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Airpower Reborn: The Strategic Concepts of John Warden and John Boyd
Contributor(s): Olsen, John Andreas (Editor)
ISBN: 1612518044     ISBN-13: 9781612518046
Publisher: US Naval Institute Press
OUR PRICE:   $48.56  
Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats
Published: April 2015
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- History | Military - Aviation
- History | Military - Strategy
- History | Military - Wars & Conflicts (other)
Dewey: 358.403
LCCN: 2014046355
Physical Information: 0.95" H x 6.33" W x 9.52" (1.26 lbs) 256 pages
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
Airpower Reborn offers a conceptual approach to warfare that emphasizes airpower's unique capability to achieve strategic effects. Six world-leading theorists argue that a viable strategy must transcend the purely military sphere, view the adversary as a multi-dimensional system, and pursue systemic paralysis and strategic effects rather than military destruction or attrition.

The book is divided into three parts. The first section presents a historical perspective on airpower theory and airpower strategy, tracing their evolution from the 1920s to the 1980s. The second section contains in-depth examinations of the strategic concepts that John R. Boyd and John A. Warden developed in the 1980s and 1990s, with an emphasis on their contemporary relevance. The final section provides further context on modern airpower theory and strategy. Theory, in this setting, serves as the basic paradigm, strategy represents its generic, mechanisms-centered application, and plans of campaign constitute the specific steps for any given situation.

In short, the authors look beyond the land-centric, battlefield-oriented paradigm that has continued to dominate military theories and strategies long after airpower offered new options. The book acknowledges the essential role of advanced technology in improving airpower capabilities, but emphasizes that air services must cultivate and harness the intellectual acumen of airmen and encourage officers and men to think conceptually and strategically about the application of aerospace power. Modern airpower can offer political decision-makers more and better options--provided the underlying strategy coherently links the application of airpower directly to the end-state objectives rather than limiting it to the battle.

The book recommends that all countries should consider establishing a dynamic and vibrant environment for mastering aerospace history, theory, strategy, and doctrine; a milieu for cultivating broader knowledge of and insight into airpower; and a setting in which airpower experts have the opportunity to communicate their narrative to politicians, the media, and fellow officers, and to interact to mutual benefit with experts from all sectors of governance. This effort should emphasize the potentially unique contribution of airpower to political objectives and joint operations, and in turn connect to operational headquarters that do operational planning. Mastering such strategic thought lies at the heart of the military profession, but it requires in-depth knowledge and understanding of theory, strategy, and airpower, and transcends traditional metrics.

Contributor Bio(s): Olsen, John Andreas: - Colonel John Andreas Olsen is general deputy director in the Norwegian Ministry of Defence and visiting professor at the Swedish National Defence College. Professor Olsen is the author of Strategic Air Power in Desert Storm and John Warden and the Renaissance of American Air Power, and the editor of A History of Air Warfare, Global Air Power, Air Commanders, and European Air Power.