Strategic Analysis

Strategic Analysis:
A Monthly Journal of the IDSA

July 2000 (Vol. XXIV No. 4)

 

Missiles and Air Strategy: The Interactive Relationship
By A.K. Sachdev *

 

Introduction

In days gone by the term ‘Doctor of Philosophy’ was used in reference to a person who carried out advanced learning in general; then of course the sheer quantum of knowledge that mankind progressed to, became so enormous that general studies became pointless. Super-specialisation became the dominant trend in every field of study–scientific or artistic. The military also could not remain untouched by this trend and thus was lost to the world the concept of a ‘military philosopher’. The nearly century long eventful history of heavier than air flight has seen very few ‘military philosophers’ contemplating upon matters of air strategy: Douhet, Mitchell, Trenchard and Seversky are the prominent ones. Each of them had a profound effect on air strategic thought in their own times. None could have foreseen the enormous advances that technology would empower in the field of surface to surface missiles.

Since the end of the Second World War, missiles have made rapid and remarkable advances. Progressively, propulsion has become more efficient, propulsive fuels have become easier to handle, warload capabilities have increased dramatically, accuracies have narrowed down considerably and the missile as a system has become less vulnerable and more survivable. The versatility of the missile–in terms of the type of load it can carry i.e. conventional or Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)–has rendered it a global currency of power. In the post-Cold War uncertainties there seems to be a general flurry of activity amongst middle order nations towards the acquisition of missiles. The motivations range from status symbolism of the missile, a perceived deterrent capability inherent to the missile, and real war-fighting and war-winning capabilities associated with missiles in general.

There has been an inevitable effect of advancements in missile-related technologies on air strategy and vice versa. This paper endeavours to locate surface to surface missiles in a large-canvas picture of air strategy in a ‘small map, big hand’ kind of technique.

 

The Nuclear Linkage

Missiles have an inevitable connectivity with the nuclear issue. Currently, the other two legs of the WMD triad to do not exercise the strategic mind as much because the Conventions on Biological and Chemical Weapons provide reassurance (though somewhat precarious) of non-use and non-proliferation of these two types of weapons. The nuclear option, however, remains open–largely due to the NPT which authoritatively permits the Nuclear Weapons States to possess nuclear weapons and therefore, fails to inhibit or discourage the Non-Nuclear Weapon States from making surreptitious or overt efforts to acquire that capability. In the pursuit of either avenue, the missile becomes an adjunct to the nuclear option. The reasons thereof are not far to seek. Modern missiles are extremely expensive in terms of men, material and infrastructure. The Indian Agni missile is estimated to be pegged at Rs 35 crores at 1998 costs. It could be argued that, given India’s comparatively cheap labour and low infrastructure costs, this is the lowest cost that a similar missile could be produced anywhere in the world (discounting the economy of scale effect of large producers). However, all that the missile is capable of carrying as payload is 1000 kgs of destructive material. Given the high cost of the missile, its use for carriage of a ton of high explosive of the conventional variety is unthinkable. The nuclear warhead would thus appear to be the only raison d’ etre of the missile.

While the Cold War had as its cardinal core a nuclear race between the two main antagonists, its end has not brought about a demise of the nuclear weapon as a currency of power. Indeed, according to some, there is a second nuclear age–this time an Asian one–that is gripping the world. While new nuclear powers are raising their heads, the US and Russia continue their presence as nuclear powers in Asia. Nationalism, reduced US (and Russian) commitment to other nations in the post-Cold War period, comparatively easier availability of technology and the symbolic value of the nuclear option are some of the reasons that drive nations’ motivations in this new nuclear age. Nuclear ambition carries with it the corollary of the missile as the delivery platform. A missile, whether launched from a land based launch pad or a sea based one, uses the medium of the air (and space). There is thus a comparative and contrastive competition between the missile and the manned aircraft in terms of absolute costs, cost-effectiveness, operational efficacy, reaction time, political acceptability, vulnerability/survivability and so on.

