Educating Air Forces: Global Perspectives on Airpower Learning

271 Pages·2020·5.069 MB·English

by  Randall Wakelam, David Varey, Emanuele Sica

Educating Air Forces
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Educating Air Forces
Global Perspectives on Airpower Learning
Edited by Randall Wakelam, David Varey,
and Emanuele Sica
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Copyright © 2020 by The University Press of Kentucky
Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,
serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre
College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University,
The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College,
Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University,
Morehead State University, Murray State University,
Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University,
University of Kentucky, University of Louisville,
and Western Kentucky University.
All rights reserved.
Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky
663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008
www.kentuckypress.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Wakelam, Randall T. (Randall Thomas), 1953– editor. | Varey, David,
1966– editor. | Sica, Emanuele, 1975– editor.
Title: Educating air forces : global perspectives on airpower learning /
edited by Randall Wakelam, David Varey, Emanuele Sica.
Description: Lexington, KY : The University Press of Kentucky, 2020. |
Series: Aviation & air power | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020032964 | ISBN 9780813180243 (hardcover ; alk. paper)
| ISBN 9780813180267 (pdf) | ISBN 9780813180274 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Air forces—Officers—Education. | Air power—Study and
teaching. | Military education.
Classification: LCC UG637 .E38 2020 | DDC 358.40071/1—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020032964
This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting
the requirements of the American National Standard
for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.
Manufactured in the United States of America.
Member of the Association
of University Presses
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Contents
Foreword vii
Lieutenant-General Alexander Meinzinger
Introduction 1
I. The Interwar Years
The RAF Staff College in the Interwar Years: The Birth of Air Power
Education in the RAF 15
Peter W. Gray
Giulio Douhet and the Influence of Air Power Education in
Interwar Italy 30
Emanuele Sica
The Birth of the École supérieure de guerre aérienne and the Strategic
Education of the French Air Force 51
Jérôme de Lespinois
Luftwaffe Officer Training in the Interwar Period 69
James S. Corum
II. The Cold War
Air Force Education at the RCAF Staff College, 1945–1955 93
Richard Goette
Sustaining Disruption: The Creation of the Air University and the
Air Force Academy, 1918–1955 111
John T. Farquhar
Interests Aligned but Not Integrated: The Royal Canadian Air Force
Staff College and Inter-Service Staff Education After the Second
World War 134
Howard G. Coombs
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vi contents
III. Post–Cold War Education
The Air Corps Tactical School and the School of Advanced Air and Space
Studies: Educating America’s Air Force Then and Now 153
Harold R. Winton
Air Power Education in Australia: The Influence of the Air Power
Development Centre 167
Martin James
Square Pegs in a Round Hole: John Boyd, John Warden, and Airpower in
Small Wars 183
Wray R. Johnson
Educating Strategic Leaders: The Foundations of Strategic Level PME at the
Canadian Forces College 204
Paul T. Mitchell
Icarus Meets Mars: A Case for Teaching Airpower History in
Academe 222
Edward Westermann
The Education of an Air Force—A Royal Air Force Perspective 232
James Beldon with Peter W. Gray
Acknowledgments 245
Contributors 247
Index 251
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Foreword
I am delighted to be able to add my thoughts to this most valuable study of
the education initiatives of major Western air power nations over the past
one hundred years. Those of us who live within and operate air forces,
whether at the tactical or strategic levels, or somewhere in between, seldom
give pause to think about how we learn, internalize, and pass on the wisdom
of our experiences. This volume should allow and cause any reader, whether
in uniform or looking at the profession from the outside, to reflect on this
essential matter.
The idea for the volume did not start with a trained educator, but with an
air force operator. After teaching for ten years at the Canadian Forces College,
a joint college discussed in the volume, he wondered what best practice was
when it came to learning about air power. Was the Canadian experience, that
of a relatively small air force, unique? Did it have certain characteristics of its
major allies, or of other smaller services? And what were the experiences of
those other nations?
The initial result of this inquiry was a symposium in 2016 bringing
together former and current air power educators to share the histories of past
and present education philosophy and practice. I am very pleased to say that
it was the RCAF that provided the funding for that symposium, as its pur-
pose fell squarely within our continuing aim to develop air power mastery in
our personnel. Now, happily, these histories are being published so that they
may be of use for generations of air power practitioners to come.
Lieutenant-General Alexander Meinzinger
Commander, Royal Canadian Air Force
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Introduction
In the last three hundred years, military and naval services have advanced
beyond the ad hoc and “part-time” approaches to national security that
emerged from the Middle Ages and Renaissance. They have become profes-
sional fighting services, a process deriving from the introduction of specialized
standards, advancement by merit, the development of standing administra-
tions, and other vestiges of formal organization. Not surprisingly, the disparate
characteristics and attributes associated with professionalization have become
the focus of modern inquiry suggested in such works as General Sir John
Hackett’s The Profession of Arms and Samuel Huntington’s The Soldier and the
State.1 Concurrently, other authors have focused on the means of inculcating,
training, and educating new members of any profession on professional ethics,
standards, and practices. For example, Eliot Freidson in Professionalism, the
Third Logic: On the Practice of Knowledge, argues that a profession consists of
three groups: a leadership that sets standards for professional competence and
practice; the educators who provide the learning vehicles to achieve those
competencies; and the rank-and-file who practice.2 In a Canadian study, Pro-
fessional Gentlemen: The Professions in Nineteenth Century Ontario, authors
Robert Gidney and Wynn Millar add to our understanding of professionaliza-
tion by making the case that professional knowledge, the knowledge of “what”
and “how” to practice, also needs a broader context—a scientia—of the human
and societal experience.3
If we accept that militaries are professions and that professions need edu-
cation, both for expertise of practice and an understanding of the society within
which they practice, then we could reasonably want to know how militaries are
educated and how well they perform this task. One broad study of US military
education, conducted in the 1950s by John Masland and Laurence Radway, Sol-
diers and Scholars: Military Education and National Policy, examined the range
of programs extending from undergraduate schools to strategic-level colleges.
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