ISBN: 9781920800437 (1 Ergebnisse)

Trade paperback. Zustand: Very good. Presumed First Edition, First printing. xvi, [2], 71, [3] pages. Footnotes. Seven discrete arenas that challenge the efficacy of air power. Sanu Kainikara is a fighter pilot from the Indian Air Force (IAF) who retired as a Wing Commander after 21 years of commissioned service. During his service career, he has flown over 4500 hours on a number of modern fighter aircraft. He has also held various command and staff appointments. He is a Qualified Flying Instructor (A2) and a graduate of the Fighter Weapons School, the Defence Services Staff College, as well as the College of Air Warfare. He is the recipient of the IAF Air Force Cross. After retirement, he worked for four years as the senior analyst, specializing in air power strategy, fighter operations, weapons and tactics for a US Training Team in the Middle East. Subsequently he was on the faculty of Aerospace Engineering at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Melbourne and a consultant to the Air Operations Division of the Defence Science and Technology Organization. He was the Air Power Strategist at the Air Power Development Centre, Canberra and is also a Visiting Fellow at the University of New South Wales. He has published numerous papers on national security, strategy and air power in various professional journals. He is the author of five other books-Papers on Air Power, Pathways to Victory, Red Air: Politics in Russian Air Power, Australian Security in the Asian Century and A Fresh Look at Air Power Doctrine. He has a Masters in Defence and Strategic Studies from the University of Madras. His doctorate in International Politics was awarded by the University of Adelaide. This paper is about the seven perennial challenges to air forces. Dr. Kainikara defines the seven perennial challenges as those that will always present conundrums to air force commanders-regardless of how far air forces develop in terms of strategic and inter-Service acceptance, technology, strategy, operational art and tactics. In broad terms, the paper covers a range of topics-from the nature of independent air forces, the perceptions of politicians, the public and the media, and the issues of attrition and collateral damage. In specific terms, the paper identifies seven discrete arenas that challenge the efficacy of air power: ? Environment; ? Technology; ? Demography; ? Resources; ? Politics; ? Attrition; and ? Collateral damage. Dr. Kainikara has observed these challenges as a professional airman and air power strategist since 1971, when he joined the Indian Air Force as a fighter pilot. I am certain that there would be agreement that these challenges are always present and never seem to quite go away-thus, they are truly perennial. The paper finishes with an essay on the question of independence. Independent air forces have been around since 1918 and the Royal Australian Air Force, created in 1921, is the second oldest in the world. It is interesting, however, that The Third Brother, as the Air Force in known, has never been fully accepted by its elder brothers. This is not a problem unique to Australia-but an international one. Whilst the benefits of air power are well accepted and acknowledged to the point where a significant amount of combat power of the surface forces is made up of air power elements, each air force invariably suffers attacks on its independence-whether the arguments be made on the dubious grounds of efficiency, ethos or cost-effectiveness. Without doubt, the real arguments for a separate and independent air force are based on the pervading nature of airspace that affects all other operating environments and the requirement for professional mastery of air power-a mastery that can only be acquired by years of experience, study and reflection - a mastery impossible to acquire when air power is not your core business line. One also wonders whether any resource-limited medium-sized nation, such as Australia, can indeed afford to pennypacket its air power resources across three separate Services-but that is an.…