During the Civil War some of the earliest examples of joint operations in American Military history were undertaken. Except for General Scott's landing at Veracruz during the War with Mexico, joint undertakings in the form of amphibious operations were rare. Army and navy commanders had little experience dealing with the problems associated with the ideas of jointness. Doctrinal guidance was unavailable and commanders worked together often with mixed results. In eastern North Carolina, the Union attempted several joint operations during the course of the war. Attacks were crudely planned and executed by modern standards. The North appeared not to have drawn lessons from preceding campaigns in any systematic way. Nevertheless, a basic pattern did develop and was improved upon over time as seen by the progressive sophistication of the operations against Hatteras, New Bern, and Fort Fisher. Today, the United States military has certain fundamental principles of joint warfare that it employs. When they are applied to Civil War campaigns certain trends become evident. The success rate increased when careful planning and preparation were present and the modern principles of joint warfare were followed. Where these elements were missing, Union forces often met with defeat. Failure to anticipate and provide for contingencies doomed many Civil War campaigns and would do the same to modern-day joint operations. The principles of joint warfare are a tool; one designed to make the transition to fighting as a team easier. Using them does not guarantee the war-fighter success, but can greatly improves his chances.

Our nation's armed forces are undergoing a transformation initiated by the end of the cold war. This transformation has both political and military dimensions. This publication, "The Impact of Doctrine on Air Force Role and Missions," takes a historical look at the role of doctrine in the past in Chapter 1 and concludes that doctrine will continue to play an important role. Chapter 2 studies the history of significant roles and missions reviews with an eye towards the durability of decisions made in these reviews and an understanding of institutional barriers to change. Chapter 3 covers our national policy in the post-Cold War period and provides a stepping stone to Chapter 4. It is in Chapter 4 that the technological advances brought about by the cold war, doctrine, and national policy are combined with a strategy and then applied to the new world situation. This section concludes that there are tremendous advantages available to the United States government in attacking the leadership of states inimical to US policy. The research conducted represents a review of both historical and contemporary works, with a focus on the idea that the Air Force should change and now is a good time for change.

The threat to Earth due to the impact of an Earth-crossing asteroid or comet is not new, but scientists have only recently recognized it as a continuing threat. The past ten years reveal several frightening near misses, and "hits" by bodies too small to survive long enough in the atmosphere to cause damage. The hazard created when an object strikes Earth varies greatly, from a minimum of no damage due to the object's destruction in the atmosphere to a maximum of millions of deaths, extinction of species, and an end to present civilization. While the potential hazard is great, the probability of occurrence is low, but an impact will happen; the only question is when. Technology exists to deal with this threat, but serious, organized effort to identify potential threatening objects and to deflect threatening objects is virtually nonexistent. This book analyzes planetary defense issues and develops seven recommendations for national policy and near term actions to be taken by the United States to develop and implement a system to defend Earth from potential impact by comets and asteroids.

Information Attack is defined by the USAF as either "directly corrupting adversary information without changing visibly the physical entity in which it resides." or "activities taken to manipulate or destroy an adversary's information without visibly changing the physical entity within which it resides." This essay argues that the proper understanding and future development of information attack, based on USAF information warfare competencies and systems, is the key to information dominance. It is likewise argued that a central obstacle to a future information warfare capability is that the words and definitions currently used among the Joint Staff and the armed forces to guide future development in IW are unclear, confused, and often contradictory as they fail to distinguish IW from Command and Control Warfare (C2W) and fail completely to incorporate USAF views on information attack. The future potential in information warfare to substitute precise and discriminate credible information- whether by the methods of C2W (deception, PSYOP, or other means) or information attack- to a precise and discriminate target decision maker is the essence of decisive maneuver as it may position the adversary in space and time, by his own decision, in a fatally disadvantageous strategic situation. Information attack is not so much perception management as orientation management. Information is both the target and the weapon: the weapon effect is predictable error. In future operating environments marked by ambiguity, speed, and precision effect, it will be the relative or differential advantage in information, information processing, and communication and information security that will provide the narrow margin for victory. Future USAF mastery of information attack, through air and space power unconstrained by artificial notions of battlefield-only command and control warfare, will provide the capability for asymmetric strategic response based on decisive and differential information advantage.

The intent of this paper is to provide a general framework to be used as a road map by the US to successfully navigate the hazardous divide between the Kurds and the Turks, and the various ethnic groups of northeastern Iraq thereby guaranteeing a stable northern Iraq.