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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.
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