Key themes
• The air and space environments are very complex. This complexity is reflected in the sustained and vigorous debates on the roles, use and utility of air and space power.
• Air and space power, while potent and flexible, are subject to limitations which can reduce their effectiveness. Technology has helped to offset a number of obstacles to the efficacy of air and space power.
• Air power has become a vital factor in most forms of modern warfare. Some degree of control of the air is required for armies or navies to perform effectively. Air power creates powerful synergies in combination with surface forces.
• The ‘strategic effect’ that air power can deliver is much broader than the simple delivery of firepower against targets beyond the battlefield. Air power is a flexible tool, although this flexibility can be undermined by trying to impose its use on a single conceptual model.
Introduction
Despite the perception that air power originated with the development of the aeroplane, some of the key aspects of modern aerial warfare can be traced to the late eighteenth century. They illustrate not only that some of the premises regarding modern air power had their origins in concepts that remained within the institutional memory of armies and navies (even if the memories were rather dim) but also that some of the basic notions underpinning modern air power thinking are closely related to long-standing principles of war itself, rather than being revolutionary and unrelated to conflicts of centuries past. The First World War saw a pronounced quickening of aviation technology, and by the conclusion of the conflict in 1918 the fundamental roles and missions of air services had been established. The success of aircraft in the conflict – particularly in the vital role of correcting the fire of artillery, the dominant weapon in a war of static lines – also led to deeper thinking about military aviation, and from this stemmed a range of controversies and disputes over the fundamental purpose of air power, many of which remain relevant today.
These debates show that, despite its relative youth compared with the history of conflict within the land and maritime environments, the nature of air power is a contested area.
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