Four forces airpower theory.

This monograph suggests an airpower theory that helps explain why airpower does not result in quick, clean, economical, "ideal" war. The genesis of this study comes from the observation that airpower advocates, from early personalities such as William Mitchell and Giulio Douhet, to present day U.S. Air Force leadership, forecast how newer and better airpower technology will almost certainly result in quick, decisive wars, but tend to underestimate the factors that work against airpower. The earliest notions of ideal war came from a desire to avoid a repeat of the trench carnage during World War I. Airpower advocates seem to profess that the right airpower technology could almost bloodlessly force enemies to capitulate. Looking only at American wars since the advent of military airpower, it is clear that airpower has changed the character of war, but airpower does not and probably will not drive war to the point of "ideal." The novelty of this theory stems from the graphic analogy of the four forces that act upon an aircraft in flight. The theory suggests that technology is the "thrust" that propels airpower towards ideal war by generating the "lift" of improved effects. The "drag" of resource constraints and "weight" or "gravity" of enemy technology and counter-tactics work in opposition and drag airpower from ideal towards real war. A review of three major airpower advocates, William Mitchell, Giulio Douhet, and John Warden, sets a foundation for how airpower advocates have developed ideas, concepts, and theory about airpower's future capabilities. Three case studies, the B-17, free-fall nuclear bomb, and F-22A fighter, trace how airpower advocacy led to technology that would enable ideal war. In each case, application of the Four Forces theory demonstrates that while resource constraints and enemy technology and counter-tactics prevent ideal war, airpower technology improves the character of war as a whole.