Military Doctrine and the American Character; Reflections on AirLand Battle
New York: National Strategy Information Center, 1984. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Trade paperback. 22 cm, 67 pages. Wraps. Chapter notes. This a Agenda Paper 14. Publisher's letter to an assistant editor at U.S. News and World Report laid in. Cover has slight wear and soiling. Preface by John Tower. Herbert Ira London (March 6, 1939 – November 10, 2018) was an American conservative activist, commentator, author, and academic. London was the president of the Hudson Institute from 1997 to 2011. He was a frequent columnist for The Washington Times. London was president of the London Center for Policy Research, a conservative think tank hosted at The King's College in New York City, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He was also a senior fellow at the Center for the American University at the Manhattan Institute and chairman of the National Association of Scholars. In February 2013, London joined the board of advisors of the Coalition to Reduce Spending. London was a noted social critic and a guest lecturer on many major radio and television programs, including CNN's Crossfire which he co-hosted for one year. His work appeared in major newspapers across the country, including the Wall Street Journal, Commentary, National Review, Fortune, The New York Times and many others. The London Center was influential in the staffing and policy direction of the Trump Administration with many of its senior fellows taking on both official and unofficial roles in the administration. The center counts these "Fellows" among its membership: Deroy Murdock, Gordon G. Chang, Monica Crowley, Jim Woolsey, Derk Jan Eppink, and Walid Phares. AirLand Battle was the overall conceptual framework that formed the basis of the US Army's European warfighting doctrine from 1982 into the late 1990s. AirLand Battle emphasized close coordination between land forces acting as an aggressively maneuvering defense, and air forces attacking rear-echelon forces feeding those front line enemy forces. AirLand Battle replaced 1976's "Active Defense" doctrine, and was itself replaced by "Full Spectrum Operations" in 2001. AirLand Battle became the primary battle plan of US forces in 1982 and NATO forces in 1984, with the help of SACEUR General Bernard W. Rogers. Its roll-out required upgrades to the C3I equipment of all branches of the military, along with similar changes in the command and control structures to take advantage of the massive amounts of information the new C3I assets would be generating. Starting in the early 1970s the Air Force took its first steps at looking at a conventional war in Europe. In late 1975, RAND Corporation completed a study that examined the merits of additional manned aircraft, remotely piloted vehicles, and stand-off munitions for improving air-ground capability in NATO. A follow-up two-day workshop at RAND studied what vulnerabilities the Warsaw Pact might have to NATO airpower, which was followed by a series of additional studies that clearly demonstrated their reliance on the continued movement of supplies . The major driving force in the evolution of AirLand Battle was General Donn A. Starry, who had taken over TRADOC in 1977. Air planners were beginning to look for ways to best employ these new weapons at the same time Starry was working on the extended battlefield concepts. Simultaneously, the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Bill Perry was interested in "stealth, precision and speed"; and one of their developments was the Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk, an airplane designed to evade detection by the Soviets and strike ground targets such as tanks, anti-aircraft radar systems and missile complexes. Starry emphasized the close coordination between the Army and Air Force to produce an integrated attack plan that would use the land forces in a counter-blitz while air power, artillery and special operation forces stopped the movement of the reserves toward the front line. The result would stretch out the Warsaw Pact's advance in time, allowing the smaller NATO forces to continually attrit the enemy all along the battlefield while the reinforcements arrived piecemeal. The result was a single AirLand Battle. The doctrine, unbeknownst at the time, turned out to be a success psychologically on the Warsaw Pact. In 1992, after the USSR had collapsed, at a friendly dinner of old adversaries an East German general said to an American diplomat that "We had no options left" after the doctrine had been understood across the Iron Curtain. Marshal Gorkov knew that the Soviets were in trouble. DTRA chief Jim Tegnelia opines that AirLand Battle was the child of "the marriage of a policy problem, a good strategy and technology. When they are put together in resonance can create very synergistic and revolutionary effects with regard to military operations." Condition: Very good.
Keywords: AirLand Battle, National Defense, Military Strategy, Military Doctrine, U.S. Army, Military Policy, Combat, John Tower, Military Reform, Donn Starry, TRADOC
ISBN: 0887386148
[Book #31244]
Price: $50.00