The Politics of Air Power: From Confrontation to Cooperation in Army Aviation Civil-Military Relations (review)

Rondall Rice provides an intriguing appraisal of the civil-military relationship of the United States's air arm during the interwar period. Rice argues that this is the first book to examine air enthusiasts' aptitude for working with their military and civilian leaders. He maintains that as air leaders became more adept at working within the framework of the War Department and with their congressional counterparts, Army aviation became more autonomous. Thus, he adds, the individual personalities of air leaders directly influenced the organization of Army aviation in the interwar period.

Rice succeeds by suggesting a direct relationship between cooperation and progression toward autonomy. Accordingly, he attacks Billy Mitchell and Benjamin Foulois as insubordinate "air insurgents" and praises Mason Patrick and Oscar Westover for working within the system to gain greater autonomy. This focus on the personas of air leaders provides a web of mini-biographies of men in position to influence the organization of the Army's air arm, including Trubee Davison, the Air Corps' first civilian secretary, whose extremely important political work remains too little known.

Unfortunately, Rice is not nearly as critical of the Army General Staff as he is of the leaders of the Air Corps. In one instance, Rice acknowledges that Hugh Drum and Charles Kilbourne, both members of the General Staff, viewed it as their job to counter anything that put the Air Corps in a good light. He misses an opportunity to really explore the other side of the organizational problem, why land war enthusiasts (with much more experience in command than their air war counterparts) would allow the actions of an insubordinate few to cloud their vision in assessing new technologies and strategic possibilities in providing for the national defense. Cooperation is a "two-way street." It is this other side of the street that Rice perhaps could explore in a subsequent work.

This might be a symptom of a much larger problem. Rice ignores important questions about national strategy throughout the text. We are left to assume that a military organization can be created solely based on politics and not purpose. Without an understanding of strategic thinking, many of the actions of early air leaders lack appropriate context.

Other minor problems exist. For instance, Rice uses the term "air insurgency" so much that it becomes trite. The term itself seems a harsh judgment and has become so well recognized as relating to strategy in war that it seems almost certain to be an inappropriate term for the topic. Secondly, Rice writes many times that "Hap" Arnold wanted "balanced" forces in the late 1930s but never explains what a "balanced" force was. Despite these minor issues, this is a valuable book for the questions it raises and the new detail it provides in revealing the importance of cooperation as a means to organizational innovation. Social scientists interested in organizational theory, military and airpower historians, and students of leadership and even business management will find much of value in Rice's study of the importance of cooperation in civil-military relations.