Making the Sky Relevant to Battle Strategy: Counterinsurgency and the Prospects of Air Power in Nigeria

One of the most important roles in counterinsurgency (COIN) is to maintain adequate security presence to protect lives and properties of the affected population and restore law and order in the society. Accordingly, the state of affairs in Nigeria's COIN theater has been affected by the quantity and quality of security presence, most especially the ability of the operatives to gather timely and relevant information and mobilize for prompt response. Although the roles of the ground operatives have dominated public attention, the local air force and the complementary air powers have affected the security situations with the level of their presence or absence in the sky for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; firepower; and transportation in the theater. This study examines the relevance of security presence to achieve the objective of COIN and the prospects of air power in this arrangement in Nigeria and the Lake Chad region.