Patrick Deer
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199239887
- eISBN:
- 9780191716782
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199239887.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
Chapter 2 traces the literary response to the seductive futurist appeal and colonialist genealogy of air power in two World Wars. After the Great War, the “empire of the air” was celebrated as a ...
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Chapter 2 traces the literary response to the seductive futurist appeal and colonialist genealogy of air power in two World Wars. After the Great War, the “empire of the air” was celebrated as a last resort of martial heroism and the colonies provided laboratories for experiment. The interwar period saw the consolidating imperial gaze of air power and mechanized war turned on the civilian home front as both apocalyptic nightmare and escapist fantasy. This chapter explores T.E. Lawrence's haunting fantasies of air power as he dedicated mind and body to the RAF's role in policing the empire in the 1920s and 30s. It argues that for those who waged the war of space and movement, the mythology of armored masculinity and panoramic vision all too often resulted in blackout and bodily disintegration. It explores these conflicts of “airmindedness” in the work of Virginia Woolf, Rex Warner, George Orwell, Richard Hillary, and Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris.Less
Chapter 2 traces the literary response to the seductive futurist appeal and colonialist genealogy of air power in two World Wars. After the Great War, the “empire of the air” was celebrated as a last resort of martial heroism and the colonies provided laboratories for experiment. The interwar period saw the consolidating imperial gaze of air power and mechanized war turned on the civilian home front as both apocalyptic nightmare and escapist fantasy. This chapter explores T.E. Lawrence's haunting fantasies of air power as he dedicated mind and body to the RAF's role in policing the empire in the 1920s and 30s. It argues that for those who waged the war of space and movement, the mythology of armored masculinity and panoramic vision all too often resulted in blackout and bodily disintegration. It explores these conflicts of “airmindedness” in the work of Virginia Woolf, Rex Warner, George Orwell, Richard Hillary, and Sir Arthur “Bomber” Harris.
Mark Neocleous
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748692361
- eISBN:
- 9780748697205
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748692361.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This chapter is the first of two on air power. This chapter focuses on colonial bombing campaigns as an exercise of air power and examines the ways in which these campaigns were understood as police ...
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This chapter is the first of two on air power. This chapter focuses on colonial bombing campaigns as an exercise of air power and examines the ways in which these campaigns were understood as police measures. The chapter then explores the ways in which contemporary air power, in the form of drones, might also be understood as a form of police power. In making this case the chapters also shows how the invention of air power meant the destruction of the civilian.Less
This chapter is the first of two on air power. This chapter focuses on colonial bombing campaigns as an exercise of air power and examines the ways in which these campaigns were understood as police measures. The chapter then explores the ways in which contemporary air power, in the form of drones, might also be understood as a form of police power. In making this case the chapters also shows how the invention of air power meant the destruction of the civilian.
Mimi Sheller
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691159096
- eISBN:
- 9781400849895
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691159096.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, World Modern History
This chapter examines the production and marketing of aluminum as a carrier of uneven global modernities, thus highlighting the ways in which mobility and immobilization were simultaneously created ...
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This chapter examines the production and marketing of aluminum as a carrier of uneven global modernities, thus highlighting the ways in which mobility and immobilization were simultaneously created in the world of traveling commodities, transport systems, and tourism. More specifically, it considers the role of aluminum, the “speed metal,” in modernization by linking the North American world of mobility, speed, and flight to the heavier, slower Caribbean world of bauxite mining, racialized labor relations, and resource extraction. The chapter first looks at the emergence of U.S. air power in the early twentieth century before discussing the cultural motions of Caribbean modernity and the complex constellations of mobility and immobility that structure transnational American relations. It also discusses the role played by companies like Alcoa in promoting innovation in the United States in the use of aluminum and imagining the light modernity of the future.Less
This chapter examines the production and marketing of aluminum as a carrier of uneven global modernities, thus highlighting the ways in which mobility and immobilization were simultaneously created in the world of traveling commodities, transport systems, and tourism. More specifically, it considers the role of aluminum, the “speed metal,” in modernization by linking the North American world of mobility, speed, and flight to the heavier, slower Caribbean world of bauxite mining, racialized labor relations, and resource extraction. The chapter first looks at the emergence of U.S. air power in the early twentieth century before discussing the cultural motions of Caribbean modernity and the complex constellations of mobility and immobility that structure transnational American relations. It also discusses the role played by companies like Alcoa in promoting innovation in the United States in the use of aluminum and imagining the light modernity of the future.
