Chapter 1 introduces tactical air power (TAP) theory to explain why, how and when modern air power works. After World War II, two technologies changed the character of air warfare. In the Cold War the proliferation of thermonuclear weapons and the exorbitant costs anticipated from nuclear war deterred the United States and the Soviet Union. The second technology was the proliferation of radar- and infra-guided air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles, which increased the lethality of the air domain and with it the United States shifted from the bomber to tactical aircraft (tacair) as its primary combat platform. This book examines modern US air power in the Vietnam War. In Vietnam and the modern air wars that followed, US air power has been more effective in directly attacking enemy fielded forces, rather than by independent strategic bombing and air interdiction. Joint air–ground operations place the enemy on the horns of a dilemma: to mass and maneuver only to be susceptible to air attack or disperse and hide and be vulnerable to an opposed army’s attack. With the right combination of air superiority, air-to-ground capability, and a capable ground force, under the right environmental conditions, air power can disrupt an enemy’s strategy.

Chapter 4 evaluates US tactical air power from 1967 to 1968. Over North Vietnam, the Rolling Thunder air interdiction campaign struggled to isolate NVA/VC forces. Simultaneously, a strategic bombing campaign could not coerce Hanoi to withdraw its support of the insurgency. The direct attack of the NVA/VC forces in South Vietnam proved more effective, with the ultimate test occurring near the demilitarized zone (DMZ) at the US Marine base at Khe Sanh. Here, the NVA massed two divisions hoping to overrun the marines to achieve a decisive victory as they had against the French in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu. Instead, the American combined arms campaign defeated the NVA. The massing of ground forces at Khe Sanh differed from the NVA’s previous tactics of dispersing and taking sanctuary in Laos and Cambodia. Such defensive measures had previously allowed the NVA/VC to survive but had also delayed plans to launch a General Offensive and General Uprising. When the NVA/VC finally commenced their offensive in early 1968, they failed militarily at Khe Sanh and, more broadly, in the Tet Offensive. However, more importantly, the North Vietnamese succeeded politically as American support for the war evaporated.

Environmental preservation is not the only policy arena where debates about monetizing intangible values has arisen. The value of life saving arises in a number of contexts, including health and transportation as well as environmental policy. Today, economists routinely use a concept known as the Value of Statistical Life (VSL) to measure the value of life-saving investments. Thomas Schelling made the crucial move to this way of thinking, which stresses small mortality _risks_ rather than individual lives, with the hope to dodge the moral thicket of valuing life. But as recent policy debates have illustrated, his move only thickened it. Tellingly, interest in the subject can be traced back another twenty years before Schellings essay, to a controversy at the RAND Corporation following its earliest application of operation research to defense planning. RAND wanted to avoid valuing pilots lives, but the Air Force insisted they confront the issue. Thus, the VSL is not only well acquainted with political controversy; it was born from it.

War service completed Kindleberger’s intellectual formation, establishing him as fundamentally an intelligence analyst. First in London as Chief of the Enemy Objectives Unit, then on the Continent as advisor to General Bradley, and then after the war at the State Department working first under William Clayton on the reconstruction of Germany and then under George Marshall on the reconstruction of Europe, Kindleberger’s government service career provides a staffer’s eye view of the dramatic events of war and reconstruction.

This chapter examines the post-World War II development of international humanitarian law, focusing specifically on the Geneva Conventions. Beginning with an overview of the history of the Geneva Conventions, it examines how the experience of World War II and the early Cold War shaped the creation of civilian immunity norms in the immediate postwar period. Specifically, it uses archival records to show how Western states and the Soviet Bloc used emotional moral rhetoric and legal discourse to construct a relatively permissive regime of law. It begins by examining how states used moral intuitions and legal rhetoric to discuss norms concerning strategic bombing and nuclear weapons use during the negotiations over the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Next, it examines the creation of the modern principles of distinction and proportionality during the negotiations over the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions in 1977.

Chapter 6 examines the creation of the positive laws of war in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, focusing specifically on the diplomatic negotiations that led to the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions and the 1923 Hague Draft Rules on Air Warfare. It shows how emotional framing shaped the creation of the idea of lawful military targets in international law. Further, it examines the permissive effects of the laws of war by examining how norms regarding lawful military targets shaped Allied bombing policies in the European theatre of World War II. Although anti-civilian targeting norms were certainly violated many times during World War II strategic bombing, this chapter shows that these norms did have an effect in some situations. Further, they shaped how the Allies justified their policies to the public.

Two kinds of war have characterized the development of US Air Force culture. The first has involved struggles for air supremacy and decisive impact against a series of opponents, from Germany to Japan to Vietnam to Iraq. The second has involved bureaucratic fights against the US Army and the US Navy in the halls of Congress and the Pentagon. Combined, these fights have led to emphasis on recurring elements across the history of Air Force culture, including information precision, technological dominance, and decisive effect. These concentrations have structured how the US Air Force has fought its opponents, foreign and domestic, from before organizational independence in 1947 to the present day.