Figure 1. War Aims and the Application of Airpower
Document created: 20 August 02
Air
& Space Power Journal - Fall 2002
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Dr. Mark Clodfelter*
| Editorial Abstract: Evaluating airpower’s political effectiveness in a conflict is not a straightforward proposition. This is certainly the case with asymmetric foes such as terrorist organizations. Professor Clodfelter presents an interesting framework for this determination, one that involves assessing how well indirect, auxiliary, and independent applications of airpower support both positive and negative political objectives. Ultimately, the effectiveness of airpower must be measured in terms of how well it supports positive goals without jeopardizing the achievement of negative objectives. |
*For comments and suggestions, both heeded and unheeded, the author gratefully acknowledges Dr. Ilana Kass, Col James Callard, Col Robert Eskridge, Dr. David MacIsaac, and the students of National War College Elective Class 5855, Airpower and Modern War. The views expressed herein are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the National War College, National Defense University, or Department of Defense.
ASYMMETRIC is the current buzzword used to describe a type of warfare that has been with us much longer than the newfangled term. In its purest sense, asymmetric warfare is about ends, ways, or means—fighting for ends that do not match an opponent’s objectives, fighting in ways that differ from an opponent’s approach to war, or fighting with means different from an opponent’s resources. In the Quadrennial Defense Review Report of 2001, however, the term most often describes a weaker power’s use of an unanticipated means of striking at the vulnerability of a stronger power—in this case, the United States.1 Any type of military force can be applied asymmetrically, including airpower, as al Qaeda’s terrorists demonstrated in devastating fashion on 11 September 2001. Yet, how might airpower best be used against an asymmetric foe? The answer is not so different from the response to the fundamental question regarding any application of airpower against any enemy—that is, how can it be used as an effective instrument of war?
Gauging airpower’s effectiveness is not an easy task. One reason for that difficulty is that no universal agreement exists on the meaning of effectiveness. Clausewitz offers perhaps the best means of measurement—how much does the military instrument help towards achieving the ultimate aim of winning the war? The author of On War equates “winning” to achieving the nation’s political objectives, and that criterion guides the following framework for evaluating airpower’s effectiveness.2 Like all true frameworks, though, this one does not provide a set of standard answers. Nor does it predict the future or offer a universal guide for success or failure. Instead, it offers a consistent approach for determining the value of airpower in any circumstance. This approach includes a distinctive terminology that categorizes various airpower applications, and those categories are used in ascertaining how effectively an application supports a political goal. Yet, determining airpower’s political effectiveness is not a straightforward proposition because political goals are not always straightforward. As the discussion of the framework makes clear, those goals can be either “positive” or “negative”—which in turn affects how well a particular airpower application can achieve them.
While the categories of airpower applications can be thought of as constants (the essence of how airpower is applied in each of the categories does not change), five key variables affect the ability of each application to achieve success. Those variables include the (1) nature of the enemy, (2) type of war waged by the enemy, (3) nature of the combat environment, (4) magnitude of military controls, and (5) nature of the political objectives. The importance of each variable may change in different situations to yield different results. Thus, political and military leaders who would employ airpower must understand exactly what the variables are and how they might blend to produce a particular outcome. The framework provides a method for analyzing airpower applications—one that thoroughly dissects the variables and examines how their integration may affect airpower’s ability to achieve political success. Hopefully, it also offers practical considerations and cautions for the statesman contemplating the use of airpower, as well as for the commander charged with transforming political goals into military objectives.
Before delving into the framework’s particulars, one would do well to define the elusive term airpower. Brig Gen William “Billy” Mitchell specified it as “the ability to do something in the air,” a description too vague to be useful.3 Much better is the definition offered by two Britons—Air Marshal R. J. Armitage and Air Vice Marshal R. A. Mason—in their classic work Air Power in the Nuclear Age: “The ability to project military force through a platform in the third dimension above the surface of the earth.”4 Although Armitage and Mason admit that their definition contains gray areas (e.g., whether or not airpower includes ballistic missiles or surface-to-air weapons), it suffices to guide the proffered framework. Indeed, their definition recognizes qualities of airpower “that are sometimes overlooked”—specifically, its latent impact and its ability to apply force directly or to distribute it.5 These characteristics form the basic distinctions used in the framework to categorize airpower missions.
