Airpower for Strategic Effect (Columbia/Hurst)

Airpower for Strategic Effect provides a critical, strategic history of airpower as well as a new general theory. A wholly original work combining ideas drawn from existing literature on airpower with Colin S. Gray's own research on strategy, this study situates the story of airpower within a larger history of modern strategy, reevaluating the benefits of airpower from World War I to recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Gray rethinks airpower's strategic history and its general strategic theory in light of the information he has provided, concluding with a look at the relationship between theory and current, practical issues. The history of airpower might be full of strategic successes, yet when the tool is misused, it fails catastrophically. Gray's study marks a major effort to improve our grasp of airpower's strategic potential within different political, cultural, military-strategic, and technological contexts.