Journal Edition 22

The opening article of this edition is an interview with The ­Netherlands’ Air Chief Lieutenant General Schnitger, who offers us his perspective on future airpower requirements and how the RNLAF shall be kept ‘Fit for the Future’ by a program called the ‘Air Force 3.0’. We greatly appreciate his senior leader’s perspective.

Published:
 June 2016

Editorial

It is my great pleasure to present you the 22nd ­Edition of the JAPCC Journal. The opening article of this edition is an interview with The ­Netherlands’ Air Chief Lieutenant General Schnitger, who offers us his perspective on future airpower requirements and how the RNLAF shall be kept ‘Fit for the Future’ by a program called the ‘Air Force 3.0’. We greatly appreciate his senior leader’s perspective. In this editorial, I’ll depart from my tradition of discussing upcoming articles to talk about a couple of things that are significant to Joint Air and Space Power in NATO today, Anti-Access / Area Denial (A2AD) and the Joint Air Power Strategy.

NATO Joint Air Power today is abuzz with talk of ‘A2AD’, which is a relatively new term describing a relatively old problem. A2AD is simply the ability to prevent opposing forces from entering an area and, if they are there, restricting their freedom of movement. As NATO has been focussing on ­operations outside of the European area of responsibility, our adversaries here and across the globe have been watching carefully, designing systems that are dedicated to prevent us from ­operating our military assets to their full potential should a conflict of interests materialize. On the one hand, it sounds like ‘old wine in new bags’, however, what’s worthwhile noting is that the ‘new’ A2AD refers to an aggressively designed com­bination of cyber, electronic warfare, and highly capable integrated air defence systems woven together in a flexible and mobile fashion to create areas which are effectively impenetrable. How to effectively conduct operations in these contested or non-permissive A2AD environments is something to which NATO must turn its attention.

Recently, the North Atlantic Council tasked the NATO Military Authorities (NMAs) to draft a Joint Air Power Strategy for the Alliance. This strategy will first develop a conceptual basis for air power and then address the development of long-term air power capabilities. This work will be a continuation of the work started by the NMAs in their military advice to the Council, which was submitted to the Military Committee in late 2016. The JAPCC was honoured to be a part of the team that developed that advice, which recommended the development of the strategy, and we are honoured to have again been invited to participate in the drafting team.

Thank you for taking the time to read this edition of our Journal. I congratulate the authors on their contributions to this 22nd JAPCC Journal and I strongly encourage our readers to consider sharing your thoughts as you go forth and advocate for Air Power. The JAPCC team greatly appreciates your feedback and thoughts. Please visit our ­website at www.japcc.org, like us on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn to tell us what you think.

Madelein Spit
Air Commodore, NE AF
Assistant Director

Articles in this Journal

Leadership Perspective

Fit for the Future

Interview with Lieutenant General Alexander Schnitger, Commander of the Royal Netherlands Air Force

Transformation & Capabilities

How NATO Makes the Unknown Known

A Look at the Improvements to NATO Joint Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance

Air Command and Control in the Amphibious Environment

Institutionalizing Counter-Improvised Explosive Device Lessons Learned from Afghanistan

An Overview – Part 2

Nimble Titan

Ballistic Missile Defence in a Regional, Cross-Regional and Global Environment

Air Strikes Against Terrorist Leadership

Three Lessons from the US Air Force Special Operations Command

Viewpoints

Knowledge Development vs. Intelligence in NATO

A Problematic Delineation and its Ramifications

Contracting Civilians for Remotely Piloted Aircraft System Operations

Blurring International Law’s Principle of Distinction?

Assessing Nations for NATO Partnerships

A Country Baseline Assessment Methodology

What’s Past is Prologue

Why the Golden Age of Rapid Air Superiority is at an End

Out of the Box

The Changing Arctic and its Impact to NATO Joint Air Power

Laser-Based Space Debris Removal

An Approach for Protecting the Critical Infrastructure Space

Breaking Integrated Air Defence with Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Swarms

Developing and Testing the US Employment Concept

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