Beneficial Bombing

Beneficial Bombing
Author: Mark Clodfelter
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 390
Release: 2011-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 080323449X

The Progressive Era, marked by a desire for economic, political, and social reform, ended for most Americans with the ugly reality and devastation of World War I. Yet for Army Air Service officers, the carnage and waste witnessed on the western front only served to spark a new progressive movementto reform war by relying on destructive technology as the instrument of change. InBeneficial BombingMark Clodfelter describes how American airmen, horrified by World War I's trench warfare, turned to the progressive ideas of efficiency and economy in an effort to reform war itself, with the heavy bomber as their solution to limiting the bloodshed. They were convinced that the airplane, used as a bombing platform, offered the means to make wars less lethal than conflicts waged by armies or navies. Clodfelter examines the progressive idealism that led to the creation of the U.S. Air Force and its doctrine that the finite destruction of precision bombing would end wars more quickly and with less suffering foreachbelligerent. What is more, his work shows how these progressive ideas emerged intact after World War II to become the foundation of modern U.S. Air Force doctrine. Drawing on a wealth of archival material, including critical documents unavailable to previous researchers, Clodfelter presents the most complete analysis ever of the doctrinal development underpinning current U.S. Air Force notions about strategic bombing.

Clean Bombs and Dirty Wars

Clean Bombs and Dirty Wars
Author: Robert H. Gregory
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 328
Release: 2015-10-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1612347312

"Clean Bombs and Dirty Wars: Air Power in Kosovo and Libya explores how the U.S. public, policymakers, and military services perceived and utilized air power and precision munitions before, during, and after Operation Allied Force in Kosovo in 1999 with incorrect assumptions"--

The Limits of Air Power

The Limits of Air Power
Author: Mark Clodfelter
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2006-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780803264540

Tracing the use of air power in World War II and the Korean War, Mark Clodfelter explains how U. S. Air Force doctrine evolved through the American experience in these conventional wars only to be thwarted in the context of a limited guerrilla struggle in Vietnam. Although a faith in bombing's sheer destructive power led air commanders to believe that extensive air assaults could win the war at any time, the Vietnam experience instead showed how even intense aerial attacks may not achieve military or political objectives in a limited war. Based on findings from previously classified documents in presidential libraries and air force archives as well as on interviews with civilian and military decision makers, The Limits of Air Power argues that reliance on air campaigns as a primary instrument of warfare could not have produced lasting victory in Vietnam. This Bison Books edition includes a new chapter that provides a framework for evaluating air power effectiveness in future conflicts.

American Arsenal

American Arsenal
Author: Patrick Coffey
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2013-12-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199959757

When America declared war on Germany in 1917, the United States had only 200,000 men under arms, a twentieth of the German army's strength, and its planes were no match for the German air force. Less than a century later, the United States today has by far the world's largest military budget and provides over 40% of the world's armaments. In American Arsenal Patrick Coffey examines America's military transformation from an isolationist state to a world superpower. Focusing on fifteen specific developments, Coffey illustrates the unplanned, often haphazard nature of this transformation, which has been driven by political, military, technological, and commercial interests. Beginning with Thomas Edison's work on submarine technology, American Arsenal moves from World War I to the present conflicts in the Middle East, covering topics from chemical weapons, strategic bombing, and the nuclear standoff with the Soviet Union, to "smart" bombs, hand-held anti-aircraft missiles, and the Predator and other drone aircrafts. Coffey traces the story of each advance in weaponry from drawing board to battlefield, and includes fascinating portraits of the men who invented and deployed them -Edward Teller, "the father of the hydrogen bomb", Robert Oppenheimer, head of atomic bomb design at Los Alamos; Curtis LeMay, who led the fire-bombing of Japan; Herman Kahn, nuclear strategist and a model for Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove; Abraham Karem, inventor of the Predator, and many others. Coffey also examines the increasingly detached nature of modern American warfare- the ultimate goal is to remove soldiers from the battlefield entirely- which limits casualties (211,454 in Vietnam and only 1,231 in the Gulf War) but also lessens the political and psychological costs of going to war. Examining the backstories of every major American weapons development, American Arsenal is essential reading for anyone interested in the continuing evolution of the U.S. defense program.

The Oxford Handbook of World War II

The Oxford Handbook of World War II
Author: G. Kurt Piehler
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 721
Release: 2023-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199341796

World War II left virtually no nation or corner of the world untouched, dramatically transforming human life and society. It prompted the unprecedented mobilization of whole societies and witnessed a scale of state-sanctioned violence that staggers the imagination, with more than 100 million casualties. The war resulted in an almost complete collapse of any norms geared toward avoiding the unnecessary loss of civilian life and shaped the worldview and psyches of generations. The Oxford Handbook of World War II broadens traditional narratives of the war and in the process changes our understanding of this epic conflict. Organized both chronologically and thematically and with particular attention to the pre- and post-war eras, the Handbook revises and extends existing scholarship. With chapters on the rise and fall of Nazi Germany, the land war in Western Europe, the Battle of Britain, the impact of war on the major combatants (Great Britain, France, the United States, Japan, and China), the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the decision to use the atomic bomb in 1945, and the cultural responses to the war, the chapters span much of the twentieth century. They suggest areas of scholarly consensus, identify interpretative clashes, and propose agendas for further scholarly investigation, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary inquiry. For example, the end of the Cold War had a profound impact on the way World War II was understood. Many formerly closed records in the former Soviet Union and China were opened to scholars, facilitating a more complex view of the Soviet war effort and suggesting that Stalin's army did not simply triumph by overwhelming German forces with sheer numbers but mastered the demands of a vast and logistically demanding front. In conceptualizing the volume, editors Kurt Piehler and Jonathan Grant also sought out contributions on lesser known aspects of the war, such as the Bengal famine in India, the treatment of prisoners of war, the role of Middle Eastern nations, and the activities of non-governmental organizations in ameliorating suffering. Spanning the rise and fall of the Versailles system to the postwar reintegration of veterans and the eventual commemoration of the conflict and its victims, The Oxford Handbook of World War II marks a landmark contribution to the historical literature of war.

