For a lot of the fashionable aviation period, geography was one thing the worldwide aviation trade discovered to beat. Merely put, not like a railway, a pipeline, or a freeway, an plane doesn’t require a steady bodily infrastructure between its level of departure and its vacation spot. Routes may change, plane may transfer between markets, and hubs may rise and decline. If economics justified a service, aviation possessed a rare skill to seek out one other means via. Earlier than 2022, for almost a decade at Russian AirBridgeCargo Airways, I watched that precept function from inside one of the vital geographically formidable cargo networks on this planet, connecting completely different elements of Eurasia and North America.
Trendy aviation has survived bigger shocks than the present restrictions throughout Russian and Gulf airspace. 9/11 reworked aviation safety, whereas the novel coronavirus closed borders, grounded fleets, and collapsed world passenger demand. But the pandemic was, in a single necessary sense, symmetric and reversible. As soon as restrictions had been lifted, a lot of the community may return. By 2024, worldwide passenger demand was already 3.8 % above its 2019 stage.
The disruptions accumulating in Eurasia since 2022 are completely different, although, as a result of they’re uneven, persistent, and cumulative. They’re uneven as a result of completely different airways now have completely different political entry to the identical geography, persistent as a result of airspace restrictions can stay lengthy after the shock that produced them, and cumulative as a result of shedding one route will increase dependence on no matter stays throughout the continent.
As an illustration, Chinese language airways retained entry to Russian airspace after 2022, whereas Western carriers misplaced it. In summer season 2019, Chinese language airways operated roughly 55 % of scheduled capability between China and Europe. By summer season 2025, their share had elevated to 83 %, though complete market capability stayed flat. In the meantime, after shedding entry to Russian airspace, Finnair’s Helsinki-Tokyo flight time elevated from about 9 hours to 13, a 44 % enhance. Moreover, through the newest Center East disruption, airways rerouted 1,150 flights per day to keep away from the battle space — forcing these plane to fly 206,000 extra kilometers day by day. This manifested the “geopolitization” of the Eurasian civil aviation trade in a measurable kind. Furthermore, below sure situations, the entry connected to an airline’s political identification turned a business asset.
The results could prolong properly past civil airline economics to the broader questions of strategic entry, connectivity, and mobility throughout Eurasia.
The US constructed its present distinctive capability for world army mobility contained in the civilian aviation ecosystem and nonetheless largely will depend on business airways, civil airports, cargo hubs, upkeep organizations, gas infrastructure, and politically accessible airspace throughout a lot of the world. The Pentagon by no means needed to personal that whole system to learn from it.
Afghanistan demonstrated how far that interdependency as soon as prolonged. From 2009, america used the so-called Northern Distribution Community to maneuver army cargo throughout Russia and Central Asia into Afghanistan. The US and its allies relied not solely on floor transit throughout Russia however on Russian geography and business Russian airlift itself — Volga-Dnepr Airways’ Russian An-124s flew NATO strategic airlift missions, whereas a 2009 U.S.-Russian settlement opened Russian airspace to American army plane, together with C-17s. By April 2011, greater than 1,000 U.S. provide missions had transited Russian airspace, carrying greater than 150,000 personnel, and the Russian metropolis of Ulyanovsk was later added as one other potential air-and-rail transit possibility. Entry to northern Eurasia was due to this fact in no way peripheral to U.S. strategic mobility — it offered plane and different corridors that decreased dependence on Pakistan.
At this time, first with the warfare in Ukraine, and now with the warfare in Iran, the chance is that the civilian community surrounding American army mobility in Eurasia turns into — with each new escalatory flip of occasions — narrower, extra politically conditional, and extra weak, whereas army necessities in Eurasia, on the other, develop into increasingly demanding.
