Air forces are gradually adapting to the non-conventional characteristics of the ‘new’ or ‘asymmetric’ conflicts. An essential component of any joint force, air power is optimised to engage high-value targets, including weapons of mass destruction, with great precision. Its qualities of endurance and ubiquity in surveillance and precision strikes help support surface forces against adversaries using collective paramilitary violence (guerrilla warfare) or in small groups (terrorism), often in restrictive urban terrain. Its effects will therefore consist in disarming paramilitary organisations making use of geographically identifiable networks and reducing the freedom of movement of terrorists, as part of an overall strategy of fighting terrorism.