The Royal Air Force admits the end of air supremacy. Insufficient preparation, high-intensity warfare, and capability gaps in the face of Russia and China.
Summary
At the end of 2024, an unusual statement marked a strategic turning point. Sir Richard Knighton, Chief of the Air Staff of the Royal Air Force, publicly acknowledged that the era of Western air supremacy was over. According to him, the RAF had spent nearly 25 years preparing for asymmetric, low-intensity conflicts, such as those in the Balkans, Iraq, and Afghanistan. This focus had shaped its fleets, doctrines, and training. However, when faced with state adversaries such as Russia and China, capable of challenging airspace with advanced means, this preparation now appears insufficient. High-intensity warfare imposes radically different requirements: resilience, mass, endurance, survivability, and multi-domain integration. The RAF retains high-level capabilities, but it is no longer “match fit” for a prolonged confrontation with a technologically equivalent enemy. This lucid observation raises a central question: what is the RAF really lacking in order to face a modern high-intensity conflict?
The strategic admission of a doctrinal break
Sir Richard Knighton’s statement is not just rhetoric. It constitutes a rare strategic admission in Western military discourse. Since the end of the Cold War, European air forces have operated in a largely permissive environment. Air superiority was assumed to be a given from the early stages of a conflict.
The RAF was therefore structured around air policing missions, close air support, and precision strikes against adversaries lacking modern integrated air defense. This logic has profoundly influenced capability choices. The number of aircraft has decreased. Priority has been given to technological quality rather than quantity.
Knighton now recognizes that this approach has created a form of conceptual dependency. Forces have been optimized for conflicts that no longer represent the emerging strategic norm.
The end of air supremacy as an operational reality
Air supremacy does not simply mean having better aircraft. It implies the ability to sustainably control airspace in the face of an adversary who is actively seeking to challenge it.
However, Russia and China have invested heavily in access denial and area denial systems. Modern ground-to-air defense networks, combined with long-range sensors, hypersonic missiles, and electronic warfare capabilities, make any air penetration risky.
In this context, the RAF can no longer assume immediate freedom of action. Each mission becomes a contested act, requiring close coordination between sensors, effectors, and protective measures.
This development calls into question decades of planning based on Western technological superiority.
High-intensity warfare as a capability gap
High-intensity warfare imposes constraints that are very different from those encountered in Afghanistan or Iraq. It is characterized by threat density, rapid engagements, and attrition.
In such a conflict, casualties are to be expected. Air bases are targeted. Satellites are threatened. Communications are jammed. Ammunition stocks are quickly depleted.
Air operations are no longer decided by a few highly precise daily sorties, but by the ability to sustain a high tempo over time. This requires significant reserves, robust logistics, and responsive industrial capacity.
The RAF, like many European forces, has reduced its stocks for budgetary reasons. In a high-intensity scenario, some estimates show that key ammunition could be consumed in just a few days.
The structural shortcomings of the Royal Air Force
The first weakness identified concerns critical mass. The RAF currently has around 140 combat aircraft that are actually available, across all fleets. This is a low number given the requirements of a prolonged conflict.
The second weakness concerns base resilience. British infrastructure was not designed to operate under ballistic or saturation drone threats. The dispersion of resources remains limited.
The third weakness concerns enemy air defense suppression capabilities. The RAF relies heavily on partners for certain heavy penetration missions, particularly deep penetration.
Finally, the issue of stockpiles is central. Long-range air-to-air munitions, cruise missiles, and certain critical sensors are available in limited quantities. However, high intensity consumes them quickly, very quickly.
Training shaped by permissive conflicts
For more than two decades, British pilot training has focused on scenarios where the enemy air threat was low or even non-existent. Missions were carried out with almost total information superiority.
This allowed for a high level of precision and joint coordination. But it also reduced exposure to highly contested environments.
Knighton points out that crews must relearn how to operate in threat-saturated airspace, with potential losses and system degradation. This transition requires time, complex and costly exercises, and a profound cultural change.
Technological and informational dependence
Another sensitive issue is dependence on digital and space-based systems. The RAF relies heavily on sophisticated communications, navigation, and intelligence networks.
In high-intensity warfare, these systems become priority targets. The temporary loss of GPS, degradation of data links, or network saturation can paralyze entire operations.
The ability to continue fighting in degraded mode is currently insufficiently developed. Western doctrines have long assumed constant informational superiority, an assumption that is now fragile.
Comparison with Russia and China
Russia and China have learned different lessons. They have invested in redundancy, dispersion, and robustness. Their doctrines explicitly incorporate attrition and permanent contestation.
China, in particular, is developing an integrated approach combining aviation, missiles, cyber, and space. The objective is not only to destroy the adversary, but to disrupt their combat system.
Faced with these approaches, the RAF has undeniable technological advantages, but suffers from a lack of volume and strategic depth.
Implications for NATO and the United Kingdom
The RAF’s admission has implications that go beyond the national framework. The United Kingdom is a pillar of NATO in Europe. Its air capabilities are often seen as a force multiplier for the Alliance.
Admitting a lack of preparedness for high-intensity conflict raises the question of collective credibility. If several European forces share the same weaknesses, overall deterrence is weakened.
For London, this implies difficult choices.
Increasing personnel numbers, rebuilding stocks, intensifying training, and investing in resilience require sustained long-term budgets.
A strategic overhaul that is still incomplete
The RAF has engaged in deep reflection. More realistic exercises, increased attention to survivability, and enhanced cooperation with allies are underway.
But Sir Richard Knighton’s assessment shows that the transformation will be a long one. It is not simply a matter of purchasing new aircraft or new technologies. It involves a complete overhaul of combat assumptions.
Air supremacy is no longer a starting point. It is becoming an uncertain goal that must be constantly reclaimed. This reality is forcing the RAF to rethink its role, its resources, and its place in 21st-century conflicts.
Sources
Royal Air Force – Speeches and public statements by the Chief of the Air Staff
UK Ministry of Defense – Defense Command Papers
British parliamentary reports on military preparedness
NATO studies on high-intensity warfare and air superiority
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