Patrick Deer
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199239887
- eISBN:
- 9780191716782
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199239887.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This book remaps the history of British war culture by insisting on the centrality and importance of the literature of the Second World War. Offering an account of the emergence of modern war ...
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This book remaps the history of British war culture by insisting on the centrality and importance of the literature of the Second World War. Offering an account of the emergence of modern war culture, it explores how writers like Ford Madox Ford, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, T.E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill, Elizabeth Bowen, Virginia Woolf, James Hanley, Rex Warner, Alexander Baron, Keith Douglas, Henry Green, and Graham Greene challenged and contested the dominant narratives of war projected by an enormously powerful mass media and culture industry. Modern war cultures, the book contends, are defined by their drive to normalize conflict and war making, by their struggle to colonize the entire wartime cultural field, and by claims to monopolize representations and interpretation of the conflict. The book argues that the Great War failed to produce an official war culture, famously producing instead a war literature of protest, marked by modernist tropes of alienation and disintegration. Challenging conventional maps of modern culture, it contends that the interwar period saw a parallel logic of consolidation and reconstruction as the imperial war machine struggled to reinvent itself, culminating in the emergence of a fully mobilized and persuasive official war culture during the Second World War. The book reads war literature as one element in an expanded cultural field, which also includes popular culture and mass communications, the productions of war planners and military historians, projections of new technologies of violence, the fantasies and theories of strategists, and the material culture of total war.Less
This book remaps the history of British war culture by insisting on the centrality and importance of the literature of the Second World War. Offering an account of the emergence of modern war culture, it explores how writers like Ford Madox Ford, Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, T.E. Lawrence, Winston Churchill, Elizabeth Bowen, Virginia Woolf, James Hanley, Rex Warner, Alexander Baron, Keith Douglas, Henry Green, and Graham Greene challenged and contested the dominant narratives of war projected by an enormously powerful mass media and culture industry. Modern war cultures, the book contends, are defined by their drive to normalize conflict and war making, by their struggle to colonize the entire wartime cultural field, and by claims to monopolize representations and interpretation of the conflict. The book argues that the Great War failed to produce an official war culture, famously producing instead a war literature of protest, marked by modernist tropes of alienation and disintegration. Challenging conventional maps of modern culture, it contends that the interwar period saw a parallel logic of consolidation and reconstruction as the imperial war machine struggled to reinvent itself, culminating in the emergence of a fully mobilized and persuasive official war culture during the Second World War. The book reads war literature as one element in an expanded cultural field, which also includes popular culture and mass communications, the productions of war planners and military historians, projections of new technologies of violence, the fantasies and theories of strategists, and the material culture of total war.
István Hargittai
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195178456
- eISBN:
- 9780199787012
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195178456.003.0004
- Subject:
- Physics, History of Physics
By the start of World War II, the Martians had become involved in politics. They helped the United States get ready for modern warfare, including advancements in air power, the atomic bomb, and an ...
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By the start of World War II, the Martians had become involved in politics. They helped the United States get ready for modern warfare, including advancements in air power, the atomic bomb, and an ever-enhanced application of the computer in weapons development. They initiated the Manhattan Project and participated in it. However, they became divided as to the desirability of actually using the atomic bomb after Germany’s defeat.Less
By the start of World War II, the Martians had become involved in politics. They helped the United States get ready for modern warfare, including advancements in air power, the atomic bomb, and an ever-enhanced application of the computer in weapons development. They initiated the Manhattan Project and participated in it. However, they became divided as to the desirability of actually using the atomic bomb after Germany’s defeat.
Priya Satia
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195331417
- eISBN:
- 9780199868070
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195331417.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History
This book offers a cultural history of British intelligence–gathering in the Middle East in the era of World War One and its consequences in British literary and political culture and military and ...
