At first glance, strategic aerial reconnaissance appears to be a mere technical tool. The term refers to the use of aircraft to collect strategic intelligence using photographic or electronic means. According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), strategic intelligence refers to “intelligence that is required for the formation of policy and military plans at national and international levels.” Strategic intelligence includes information provided by sources other than air...

This history continues the story of United States Air Force ideas, concepts, and doctrine from the watershed of massive retaliation/flexible response that was occasioned in 1960. The first three chapters of this volume are in effect reprinted from the 1974 edition of Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine, and the following chapters have been added to bring this never-ending story up to 1984.

This history seeks to discover and record the mainstream of thought within the United States Air Force (and its predecessors) concerning the role to be played by air and aerospace power in a deadly struggle for national survival . It seeks to trace the development of a theme of institutional thought, describe the organizational framework in which the thinking took place, and identify individual thinkers and their ideas. In great measure this chronology is the story o...

This is not a history of military airlift but rather an investigation of ideas and concepts as they have evolved and have been applied to warfighting . Airlift is the backbone of deterrence . A properly structured and equipped airlift force is critical to the successful execution of the national military strategy . How we think about airlift and how we translate those thoughts into a meaningful expression of how to develop, deploy, and employ airlift forces is vital to t...

Psychological Operations : Principles and Case Studies serves as a fundamental guide to PSYOP philosophy, concepts, principles, issues, and thought for both those new to, and those experienced in, the PSYOP field and PSYOP applications . This book clarifies the value of PSYOP as a cost-effective weapon and incorporates it as a psychological instrument of US military and political power, especially given our present budgetary constraints. The authors contribute to the un...

My intent in this book is to help overloaded researchers get started in their quest for good sources on airpower.

The analysts were charged with the task of anticipating which specific contentious issues likely will propel large, organized political units to choose violent means of acquiring their sociopolitical objectives rather than attaining them peacefully. The units on which we focus have been traditionally identified as states, but we recognize that a host of new sub- and suprastate actors also will play major roles in such wars; hence, we also will allude to them.

The third world continues to grow in its importance to the United States . Often possessing a wealth of vital natural resources or a geographic position astride crucial lines of communications, third world nations have, in many cases, become the focal point of East-West confrontations . Additionally, the frequent political turmoil and economic crises that plague some of these third world nations often threaten the vital interests of the West . For all of these reasons,...

This primer is a useful tool both for individuals who are not “space aware”—unacquainted with space capabilities, organizations, and operations—and for those who are “space aware,” especially individuals associated with the space community, but not familiar with space capabilities, organizations, and operations outside their particular areas of expertise. It is your guide and your invitation to all the excitement and opportunity of space.

Mission: As the intellectual and leadership center of the Air Force, Air University provides dynamic comprehensive education to prepare graduates to develop, employ, command, research, and champion air, space, and cyberspace power at all levels. Vision: The intellectual and leadership center of the Air Force. We produce the future.

This book, Guidelines for Command, is the result of countless hours of research and contains the collective thoughts and lessons learned from many previous commanders. It has a wealth of information to assist you during your tenure as a commander. Use it in conjunction with your personal leadership skills, your base’s subject-matter experts, and your fellow commanders to lead our Airmen to new heights.

AU-1, Air University Style and Author Guide is designed to unify their writing stylistically and to give them information about publishing with AU Press. Rapid expansion in the field of electronic media—especially the Internet—has made AU research and writing increasingly accessible. For that reason, we should assure that our efforts in these areas are sound—not only substantively but also stylistically. Based on recognized but forward-looking principles of standard Engl...

Religion and culture in general have been long neglected by planners, policy makers, and diplomats. Our experience in Phase IV, or the constructive phase, of Operation Iraqi Freedom has clearly exposed this inattention as a serious flaw in bringing peaceful development to Iraq. These authors suggest that military chaplains can be a part of a better solution. It is not a case of trying to proselyte; it is rather one of engaging local religious leaders to facilitate the stabilization process.

Wills argues that the twentieth-century argument between air and ground proponents has changed significantly since the Gulf War, and it comes down to the relative importance of the ground or air in the mix. It is more than just using air as a supporting component to the ground forces—if this is true, current force organization and employment is adequate. However, if the air predominates in combat operations, then, as Wills puts it in his first chapter, joint operations...

A decision to put weapons in space—or to refrain from doing so—should be based on a firm understanding about what such weapons can be expected to achieve. More specifically since numerous orbital weapons concepts have been advocated as natural evolutions of surface and airborne weapons, it would appear useful to compare those proposed spacebased systems with their terrestrial counterparts. Does the United States Need Space-Based Weapons? by Maj William L. Spacy II eva...

America’s First Air Battles: Lessons Learned or Lessons Lost? provides a successful evaluation of Michael Howard’s construct that current doctrine is probably wrong, but what matters is the capability of the military to get it right when a particular conflict begins. In the course of this evaluation, Lt Col Aldon E. Purdham Jr. examines several important airpower factors to include familiarity with the nature and geography of the conflict; parity with the adversary,...

The ground and air forces have strong interlocking connections in the battlefield operations known as close air support (CAS). In the 1970s the Army and Air Force began to develop a shared battlefield doctrine known as battlefield air interdiction(BAI) that was concerned with a class of targets that lay out a fair distance from the front lines. Later, on the battlefields of Desert Storm, the Air Force excluded BAI from its tasking orders, although some claimed interdic...

The concept of “deep battle” was formally introduced to US war fighters during the early 1980s through the US Army’s AirLand Battle doctrine. As envisioned by Air Force and Army leaders, the initial purpose for the deep battle was to delay and weaken Soviet second and follow-on echelons during a European conventional war. Within the AirLand Battle construct, the Air Force had responsibility for synchronizing deep operations and for employing air interdiction against So...

The basic hypothesis explored in this paper is that organizational culture and institutional agendas significantly affected the rise and fall of the Twenty-third Air Force. The significance of this research effort is clear considering the 1 October 2003 merger of Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) and AFSOF under the aegis of the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC). In light of recent events, this study’s ultimate goal is to provide a preview of how culture may af...