integral air Support to land operations - Akshat Upadhyay* I

Also, the ‘democratisation’ of the air littoral can be viewed both as an opportunity and threat: the former as it places increasingly sophisticated capabilities in the hands of soldiers at relatively cheaper costs; and the latter for the very same reason since non-state actors now possess the ability to pose credible threats to a country’s security.1 The latent scalability of these technologies—so. [...] aIr poWer: understandIng basIcs Air power is defined as the ‘ability to project military force by or from a platform in the third dimension above the surface of the earth’3 and includes associated infrastructure, such as airfields, personnel and the organisation itself.4 The importance of this capability is highlighted in the presence of air arms in all the three traditional warfighting services:. [...] The crux of his argument was the use of air power to force an enemy nation to capitulate by means of a bombing campaign directed against the morale of the population.10 The presumption was the prevalence of the notion of total war and that air power, bypassing the usual friction points manned by the army and navy, could straightaway direct armament into the industrial centres, communication networ. [...] Douhet also laid the foundations for the concept of an independent air force, separate from the army and naval air auxiliaries.12 He believed in the absolute offensive nature of air power and postulated that air power acting in support of army and naval forces would always perform suboptimally, since the importance of the army and navy was declining. [...] The 1967 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the Six-Day War, involved use of counter- air operations by the Israeli Air Force against the Arab nations’ air assets on ground, which decimated the air forces of Egypt and Jordan and severely crippled that of Syria, with the first day of Arab losses reported to be 300 aircraft destroyed.23 This enabled the Israeli Air Force to fully support the ground ope.