The Wars That Never Were: American Airpower and Conflict Deterrence in the Twentieth Century Johnathan Adam Rice

Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2010 The Wars That Never Were: American Airpower and Conflict Deterrence in the Twentieth Century Johnathan Adam Rice Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES THE WARS THAT NEVER WERE: AMERICAN AIRPOWER AND CONFLICT DETERRENCE IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY By JOHNATHAN ADAM RICE A Thesis submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2010 The members of the committee approve the thesis of Johnathan Adam Rice defended on June 20, 2010. __________________________________ Professor Kristine C. Harper Professor Directing Thesis __________________________________ Professor Ronald E. Doel Committee Member __________________________________ Professor Jennifer L. Koslow Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members. ii ACKNOWEDGMENTS As with most academic endeavors, writing a thesis is above all else a lesson in humility. Though one name appears on the title page, this project was only possible from the feedback, support, and care of many. Professor Kristine Harper provided endless patience, candor, and wit through countless emails, rough drafts, and impromptu meetings. Professor Ron Doel was equally as pivotal in this endeavor, never failing to remind me that I was, in fact, on the right track (despite my insistence to the contrary). Professor Jennifer Koslow took a chance on me as an undergraduate, teaching me the rigors of graduate study, and coaching my writing in a very important and uncertain time in my academic pursuits. Professors James Jones and Nathan Stoltzfus allowed me to realize my potential for writing. Without their encouragement long before I ever even had a thesis topic, I may have never taken the chance. To my close friends, you were just as vital. Some of you taught me the importance of fairness, objectivity, and building character. Others reminded me to remain humble and insist that, in spite of my pursuit of a higher education, I remain grounded. Each of you was there to remind me that it is indeed okay to forget about writing and research for just a few hours. All of you never tired of hearing my endless rants about airpower, and though you could not care less about my topic, you never stopped listening. This speaks volumes. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables ............................................................................................. v List of Figures ............................................................................................ vi Abstract ............................................................................................... vii 1. Introduction ............................................................................................ 1 2. Short of War: Concepts for Deterrence .................................................. 11 3. Coercion: A Formula for Effective Deterrence ...................................... 27 4. Peace through Strength: The Impact of Airlifts and Reconnaissance .... 43 5. Satellite Nation: United States Technology and Deterrence in Space.... 53 6. Conclusion.............................................................................................. 69 REFERENCES .......................................................................................... 71 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH...................................................................... 76 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1-1: U.S. Air Force and MOOTWs, 1947 - 1996.............................................. 12 Table 1-2: Examples of Military Activities Short of War............................................ 18 Table 1-3: The Overlap of Combat and Noncombat Operations.................................. 19 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2-1: The Line Between Deterrence and Compellence ...................................... 29 Figure 2-2: An Overview of Strategic Attack .............................................................. 33 Figure 3-1: USAF Involvement in MOOTW, 1916-1996............................................ 44 Figure 5-1: Comparison of US and Soviet Satellites.................................................... 60 vi ABSTRACT Scholars have often treated the United States’ military’s use of airpower with contempt, focusing on the casualties and destruction of war. But airpower has another function: conflict deterrence. During and after the Cold War, United States airpower actively engaged in what were formally termed Military Operations Other Than War, perpetuating its and its allies’ interests, preventing the spread of Communism, and deterring conflicts. With well-studied coercive strategies, military thinkers were able to pinpoint an adversary’s leadership and remove it with precision-guided munitions while mitigating casualties and preventing conflict escalation. With its fleet of cargo aircraft, the United States was able to deliver food, supplies, and troops to troubled regions in response to crises, thus maintaining stability and preventing bad situations from worsening. By exploiting satellite capabilities, the nation was able to watch its adversary’s actions, ensuring compliance with treaties and regulations. In a number of ways, airpower was used to tamp down potentially hot conflicts even while other airpower resources were engaged in more stereotypical attack modes. Drawing heavily on Air Force and Joint Military doctrines and related primary and secondary sources, this thesis analyzes and assesses how airpower contributes to United States’ interests in ways that have been often overlooked. vii CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION “For some reason, people have long imagined themselves competent to direct and to criticise air strategy while they have hesitated to involve themselves in the intricacies of the military and naval professions. Thus, there is scope for showing people by careful historical analysis not only that air power is no less complicated than land or sea power, but that, in essential principles, it is the same.” —Melden E. Smith, Jr., 19771 The application of airpower to United States’ interests has sparked contentious discussions. The use of the airplane as a weapon was revolutionary, but also tragic. For all of airpower’s benefits, what remained the focal point of scholarly study was its destructive power.2 This study acknowledges this gap in scholarship, and addresses the influential, coercive, and deterring capabilities of airpower. Comparatively speaking, these critical contributions of the airplane have gathered little attention when compared to aerial bombardment, especially outside of military colleges. Ultimately, this has created a generalization of airpower—specifically, as the United States uses it—as destructive. This generalization has occurred because airpower is essentially overrated. For decades, it has failed to fulfill the prophecies of airpower theorists such as Army Major General Billy Mitchell (1879 – 1936) and Air Force General Curtis LeMay (1906 – 1990), who advocated using warplanes to totally destroy an adversary, foresaw the capability of the bomber to drop its payload into a barrel from 30,000 feet, and who felt 1 Quoted in Melden E. Smith, Jr., “The Strategic Bombing Debate: The Second World War and Vietnam,” Journal of Contemporary History 12, no. 1 (Jan. 1977): 175-191, 191. 2 For instance, see Michael S. Sherry, The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987). The historiographical discussion follows below. 1 that relentless use of the airplane was the only way to maintain America’s credibility and ensure its place as a world superpower.3 But the airplane did not do those things. Throughout the history of the airplane, and especially by the 1980s, scholars have pointed out airpower’s failures in every war since man learned to fly. In the Great War, bombing was inaccurate and ineffective. 4 Similar problems plagued bombing campaigns in World War II, when total war was waged and city centers became intentional targets, suffering many casualties as bombs rained from above. The creation of nuclear weapons resulted in the single most catastrophic assault on human life in history, when nuclear blasts over Japan wiped out entire cities in seconds. Airpower overcame its bombing accuracy difficulties, but at substantial cost to war’s innocents. Even when airpower was what could be considered “successful,” it came at a cost that arguably negated its benefits. To be sure, echoes of history would remind all of the toll airpower took. Carpet-bombing seen in World War II reappeared in the Korean and Vietnam wars and more civilians suffered from wave after wave of bombers. It took eighty years of technological progress for airpower to achieve objectives prophesied in the past, when the Gulf War became regarded as a textbook example of airpower achievements. Never before had such a decisive victory come so quickly for a dominant air force using extremely precise munitions and overwhelming airpower to defeat an army.5 3 For more on the prophets of airpower, see Robert A. Pape, Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Press University, 1996); Isaac Don Levine, Mitchell, Pioneer of Air Power (New York, NY: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1943); Curtis LeMay, Superfortress: The Story of the B-29 and American

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