The Third World War: August 1985

In the Alliance this superiority had long been comfortably thought of as a state of grace that would endure forever, almost irrespective of the effort that the Western world put into it. But now things were beginning to look rather different. Soviet combat jet aircraft had made their first appearance in the Korean War. By 1970 all of this first generation had been withdrawn from service except for a handful operated by the satellite countries. The second generation originating in the late fifties and early sixties reached its peak front-line strength in the early seventies. By the beginning of 1985 only about 10 to 15 per cent remained in service as the third generation took over. This generation had made its debut in 1970 and its numbers had risen steadily ever since. The Soviet Air Forces now had aircraft of broadly comparable performance to their Allied counterparts, although the latter were still reckoned to have the margin in detailed capability in all circumstances, especially where this was dependent on electronic and weapon technology. Numerically the Warsaw Pact air forces had for long outstripped those of the Allies; now a broad parity in performance was also in sight. But that was not the end of the matter. With more research and development effort devoted to military technology by the Soviet Union than by all the Western powers put together, there was plentiful evidence of a fourth generation of aircraft coming along, to include specialized air-superiority fighters to match NATO’s F-15s and F-16s and land-based V/STOL aircraft. Nothing very much was known of these in detail except that they were waiting in the wings. They seemed likely to appear on stage from 1986 onwards.

By the beginning of 1985, Western analysts concluded that the strength of the Soviet tactical air armies in western Russia alone had increased since 1970 by over 30 per cent. The Naval Air Force was climbing on a similar curve, and there had been a vast increase in both strategic and tactical airlift, the number of attack and assault helicopters attached to the infantry having been almost trebled since 1970. The Soviet Air Force generals could look back on their own successful programme with every bit as much satisfaction as Admiral Gorshkov could look back on that of the Soviet Navy. In truth, it rather irritated them that the Admiral and his navy got so much of the limelight when the record of the air force was every bit as spectacular. In twenty-five years their unremitting efforts had increased the range and war-load capacity of the Soviet Air Forces by a staggering 1200 per cent.

This meant that Soviet aircraft could now range into the Atlantic and attack targets throughout NATO Europe’s rear areas, including the United Kingdom — targets that hitherto the West had considered immune from serious air threat. Moreover, they had the combat range for evasive and tactical routing, and for feint attacks. The air generals had been the architects of a vast, balanced air arm that had now significantly narrowed the West’s previous qualitative superiority. It almost goes without saying that in numbers it went far beyond what could conceivably be needed purely for defence. If things continued to go its way the generals could look forward to a not too far distant time when they could confidently challenge Allied air power and its ability to protect the strategic deployment of NATO’s reserves in an emergency. This would be a war winner. It was a professionally satisfying prospect.

With equal satisfaction they watched and listened throughout the seventies as military men and informed commentators in Western Europe tried to warn their countries about the critical part that air power had to play in defence of Allied security and the way the reassuring margin that had so long shielded the Alliance was all the time being narrowed. ‘None so deaf as those who will not hear’ might well have been their cheerful comment, until 1979 when the United Kingdom embarked on major measures to expand the Royal Air Force and especially to increase its air defence component (see Appendix 1). Most of the Allies were similarly engaged in stepping up their defence effort, but the RAF air defence interested the generals particularly because the United Kingdom had a special place in their strategic plans. Its expansion programme was not welcome to the Kremlin or to the Soviet air generals, but they consoled themselves with the thought that they had really had a splendid run while the West, of its own deliberate choice, was looking the other way. Furthermore, their own experience, over many years, of the huge industrial and training effort needed to build up or increase a modern air force, caused them to wonder if the British government might not be in for a surprise when it found how long its plans would take to mature.