Achieving and Ensuring Air Dominance

This research paper advocates and explains air dominance. Air dominance goes

beyond air superiority and supremacy in that it not only ensures that friendly aircraft can

fly anywhere in enemy territory, but that they can also be effective at performing their

mission. Suppression of ground-to-air attacks, prevention of attacks on our airbases, and

overcoming domestic attacks on procurement are all important in ensuring the

effectiveness, or dominance, of airpower. I chose this research topic because I had some

experience with air dominance as a F-15C Eagle pilot from the Summer of 1989 to the

Summer of 1992. I actively participated in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm

with the 27th Tactical Fighter Squadron of the 1st Tactical Fighter Wing. I believe this

research has particular value to the reader in that it reiterates the value of air dominance

to the campaign planner, it reinforces that value through historical analysis, it closely

examines the potential future threats (both foreign and domestic), then it proposes future

courses of action. The goal is to ensure that the USAF's future air dominance

requirements are being adequately addressed and that tomorrow's war fighters will

continue to benefit from air dominance.