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This is a book of quotations and comments about air power, war, and military matters. But it would be a great mistake to simply read the quotes and take them literally. Each selection presents a picture that you can look at again and again. Taken together, different views of the same subject matter are like a drafter's plans: they can make either an interesting multiple-view description of the subject or a puzzle....

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Is America’s counterinsurgency (COIN) effort being shortchanged? Does a one-dimensional doctrine fail to exploit America’s full COIN potential? Would a genuinely joint approach provide better options to decision makers confronted with the harsh realities of twenty-first century insurgencies? This study insists the answers are unequivocally “yes.” It analyzes the pitfalls of accepting Army/Marine tactical doctrine as the joint solution. It also offers insights and ideas from an Airman’s perspective for strengthening joint COIN doctrine development in order to deliver fresh alternatives to our national decision-makers and combatant commanders....

Table of Contents Details
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................iii INTRODUCTION ........................................1 FM 3-24’S GROUND-FORCE CONVENTIONALITY ......................................................8 COIN AND AN AIRMAN’S WAY OF THINKING .......................................................11 FM 3-24’S AIRPOWER MYTHS.....................18 CONSIDERATIONS FOR AIRMINDED COIN DOCTRINE ..........................................28 CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.................63 END NOTES ..........................................69...

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This British historian, David Hall, found relevant cross-service problems in Afghanistan during recent British air-ground operations. He was stricken by the similarities with British airground operations during World War II when the Royal Air Force and the British Army first struggled with doctrinal air support practices....

Table of Contents Details
DISCLAIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .ii FOREWORD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .v ABOUT THE AUTHOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .vii SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .xi LEARNING HOW TO FIGHT TOGETHER: THE BRITISH EXPERIENCE WITH JOINT AIR-LAND WARFARE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 Origins of the Air-Land Debate . . . . . . . . . . 5 Political Wrangling between the Independent Air Force and Army/Royal Air Force during the Interwar Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8 The Battle for France, 1940 . . . . . . . . . . . 10 The Evolution of Air-Land Technique . . . . . .11 North Africa: The Adoption and Refinement of a New Air-Land Technique . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Success without Harmony: British Air-Land Co-operation by the End of the War . . . . . .25 Back to Afghanistan and Contemporary Air-Land Integration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27 Enduring Themes and Contemporary Relevance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29 NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ....

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The ground and air forces have strong interlocking connections in the battlefield operations known as close air support (CAS). In the 1970s the Army and Air Force began to develop a shared battlefield doctrine known as battlefield air interdiction(BAI) that was concerned with a class of targets that lay out a fair distance from the front lines. Later, on the battlefields of Desert Storm, the Air Force excluded BAI from its tasking orders, although some claimed interdiction missions of this nature were carried out under different names. Lt Col Terrance J. McCaffrey III looks into What Happened to BAI? Army and Air Force Battlefield Doctrine Development from Pre–Desert Storm to 2001. He traces airground doctrine and operational practices relative to battlefield interdiction from World War I to Operation Desert Storm and suggests at one point that even the flank support for Patton was, in effect, BAI. The author carries the discussion through the decade after Desert Storm and shows how the issue is too important to be dropped by either service, even as technology provides new weapons for both services....

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1 INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 2 ORIGINS OF BATTLEFIELD AIR INTERDICTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28 3 WHERE WAS BATTLEFIELD AIR INTERDICTION IN DESERT STORM? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 4 WAS BATTLEFIELD AIR INTERDICTION A VICTIM OF SUCCESS? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71 5 IS BATTLEFIELD AIR INTERDICTION BACK? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93 6 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS . . . . . 97 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 GLOSSARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .107 ABBREVIATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .115...

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This compelling study by Lt Col Lawrence E. Key examines how national will plays a decisive role during any application of US military power and not just the employment of forces to fight America’s wars. Because of the decisive role national will plays, leaders need to understand what it is and, beyond its definition, the ways in which they can articulate and cultivate it. To gain this understanding, leaders must look at various means by which the American public expresses its collective will; the most important means being public opinion. However, the author argues that only mature collective opinion can represent national will....