[PDF] Strategic Advantage Of Air Power eBook

Author : Colin S. Gray
Publisher : Lulu.com
Page : 52 pages
File Size : 47,56 MB
Release : 2012-08-04
Category : Reference
ISBN : 130005185X

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The U.S. has long suffered from a serious strategy deficit. In short, there is a general crisis of strategic comprehension, a lack of agreement on the most effective organizing ideas. Airpower is by no means lonely in suffering from strategic theoretical uncertainty. The study argues that the United States needs a theory of war and warfare. It claims that future warfare will be diverse and that the tactical, operational, and strategic value of airpower must always be situational. A coherent theory of employment for all of airpower's capabilities, not only the kinetic, is needed. Airpower's potential utility lies within a spectrum of possibilities and is dependent on context. The study advises frank recognition of airpower's situational limitations. (Dr. Colin S. Gray is Professor of International Politics and Strategic Studies at the University of Reading in England. Originally published by the Airpower Research Institute)

Author : General Giulio Douhet
Publisher : Pickle Partners Publishing
Page : 620 pages
File Size : 41,92 MB
Release : 2014-08-15
Category : History
ISBN : 1782898522

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In the pantheon of air power spokesmen, Giulio Douhet holds center stage. His writings, more often cited than perhaps actually read, appear as excerpts and aphorisms in the writings of numerous other air power spokesmen, advocates-and critics. Though a highly controversial figure, the very controversy that surrounds him offers to us a testimonial of the value and depth of his work, and the need for airmen today to become familiar with his thought. The progressive development of air power to the point where, today, it is more correct to refer to aerospace power has not outdated the notions of Douhet in the slightest In fact, in many ways, the kinds of technological capabilities that we enjoy as a global air power provider attest to the breadth of his vision. Douhet, together with Hugh “Boom” Trenchard of Great Britain and William “Billy” Mitchell of the United States, is justly recognized as one of the three great spokesmen of the early air power era. This reprint is offered in the spirit of continuing the dialogue that Douhet himself so perceptively began with the first edition of this book, published in 1921. Readers may well find much that they disagree with in this book, but also much that is of enduring value. The vital necessity of Douhet’s central vision-that command of the air is all important in modern warfare-has been proven throughout the history of wars in this century, from the fighting over the Somme to the air war over Kuwait and Iraq.

Author : John Buckley
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 34,38 MB
Release : 2006-05-09
Category : History
ISBN : 1135362769

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Warfare in the first half of the 20th century was fundamentally and irrovocably altered by the birth and subsequent development of air power. This work assesses the role of air power in changing the face of battle on land and sea. Utilizing late-1990s research, the author demonstrates that the phenomenon of air power was both a cause and a crucial accelerating factor contributing to the theory and practice of total war. For instance, the expansion of warfare to the homefront was a direct result of bombing and indirectly due to the extent of national economic mobilization required to support first rate air power status. In addition, the move away from the principle of total war with the onset of the Cold War and the replacement of air power by ICBMs is thoroughly examined. This work should provide students of international history, war studies, defence and strategic studies with an insight into 20th-century warfare.

Author : Diane T. Putney
Publisher : CreateSpace
Page : 494 pages
File Size : 33,76 MB
Release : 2015-02-02
Category : History
ISBN : 9781507814796

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American air power is a dominant force in today's world. Its ascendancy, evolving in the half century since the end of World War II, became evident during the first Gulf War. Although a great deal has been written about military operations in Desert Shield and Desert Storm, this deeply researched volume by Dr. Diane Putney probes the little-known story of how the Gulf War air campaign plan came to fruition. Based on archival documentation and interviews with USAF planners, this work takes the reader into the planning cells where the difficult work of building an air campaign plan was accomplished on an around-the-clock basis. The tension among air planners is palpable as Dr. Putney traces the incremental progress and friction along the way. The author places the complexities of the planning process within the con- text of coalition objectives. All the major players are here: President George H. W. Bush, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, General Colin Powell, General Chuck Horner, and Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney. The air planning process generated much debate and friction, but resulted in great success - a 43-day conflict with minimum casualties. Dr. Putney's rendering of this behind-the-scenes evolution of the planning process, in its complexity and even suspense, provides a fascinating window into how wars are planned and fought today and what might be the implications for the future.

