Decisions about when, where, and why to commit the United States to the use of force, and how to conduct warfare and ultimately end it, are hotly debated not only contemporaneously but also for decades afterward. We are engaged in such a debate today, quite often without a solid grounding in the country's experience of war, both political and military. This book, by a political scientist and a career military officer and historian, is premised on the view that we cannot afford that kind of innocence. Updated and revised with new chapters on the Afghan and Iraq wars, the book systematically examines twelve U.S. wars from the revolution to the present day. For each conflict the authors review underlying issues and events; political objectives; military objectives and strategy; political considerations; military technology and technique; military conduct, and 'the better state of the peace', that is, the ultimate disposition of the original political goals.

Decisions about when, where, and why to commit the United States to the use of force, and how to conduct warfare and ultimately end it, are hotly debated not only contemporaneously but also for decades afterward. We are engaged in such a debate today, quite often without a solid grounding in the country's experience of war, both political and military. This book, by a political scientist and a career military officer and historian, is premised on the view that we cannot afford that kind of innocence. Updated and revised with new chapters on the Afghan and Iraq wars, the book systematically examines twelve U.S. wars from the revolution to the present day. For each conflict the authors review underlying issues and events; political objectives; military objectives and strategy; political considerations; military technology and technique; military conduct, and 'the better state of the peace', that is, the ultimate disposition of the original political goals.

First Published in 2015. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an Informa company.

Some readers may wonder at the title of this volume. It was inspired, in a somewhat roundabout way, by Air Force chief of staff T. Michael Moseley, who struggled mightily during his tenure to, in his words, "recapitalize the fleet" of aging USAF aircraft during a period of significant budget constraints. In a world of rapid change and confounding problems that threaten all of mankind, intellectual recapitalization of the Air Force has become critical to survival and success and is at least equal in importance to the recapitalization of the aircraft fleet. One article, "The Essence of Aerospace Power: A New Perspective from a Century of Experience," had been heavily edited to meet the space limitations of the journal in which it was published. The essays and speeches are grouped into four broad subject areas, within which they are arranged chronologically. Part 1, Considering the Past-Contemplating the Future, examines some classical military themes and their relationship to modern military problems and the use of modern airpower. Airpower is a child of technological development, and Airmen are in love with their high-tech gadgetry. Technological fascination is not limited to Airmen, of course, but Airmen have raised that fascination to the status of a fetish, often to the exclusion of fundamental military thinking that could profitably inform them about the employment of airpower above the tactical level. The essays in part 1 address these issues. All were written and published during the 1980s. Part 2, The End of the Cold War, looks at problems that were a consequence of this historical development. Although cause for much joy and relief, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the self-liberation of the former Soviet empire, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union also caused great angst in the US military. It was almost immediately clear to those with any insight that as the new millennium (in one sense of that word) was about to begin, the old millennium (in another sense of that word) had not yet departed. Local and regional politico-military struggles long suppressed by the Cold War superpowers raised their ugly heads as the stability of the Cold War gave way to the near chaos of the post-Cold War. Faced with an enormous amount of uncertainty, the US military had to reevaluate its size, composition, and essential missions, all of which fostered spirited debate within and among the services. The essays and speeches in part 2 illustrate these concerns from an Airman's point of view and are representative of the kinds of jockeying for position (and funding) that went on between the services. These essays and speeches were all written between 1990 and 1993. The demise of our arch adversary, the upheaval of the Cold War regime, and the uncertainty that ensued prompted fierce competition for what all assumed would be drastically reduced military budgets. To make the case for maintaining a strong air arm in the post-Cold War era, it was prudent to begin thinking about the fundamentals of airpower, its impact during the twentieth century, and its potential to make important contributions during the post-Cold War era. Thus the essays in part 3, The Nature and Impact of Airpower, reexamine these issues and attempt to identify what airpower is really all about and what makes it so fundamentally different from land and sea power. These essays, written between 1988 and 2002, examine the impact of airpower and how it influenced national and military strategy since it came of age in the middle of the twentieth century. Finally, the essays and speech selected for part 4, Educating Airmen, reflect the primary focus of the author's career for 30 years and the fundamental reason for writing every essay in this volume as well as every other essay, monograph, and book he's written.

For more than 35 years a successful part of the post-World War II collective security network was ANZUS a defense alliance between Australia, New Zealand and the United States. The Alliance worked well for many years. However, in the mid-1980's events cause the alliance to revise in such a way that a return to its former state became doubtful. Also, Australia and New Zealand wanted their defense forces more self-reliant and increasingly focused own their own region, The author has helped increase awareness in this volume and he discusses many of the issues.

