Blurring the Lines Part III: Airpower Applications in the Gray Zone
Figure 1: The U-10 was a military variant of Helio Aircraft Company’s Super Courier. The Air Force, Army, and CIA used more than 100 aircraft in three different models during the Vietnam War. Here a...
View ArticleBringing the Air Division Back to the Future
Figure 1: Homestead-based F-104 Interceptors of the 319th Fighter Interceptor Squadron over Biscayne Bay in 1958. The 319th was attached to the 32nd Air Division, which was responsible for air defense...
View ArticleUplifted: The Case for Small Tactical Airlift
In Europe, NATO once again faces a threat from Russian ground forces, postured to the East. Operations in Ukraine have conclusively demonstrated the willingness and ability of the Russian government to...
View ArticleUnwarranted: Reconsidering the Air Force Warrant Officer
The Air Force is faced with a long-standing conundrum — not enough pilots, particularly fighter pilots. The causes of the shortage are longstanding, and have defied easy or quick solutions. The...
View ArticleFinding the Way (Again): Building the Air Force’s New Century Series
We’ve got to kill the major defense acquisition program as it is today, and replace it with something that looks like the Century Series development of the Early Air Force. –Dr. William Roper Dr....
View ArticleFeatherweight Airlift: For Want of a Nail
For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost; being overtaken and slain by the enemy, all for want of care about a horse-shoe...
View ArticleShapes, Part I: The Shape of Airpower
Figure 1: The medium-range stealth strikefighter that should have been: The YF-23 “Grey Ghost” in flight over the Mojave, August 2006 (U.S. Air Force photo) This is the first in a two-part series,...
View ArticleShapes, Part II: The Shape of Strategy
This is the second in a two-part series, called “Shapes,” which examines the assumptions behind how the Air Force designs its combat aviation at the enterprise level, rather than at the aircraft level....
View ArticleAirpower Orphans, Part I: Putting the “Operational Support” Back in...
On Nov. 7, 1910, 24-year old Philip Parmalee took off from Huffman Prairie airfield, a glorified cow pasture in Ohio, in a Wright Model B aircraft. Sixty-six minutes later, he landed at a flag-marked...
View ArticleAirpower Orphans, Part II: Whatever Happened to Liaison Aircraft?
The airplane was remarkably pretty. Sporting a steel frame, the O-49 was a high-wing, fabric-covered monoplane built for the Army Air Corps in 1940. Silvery sheet metal enclosed the engine, in front of...
View ArticleAvoiding the Charge of the Light Brigade Against China
Editor’s Note: This week, War on the Rocks is featuring some old favorites from the archives. This article was originally published in 2016. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in...
View ArticleSlaying the Unicorn: The Army and Fixed-Wing Attack
Consider another day under the hot sun as a four-man team in some distant land goes out on patrol on an “advise and assist” mission. This is hardly unusual — these missions are replicated globally...
View Article21 Years Later: The First Shots of the Second Gulf War
At 10:05:24 Zulu (1:05 p.m. local), on the morning of Dec. 28, 1998, Lt. Col. Al “Bat” Cross and I were in Coors 01, an F-15E Strike Eagle, southbound northeast of Mosul, Iraq, over the northern no-fly...
View ArticleThe Army Should Rid Itself of Symbols of Treason
“I, _____, appointed a _____ in the Army of the United States, do solemnly swear, or affirm, that I will bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and that I will serve them honestly and...
View ArticleOf Course the U.S. Military Has A White Supremacy Problem. It’s Baked In.
What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a...
View ArticleThe Dangerous Allure of the No-Fly Zone
Editor’s Note: This is a heavily revised and updated version of an article written by the authors for these pages in 2016. Don’t miss our comprehensive guide to Russia’s war against Ukraine. A press...
View ArticleAmateur Hour Part I: The Chinese Invasion of Taiwan
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine set off a flurry of handwringing over Taiwan. Russia, in this interpretation, “broke the ice” by attacking Ukraine, emboldening China versus Taiwan. But any such action by...
View ArticleAmateur Hour Part II: Failing the Air Campaign
An air campaign is the controlled conduct of a series of interrelated air operations to achieve specified objectives. The conduct of effective air campaigns is the hallmark of all successful air...
View ArticleAmateur Hour Part III: It’s Still Not About the Airplane
Ukraine is fighting for its existence and the war that began with unchecked Russian aggression in 2014 has become the most destructive conflict in Europe since World War II. Ukraine, ably defended by...
View ArticleBuilding R2-D2
When Star Wars debuted in 1977, it marked a major departure from the depiction of sci-fi robots. R2-D2 was a cylindrical, round-headed, three-legged “astromech” droid that communicated in whistles,...
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