Airpower’s modes of application—the ways in which it can be used—are key components of the framework. For instance, airpower poised for use but not actually engaged in an operation is a latent application—a potential impact—that corresponds to its deterrent value. In this case, airpower is not directly used in a contingency; rather, its use is threatened. Examples of latent application abound: Adolf Hitler’s references to the Luftwaffe during the reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936 or the Munich crisis of 1938; President Harry Truman’s deployment of B-29s to En-gland during the Berlin airlift of 1948; President Dwight Eisenhower’s warning of an atomic air attack against North Korea and Manchuria during the closing stages of the Korean War; and President John Kennedy’s reliance on Strategic Air Command’s B-52s and missile force during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, among others.
Although the framework acknowledges such latent applications, it primarily concerns itself with the actual use of airpower during a contingency. In a crisis, the application of airpower is twofold, based upon the purpose of the mission: it is either direct or indirect, and it is either auxiliary or independent. The direct application of airpower is the intended lethal application—designed to expend ordnance. Dropping bombs, shooting missiles, and firing guns fall into this category of employment. Conversely, the indirect application of airpower is the intended nonlethal use—such as airlift, reconnaissance, electronic jamming, and aerial refueling.
Besides being direct or indirect, the use of airpower is also either auxiliary or independent. Auxiliary airpower supports ground or sea forces on a specific battlefield, whereas independent airpower aims to achieve objectives apart from those sought by armies or navies at a specific location. The auxiliary form includes both close air support (CAS) and air attack against enemy forces on the battlefield who are not in contact with friendly troops.6 So-called strategic bombing—aimed at an enemy’s war-making potential before he can bring it to bear on the battlefield—exemplifies the independent application. Yet, the terms strategic and tactical often overlap and frequently blur. Many air attacks during the last half century’s limited wars not only have affected the ebb and flow of a particular engagement, but also have had significant “strategic” consequences. For instance, American air strikes on mobile Scud launchers during the Persian Gulf War of 1991 aimed to wreck Iraq’s tactical capability to launch ballistic missiles and to achieve the strategic goal of placating the Israelis, thus keeping them out of the conflict.
Because of such blurred distinctions, the terms auxiliary and independent seem better suited than tactical and strategic to delineate various airpower applications. The former pair, however, is not completely pristine because the distinction between the two depends upon how the user defines the word battlefield. In modern war, a specific battlefield may extend for many hundreds of miles; in an insurgent conflict like Vietnam, the battlefield may be even larger. Gen William Westmoreland, commander of US Military Assistance Command, Vietnam from 1964 to 1968, described his battlefield as “the whole country of South Vietnam.”7 Such a parameter may seem extreme, but it illustrates the fact that the definition of the battlefield depends to a large extent on the type of war being fought.8 In a “conventional” conflict waged to seize or preserve territory, a battlefield’s boundaries are likely to be much more distinct than those in a guerrilla war—especially one like Vietnam, in which insurgent forces fought infrequently.
According to the framework’s terminology, each application of airpower has two designations: direct or indirect, auxiliary or indepen-dent. For example, the American bombing of the ball-bearing factories in Schweinfurt, Germany, during World War II was a direct/independent application; the Berlin airlift of 1948–49 was an indirect/independent application; the B-52 strikes around Khe Sanh, South Vietnam, during the siege of 1968 were a direct/auxiliary application; and the C-130 airlift of supplies into the beleaguered Marine base there was an indirect/auxiliary application. The dual designators describe the purpose of individual airpower missions more clearly than the amorphous terms tactical and strategic. In addition, the framework’s focus on the intent of the mission highlights airpower’s inherent flexibility by showing that one type of aircraft—whether designated bomber, fighter, airlift, and so forth—can participate in different applications.
But what about the air superiority mission? Where does it fit in the framework? The air control mission is either auxiliary or independent, depending upon the use made of the airspace. For instance, obtaining air superiority over Kuwait to enable allied ground forces to attack Iraqi troops represents a direct/auxiliary application. Achieving air superiority over Baghdad to enable aircraft to strike the city’s key communication and electric power facilities constitutes a direct/independent application. On occasion, gaining air superiority can be both an auxiliary and an independent application. The achievement of daylight air superiority over the European continent as a result of the “Big Week” operations in February 1944 is one such example. The resultant air control guaranteed that American bomber operations would continue against German industry and provided the prerequisite protection for the Normandy invasion.
