This study is based on an examination of professional military education (PME) for United States Air Force officers that was conducted in 1988 at the Airpower Research Institutes (ARI), Air University Center for Aerospace Doctrine, Research, and Education (AUCADRE), Maxwell AFT, Alabama. The original study researched the history and evolution of the Air Force's PME systems, assessed the current status of Air Force PME, and compared the PME systems of the other US military services to that of the Air Force. This extract, however, restricts itself to the history of Air Force PME between 1946 and 1987. Originally, seven ARI officers, including the editors of this study, worked on the project. Collectively, they examined more than 345 documents, - letters, regulations, manual, studies, reports, catalogs, and histories - in an effort to fully understand the criticisms made of Air Force PME throughout its history. The capstone of Air Force PME is Air University (AU), located at Maxwell Air Force Base. AU consists of three schools: Squadron Officer School, Air Command Staff College, and Air War College. During the more than 40 years examined here, PME became thoroughly institutionalized. Further, the quality of professional education offered by AU was constantly assessed and reassessed. External observers (those outside the Air Force) and internal observers (both military and civilian, assigned from within the Air Force) regularly examined the qualifications and teaching methods of the schools' faculty, as well as the schools' curricula. Throughout this period, PME's purpose was the subject of ongoing discussion: whether it should provide broad or specialized instruction and whether it should address only military issues or include political and related topics. These questions remain unanswered because the Air Force has never effectively defined what it wanted its officers to know or to be. Although the assessments described in this book are not exhaustive, they are representative of both internal and external commentary over the entire four-decade period. Internal criticism is especially difficult to assess since it is often only implicit in recommendations for changes made by the various groups that conducted studies of PME. In addition, internal Air Force reviews of AU and the schools tended to become less critical as the schools became institutionalized, thus making an objective assessment even more difficult. On the other hand, external criticisms - particularly those from non-Department of Defense observers - were prone to find fault with PME. These evaluations were more likely to be explicitly critical, often bluntly so, and they too were perhaps not wholly objective. This study seeks a balance between the two types of criticisms and attempts to determine how they complement each other.

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.

Although the United States Air Force was founded upon strategic bombardment theory and advocacy, the service has traditionally had tremendous difficulty in obtaining the adequate funding for bombers that it requires to fulfill its mandate. For more than 45 years, senior Air Force leaders, both military and civilian, have struggled to convince decision-makers in the White House and in Congress that modern manned bomber forces were needed, acceptable, and affordable. In this study, Donnini produces one of the most exhaustive analyses ever undertaken of Congressional subcommittee decision-making in the funding of defense procurement initiatives. He concludes that no program achieved measurable success of deployment with the original force structure requested; and only two, the B-1B and B-2A, received approval to acquire lesser numbers of aircraft for operational use. Donnini found that an important part of each new bomber program appeared to be funding support through federal appropriations. If the right amounts were appropriated, the programs survived; if lesser amounts were given, chances for program failure were good; however, was funding support the deciding factor? This book used multiple case studies and the unorthodox methodology of applied content analysis of Congressional budget hearings to examine Air Force efforts to fund the most recent main bombers it sought (the B-70, B-1A, B-1B, and B-2A) and to determine measurements of success. The author's findings have implications concerning the way the United States handles procurement initiatives for major new weapon systems considered fundamental necessities for national defense.