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This book offers a cultural history of British intelligence–gathering in the Middle East in the era of World War One and its consequences in British literary and political culture and military and state practice. Culture mattered especially in this intelligence endeavor because of British agents' orientalist preconceptions of “Arabia” as an inscrutable, romantic space offering adventure and spiritualism. They developed an intelligence epistemology grounded in intuition, elevating as “experts” those claiming an innate “genius” for understanding the region, regardless of empirical knowledge. This intelligence culture assured the agents an unusual influence in the running of the Great War campaigns and postwar mandatory administrations in the region, notably in the British state's conspiracy fears and consequent design of a brutal air control regime for Iraq. The book argues that violence and culture were more closely allied in imperial rule than has been recognized, ironically, especially at a moment of popular anti–imperialism and increasing mass democracy. As the British public demanded control over foreign policy in the Middle East, the imperial state developed new means of keeping its affairs secret, developing a style of colonial rule that Priya Satia calls “covert empire,” in which airpower, intelligence agents, and propaganda were critical. As democratic oversight vanished, colonial violence reached a new pitch, with lasting consequences in the Middle East, British attitudes towards the state, and, and military tactics. The book offers a new understanding of the legacies of the Great War and of the British empire in the 20th century.Less
This book offers a cultural history of British intelligence–gathering in the Middle East in the era of World War One and its consequences in British literary and political culture and military and state practice. Culture mattered especially in this intelligence endeavor because of British agents' orientalist preconceptions of “Arabia” as an inscrutable, romantic space offering adventure and spiritualism. They developed an intelligence epistemology grounded in intuition, elevating as “experts” those claiming an innate “genius” for understanding the region, regardless of empirical knowledge. This intelligence culture assured the agents an unusual influence in the running of the Great War campaigns and postwar mandatory administrations in the region, notably in the British state's conspiracy fears and consequent design of a brutal air control regime for Iraq. The book argues that violence and culture were more closely allied in imperial rule than has been recognized, ironically, especially at a moment of popular anti–imperialism and increasing mass democracy. As the British public demanded control over foreign policy in the Middle East, the imperial state developed new means of keeping its affairs secret, developing a style of colonial rule that Priya Satia calls “covert empire,” in which airpower, intelligence agents, and propaganda were critical. As democratic oversight vanished, colonial violence reached a new pitch, with lasting consequences in the Middle East, British attitudes towards the state, and, and military tactics. The book offers a new understanding of the legacies of the Great War and of the British empire in the 20th century.
Mark Neocleous
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748692361
- eISBN:
- 9780748697205
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748692361.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Taking up the argument from the previous chapter concerning air power as police power, this chapter looks at no-fly zones as the perfect accompaniment for drones. The chapter takes a long historical ...
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Taking up the argument from the previous chapter concerning air power as police power, this chapter looks at no-fly zones as the perfect accompaniment for drones. The chapter takes a long historical detour to explore the birth of the idea of ‘international police’. The chapter shows that for ‘international police’ to really take hold of the geopolitical imagination, air power was necessary. Once air power was invented then the leading states could discuss ‘policing the world’ by exercising violence. The chapter therefore picks up the threads of the previous chapter and argues that within the contemporary frame the use of drones as police power is inherently linked with the use of no-fly zones.Less
Taking up the argument from the previous chapter concerning air power as police power, this chapter looks at no-fly zones as the perfect accompaniment for drones. The chapter takes a long historical detour to explore the birth of the idea of ‘international police’. The chapter shows that for ‘international police’ to really take hold of the geopolitical imagination, air power was necessary. Once air power was invented then the leading states could discuss ‘policing the world’ by exercising violence. The chapter therefore picks up the threads of the previous chapter and argues that within the contemporary frame the use of drones as police power is inherently linked with the use of no-fly zones.
Brian D. Laslie
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780813169989
- eISBN:
- 9780813174068
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813169989.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Military History
Only the most ardent of air power historians know the name of General Laurence S. Kuter, despite the fact he welded a B-17 group into a cohesive fighting force, was the deputy commander of allied ...