In the mid-90s, the term “differential air power” evolved as an instrument to qualify the capacity of disparate nations against four criteria–the breadth and depth of its aerospace industrial base, its R&D capability within that base, capacity of a nation to allocate and use air resources and size and quality of its air force (S). 1 Taking the analogy of the “differential” a bit further we can see that the missile has impacted upon the air strategician’s thought processes quite significantly. It would be incorrect, however, to imagine that this impact has been manifest in a uniform fashion for all the nations of the world. Various factors have had a role to play in deciding how missiles affected the air strategies of different nations. Some of these are: levels of existing technologies, national security paradigms, sizes and compositions of air arms/forces, existence or otherwise of independent strategic thinking within these air forces, the texture of such independent thinking, the interplay with the other military arms/forces, historical background of the nations’s use of air power, its geography and its rivalries and alliances (within its proximate neighbourhood and beyond). However, in the option of this author, perhaps the most important factor of all is the linkage between the military and the political aggregates–the defining fact that animates national strategy. These factors make it difficult to study the effect of missiles on air strategy unless each nation is studied as a unique dependent variable. For the purpose of this paper it is intended to look at the manner in which missiles have affected the air strategies of the US, the erstwhile USSR and some third world nations.

 

The US Case

The US case of interplay between the missile and air strategy is an interesting one. Understandably, during the First World War, the general state of military aviation in the US was unsatisfactory–there was no Air Force and the pilots of the US Army Air Service were trained outside the US. Despite General Billy Mitchell’s efforts towards an independent air force, the beginning of the Second World War saw no such entity. The US Army Air Force (USAAF) was under the control of the US Army although its strategic bombing offensive against Germany and Japan was a role completely independent of the Army’s. Indeed, the only strategic nuclear weapons ever dropped from an aircraft were carried on board B 29 Superfortresses of the USAAF–and air force subservient to the US Army. The decomposed umbilical cord binding the USAAF to the US Army was finally severed in September 1947 as a result of the National Security Act; the US Air Force (USAF) thus came into being.

For the first few years of its existence, the USAF expanded its organisation and capabilities riding on the crest of several waves– the Hiroshima-Nagasaki aftermath, the Cold War, the technological developments in aircraft, nuclear and missile fields and national political policies that favoured Massive Retaliation. Naturally, the predominant organisational brick in the USAF was the Strategic Air Command (SAC) which had been established in 1946. The SAC grew during its first ten years from 49,589 personnel and 319 bombers to 224,014 personnel and 1655 bombers. 2 The fact that the USAF received approximately half the defence expenditure funds during this period is an indication of the political commitment to the air strategy as embodied in the role of the SAC. One of the most significant facts that concern the history of the USAF is that it retained the strategic nuclear role even after the missile made its presence felt in the form of a delivery platform. Although missiles had been under development for long and a USAF Ballistic Missile Division had been established in 1954, the missile race between US and USSR began in earnest only in 1957 with the launching of the Sputnik by the latter. Developments in the areas of Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMS) and Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) progressed exponentially thereafter.

The consequent effect on air strategic thinking within the USAF was one of trepidation. The inevitable question of ‘Missile or Manned Aircraft?’ was the main reason for apprehension while the other one was the fact that control of Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles (IRBMs) was with the US Army and that of the SLBMs was with the US Navy. USAF leadership felt that the identify of the organisation itself was threatened by the missile and embarked on efforts to perpetuate the manned strategic bomber as the essence of the force. These endeavours aimed at developing new bombers and new air to surface, ballistic and cruise missiles capable of being launched from these new or existing bombers. One of the exotic ideas that caught the fancy of the USAF was a nuclear powered bomber that could stay aloft for days on end without the need to refuel. The underlying doctrinal philosophy appeared to be one of manned aircraft retaining the strategic role. However, these efforts were not destined to bear fruit because of the manner in which the availability of the missile (and more so the “Missile Gap”) altered the political perception of the strategic character of the missile-bomber debate. Through the Eisenhower and the Kennedy administrations’ tenures, political machinations stalled all efforts to develop new strategic bombers despite several R&D programmes, and permitted only one new air to surface missile (the Hound Dog) to be produced; and suitable replacement for the B 52 was fielded only in the 1980s. The missile, on the other hand continued to flourish as the preferred strategic handmaiden of the US.

