Loading...
What NATO exercises, infrastructure investment and Ukraine’s wartime experience show about keeping airpower operational under repeated disruption
An aircraft can survive an attack and still be unavailable for the next mission. For NATO, keeping aircraft alive is not the same as keeping an air campaign going. The more demanding question is whether the system around those aircraft can recover quickly enough to restore the missions required by an operational plan — and then do it again after the next disruption.
Public evidence is much stronger on dispersal than on repeated recovery. NATO and Allied air forces have demonstrated that aircraft can operate away from their main bases, that host nations can support visiting units, and that command and intelligence functions can be distributed across several locations. Those are important capabilities. But sustained airpower depends on more than access to another runway. Fuel, munitions, maintenance, ground support, communications, command and control, air defence, transport and specialist personnel have to move, remain available and recover with the aircraft.
This distinction is increasingly visible in NATO’s own thinking. Joint Air Power Competence Centre work on Agile Combat Employment has stressed dispersed basing, staged equipment, cross-servicing and mission command under degraded communications. In September 2026, the NATO–Ukraine Joint Analysis, Training and Education Centre and Allied Command Transformation framed Persistent Airfield Denial as a system problem: an airfield can be repaired, aircraft can disperse, and support functions can relocate, so sustained denial requires effects across runways, fuel, munitions, maintenance, air defence, logistics, command infrastructure and ground support. That challenge was designed from an attacker’s perspective, but the resilience implication is the mirror image: preserving aircraft is insufficient if the surrounding system cannot restore mission output.
The relevant unit of analysis is therefore the full sortie-generation and regeneration cycle: aircraft readiness, basing, fuel and munitions, maintenance and ground support, command and control, launch and recovery, dispersal or repair, and the next required sortie. The question is not simply whether aircraft can fly from somewhere else. It is how quickly the missions required by the operational plan can be restored.
Four concepts should be kept separate. Dispersal means aircraft can operate away from their home base. Supported operations mean an alternative location can fuel, service, command, launch and recover them. Recovery means restoring the required mission output after a disruption. Regeneration means doing it again after a subsequent disruption while maintaining an acceptable operational tempo. The public record is strong on the first two. It is much thinner on the last two.
This assessment gives greatest weight to activity that can be observed and to infrastructure records that can be checked. Official military reporting establishes what participating units say they did and achieved, but exercise claims are not treated as proof of wartime performance. Government and project-funder accounts are useful where they provide concrete details, while claims that go beyond the available evidence are treated as assessment rather than fact.
Pirkkala: Access Is Not Usable Capacity
During Ramstein Flag 26, the US 48th Fighter Wing deployed twelve F-35As to Pirkkala Air Base in Finland. Its post-exercise reporting recorded more than 120 sorties and more than 285 flight hours. US Air Force personnel, US Marines and Finnish teams supported the deployment, while maintainers and ground crews sustained aircraft readiness and sortie generation.
The exercise also produced a more concrete example of Allied cross-servicing. At Pirkkala, US Airmen, Finnish airmen and Royal Navy personnel conducted hot-pit refuelling of a Royal Navy F-35B. That matters because dispersed operations become more resilient when a visiting aircraft is not dependent on its entire national support package travelling with it.
The point is therefore not simply that F-35s could land in Finland. A functioning support system existed around them, and some servicing could be provided across national lines. Prepared Host Nation Support and cross-servicing can reduce the logistics footprint a deploying unit must bring from home.
But the evidence has limits. The published figures do not show how many planned missions were missed, Pirkkala’s maximum sustained capacity, how quickly fuel and munitions stocks could be replenished after heavy use, or how the same force would recover after repeated disruption. Exercise output demonstrates that the arrangement worked under the conditions tested. It does not establish wartime endurance.
Permission to deploy creates an option. Staff, equipment, stocks, compatible procedures and the ability to restore them under pressure determine what that option can deliver.
Distributed Operations: The NISRF Test
NATO’s Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Force used a different model in 2026. RQ-4D Phoenix aircraft operated from locations in Norway and Finland while pilots, sensor operators and intelligence specialists continued to support missions from southern Europe, including the main operating base at Sigonella. Across the Agile Combat Employment deployment, NISRF reported approximately 180 flight hours and more than 500 intelligence products.
The operation depended on more than the aircraft. Host-nation personnel were prepared in advance for handling, towing, safety and coordination, while NATO support structures moved mission-critical equipment and materials between operating locations. Some functions moved forward; others remained remote.
This can reduce the physical footprint at a forward base and make the force less dependent on a single location. But it also creates dependencies between several locations, transport links and communications networks.
Dispersal does not remove dependency. It redistributes it.
