Why Air Forces Fail: The Anatomy of Defeat edited by Robin Higham and Stephen J. Harris. University Press of Kentucky (http://www.kentucky press.com), 663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008, 2006, 416 pages, $39.95 (hardcover).

Historians have well documented the defeats of armies and navies but have paid far less attention to the defeat of air forces. What does exist is usually in histories of the greater conflict of which the air campaigns were a part. In Why Air Forces Fail, perhaps the first study of its kind, 11 well-known historians of aerial warfare take on this noteworthy task with short but detailed and engaging essays. The contributors consider the defeats of the air forces of Poland (1939), France (1940), Arab countries (1967), Germany and Austria-Hungary (1914–18), Italy (1939–43), Imperial Japan (1942–45), Germany (1940–45), Argentina (Falklands War, 1982), Russia (1941), United States (1941–42), and Britain (1941–42). Through these essays, the book explains the complex, often deep-seated foundations for these catastrophes.

The book’s editors are well versed in military history. Robin Higham, professor emeritus of military history at Kansas State University and editor of the journal Aerospace Historian from 1970 to 1988, has written and edited many books on varied aspects of military history. Currently chief historian at the Directorate of History and Heritage, National Defence Headquarters, Canada, Stephen Harris coauthored the official history of the Canadian air force. The two editors asked prospective contributors to examine “archetypical examples from which worthwhile conclusions could be drawn” (p. 1) and provided them with numerous questions to stimulate their thinking. They especially wanted the contributors to go beyond technical, tactical, and political reasons for the defeats of the subject air forces.

Thus, the essays are both overviews and analytical narratives that examine more than the specific air campaign. In addition to the typical reasons for these catastrophic defeats, the contributors provide doctrinal, logistical, and cultural reasons to show why these air forces failed in their respective historical air campaigns. Each also discusses the industrial and economic capability of each country to produce/obtain the quantity and quality of aircraft (airframes and aircraft engines) needed to counter prospective enemies effectively. Most also discuss an important but often overlooked aspect—the quality of aircrews and maintenance personnel.

Guided by the editors’ initial request, each contributor came up with the same basic reasons for the defeat for these air forces despite differences in time, place, economic status, and culture. They concluded that the leaders of each country and its air force did not properly connect doctrine, technology, and industrial output to produce aircraft and trained crews and maintenance personnel to preclude defeat in the historical campaign. Their failure did not generally stem from ignorance or stupidity but from the politics and culture of their times. For example, the defeated air forces of 1939–42 were the products of post–World War I mentality and economics as much as technology developments. The initial air victors of that conflict—Germany and Japan—had simply done better than their defeated enemies. However, in the long run, neither air force could maintain its position because of the same basic causes that hampered the air forces they had initially defeated.

The editors could have organized the book better. The essays are arranged haphazardly—not topically or even chronologically. Higham and Harris themselves write that the defeated air forces fall into three categories: (1) the “dead ducks,” which never had a chance (German air force of World War I, Russian in 1941, Polish in 1939, French, and Italian); (2) the “hares,” which had initial success but eventually failed (Luftwaffe and Japanese air force in World War II); and (3) the “phoenixes,” which suffered initial defeats but were reborn from the ashes of their defeats (the Argentine air force, Arab air forces, Royal Air Force in 1941–42, and US Army Air Forces in the Pacific, 1941–42). If the editors had arranged the essays by these categories, readers could have better discerned similarities and differences among the different air forces.

As one would expect, the essays differ in quality and depth. The better ones cover a relatively short campaign, such as those of the Polish and French air forces at the beginning of World War II. On the other end of the spectrum, one finds the essay on the Arab air forces, which tries to do too much by discussing all of the major Middle Eastern air forces, including the Israeli air force, from the 1950s to the 1970s. A better approach would have focused more on the Egyptian and Israeli air forces alone. Each essay also includes short bibliographies and areas for future research—definite pluses. Overall, Why Air Forces Fail represents a much-needed and long-overdue addition to airpower history and a must-read for any airpower enthusiast, historian, and serving operational Air Force officer.

Dr. Robert B. Kane, Lieutenant Colonel, USAF, Retired
Air Armament Center
Eglin AFB, Florida

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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