While navies, armies, and submarines retain roles, the primacy of aerospace capabilities in sensing, strike, and command is reshaping doctrines and force structures
Wars teach strategic lessons. Today’s conflicts in Europe and the Middle East are unfolding with dramatic advances in aviation, drones, missiles, space assets, satellites, and air-launched weapons. These developments suggest that Colonel Giulio Douhet’s air-centric theory, ‘The Command of the Air’, scripted in 1921, is progressively displacing older strategic paradigms such as Halford Mackinder’s heartland theory and Alfred Thayer Mahan’s sea power doctrine. Mackinder argued control of Eurasia’s heartland confers global influence whereas Mahan maintained that naval supremacy—backed by a strong navy, merchant marine, and overseas bases—underpins national greatness and global reach. The latter’s ideas shaped the rise of maritime powers, notably the United States (US), but the rapid emergence of air and space capabilities is shifting the balance. The United States Air Force became an independent service only on 26 July 1947, when the National Security Act was signed.
The United States Air Force became an independent service only on 26 July 1947, when the National Security Act was signed.
Douhet, an Italian airpower theorist, insisted that dominance of the air is decisive: strategic bombing could destroy an enemy’s industrial base and morale, and “to acquire the command of the air means victory”. He advocated swift offensive air operations even against maritime targets to break an opponent’s will and capacity to resist. Although he was highly criticised for this view, his core insight—that air superiority can determine outcomes—has gained renewed salience as advanced in aerial systems have extended the reach, accuracy, and lethality. The Russia-Ukraine war, in its fourth year, and the Israel-US blitzkrieg against Iran, in its fourth week, validate Douhet’s thinking, as technological progress in this century is accelerating under trends likened to Moore’s Law—technology has had an outsized impact on military affairs. Innovations typically begin as practical solutions to immediate problems and challenges, then diffuse into doctrine and reshape forces, tactics, and the order of battle (ORBAT). These inventions interact with economic, political, and cultural systems, and their strategic implications are validated through exercises, operations, and in war. The resulting Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) compounds change: improvements in rocketry, drones, precision munitions, global communications, quantum advances, and artificial intelligence are collectively altering how wars are fought.
Historically, control of the seas enabled empires—the Dutch, British, and later the US—to secure trade routes, project power, and deter rivals. Maritime dominance mattered because safe sea lanes and naval reach determined commerce, access to resources, and the capacity to impose blockades. Yet current technological trends mean warships and large aircraft carriers are increasingly vulnerable to long-range strikes from air, sea, and space-based platforms. Consequently, the author argues that the aphorism “command of the sea decides the fate of nations” should be revised to “command of the air increasingly determines who controls the sea.”
The Russia-Ukraine war, in its fourth year, and the Israel-US blitzkrieg against Iran, in its fourth week, validate Douhet’s thinking, as technological progress in this century is accelerating under trends likened to Moore’s Law—technology has had an outsized impact on military affairs.
This inversion does not render navies or land forces irrelevant. Jointness—integrated planning and operations among the army, navy, and air force—remains essential. Land forces hold terrain; navies can still control sea lanes and project maritime power; and air forces deliver tempo, reach, and precision. However, aerospace capabilities now provide the primary layer of sensing, strike, and command: persistent surveillance, rapid manoeuvre, layered strikes, and resilient logistics and communications. When airpower leads, it multiplies combat effectiveness, shortens kill chains, reduces friendly casualties, and shapes battlespaces from hinterlands to coastal and deep-water environments through capabilities like air-to-air refuelling, airborne sensors, and air-launched systems.
Nuclear SSBN submarines provide nuclear deterrence, but submarine threats—attacks on SSN submarines—still pose serious challenges. However they can be mitgated using air-led systems such as anti-submarine warfare helicopters with dipping sonars, magnetic anomaly detectors (MAD), sonobuoys, airborne sensors including blue-green lasers, and autonomous, air-deployed torpedoes. Several states, including India, with 12 P-8I maritime patrol aircraft, 24 Nuclear MH-60R helicopters, and Mk 48 torpedoes, already possess such integrated capabilities. Thus, coordinated air-naval operations can suppress submarine threats and extend sea control without relying solely on large surface fleets. Armed platforms without crews, called small uncrewed vessels, can patrol straits and narrows, and Iran reportedly has them for the Hormuz Strait.
Undoubtedly, the US military-industrial complex remains a dominant force, but China’s rapid military and economic rise—learning lessons from US campaigns, is shaping power projection, especially in the South China Sea, altering global competition. Recent US operations and interventions from the 1980s onward, and more recently, Five Eyes intelligence and material support for Ukraine, and the operations in the Middle East, illustrate how airpower and expeditionary reach have been central to strategy. In ongoing regional confrontations—such as US-Israel actions against Iranian targets—airpower has been the decisive domain, even as naval assets like aircraft carrier strike groups operate under threat from increasingly accurate and long-range anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) systems. Iran has even attempted to attack Diego Garcia with long-range missiles.
Coordinated air-naval operations can suppress submarine threats and extend sea control without relying solely on large surface fleets.
The international system is clearly shifting away from a strictly Westphalian, rules-based order. Great powers are reasserting territorial and diplomatic influence and often sidestepping multilateral institutions and legal constraints. This rollback of norms, combined with technological diffusion and intensifying competition, creates uncertainty about future geopolitical outcomes. Resource competition—particularly over oil—remains a potent driver of conflict.
Illustrative episodes of airpower include India’s strikes such as Balakot (2019) and Op Sindoor (May 2025), which demonstrated the strategic utility of precision air strikes even when naval elements were less engaged. Similarly, conflicts such as Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Israel–Iran confrontations reflect how air and space capabilities, along with drones and long-range precision weapons, shape modern warfare. WB Keats's poetry which captured the looming disorder of war a century ago—“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold”—feels resonant in today’s volatile environment.
In sum, the balance between sea and air power is shifting: air superiority increasingly enables control over maritime domains. While navies, armies, and submarines retain roles—especially when integrated with airpower—the primacy of aerospace capabilities in sensing, strike, and command is reshaping doctrines and force structures. The dictum of the past—sea power as destiny—must be updated for an era in which command of the air largely decides who commands the sea.
Ranjit B Rai is Vice President, Indian Maritime Foundation.
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Commodore Ranjit B Rai, MBIM (UK), is a former DNO and DNI. He has been the Vice President of the Indian Maritime Foundation. He writes ...
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