Grounded

Grounded
Author: Robert M. Farley
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2014-03-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 0813144973

The United States needs airpower, but does it need an air force? In Grounded, Robert M. Farley persuasively argues that America should end the independence of the United States Air Force (USAF) and divide its assets and missions between the United States Army and the United States Navy. In the wake of World War I, advocates of the Air Force argued that an organizationally independent air force would render other military branches obsolete. These boosters promised clean, easy wars: airpower would destroy cities beyond the reach of the armies and would sink navies before they could reach the coast. However, as Farley demonstrates, independent air forces failed to deliver on these promises in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the first Gulf War, the Kosovo conflict, and the War on Terror. They have also had perverse effects on foreign and security policy, as politicians have been tempted by the vision of devastating airpower to initiate otherwise ill-considered conflicts. The existence of the USAF also produces turf wars with the Navy and the Army, leading to redundant expenditures, nonsensical restrictions on equipment use, and bad tactical decisions. Farley does not challenge the idea that aircraft represent a critical component of America's defenses; nor does he dispute that -- especially now, with the introduction of unmanned aerial vehicles -- airpower is necessary to modern warfare. Rather, he demonstrates that the efficient and wise use of airpower does not require the USAF as presently constituted. An intriguing scholarly polemic, Grounded employs a wide variety of primary and secondary source materials to build its case that the United States should now correct its 1947 mistake of having created an independent air force.

The Bombers and the Bombed

The Bombers and the Bombed
Author: Richard Overy
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 609
Release: 2015-04-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 0143126245

“An essential part of the literature of World War II.” —Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post From acclaimed World War II historian Richard Overy comes this startling new history of the controversial Allied bombing war against Germany and German-occupied Europe. In the fullest account yet of the campaign and its consequences, Overy assesses not just the bombing strategies and pattern of operations, but also how the bombed communities coped with the devastation. This book presents a unique history of the bombing offensive from below as well as from above, and engages with moral questions that still resonate today.

Precision

Precision
Author: James Patton Rogers
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 168
Release: 2023-12-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1526125900

We think of precision warfare as a modern invention, closely associated with the Gulf War, the Kosovo Campaign and drone technologies. But its origins go back much further in history. As historian James Patton Rogers reveals, this quest to achieve precision in war began in 1917, during the early years of powered flight in the United States. This means that precision has been a significant, if not always achievable, feature of American strategic thought for more than a hundred years. Patton Rogers takes readers on a journey through the twentieth century, highlighting the innovative thinkers of the First World War, the experimental technologies of the Second World War and the surprising Cold War nuclear strategies that made precision the dominant feature it is today. From Russia’s offensive war in Ukraine to Libya, Ethiopia and Nagorno-Karabakh, the conflicts of the twenty-first-century are being fought with precision weapons. Patton Rogers answers two enduring questions: why has precision been such a defining feature of US military thinking? And how has this ambition shaped public and military perceptions of war today?

Historical Dictionary of World War II

Historical Dictionary of World War II
Author: Anne Sharp Wells
Publisher: Scarecrow Press
Total Pages: 567
Release: 2013-12-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0810879441

This dictionary covers the complex and costly conflict that began when Germany, ruled by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, invaded neighboring Poland on 1 September 1939; and concluded when Germany surrendered on 7–9 May 1945, leaving much of the European continent in ruins and its population devastated. The war against Germany, Italy, and the other European Axis members was fought primarily in Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, East and North Africa, and the Atlantic Ocean. The Axis powers were defeated by the Allies, led by the “Grand Alliance” of Great Britain, the United States, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The Historical Dictionary of World War II: The War against Germany and Italy relates the history of this war through a chronology, an introductory essay, maps and photos, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 300 cross-referenced entries on the countries and geographical areas involved in the war, as well as the nations remaining neutral; wartime alliances and conferences; significant civilian and military leaders; and major ground, naval, and air operations. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about World War II.

Bomb Queen Vol. III: Bombshell: The Good The Bad & The Lovely

Bomb Queen Vol. III: Bombshell: The Good The Bad & The Lovely
Author: Jimmie Robinson
Publisher: Image Comics
Total Pages: 131
Release: 2008-01-23
Genre: Comics & Graphic Novels
ISBN: 1534320342

THE GOOD, THE BAD and THE LOVELY-The girls go wild as Bomb Queen faces the greatest challenge to her authority yet! With special guest stars Blacklight and Rebound - and enough jokes, innuendos and sight gags to make a sailor blush! Let's face it: It's another 128 pages of JUST PLAIN WRONG!