 

The Soviet Case

The Soviet Union, like the US, began to concentrate on missile development with the ultimate aim of producing weapon systems capable of delivering nuclear warheads. The post-World War II realisation that a combination of the two most potent technologies that the war had witnessed in the atomic bomb and the V1/V2 rockets led to the development of missiles in a big way. An intensive effort to develop and eventually marry both technologies was mounted in the late 1940s and the early 1950s. 3 The Soviet progress in the direction of long range missiles was much more intense than in the case of the US. Thus during, the period between the end of World War II and the launching of the Sputnik, Soviet and US strategic thought on missiles diverged on the issue of the long range missile while being similar on the synergistic import of the missile platform-nuclear warhead combine.

Soviet military strategy emphasised the nuclear weapon carrying missile as the primary means of combat during the 1960s. One rendering of the emphasis is evident from the following quote from then contemporary literature:

“From the point of view of weapons, a third world war will be a missile and nuclear war. The massive use of nuclear weapons, particularly thermonuclear, will make war unprecedentedly (sic) destructive and devastating. Entire states will be wiped off the face of the earth. Missiles carrying nuclear warheads will be the main instruments for attaining the war’s aims (emphasis added)”. 4

The Soviet Union produced an atomic bomb in 1949 and a thermonuclear one in 1954; meanwhile guided missile and heavy bomber programmes received the highest priority at the Kremlin in the post-World War II period. By 1955, the Soviet Union had its first heavy bomber and by 1957, its first long range missile. Soviet heavy bomber production figures belied Khruschev’s statements following the Sputnik launch on bombers having been rendered museum pieces as a result of the Sputnik and the long range missile launches. Several policy statements from the Soviet Union indicated the Soviet leadership’s readiness to use air power as a weapon of diplomatic blackmail. Within the military, thought on the use of air power flirted with the missile and the manned bomber promiscuously. Marshal Zhukov, in a speech to the Twentieth Party Congress (in 1956), said that “a future war, should it be unleashed, will be characterised by the massive use of air forces, various rocket weapons and various means of mass destruction such as atomic, thermonuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons”. 5 “Colonel Yu. Pshenyanik, writing in Sovietskaya Aviatsiya (Soviet Aviation newspaper) in 1957 iterated that “at the present time, the air forces are also an important strategic factor in modern war. They, along with rockets, play an important part in carrying out a sudden first strike at the start of the war and in undermining (the enemy’s) military-economic potential 6 (emphasis added).”

An insight into Soviet air strategy is also available from the organisation of the Soviet air forces as they evolved. During the post-World War II period a large scale purge in the Air Force’s higher command levels (along with the other services) was seen as an insurance against military one upmanship in post-war exhilaration as also a step towards modernisation of the Air Force. Marshal of Aviation Konstantin A Vershinin, who served twice as the commander-in-chief of the Soviet Air Forces was on record to say that strategic aviation was inferior to missiles. 7 He was replaced by Marshal of Aviation Pavel F Zhingarev between 1949 and 1957 who, it appears from writings, tried and failed to get the Soviet ICBMs and IRBMs subordinated to the Long Range Air Force. Subsequent events, of course led to the Soviet philosophy of viewing all missiles as extended artillery being consummated into the formation of the Strategic Rocket Forces out of existing artillery resources.

In contrast to the US strategic forces, the ‘Soviet Raketnaya Voicka Stratetisheskovo Naznacheniya’ or Strategic Rocket Forces (SRF) was established as the fifth of the Soviet Armed Forces from existing artillery formations through the selection of the best of their personnel and by giving them specialised training. The different strategic perceptions of the two superpowers manifested themselves as disparate inventories of delivery systems. By the end of the 1980s, the Soviet arsenal laid more emphasis on the ICBM as the preferred means of delivery and thus included a larger number of ICBMs than the US. In the area of SLBMs and air launched weapons, the US led the Soviet Union by far. This paper does not intend to carry out an in-depth study of the causes of the US and the Soviet air strategies following divergent trends and thus has not addressed a myriad set of factors that would have gone into the evolution of these strategies.

 

Third World Nations

Having seen the interplay of the missile and the air strategy of the US and the USSR, some selected third world nations will now be addressed. As mentioned earlier, all nations are not affected in their air strategy cogitation to the same extent and in the same manner as the others. In the case of a majority of the 122 third world nations missiles are not objects of desire at all in their overall strategic perceptions. Indeed, some third world nations have been left out of this discussion because their air forces are too small to expound meaningful air strategies at all, while some others do not merit consideration here because of their lack of interest in the missile. It is pertinent to note here that the case of the third world nations differs from the US and the Soviet cases inasmuch as these two pioneered missile technology while all others have followed in their footsteps or acquired technology the easier way–by purchasing it.

