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Simulations are an essential part of the network of nations defense. We have a large number of examples, from the “game” that They used in the Cold War The United States and Russia to conclude that it was not worth test try your last destroyer against Washington, or those who He has activated Taiwan In recent times “for what can happen.” The United Kingdom also carried out a test that should confirm that its arsenal is ready for battle.
The conclusions were not exactly those.
A brutal lesson. The story took place a while ago. As we said, the United Kingdom carried out a Strategic simulation of very high importance: he replied in his own aerial territory the exact pattern of the first Russian attack on Ukraine, which occurred on February 24, 2022. He did it through the Gladiator Training Systemvalued at 24 million pounds, and with the aim of evaluating how their defenses would respond if the same type of onslaught would have had the British soil as white.
The conclusion It was alarming. Although the results were not revealed in detail, the then commander of the Air Battlespace Training CenterThe Blythe Crawford Air Comodoro, was bluntly describing it as “a very beautiful panorama.” For a country that for decades felt protected by its location to the western edge of Europe (with the continental mass acting as mattress natural against threats), the exercise was a strategic shaking that threw old assumptions for land.
A threat that is no longer distant. Then it was more known, mainly than the exercise revealed vulnerability from the United Kingdom before a massive and modern air attack like Russia used against Ukraine, with a devastating combination of missile, drones and autonomous technologies. Crawford also stressed that Ukraine made everything West will awaken. The conflict not only exposed the brutality of the first Russian blows, but also highlighted how modern war has transformed the rules of aerial domain, such as We have been counting.
Crawford explained that it is no longer about achieving aerial superiority in broad and sustained terms throughout an operations theater, but to assume that supremacy can be Fragmentary, ephemeraleven located between two trenches or just a few meters from the ground. The war in Ukraine, he said, is an unprecedented battlefield between two countries with powerful air defense systems, but where none has achieved A full domain of the heavens, in contrast to the predominant aerial doctrine of the last decades.
The swarm that comes. One of the most revealing points of Crawford’s intervention was his analysis of the massive drone use In Ukraine. For the high command, it is no longer simply individual devices: now they face hundreds of hundreds of units, many of them equipped With explosivesothers designed as lures, and others Simply kamikaze.
These waves, combined with rockets and intercontinental ballistic missiles, configure a type of multiple, simultaneous and heterogeneous threat for which traditional defensive systems were conceived in much more predictable scenarios. The tactical dilemma, In his opinionIt is clear: “Should all attack vectors neutralize or prioritize the most lethal?” A question without a definitive solution, but that affects all the Western air forces.
Of strength to vulnerability. One of the most forceful messages of the United Kingdom simulation was the need to change the defensive mentality of the nation and its allies. For decades, modern wars were fought away from the national territory, which led to an erroneous perception of domestic security.
Hence, Comodoro warned that it is time to abandon that trust and assume that even the British bases are now under direct threat. In other words: the United Kingdom cannot be considered as a simple safe starting point for foreign operations, but should be thought of as a potential objective and prepare as such. The risk, In his opinionIt is not hypothetical: if Russia decided to launch an attack against British soil, it could do it through its northern fleet from the Atlantic, thus avoiding European airspace.
Redrawing doctrines. The last of the legs to deal with the simulation results. The Ukrainian case is rewriting military doctrines that during generations were considered unquestionable. The notion of total air control, cornerstone of NATO strategy from the Gulf War, seems to be eroding for a New generation of threats which combines speed, volume, unpredictability and autonomy.
For Crawford and many other strategists, the key is to learn quickly, assume that the scenario (in this British case) is no longer immune, and rethinking defense systems as if the next attack did not happen in a distant country, but in “house.”
Image | US Department of Defense
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