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Only the most ardent of air power historians know the name of General Laurence S. Kuter, despite the fact he welded a B-17 group into a cohesive fighting force, was the deputy commander of allied tactical air forces in North Africa, and later served as commander of the Military Air Transport Service, Air University, Far East Air Forces—later Pacific Air Forces—and finally as a Commander-in-Chief of the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD). The biography of Larry Kuter is the biography of the United States Air Corps, Army Air Forces and U.S. Air ForceLess
Only the most ardent of air power historians know the name of General Laurence S. Kuter, despite the fact he welded a B-17 group into a cohesive fighting force, was the deputy commander of allied tactical air forces in North Africa, and later served as commander of the Military Air Transport Service, Air University, Far East Air Forces—later Pacific Air Forces—and finally as a Commander-in-Chief of the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD). The biography of Larry Kuter is the biography of the United States Air Corps, Army Air Forces and U.S. Air Force
Phil Haun (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780813176789
- eISBN:
- 9780813176819
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813176789.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Military History
This introduction describes the strategic bombing mission of the US Army Air Forces’ Eighth Air Force against the Fock-Wulfe plant at Bremen, Germany, on April 17, 1943, assessing the use of ...
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This introduction describes the strategic bombing mission of the US Army Air Forces’ Eighth Air Force against the Fock-Wulfe plant at Bremen, Germany, on April 17, 1943, assessing the use of high-altitude daylight precision bombing,. The introduction then reviews American strategic bombing theory from its origins in World War I to the thinking of three great interwar air power theorists―the Italian Giulio Douhet, the Briton Hugh Trenchard, and the American Billy Mitchell―to the founding of the Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS), the development of the Norden bombsight and B-17 bomber, and the genesis of HADPB theory at the Air Corps Tactical School.Less
This introduction describes the strategic bombing mission of the US Army Air Forces’ Eighth Air Force against the Fock-Wulfe plant at Bremen, Germany, on April 17, 1943, assessing the use of high-altitude daylight precision bombing,. The introduction then reviews American strategic bombing theory from its origins in World War I to the thinking of three great interwar air power theorists―the Italian Giulio Douhet, the Briton Hugh Trenchard, and the American Billy Mitchell―to the founding of the Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS), the development of the Norden bombsight and B-17 bomber, and the genesis of HADPB theory at the Air Corps Tactical School.
Phil Haun
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780804792837
- eISBN:
- 9780804795074
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804792837.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, Conflict Politics and Policy
This chapter examines two crises of the US against the Bosnian Serbs and Serbia in 1992 and 1999, respectively. In both cases, coercive diplomacy failed but coercion ultimately succeeded. The first ...
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This chapter examines two crises of the US against the Bosnian Serbs and Serbia in 1992 and 1999, respectively. In both cases, coercive diplomacy failed but coercion ultimately succeeded. The first crisis arose over actions in the Bosnian Civil War from 1992 to 1995, whereby the United States finally coerced the Bosnian Serbs into accepting a peace agreement but could never compel them to give up territory until it had already been taken by force. The second crisis arose over Serbia’s treatment of Kosovar Albanians and concluded when Serbia’s President Slobodan Milosevic finally conceded Kosovo after a 78-day NATO air campaign. He conceded, however, only when the expected economic costs to Serbia from the air campaign outweighed the political value of maintaining control of Kosovo. This crisis is a rigorous test of the survival hypothesis as Serbia eventually conceded homeland territory while it still retained the means to resist.Less
This chapter examines two crises of the US against the Bosnian Serbs and Serbia in 1992 and 1999, respectively. In both cases, coercive diplomacy failed but coercion ultimately succeeded. The first crisis arose over actions in the Bosnian Civil War from 1992 to 1995, whereby the United States finally coerced the Bosnian Serbs into accepting a peace agreement but could never compel them to give up territory until it had already been taken by force. The second crisis arose over Serbia’s treatment of Kosovar Albanians and concluded when Serbia’s President Slobodan Milosevic finally conceded Kosovo after a 78-day NATO air campaign. He conceded, however, only when the expected economic costs to Serbia from the air campaign outweighed the political value of maintaining control of Kosovo. This crisis is a rigorous test of the survival hypothesis as Serbia eventually conceded homeland territory while it still retained the means to resist.
