Colonel Phillip S. Meilinger USAF, School of Advanced Airpower Studies Mawell AFB, "Ten Propositions Regarding Airpower," in Air and Space Power Chronicles IAW AFI 35-101 2004, http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/...nicles/cc/meil.html, also cited in Air War College 2004, basically takes the side of the Goldwater-Lemay "ATTACK" Strategy, sometimes stated as "Bomb Them Back to the Stone Ages," as opposed to the Sun Tzu "RETREAT OR WAIT" Strategy.

He especially attacks Sun Tzu's view that a wise commander wait to defeat his Enemy's Strategy because that surrenders the initiative to the Enemy. Colonel Meilinger points out regarding Air Power that it is:

1. Primarily Offensive.
2. Inherently Strategic.
3. Central - whoever controls it also controls the Surface.
4. Intelligence-related by evaluating the effects of targeting.
5. Physically and Psychogically Shock-Related by dominating Time.
6. Simultaneous, enabling parallel operations at all levels.
7. Mass (and so Physics) related - precision air weapons have redefined the meaning of mass.
8. Self-Central: it is best Centrally controlled by Airmen.
9. Technologically Synergistically and Integrally related.
10. Both Individual and Economic, having an Aerospace and Commercial Aviation identity also.

Osher Doctorow

What's your point other than to listen to yourself talk?

What's the point of Strategy other than to hear oneself talk? You've got to be kidding. No, maybe you're serious - wow, that's even worse.

Osher Doctorow

I think what Reach6 was getting at is why did you post this? Is it to simply state something or did you intend to ask a question or spark debate?

As a 6 year member of Lemay's Strategic Air Command, who got up every morning, bowed down toward Omaha, and said 3 allahs (I was totally Sacumcized), I think his,"Bomb 'em back to the Stone Age" was a pretty good theory. The Nazis certainly learned how well it worked. I'm not sure if it was Lemay or Britain's "Bomber" Harris who came up with the "Box Formation" strategy, but that seemed to work very well, too. Of course changing from daylight bombing to night time bombing was a given.
I n6 yrs in SAC, I never saw Lemay, but when I transferred to MATS/MAC in the '60s I saw him at Hickam.
He never did ask my opinion on anything, tho.

Does Colonel M. mention that Germany's fighter aircraft production continued during the war? They ran out of fuel and pilots, I think.

It can also be mentioned that because of Sun Tzu's tactics, the Chinese Empire outlasted any other western civilization short of the Egyptian Empire. It can be noted that Sun Tzu's tactics are based on Confucianism which teaches to never take anything on directly.

The entire paper is irrelevent in my opinion because it is an argument of opinions based on training. You had one who's views were based on a confucian civilization as stated above and one who's civilization has always "taken the initiative."

I recommend reading "The Chinese Martial Code." Its a long complicated read but enlightening.

I guess my question would be, how does this guy know one way or the other Gen. LeMay did or did not read "The Art of War"? I'm only speculating, but Gen. LeMay was a great strategist. I would suspect he read every great work on the strategies of war.
Sun Tzu's thoughts are not necessarily pertinent to modern day, strategic war, though his beliefs were very keen for defeating his enemies.
Gen. LeMay was a man of few words and had no time for banter. I doubt he would care one way or the other what Col. Meilinger thought.

I was seven years old when I met Gen. LeMay and from best recollection I would agree that he had little patience for words but lots of praise for action.

He had a job which was to protect a nation and he wasn't going to fail.

From my father's and my experience, I think we have too many "paper" warriors and not enough "do it" warriors!

LeMay is only the greatest Air Force leader of the 20th century. They should rename Minot for him. But I guess that's politically impossible.

quote:

Originally posted by 22115841:
As a 6 year member of Lemay's Strategic Air Command, who got up every morning, bowed down toward Omaha, and said 3 allahs (I was totally Sacumcized), (snipped)

Well, at least when LeMay was running SAC, nukes NEVER GOT MISPLACED like they do today. When SAC was SAC, you knew where EVERYTHING was. If not, everyone up to and including the Wing/CC was FIRED.

Today, nukes can be inadvertantly flown across the country, fuses can be sent to Taiwan by mistake, and overworked silo officers fall asleep with classified (but expired) codes.

You and I know that would never happen when LeMay was at the wheel.

Designer, got your email. Thanks.

Today, President Obama is in the midst of deciding whether to pour lots more troops into Afghanistan, so it's very relevant to point of that the Goldwater-Lemay Strategy saves pouring many troops into intensely Non-Democratic nations:

1. In terms of lives and wounded.
2. In terms of money.
3. In terms of Public Support.

In Afghanistan, we used the Goldwater-Lemay Strategy early in the War to oust the Taliban and Al Qaeda from their eastern Afghanistan caves, and the War would be over by now except that we decided to "Rebuild Infra-Structure" and "Build Political Democracy", the latter of which especially turns out not to be a primary interest of most Afghanistan people. Of course, you might argue that remaining Al Qaeda and Taliban in western Pakistan would have re-invaded Afghanistan, but that's where turning the border into a No-Man's Land comes in, and that's Goldwater-Lemay Strategy.

I'll be glad to discuss Overy's analysis of Air Power in WWII (he's Prof. of History at Exeter U., U.K.), which shows that it's one of the key factors in our victory there (the last War that we really won). You can get his book on WWII, "Why the Allies Won," in most good Public Libraries.

Vietnam wasn't a failure of Goldwater-Lemay - it was directed against the wrong place (bombing North Vietnam, while the North Vietnamese were almost all in the South!), and mostly involved pouring troops in.

Osher Doctorow