Techreport,
The airpower advantage in future warfare: the need for strategy
Report, 2007-2. Airpower Research Institute, Maxwell Air Force Base, AL, (2007)
Abstract
The United States has long suffered from a serious strategy deficit. As long as Americans short-change the strategic function, the leverage of U.S. air power will be much less than its potential. The major purpose of this study is to help reduce America's strategy deficit. A common and serious error is the belief that air power theory is uniquely immature and contested. Currently, literally every dimension of U.S. military power is fraught with conceptual uncertainty. There is a general crisis of strategic comprehension, a lack of agreement on the most effective organizing ideas. The author argues that the United States needs a theory of war and warfare. He claims that future warfare will be diverse and that the tactical, operational, and strategic value of air power must always be situational. A coherent theory of employment for all of air power's capabilities, not only the kinetic, is needed. The study reaches six conclusions: (1) The U.S. asymmetric advantage in air power must be exploited to the maximum; (2) It is necessary to be clear about the critical distinction between air power as a war decider and as a war winner; (3) High technology is, and has to be, the American way in warfare -- much of the criticism of the American love affair with machines is simply irrelevant; (4) The now long-standing debate over whether land power or air power is dominant in regular warfare is thoroughly misconceived and continues to harm U.S. military and strategic prowess; (5) It cannot be denied that people allow themselves, their affection, to be captured by their favorite machines, but it is not helpful if air power is to benefit from a genuinely strategic analysis and debate; and (6) Only strategy has the potential to unlock the full leverage that the United States should expect to achieve through the threat and use of its multi-faceted air power.
