Afri Research Paper 2009-3, Understanding Airpower

The general purpose of this monograph is to help prevent or reduce error in debates over all aspects of airpower. Since we humans, our institutions and procedures, and our behavior are friction prone and apt to err, it is sensible to try to diminish the pile of assumptions, beliefs, attitudes, and opinions that are plainly wrong. Much of the eternal debate on defense issues cannot usefully be approached with a view to locating error. But, large swathes of frequently contested debating terrain can be cleared definitively. As a scholar it is my duty to "recognize and eliminate the weeds" of falsehood to which Clausewitz referred in one of the epigraphs to this text. This study examines and exposes nine fallacies.