Forward Arming and Refueling Points for Fighter Aircraft: Power Projection in an Antiaccess Environment.

摘要

The United States depends upon effective power projection to advance its national interests abroad. A section of the Department of Defense s strategic guidance for 2012 describes one of the primary missions of the US armed forces as Projecting Power Despite Anti-Access/Area Denial Challenges. The US Air Force plays a central role in power projection by providing air and space superiority; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR); rapid global mobility; global strike; and command and control. The US military faces significant challenges to its power projection capabilities, particularly in the Western Pacific theater of operations (WPTO). The People s Republic of China has invested substantial resources in the modernization of its military forces and continues to expand its antiaccess/areadenial (A2/AD) capabilities, largely designed to prevent opposing forces from gaining access to the WPTO. Consequently, as the Air Force attempts to solve today s A2/AD problems, it should first reduce the vulnerabilities of forward-deployed forces to A2 threats, thereby allowing them to project force into a contested theater. The rapid movement and employment of fighter aircraft by means of mobile forward arming and refueling points (FARP) support this priority.