Phil Haun
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- July 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190908645
- eISBN:
- 9780190909604
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190908645.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
Classical deterrence concepts were developed to prevent nuclear war, for obvious reasons, and thus tend to focus on high-stakes crisis bargaining, or “chicken” games, to both threaten and avoid ...
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Classical deterrence concepts were developed to prevent nuclear war, for obvious reasons, and thus tend to focus on high-stakes crisis bargaining, or “chicken” games, to both threaten and avoid Armageddon. Yet deterrence may operate in many different settings (i.e., different games) and with repeated interactions by the players. Indeed, deterrence is prevalent, if underappreciated, at the operational level of war, even when a state is attacking at the strategic level. Drawing on a number of historical examples, this chapter argues that command of the air over the battlefield is operationally valuable because it deters ground forces from massing and maneuvering, which can benefit either offensive and defensive operations. The degree to which an air force can deter in war depends on various operational factors, including the degree of air superiority achieved over the battlefield, the capability of the air force to locate and target enemy ground forces, the composition of enemy forces, the presence of friendly ground forces, and permissive environmental conditions.Less
Classical deterrence concepts were developed to prevent nuclear war, for obvious reasons, and thus tend to focus on high-stakes crisis bargaining, or “chicken” games, to both threaten and avoid Armageddon. Yet deterrence may operate in many different settings (i.e., different games) and with repeated interactions by the players. Indeed, deterrence is prevalent, if underappreciated, at the operational level of war, even when a state is attacking at the strategic level. Drawing on a number of historical examples, this chapter argues that command of the air over the battlefield is operationally valuable because it deters ground forces from massing and maneuvering, which can benefit either offensive and defensive operations. The degree to which an air force can deter in war depends on various operational factors, including the degree of air superiority achieved over the battlefield, the capability of the air force to locate and target enemy ground forces, the composition of enemy forces, the presence of friendly ground forces, and permissive environmental conditions.
Brian D. Laslie
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780813169989
- eISBN:
- 9780813174068
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813169989.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, Military History
The intellectual underpinnings for the development of American air power after the First World War took place at the Air Corps Tactical School, located at Langley Field, Virginia from 1920 to 1931 ...
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The intellectual underpinnings for the development of American air power after the First World War took place at the Air Corps Tactical School, located at Langley Field, Virginia from 1920 to 1931 and thereafter at Maxwell Field in Alabama. Chapter Two traces the true changes in air power thought and theory that began at ACTS in 1930s. Graduates of ACTS included air power luminaries included Harold George, Haywood “Possum” Hansell, Hoyt Vandenberg, George Kenney, Ira Eaker, Claire Chennault, and Kuter, “Larry” to his friends. This chapter is important because it shows these theorists, not only great thinkers, but men, who lived, laughed, argued, and drank with each other. Finally, this chapter discusses the schism that developed between the adherents of strategic bombardment theory and those who focused on pursuit (fighter) aviation. It was not just a doctrinal dispute, but one that tore friendships apart.Less
The intellectual underpinnings for the development of American air power after the First World War took place at the Air Corps Tactical School, located at Langley Field, Virginia from 1920 to 1931 and thereafter at Maxwell Field in Alabama. Chapter Two traces the true changes in air power thought and theory that began at ACTS in 1930s. Graduates of ACTS included air power luminaries included Harold George, Haywood “Possum” Hansell, Hoyt Vandenberg, George Kenney, Ira Eaker, Claire Chennault, and Kuter, “Larry” to his friends. This chapter is important because it shows these theorists, not only great thinkers, but men, who lived, laughed, argued, and drank with each other. Finally, this chapter discusses the schism that developed between the adherents of strategic bombardment theory and those who focused on pursuit (fighter) aviation. It was not just a doctrinal dispute, but one that tore friendships apart.
Martin A. Smith and Paul Latawski
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719059797
- eISBN:
- 9781781700631
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719059797.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
The conflict in Kosovo represents a significant watershed in post-Cold War international security. Interpreting its political and operational significance should reveal important clues for ...