India

Indian missiles were a late starter; perhaps the single major factor was that Indian ambivalence on the nuclear issue rendered the cardinal argument in favour of developing missiles a bit feeble. After the Peaceful Nuclear Explosion at Pokhran in 1974, there was a long period of nuclear celibacy. While this virtue may have had its own rewards in India’s international transactions, it meant the missile remained an under-nourished element of national (and air) power. Although India was license-producing various types of missiles since the 1970s, a conscious decision to develop delivery means for a possible future nuclear weapon crystallised only in 1983 with the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP).

Two land based SSMs that have strategic significance and potential have so far been sired by the IGMDP; these are the Prithvi and the Agni missiles. The Prithvi 1 (with a range of 150 kms) is about to become operational with the Army and the Prithvi II (range 250 kms) will soon be deployed with the Air Force; both versions are liquid-fuelled. A naval version will be deployed with the Navy for use from aboard ships and a longer-range version, Prithvi III (Dhanush). 8 is also under development. The development and deployment experience with the Prithvi would be invaluable for the solid-fuelled Agni, which would be India’s IRBM class of SSMs. After “technology demonstrator” launches of the Agni in 1989 and 1994, US pressure had kept the Agni programme under check until April 11 1999 when Agni II (with a range “in excess of 2000 kms”) was tested taking it to the “point of operationalisation”. 9 A 5000 kms range version is possible 10 and may be currently under development. The Geostationary Stationary Launch Vehicle (GSLV) produced by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is generally seen as the precursor to the Indian ICBM, Surya; a replacement of the satellite payload by a nuclear warhead would render it the status of an ICBM. However, Dr VK Saraswat, head of the Prithvi project, is said to have stated that “India has no plans to develop intercontinental missiles”. 11 Sagarika, the nuclear capable under-sea launched missile being developed for the Navy, 12 would soon be an addition to the list of Indian SSMs. An indigenous nuclear submarine capable of supporting nuclear Ballistic Missiles is also at an indeterminate stage of development; the earliest possible date for its readiness is 2006. Thus we can see a slow but steady progression of land-and sea-based missiles with possibly dual capability of carrying conventional and nuclear warheads.

The Indian missile programme has been an indigenous one. It must be mentioned, however, that there have been no continuous, unbroken doctrinal or strategic strands to guide a well-structured, long-term missile programme with defined strategic focus. Moreover, there is no evidence of an active interplay between the military (including air) forces and the missiles development fraternity. While the military has considered it professional to steer clear of the nuclear and other political issues, the missile development programme has been controlled entirely by a motivated technocracy not very well educated on matters military and strategic. The Draft Nuclear Doctrine has further obfuscated matters and it will be long before the missile can start impinging directly on air strategy. Incidentally, the air power doctrine of the Indian Air Force does not refer to missiles at all.

China

The “indigenous texture of the Chinese missile programme has always been under a cloud although it must be mentioned here that the employment of illegal means to acquire technology does not detract from the programme’s indigenous nature. Soviet technological assistance in the initial years of the programme was crucial to its subsequent successes. In addition, Qian Xuesen, a Chinese born scientist who migrated to the US during the Japanese occupation, worked on advanced US missile programmes including the Titan ICBM and was forced to leave the US in 1955 under suspicion of spying, returned to become the “Father of the Chinese ballistic missile force”. The PRC received its first ballistic missiles in 1956 in the form of two Soviet R-1 missiles, copies of the German liquid-propellent V-2 missiles used in World War II. The PRC quickly acquired more advanced missiles in the form of the R-2 in 1957. The R-2 had considerable technical improvements over the R-1, including a greater range and a larger payload, as well as the use of storable liquid propellants. 13 The first operational Chinese ballistic missile, the liquid fuelled DF-2 (Css-1) 14 was reverse engineered from two Soviet SS-3 IRBMs delivered in 1958. 15 Similarly, the CSS-8 is a modified Soviet SA-2 SAM; the Soviet SAMs were stolen from a consignment destined for North Vietnam via the Chinese rail network in 1966 and then used for the Chinese missile programme.