The missing test is what happens when one of those links, transport nodes or support functions becomes unavailable. NISRF demonstrates distributed reconnaissance operations and the ability to sustain them across several countries. It does not demonstrate fighter regeneration after repeated attack.
Host Nation Support as Combat Capacity
Sweden’s Norrbotten Wing participated in Ramstein Flag 26 with two fighter squadrons while also providing Host Base Support for Czech and French units and a NATO deployable command element. That is an important point: in a dispersed model, the host base is not simply real estate. It becomes part of the combat-generation system.
Swedish Gripens also operated from Bardufoss in Norway. NATO reported that a Cold War-era mountain hangar complex had been brought back into use after roughly four decades of dormancy. Norwegian government records separately show investment in a multipurpose hangar and storage capacity at Bardufoss to improve the ability to receive Allied forces.
Together, these records show prepared infrastructure and real foreign fighter operations. They do not show sustained sortie generation after repeated attack.
Scale is the harder problem. A base may support one visiting unit during an exercise. In a crisis, several units could arrive while the host nation is simultaneously supporting its own forces, protecting civilian services and competing for the same fuel, transport, maintenance capacity, communications and personnel. Host Nation Support is therefore not a background administrative function. In a high-tempo air campaign, it is part of combat capacity.
Continuity Without the Main Base
Project MACE provides another useful test. In September 2026, the Royal Air Force reported forty air mobility aircraft operating from alternative locations while RAF Brize Norton’s runway was closed for planned resurfacing. Hundreds of personnel were redistributed across the United Kingdom while the Air Mobility Force continued its global activity.
The project demonstrates that dependence on a main base is not absolute. Aircraft, engineers, operations teams and support personnel can be reorganised across a network of locations while missions continue.
But the conditions matter. The closure was planned, receiving locations had advance warning, and they were not reported as facing hostile disruption. Project MACE therefore demonstrates continuity during planned displacement. It does not demonstrate regeneration after an attack, still less repeated regeneration while the support network itself is being targeted.
Investment Points to the Same Dependencies
NATO’s investment priorities point to many of the same support functions seen in the exercises. The 2025–2029 Common Funding Resource Plan identified command and control, basing and facilities, and fuel among the largest spending areas within the NATO Security Investment Programme. Air basing was also listed among major future capability requirements.
In July 2026, Allies approved a €27 billion Fuel Supply Chain Capability Programme Plan to modernise existing storage and distribution infrastructure and develop new facilities, including pipelines in the eastern and south-eastern parts of the Alliance. This is not evidence that fuel would be the decisive bottleneck in a war. It does show that NATO regards the fuel system as a strategic enabler that requires major investment.
The Alliance’s September 2026 Resilience Baseline Requirements reinforce the same point from the civilian side. They call for Host Nation Support in a contested environment, priority access to energy and communications, resilient transport, and tested repair and restoration arrangements. They also require Allies to manage competition among civilian, military and commercial users for the same resources.
That matters for airpower because several dispersed bases may still depend on the same fuel network, telecommunications provider, maintenance contractor, road corridor or power system. More operating locations reduce concentration risk, but they do not automatically remove common points of failure.
Several operating locations are not truly independent if they all depend on the same critical service.
Ukraine: When the Support System Becomes Mobile
Ukraine shows what happens when the problem moves from exercises into war.
In July 2025, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence reported that the Air Force had received mobile F-16 support equipment that included a mission-planning complex and mobile equipment for preparing and mounting aviation weapons. The ministry said the requirement emerged from dispersed aircraft basing, continued attacks on airfields and a shortage of qualified specialists.
Ukrnafta, which funded most of the project implemented with the Come Back Alive Foundation and Ukrainian industry, reported that the weapons-preparation equipment allowed three people to mount a munition where ten to twelve had previously been required. That figure comes from a project funder rather than an independent performance audit, and it concerns one servicing task rather than a complete aircraft turnaround. It should therefore be treated as a reported efficiency gain, not as a general measure of F-16 regeneration.
The broader lesson is more important than the headline number. When aircraft disperse, parts of the support system may have to become mobile as well. A dispersed fighter fleet still needs mission planning, weapons preparation, specialist maintenance, transport, communications and command functions. If those remain fixed, scarce or slow to move, dispersal can shift vulnerability rather than remove it.
Across the cases, the same pattern appears. Allied forces can disperse aircraft and sustain operations from alternative locations when support has been prepared in advance. What remains much less visible in public evidence is whether the same system can restore the required mission output after repeated disruption.
The main problem is therefore not simply finding another airfield. Fuel, munitions, maintenance, command systems, personnel, transport and Host Nation Support must recover quickly enough to restore the missions that matter.
Assessment: Moderate Confidence
The available evidence supports a limited but important conclusion. NATO and Allied forces have demonstrated dispersal, multinational support, distributed command arrangements, cross-servicing and continuity from alternative locations. NATO is also investing heavily in the infrastructure and civilian resilience that these concepts require.