Some might contend that air superiority should be a separate category in the framework, in much the same way that “counterair” is a distinctive “air and space power function” in the current edition of the Air Force’s basic doctrine manual.9 The framework does not list air superiority separately because air superiority is not an end in itself. Air control—which employs both direct and indirect methods—allows the direct, indirect, auxiliary, and independent applications to occur. In much the same fashion, the categorization of such indirect applications as aerial refueling, airlift, and reconnaissance depends upon the type of mission that they facilitate. For example, refueling fighters that provide CAS for ground forces would constitute an indirect/ auxiliary application. Airlifting smart bombs for F-117 operations against targets in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, during Operation Allied Force would be an indirect/independent application. And obtaining reconnaissance photographs of Iraqi frontline positions in Kuwait would be an indirect/auxiliary application.
However, achieving air superiority that facilitates a cross-channel invasion or securing reconnaissance photographs that lead to a breakthrough of Iraqi defenses does not necessarily imply a successful application of airpower. Only one true criterion exists for evaluating the success of airpower, regardless of whether it was direct, indirect, auxiliary, or independent. That criterion is the ultimate bottom line: how well did the application contribute to achieving the desired political objective? Did it, in fact, help win the war? Answering that question first requires a determination of what is meant by winning. The war aims must be defined, and the application of airpower must be linked to accomplishing those objectives (fig. 1).
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Figure 1. War Aims and the Application of Airpower |
War aims—the political goals of a nation or organization at war—can range from limited to total. Grand strategy blends diplomatic, economic, military, and informational instruments in a concerted effort to achieve those aims. Meanwhile, military strategy combines various components of military force to gain military objectives that, in turn, should help achieve the political goals. Attaining the military objectives may require a mixture of ground, sea, or air operations, and the forces performing those operations may act in either independent or auxiliary fashion. These definitions and connections are relatively straightforward.
Such linkages, however, are not the only ones that determine whether military force—airpower in particular—will prove effective in achieving the desired war aims. Besides being either limited or total, war aims are also positive or negative. Positive goals are achieved only by applying military force, while negative goals, in contrast, are achieved only by limiting military force.10 For example, for the United States, the unconditional surrender of Germany in World War II was a positive political goal—one that required the destruction of Germany’s armed forces, government, and the National Socialist way of life. America applied military force to achieve this goal, and few negative objectives limited its use of the military instrument. By comparison, in Kosovo the United States had both the positive objective of removing Serb forces and the negative objective of preserving the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the latter goal restraining the amount of force that America could apply. A similar example comes from the Persian Gulf War of 1991, although in that conflict the American aim of preserving the alliance was both a positive and a negative goal. That is, President George H. W. Bush had to commit American military force against Iraqi Scuds to keep the Israelis out of the war, but if he applied too much force in the air campaign, he risked dissolving the coalition.
While some critics might equate the notion of negative objectives to constraints, to do so would be a mistake because such objectives have more significance than that. In fact, they have the same importance as positive goals. Failure to secure either the positive or the negative goals results in defeat; victory requires that both must be obtained. The United States would not have succeeded during either the Persian Gulf War or Kosovo had the coalitions that backed those enterprises collapsed. Of course, the contradictory nature of positive and negative goals creates a dilemma—what helps achieve a positive objective works against a negative one. In a limited war, negative objectives always exist; the more limited the war, the greater the number of negative objectives. As President Lyndon Johnson tragically found out in Vietnam, once his negative objectives eclipsed his positive goals, he lost the ability to achieve success with any military force—especially airpower.
How do positive and negative objectives affect the application of airpower? On the one hand, the absence of negative goals encourages the design of an air campaign with few restrictions, such as World War II’s Combined Bomber Offensive against Germany or Twentieth Air Force’s assault on Japan. A preponderance of negative goals, on the other hand, limits the application of airpower. Negative objectives have restrained American air campaigns in every major conflict since World War II—Korea, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Bosnia, Kosovo, and, most recently, Afghan-istan. The restrictions typically appear in the form of rules of engagement, “directives issued by competent military authority that delineate the circumstances and limitations under which United States forces will initiate and/or continue combat engagement with other forces encountered.”11 The impetus for these directives comes from political leaders and their negative goals (fig. 2).
