School of Advanced Airpower Studies

Though we are still within the first century of powered flight, air power has already become the dominant form of military power projection in the modern world. The doctrinal underpinnings of air power thought are, of course, traditionally ascribed to the three great theorists of air power application, Doubet, Trenchard, and Mitchell. Since the Second World War, the air power community has not often explored the doctrinal implications of air power development. LordTedder's Lee Knowles lectures at Cambridge, and the writings of Air Vice Marshal R. A. Mason, and Colonel John A. Warden III constitute notable-and noteworthy--exceptions. Now comes Colonel Phillip Meilinger, who has posited a group of provocative propositions that will instill an appreciation for air power for those who seek to understand it and challenge the assumptions ofthose who do not yet appreciate what it offers. This book has been deliberately designed in a small format so that it can be readily carried in the pocket of a flight suit or a BDU. Readers are encouraged to discuss these propositions and, if so moved, to communicate directly with Colonel Meilinger via the School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, or through the Office of the Air Force Historian, Bolling AFB, Washington, D.

This book 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 book attempts to determine the best way to conduct airlift operations to support enclaves. The primary conclusion of this book is that four fundamental factors influence airlift operations: requirement to capability ratio, threat, support infrastructure, and weather. The second conclusion is that there are two basic methods to employ airlift forces: continuous flow and surge methods. The additional doctrinal imperatives contained in the conclusion relate to the interactions among the four factors affecting airlift operations to support enclaves and the ways in which they influence the two employment methods. Evidence used to derive the doctrinal propositions came from the Luftwaffe's attempt to resupply the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad from the air, the Berlin Airlift, and the airlift to the Khe Sanh garrison in the Vietnam War.

This book analyzes the career of Lieutenant General George Edward Stratemeyer, USAF, emphasizing his leadership in joint/combined operations in the China-Burma-India theater during World War II. Specifically, it demonstrates how, from his position as Chief of the Air Staff under General Arnold, General Stratemeyer witnessed the evolution of US interests as well as the buildup of forces in CBI and the creation and employment of the Northwest African Air Force under command of General Carl Spaatz. These two experiences colored General Stratemeyer's initial conception of his responsibilities as air commander of a combined USAAFRAF air organization in the CBI, the Eastern Air Command. His airminded perspective and genial nature enabled him to overcome early shortfalls in this conception and greatly contribute to the overall winning strategy employed by the Allies in Burma Under his command, individual air commanders were allowed to innovate and thus make the most of the meager resources at hand and, as a consequence, Eastern Air Command was instrumental in the combined arms operations that drove the Japanese completely out of Burma by May 1945. The key lessons derived from this book are four. The first is that there is no single template for coalition organization or operations. The US will fight in coalitions in future but every situation is unique and will call for an organization and pattern of operations that may differ significantly from those existing or envisioned in peacetime. The second key lesson is that doctrine and innovation are most important in a resource-constrained combat environment. The Allies in Burma were resource limited by virtue of CBI's tertiary priority in the war effort against the Axis powers. Today's US military will face similar constraints in time of war; they will have to fight with a relatively small force, with long lines of communication connecting the domestic economy to the fighting front, and in a joint/combined environment on a relatively limited budget. Arguably the most important finding of this book is that effective communication of the air perspective is an airman's most important contribution to military operations. General Stratemeyer was able to convince Allied surface forces leadership in CBI that airpower could contribute decisively to the combined arms effort; that they listened to him can be attributed to the final important lesson of this study-personalities are important in the leadership of joint/combined operations. All US military members should remember that the services are coequal, independent, and increasingly interdependent and that there is a unique perspective that comes from being educated, trained and raised in a parent service. Only an airman can adequately provide the air perspective.