Furthermore, the issue is now escalating past simply “closed airspace.” Kyiv, as a direct get together to the battle — itself an uncommon dynamic in aviation security — is urging overseas airways to keep away from Russian airspace and has formally requested the Worldwide Civil Aviation Group to deal with it as unsafe for civilian aviation due to common Ukrainian drone operations. Earlier, the European Union Aviation Security Company additionally beneficial in opposition to operations in Russian airspace west of 60 levels east longitude, citing the hazard of misidentification, the activation of Russian air protection programs, and restricted accessible mitigation. On the similar time, suspected Russian sabotage and GPS jamming have reached main European logistics hubs equivalent to Leipzig/Halle and the Baltic Sea.
Europe and U.S. allies in NATO are due to this fact changing into a part of the contested community itself.
Contested Mobility in At this time’s Eurasia
With the Ukraine and the Iran wars ongoing, site visitors that after dispersed throughout 1000’s of kilometers of northern Eurasia now typically funnels via the remaining geography between Russian airspace to the north and Iranian and Gulf airspace to the south. At one level, the route narrowed to a hall of roughly 160 kilometers, with Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Turkey absorbing a lot of the displaced move. That is what cumulative focus of mobility seems to be like on a map when the lack of one giant piece of usable geography will increase the strategic and business significance of what stays.
“Contested mobility” will not be a brand new time period. The U.S. Authorities Accountability Workplace defines it because the army’s skill to move gear and personnel in a contested operational setting. The U.S. Transportation Command calls strategic airlift a “nationwide uneven benefit.” Additionally, as U.S. Transportation Command commander Gen. Randall Reed put it in 2025: “Now that adversaries have the power to contest logistics throughout the complete spectrum, from point-of-origin to point-of-use,” together with non-kinetic disruption, america is “preventing to maneuver, as a substitute of transferring to battle.”
U.S. Transportation Command’s personal fleet includes 52 C-5Ms and 223 C-17s, whereas the Civil Reserve Air Fleet program additionally commits civilian plane to enhance them when wanted. Extra broadly, whereas the Civil Reserve Air Fleet itself consists of the U.S. civil plane dedicated to enhance army carry, the broader business ecosystem on which American mobility traditionally relied prolonged properly past U.S. Transportation Command and Civil Reserve Air Fleet capabilities themselves. Russian Volga-Dnepr plane had been as soon as subcontracted via Atlas Air; Russian Polet Airways plane — via United Parcel Service; and Azerbaijan’s Silk Manner plane — via World Airways, whereas all three U.S. airways named had been Civil Reserve Air Fleet individuals.
That ecosystem is changing into extra politically constrained, reaching business relationships as properly. U.S. Transportation Command’s Could 2024 Unsuitable Vendor Listing included Air China Cargo, China Jap, and China Southern, alongside primarily Russian-origin cargo carriers. But separation stays uneven. Delta, a Civil Reserve Air Fleet participant, terminated its codeshare with China Southern in 2025, whereas China Jap stays a Delta accomplice. United Airways, one other Civil Reserve Air Fleet provider, maintains a codeshare relationship with Air China. These partnerships usually are not a part of Civil Reserve Air Fleet missions, however they expose the stress between tighter strategic vetting and continued dependence on a nonetheless interconnected civil aviation system.
Throughout the 2021 Afghanistan evacuation, 18 Civil Reserve Air Fleet plane had been activated however didn’t fly into Kabul. As an alternative, army plane first moved evacuees to intermediate bases, from which civilian carriers moved them onward. The Civil Reserve Air Fleet plane stay civilian, collaborating airways retain operational management, proceed to function below civil security necessities, and may refuse specific missions on operational danger grounds. Civil Reserve Air Fleet can increase carry, however it can not “manufacture” overflight rights, politically accessible airports, or operationally acceptable corridors.
The final three mobility research by the U.S. authorities every validated a requirement for 275 strategic airlift plane, matching the 52 and 223 within the current U.S. Transportation Command natural fleet said above. The 2026 Congressional Analysis Service research, nevertheless, notes that whereas 223 plane had been procured, the U.S. Air Pressure now operates 222 after a hull loss, and one C-17 belongs to the NATO Strategic Airlift Functionality — so the usable natural U.S. Transportation Command fleet is already under the paper determine earlier than any query of political entry arises.
