Doctrine governing the integration of air and ground operations has been a hotly contested area since World War I. Historically, the services have developed and published their doctrine separately, often causing seams in thought and execution. Although joint doctrine exists for today’s joint force, its development followed the same historical pattern—taking service doctrines and “melding” into joint doctrine. This construct for developing joint doctrine has its shortcomi...

Colonel Hesterman's analysis of this subject is accurate and timely. She provides a fresh look at the criminal/terrorist nexus and by examining corporate trends, provides unique insights into funding aspects of both activities. This important subject matter is ripe for further policy and substantive analytical focus. Analysts and policy makers alike can certainly use her study’s conclusions and recommendations in their efforts to protect our nation against this vexing threat.

The study concludes that a viable Air Force strategy in Africa is properly based on modest “ends” that reflect US national interests on the continent that are themselves limited in scope. These modest ends require that correspondingly limited “ways” and “means” be applied in order for the entire Air Force approach to remain balanced. The ways should focus on missions that create conditions for African states to solve their own security issues, thereby increasing their le...

Lt. Col. J. Reggie Hall’s Agile Combat Support Doctrine and Logistics Officer Training: Do We Need an Integrated Logistics School for the Expeditionary Air and Space Force? examines the evolution of USAF logistics doctrine, the linkage between doctrine, strategy, tactics, and training programs, and the corresponding application of logistics employment and sustainment functions in a deployed environment. In doing so, he analyzes the USAF’s diverse logistics officer traini...

The author outlines the issue in an introduction and has a background chapter that explains the current system, which provides a useful description of sensors, fusion of information, shooters, and weapons. He explains the current reactive method and identifies various system weaknesses and strengths. His main theme of a preemptive approach describes in great detail the projected employment of LOCPADs as a very effective system for time-critical targeting. Marzolf insists...

In Unmanned Airlift: A Viable Option for Meeting the Strategic Airlift Shortfall, Lt Col Chad T. Manske points to the growing dependency on strategic airlift as well as the abiding corollary that there will continue to be a shortfall in strategic airlift. To get to the analysis, Colonel Manske raised three crucial questions: (1) are operational requirements able to justify unmanned airlifters, (2) are current and emerging technologies likely to meet these potential oper...

In Thinking Effects: Effects-Based Methodology for Joint Operations, the authors propose that military actions should be employed through effects-based operations (EBO). Submitting that this methodology is extremely promising, they recognize two major areas of challenge. First, is modifying both service and joint doctrine to fully articulate what can be accomplished with EBO. Second, there are major issues in the area of command and control (C2). Effective C2 for EBO dep...

In The Politics of Coercion: Toward a Theory of Coercive Airpower for Post–Cold War Conflict, Lt Col Ellwood P. “Skip” Hinman IV confronts an issue of high interest to airmen and policy makers alike: What does coercion theory suggest about the use of airpower in the early twenty-first century? More specifically, Colonel Hinman seeks to determine whether any of the existing theories of coercion can stand alone as a coherent, substantive, and codified approach to airpower ...

The role of airpower in theater campaigns is a matter of heated debate among the military services and their supporters. Lt Col. Robert P. Givens’s Turning the Vertical Flank: Airpower As a Maneuver Force in the Theater Campaign addresses a question that is fundamental to that debate: to what extent can airpower function as a maneuver force in a theater campaign.

Dr. David R. Mets’s The Long Search for a Surgical Strike: Precision Munitions and the Revolution in Military Affairs is a broad, thought-provoking examination of the relationship between the advancement in conventional weapons guidance technology and the “revolution in military affairs” (RMA). He defines an RMA as a rapid change in military technology, doctrine, and organization leading to a sweeping new way that wars are fought. Dr. Mets then considers whether the impr...

Lt Col John J. Zentner’s The Art of Wing Leadership and Aircrew Morale in Combat addresses the role that the air force wing commander plays in affecting the level of aircrew morale during combat. More specifically, Colonel Zentner’s study seeks to identify and define those unique characteristics associated with leading airmen that sustain aircrew morale in the face of significant losses.

Gen George S. Patton Jr. remains one of the most storied commanders of World War II. Patton’s spectacularly successful drive across France in August–September 1944 as commander of the US Third Army was perhaps his greatest campaign.

Lt Col Richard M. Clark’s Uninhabited Combat Aerial Vehicles: Airpower by the People, For the People, But Not with the People, draws on that long history to gauge what the future may hold for uninhabited combat aerial vehicles (UCAV). Given the problematic history of UAVs/UCAVs, knowledge of past experience could prove beneficial to the current generation of UCAV developers and planners. To that end, Colonel Clark examines technological obstacles that have handicapped UC...

Shooting Down a Star: Program 437, the US Nuclear ASAT System and Present-Day Copycat Killers, by Lt Col Clayton K.S. Chun, is a case study of an early US antisatellite (ASAT) weapon system. In this study, Colonel Chun shows how the US Air Force developed a rudimentary ASA system from obsolete Thor intermediate ballistic missiles, an existing space tracking system, and nuclear warheads.

The author addresses four questions: how have these air forces responded to post–Cold War political uncertainties, how have they operated, how have they responded to new air power thinking, and how have they adapted to the challenges of costs and technologies? He convincingly argues that budgetary provision has not been the most important factor in generating effective air power.

This companion to personal professional study is intended to promote the early development of such a lifetime program and to serve as a tool to facilitate its planning and execution.

In the end, the theories we considered can be synthesized to form a better overall description of the control of combat airpower. Centralized control and decentralized execution is a good concept at any level, but it suffers from lack of precision.

What follows are points and counterpoints that attempt to clear away some of the detritus that obscures the subject, thus allowing more informed debate on the real issues concerning airpower and strategic bombing. This in turn, hopefully, will give our political and military leaders a better basis on which to form decisions in future conflicts.