The United States has vital interests to defend in many foreign countries. The strategist must understand the relationship between counterrevolutionary strategy, the military instrument, and airpower if called upon to help a friendly government defeat a revolutionary threat. Four questions can help the strategist explore the nature of this relationship. What is the role of the military instrument in counterrevolutionary warfare? What is the role of airpower in counterrevolutionary warfare? Can airpower achieve strategic effects in counterrevolutionary warfare? Can airpower make major contributions toward the success of counterrevolutionary forces? The strategy development process is a tool that can guide the strategist through a review of revolutionary theory and an analysis of counterrevolutionary strategy. The revolutionary environment must be examined to determine the actors, motivations, aims, and strategies of the revolutionary battlefield. Next, a national counterrevolutionary strategy is formulated that identifies the roles that each instrument of power must play to achieve the desired end-state. Military leaders formulate a subordinate strategy based on the assigned role(s), which includes determining how airpower can best support the national strategy. Strategy execution implies monitoring the instruments of power, reassessing the environment, and modifying ends, ways, and means as appropriate. Theory suggests the government must correctly identify the nature of the revolutionary threat before developing its counterrevolutionary strategy. After determining whether it is facing a partisan or insurgent threat (or something in between), the government tries to identify the correct mixture of persuasive and coercive operations that is needed to win over the people and neutralize the revolutionary threat. Persuasive strategies seek to gain, bolster, or otherwise amass the popular support required for legitimacy. Coercive strategies attempt to neutralize the adversary by making him irrelevant to the political process prior to total military defeat. The military instrument and its airpower tool conduct operations in pursuit of both persuasive and coercive tasks. Three historical cases are analyzed to gain experienced based insights to answer the thesis questions. The cases were the Greek Civil War, 1946-1949; the Malayan Emergency, 1948-1960; and the Insurrection in El Salvador, 1981-1992. In each of these cases the governments struggled to develop a counterrevolutionary strategy. In Greece and Malaya the government successfully neutralized the revolutionary threat. Although the Salvadoran government technically defeated the rebels, they remained an important part of El Salvador's political process. This work offers four conclusions. First, the roles of the military instrument in counterrevolutionary warfare are persuasion and coercion. Next, airpower normally assumes the role assigned to the military instrument, although airpower's unique versatility often permits the simultaneous accomplishment of both persuasive and coercive operations. Third, airpower can create both positive and negative strategic effects. Finally, airpower makes its most important contribution toward the success of counterrevolutionary forces when it is employed in support of ground operations

After WW I, Army airmen like Billy Mitchell, in a bid for service independence, touted land-based air power's dominance over ships. Later, airmen at the Air Corps Tactical School developed a theory of independent air power application based on strategic bombing. These airmen persuaded Congress to purchase the tools to implement strategic bombing--fleets of heavy bombers--by citing these aircraft as optimum for defending the US coasts against enemy ships. However, when the opportunity to test the efficacy of bombers against shipspresented itself in WW II's Pacific Theater, Army Air Force (AAF) leaders proved reluctant to throw their full support behind such an effort. A key aspect of the US Navy's Pacific strategy was an intense campaign against Japanese commercial shipping. This blockade, primarily targeting oil after late 1943, was spearheaded by US Navy submarines. A blockade proved the most effective means of attacking Japan's oil, although AAF leaders preferred strategic bombing of the Japanese home islands, including oil facilities, over blockade support. This preference was particularly true for the B-29. This thesis analyzes the campaign against Japanese oil to explore why an oil blockade was effective against Japan and, more important, to examine how service parochialism distorted the development of a rational military strategy in the Pacific Theater. Japan's late-19th century modernization and subsequent expansionism in East Asia and the Western Pacific brought them into conflict with the US. Lacking indigenous resources, Japan depended on oil imports--mostly from the US--to fuel its powerful military, especially its naval and air forces. Ultimately, in response to continued Japanese moves in China and Indochina, the US cut off all oil to Japan in 1941. This placed key factions in the Japanese government in an untenable position, and they decided to seize the oil-rich Netherlands East Indies (NEI), securing this source of oil by attacking the US Fleet at Pearl Harbor, establishing a perimeter of Pacific island bastions, and hoping the US would decide against fighting their way across the Pacific. However, from the war's first day, US submarines took the war to Japaneseshipping. While the submarine campaign was unsystematic at first, the Navy overcame its own parochial constraints to make oil tankers the top submarine target in 1943. As US forces constricted Japan's island empire, AAF units began supporting the blockade with armed reconnaissance, aerial mining, and attacks on NEI oil installations. These latter attacks served as a blockade "force multiplier," stretching Japan's already inelastic tanker fleet. Although accounting for 16 percent of Japanese commercial ship sinkings, the AAF only invested about 2 percent of its total effort in the Pacific toward the blockade. In any case, the blockade reduced Japanese oil movements to a trickle by the end of 1944, stopping them completely by April 1945. In May 1945, AAF B-29s began bombing Japanese home island oil refineries, synthetic fuel plants, and storage facilities. While extensively damaging refineries, these attacks had little effect on either Japanese military capability or civilian will--due to the blockade, the bombs fell on mostly idle facilities.