Category Archives: AirWarfare

Air Warfare – How the U.S. Military Can Win the Robotic Revolution

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Popular Mechanics – How the U.S. Military Can Win the Robotic Revolution

In 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq with just a handful of unmanned vehicles. Now, less than a decade later, we have 7000 robots overseas in the air alone. The U.S. dominates the robot war room, for now. Here, military analyst P.W. Singer lays out a plan for how the U.S. can stay ahead, and avoid building the Pontiac Aztek of war, an over-hyped but underperforming dud.

Air Warfare – Combat Generation: Drone operators climb on winds of change in the Air Force

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Washington Post – Combat Generation: Drone operators climb on winds of change in the Air Force

The Air Force’s identity crisis is one of many ways that a decade of intense and unrelenting combat is reshaping the U.S. military and redefining the American way of war. The battle against insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq has created an insatiable demand for the once-lowly drone, elevating the importance of the officers who fly them.

Air Warfare – Predator C Avenger Makes First Flights

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Aviation Week and Space Technology – Predator C Avenger Makes First Flights

A new, reduced-signature, unmanned aircraft—the long-rumored, 20-hr.-endurance, pure-jet Predator C Avenger—has emerged from General Atomics Aeronautical Systems’ workshops after a 3½-year gestation period paced by massive growth in UAV production and the use of unmanned designs in combat. The UAV’s undeniably stealthed-up exterior offers several clues about how the aircraft could be employed.

Air Warfare – What Fighters Do

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Defense Technology International – What Fighters Do

Bill Sweetman, editor of Defense Technology International, shares his PowerPoint presentation entitled “Fighters in the Long War” that explains the relevance of the manned fighter aircraft as a weapon in the 21st century. An extremely well thought out presentation from a dean of military aviation…

The presentation is stored here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/z2v3l1

Air Warfare – The Last Ace

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The Atlantic – The Last Ace

Mark Bowden writes that American air superiority has been so complete for so long that we take it for granted. For more than half a century, we’ve made only rare use of the aerial-combat skills of a man like Cesar Rodriguez, who retired two years ago with more air-to-air kills than any other active-duty fighter pilot. But our technological edge is eroding—Russia, China, India, North Korea, and Pakistan all now fly fighter jets with capabilities equal or superior to those of the F-15, the backbone of American air power since the Carter era. Now we have a choice. We can stock the Air Force with the expensive, cutting-edge F‑22—maintaining our technological superiority at great expense to our Treasury. Or we can go back to a time when the cost of air supremacy was paid in the blood of men like Rodriguez.

Air Power – The Pilotless Plane That Only Looks Like Child's Play

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New York Times – If youíre the type of shopper who spends billions of dollars on lethal military gadgets, and youíre ever invited to visit General Atomics Aeronautical Systems – the small, privately held San Diego company that has quickly become one of the military industryís most celebrated businesses – take a bit of advice: accept a ride on the corporate jet.
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Geopolitics / Strategy – Grand Strategies for Dealing With Other Stats in the New, New World Order

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Naval War College Review – Three broad strategies for maximizing the benefits the United States receives from state-to-state assistance programs are current todayóthe pivotal, buffer (or ìseamî), and failed-state strategies. Examination of the assumptions and conceptual approaches imbedded in them shows that none represents an adequate strategy for dealing with the security threats of the present day and age.

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History – Midway: Sheer Luck or Better Doctrine?

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Naval War College Review – The American and Japanese navies in the interwar years both acknowledged the transformative nature of the aircraft carrier, but they made strikingly different choices in implementing that naval revolution. The contrasting carrier doctrines and force structures these choices produced were tested decisively at Midway, in ways that speak to the nature of military technological innovation.

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