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  • Why Air Forces Fail: The Anatomy of Defeat
  • Michael S. Neiberg (bio)
Why Air Forces Fail: The Anatomy of Defeat. Edited by Robin Higham and Stephen J. Harris . Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 2006. Pp. 382. $39.95.

Since their inception, air forces have held out the enticing prospect of using their high-tech weapons to fight new kinds of wars. In the 1920s, air theorists like Giulio Douhet and Billy Mitchell promised that air forces could win wars by striking deep into the heart of the enemy. More recently, the United States relied on "shock and awe" to clear away both the military and psychological impediments to victory in Iraq. Despite the promises of such dazzling victories, air power alone has rarely delivered anything close to the promise. The editors of this volume claim that only Israel in 1967 and the United States in the two Persian Gulf wars began wars with air dominance that they maintained throughout the course of a conflict. In those cases, of course, the brief nature of the war meant that the Israelis and Americans did not need to test the long-term durability of their air prowess.

This volume is refreshingly dedicated not to understanding why air forces succeed, but why they fail. Turning the problem on its head in this fashion allowed coeditors Robin Higham and Stephen Harris to divide their case studies into three categories: air forces that had no realistic chances of meeting their missions (the dead ducks); those that had initial success they could not sustain (the hares); and those that suffered badly at the outset of wars, but recovered sufficiently to contribute to victory (the phoenixes).

The themes that emerge prove "the falseness of the axiom" (p. 344) that airpower's advanced technologies somehow exempted it from the problems faced by land and sea forces. Indeed, what emerges here is a vision of technology [End Page 234] creating its own hazards. An advanced technological military system creates its own need for sophisticated infrastructures, including trained pilots and mechanics, auxiliary technologies such as radar, and well-developed manufacturing plants. They also require consistent, wise procurement choices by officers and politicians alike in an environment of rapidly changing technologies. Air power, in particular, changed so rapidly that technologies on the cutting edge in 1925 were hopelessly outdated by 1935. Thus the editors conclude that success depends "not so much on the technology as on the prescience, understanding, and management of that resource" (p. 4).

The essays themselves follow a carefully developed and well-thought-out format that includes analyses of not just military factors, but social, political, and cultural factors as well. Each essay also includes suggestions for further research and an extensive bibliography. The authors are internationally recognized experts in their areas, including John Morrow on the Central Powers in World War I, Anthony Christopher Cain on France in World War II, and Mark Parillo on the United States in the Pacific theater during World War II. Small wars and small powers are also represented through essays on the Arab air forces of 1973 (by coeditor Higham), the Argentine air force in 1982 (by René De La Pedraja), and Poland in 1939 (by Michael Alfred Peszke).

The picture that emerges from these individual efforts is one of air forces called upon to fulfill missions they had not envisioned, hampered by poor decisions in prewar years, and often dependent on the success of others, such as the ability of armies to protect airfields from invaders. Those air forces with strategic space such as Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union in World War II adapted, while others failed to adjust to changing realities. These failures were multicausal and owed as much to flawed vision as to a failure to keep pace technologically. Possessing superior technology, in other words, was not the same as knowing how to use it to maximum advantage in the crucible of war.

This thought-provoking and informative volume adds greatly to our understanding of how air forces are (and are not) subject to the same constraints as more conventional forces. The book might have benefited from the inclusion of discussions of more controversial...

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