These research additionally transcend fleet dimension. The 2020 Mobility Functionality Necessities Examine examined contested environments and the broader mobility enterprise — the worldwide community of airfields, seaports, and floor routes along with business suppliers and army capability. Though the complete research is classed, a senior U.S. Transportation Command official later characterised it as:
revolutionary in advancing the joint neighborhood’s information on working inside the contested environments by way of understanding nice energy adversary capabilities to interdict strategic mobility, have an effect on the timing of power move into theater, and the influence on the marketing campaign.
What stays much less seen, although, at the least in these research’ publicly accessible discourse — additionally modeling contested entry in a theater earlier than 2022 — is a sequential lack of alternate options throughout a number of theaters, when the second loss turns into extra consequential as a result of the primary has already eliminated one other route. What occurs if the broader civilian community on which army mobility additionally relies upon turns into (geo)politically constrained properly earlier than precise battle begins? And if the disruption mechanism turns into cumulative?
The Ukraine warfare removes an enormous piece of usable aviation geography in northern Eurasia. Then, site visitors reroutes via alternate options within the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Gulf, rising their worth. If a type of southern corridors is later disrupted, the price of disruption turns into better as a result of the primary disaster already concentrated the community, which might set off the progressive discount in politically, commercially, and operationally viable pathways via which civil aviation — and, consequently, U.S. strategic mobility — can operate.
Developments within the Caucasus since 2022 made that focus seen. Azerbaijan’s air navigation system dealt with about 278 flights a day at first of 2022. By the tip of 2025, the determine had greater than doubled to 695, whereas annual overflights elevated from 47,065 in 2021 to 261,085 in 2025. After the disruption of Gulf airspace in early 2026, every day site visitors rose additional. Plane themselves adopted the identical geography when two Boeing 747-400 freighters beforehand operated by Russia’s Sky Gates left Russia on the finish of February 2022 after repossession and, inside days, had been re-registered in Azerbaijan and working for Silk Manner West Airways between Baku, Europe, and China.
The business community due to this fact did what aviation networks usually do — it tailored. However adaptation additionally concentrated extra site visitors and scarce plane in a smaller a part of Eurasian geography. And this new focus created a vulnerability of its personal when the South Caucasus hall confronted confrontation danger between Azerbaijan and Armenia from 2023 to 2024.
Smaller disruptions solely compound the identical downside. Navy tensions round Israel have repeatedly emptied elements of the Jap Mediterranean airline community, the Could 2025 Indian-Pakistani confrontation pushed site visitors south towards Oman and the Gulf, and recurrent army exercise across the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan locations additional stress on Northeast Asian routes. Taken along with the bigger disruptions attributable to the wars in Ukraine and Iran, these smaller shocks additional devour the alternate options on which the Eurasian aviation community more and more relies upon.
The Gulf reveals the identical focus. Dubai dealt with a file 95.2 million passengers in 2025, up 3.1 % yr on yr, whereas Center Jap airports’ connectivity rose 28 % in 2024 and intercontinental connectivity stood 16 % above pre-pandemic ranges. That development has many causes, however as soon as northern European-Asian geography turned unavailable to many Western carriers after 2022, the Gulf turned extra necessary as an east-west bridge.
Then the Gulf itself was hit. The 2026 Iran warfare introduced airport closures, airline cancellations, and rerouting. Dubai dealt with 31.5 million passengers within the first half of 2026, down 31.3 % yr on yr, and plane actions fell 32.1 %. With Russian airspace already unavailable to Western operators, the Iran warfare disrupted the southern Eurasian alternate options on which the community had develop into extra dependent. On March 31, 2026, EUROCONTROL recorded 56 % fewer flights between the Center East and Europe, together with companies overflying Europe to and from North America. This episode confirmed why a second lack of geography will be extra consequential after the primary one has already eliminated an alternate.
