Air superiority and battlefield victory

Abstract

Air superiority enhances military firepower and maneuverability and is critical to battlefield success. We offer the first quantitative test of the relationship between air superiority and battlefield outcomes. To conduct the test, we created a data set of which side, if any, achieved air superiority in the decisive battle of conventional wars between 1932 and 2003. We found that air superiority significantly improved a country’s probability of winning the decisive battle as well as the overall war. Further, we found that air superiority was a better predictor of winning a war than other well-known factors such as adoption of the modern system, regime type, civil–military relations, and a general measure of military power.