This is a story of long-range airpower, from Gen Henry H. “Hap” Arnold’s vision of a global mission to the Global Strike Task Force and expeditionary air forces of the year 2001. It examines global power from its origins as Strategic Air Command built a fleet of bombers and tankers to meet the needs of the global nuclear-deterrent policy of the Cold War. This evolution is traced through the studies and commissions of the 1990s established to determine the force structur...

This study analyzes the air war plans in World War II and the Persian Gulf War. The goal of this study is to ascertain whether there is a continuity of thought reflected in American air planning over the years. This study assesses Air War Plans Division–1/42 and Instant Thunder as to their importance to contemporary airpower theory. This study concludes that there is a continuity of thought reflected in major air plans, particularly in the issues of strategic bombing, p...

This study analyzes Gen O. P. Weyland’s impact on close air support (CAS) during the Korean War. First, the author briefly traces the history and evolution of air-ground support from its infancy to the start of the Korean War. Second, he shifts his focus to the effectiveness of CAS throughout the conflict and addresses why this mission was controversial for the Army and Air Force. Third, he highlights General Weyland’s perspective on tactical airpower and his role in th...

This paper seeks to answer the following question: What are the doctrinal imperatives of providing effective airlift support to enclaves? Doctrinal imperatives are those necessary and sufficient propositions that describe the optimal way to employ airlift forces in support of an enclave. In short, this paper attempts to determine the best way to conduct airlift operations to support enclaves.

The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction dramatically in-creases the likelihood of operating in “hostile” environments, thereby eliminating the civil reserve airfleet’s contribution to strategic airlift. Commercial airlift aircraft, built for efficiency, represent a fiscally responsible complement to the military’s airlift fleet. In order to meet current and future force requirements, especially with a continental-based force structure, the United States needs to...

It is understandable that developments in Europe are carefully monitored in the United States. US concern that its relationship to a unified Europe will be different from the relationship with Europe as it exists now is also quite obvious. There must be a new balance. This paper offers a perfect view of how the new US-EU relationship will develop. It will take time before a unified Europe will be a powerful ally, especially from a military point of view, but we will get...

In GPS and Galileo: Friendly Foes?, Lt Col Roftiel Constantine, United States Air Force (USAF), analyzes the heated competition to provide service from high in the skies of medium earth orbit. The European Union (EU) is developing Galileo, its own global positioning and navigation satellite system, scheduled to be operational by 2010. The EU states that Galileo will provide greater precision to all users than is currently available from the United States’ (US) global p...

Missile defense has become a key factor in US strategic planning. The problem, of course, lies with the stage of current technological development. Mid-course or terminal-phase systems appear closer to feasibility just now, at least theoretically.

It is critical that the United States act now to put in place a program to produce a reliable replacement warhead. Colonel Vaughan addresses some critical points in the attached thesis on the Reliable Replacement Warhead and the recapitalization of the nuclear weapons complex.

To ensure that the DOD is properly managing taxpayer’s money while still providing the best for our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines, we must not pay just lip service to this upcoming quadrennial defense review.

Col William Palmby’s award-winning study, Outsourcing the Air Force Mission: A Strategy for Success, explores how the Air Force must adjust to this new reality of a world where the state no longer possesses a monopoly on war. He reviews the history and driving forces that have led to increased outsourcing by the Air Force, finding that while it may be the most dominant such force in history, the range of roles turned over to the private market means that private compan...

In the first comprehensive study of US security cooperation in Central Asia, Michael J. McCarthy explores these efforts, seeking to understand not only the details of the individual programs but, more importantly, to understand the objectives of those activities and the policies and strategies that drive them. The Limits of Friendship: US Security Cooperation in Central Asia unravels 15 years of military activities in this pivotal region, tracing the ebb and flow of the...

In this paper an Air Force ground commander and scholar, Lt Col Dave Marttala, brings to light a problem previously overlooked in popular discussion: Air Force deployment of large numbers of Airmen to augment the joint ground fight and the consequent breakage of the US war-fighting capability writ large.

Air Force colonel Chad Manske traces the roots of the NSC to its organizational prototype—the British Committee of Imperial Defence. By comparing these institutions, their functions, purposes, leadership, and assessing how each changed over time, we gain an appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of these different approaches to policy development. Colonel Manske successfully draws on comparative historical experience to make sound recommendations for strengtheni...

In Department of Defense Energy Strategy: Teaching an Old Dog New Tricks, Col Gregory J. Lengyel, United States Air Force (USAF), takes a comprehensive look at our national energy problems from a perspective unique to the Department of Defense (DOD). From his fictional opening implying that conflicts of the future could revolve around volatile world energy markets to his recommendations on creating and implementing a DOD energy strategy for improved energy security, the ...

Maj Richard J. Hazdra’s Air Mobility: The Key to the United States National Security is an examination of the force structure of Air Mobility Command (AMC) based on a model for two major theater wars. His study examines this organization’s current force structure. Air mobility is the key that unlocks the national security strategy (NSS). AMC’s force structure is crucial for the United States to implement its NSS. His study centers on the question: Can a force structure ...

Dr. William P. Head’s War from above the Clouds: B-52 Operations during the Second Indochina War and the Effects of the Air War on Theory and Doctrine is an examination of B-52 operations in Vietnam and how the air war affected airpower doctrine and theory. His study examines the evolution of this awesome manned strategic weapon in Vietnam to see how the design of the B-52s originally intended mission altered—if at all—the theories of airpower first put forward by Giu...

In this book, General Worden and Major Shaw present the building blocks for an all-encompassing strategy and doctrine for space power in the twenty-first century. Their compelling interpretation of the influence of space power over the past 60 years (chap. 1) is mirrored by a captivating vision of the role space power will play in the next 60 (chap. 2). The pictures they paint of potential asymmetric warfare no longer seem as distant as they did prior to 11 September 20...

As the nation’s campaign against terrorism proceeds, our military services continue to embrace high technology, advanced sensors, and precision weaponry for use on current battlefields. The term cyber warrior has truly stepped from the pages of science fiction into reality. Equipment and technology do not constitute the only developments, however, because today’s cyber warriors emerge from a society and military culture very different in many respects from those of past...