Scud-hunting in Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War soaked up resources from the U.S. Air Force. A decade later, despite years of work, the U.S. armed forces and their allies still encountered unlocated, mobile surface-to-air missiles as the war with Iraq began in March 2003.

Holding mobile missile launchers at risk of attack will probably be the gold standard for conventional deterrence. Some analysts maintain that standoff missiles are a valid option against important targets deep in enemy airspace.

While they have their uses, standoff missiles suffer from a big drawback in attacking mobile targets. To reach a target, the missile is launched and then flies in to make the strike. The time of flight may be several minutes. That is ample time for the target to move far enough to avoid being killed or even damaged. Harassment is not deterrence.

Nor can all aircraft withstand the risks. Hunting for mobile targets could also take the Lockheed Martin/Boeing F-22 Raptor deep into enemy defenses, where it will probably be outnumbered by enemy fighters.

In that scenario, F-22 Raptors may have to fight off enemy aircraft, then continue on to strike the assigned mobile target. The superior internal carriage of the F-22's air-to-air and air-to-ground weapons will help it survive and complete its mission.

Conventional deterrence is driven by the military weight in each side of the balance and the calculation of interests that goes into the decision to act. Interests vary, but it is easier to track over time the rise and fall of the military power.

Will the United States be "deterred" from taking military actions in support of international aims? Americans like to think of their military forces deterring bad actions of others. Yet as balances shift, there's a real possibility that American forces might find their options more constrained if they cannot establish that conventional over-match so central to cold, hard conventional deterrence.

Based on the last decade of experience, the freedom to act may range from intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance over-watch to the use of special forces to limited strikes. However, none of these will be possible if U.S. air dominance slips to the point of self-deterring action.

The developments most likely to interrupt the ability of the United States to carry out missions up to and including conventional airstrikes and thus imperil deterrence come from a range of technologies. Developments in these areas can be seen as pacesetters.

-- Part 11: How the F-22 can neutralize threats using cutting-edge technology

(Rebecca Grant, Ph.D., is a senior fellow of the Lexington Institute, a non-profit public-policy research organization based in Arlington, Va.)

(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)

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