New Thinking in Air Power Thursday 16 and Friday 17 September 2021 Hosted at the Royal Air Force Museum, London, this conference brings together a broad range of academics and scholars to present Air Power research which challenges the accepted historical consensus. The conference will feature a keynote address given by Professor John Ferris entitled "Revolutions in Airpower, 1903-2021: An Anatomy". The research presented will offer new evidence and provide critical reflections on, and reframe our historical understanding of, Air Power and the past. In doing so, this research revises the conclusions of previous works and challenges myths which have developed within the study of Air Power. The conference represents an important moment in advancing historical knowledge as well as an exciting line-up of speakers from around the World assessing the current state of the Air Power historiography and the future direction of Air Power thinking The panels hosted at the conference will focus on presenting the latest research on a range of Air Power topics including: Rethinking the First World War: From Fighting in East Africa to Developing an Air Force Spirit; New Thinking and the Application of Digital Methods to the History of the RAF in the Second World War; Air Power Procurement: Concepts, Design and Diplomacy; and Air Power Doctrine and Strategy. There will also be panels reconsidering the motivations of individuals and air forces. The conference will present research and papers relating to Air Power both in Britain and abroad, with research on the Air Power capabilities of African regional powers; the stigmatization of psychological Issues in the US Army Air Forces; training and air forces in the Middle East, American statecraft and transatlantic collaboration on the Joint Strike Fighter; the Luftwaffe and National Socialism; and Soviet strike capabilities during the Cold War. The conference keynote will be given by Professor Ferris the author of Behind the Enigma: The Authorised History of GCHQ, Britain’s Secret Cyber Intelligence Agency and The Evolution of British Strategic Policy, 1919-1926. Professor Ferris has published over 100 articles or chapters on diplomatic, intelligence, imperial, international, military and strategic history, and strategic studies. His keynote will explore "Revolutions in Airpower, 1903-2021: An Anatomy". The conference will conclude with a roundtable Chaired by Professor David Edgerton which will explore both the issues raised at the conference and the future direction of revisionist Air Power history. Only those attending the conference in person will able to participate in the Roundtable discussion. The Conference Papers will explore themes related to: • Air Power Doctrine • Control of the Air • Identity and Motivation of air force personnel • Strategic Bombing • Research, Design and Procurement • International Relations • Air Power in a Middle East and African context • The Historiography of the Royal Air Force To book your conference ticket please visit: https://royalairforcemuseum.digitickets.co.uk/category/34275?catID=28958 Royal Air Force Museum Conference 2021 #RAFMconference NEW THINKING IN AIR POWER Group Captain John Alexander Group Captain John Alexander is responsible for NATO and UK joint operational doctrine development at the MOD’s Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC) at Shrivenham. Now an Auxiliary, as a regular officer he specialised in air/land integration, from the Falklands in 1982, through various campaigns in the greater Middle East, culminating in air/land component liaison in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and as Chief Air in an Army Corps Headquarters. He spent much of 2011 to 2020 in Afghanistan and Pakistan. His contribution to the conceptual component of fighting power includes two tours at the RAF’s Air Warfare Centre, NATO’s Joint Air Power Competence Centre, and previously at the DCDC, and has been honed by academic research. He was twice a Chief of the Air Staff Fellow, at Cambridge and Oxford, and has four postgraduate degrees including one from the Pakistan National Defence University, was a historian at the RAF’s Air Historical Branch and has published in Air Power Review, the RUSI Journal and Asian Affairs. He intends to submit for a PhD by publication on the beginnings of British air/land operational art between 1918 and 1940. Title: New Thinking on the Royal Air Force in France 1940 as an Allied Air Force. One of the enduring tropes of the Battle of France in 1940 is the RAF’s failure to support the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) as a cause of its defeat. Yet by the time the BEF first engaged the German Army in Belgium on 14 May, around half of British Air Forces France’s (BAFF’s) aircraft had been lost in action and the Fall of France decided. This paper rethinks BAFF as an allied air force rather than as an air support organisation for the