, to play the ‘transient’ card—to merge into the physical environment, benefitting as they do so from its complexity. The deployed force therefore needs to know how to master the short term, and this is where permanence brings sure operational gain. Permanent occupation of the sky, together with a network of sensors and receivers opens up full situational awareness, an overall view of the battlefield and a common picture of the operational situation. It offers tactical and operational mastery of the long term, which in turn allows action in the short term to catch that transient moment. Whilst the war around Kosovo revealed a number of limitations in this field, permanence of all-weather ISR platforms, appears today as a real tactical and operational innovation in the geographical coverage and the instantaneous and continuous intelligence picture it offers to ground and air forces alike. Numerous examples bear witness to this: in Lebanon or Gaza, Iraq or Afghanistan, no force committed to a conflict can henceforth do without the permanence that drones bring into play.

These permanent platforms can offer more advantages than intelligence alone. In a similar manner to the shorter-term ‘show of presence’ and ‘show of force’ operations, drones have a deterrent role on the tactical level in terms of presence, and contribute to controlled use of force. In making a presence, but not necessarily a threat, fly around over an area, and in making the adversaries understand that they are under constant observation and that the reaction time of the force is getting shorter and shorter, drones contribute to influencing the adversaries’ decision-making and inciting them not to act. This deterrent function of drones, which is further reinforced if the aircraft are armed, offers an extra step in the graduated use of force, which is of great value in counter-insurgency and stabilisation operations, in which the protection of, and assistance to, the population—and, indeed, the support of the population for the action—are determining factors.

Implicit in the advantages offered by drones in intelligence and control of information is the notion of reactivity. There is nothing new to this, of course, as it is at the heart both of the OODA loop (Observation, orientation, decision, action) and of the target indication cycle, called F2T2EA (Find, Fix, Track, Target, Engage, Assess). Contemporary operations, such as those conducted by Israel, or those in Afghanistan and Iraq, reveal the central nature of this aspect and the important of being able to go for opportunity targets as well as Time sensitive targets (TST). In recent counter-insurgency operations, opportunity targeting has been the mainstay of offensive aerospace missions. The necessity to have control over what we are calling short time, and, in extremis, over real time, is one of the main consequences of developments on the battlefield. By melting into the background of population and shadowy urban areas, the adversaries attempt to impose their rhythm. We need, therefore, to have mastery of long time, permanence, in other words, and to shorten the period between observation and action. It is in this that drones offer an immeasurable advantage: their permanence and their ability to transmit information directly, constantly and in real time allows the rhythm to be increased and hence control of time.

The need to control the tempo arises from the delay between the observation and strike parts of the cycle, since it is critical to the reactivity factor when initiating an operation. Yet it also requires a high level of decentralisation, which is now having quite an impact in organisational terms. The Air Force’s capacity for this was illustrated well in the Mali operations, particularly in terms of reactivity: they showed the value of being able to conduct operations from the National air operations centre (CNOA) at Lyon Mont-Verdun.

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Changes in the battlefield come in many shapes and sizes, of which only a few—those which are likely to have a direct with air power—have been exposed here. We have described a complex environment with the aim of outlining an admittedly subjective landscape, yet not exhaustively. If a single trend, or evolutionary path, emerges from this analysis of the battlefield, it is the continued growth in its complexity, closely linked to the increase in the tempo and the changing rhythm of the battlefield.

This central trend leads to a number of sometimes contrasting consequential effects on aerospace power. In amplifying these consequential effects, the trend may well give a boost to its own role on the battlefield. The widespread differences in the nature of the battlefield (for example, if it is spread out or confined, or even devoid of space; without human life or peopled; with diffuse or permanent threats and so on) give voice to the traditional cry of ‘higher, faster, further’ which characterises aerospace power.

That said, to maintain this initial advantage, and even to multiply the effects and benefits achieved by this trinity of characteristics, it is perhaps worthwhile emphasising more strongly the qualities brought by operating in the third dimension: flexibility (or adaptability) and permanence. These qualities have already been defined in the French Forces’ Instruction 1000, which sets out joint doctrine for the use of forces on operations, and should become the defining characteristics of aerospace power. The quintet of ‘higher, faster, further, more flexibly, for longer’, would now be more appropriate to the increasing complexity of the battlefield and to the intensification of its rhythm. Although time will remain the central element of future, armed engagements, it is the ability to take control of it that will be the measure of operational success. ♦