The army community tailored to the identical geography. Forward of the Iran warfare in February 2026, america moved round 150 army plane into Europe and the Center East, with greater than half of the newly deployed plane positioned at bases in Europe to stay past Iran’s missile attain.
That distance needed to be bridged. In Could, U.S. Air Pressure KC-135 tankers launched from the European Command space to refuel B-1 bombers working over the Central Command space, making European airfields a part of the help structure for Center East operations.
Political entry compressed that structure additional when Spain denied its airspace and bases to U.S. plane supporting assaults on Iran. Fifteen U.S. army plane relocated from Rota and Morón after the Spanish refusal, most of them KC-135 tankers, with at the least seven transferring to Ramstein in Germany. The Spanish case illustrates a unique type of entry denial from the Russian one, the place the closure was adversarial, structural, and really sturdy. The Spanish case was nonetheless allied, issue-specific, and politically extra reversible.
Because of this, air mobility nonetheless existed, and the distances had been nonetheless bodily “flyable,” however the variety of (geo)politically usable locations from which the mission may really be supported had shrunk.
Lastly, wider Europe itself is now the area the place a number of types of comparable “air mobility compression” overlap. In summer season 2025, EUROCONTROL estimated that it managed solely about 80 % of the airspace accessible earlier than Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the identical yr, the battle expanded with radio-frequency interference reportedly originating from Russia.
That is occurring whereas Europe is concurrently attempting to maneuver extra army site visitors via civil airport networks. Specifically, the European Union adopted 4 precedence multimodal military-mobility corridors in March 2025. Beneath the 2021 to 2027 Connecting Europe Facility, 1.69 billion euros (about $1.9 billion) was allotted for army mobility. The European Fee now treats ports, airports, bridges, tunnels, and power and communications nodes as strategic dual-use infrastructure, whereas acknowledging elevated subcontracting of army operations to civilian carriers.
Plane Change into Geopolitical Belongings Too
Airspace or airport infrastructure will not be the one a part of Eurasian aviation changing into “geopoliticized.” The plane themselves at the moment are typically geopolitical property. This is applicable particularly to the widebody airlift, the place probably the most helpful plane are finite — now not being produced — and tough to interchange. Boeing now not produces both the 747 or the C-17. The Soviet-built Antonov An-124 fleet is equally restricted.
The remaining plane are additionally performing a number of roles without delay. Atlas Air, Kalitta Air, and Nationwide Airways — all individuals within the Civil Reserve Air Fleet program — have used Boeing 747 freighters below U.S. protection contracts to move weapons to Europe for Ukraine. The identical business fleets concurrently remained a part of increasingly disrupted world commerce. Immobilizing one a part of that fleet removes capability from all potential customers.
The destiny of Russian AirBridgeCargo’s Boeing 747-8 freighter fleet stranded in Moscow since 2022 illustrates the purpose. The airline ceased operations in 2022, and Western lessors pursued the return of the plane via litigation and authorities channels with out recovering a single AirBridgeCargo plane from Russia. Russian authorities had little financial motive to retain the fleet: by AirBridgeCargo’s personal estimates, its 747-8 fleet offered roughly 1 million tons of annual capability prewar, versus not more than 150,000 tons a yr for Russia’s whole worldwide air cargo market. Greater than a dozen 747-8 freighter plane have consequently spent years parked at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow, unable to carry out the worldwide function for which the fleet was constructed.
