On April 15, Kelly Grieco was featured in the Georgetown Security Studies Review, which published a summary of her April 5th lecture to the Center for Security Studies (CSS) on “Ukraine, the United States, and the future of air warfare.”

“At the outset of the war in Ukraine, analysts assumed that Russia would gain air superiority quickly because it had an advantage both in the quantity and the quality of its aircraft. Indeed, Russia’s advantage in the sheer number of aircraft was ten times larger than that of Ukraine. In addition, Russian aircraft were more technologically advanced than their Ukrainian counterparts. So why didn’t the Russians do better at gaining the upper hand in the skies?

“Dr. Grieco summarized three of the common explanations. Some are centered around specifically Russian problems like their poor training in air operations (they only get about 100 hours of flight time) and their shortage of pilots. Another explanation argues that the Russians have deconfliction problems which make large-scale operations with combined arms and maneuvering much more difficult. Finally, some analysts also believe that Russian failure to gain air superiority is due to their adoption of a land-centric doctrine. This doctrine assumed a blitzkrieg strategy would succeed quickly without the need for a dedicated air campaign to suppress enemy air defenses.”

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