Airpower in Literature

Airpower in Literature PDF Author: Kimberly K. Dougherty
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793653097
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 235

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Book Description
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.

Airpower in Literature

Airpower in Literature PDF Author: Kimberly K. Dougherty
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1793653097
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 235

Get Book Here

Book Description
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.

Air Power

Air Power PDF Author: Jeremy Black
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442250976
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
This essential book offers a compelling and original interpretation of the rise of military aviation. Jeremy Black, one of the world’s finest scholars of military history, provides a lucid analysis of the use of airpower over land and sea both during the two world wars and the more limited wars of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Considering both the theory and praxis of air power, the author begins with hot air balloons, and then highlights the use of zeppelins, piston engine fighters, jet bombers, and finally the so-called Military Revolution of today. While discussing the growth of American and European military aviation, Black, a pioneer in emphasizing the importance of non-Western military history for understanding global developments, also traces the emergence of air power in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Black breaks new ground by exploring not only to conventional war—both inside and outside Europe—but also to the use of air power in unconventional wars, especially critical given to the spread of insurgencies around the globe. He vividly describes traditional debates over the pros and cons of strategic bombing and aircraft carriers versus battleships and gives equal attention to managerial, doctrinal, and technological innovations. The author shows how better management resulted in increasing lethality of close air support of the RAF during the latter part of World War II and at the same times highlights the limits of air power with case studies of the two Gulf Wars. The author goes beyond our traditional understanding of air power associated with bombing and fighter engagements, adding the important elements associated with naval power, including ground/logistics support, anti-aircraft measures, and political constraints. As he explains, air power has become Western politicians’ weapon of choice, spreading maximum destruction with the minimum of commitment. His current and comprehensive study considers how we got to this point, and what the future has in store. Anyone seeking a balanced, accurate understanding of air power in history will find this book an essential introduction.

Air Power in the Age of Primacy

Air Power in the Age of Primacy PDF Author: Phil Haun
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108839223
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
Analyzes the effectiveness of post-Cold War air wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and against terrorist groups.

Bombing to Win

Bombing to Win PDF Author: Robert A. Pape
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801471508
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 388

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Book Description
From Iraq to Bosnia to North Korea, the first question in American foreign policy debates is increasingly: Can air power alone do the job? Robert A. Pape provides a systematic answer. Analyzing the results of over thirty air campaigns, including a detailed reconstruction of the Gulf War, he argues that the key to success is attacking the enemy's military strategy, not its economy, people, or leaders. Coercive air power can succeed, but not as cheaply as air enthusiasts would like to believe.Pape examines the air raids on Germany, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq as well as those of Israel versus Egypt, providing details of bombing and governmental decision making. His detailed narratives of the strategic effectiveness of bombing range from the classical cases of World War II to an extraordinary reconstruction of airpower use in the Gulf War, based on recently declassified documents. In this now-classic work of the theory and practice of airpower and its political effects, Robert A. Pape helps military strategists and policy makers judge the purpose of various air strategies, and helps general readers understand the policy debates.

American Airpower Strategy in Korea, 1950-1953

American Airpower Strategy in Korea, 1950-1953 PDF Author: Conrad C. Crane
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
The Korean War was the first armed engagement for the newly formed U.S. Air Force, but far from the type of conflict it expected or wanted to fight. As the first air war of the nuclear age, it posed a major challenge to the service to define and successfully carry out its mission by stretching the constraints of limited war while avoiding the excesses of total war. Conrad Crane analyzes both the successes and failures of the air force in Korea, offering a balanced treatment of how the air war in Korea actually unfolded. He examines the Air Force's contention that it could play a decisive role in a non-nuclear regional war but shows that the fledgling service was held to unrealistically high expectations based on airpower's performance in World War II, despite being constrained by the limited nature of the Korean conflict. Crane exposes the tensions and rivalries between services, showing that emphasis on strategic bombing came at the expense of air support for ground troops, and he tells how interactions between army and air force generals shaped the air force's mission and strategy. He also addresses misunderstandings about plans to use nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons in the war and includes new information from pilot correspondence about the informal policy of "hot pursuit" over the Yalu that existed at the end of the war. The book considers not only the actual air effort in Korea but also its ramifications. The air force doubled in size during the war and used that growth to secure its position in the defense establishment, but it wagered its future on its ability to deliver nuclear weapons in a high-intensity conflict—a position that left it unprepared to fight the next limited war in Vietnam. As America observes the fiftieth anniversary of its initial engagement in Korea, Crane's book is an important reminder of the lessons learned there. And as airpower continues to be a cornerstone of American defense, this examination of its uses in Korea provides new insights about the air force's capabilities and limitations.