Figure 2. Effect of Negative Objectives on the Application of Airpower |
The greater the number of negative objectives—and the greater the significance attached to them by political leaders—the more difficult it becomes for airpower to attain success in achieving the positive goals. This assessment is especially true of the direct, independent application of airpower. If negative objectives outweigh positive goals, they will likely curtail—perhaps even prohibit—airpower’s ability to strike at the heart of an enemy state or organization. Yet, before a user of the framework points to this statement as a basic truth, he or she should realize that the measuring of positive versus negative objectives remains an inherently subjective activity. Typically, positive and negative goals are not quantifiable; even when they are, comparing numerical results will likely equate to comparing apples and orange juice. Moreover, positive and negative objectives may be stated explicitly or only implied, which further muddies the water in terms of evaluating results. Spelling out the objectives does not guarantee clarity, however, and the lack of clearly defined goals makes gauging their achievement particularly difficult. For instance, in the Persian Gulf War, the stated American positive goals of “immediate, complete, and unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait” and “restoration of Kuwait’s legitimate government” were straight- forward, and success in achieving them was easy to determine. In contrast, gauging success in the stated positive objective of obtaining the “security and stability of Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf” proved anything but straightforward during the conflict and has remained uncertain in the aftermath of the war.12
In the case of the Persian Gulf War, the negative objectives of preserving the coalition and maintaining public support, both in the United States and worldwide, did not prevent airpower from helping remove Iraqi troops from Kuwait. Likewise, the various applications of airpower in that war did not stop President Bush from achieving his negative goals, even though the direct, independent application that hit the Al Firdos bunker in Baghdad and the direct, auxiliary applications that produced deaths from friendly fire in Kuwait made achieving the negative objectives more difficult. Ultimately, that is how airpower’s effectiveness must be measured—in terms of how well it supports the positive goals without jeopardizing the negative objectives.
In the determination of when airpower is most likely to help achieve the positive goals, five main variables, mentioned earlier, come into play.13 These variables are complex factors that cannot be easily dissected; nor can one variable be considered in isolation from the others because the variables’ effects are often complementary. Each has questions associated with it, and the questions provided are not all-inclusive—others will certainly come to mind. Answering the questions differently for one variable may cause the other variables to assume greater or lesser importance. No formula determines what variable may be the most important in any particular situation or how their combined effect may contribute to—or hinder—the achievement of the positive goals. If all five variables argue against a particular application of airpower, however, that application is unlikely to be beneficial. The assumptions made in answering the questions for each variable are also of critical importance. If those assumptions are flawed, the assessment of the variables is likely to be flawed as well.
Nature of the Enemy
What military capabilities does the enemy possess? What is the nature of his military establishment? Is it a conscript force, volunteer military, or blend? Is the enemy population socially, ethnically, and ideologically unified? Where is the bulk of the populace located? Is the populace primarily urban or agrarian? What type of government or central leadership apparatus does the enemy have? What about the individuals who lead it? Are they strong or weak, supported by the populace or despised? Or is the populace ambivalent? What is its relationship with the military and its commanders? How resolute is the political leadership? The military? The populace? How does the enemy state or organization make its money? Is it self-sufficient in any area? How important is trade? What allies does the enemy have, and how much support do they provide? If more than one enemy is involved, these questions must be asked about each enemy and a determination made about which one poses the greatest threat.
Type of War Waged by the Enemy
This variable also affects airpower’s ability to achieve a positive political objective. Is the conflict a conventional war to seize or hold territory? Is it an unconventional guerrilla struggle? Is it an insurgency supported by a third party? Is the conflict a war of movement or a stagnant fight from fixed positions? How often does the fighting occur? In general, the direct application of airpower, whether applied independently or as an auxiliary function, works best against an enemy waging a fast-paced, conventional war of movement. For example, the combination of indepen-dent and auxiliary attacks during the “dynamic” first year of the Korean War had a telling effect on the ability of the North Koreans and Chinese to fight. During the final two years of the conflict, when the North Koreans and Chinese fought sluggishly in a confined area along the 38th parallel, the direct application of airpower made little headway in achieving President Truman’s goal of a negotiated settlement that preserved a noncommunist South Korea.