Author : Viktoriya Fedorchak
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 38,3 MB
Release : 2020-04-06
Category : History
ISBN : 0429686153

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This book aims to explain air power to both military and civilian audiences in an accessible manner, approaching the topic in a balanced and systematic way. The past 100 years illustrates that air power is an inevitable feature of any type of modern warfare. It has a key role to play in any of the three main operational environments: conventional (inter-state) wars, peace-support operations, and counterinsurgencies. This book examines the strengths and challenges of using air power in these situations, and each type of operation is explained using modern and historical examples, with an emphasis on the relevant lessons for the contemporary and future use of air power. The book also looks into the complexity of media coverage of air warfare and changes in the public perception of air power in recent years. The specifics of structuring national air forces is also discussed, along with the future of air power based on current trends. One of the enduring themes in the book is the necessity of inter-service and cross-domain integration, emphasizing the increasingly important role of cyber and space domains in the future of network-centric warfare. This book will be essential reading for students of air power and air warfare, and recommended reading for students of international security, strategic studies, defence studies, and foreign policy.

Author : Alan J. Vick
Publisher : Rand Corporation
Page : 205 pages
File Size : 12,5 MB
Release : 2006-09-12
Category : Study Aids
ISBN : 0833042548

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United States has engaged in counterinsurgency around the globe for more than a century. But insurgencies have rarely been defeated by outside powers. Rather, the afflicted nation itself must win the war politically and militarily, and the best way to help is to offer advice, training, and equipment. Air power, and the U.S. Air Force, can play an important role in such efforts, which suggests making them an institutional priority.

Author : Colin S. Gray
Publisher : CreateSpace
Page : 366 pages
File Size : 16,50 MB
Release : 2012-08-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781478392262

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In this magisterial tour d'horizon of the air weapon's steady rise in effectiveness since its fledgling days, Colin Gray, a prolific strate gist of long-standing scholarly achievement and international repute, has rightly taken a long view of today's pattern of regional conflict by appraising airpower in the broader context in which its operational payoff will ultimately be registered. His careful development of airpower's “strategic narrative,” as he calls it, shows convincingly how the relative criticality of the air weapon in joint warfare is neither universal nor unchanging but rather is crucially dependent on the particular circumstances of a confrontation. More to the point, viewed situationally, airpower can be everything from single-handedly decisive to largely irrelevant to a combatant commander's needs, depending on his most pressing challenges of the moment. Because its relative import, like that of all other force elements, hinges directly on how its comparative advantages relate to a commander's most immediate here-and-now concerns, airpower does not disappoint when it is not the main producer of desired outcomes. Indeed, the idea that airpower should be able to perform effectively in all forms of combat unaided by other force elements is both an absurd measure of its operational merit and a baseless arguing point that its most outspoken advocates, from Giulio Douhet and Billy Mitchell onward, have done their cause a major disservice by misguidedly espousing over many decades. Although the air weapon today may have been temporarily overshadowed by more land-centric forms of force employment, given the kinds of lower-intensity conflicts that the United States and its allies have been obliged to contend with in recent years, there will most assuredly be future times when new challenges yet to arise will again test America's air posture to the fullest extent of its deterrent and combat potential. Professor Gray's central theme is that airpower generates strategic effect. More specifically, he maintains, airpower is a tactical equity that operates—ideally—with strategic consequences. To him, “strategic” does not inhere in the equity's physical characteristics, such as an aircraft's range or payload, but rather in what it can do by way of producing desired results. From his perspective, a strategic effect is, first and foremost, that which enables outcome-determining results. And producing such results is quintessentially the stock in trade of American airpower as it has progressively evolved since Vietnam. Airpower for Strategic Effect offers an uncommonly thoughtful application of informed intellect to an explanation of how modern air warfare capabilities should be understood. Along the way, it puts forward a roster of observations about the air weapon that warrant careful reflection by all who would presume to find it wanting. Among the most notable of those observations are that context rules in every case and that whether airpower should be regarded as supported by or supporting of other force elements is not a question that can ever have a single answer for all time. Rather, as noted above, the answer will hinge invariably on the unique conditions of any given conflict.