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The conflict in Kosovo represents a significant watershed in post-Cold War international security. Interpreting its political and operational significance should reveal important clues for understanding international security in the new millennium. This text analyses the international response to the crisis in Kosovo and its broader implications, by examining its diplomatic, military and humanitarian features. Despite the widely held perception that the conflict in Kosovo has implications for international security, unravelling them can be challenging, as it remains an event replete with paradoxes. There are many such paradoxes. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) entered into the conflict ostensibly to head off a humanitarian catastrophe, only to accelerate the catastrophe by engaging in a bombing campaign; the political aims of all the major players contradicted the military means chosen by them in the conflict. The Russian role in the diplomatic efforts demonstrated that NATO did not want Russia to be involved but in the end needed its involvement. Russia opposed the bombing campaign but ultimately did not have enough power or influence to rise above a role as NATO's messenger; the doctrinal hurdles to achieving ‘immaculate coercion’ by use of air power alone seemed to tumble in the face of apparent success; it is ultimately unclear how or why NATO succeeded.Less
The conflict in Kosovo represents a significant watershed in post-Cold War international security. Interpreting its political and operational significance should reveal important clues for understanding international security in the new millennium. This text analyses the international response to the crisis in Kosovo and its broader implications, by examining its diplomatic, military and humanitarian features. Despite the widely held perception that the conflict in Kosovo has implications for international security, unravelling them can be challenging, as it remains an event replete with paradoxes. There are many such paradoxes. The North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) entered into the conflict ostensibly to head off a humanitarian catastrophe, only to accelerate the catastrophe by engaging in a bombing campaign; the political aims of all the major players contradicted the military means chosen by them in the conflict. The Russian role in the diplomatic efforts demonstrated that NATO did not want Russia to be involved but in the end needed its involvement. Russia opposed the bombing campaign but ultimately did not have enough power or influence to rise above a role as NATO's messenger; the doctrinal hurdles to achieving ‘immaculate coercion’ by use of air power alone seemed to tumble in the face of apparent success; it is ultimately unclear how or why NATO succeeded.
Tonny Banham
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622099609
- eISBN:
- 9789882207677
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622099609.003.0067
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter discusses the year when the prisoners of war (POWs) were freed from their Japanese oppressors. This seemed evident in the inability of the Japanese to protect and adequately feed their ...
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This chapter discusses the year when the prisoners of war (POWs) were freed from their Japanese oppressors. This seemed evident in the inability of the Japanese to protect and adequately feed their prisoners. Those POW who still remained in Japanese camps were shuffled from place to place due to the constant threat posed by the American air power. The end of the year brought freedom to the POWs and Internees, who were shocked by the skill, scale, and modernity of the fleets and personnel that had rapidly formed to carry them home.Less
This chapter discusses the year when the prisoners of war (POWs) were freed from their Japanese oppressors. This seemed evident in the inability of the Japanese to protect and adequately feed their prisoners. Those POW who still remained in Japanese camps were shuffled from place to place due to the constant threat posed by the American air power. The end of the year brought freedom to the POWs and Internees, who were shocked by the skill, scale, and modernity of the fleets and personnel that had rapidly formed to carry them home.
Christian F. Anrig
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- July 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198790501
- eISBN:
- 9780191831737
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198790501.003.0034
- Subject:
- Political Science, European Union
Through the prism of post-cold-war air campaigns, differing national positions of contributing European air forces, as well as their relative weights and evolving capabilities, are gauged. Since ...
