"The purpose of this study is to identify criteria that will provide objective analysis of a Halt Phase strategy. The study identifies the key criteria by examining air combat in three operations: the Battle of Bismarck Sea, the 1973 Golan Heights battles of the Yom Kippur War, and finally the Iraqi Republican Guard "escape" from Basra. The examination focuses on air operations looking for tactics, tactical innovations, and operational circumstances that inhibit or enhance air operations designed to halt the advance or retreat of significant ground formations. The study evaluates each case in three major phases: pre-hostility preparation, conduct of combat operations and finally the results and analysis of the operation. Pre-hostility operations specifically examine the doctrine, organization, equipment and technology, and the training of friendly forces. The conduct of operations phase explores the contextual elements, including a summary of the operation, and investigates intelligence, command and control and logistical factors. Finally, the results of each case are analyzed to discover factors that contribute positively, negatively, or not significantly to the outcome of the operation. Each case study's unique circumstances shaped the result; however, the criteria of organization and training appear dominant with command and control, doctrine and technology being recurrent in allowing air forces to halt an enemy surface force. The specific context of the battle, the intelligence preparation, and logistics of each conflict cannot be ignored, but were not determined as recurrent factors in all three case studies, although intelligence was significant in the Bismarck Sea. The study concludes with three major lessons. First, people make the Air Force successful; second, the halt strategy is appropriate for certain circumstances, but some sister service critiques of the strategy are valid; third, the Air Force should acknowledge the limitations of airpower, but it should also develop methods to minimize the limits in the application of airpower in order to make 'halt' the strategy even more effective in the future than it has been in the past."--Air University Library.