Is there a reason for the busy citizen-leader to read about air and space history, theory, and doctrine? Yes, asserts David Mets, because without some vision of what the future is likely to bring, we enter new conflicts unarmed with any ideas and highly vulnerable to confusion and paralysis. He wrote this book to help the aspirant American leader build a theory of war and air and space power, including an understanding of what doctrine is, and what its utility and limitations are. Since its earliest days, airpower has been one of the dominant forces used by the American military. American airmen, both Navy and Air Force, have been continually striving to achieve precision strikes in high altitude, at long range, or in darkness. The search for precision attack from standoff distances or altitudes has been imperative to national objectives with expenditure of American lives, treasure, and time. This work covers the whole history of American aviation with special attention to the development of smart weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles and the influence they have had on the effectiveness of airpower. In a chronological treatment, emphasizing theory and doctrine, technology, tactics, and strategy. Mets also details both combat experience and intellectual processes, lethal and non-lethal, involved in the preparation of airpower. In addition to the narrative discussion, the work offers sidebars and feature sections that facilitate the understanding of key weapons systems and operational challenges. It also offers A Dozen-Book Sampler for Your Reading on Air and Space Theory and Doctrine. The work concludes with a brief look at information warfare and with some speculations about the future. Through this thorough consideration of the evolution of American airpower and technology, Mets provides, not only a map of the past, but a guide to future generations of airpower and its potential for keeping the United States strong and safe.

The first century of airpower has ended, yet few critics have addressed the literature that chronicles its human toll. Airpower in Literature: Interrogating the Clean War, 1915-2015 offers fresh insight into this airpower century by placing literature of five major wars in conversation with the clean war discourse. Kimberly Dougherty examines the paradoxical representation of aerial warfare that has allowed extensive airstrikes on cities and civilians while promising a “cleaner” method of waging war. First suggested by early military theorists, the notion of a clean air war—one that would save lives through its speed and precision— proved seductive in the twentieth century and continues to shape the rhetoric of airpower today. The air war is perceived as clean, the author argues, when we see neither the aviator nor the targeted populations in the bombing dynamic. Through analysis of fiction, poetry, drama, and journalism, from the ruins of World War I to the technologies of post-modern war, the author identifies counternarratives that make visible both aviators and bombed societies, and present aerial warfare that is not clean, but messy, prolonged, and imprecise. This exploration encourages readers, and writers, to approach the next century of airpower with greater wisdom and empathy.

An ideal textbook for classes on modern airpower and joint operations.

This volume explores the importance of technology in war, and to the study of warfare. Dr. Guilmartin’s former students explore how technology from the medieval to the modern era, and across several continents, was integral to warfare and to the outcomes of wars. Authors discuss the interactions between politics, grand strategy, war, technology, and the socio-cultural implementation of new technologies in different contexts. They explore how and why belligerents chose to employ new technologies, the intended and unintended consequences of doing so, the feedback loops driving these consequences, and how the warring powers came to grips with the new technologies they unleashed. This work is particularly useful for military historians, military professionals, and policymakers who study and face analogous situations. Contributors are Alan Beyerchen, Robert H. Clemm, Edward Coss, Sebastian Cox, Daniel P. M. Curzon, Sarah K. Douglas, Robert S. Ehlers, Jr., Andrew de la Garza, John F. Guilmartin, Jr., Matthew Hurley, Peter Mansoor, Edward B. McCaul, Jr., Michael Pavelec, William Roberts, Robyn Rodriguez, Clifford J. Rogers, William Waddell, and Corbin Williamson.

This book aims to explain air power to both military and civilian audiences in an accessible manner, approaching the topic in a balanced and systematic way. The past 100 years illustrates that air power is an inevitable feature of any type of modern warfare. It has a key role to play in any of the three main operational environments: conventional (inter-state) wars, peace-support operations, and counterinsurgencies. This book examines the strengths and challenges of using air power in these situations, and each type of operation is explained using modern and historical examples, with an emphasis on the relevant lessons for the contemporary and future use of air power. The book also looks into the complexity of media coverage of air warfare and changes in the public perception of air power in recent years. The specifics of structuring national air forces is also discussed, along with the future of air power based on current trends. One of the enduring themes in the book is the necessity of inter-service and cross-domain integration, emphasizing the increasingly important role of cyber and space domains in the future of network-centric warfare. This book will be essential reading for students of air power and air warfare, and recommended reading for students of international security, strategic studies, defence studies, and foreign policy.