Negligence or Systemic Failure: Why US Bases Have Become Easy Targets

Modern warfare, marked by the overwhelming dominance of drones in the skies, is forcing militaries around the world to search for effective ways to protect critical facilities. This challenge extends far beyond Russia's confrontation with the missile-and-drone capabilities of NATO and Ukraine. The United States has also found itself in a difficult position in the Middle East. The experience offers a valuable lesson and should serve, at the very least, as food for thought-and perhaps even as a guide for future action.

Photo: flickr.com by Pfc. Cameron Boyd is licensed under U.S. federal government

US military men

The Vulnerability of America's Air Bases

For all the admiration surrounding the U.S. military in much of the Western public sphere, the United States has, somewhat surprisingly, proven remarkably vulnerable to attacks by inexpensive Iranian drones. The most striking example of the collapse of America's carefully cultivated image of military superiority was the incident at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia. In a short period, the United States lost an E-3 Sentry airborne early warning and surveillance aircraft, several aerial refueling tankers, and additional equipment of lesser importance. The U.S. continues to lose aircraft and helicopters at its regional bases, but it was the Saudi incident that sparked an intense debate among American military experts.

Many in the United States are asking how an aircraft worth half a billion dollars could have been left sitting in plain sight on an airfield, simply waiting for its fate. Why did no one take into account that the base lies less than 1,500 kilometers from Iran-a distance that is hardly significant in modern warfare, especially during an active military operation?

If anyone believes carelessness is an exclusively Russian trait, they would be mistaken. The U.S. military can be just as capable of organizational disorder.

At the same time, however, the U.S. military has a strong enthusiasm for developing fashionable new operational concepts, which to some extent offsets that broader organizational chaos.

The ACE Concept

One such concept is directly relevant here. It is known by the acronym ACE-Agile Combat Employment. Simply translating the term does little to explain its meaning without understanding the underlying theory. As a joke, however, it could be rendered into Russian using another familiar three-letter abbreviation meaning "the imitation of vigorous activity."

The concept calls for dispersing combat aircraft across a large number of smaller airfields instead of concentrating them at traditional large air bases.

Nor is it intended to be a static system. Aircraft would be expected to relocate continuously whenever a particular airfield comes under threat while simultaneously carrying out combat missions-taking off from one location, landing at another, and potentially refueling in midair along the way.

In other words, the concept envisions the constant maneuvering of air assets. The designers clearly set out to make the life of military pilots even more dynamic and demanding. There is little doubt that fighter pilots will appreciate the concept in their own way. Of course, they have little choice-the old saying still applies: if you want to survive, you have to keep moving.

Yet concepts are one thing, and implementation is another. Designing an operational theory is far easier than relocating dozens of aircraft from one base to another on a regular basis. And that is only part of the challenge.

The Air Defense Challenge

The concept also raises an obvious question: how should air defense assets be distributed among the expanded network of airfields? If there were previously ten bases requiring protection, the new model could increase that number to one hundred.

This has exposed another fundamental weakness within the structure of the U.S. military. Like Russia, the United States maintains separate air defense forces responsible for protecting national strategic facilities, alongside Army air defense units. In the American system, it is the Army's air defense formations that are responsible for protecting overseas air bases.

While Russia operates very few overseas air bases, the United States maintains dozens. Under the ACE concept, that responsibility becomes dramatically more complicated.

As a result, Washington is now searching for an air defense system that is both universal and flexible. The discussion is not centered on a single weapon system, but rather on integrating existing air defense assets into a unified architecture capable of fulfilling new operational requirements.

At the same time, there is growing debate over whether responsibility for protecting air bases should be transferred from the Army to the U.S. Air Force.

Competition among different branches of the U.S. armed forces is hardly new. Rivalries over authority and resources date back to the introduction of nuclear weapons. Given America's longstanding and almost ideological belief in the decisive role of air power, the Air Force has consistently sought greater influence and a larger share of military resources.

In this particular case, however, Air Force advocates may have a point. For Army air defense units, the airfields they protect are not necessarily their highest priority.

The disagreement appears significant enough that military analysts are openly discussing whether air base air defense should be placed entirely under Air Force control.

Searching for New Solutions

U.S. Air Force staff officer Lieutenant Colonel Phil Ferris argues that the only truly effective means of protecting such bases may be the deployment of the Air Force's own fighter aircraft. Even here, however, there is a complication-not every air base maintains fighters on constant alert.

Ferris calls on the Air Force to develop a comprehensive air and missile defense strategy for its bases, combining both active and passive protection. He points to several air defense systems that could be incorporated into such a framework, including the Army's multi-purpose artillery platform, medium-range air defense systems, and the Marine Corps' integrated air defense network.

He also emphasizes the importance of passive measures, including camouflage, electronic interference against enemy sensors, decoys, and hardened protective infrastructure.

The Shelter Debate

The issue of aircraft shelters deserves special attention. The construction of hardened shelters has become a major subject of debate in the American military press and has also been discussed in Russia for several years.

Naturally, building protective shelters for large aircraft such as the E-3 Sentry is difficult because of their size. Yet even for conventional combat aircraft, progress in the United States has been minimal. Between 2010 and 2020, China constructed approximately 800 aircraft shelters, while the United States built only two.

Protective shelters are certainly not a universal solution, and Lieutenant Colonel Ferris stresses this point as well. He argues that some deployment areas simply cannot be defended effectively and should therefore be abandoned altogether. In his view, this is particularly relevant for parts of Southeast Asia.

Lessons for the Future

Ultimately, the concept of dispersing aircraft across numerous small airfields remains highly debatable. Within reasonable limits, however, it merits careful consideration-especially in light of recent attempts by Ukraine to carry out terrorist attacks against Russian military airfields.

As the old saying goes, every tale contains a lesson. The American experience should serve as a valuable lesson for Russia as well.