The Philippines Needs an Air Power Strategy, Not Just New Fighters

The Philippine Air Force (PAF) is in the midst of modernising its fighter fleet, with five potential candidates currently under consideration:  the Swedish Gripen, American F-16V, French Rafale, Eurofighter Typhoon and South Korea’s KF-21. Acquiring these aircraft is part of Manila’s military modernisation programme to support the shift from internal security to external defence, with a strategy focused on air superiority.

Yet this approach puts the cart before the horse. Rather than beginning with a shortlist of aircraft, the process should start by defining the country’s air power strategy. Only then should aircraft selection follow, ensuring that procurement decisions support a coherent strategic concept to shape the Philippines’ security environment.

The fundamental question, therefore, is what air power strategy it should adopt against a likely numerically superior adversary equipped with long-range missiles and drones.

In a military conflict, achieving air superiority over the Philippines, which is the current strategy, would be challenging. The PAF currently operates only 11 combat aircraft, including the KAI FA-50PH Fighting Eagle. Even with 12 additional FA-50s light combat aircraft in the pipeline, its fleet will remain insufficient to absorb losses and sustain a high operational tempo.

 The PAF must therefore first survive any contact initiated by an adversary. After surviving the first salvo from the enemy, it must then sustain the tempo of combat to deny the enemy air superiority over the Philippines.

To achieve the above, the Philippines needs a strategy to ensure that its small fleet of combat aircraft survives the opening barrage of enemy strikes. Here, the current conflict in the Middle East offers a stark lesson. Iranian long-range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and attack drones are placing even the most sophisticated American air bases under unprecedented pressure when they come under sustained enemy fire, rendering them ineffective.

In the case of the Philippines, losing several principal air bases, such as Basa Air Base located outside Manila, would have a disproportionate impact on its ability to defend its airspace and maritime approaches.

Success depends on a resilient and coherent strategy that ensures an air force can survive attack, recover quickly, sustain operations and continue generating combat power.

The second requirement is aircraft turnaround time. Aircraft that require lengthy refuelling, rearming and maintenance slow the operational tempo. Those with rapid turnaround enable a smaller fleet to generate more sorties, giving commanders greater flexibility throughout a campaign. Maintenance has also become a strategic capability rather than merely a technical function.  Aircraft requiring complex maintenance procedures or extensive support equipment inevitably spend more time on the ground.

Based on these lessons, the PAF should make survivability its core operating concept. This strategy would see a small number of combat aircraft dispersed across multiple civilian airports, highways and road strips throughout the archipelago, thereby enhancing both survivability and operational resilience. Such an approach requires future combat aircraft to operate effectively from difficult and austere locations rather than relying solely on purpose-built air bases. They must also be capable of rapid refuelling, rearming and turnaround, with minimal ground support and a small maintenance team, enabling sustained operations under contested conditions.

The Gripen offers a distinct advantage through lower operating costs, rapid turnaround and dispersed operations capabilities. It can take off from and land on any straight road. It only requires small teams (including conscripts) to rearm and refuel, thus enhancing its survivability by reducing reliance on fixed air bases.

But the Gripens are just a small part of the Swedish air defence philosophy, which was designed around the Swedish Air Force’s Bas 90 concept of dispersed operations. Under this strategy, combat aircraft operate from a network of wartime air bases, including road runways and other austere locations that serve as contingency operating sites.

The concept was founded on the assumption that Sweden’s main air bases would be subjected to overwhelming attack in the opening stages of a conflict, rendering many of them unusable. By dispersing aircraft and enabling operations from multiple locations, Bas 90 was designed to preserve combat capability, complicate enemy targeting, and ensure that the Swedish Air Force could continue generating sorties even after its primary air bases had been attacked.

To ensure the resilience of Swedish air defence, small, mobile support teams for the Gripens operate at each location. The Gripens were designed for minimal turnaround time; tasks such as refuelling and rearming take no more than 10 minutes, thereby further increasing the fighter’s operability. This enables sustained operations even when manpower and infrastructure are limited.

These temporary bases are well defended by a group of personnel who are armed with anti-aircraft weapons such as the RBS-70.

Policy Implications

To harness the full potential of the Bas 90 strategy, former senior Western officials privately note that command should be delegated so that any pilot can engage with a hostile actor on his or her own early on. Furthermore, delegation of command is possible because pilots and ground crews have a common operating picture, which improves situational awareness and enables faster, more informed decision-making.

Ultimately, the lessons from the Middle East are clear. Air power is no longer defined solely by the most capable fighter with advanced technology and missiles, or the most sophisticated air bases. Success depends on a resilient and coherent strategy that ensures an air force can survive attack, recover quickly, sustain operations and continue generating combat power. The PAF should therefore look for the right aircraft to support this strategy.

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