ABSTRACT
The idea of air superiority is inextricably linked to American airpower, growing up with U.S. aviation as it was becoming a viable military weapon. As American airpower became more dominant later in the Twentieth century, the concept of air supremacy became vogue. Today, the largely unchallenged preeminence of American airpower, as represented by the F-22 Raptor, has led to the advent of air dominance. In a large U.S. Air Force with plentiful fighter wings and a plethora of fighter aircraft, unrestricted control in the air may be possible. Current fiscal realities and resource limitations, however, bring the concepts of air supremacy and air dominance into sharper focus. Budgetary constraints, paired with the need to recapitalize an aging fleet, have left the Air Force little choice other than to reduce the number of aircraft and personnel. Current estimates indicate the Air Force will lose as many as 350 fighter aircraft in the near future. In their place will be roughly half the number of F-22s. Over seventeen years of sustained air operations in Southwest Asia has stretched expeditionary elements of the Air Force. Currently, the Service is fully engaged in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the wider war on terror. The Twenty-first century strategic landscape features numerous additional potential threats to U.S. national security across the spectrum of conflict. Meanwhile, the Army is transforming how it plans to fight in this new environment. The air component must achieve a requisite level of control in the air to enable BCT success on the ground. Nonetheless, the new context in which air and ground forces operate, accompanied by increasing threats, decreasing budgets, and transformation across DoD, invites new ways of looking at counterair operations.
