ASPECTS REGARDING THE ROLE OF AIR FORCE IN COMBATING GLOBAL TERRORISM
Traian ANASTASIEI, Mircea Boșcoianu, Marian Mihaita · 2011
Global terrorism poses a growing threat to the international community. The political, economic, and informational instruments of power play primary roles in addressing and eliminating the root causes behind asymmetric extreme risk events, but the military instrument will prevent some attacks and retaliate for others. Air force (AF) is one of the primary components of the military instrument in the battle against terrorism and contributes to current counterterrorist (CT) capabilities by providing global mobility for special operations forces, air superiority to protect those forces, and precision strike capability to target terrorist infrastructures. It also provides intelligence critical to deterring, preempting, and answering terrorist attacks, and provides psychological operations support to help erode terrorist will and popular support. The traditional role of AF in combating terrorism in different steps of application is presented. The analysis of possible future improvements in AF is essential to enhance the CT capability effectiveness.