Is the age of American air superiority coming to an end?

The growing effectiveness of air defence systems could blunt the West's most powerful weapons.

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On Aug 26, the skies over Ukraine filled with the roar of 230 missiles and Shahed explosive-laden drones. It was Russia's biggest such attack, and it ought to have been devastating, since the largest missiles each carried as much as 700kg of explosives. Yet it soon became clear that Russia had failed. Ukraine claimed it shot down 201, or 87 per cent, of the missiles, a stark example of how little effect air power has had in Europe's biggest war in more than eight decades.

The inability of Russia, which has Europe's biggest air force with roughly 600 warplanes, to operate freely over Ukraine has caused consternation not just among President Vladimir Putin's generals. It has also sparked concern among Western strategists, who have long planned on the assumption that they could gain and maintain control of the skies, protecting friendly troops and raining down bombs and missiles to defeat far larger enemy ground formations. During the two Gulf wars, for example, coalition aircraft penetrated Iraq's integrated air defences and tore apart Saddam Hussein's armoured divisions well before they could engage American or British ground troops. Yet now that anti-aircraft missiles have grown more effective, and at the same time small and cheap drones have proliferated across battlefields, some worry that the West's dominance of the air may be coming to an end.

"In my 3½ decades in uniform, I do not think I've seen a more challenging strategic environment," said Sir Richard Knighton, the head of Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF). "We largely enjoyed air supremacy...that is not going to be the case in the future." This is of particular concern should America and its allies have to fend off an attack by China to take control of Taiwan or by Russia on a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.