The Quest for Relevant Air Power

342 │ CONCLUSION
While including other select European air forces would increase
the total number of combat aircraft, they would not add
substantially to air mobility. The UK and France, for instance, had
the only significant European tanker fleets and were the only air
forces to have a national and deployable airborne early warning
component in the 1990s. 3 Moreover, the USAF long-range bomber
and strategic airlift fleets had no equivalent in Europe, and American
combat aircraft were on average more advanced than their
European counterparts. Partly through reductions in numbers,
the Continental Europeans attempted to generate more interoperable
and deployable air power. In terms of mere numbers, the UK,
France, and Germany were comparable. Yet unlike France, for instance,
the UK had already focused upon complex conventional
air power during the Cold War, and export potentials influenced
aircraft specifications to a lesser degree. 4 Moreover, as Desert
Storm proved, the RAF was the only European air force capable of
playing a leading role in a major combined air campaign at the
outset of the post–Cold War era.
For the foreseeable future, the United States will retain its air
power dominance. Though Europe’s currently planned 1,320 newgeneration
combat aircraft seem impressive, they are by no means
all usable in deployed operations, particularly due to a lack of
force enablers. European defence resources turned out to be too
scarce for the buildup of a tanker fleet that is even remotely comparable
to that of the USAF. Air bases and equipment for deployed
operations are also lacking, as has been demonstrated by NATO
Response Force packages. Up to the time of writing, deployable
air bases have remained a bottleneck, and only the RAF and FAF
have been able to provide deployable air bases on a national basis.
On the positive side, programmes such as the A400M are under
way to remedy the situation. This airbus is expected to become the
backbone of the multinational European Air Transport Command
and is likely to considerably enhance European intertheatre
airlift capacities.
Shortcomings in materiel can partly be compensated for through
bi- and multinational cooperation, as the RNLAF has proven.
Through embedding its Air Force into multilateral approaches,
combined with its willingness to share risks across the spectrum
of military operations, the Netherlands has counterbalanced a