This is the sort of monograph a senior scholar of Prof. David R.
Mets's stature should write. As its title says, the study is first
of all an effort to place a consequential airpower thinker in the
context of the discourse. Since Professor Mets has been researching
and writing about airpower history and topical studies for over
forty years, he is well qualified to do the job. Beyond its surface
intent, however, this study is also a forum for Mets to give forth
a little on the broader meaning of the discourse and on some of its
specific parts. Consequently, what starts out as an essay on Col.
John Warden's place in the pantheon of great airpower thinkers
becomes also an opportunity to hear new things about the missions
of air warfare, the historical processes that shaped airpower
thought, and the reality and importance of the revolution in
military affairs. In his straightforward approach to analysis,
Professor Mets begins his discussions of three better-known
airpower thinkers of the 1920s - Giulio Douhet, Hugh Trenchard, and
Billy Mitchell - with a close examination of their personal
backgrounds. He pays particular attention to their professional
education and operation flying experience. Mets then lays out the
salient elements of each thinker's aerial theories, again paying
particular attention to the views of each on the relationship of
air warfare to warfare in general, its potential for independent
decisiveness, target priorities, the air arm's suitability for
organization independence, command arrangements, and air
superiority. With those bodies of theory laid out for easy
summation and comparison, Dave then does the same thing for John
Warden. His subsequent comparison of the four individuals - three
who context included precision munitions and space surveillance -
is revealing. Although Warden's professional education and direct
operational experience far outshine those of his predecessors, his
core theories reflect as much continuity with their ideas as they
reflect differences and accommodations to contemporary technology.
These relationships are obscured sometimes by terminology
differences, however, and it is one of Professor Mets's more
important contributions that he cuts through them to show where
Warden draws more from his predecessors than is obvious at first.
General
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