What are the new changes in air control after flying for a hundred years ■ Chaishan "Those who are good at attacking move above the nine heavens." It has been more than 100 years since the Italian military theorist Du Hei put forward the theory of air control in 1921. Looking back at the situation of air combat in the century, with the development of theory and technology, the connotation and extension of air control have long kept pace with the times. Especially with the advent of the information and intelligent era, air control presents some new characteristics and laws. Only by exploring and studying these characteristics and laws can we better grasp the changes in the winning mechanism of air operations, plan and organize future air operations, and lay the foundation for successfully seizing air control. The role of air supremacy has changed from auxiliary cooperation to control dominance Historically, air supremacy was in the auxiliary and cooperative position of land battlefield in the early stage of its proposal. Although Fullerton and Lanchester with foresight clearly pointed out that "air control may be an important prerequisite for land and air war", in the actual battlefield, because most of the aviation troops at that time were in the allocation position of the army, mainly cooperated with ground operations and carried out air reconnaissance and artillery calibration missions, air control did not receive sufficient attention. However, since the beginning of the first World War, the role of air supremacy has become prominent, and the struggle for air supremacy has become increasingly fierce. Many countries have specially established fighter aviation forces for this purpose. After the baptism of World War I and the early stage of World War II, countries all over the world pay more attention to the status and role of air supremacy, emphasizing that in the whole process of operation, we must first consider seizing air supremacy and always maintain it. However, in the late stage of World War II, the emergence of missile nuclear weapons led to the question of the status and role of air supremacy again. Many people believe that air supremacy has lost its significance in the era of thermonuclear war. However, when major countries in the world gradually realized that "nuclear war cannot be won or won", and then turned to the military game dominated by conventional war, air control was paid more attention and the air force was vigorously developed. After entering the information age, especially in recent years, local wars are launched from the air. Controlling land and sea by air has become a shortcut to win asymmetric operations. The world's military powers pay more and more attention to the status and role of air supremacy, emphasizing that "air supremacy is a prerequisite for the army and navy to win the battle" and "without air supremacy, no war can be fought". Since then, the status and role of air control began to surpass land control and sea control. After that, with the continuous expansion of the operational area, the information control power and space control power appeared one after another, and began to play a more and more important role in the operation. However, the position of air control power remains unchanged and has always been the dominant power affecting the victory or defeat of the war. It can be seen that air control still occupies an important position in the information war and even the future intelligent war. Under the background of emphasizing the capture and control of comprehensive control, the capture of air control still needs to be given priority, and pay attention to the construction of battlefield comprehensive control based on the capture of air control. The space for air control expanded from tangible single domain to multi-dimensional and multi domain The proposal of air supremacy stems from the emergence of air battlefield. The air battle field before the information age is an air battlefield in pure physical sense. Its combat space is airspace, and the main force is aviation. Therefore, Du Hei believes that the air supremacy is "such a situation that we can fly in front of the enemy, but the enemy can't do so." It can be seen that the initial air control power is the air control domain power. With the development of information technology, a large number of information equipment have entered the air battlefield. The protagonist in the air battlefield is no longer only the aviation force, and the electromagnetic countermeasure force has also joined the competition for air control. With the addition of electromagnetic force, the space for air control began to move from tangible to intangible. The operational airspace is full of hidden and fierce electromagnetic confrontation, which has a great impact on the air battlefield and directly affects the results of air combat. The combat test of the battlefield "one-way transparency" in the Iraq war and the successful defeat of the F-22 "Raptor" by ea-18g "growler" is an example of seizing air control by using electromagnetism. In the era of intelligence, with the addition of cognitive confrontation, the space for the struggle of air control has been expanded again. From the decision-making dilemma of distributed air combat manufacturing to the fighter equipped with artificial intelligence aided decision-making system to greatly shorten the "OODA" killing chain, they are all attempts to seize air control in the cognitive domain. In the future, the cognitive domain will be another important field in the competition for air control. Therefore, it is far from enough to seize the control of airspace. Only by firmly controlling airspace, electromagnetic domain and cognitive domain at the same time can we truly seize the control of airspace. At present, the "soft" and "hard" penetration system actively developed by the air force, a world power, is exerting force in multi-dimensional and multi domain. The scope of air control area is refined from the overall height to the local level The earliest air control theory emphasized the complete air control without distinguishing the altitude. Du Hei believes that air supremacy is to dominate the sky, and no difference in any degree is allowed. From the current perspective, this cognition is a metaphysical cognition produced by the limited understanding of new things. In the era of Du Hei, the ability of air early warning and detection was not strong, and the combat effectiveness of ground to air weapons was limited. The acquisition of air supremacy mainly depended on combat aircraft. Once we have the advantage of air aircraft, we can seize the complete air control of operational airspace. However, with the addition of a large number of new air combat forces and the development of ground air defense equipment technology, the