Plotting a True Course Reflections on USAF Strategic Attack Theory and Doctrine
The Post World War II Experience

Subjects:

• Military Studies » Military Studies (General)
• Military Studies » Strategy & Tactics
• Military Studies » Military History

Reviews:

• [s]uggests that the fundamental debates about the role, impact, and ultimate influence of airpower in modern war may never be finally resolved. In short, when the subject is airpower, it seems clear that we can not arrive at any consensus. Rather, it is by way of our continuing struggle to understand the issue that progress is made. This book clearly adds to the body of argument and is fun to read....[s]hould appeal to the growing coterie of scholars interested in the debate. Can airpower, however transformed by technology and applied by up-to-date doctrine, truly be decisive? Mets and Head's book suggests that the answer to this contentious question is less important than the intellectual investigation itself.
  —Military History .

Table of Contents:

• Preface by William P. Head
• Introduction by David R. Mets
• Technology, Thought, Troops: General Carl A. Spaatz and the Dawn of the Nuclear Age by David R. Mets
• War from above the Clouds: B-52 Operations during the Second Indochina War and the Effects of the Air War on Theory and Doctrine by William P. Head
• Strategic Attack in the Gulf War by Col. P. Mason Carpenter
• Kosovo: An Initial Analysis by William P. Head
• Should Deterrence Fail: Strategic Attack Theory and Planning in the Nuclear Era by Lt. Col. Mark J. Conversino
• Conculusion: Strategic Bombing and Airpower Doctrine and Theory-Then and Now, Some Final Thoughts by William P. Head
• Glossary of Terms
• Bibliography
• Index