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Through the prism of post-cold-war air campaigns, differing national positions of contributing European air forces, as well as their relative weights and evolving capabilities, are gauged. Since major Western air campaigns have occurred only with substantial US involvement, American capabilities offer natural benchmarks. The issue of breadth versus depth has affected all European air forces. Maintaining a coherent set of aerospace capabilities has proven a challenge even for larger European countries. Smaller countries can pursue only limited ambitions and maintain segments of aerospace power. Nonetheless, selected smaller air forces with the right equipment, training, and attitude have managed to make visible contributions to multinational air campaigns. Air campaigns also spurred Europe’s military space ambitions. Space assets have become indispensable enablers of modern warfare, and selected European countries have deployed important capabilities into orbit.Less
Through the prism of post-cold-war air campaigns, differing national positions of contributing European air forces, as well as their relative weights and evolving capabilities, are gauged. Since major Western air campaigns have occurred only with substantial US involvement, American capabilities offer natural benchmarks. The issue of breadth versus depth has affected all European air forces. Maintaining a coherent set of aerospace capabilities has proven a challenge even for larger European countries. Smaller countries can pursue only limited ambitions and maintain segments of aerospace power. Nonetheless, selected smaller air forces with the right equipment, training, and attitude have managed to make visible contributions to multinational air campaigns. Air campaigns also spurred Europe’s military space ambitions. Space assets have become indispensable enablers of modern warfare, and selected European countries have deployed important capabilities into orbit.
Edward Kaplan
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801452482
- eISBN:
- 9780801455506
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801452482.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This introductory chapter reviews existing schools of scholarship that describe airpower's evolving role in conflict and informs the book's discussion of the origins of air-atomic theory. It argues ...
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This introductory chapter reviews existing schools of scholarship that describe airpower's evolving role in conflict and informs the book's discussion of the origins of air-atomic theory. It argues that these schools all miss a matter that is important to each of them: the rise and fall of air-atomic power in the early Cold War. It emerged in 1945, was transformed by the growth of US and Soviet nuclear arsenals, and finally was superseded by a new strategic approach that substituted stability for victory. It is argued that the evolution of nuclear strategy and the evidence about it cannot be presented as a chronicle, because events and people intersect in important ways on many paths that would be tangled in a simple narrative. The evolution of air-atomic ideas is best understood in its own terms and its own words, taking great caution to avoid anachronistic judgments. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less
This introductory chapter reviews existing schools of scholarship that describe airpower's evolving role in conflict and informs the book's discussion of the origins of air-atomic theory. It argues that these schools all miss a matter that is important to each of them: the rise and fall of air-atomic power in the early Cold War. It emerged in 1945, was transformed by the growth of US and Soviet nuclear arsenals, and finally was superseded by a new strategic approach that substituted stability for victory. It is argued that the evolution of nuclear strategy and the evidence about it cannot be presented as a chronicle, because events and people intersect in important ways on many paths that would be tangled in a simple narrative. The evolution of air-atomic ideas is best understood in its own terms and its own words, taking great caution to avoid anachronistic judgments. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.
Wray R. Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780813177045
- eISBN:
- 9780813177076
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813177045.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, Military History
The conclusion brings the narrative to an end by discussing why the experience of the US Marine Corps in the small wars era matters and how that experience can be applied to the employment of ...
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The conclusion brings the narrative to an end by discussing why the experience of the US Marine Corps in the small wars era matters and how that experience can be applied to the employment of aviation (more broadly, air power) in small wars today and in the future. The conclusion revisits the concept of small wars and then examines the lessons learned by the marines from 1915 to 1934.Less
The conclusion brings the narrative to an end by discussing why the experience of the US Marine Corps in the small wars era matters and how that experience can be applied to the employment of aviation (more broadly, air power) in small wars today and in the future. The conclusion revisits the concept of small wars and then examines the lessons learned by the marines from 1915 to 1934.
George Perkovich and Toby Dalton
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199467495
- eISBN:
- 9780199087112
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199467495.003.0004
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This chapter analyses the logic and capabilities that would be involved in an Indian strategy focusing on limited, airborne operations against Pakistan, including the potential benefits, risks, and ...
