Air Commanders combines short military biographies and operational analyses to reveal how the personalities, attitudes, and life experiences of twelve outstanding U.S. airmen shaped the central air campaigns in American history. From Gen. Carl “Tooey” Spaatz, who began his career in World War I, to the recently retired Gen. T. Michael “Buzz” Moseley, the case studies illuminate the character of these airmen, the challenges they confronted in widely disparate armed conflicts, and the solutions that they crafted and implemented. Their achievements proved decisive not only in the campaigns they led, but also in shaping the U.S. Air Force and the dominant role of airpower in modern warfare. Air Commanders will be of interest to both general readers and students of military history―particularly those who wish to explore the use and development of airpower as a national instrument of force. With contributions from leading military experts and historians, this book demonstrates how personal qualities and leadership styles translate into battlespace outcomes.

What influences have shaped air power since human flight became a reality more than a hundred years ago? Global Air Power provides insight into the evolution of air power theory and practice by examining the experience of six of the world’s largest air forces―those of the United Kingdom, the United States, Israel, Russia, India, and China―and of representative smaller air forces in Pacific Asia, Latin America, and continental Europe. The chapters, written by highly regarded scholars and military leaders, explore how various nations have integrated air power into their armed forces and how they have applied air power in both regular and irregular warfare and in peacetime operations. They cover the organizational, professional, and doctrinal issues that air forces confronted in the past, the lessons learned from victory and defeat, and emerging challenges and opportunities.Further, Global Air Power supplements the traditional military perspective with examinations of the ideological, economic, and cultural factors that give air forces their distinctive characters. Chapters show how the interplay among these internal factors, together with external challenges, determines the structure, role, and effectiveness of air forces. Together, these chapters illuminate universal trends as well as similarities and differences among the world’s air forces. Its combination of military history and sociopolitical analysis makes Global Air Power especially valuable to a broad range of historians, air power specialists, and general readers interested in national defense and international relations.

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