Tunnel Warfare Will Test the Air Force’s Ability to Spy - and Bomb — a Hidden Enemy by Stephen Losey - Air Force Times
The possible emergence of a new era of tunnel warfare will challenge the Air Force to think of new ways to find, and defeat, a hidden enemy.
Terrorist groups such as ISIS-Khorasan, in the badlands of Afghanistan, have been known in the past to use networks of tunnels. In turn, the Air Force has used punishing weapons — most famously, by dropping the Massive Air Ordnance Blast, or MOAB, on ISIS-K tunnels in April 2017 — to deal with them.
But with more advanced adversaries such as North Korea building secret tunnels that could pour out thousands of troops with little to no warning — possibly in or near civilian population centers — the Air Force is going to have to find new tactics and perhaps even new weapons.
Most concerning, tunnel warfare can be a way for an outmatched enemy to level the playing field. Not only do they provide a way to move enemy troops, but also to conceal their numbers and capabilities, which adversaries such as al-Qaida have done…