Affordable Air Power in an Era of Guns Versus Butter

Abstract

We live in an era in which air power has become indispensable: it is used for a variety of missions; its users range from the armed forces to the civilian security sector; and it is also extremely expensive. Air power is no longer the sole function of air forces or restricted to the use of combat aircraft. In the United States, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has built its own air force and used it to eliminate terrorists in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen. Police forces around the world now use unmanned aircraft for monitoring and surveillance, while border security forces employ them to track illegal immigration and trans-border crime. Yet, at the same time, buying and maintaining aircraft has become an increasingly expensive business—especially for democracies that have to balance the needs of the armed forces with the more immediate social welfare needs of domestic societies. Thus, in India, for over a decade, the
defence budget has stagnated at around 2 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) (and this includes the pensions paid to the veterans). The question then arises: how do you build up your air power to cover both external and internal security situations in an age of budgetary constraints?