Description
The Chief of Staff of the Air Force charged the 2012 Air War College Blue Horizon Program to explore the impacts of technological advances on the Air Force’s ability to conduct Global Strike in 2035. Given this topic, this paper delves into whether the Air Force should pursue weapons that would allow the President of the United States to rapidly disrupt electrical generation and distribution (EGD) systems for the purpose of achieving strategic ends. The scope of the paper encompasses current electrical system technology through technological advances projected through 2035. Using this projection and historical experience from strikes conducted on EGD systems in major conflicts, the paper concludes that due to advances in energy ubiquity, transparency of information and consequences of volumetric counter electrical system attack that the strategic utility of this kind of attack is greatly diminished in 2035.