Americans have traditionally viewed war as an aberration in the normal course of events. Although paying lip service to the Clausewitzian dictum that war and politics are two parts of a tightly knit whole, we have traditionally waged wars as great crusades divorced from political realities. Thus we have been nonplussed in the last half of the twentieth century by our involvement in limited wars waged for limited objectives. America's responsibilities as a superpower with worldwide interests forced upon us the unpleasant notion of using our armed forces as practical instruments of political policy. The reality of this notion has been difficult for many Americans to understand and accept. Col Dennis M. Drew and Dr. Donald M. Snow have performed a significant service by producing a volume that places the American experience at war in its proper political context. Going further, they have also placed the American experience in a technological context and analyzed how political and technological factors influenced the conduct of American wars. In addition, they have combined all of these factors and analyzed their influences on the outcomes of our wars, what Sir Basil Liddell Hart called "the better state of peace," which is the fundamental objective of warfare. One can find a number of military, political, and technological histories that address the American experience at war. However, I know of no other single volume that addresses all of these aspects in such a concise and readable fashion. But Eagle's Talons is much more than just a history of the American experience. If gaining insights about where we are going requires an understanding of where we have been, Colonel Drew and Dr. Snow provide a key to understanding how and why the United States might employ its military power in the future.

The author provides a reasoned, balanced, and very basic look at low-intensity conflict from a military point of view.

Illustrates how US air power was not prepared for the conflict in Vietnam because of its emphasis on strategic bombardment and how the war's outcome may not have been any different even if the military had been allowed to carry out its desired intensive bombing campaign.

This new work defines national security strategy, its objectives, the problems it confronts, and the influences that constrain and facilitate its development and implementation in a post-Cold War, post-9/11 environment. The authors note that making and implementing national strategy centers on risk management and present a model for assessing strategic risks and the process for allocating limited resources to reduce them. The major threats facing the United States now come from its unique status as "the sole remaining superpower" against which no nation-state or other entity can hope to compete through conventional means. The alternative is what is now called asymmetrical or fourth generation warfare. Drew and Snow discuss all these factors in detail and bring them together by examining the continuing problems of making strategy in a changed and changing world. Originally published in 2006.

In December 1942, barely a year after the United States had entered World War II, the American military establishment was already planning a postwar overseas base network. Although initially designed to support an international police force, the plans increasingly assumed a national character as the Grand Alliance dissolved into the confrontations of the Cold War. Dr. Converse not only illustrates how Army, Navy, and Air Force planners went about their work but also analyzes the numerous factors influencing the nature, extent, and location of the projected base system. These included requirements for postwar US physical and economic security, rapidly changing technology, interservice rivalries, civil-military conflicts, and reactions by other nations to the prospect of American bases near or on their soil.

This book is about national security strategy: what it is, what its objectives are, what problems it seeks to solve or at least manage, and what kinds of influences constrain and create opportunities for the development and implementation of strategies. The heart of the problem with which national security strategy deals is the series of threats-normally military, but increasingly semi- or nonmilitary in character-that the country must confront and somehow overcome or contain. When the original version of this book1 was published in 1988, the set of threats facing the United States was reasonably static-those problems associated with the Cold War confrontation with a communist world led by the Soviet Union-even if there were signs of change on the horizon. In the ensuing decade and a half, that configuration of problems largely dissolved, along with the concrete parameters within which we operated. In its place is a much more diffuse, shifting, and controversial set of problems that is simultaneously simple, compelling, and arguable. Making strategy is no longer a simple, straightforward process, if it ever were. The making and implementation of strategy at the national level is largely an exercise in risk management and risk reduction. Risk, at that level, is the difference between the threats posed to our security by our adversaries and our capabilities to counter or negate those threats. Assessing risk and resolving it has two primary dimensions. The first is the assessment of risk itself: what conditions represent threats to our security, and how serious are those threats relative to one another and to our safety? The answers to these questions are not mechanical and obvious but are the result of subjective human assessments based on different political and philosophical judgments about the world and our place in it. The other dimension is the adequacy of resources to counter the threats that we identify. In circumstances of plenty, where there are adequate resources (manpower, materiel, perceived will, etc.) to counter all threats, this is not a problem. In the real world, each of these dimensions presents a real set of issues, which we must acknowledge up front.

National security strategy is a vast subject involving a daunting array of interrelated sublements woven in intricate, sometimes vague, and ever-changing patterns. Its processes are often irregular and confusing and are always based on difficult decisions laden with serious risks. In short, it is, at the same time, a subject of overwhelming importance to the fate of the United States and civilization itself. The authors have done a considerable service by drawing together many of the diverse threads of national security into a coherent whole. They consider political and military strategy elements as part of a larger decision making process influenced by economic, technological, cultural and historical factors. Air University Press. United States Air Force.