During the war in Syria, the U.S. Air Force participated in operations it rarely trained for. Russian fighter aircraft regularly flew sorties across the Euphrates River toward U.S. positions, even though the two countries were not direct antagonists in the conflict. In response, U.S. fighters would — during times of tension — intercept the incoming jets and engage in maneuvers to prevent them from dropping bombs near American and partner positions on the ground. Despite a deconfliction mechanism between Moscow and Washington to manage air operations, this type of incident has been a fairly common occurrence in Syrian airspace from 2016 to the present.
While the risk of uncontrolled escalation between the two powers remained low throughout most of the conflict, this was the first time that Western and Russian pilots have routinely flown so close to one another in combat since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war in Sinai. The air war in Syria is a great example of what great-power competition may actually look like in scenarios short of officially declared combat: urbanized and chaotic. Russian aerial operations, including how Moscow sought to shape broader opinion about the conflict, highlight how great powers may choose to use force in peripheral conflicts that challenge American interests, but not the U.S. conventional military directly.
As the U.S. Air Force prepares for conflict with Russia and China, its interactions with Russian forces in Syria offer valuable lessons about the “urbanization” of aerial combat and its operational and tactical nuances. First, great-power conflict may not result in direct combat, but instead involve each country fighting for strategic leverage in third countries using a mixture of airpower and elite ground forces. Second, powers hostile to the United States may try to complicate U.S. action in ways that fall below the threshold of officially declared war, but which skirt the line of hostile action and complicate how U.S. forces may use force in dense and complicated combat environments. Third, U.S. Air Force training scenarios do not fully account for the complexity of an air war resembling the American experience in Syria. As a result, assumptions about how adversaries may challenge U.S. interests with airpower should be updated beyond linear notions of Joint Forcible Entry, even while training for a high-end fight continues to ensure that U.S. pilots retain critical advantages over adversary nations.
The Challenge in Syria: Non-Hostile Adversaries
Syria was often downplayed as a “permissive” environment for air operations because friendly forces were not kinetically engaged by enemy air defenses. Nevertheless, the Air Force faced an almost impossibly complex situation operating in Syrian airspace. U.S. aircraft were flying in proximity to Russian jets, often in support of different ground actors, but with rules of engagement that did not classify the Russian Aerospace Forces as a hostile adversary. These interactions were also taking place within the “no escape zone” of both Russian air-to-air weapons and the relatively intact Syrian integrated air defenses. In short, the delineation between permissive and non-permissive was purely academic.
The United States and its coalition partners also chose not to degrade or disable the Syrian regime’s integrated air defense system, which remained potent throughout the war and used to fire at Israeli aircraft, but rarely used to target American or coalition pilots. To make matters even more complicated, the Russians improved Syrian air defenses with the deployment of the S-300 and S-400, raising concerns that Russian technicians and operators may be present at these sites to help operate them. The Soviet Union used this tactic during the Cold War to deter the targeting of air defense sites in third countries mired in conflict.
To manage this air environment, the United States and Russia relied upon a deconfliction mechanism to prevent midair collisions and inadvertent escalation. The ostensible barrier in Syria’s northeast separating the two forces was the Euphrates River, which at its widest point is around 1,000 feet wide. The aircraft the United States and Russia deployed to Syria can cover 1 mile in about seven seconds at normal cruising altitude and airspeed, and air-to-ground weapon release zones were often several miles from a target. A large, easy to identify object makes sense to deconflict two air forces because a river never moves and can be seen from miles away, so pilots should have little trouble adhering to territorial boundaries to help minimize risk of unintended escalation and a midair collision. However, the deconfliction mechanism did not preclude either side from crossing the river. Instead, it asked each air force to provide pre-notification for planned flights that would cross the body of water. At times, Russia would simply choose not to provide that information, or cross the river…
