The Influence of Airpower upon History: Statesmanship, Diplomacy, and Foreign Policy since 1903

Introduction

1 Introduction Robin Higham Even as early man gazed up at the winged creatures soaring above him and first contemplated the wonders of flight, he began to grapple with the concept of airpower. The primal warrior could imagine the advantages of towering above his enemy, not only to observe his every plan and artifice but also perhaps to humble him with thunderbolts striking down. Flight entered ancient Greek mythology as the domain of Daedalus ’s genius and the fatal allure that triggered Icarus’s demise. In 328 or 327 B.C. Alexander the Great cowed into surrender the defenders of the Rock of Sogdiana, a mountain stronghold, just by having unarmed volunteers scale the heights surrounding the fortress. The besieged garrison commander was so unnerved by the sight of the Macedonians perched above his troops that he capitulated at once. In ancient China the kites that were created some three thousand years ago were being cleverly used for military purposes. In about 200 B.C., during the Han Dynasty, General Han Xin dispatched a kite over city walls—a virtual reconnaissance—in order to determine how deep were the city’s defenses. So it was that centuries before the Wright brothers ever mastered the currents of the ether, the various “monsters of the purple twilight,” along with their uses in war and diplomacy, had entered human consciousness . Visionaries began to conceive the potentials of airpower, and the first true airpower theorists appeared in the early twentieth century. Ever since, those holding the reins of political control—the statesmen of the twentieth century and beyond—have had to develop their own sense of the uses, limits, and consequences of this evolving capability. Before the advent of airpower, grand-strategic thinking had been built on theories of sea power. Vice Admiral Sir Herbert Richmond’s 2 Robin Higham Statesmen and Sea Power (1946) and his unfinished Navy as an Instrument of Policy I (1953) built on Alfred Thayer Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 (1890) and The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793–1812 (1892) by focusing on the grand-strategic aspects of the employment of the Royal Navy—aspects limited by the geography of seas and coasts. Ships can stop their engines and float; aircraft—other than airships —cannot. But the invention of the internal combustion engine and of the airframe quickly changed the dimensions of grand strategy from surface and subsurface capabilities to a full three dimensions. Yet airpower as an instrument of policy was a two-edged sword; it took some years to develop the technology and organization for effective air defense, let alone the legislative will to finance it. Thus, both potential The French aviation pioneers Roland Garros (right) and Gustav Hamel with an early Morane monoplane, circa 1914. Early air shows provided visibility for national airpower . (SHAA B887-3568) Introduction 3 belligerents—air and sea power—were vulnerable, which Giulio Douhet and like theorists pointed out. As the Royal Navy discovered when confronted by the U-boat, Britain was potentially at risk; the nation became aware that it was endangered by quite small enemy forces, which from 1915 to 1918 were hard to parry. And later, in both Britain and Germany between 1935 and 1945, this vulnerability required efforts costly in manpower as well as other resources. The dimensions of the “air menace” were reshaped after 1945 by the nuclear threat. The double-edged nature of nuclear force—its massive power, its “overkill”—eventually made apparent that it had to become the unusable weapon. In addition, global conflicts in time would change, becoming ever more asymmetrical owing to the unequal strengths and vast differences between the world’s haves and have nots. The “sword”—the fighting might or power—of insurgent masses or struggling minorities had no infrastructure of munitions or machines; rather, it became an ideological instrument of policy, often just as expensive in all its calculations to a nation. Nevertheless, despite the changing nature of conflicts, instruments of diplomatic policy are in continual play, as is true of any element of national grand strategy. Air forces in peacetime may be weak and unusable , yet strong enough overall as a deterrent to maintain that peace, much like a wartime instrument. Airpower can carry the same weight for furthering national policy in wartime, and its application may range from the development of airliners and commercial...