Investigating Oneself: The United States Air Force and its Evaluations of Air Power in War and Conflict

Abstract

Abstract : Proving the effectiveness of the application of air power has been an important goal for the United States Air Force. However, since World War II up through at least the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the American Air Force has not been consistent in conducting extensive evaluations of its use of air power in major wars and conflicts. To assess the effectiveness of the American strategic bombing effort in World War II, the Army Air Force (AAF) established the civilian led and controlled United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS). The USSBS produced hundreds of reports that the AAF (and the Navy) used to justify their respective positions in the postwar debates over unification and strategy. Just three years after the 1947 unification of the armed services the newly formed independent Air Force found itself applying air power in Korea. Once the Korean War ended, however, the Air Force chose not to conduct an extensive evaluation along the lines of the World War II USSBS. This lack of interest in conducting an extensive evaluation of the effectiveness of air power in limited war continued when the Air Force did not assess itself by conducting an independent, civilian led evaluation of the Vietnam War. It was not until shortly after the Gulf War in 1991 when the Air Force conducted another intensive evaluation the Gulf War Air Power Survey (GWAPS) like the Air Force's World War II predecessor, the USSBS. In an important way, however, the USSBS was very different from the GWAPS. American airmen played a strong role in establishing the USSBS's organizational structure, in shaping the questions that it would answer, and airmen influenced the conclusions about strategic bombing in World War II that the USSBS reached. The airmen were thus pulling the Survey along in a direction that fit comfortably with the AAF's conceptual approach to air power and its post war interests in establishing an independent air arm.