Israel's war with Iran may be an exception to the rule, but only if the Iranian regime falls. Otherwise, Israel will have only won a reprieve in an ongoing war. Iran's capacity to build nuclear weapons is already degraded, and if Trump chooses to strike Iran's underground enrichment facilities, it will be set back by no less than a year or two. But it will not be eliminated. 

A good lesson on the importance of air dominance is the ongoing war in Ukraine. Russia expected to roll over Ukraine, and should have been able to achieve air dominance early in the war, if you believed the math. Russia had substantially more aircraft and a technological edge--at the opening of the war, Ukraine was using Cold War-era Soviet aircraft. 

Instead, the air war has been a stalemate, just as the war overall has been. Ukraine has certainly benefited from Western military aid, but even before that, Western aid began flowing in, Ukraine had demonstrated an ability to swat Russian aircraft out of the sky. The denial of Ukrainian airspace to Russia has been a key factor in Ukraine's survival. 

On the other end of the warfighting spectrum, the United States relies heavily on achieving what is called "Air Dominance," the highest level of control over the airspace. The Small Wars Journal has a nice precis describing how US war planners conceive of the levels of air control over the battlespace:

A 1998 Air Command and Staff College paper, Achieving and Ensuring Air Dominance, provides some general definitions of these terms. Here are some excerpts, taken directly from the text:

Air denial: “[T]he lowest airpower state where friendly aircraft can conduct air operations sufficient enough to deny the enemy air dominance while conducting those airpower activities necessary to halt an initial enemy advance.”

Air superiority: “Joint Pub 1-02 defines air superiority to be the degree ‘in the air battle of one force over another which permits the conduct of operations by the former and its related land, sea, and air forces at a given time and place without prohibitive interference by the opposing force.’ This state is not enough to ensure the effectiveness of airpower.”

Air supremacy: “The next airpower state is air supremacy, which Joint Pub 1-02 defines as ‘that degree of air superiority wherein the opposing air force in incapable of effective interference.’ Most theorists add that air supremacy is achieved when superiority is ensured just about everywhere, thus allowing friendly aircraft the ability to fly anywhere.”

Air dominance: “[T]he highest airpower state when the requisite effectiveness of airpower is achieved, that 100% of friendly bombs hit enemy targets while no enemy bombs hit friendly targets, that wars are won quickly (such as during the Six-Day War of 1967 and Operation Desert Storm of 1991), and that fewer friendly casualties are suffered.”

The author goes on to contend that even if the U.S. achieves air dominance, an enemy can still resort to what he calls a “kill Americans” strategy to win the war. This basically boils down to inflicting enough American casualties that public opinion turns against the campaign.

In the words of John M. Loh, a former Air Force general who headed Tactical Air Command: “Congress and the public now expect U. S. forces to prevail by 99-1, not 55-54 in double overtime.”

To achieve air dominance, the US has created four of the largest air forces in the world: the US Air Force, the US Army, the US Navy, and the US Marine Corps. The Army's air arm is primarily composed of helicopters for use on the battlefield, while the Air Force, Navy, and Marines all utilize fixed-wing aircraft. 

Together, they are designed to achieve air dominance. 

Wow! This gives you an idea about how dominant the United States Air Force truly is! pic.twitter.com/Wm5bsmYgf2

— Vince Langman (@LangmanVince) June 16, 2025

Ukraine and Israel show that air defenses are vital to ensuring air dominance, and Israel's war on Iran shows how vital stealth aircraft are in clearing out air defenses to ensure that less stealthy aircraft can roam freely in enemy airspace. Iran's reliance on ballistic missiles as an air strike arm has demonstrated its weakness--Israel can conduct real-time intelligence from the air and strike promptly, which Iran can only target fixed assets without regard to their tactical usefulness at any one time. They can do damage, but haven't hampered the war effort in the least. 

In a 1998 U.S. Air Force report titled, Global Engagement: A Vision for the 21st Century Air Force, the overall objective of air dominance was outlined as such: “[I]f air dominance is achieved and joint forces can operate with impunity throughout the adversary’s battle space, the Joint Force Commander will prevail quickly, efficiently and decisively.”

Thus, according to this interpretation of air dominance, the baseline objective for air power is to clear the way, so to speak, for all levers of military power to operate with “impunity.” In this new age of unmanned warfare, such as we’ve seen on Ukraine’s battlefields, I’d argue that this concept needs some re-examining.

Even if American F-35s and B-21s crush an enemy’s air force, that does not guarantee command of the air littoral — that low-altitude layer of airspace within which small, tactical drones fly. In other words, an enemy force totally defeated in a traditional air war can still maintain lethal pressure on American forces through unmanned operations conducted at low altitude.

In their defense against Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainian fighter pilots have flown heroic missions, MacGyvering new tactics and technologies and rapidly integrating Western weapons and aircraft to establish off-and-on air denial against Russia’s air force. One Ukrainian MiG-29 fighter pilot told me about a plane that came back with a street sign embedded in its air intake, evidence of how low the pilot was flying to evade Russian radars.

“Maybe it’s stupid, but we don’t give a shit about technologies,” the Ukrainian MiG-29 pilot, who went by the callsign “Juice” told me back in 2022. He went on: “We’re just trying to do everything we can with what we’ve got. We succeed in this because the Russians are surprised, they were fucking surprised. They were not expecting resistance in the air at all.”

Closer to the Earth, Ukrainians have been able to do more than just resist. They’ve employed a wide range of small drones, operating in concert to create a paralyzingly lethal low-altitude environment that wreaks havoc on Russian ground forces. Using UAVs, Ukrainians have basically replicated low-altitude versions of the aerial stacks employed by the U.S. Air Force in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Israel vs Iran is a textbook lesson in the importance of air dominance. Israel is able to roam freely above Iran and strike at will, and because of that, all of Iran's military assets are at risk. Combined with excellent intelligence, key elements of the regime are as well. 

Achieving air dominance in a ground war is significantly more challenging, as described above. Drones add a level of complexity, and as a newer technology, defenses are still being developed. 

No doubt, the military is learning much and will rise to this challenge. In just the past several months, new weapons systems have been developed to reduce the effectiveness of longer-range drones, and smaller systems that aim to take out smaller drones are on the way. 

The only air force in the world that could deny us air dominance is, I believe, China. They have developed stealth aircraft, have enormous missile stockpiles, and their anti-access area denial strategy will make it hard for any but our longest-range aircraft to operate in Chinese defended regions. China could not prevent us from entering their airspace, but it could certainly keep us from doing so with impunity. 

I'm pretty sure Russia couldn't. Without its nukes it would be helpless against an American attack on its military capabilities after the first few days of a war. 

Most countries would be thrilled to achieve air superiority in any conflict, no less air dominance. The UK couldn't do it early in the Falklands War, and it cost them lives and ships. It can make the difference between a war of attrition and a relatively swift victory. 

When the US (or Israel, for that matter) is your opponent, you might as well not have an air force at all.