Current Chinese missile capability includes the liquid-fuelled DF-5/5A (CSS-4) missile with a range of 13,000 km in the ICBM category with two other ICBMs under development–the DF-31 (range 8,000 km) and the DF-41 (range 12,000 km). The DF-31 programme runs concurrently with the JL-2 one for an SLBM and is based on either the W-88 Trident sub-missile warhead design stolen from the US. 16 The IRBM class of missiles include the DF-3/3A (CSS-2) with a range of 2,800 km and the DF-4 (CSS-3) with a range of 4750 km. The DF-21/21A (CSS-5) is an MRBM with a range of 1700 km; reports indicate that the missile, normally configured for the carriage of nuclear warheads, is being modified for the conventional role. The DF-11 (CSS-7 or CSS-X-7), the DF-15 (CSS-6) and the CSS-8 are the three SRBMs. The DF-11 and the DF-15 were used in the firings in the Taiwan Strait during 1995/96. Chinese SLBMs include the JL-1 17 (Sea going counterpart of the DF-21 missile) with a range of 1700 km and the JL-2 (under development in tandem with the DF-31). A Chinese nuclear submarine is said to be under development to carry 16 of the JL-2 class of SLBMs; it is expected to be ready by around 2010. Three may be produced eventually and, if the programme goes as planned, it may be possible for China to target mainland US from operating areas near the Chinese coast. China already has the wherewithal to MIRV its ballistic missiles, having demonstrated it in 1981 by launching three satellites with one carrier rocket. 18

The PLA air defence force was integrated into the PLAAF during 1957; a year later all SAMs were also handed over to PLAAF. However, ground based strategic missiles with nuclear warheads were never placed under PLAAF and instead were the mission of a fourth independent service referred to as the Second Artillery. According to RAND scholars, this terminology had its roots in the PLAAF which routinely refers to its anti-aircraft artillery as the “first artillery” and its SAM units as the “second artillery”. 19 The first strategic rocket forces unit for the Second Artillery was raised on July 1 1966 20 the importance of these forces in the Chinese perception can be gauged from the fact that they were placed under the PLA (and not its subservient service–the PLAAF) and were directly under the control of the Ministry of Defence. The strategic forces continue to be under the PLA.

In order to assess the impact of the missile on Chinese air strategy, it is important to understand that two other influences–far more forceful than missile development–have guided air strategy. The first is the evolution of Chinese military doctrine from People’s War through People’s War Under Modern Conditions to Limited War Under High Tech Conditions. Strategy perforce must flow from doctrine and the more declaratory the national military doctrinal discourse, the stronger is the influence on the military (and air) strategy. Given China’s strong linkage between the political and the military leadership (well contrasted with the Indian case where the military and the state appear to occupy different spaces altogether), this doctrinal evolution has had a stronger impact on strategy than the missile technology. In fact it could be argued that doctrine has influenced the directions in which missile programmes have progressed. The second influence has been the military modernisation programme initiated in the late 1970s.

As a result of these two influences, the changes in the texture of the Chinese missile holdings display two significant trends; the first one is towards a nuclear capability that has a global reach and thus provides a nuclear deterrent. The second one is the endowment of at least some of the missiles with conventional capability. Chinese missiles seem to fit snugly into a doctrinal framework of providing nuclear deterrence while preparing to win local/limited wars under high tech conditions. To complete the picture of the interplay between missiles and air strategy, it would be pertinent to highlight here the fact that the recent and ongoing interest China continues to show in Su27, Su30, AWACS, Air to Air Refuelling, C300 radars, heavy lift for Rapid Reaction Forces and so on fits in very comfortably into the doctrinal framework discussed above. To that extent, missiles and air strategy in the Chinese context seem to complement each other synergistically in pursuit of making the Local War Under High Tech Conditions winnable for China.

