Strategy and Airpower

Reading and listening to political scientists discuss policy for Libya, I was sure I had been exposed to everything stupid that could be stated in a strategic context regarding airpower.

I was wrong.

It turns out the fantasy land filled with political science majors touting decisive airpower tactics like No-Fly Zones in foreign civil wars is potentially more coherent than what is being printed these days in Air and Space Journal, Air University Press.

Strategy and Airpower (PDF)
Col John A. Warden III, USAF, Retired
Air University's Air and Space Power Journal
Spring 2011
Vol XXV, No. 1

Selected Excerpts:

"Airpower enables us to think about conflict from a future-back, end-game-first perspective as opposed to one based on the battle obsession of Clausewitz and his followers. It also opens another very exciting possibility: conflict with little or no unplanned destruction or shedding of blood."

"So here is a proposition: let us resolve to expunge the words fighting, battle, shape the battlefield, battlespace, and the war fighter from our vocabulary, to relegate the "means" of war to the last thing we think about, and to elevate the "end" to the pedestal of our consideration. In other words, let's bury thousands of years of bloody battle stories, as heroic as they were, and start looking at war-and eventually airpower-from its end point, which by definition means from a strategic perspective."

"Movement from the parallel domain to the serial domain causes the probability of success to begin to fall dramatically. Taking a very long time decreases the chances considerably. It isn't impossible to win a long war, but the odds are very low-and this applies to both sides, despite significant differences in their centers of gravity. Since good strategy depends heavily on understanding probabilities, deliberately embarking on a low-probability, long serial war does not make much sense."

"Very simply, whether in war or business, our normal approach to the time element is exactly backward: we ask ourselves how long something will take rather than decide how long it should take in order to create parallel effects and succeed at an acceptable cost."

"We should take a page from business, which long ago learned that selling a product had to involve much more than touting its technical goodness. Products sell because customers see them as filling a real need in their lives; airpower advocates have not done well in this regard. If airpower is something different, we must highlight its differences and show convincingly that it fills a vital need."

"Airpower exponents not only need to connect airpower directly to strategy and market their product well, but also need to start believing in it. Those who begin a discussion by noting that airpower "can't do everything" do themselves and their listeners a real disservice."

"Of course, espousing the unlimited concept of airpower exposes the advocate to charges of airpower zealotry, a lack of "jointness," or some other nasty label. But we need to become confident enough to shrug off these labels."

Everything I want to say about this article is negative, so I'll let readers lead the analysis here.

But I will make a side observation, particularly in light of that last paragraph which has been thrown at me lately in another discussion regarding the advocacy of seapower...

With professional articles like this, the United States Air Force continues to project themselves as unlearned Borg drones carpet bombing legitimate strategic thought with absurdity in the name of self relevance. Air Defense Press is struggling for legitimacy primarily because they have sacrificed everything to the alter of airpower advocacy.

Don't laugh Navy thinker, because if the Navy leadership ignores the Board of Directors at the US Naval Institute, this type of self-service incoherent bullshit sold to the alter of cash cow interests is exactly what people following USNI closely legitimately believe will begin happening to Proceedings starting this year. If you doubt what I am saying, you had better do your own research into the subject - indeed I encourage it.

The Navy cannot under any condition allow their strategic thought institutions, both inside and outside the Navy, become focused content shops shaping the message towards a specific point of view. To understand why, simply look at the Air Force.