airspace altitude level began to be gradually layered and refined, and each altitude level began to become a competition area. The emergence of armed helicopters and "low, slow and small" UAVs makes the low altitude of "one tree high" become an important airspace; The strike envelope of the ground air defense system has been gradually expanded, ranging from hundreds of kilometers away to hundreds of meters away, tens of thousands of meters high and tens of meters low. The strike mode has realized compound precision strike, which can pose a great threat to air forces at all levels. In this situation, the competition for air control has to be organized and implemented from long-range to short-range, from high altitude to low altitude. The recent practice of world local war has also proved that even if the freedom of flight of the other party's fixed wing aircraft is limited and the other party's high-altitude long-range air defense system is destroyed, helicopters and UAVs can still fly freely below 3000 meters, and the enemy's mobile field air defense system and man portable air defense missile with strong information support will still pose a great threat to their own aircraft. Therefore, the competition for air supremacy in information-based and intelligent war cannot be expected to be obtained by completing its work in one battle. We must focus on the air use and air defense characteristics of each layer, implement it in stages through systematic design, and achieve targeted suppression and competition layer by layer in order to truly obtain air supremacy. The level of air control has changed from absolute air control to relative air control At the beginning of putting forward the air control right, it emphasizes the absolute air control right. Du Hei once strongly opposed the concept of relative air control. He believed that air control should be comprehensive and absolute. This is not only related to the idealization of understanding and cognition, but also related to the small number of air combat practices. With a large number of practices in the subsequent war, people began to realize that seizing absolute air control is neither difficult nor necessary. In contrast, seizing air control in some key battlefields and key stages is more realistic and reliable than seizing air control in the whole war. During the period of resisting US aggression and aiding Korea, the "MIG corridor" created by our air force achieved better operational objectives by controlling the air control in key areas. During the Vietnam War, the absolute air supremacy seized by the U.S. military with all its strength gradually failed under the counterattack of the Vietnamese people's army. Entering the era of information and intelligent war, the diversification of air combat forces and the versatility of ground air defense system make the competition for air control more intense and difficult. Through a lot of war practice, foreign military theorists have realized that it is necessary to divide the level of air control in order to adapt to the development of air battlefield situation. Therefore, the expression of air control is divided into three levels: air superiority, air domination and air hegemony. Although the meaning of the words is similar, from the context of the expression, these three words represent three different levels of control respectively. Air superiority usually means that it has a comparative advantage over the enemy and has the operational initiative. Air dominance usually means that it has great advantages over the enemy and has operational dominance. Air hegemony, on the other hand, means overwhelming superiority and absolute control over the enemy. The significance of this division of air supremacy is to make the competition for air supremacy more accurate and targeted through operational evaluation. It can distinguish different war scales, different combat opponents and different combat purposes, reasonably determine the scale and mode of action of air forces, maximize the targeting degree, and control the construction and combat costs through the scientificity and economy of military use, so as to achieve the highest cost performance. In recent years, with the adjustment of the strategic focus and the basic point of war preparation, Western powers have continuously introduced new air combat styles and new air equipment technologies, such as the "penetrating air control" theory and the "next generation air dominance" project, which is to create conditions for the competition for air control at different levels according to the combat characteristics and combat capability of their opponents and in combination with their own air control needs. The means of seizing air control has developed from single domain air combat to multi-dimensional joint combat The initial means of seizing air supremacy is air combat. Du Hei believed that the most ideal means to seize air control was to destroy enemy aircraft on the ground through air strikes. This thought had a far-reaching impact on the means of competing for air control. Therefore, the traditional method of seizing air supremacy is to control the air by air, that is, using fighter aircraft to clear up air threats, cover bombers to bomb enemy airports and destroy enemy aircraft. With the gradual improvement of the combat performance of the ground air defense system, controlling the air with the ground has also become an important means to seize the control of the air. However, in order to achieve the best combat effect, the way of "air combat + ground resistance" is often adopted, and the joint acquisition of air and ground control has become the norm. Since entering the information age, long-range precision strike system, space-based weapon system, network electric weapon system, unmanned combat system and cognitive domain weapons and equipment have been successively involved in the competition for air supremacy. Combat operations such as standoff strike, air and space blindness, network and chain breaking, navigation war, electromagnetic pressure control, network electric attack, unmanned "swarm" strike and cognitive confrontation have become powerful means to seize air supremacy, In the past, individual services and single airspace competed for air control, which was gradually replaced by multi domain, multi-dimensional and multi services and arms joint operations. Therefore, in order to compete for air supremacy in the future, we must give full play to the operational efficiency of land, sea, air, space and electricity network system, use troops in multi domain and multi-dimensional joint operations, conduct integrated operations, and gather optimization and release energy in relevant operational airspace. Only in this way can we achieve effective control of air supremacy. (outlook new era)