Senior European air force officers complain that the European Union's document defining the 60,000-man rapid intervention force (RIF) contains only one sentence about airpower (noting the need for air and naval power to support the ground forces). The EU air leaders complain that this ignores the fact that airpower has been independently decisive in several recent incidents. They want the EU to focus more effort on including air units in the intervention force that could act rapidly and independently to solve problems.Stephen V Cole