The Air University

Abstract

P RIOR to the second World War, the professional education of United States Air Force officers, while under the general conduct of the Training Division of the War Department General Staff, was largely left to the various major and subordinate commands for administration and implementation. The outcome of this policy was that there were serious conflicts in doctrine taught, wasteful duplications of effort, and ominous gaps in which no instruction was offered. These deficiencies in the professional education of the career officer became all too apparent during the war, and demanded solution. Moreover, the emerging global and technological character of air warfare created a new requirement for the education of the future officers of the United States Air Force, demanding not only a change in the administration of the professional educational plan itself, but also a revision in its fundamental character. Military history bears striking testimony to the fact that tactics follow technology. The rate with which a nation narrows the time lag between new scientific developments and their tactical and strategic implementation may well mean the difference between victory and defeat. Our national air security makes it mandatory, therefore, that our United States Air Force be eternally contemporaneous with science. Indeed, it is now essential that in the formulation of concepts and the development of tactics we anticipate future developments in the laboratories of the nation. much is certain-that if and when war comes, it will come with appalling suddenness, and we will not be able to afford the luxury of time in which to learn, as we have in the past, from friend and foe. It would be well for us to keep in mind the statement of Mr. Lilienthal, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, made at the seventy-fifth anniversary dinner of the Popular Science Monthly, on May I, I947: This is indeed a great force we have in our hands. . . . If in dealing with it we are too stupid, we may not have to worry about the ridicule of our We may have no descendants. To avoid a repetition of pre-war deficiencies and to assure a progressive system of professional education for its officers and future leaders, the United States Air Force established the Air University as a major command in December, I945. The Air University is made up of the Air War College, the Air Command and Staff School, the Air Tactical School, the Air Special Staff School, and the School of Aviation Medicine. It also