BEF, in the context of the allied air/land battle, as well as in the BEF’s area of operations, and noting the inevitable allied defeat, despite broadly equivalent force strengths, given its flawed strategy of immediately advancing into Belgium, leaving no reserve to counter the German advance through the Ardennes. The paper argues the BEF, around ten per cent of the allied land force, was subordinate to French 1st Army Group, whereas BAFF, with a much larger proportion of allied air power, was independent of French command, though collocated with the French air command for the whole front. As both RAF and Luftwaffe doctrine prioritised control of the air and interdiction over close air support (CAS), the allies’ immediate response to the German Sichelschnitt was to attack the Meuse bridges at great cost to German fighters and FLAK. Despite enjoying control of the air, examples of decisive German CAS against well trained troops are rare. Whereas in desperation the RAF used any aircraft available to attack German forces at Calais and Dunkirk. As a result of its leading allied role, the RAF lost 950 aircraft compared to 750 French, 78 after Dunkirk. Nevertheless, Allied air forces lacked the strength to counter the Luftwaffe, compounded by poor communications throughout the allied force. Dr Sophy Antrobus Dr Sophy Antrobus researches contemporary air power in the context of the institutional, cultural and organisational barriers to innovation in modern air forces, in particular the Royal Air Force. She joined the Freeman Air and Space Institute from Portsmouth Business School at the University of Portsmouth where she was a Teaching Fellow in Strategic Studies. She completed her PhD at the University of Exeter in 2019 which was a collaborative studentship with the RAF Museum. Her thesis researched the early politics of air power and networks in Whitehall in the inter-war years. She recently delivered the biennial Peter Nailor Defence Lecture at Gresham College on the subject ‘How are Drones Changing Warfare?’. Title: We Need to Talk About Control of the Air: challenging analysis of the RAF’s primary role NEW THINKING IN AIR POWER Giulio Douhet’s The Command of the Air, published in the aftermath of the First World War, laid out his belief in the significance that Control of the Air would play in future conflicts. Although the RAF operated in the 1920s in areas where it faced no serious challenges to its dominance in terms of air superiority, the rise of the threat from Nazi Germany focused air power thinkers on the future importance that dominating the air domain would be likely to have in protecting the United Kingdom from invasion. The Battle of Britain was to define Control of the Air as the RAF’s most important role and also cement the symbolism of the ‘Few’ flying combat aircraft to defend an entire nation. This paper will argue that this history remains influential in the 2020s in how much the RAF does and, more pertinently, does not talk about Control of the Air. It will analyse the development of air power thinking around the concept before arguing that contemporary debate on the subject is surprisingly sparse. While Control of the Air has remained accepted as the primary role of an independent air force, in an era of multi-domain operations the complexities of the concept are little debated. Is this because control of the air is most often identified with Combat Air – partly a legacy of the RAF’s history – the most expensive element of the RAF inventory? Is it because the early 2000s were spent fighting in environments where Control of the Air was a given? Is it because the RAF feels that, outside of major warfighting, Control of the Air is of lesser value than other air activities? Or is this because the term is no longer useful? Justin Bronk Justin Bronk is the Airpower and Military Technology Research Fellow in the Military Sciences team at RUSI. He is also Editor of the RUSI Defence Systems online journal. Justin's particular areas of research focus include the modern combat air environment, Russian and Chinese ground-based air defences and fast jet fleets, unmanned combat aerial vehicles and novel weapons technology. He has written extensively for RUSI and a variety of external publications, as well as appearing regularly in the international media. Justin is also a part-time doctoral candidate at the Defence Studies Department of Kings College London and holds an MSc in the History of International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a BA (Hons) in History from York University. He is also a private glider and light aircraft pilot. Twitter: @Justin_Br0nk Title: Balancing Imagination and Design in British Combat Aircraft Development Developing effective combat aircraft has long been a key area of competition among military powers. The combat air environment is brutal for underperformers, whilst developing new aircraft is expensive and time consuming.