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This chapter analyses the logic and capabilities that would be involved in an Indian strategy focusing on limited, airborne operations against Pakistan, including the potential benefits, risks, and escalation potential of selecting certain targets, and the need for ground mobilization to back up an air power option. It assesses the capabilities that India currently has and would need to acquire in order to carry out effective airstrikes against Pakistan. Recent American and Israeli use of air power against terrorist organizations and their state hosts heighten Indian interests in such operations. Yet, the capabilities the US and Israel possess compared to their adversaries are vastly different than those that India possesses relative to Pakistan. Notwithstanding major procurement efforts underway, India is still several years from having an effective option for stand-off strikes. Even then, the escalatory effects of anything more than politically symbolic strikes could be counterproductive to Indian strategic interests.Less
This chapter analyses the logic and capabilities that would be involved in an Indian strategy focusing on limited, airborne operations against Pakistan, including the potential benefits, risks, and escalation potential of selecting certain targets, and the need for ground mobilization to back up an air power option. It assesses the capabilities that India currently has and would need to acquire in order to carry out effective airstrikes against Pakistan. Recent American and Israeli use of air power against terrorist organizations and their state hosts heighten Indian interests in such operations. Yet, the capabilities the US and Israel possess compared to their adversaries are vastly different than those that India possesses relative to Pakistan. Notwithstanding major procurement efforts underway, India is still several years from having an effective option for stand-off strikes. Even then, the escalatory effects of anything more than politically symbolic strikes could be counterproductive to Indian strategic interests.
David Betz
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190264857
- eISBN:
- 9780190618513
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190264857.003.0009
- Subject:
- Political Science, Conflict Politics and Policy
This chapter critiques the popular concept of cyberwar arguing that both the threat it represents to major powers, as well as its efficacy as a weapon against others has been dramatically over ...
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This chapter critiques the popular concept of cyberwar arguing that both the threat it represents to major powers, as well as its efficacy as a weapon against others has been dramatically over exaggerated. Drawing parallel with the debate over the effect of air power that dominated the period between the First and Second World Wars it suggests that the appropriate conceptualisation of “cyberpower” is as part of a combined arms system.Less
This chapter critiques the popular concept of cyberwar arguing that both the threat it represents to major powers, as well as its efficacy as a weapon against others has been dramatically over exaggerated. Drawing parallel with the debate over the effect of air power that dominated the period between the First and Second World Wars it suggests that the appropriate conceptualisation of “cyberpower” is as part of a combined arms system.
Phil Haun
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780804792837
- eISBN:
- 9780804795074
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804792837.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Conflict Politics and Policy
This book considers why with its tremendous military advantage the United States so often fails to coerce much weaker states. The answer frequently resides in the large asymmetry in power which ...
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This book considers why with its tremendous military advantage the United States so often fails to coerce much weaker states. The answer frequently resides in the large asymmetry in power which provides the United States a high probability of victory in a brute force war. The resultant high expected outcome from war introduces an incentive to leverage coercive demands upon a weak adversary, concession to which threaten the survival of the state, its regime, or its regime leadership. Perceiving its survival at stake an opponent will resist, so long as it has the means to do so. Theoretically, to avoid signaling costs, a powerful challenger should only choose coercive strategies likely to succeed. In practice, however, as in Iraq in 1991 and 2003, U.S. leaders may first seek United Nations Security Council resolutions to lower the diplomatic and political costs for brute force war. Coercion may also fail when interests are so limited that the United States cannot continue to make its threats credible as in 1986 following the El Dorado air raid against Libya. In other cases, as in Bosnia and Kosovo, coercion eventually succeeded, but not before coercive diplomacy failed as the United States placed the prestige of NATO at stake over non-vital interests.Less
This book considers why with its tremendous military advantage the United States so often fails to coerce much weaker states. The answer frequently resides in the large asymmetry in power which provides the United States a high probability of victory in a brute force war. The resultant high expected outcome from war introduces an incentive to leverage coercive demands upon a weak adversary, concession to which threaten the survival of the state, its regime, or its regime leadership. Perceiving its survival at stake an opponent will resist, so long as it has the means to do so. Theoretically, to avoid signaling costs, a powerful challenger should only choose coercive strategies likely to succeed. In practice, however, as in Iraq in 1991 and 2003, U.S. leaders may first seek United Nations Security Council resolutions to lower the diplomatic and political costs for brute force war. Coercion may also fail when interests are so limited that the United States cannot continue to make its threats credible as in 1986 following the El Dorado air raid against Libya. In other cases, as in Bosnia and Kosovo, coercion eventually succeeded, but not before coercive diplomacy failed as the United States placed the prestige of NATO at stake over non-vital interests.