Nature of the Combat Environment
What are the climate, weather, terrain, and vegetation in the hostile area? How might they affect applications of airpower? Are adequate bases available? What are the distances involved in applying airpower, and can those distances be overcome? What type of support is required?
Magnitude of Military Controls
This variable involves constraints placed on airpower applications by military rather than political leaders. Ideally, no military controls exist, but that may or may not be the case—such controls can stem from many sources. Is there unity of command? What are the administrative arrangements for controlling airpower, and do those arrangements conflict with operational control? The “route package” system that segregated Air Force from Navy airspace over North Vietnam and helped trigger competition between the two services for sorties stands as perhaps the most egregious example of how the lack of command unity can disrupt an air campaign. Doctrine can also lead to military controls. Is the doctrine that guides the various applications of airpower adaptable to different circumstances? What are the personal beliefs of commanders regarding how best to apply airpower? Personal convictions can play a significant role in limiting airpower applications—witness the Korean War. During that conflict, the Army’s Gen Matthew Ridgway, United Nations commander, prohibited the bombing of North Korean hydroelectric plants even though he had the authority to conduct the raids and had been encouraged to do so by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Ridgway believed that such attacks might expand the scope of the war, but his successor, Gen Mark Clark, had no such misgivings.14 One month after Clark took command, Air Force, Navy, and Marine aircraft attacked these facilities.
Nature of the Political Objectives
Often, this variable is the most important. Are the positive goals truly achievable through the application of military force? Is the application of airpower necessary to obtain the positive objectives? How committed is the leadership that is applying airpower to achieving the positive goals? How committed is its populace? Can leadership attain the positive goals without denying the negative objectives? How do the negative objectives limit airpower’s ability to help achieve the positive goals? The direct, independent application of airpower seems to work best for a belligerent with no negative objectives—provided a suitable type of enemy wages a suitable type of war in a suitable type of environment free of significant military restrictions. For the United States in World War II, the suitable conditions existed. Few negative objectives or military controls limited the application of military force. Americans had a decent understanding of both enemies—the Germans and the Japanese—who fought as expected in environments that ultimately proved conducive to the direct, independent application of airpower. However, since World War II, negative objectives have played prominent roles in guiding American war efforts. For the United States in the foreseeable future, the prospect of a war without them is remote indeed.
In the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan, the multifaceted nature both of American political objectives and the conflict itself has made the effectiveness of airpower applications difficult to gauge. Those political goals might be listed as follows: (1) destroying al Qaeda’s current ability to conduct global terrorism, which includes denying al Qaeda sanctuaries for launching attacks; (2) exacting retribution for the 11 September attacks (“bringing those responsible to justice”); (3) preventing the expansion/future development of global terrorism; and (4) maintaining maximum support for American actions from the rest of the world, especially the Islamic world. At first glance, the initial three goals could be deemed positive, while the fourth could be labeled negative. Yet, although the third objective likely requires lethal military force to destroy terrorist cells and prevent them from expanding, applying too much force is likely to produce collateral damage or the perception of indiscriminate destruction, either of which could serve as an al Qaeda recruiting vehicle and achieve the opposite of the desired results. Thus, the third goal must be ca-tegorized as both positive and negative.
At the same time, the other variables have had—and will continue to have—a significant impact on airpower effectiveness. The al Qaeda and the Taliban are not the same enemies, and wrecking the Taliban does not equate to eliminating al Qaeda. They also have not waged the same type of war. For the first four months of the conflict, the Taliban provided the bulk of the forces in Afghanistan and fought a “conventional” war against Northern Alliance and allied forces. Airpower contributed enormously to wrecking Taliban strength during that span. Since that time, however, the fighting has resembled the guerrilla conflict that plagued Soviet forces for much of their eight-year ordeal. Both Afghan-istan’s terrain and its climate have proven less than ideal for air operations, although technology has helped to overcome some of those difficulties. Military controls have also affected the air effort in the form of legal reviews of potential targets.
