Proliferation of Advanced Air Defence Systems

While Western nations remain strongly wedded to Cold War era controls on weapons exports, to ensure that problem regimes do not procure advanced weapons technology, Russian and Chinese industries and those of many former Soviet republics operate without such constraints, as long as their national governments do not object to the sale on other grounds. The problem is multi-dimensional and presents risks to all players. When Russian forces clashed with the Georgian military over the disputed territory of South Ossetia in late 2008 the results were a surprise to all, including the Russians. Confident that Georgian air defences were an easy target, the Russian Air Force flew a large number of sorties into Georgian airspace to bomb Georgian ground forces. The result was the loss of at least three Su-25 Frogfoot close air support aircraft and one Tu-22M3 Backfire C heavy bomber, plus two Su-24 Fencers claimed. Russian Electronic Warfare Self Protection (EWSP) systems proved largely ineffective in defending the aircraft from Georgian SAMs. Unbeknown to the Russians, the Georgians contracted Ukrainian industry to perform covertly a series of technology-insertion upgrades on the Georgian inventory of Soviet-built SAM systems and supporting radars. With EWSP systems programmed to defeat baseline Russian waveforms, the systems were unable to cope. Western nations have not confronted any modern state-of-the-art air defence equipment since the early 1970’s air war in Vietnam. Saddam’s extensive and dense IADS was crushed in 1991, but it comprised a mix of export variants of 1970s’ and 1980s’ built Soviet and French equipment. Many key systems were by then completely compromised to Western technical intelligence. In 1999, Yugoslavia’s air defences were equally antiquated, further impaired by a long running embargo that denied access to spare parts, overhauls of time expired missile rounds and upgrades. While NATO forces prevailed, disproportionate numbers of defence suppression sorties needed to be flown, and most of the Serbian SA-6 Gainful force survived the air war. One F-117A stealth fighter was lost. The air campaign against the Taliban in late 2001 was effectively uncontested, as was the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The complacency, which cost the Russians so dearly in Georgia, is even more pervasive and pronounced in the West. The ability to fly into hostile air defences without hindrance is simply assumed to be an immutable fact, into which the material reality of advanced technology proliferation never intrudes. Public statements by officialdom and manufacturers largely ignore opposing capabilities, or portray these as legacy Soviet-era or early 1990s systems. This rejection of reality is likely to persist until large numbers of Western combat aircraft are actually shot down during operations, upon which the resulting public embarrassment will produce a change in thinking and funding priorities. At present, technical intelligence collection and especially hard analysis of new IADS components is not a priority in any Western nation. Complaining about this problem is not a ‘career enhancing’ move for any senior air force officer in the West at this time. Proliferation of Advanced Air Defence Systems