The Rise of American Air Power

The Rise of American Air Power PDF Author: Michael S. Sherry
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300036000
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 478

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Book Description
This prizewinning book is the first in-depth history of American strategic bombing. Michael S. Sherry explores the growing appeal of air power in America before World War II, the ideas, techniques, personalities, and organizations that guided air attacks during the war, and the devastating effects of American and British "conventional" bombing. He also traces the origins of the dangerous illusion that the bombing of cities would be so horrific that nations would not dare let it occur - an illusion that has sanctioned the growth of nuclear arsenals.

Airpower Applied

Airpower Applied PDF Author: John Andreas Olsen
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
ISBN: 1682470768
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
Airpower Applied reviews the evolution of airpower and its impact on the history of warfare. Through a critical examination of twenty-nine case studies in which various U.S. coalitions and Israel played significant roles, this book offers perspectives on the political purpose, strategic meaning, and military importance of airpower. By comparing and contrasting more than seventy-five years of airpower experience in very different circumstances, readers can gain insight into present-day thinking on the use of airpower and on warfare. The authors, all experts in their fields, demystify some of airpower‘s strategic history by extracting the most useful teachings to help military professionals and political leaders understand what airpower has to offer as a “continuation of politics by other means.” The case studies emphasize the importance of connecting policy and airpower: operational effectiveness cannot substitute for poor statecraft. As the United States, its allies, and Israel have seen in their most recent applications of airpower, even the most robust and capable air weapon can never be more effective than the strategy and policy it is intended to support.

Understanding Contemporary Air Power

Understanding Contemporary Air Power PDF Author: Viktoriya Fedorchak
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429686153
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
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.

Air Power's Lost Cause

Air Power's Lost Cause PDF Author: Brian D. Laslie
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442274352
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
The first comprehensive treatment of the air wars in Vietnam. Filling a substantial void in our understanding of the history of airpower in Vietnam, this book provides the first comprehensive treatment of the air wars in Vietnam. Brian Laslie traces the complete history of these air wars from the beginning of American involvement until final withdrawal. Detailing the competing roles and actions of the air elements of the United States Army, Navy, and Air Force, the author considers the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war. He also looks at the air war from the perspective of the North Vietnamese Air Force. Most important for understanding the US defeat, Laslie illustrates the perils of a nation building a one-dimensional fighting force capable of supporting only one type of war. ,

Air Power in UN Operations

Air Power in UN Operations PDF Author: A. Walter Dorn
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317183401
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 389

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Book Description
Air power for warfighting is a story that's been told many times. Air power for peacekeeping and UN enforcement is a story that desperately needs to be told. For the first-time, this volume covers the fascinating range of aerial peace functions. In rich detail it describes: aircraft transporting vital supplies to UN peacekeepers and massive amounts of humanitarian aid to war-affected populations; aircraft serving as the 'eyes in sky' to keep watch for the world organization; and combat aircraft enforcing the peace. Rich poignant case studies illuminate the past and present use of UN air power, pointing the way for the future. This book impressively fills the large gap in the current literature on peace operations, on the United Nations and on air power generally.