Yet, such reviews must occur if airpower is to help achieve the negative as well as the positive goals in the current conflict. In this war, which is in many respects a global struggle for “hearts and minds,” perceptions are often more potent than reality, and an enemy who relies on asymmetric means will be quick to use favorable perceptions to his own ends. Defeating that foe will require a careful employment of airpower—whether its application is direct/independent against isolated leadership targets, direct/auxiliary in support of ground operations, or indirect/indepen-dent in humanitarian-relief efforts. Regardless of how it is applied, a key to success will be assuring that all concerned view its use in the best possible light.
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In the final analysis, the effectiveness of airpower against any type of enemy depends on how well it supports the positive political goals without risking the achievement of the negative ones. The framework presented here offers no guarantee of success or failure—nor is it a predictor of the future. But it does charge those leaders who might apply airpower to think carefully before making that decision. Clausewitz warns that “no one starts a war—or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so—without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.”15 That admonishment, delivered almost two centuries ago to readers who had fought against Napoléon with muskets and sabers, remains apt in the age of air warfare.
Notes
1. Quadrennial Defense Review Report (Washington, D.C.: Department of Defense, 30 September 2001).
2. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976), 87.
3. William Mitchell, Winged Defense: The Development and Possibilities of Modern Air Power (1925; reprint, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1988), xii.
4. M. J. Armitage and R. A. Mason, Air Power in the Nuclear Age (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1983), 2.
5. Ibid., 3.
6. The largely discarded term battlefield air interdiction (BAI) describes this auxiliary function.
7. Quoted in John Schlight, The War in South Vietnam: The Years of the Offensive, 1965–1968, United States Air Force in Southeast Asia (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1988), 216.
8. Other factors may help define the battlefield as well. These include the ranges of weapons possessed by deployed ground or sea forces, or the location of such demarcations as the forward line of troops (FLOT) and the fire support coordination line (FSCL). Adm William Owens, former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, contended that a battlefield would consist of the 40,000 square miles in a 200-by-200-mile area. Although Admiral Owens’s precise delineation may be appropriate in a conventional war, it may not suit other types of conflict. See Lt Col Terry L. New, “Where to Draw the Line between Air and Land Battle,” Airpower Journal 10, no. 3 (Fall 1996): 34–49, on how the battlefield is affected by the relationship between the FLOT and the FSCL. For Admiral Owens’s notion of the battlefield, see Alan D. Zimm, “Human-Centric Warfare,” US Naval Institute Proceedings 125 (May 1999): 28.
9. Air Force Doctrine Document (AFDD) 1, Air Force Basic Doctrine, 1 September 1997, 46.
10. These terms should not be confused with Clausewitz’s concept of positive and negative objectives, which he uses in regard to attacking and defending.
11. Joint Publication 1-02, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, 12 April 2001, 380, on- line, Internet, 14 September 2002, available from http:// www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/new_pubs/jp1_02.pdf.
12. See Bard E. O’Neill and Ilana Kass, “The Persian Gulf War: A Political-Military Assessment,” Comparative Strategy 11 (April–June 1992): 219, for a thorough discussion of American war aims in the Persian Gulf War of 1991.
13. The Clausewitzian notion of friction also affects airpower’s ability to achieve positive (and negative) political goals, but, unlike the five variables, friction is a constant that cannot be specified according to assumptions and analyses.
14. Robert F. Futrell, The United States Air Force in Korea, 1950–1953, rev. ed. (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1983), 480–85; and Gen O. P. Weyland, transcript of oral history interview by Dr. James Hasdorff and Brig Gen Noel Parrish, San Antonio, Tex., 19 November 1974, Air Force Historical Research Agency, Maxwell AFB, Ala., file no. K239.0512-813, 107, 113.
15. Clausewitz, 579.
Contributor
Dr. Mark Clodfelter (USAFA; MA, University of Nebraska; PhD, University of North Caro-lina, Chapel Hill) is a professor of military history at the National War College, Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C. He has served as an Air Force weapons controller in South Carolina and Korea; a faculty member at the United States Air Force Academy and the School of Advanced Airpower Studies, Maxwell AFB, Alabama; and an ROTC detachment commander at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. A graduate of Squadron Officer School and Air Command and Staff College, Dr. Clodfelter is the author of The Limits of Air Power: The American Bombing of North Vietnam (Free Press, 1989).
Disclaimer
The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.
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