What public evidence still does not show clearly is whether the full system can restore a predefined mission output after repeated disruption and sustain that recovery cycle over time. This is a limit of the available evidence, not proof that NATO lacks the capability.
There are several reasons for caution. Exercise objectives may not reveal maximum capacity. Some bases may already have prepared Host Nation Support that removes delays not visible from public reporting. Aircraft losses, force protection, air defence or command decisions may become more important than logistics in a specific scenario. Sensitive recovery results may also remain classified.
For those reasons, a gap in public evidence should not be turned into a claim that NATO cannot regenerate airpower. The defensible conclusion is narrower: observed evidence of dispersal and supported operations is substantially stronger than observed evidence of repeated regeneration under attack.
Measuring Recovery and Regeneration
The practical problem is measurement. Sortie counts are useful, but they can conceal whether the missions most important to the operational plan were delayed or lost. Recovery should therefore be measured against a predefined mission requirement set before the disruption.
Four measures are particularly useful:
Recovery time — how long it takes to restore the required mission output.
Missions lost — how many required missions are delayed, cancelled or not completed before that output returns.
Support consumed — how much fuel, ammunition, maintenance effort, specialist labour, transport and other support are required during recovery.
Repeat recovery — whether the system can restore the same required output after another disruption without an unacceptable fall in operational tempo.
The fourth measure is what separates recovery from regeneration. A force may recover once by using reserve stocks, spare personnel or a pre-arranged alternative location. The harder test is whether it can repeat the process when those reserves have been consumed, communications are degraded, another base is unavailable, or several units are competing for the same support.
The same logic should be applied to alternative bases. Their value is not simply that aircraft can land there. The relevant questions are how much required mission output they can support, how quickly they can restore that output after disruption, and whether they can do so again.
Ukraine raises the same measurement problem. Mobile support should be judged against servicing time, specialist workload, aircraft availability and mission completion. Only then can a reported manpower saving be connected to operational effect.
What Would Change This Assessment?
The assessment should become more confident if repeated, documented tests show dispersed bases restoring predefined mission output within operationally relevant deadlines after successive disruptions while important support functions are also degraded.
The argument would become weaker if comparable exercises show that additional support capacity does not materially improve recovery time, or if another constraint — aircraft attrition, air defence failure, command disruption or political access — repeatedly dominates the outcome.
The key is to test the whole chain rather than one component in isolation. A repaired runway is not enough if fuel cannot arrive. Fuel is not enough if munitions cannot be prepared. Maintenance capacity is not enough if command links remain unavailable. Resilience is the performance of the system after disruption, not the survival of a single asset.
Forecast and Indicators
For 2027–2028, the working expectation is straightforward: dispersed units with rehearsed, interoperable and available support should restore required missions faster than otherwise comparable units without that support.
The number of Agile Combat Employment exercises matters less than what those exercises actually demonstrate. The most useful indicators will be whether Allies service each other’s aircraft in practice; whether fuel, munitions and other supplies are replenished beyond the first load; whether degraded command links are restored or bypassed; whether alternative infrastructure remains usable after a defined disruption; and whether the required mission set is restored after a second disruption rather than only after the first.
Recovery time is especially important. If NATO and national air forces begin publishing comparable recovery data from repeated tests, it will become easier to judge whether dispersed operations are maturing into a genuine regeneration capability.
Repeated announcements about the same exercise should not be treated as separate evidence. If comparable recovery data remain unavailable, the central forecast should remain unassessed rather than being converted into a confident claim.
Conclusion
NATO has demonstrated that aircraft can operate beyond their main bases. Public evidence is also increasingly strong that Allied personnel can support visiting aircraft, share selected servicing functions and distribute some command and intelligence activity across several countries.
That is necessary, but it is not the same as proving repeated regeneration under attack.
Dispersal reduces dependence on a single base. Support keeps aircraft flying once they move. A resilient airpower system must do something harder: restore the missions required after disruption, and repeat that process while pressure continues.
The most useful measure is therefore not simply how many aircraft survive or how many alternative bases exist. What matters is how quickly required mission output returns, how many missions are lost during recovery, what support is consumed, and whether the system can regenerate again after another disruption.
NATO is expanding the number of locations from which its aircraft can operate and investing in fuel, basing, command systems and civilian resilience. The next test is whether those networks can continue to generate the missions that matter when fuel, maintenance, communications, infrastructure and Host Nation Support are themselves under pressure.
Moving aircraft to other bases makes them harder to shut down in one strike. Regeneration is the harder test: keeping them fuelled, armed, serviced, connected and able to keep flying the missions that are still required.
English
Українська