My latest at the Diplomat jumps off of a Mattis-ism to talk strategy: “Strategy” is a notoriously slippery term that often seems to serve simply as a blunt rhetorical instrument. Nevertheless, it might help to try to break down how air, sea, and land forces have traditionally conceived of the relationship between strategy and victory. My […]
Tag: airpower
Idaho uses C-130 in flagrantly inappropriate fashion! David Ignatius must be informed!
Nice piece on the Zeppelin raids of World War I, with extra detail on operational support for the Kaiserliche Marine: In 1915 alone, 47 sorties were launched against targets in England and in the Nort
The last five years have seen a wealth of good material on the history of military aviation. The latest from the University Press of Kentucky is The Influence of Airpower Upon History: Statesmanship, Diplomacy, and Foreign Policy Since 1903 The motivating concept behind the volume is less to revisit airpower theory and practice than to […]
Some thoughts on airpower over at the Diplomat: A recent University Press of Kentucky edited volume, The Influence of Airpower Upon History, attempts to evaluate to impact of airpower since the begin
This is some pretty gruesome stuff: Governors united across party lines to protest the potential loss of their pet C-130s and other planes. Members of Congress lined up behind the potent lobbying pre
My latest at the Diplomat concerns Karzai’s limitations on the use of coalition airpower in support of ANA operations: Given that Afghan Army ground forces have yet to demonstrate a clear advantage over their Taliban counterparts, airpower really is the Afghan government’s“asymmetric advantage.” Whatever the Taliban may have, it lacks the tools that airpower provides, including […]
Gonna give everyone the opportunity to contrast this picture with this headline “Air Force confirms Russian jets circled US territory of Guam.”
I have a second Diplomat piece this week, this time on the ongoing troubles with the F-35: Perhaps more importantly, rules of engagement are inherently political. Civilian leaders, and their politi
My latest at the Diplomat isn’t so much about Mali as it is about heavy airlift, logistics, and multilateralism: With increasingly dense littoral populations living in a disaster-prone region, the ability of ASEAN militaries to conduct airlift may become their critical operational capability. Of all Indo-Pac states, India has made the most serious investment with an […]
The Disney-de Seversky classic: Love the scene where the German pilot is hit in the head with a brick. Modern war cinema involves all too few brick-throwing incidents.
More at the Diplomat on airpower and “soft power”: The Navy’s vision of smart diplomacy can integrate and accommodate the growth of Chinese maritime power, depending on how responsibly C