control of – A Royal Air Force officer says Western militaries built decades of doctrine around owning the skies—yet Ukraine’s stalemate, driven by drones, missiles and dense air defenses, shows air superiority can fail. With competition returning, he warns control must be
For decades. Western militaries treated control of the skies like a foundation—something their air forces could reliably build. then build on. But in Ukraine. the war has ground on without either side securing air superiority. and the Royal Air Force’s message is blunt: that kind of dominance is no longer something commanders can assume.
Speaking Wednesday. Air Vice-Marshal Ian “Cab” Townsend. assistant chief of the air staff of the British Royal Air Force. said. “Control of the air is the duty of an air force.” He added. “With it. anything is possible. Without it. everything is dangerous.” His point landed in the middle of a changing battlefield where drones and missiles have made the air less like a highway and more like contested terrain at nearly every altitude.
Townsend said the war in Ukraine demonstrates that this control is “not a given.” There. neither Ukraine nor Russia has achieved air superiority. Dense air defenses. along with drones and missiles. have left aircraft unable to operate safely near the front. stripping ground forces of firepower. protection. and the ability to mass vehicles or troops for a breakthrough. The result has been “a brutal, grinding war of attrition with largely static front lines.”.
He tied those battlefield outcomes to the broader reality of what has changed since the Cold War. After the Cold War ended. Western militaries often went to war against weaker adversaries and did so with overwhelming advantages—especially superior air forces able to suppress and destroy enemy air defenses and take control of the skies.
But Townsend argued that Russia and China are different adversaries. He said a war against a near-peer would not look like the conflicts Western forces had grown used to. In those earlier wars, countries like the US and UK fought far from home, with their own territory largely untouched. In a large-scale war—especially one involving long-range missiles—that distance and safety could disappear.
Townsend summarized the shift in experience starkly: “Throughout my career to date, the United Kingdom and most of our allies have been focused on conflicts of choice far from home and with a secure home base.” He said, “That holiday from history is clearly over.”
He linked the warning directly to modern air threats. The “growing drone and missile threat,” he said, has changed the equation. Townsend described “little green men on the ground” as a past challenge and now pointed to “little grey drones in the air.” He called drone warfare “democratized air power. ” saying it is “liberating and simultaneously challenging.”.
Control, he argued, is not a once-and-done achievement. Townsend said air control “is earned. ” and it “must be fought for relentlessly and maintained every single minute of every single day.” In the same remarks. he warned that the “modern integrated air missile defense operating environment is becoming increasingly complex and ambiguous.”.
Townsend explained why air control matters beyond the sky itself: it “benefits the other physical domains by giving them the freedom of initiative. the freedom to operate. and the freedom to maneuver.” Without that air cover. he said. vehicles and dismounted infantry face a wider set of operational threats.
He put the logic in terms of cost and casualties as well. “History consistently teaches us that fighting without control of the air dramatically increases cost, complexity, and casualties,” Townsend said. He called Ukraine “a stark reminder of what all there becomes when neither side can gain effective control of the air.”.
A central tension runs through his argument: the West has spent years building confidence around air superiority. yet the current operational picture suggests it can be contested for long stretches. Townsend said the UK “cannot afford to be complacent” after decades of having that control. “Those who fight for that control of the air tend to remember the lesson more vividly than those who have bathed in its luxury.”.
That warning is not limited to the RAF. Townsend noted that Western officials and defense analysts have similarly warned that the West can no longer guarantee control of the air in a future large-scale war against a near-peer foe.
The shift shows up in how US leadership has described the problem. Gen. David Allvin. then the US Air Force chief of staff. warned two years ago that the US military may not be able to achieve “ubiquitous air supremacy for days and weeks on end.” Instead. Allvin said. it may only be able to achieve it in short bursts—and exploit “short windows when enemy defenses are destroyed. suppressed. or out of ammunition.”.
The US Army is also signaling an adjustment in how it prepares its soldiers for the air environment they will face. Maj. Rachel Martin. the director of the Army’s new Unmanned Advanced Lethality Course made to catch the US up on small drone warfare. previously told Business Insider that “we are used to air supremacy as an Army.” She added. “Just about every event we’ve ever been a part of. we own the air.” Martin said Ukraine is showing “that may not be the case.”.
Her takeaway for training was unusually direct: Martin said US soldiers need to be taught to be “pessimistic or suspicious” of anything in the air. She explained that, before, everything above them was typically friendly.
The picture Townsend painted is one where the skies are no longer a trusted advantage. Even the officers and institutions that helped build decades of air dominance now describe a world in which control is contested, earned under pressure, and potentially available only in limited windows.
Royal Air Force Ian “Cab” Townsend control of the air air superiority Ukraine war drones missile defense Western militaries Russia China US Air Force chief of staff David Allvin Rachel Martin Unmanned Advanced Lethality Course