The market did attempt to discover “one other means via.” Within the spring and summer season of 2022, AirBridgeCargo and the U.A.E.-based Etihad mentioned a construction below which the 747 fleet could possibly be moved outdoors Russia and operated via the Abu Dhabi hub, with plane and crews successfully re-established there. AirBridgeCargo additionally sought permission from Russian authorities to return leased plane overseas. The business logic was easy — worldwide demand for freighter capability remained sturdy, whereas conserving such a big 747 fleet contained in the a lot smaller Russian cargo market made little financial sense. But, the proposed financial resolution didn’t materialize as political restrictions surrounded transactions as a result of Russian actions in Ukraine overtook that business logic. Aviation may relocate the enterprise mannequin, however it couldn’t take away political elements connected to the plane.
The AirBridgeCargo fleet immobilization, due to this fact, can’t be understood solely in business phrases. Within the Russian case, the plane caught within the geopolitical confrontation have acquired a number of the traits of “trophies,” wherein possession itself turned politically useful even when the asset was economically pointless. A unique mechanism will be seen in Canada and Germany, which proceed to carry Russian-linked Antonov An-124s at Toronto Pearson and Leipzig airports, respectively, below their very own seizure orders primarily based on sanctions and judicial measures. The authorized and political circumstances usually are not the identical. However completely different mechanisms are producing the identical outcome when plane develop into a part of geopolitics reasonably than simply business property.
One other distinction turns into sharper within the case of Financial institution of China-controlled lessor BOC Aviation. After successful a $406.2 million judgment in opposition to AirBridgeCargo in New York, the lessor — similar to its Western friends — nonetheless couldn’t get better two 747-8 freighters from Russia. Nonetheless, inside months after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s October 2023 go to to Beijing, Russian authorities abruptly permitted the 2 BOC plane to depart in March 2024 — an final result Western lessors had been unable to acquire. A subsequent English Excessive Court docket judgment concluded that China’s standing as a “pleasant” nation was seemingly a part of why their return proved doable.
Much more telling, months later, Atlas Air put the identical two plane into service in america. The episode is an ideal illustration of contested mobility in as we speak’s world: geopolitics decided whether or not and the place the plane may transfer, and the worldwide market decided the place that scarce capability was finally most respected.
Shortage provides one other layer. Boeing ended C-17 manufacturing in 2015, and the ultimate 747 was delivered in 2023. On the similar time, demand for the capabilities these plane present is rising. As an illustration, in 2025, greater than two-thirds of the worth of worldwide commerce in AI-related items moved by air, together with, particularly, 747s, as a result of some AI server racks at the moment are so giant, they more and more require particular 747 freighter capabilities like a nostril cargo door. The wars in Ukraine and Iran add additional stress by rising army airlift necessities, lengthening routes, and concentrating demand on a finite pool of long-range cargo plane. In opposition to that backdrop, in September 2026, an E.U.-funded research on strategic airlift has recognized two choices for sustaining Europe’s outsized cargo capability — a deep modernization of the Ukrainian Antonov An-124s or the event of a brand new European plane to interchange the C-17s.
This “mobility compression” will not be completely a Western downside. Russian airways have misplaced entry to a lot of Western plane leasing, producer help, elements, and upkeep networks. The impact, nevertheless, will not be symmetrical. Trendy Russia by no means possessed an equal of the terribly huge world mobility ecosystem on which america may rely. U.S. Transportation Command itself argues that no different nation or mixture of countries can generate comparable world airlift output.
China illustrates one other asymmetry. Its airways have retained entry to Russian airspace and gained a geographical benefit over many Western opponents. However a lot of the heavy freighter capability with which Chinese language carriers exploit trans-Siberian airspace nonetheless will depend on American-built plane. Practically 60 Boeing 777 freighters are operated by 6 Chinese language carriers, whereas SF Airways — China’s largest all-cargo airline by fleet — depends solely on Boeing sorts, together with 747s and 767s for its long-haul community.
That dependence is now itself changing into “geopolitical.” After nearly a decade with out a main Chinese language Boeing order, plane deliveries and future purchases turned a part of the broader U.S.-Chinese language commerce negotiations. China agreed in 2026 to a potential 200-aircraft Boeing package deal whereas additionally starting to diversify — Air China Cargo has ordered 10 Airbus A350 freighters.