Pakistan

Two prominent facts about Pakistani missiles need to be mentioned right at the onset; the first is that the Pakistani missile programme is a reaction to the Indian missile programme, and the second one is that Chinese and North Korean assistance have sustained the Pakistani missile programme. It may be argued that every policy, doctrinal and strategic motivation in Pakistan has had India as its focus (or target, if you will). Starting from the Hatf I launch in 1989 as a response to the Prithvi I’s first test in 1988, every Pakistani test launch has been a reaction to the progression in Indian missile development. The Pakistani Minister of State for Defence, Ghulam Sarwar Cheema, when asked why Pakistan was developing ballistic missiles replied that Pakistan “had to have an antidote for what our enemy next door has”. 21 It does not require a technical knowledge of a very high order to comprehend the fact that it is impossible for a nation of Pakistan’s infrastructure, with its lack of a space vehicle programme, to produce missiles with ranges as claimed by it. Pakistan’s Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Committee (SUPARCO) was established in 1961 to “promote exploration and application of space science and technology in the country 22 but it has not had a noticeable association with Pakistan’s missile programme. Any claims to “indigenous” missile production programmes would have to be seen as the assembly of totally foreign components in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, the air force aspirations have also been driven by India’s acquisitions and hence great Pakistani interest in the F-16 deal with the US. Pakistan’s air strategy, including the allied aspect of missiles, is frustrated by the great factor of geographical asymmetry that characterises the Indo-Pak equation. While the entire area of Pakistan is within easy range of Indian strike aircraft as well as missiles, the same is not the case with Pakistani target planning vis a vis India even with air to air refuelling or landing in Tibet for replenishment (a remote possibility but a possibility nonetheless) being resorted to. In 1965, Pakistan had a total of 164 combat aircraft (24 Canberras, 20 F104 and 120 F86), in 1971, it had about 256 (16 Canberras, 10 F104, 20 Mirage III, 60 F6 and 150 F86. 23 In 1989 when the first Pakistani missile was launched, the holding of Pakistani Air Force was 451 combat aircraft (18 Mirage III, 58 Mirage 5, 133 Q5, 150 J6, 40 F16 and 20 J7) 24 while the current one is 389 combat aircraft (including 59 Mirage III, 52 Mirage 5, 42 Q5, 50 J6, 25 F16 and 77 J7. 25 If the size of the strike element of an air force is any indication of its doctrine and strategy, there does not seem to be any significant effect of the availability of missiles on air strategy.

Israel

Israel has a well cultivated missile programme in the medium and the long range missile categories–perhaps the most sophisticated and advanced one outside the US–but has the use of aircraft foremost in its mind as the preferred long range delivery system. While its missile programmes have made significant progress equal heed has been paid to the development of modern aircraft too. This is an articulation of the complementarity of the aircraft and the missile. The attack on Osiraq could well have been carried out using missiles but instead, aircraft were used. It is thus possible to see Israeli missiles as a deterring factor against Israel’s Arab enemies and its aircraft as the preferred weapon systems for offensive roles.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia tried, unsuccessfully, in 1985 to procure the Lance missile system from the US and later went on to acquire 36 CSS-2 missiles from China in 1988.

 

Conclusion

The USAF’s Air Force Manual 1-1 (Basic Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force) states that an air commander’s “guiding principle is to employ aerospace power as an indivisible entity based on objectives, threats and opportunities”. 26 The strategic bomber and the strategic (nuclear) missile were clubbed together by the USAF as complementary elements of aerospace power (‘air power’ in the 50s and the 60s). On the other hand, the Soviet approach to missiles was not directly interrelated with air power or air strategy. In the case of the superpowers during the Cold War period, it was easy to conjecture rightly strategic intentions of either side. Unfortunately, in the case of the Third World, such is not the case. Strategic thinking has not fully matured and adversarial intentions are not clearly defined in most cases. The Chinese were guided in their philosophy in the initial years by their Soviet mentors; thus the creation and continuation of the Strategic Rocket Forces Units under the Second Artillery. The missile’s strategic role in India is not very clear inasmuch as the Army and the Air Force are in the run for acquisition of surface to surface missiles being developed under the IGMDP.

In the case of most third world nations which have missiles in their inventories, these have been purchased (in most cases, in their entirety) from some manufacturing nation or the other; very few have truly indigenous programmes. Even where national programmes have evolved, as in the case of India, technology has been one rail and strategy the other–often the two have not been parallel rails. All the same, it would be difficult to state categorically in the case of any missile wielding nation that their availability made no impact at all on the air strategy of that nation. It would be apt to state here that the Air Power Doctrine of the Royal Air Force sees the missile as complementing the manned aircraft in both–the nuclear and the conventional strategic roles. 27

 


Endnotes

Note *: Former Professor, JNU.  Back.

