The Transformation of American Air Power; A RAND Research Study

Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000. Third Printing. Hardcover. Very good/very good. xiii, [1], 337 pages. Illustrations. Footnotes. Acronyms. Index, small creases to DJ. Benjamin S. Lambeth is a Senior Research Associate at the RAND Corporation. In 1989 and 1990, he directed RAND's International Security and Defense Policy Program. Before joining RAND in 1974, he served in the Office of National Estimates at the Central Intelligence Agency. Prior to that, he worked for the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Institute for Defense Analyses. A civil-rated pilot, he has flown or flown in more than 40 different fighter, attack, and jet trainer aircraft types with the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps, as well as with eight foreign air forces. In 1988, he received a front-seat checkout in the F/A-18 Hornet. In December 1989, he became the first U.S. citizen to fly the Soviet MiG-29 fighter. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is the author of The Transformation of American Air Power (Cornell University Press, 2000). In 2002, he was elected an Honorary Member of the Order of Daedalians, the national fraternity of U.S. military pilots. This is a RAND Research Study. In this balanced appraisal of air power's newly realized strengths in joint warfare, Lambeth explores the extent to which the United States can now rely on air-delivered precision weapons in lieu of ground forces to achieve strategic objectives and minimize American casualties. Beginning with the U.S. experience in Southeast Asia and detailing how failures there set the stage for a sweeping refurbishment of the nation's air warfare capability, Lambeth reviews the recent history of American air power, including its role in the Gulf war and in later conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Serbia. He examines improvements in areas ranging from hardware development to aircrew skills and organizational adaptability. He concludes that air power, its strategic effectiveness proven, can now set the conditions for victory even from the outset of combat if applied to its fullest potential.