Storm over Iraq: Air Power and the Gulf War by Richard P. Hallion

Abstract

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 635 played in the missile’s demise: like the dinosaur, it was a beast brilliantly adapted to a world which had reached a dead end. Unanswered in the book, therefore, is the key question of whether the MX was indeed dragged down by hand—or collapsed under its own weight. Gregg Herken Dr. Herken is chairman of the Department of Space History, National Air and Space Museum. Storm over Iraq: Air Power and the Gulf War. By Richard P. Hallion. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992. Pp. xii+383; illustrations, notes, appendixes, index. $24.95. Richard P. Hallion is one of the most productive and distinguished historians of air power. His history of the genesis of the fighter plane and role of the fighter pilot in World War I is a masterpiece. He is one of the Smithsonian’s Lindbergh professors emeriti, with rare exception truly outstanding scholars of flight. None is more outstanding than Hallion. It is appropriate that this book was written before he became the air force historian. Storm over Iraq is not, however, a masterpiece. The theme is that, after a general perception offailure to live up to its promise since full debut in World War I, air power put on a model performance in “Operation Desert Storm” with the clear lesson that it will be the supreme arm of the future. In a basically well-done com­ pendium Hallion traces the evolution of air power from the Great War to the gathering of coalition forces in “Operation Desert Shield.” The most technologically literate of air power historians, he skillfully inter­ weaves the relationship between developing air power technology and wars and diplomacy. After its low point in Vietnam, where it was misused and restricted, U.S. air power was an integral part of the healing and regrouping of American armed forces and the refitting of NATO so it could be better able to meet a Communist invasion. With lessons learned and the Communist threat gone, air power was ready to meet the test in the desert in concert with ground power. Not only did coalition, primarily American, air power not disappoint, it was the war winner. A valuable contribution is the book’s account of the reinvigoration of U.S. armed forces and the reconstruction of air power after Vietnam. But until the domestic ramifications ofVietnam, Hallion mainly neglects the reaction of American society to air power. He fails to cite a major work on air power, particularly bombing, and its social and moral context—Micfiael Sherry’s The Rise ofAmerican Air Power (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1987). Hallion’s jarring implication is that air power actually won World War II. He might be able to prove it in a book on the subject, but he gives insufficient evidence in Storm over Iraq. This implication is an early sign of the book’s major flaw—an air power and air force overzealousness that mars his analysis of “Desert Storm.” 636 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Much of his evaluation of tactics and technology is up to his high stan­ dards. Too often, however, he sounds like a Pentagon staffer briefing the media. He uses the term “regrettably” (p. 172) in telling of the first combat death ofa U.S. pilot but does not offer the same sentiment for downed Iraqi pilots. The official air force summary of the GulfWar issued in March 1993 agrees with Hallion that air power was the key element in the victory. But generally it presents a less glowing analysis and does not claim that air power has demonstrated overwhelming superiority in the realm of arms. Hallion writes that air power “had clearly proven its ability not merely to be decisive in war ... but to be the determinant ofvictory in war” (p. 264). The air force summarystates: “We are probably too close to the GulfWar of 1991 to draw definite conclusions from it about the nature offuture war” (p. 206). The summary is less enthusiastic about the impact of technology such as the stealth aircraft, stressing, while Hallion does not, that it was only stealthy at night and a number of missions had...