Since 2001, western forces' air campaigns have focused primarily on Close Air Support (CAS) and Counterinsurgency (COIN) missions, leading the air force to increasingly neglect the top of the operational spectrum, which they lack them today. Ironically, however, the costs of long-term military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq or Africa, combined with continuous reductions in military budgets since the 1990s, have not made it possible to develop new means truly suited to the conduct of CAS / COIN operations. In the United States as in Europe, the air forces are thus articulated around median tactical planes modified little by little for the conduct of asymmetrical operations, all-purpose machines which are not really capable of excelling or in CAS or in high intensity combat.
Two decades after the first expression of need, and eleven years after the program was launched, the USAF has decided to end its acquisition of LAAR (Light Attack / Armed Reconnaissance) reconnaissance and light attack aircraft or LAS (Light Air Support), on the occasion of the publication of Pentagon budget estimate for fiscal year 2021. The same document, however, specifies that the command of the US special forces USSOCOM claims for 2021 a budget of $ 100 million for the purchase of five aircraft (out of 75 planned) from the “Armed Overwatch” program, the SOCOM variant of the LAAR program. A budget which will, however, still have to be approved by the Congress.
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