Recent joint force thinking has espoused effects-based operations (EBO) as an evolutionary, some say revolutionary, approach to warfare. The 2003 Joint Operations Concepts document states, "The Joint Force uses an effects-based approach." With this in mind the primary question is, Can an effects-based approach to the conduct of joint close air support (CAS) improve achievement of the supported ground commander's intent? EBO history and theory are explored as well as the current state of joint CAS doctrine, demonstrating that EBO is conceptually well documented but effects-based ideas are just recently beginning to appear in joint publications. Current CAS doctrine presents the objective-based approach to warfare prevalent in most joint and service publications. Due to the lack of historical examples of effects-based CAS operations, the thesis uses a qualitative comparison of objective- and effects-based CAS to analyze the primary question. The analysis reveals an effects-based approach can improve achievement of the supported ground commander's intent to some degree over the current approach and suggests that EBO is an evolutionary development of objective-based operations that should be formally incorporated into the conduct of joint CAS.

The US Air Force, and the U.S. armed forces separate service air arms, have historically wrestled with how to apply air and space power to non-traditional forms of warfare, such as insurgency and counterinsurgency. While the airplane was used as early as 1916 in such a context in the Punitive Expedition against Francisco "Pancho" Villa, U.S. military doctrine has struggled to keep pace with the ever-evolving nature of warfare, especially with regard to air and space power's role within it. The U.S. joint community's latest development of the warfare spectrum includes insurgency and counterinsurgency under the construct of irregular warfare, delineating it from traditional war, which is characterized by conventional, state-on-state major combat operations. This monograph explores and evaluates the history of airpower doctrine in irregular warfare and assesses the current state of that doctrine, asking the question: what is the best synthesis of ideas for creating a basic and operational irregular warfare airpower doctrine? The study establishes a set of criteria for evaluating irregular warfare airpower doctrine based on analytical studies by several prominent and recent small war airpower researchers. Finally, the paper evaluates current and past irregular warfare airpower doctrine through this analytical lens, providing recommendations for the improvement of USAF and joint airpower in irregular warfare doctrine.