Lastly, Russia itself demonstrated what entry could make doable in Eurasia instantly earlier than its “particular army operation” in opposition to Ukraine. Throughout the January 2022 Collective Safety Treaty Group intervention in Kazakhstan, greater than 70 Il-76s and 5 An-124s had been assembled for fast deployment after President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev requested help. The episode reveals that plane can generate distinctive mobility when the political relationship opens the geography. However they can not by themselves assure that the identical geography will stay accessible within the subsequent disaster.
From Aviation Safety to Mobility Safety
After 9/11, aviation safety was reorganized round defending plane and airports, screening passengers, baggage, and cargo. With as we speak’s geopolitical setting, the item of safety ought to broaden to the entire community that makes motion doable — airspace, navigation, gas, energy, cargo dealing with, upkeep, communications, insurance coverage, different airports, industrial provide, and political entry.
The query will not be merely whether or not European-Asian site visitors can route round Russia or Iran, however what stays if Russian airspace or elements of the Gulf airspace stay disrupted for Western operators for years to return — particularly if that disruption ever overlaps with European navigation interference, the lack of a serious E.U. cargo hub, or a serious escalation of Russian-NATO tensions.
For the Pentagon and its allies in Eurasia, civil aviation ought to be mapped as an integral a part of army mobility, together with which carriers or upkeep services are politically and operationally usable, which airports develop into important throughout mobilisation, the place army and civilian customers compete for gas, which different corridors survive, and what occurs to strategic mobility when routes develop into a number of hours longer.
For many years, American energy benefited from a bodily globalization dividend. A lot of the world contained functioning airports, business plane, upkeep, gas, communications, and accessible airspace. The US didn’t must personal the entire system to derive army worth from it. The Civil Reserve Air Fleet and NATO’s commercially organized Ukrainian Antonov carry via the Strategic Airlift Worldwide Resolution initiative are each expressions of that dividend.
However because the worldwide system in Eurasia fragments, an plane could exist however be unavailable, an airport could also be open however politically inaccessible, an air hall could also be legally open however commercially unacceptable, and a fleet should comprise 275 strategic airlift plane, whereas the encircling geopolitics reduces its usability.
That’s the basic change underway since 2022. Geopolitics is now not simply “interrupting” world aviation — it’s reshaping the structure via which world mobility is feasible. If the air transport ecosystem in Eurasia turns into geographically narrower, politically extra conditional, and industrially more durable to breed, the strategic worth of each remaining route, plane, hub, and business accomplice rises — and so does the price of shedding one.
The Pentagon ought to due to this fact deal with contested mobility in Eurasia not merely as a fleet-sizing downside, however as a community resilience downside. The duty could possibly be assessing the quantity of usable carry after the sequential lack of airspace, hubs, political entry, business carriers, and scarce plane sorts — together with pre-negotiating the choice overflight rights, business capability, and industrial choices wanted earlier than a disaster begins. A lot of that’s already being applied when U.S. Transportation Command leads the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise, and research contested mobility.
What seems to be lacking from the general public debate is a requirement to conceptualize, assess, and put together for the cumulative geographical lack of entry throughout a number of theaters on the similar time — a dynamic that’s already changing into seen throughout Eurasia. The related query shouldn’t be merely whether or not america possesses “275 strategic airlift plane,” however how a lot efficient mobility these plane can ship if entry to Russian airspace, Gulf transit hubs, and main European or Asian hubs is degraded or denied concurrently.
Alex Kolbin is a London-based geopolitical danger analyst and director of ELSER Consulting, a boutique intelligence agency. After a decade within the world aviation trade, a number of years on the PIR Heart in Moscow engaged on nonproliferation and arms management, and expertise with the Stockholm Worldwide Peace Analysis Institute, Kolbin now focuses his work on the implications of regional conflicts for world provide chains and wider geopolitical competitors.