Note 1: Air Vice Marshal Tony Mason, Air Power: A Centennial Appraisal, (London: Brassey’s 1994), p. 236.  Back.

Note 2: John Gooch (ed), Airpower Theory and Practice, (London: Frank Cass 1995), p. 198.  Back.

Note 3: Rip Bulkeley, The Sputniks Crisis and Early United States Space Policy (Houndmills: Macmillan Academic and Professional Limited, 1991), p. 16.  Back.

Note 4: VD Sokolovski (ed), Soviet Military Strategy (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 1963) (Original Soviet edition published 1962), as quoted in Ronald D Humble, The Soviet Space Programme, (London: Routledge, 1988), p. 34.  Back.

Note 5: Marshal Georgi K Zhukov, as quoted in Eugene M Emme (ed), The Impact of Air Power, D Van Princeton: Nostrand Company, Inc, 1959), p. 591.  Back.

Note 6: Colonel Yu Pshenyanik, as quoted in Eugene M Emme (ed), The Impact of Air Power, D Van (Princeton: Nostrand Company, Inc, 1959) p. 599.  Back.

Note 7: Raymond L Garthoff, as quoted in Eugene M Emme (Ed), The Impact of Air Power, D Van (Princeton: Nostrand Company, Inc, 1959), p. 569.  Back.

Note 8: Unattributed news item, datelined New Delhi and quoting Indian Defence Ministry as source, in Aviation Week and Space Technology, June 29, 1998, p. 31.  Back.

Note 9: The Times of India, April 12, 1999.  Back.

Note 10: The Times of India, April 13, 1999.  Back.

Note 11: Nazar Kamal and Pravin Sawhney, “Missile Control in South Asia and the Role of Co-operative Monitoring Technology” (Co-operative Monitoring Centre Occasional Paper/4), (Albuquerque: October 1998), p. 20.  Back.

Note 12: Nazar Karmal and Pravin Sawhney, Ibid., p 21 suggests that Sagarika is an anti-ship cruise missile.  Back.

Note 13: Internet, Original Source: Cox Report, Chapter 4.  Back.

Note 14: ‘DF’ stands for Dong Feng (East Wind), varyingly abbreviated to ‘T’ (Tungfeng). ‘CSS’ may be roughly translated to Chinese Surface to Surface (Missile)  Back.

Note 15: Internet, Original Source: CDISS National Briefings Site.  Back.

Note 16: Johanna McGeary, “The New Cold War,” Time, June 7, 1999, p. 20.  Back.

Note 17: ‘JL’ stands for JU Long or Great Wave. In older Western literature, the JL-1 has been varyingly referred to as the J-1, CSS-N-3, the CSS-NX-4 and the HY-2.  Back.

Note 18: Chen Qimao, Papers of Shanghai Institute for International Studies, (Shanghai: Shanghai Institute for International Studies, 1981), English Edition, p. 99.  Back.

Note 19: Kenneth W Allen, Glenn Krumel and Jonathan D Pollack. China’s Air Force Enters The 21st Century, (Santa Monica: RAND, 1995), p. 104.  Back.

Note 20: The Military Balance 1996/97, International Institute for Strategic Studies, (London: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 171.  Back.

Note 21: Roger Fronst, “Pakistan’s New Defence Minister On Missiles, Self Reliance and Afghanistan”, International Defence Review, April 1989.  Back.

Note 22: PL Bhola, Pakistan’s Nuclear Policy, (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Private Limited, 1993), p. 28.  Back.

Note 23: Pushpinder Singh et al, Fiza'ya: Psyche of the Pakistan Air Force, The Society for Aerospace Studies, (New Delhi: 1991), p. 183.  Back.

Note 24: The Military Balance 1998-1999 (London: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 163.  Back.

Note 25: The Military Balance 1999-2000 (London: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 167.  Back.

Note 26: As quoted in Major Grover E Myers, USAF, Aerospace Power: The Case For Indivisible Application, (Alabama: Air University Press, 1986), p. 52.  Back.

Note 27: Royal Air Force Air Power Doctrine (2nd Edition), Chief of the Air Staff, Royal Air Force, (London: 1993), pp. 72-77.  Back.