Eliminating the Rhetoric

Eliminating the Rhetoric
Author: Mark C. Nowland
Publisher:
Total Pages: 100
Release: 2001
Genre: Aeronautics, Military
ISBN:

"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.

Airpower Advantage

Airpower Advantage
Author: Diane Therese Putney
Publisher:
Total Pages: 494
Release: 2004
Genre: Government publications
ISBN:

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 context 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. C. R. Anderegg Director of Air Force History

The Rise and Fall of the Eagle

The Rise and Fall of the Eagle
Author: Çagatay Özdemir
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 307
Release: 2024-04-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1003850758

Everything that rises is bound to fall. The international system has been a stage for many states and different ideologies, witnessing their power struggles and efforts to ideological superiority for centuries. This new book tackles the foreign policy choices of the United States (US), which has recently dominated the international system and the liberal world order that it has sought to establish through its foreign policy. The book addresses the hegemony debate in the international system on a realistic axis. It contributes to the literature by critically examining recent academic work of experts in their fields as well as primary resources that detail the national security strategies of the US, including national security policy documents, executive orders, archives of the White House, interviews, and remarks by US presidents. The book is thus a testament to the present state of affairs during this pivotal juncture in the history of the US and the world order. This book also looks at the crisis in the liberal world system from the framework of the crises that lie in the foreign policy of the US, resulting in the collapsing of the liberal world order it advocates. In short, this book presents a study of how and for what purpose the liberal world order was established, how it began to rise, its connection with the US hegemony, how it has been shaken by various practices, and whether it has been successful so far. Presenting a perspective different from the leading figures of the field of international relations, such as Mearsheimer, Walt, Waltz, and Gilpin, this book is written in an academic format aiming to be of special value to students of American foreign policy, foreign policy analysis, globalization and world politics as well as a valuable addition to college libraries and bookstores.

Command Of The Air

Command Of The Air
Author: General Giulio Douhet
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Total Pages: 620
Release: 2014-08-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1782898522

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.

Japan’s Decision For War In 1941: Some Enduring Lessons

Japan’s Decision For War In 1941: Some Enduring Lessons
Author: Dr. Jeffrey Record
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Total Pages: 105
Release: 2015-11-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 1786252961

Japan’s decision to attack the United States in 1941 is widely regarded as irrational to the point of suicidal. How could Japan hope to survive a war with, much less defeat, an enemy possessing an invulnerable homeland and an industrial base 10 times that of Japan? The Pacific War was one that Japan was always going to lose, so how does one explain Tokyo’s decision? Did the Japanese recognize the odds against them? Did they have a concept of victory, or at least of avoiding defeat? Or did the Japanese prefer a lost war to an unacceptable peace? Dr. Jeffrey Record takes a fresh look at Japan’s decision for war, and concludes that it was dictated by Japanese pride and the threatened economic destruction of Japan by the United States. He believes that Japanese aggression in East Asia was the root cause of the Pacific War, but argues that the road to war in 1941 was built on American as well as Japanese miscalculations and that both sides suffered from cultural ignorance and racial arrogance. Record finds that the Americans underestimated the role of fear and honor in Japanese calculations and overestimated the effectiveness of economic sanctions as a deterrent to war, whereas the Japanese underestimated the cohesion and resolve of an aroused American society and overestimated their own martial prowess as a means of defeating U.S. material superiority. He believes that the failure of deterrence was mutual, and that the descent of the United States and Japan into war contains lessons of great and continuing relevance to American foreign policy and defense decision-makers.

Learning Large Lessons

Learning Large Lessons
Author: David E. Johnson
Publisher: Rand Corporation
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2007-03-30
Genre: Study Aids
ISBN: 0833042416

The relative roles of U.S. ground and air power have shifted since the end of the Cold War. At the level of major operations and campaigns, the Air Force has proved capable of and committed to performing deep strike operations, which the Army long had believed the Air Force could not reliably accomplish. If air power can largely supplant Army systems in deep operations, the implications for both joint doctrine and service capabilities would be significant. To assess the shift of these roles, the author of this report analyzed post?Cold War conflicts in Iraq (1991), Bosnia (1995), Kosovo (1999), Afghanistan (2001), and Iraq (2003). Because joint doctrine frequently reflects a consensus view rather than a truly integrated joint perspective, the author recommends that joint doctrine-and the processes by which it is derived and promulgated-be overhauled. The author also recommends reform for the services beyond major operations and campaigns to ensure that the United States attains its strategic objectives. This revised edition includes updates and an index.