John Michael Loh, a former U.S. Air Force vice chief of staff and commander of Air Combat Command, has said he believes the military service should use “rollback” strategies along with stealth aircraft platforms and stealth weapons systems to carry out air campaigns.
The retired USAF general wrote in a Defense News opinion piece published Thursday that such strategy helped air forces in past operations, such as Desert Storm, that involved efforts against integrated air defense systems.
He noted that current guiding principle for the air campaign planning process calls for troops to ensure continuous operations in a contested environment.
“Air Force has visionary leaders whose challenge is to learn from past air campaigns, exploit the limitations of modern IADS, understand the mismatch between paper attrition and the realities of combat, invest in the right set of affordable forces and recognize the value of rapid rollback to create permanently uncontested airspace,” Loh added.