Jr Lieutenant Colonel Usaf Purdham

America's First Air Battles: Lessons Learned or Lessons Lost?: a Cadre Paper Jr Lieutenant Colonel Usaf Purdham

Publisher Marketing: "America's First Air Battles: Lessons Learned or Lessons Lost?" provides a successful evaluation of Michael Howard's construct that current doctrine is probably wrong, but what matters is the capability of the military to get it right when a particular conflict begins. In the course of this evaluation, Lt. Col. Aldon E. Purdham, Jr. examines several important airpower factors to include familiarity with the nature and geography of the conflict; parity with the adversary, especially in terms of air superiority; command and control of air assets, especially in interdiction and close air support missions; and the confluence of airpower weapons with doctrine and training. Colonel Purdham filters these airpower factors through three conflicts of the last half-century - Korean War, Vietnam War, and Operation Desert Storm - looking as much as possible at the early air operations stages of the conflict. HE concludes that Professor Howard's construct has some validity, but the real world offers alternative conclusions. The reasons the military doctrine seems out of alignment in the early stages of conflict is not because of poorly developed doctrine, but rather quick changes made in national strategy that cannot be perfectly anticipated in doctrinal writing and conferred in training regimes. Ultimately, the greatest lesson seems to be that airpower leadership and doctrinal focus need to have the flexibility to adapt to changing national direction. It helps immensely that our air forces go to war well trained in the way they will fight. The effectiveness of Desert Storm validates this concept. Perhaps the lessons of Operation Iraqi Freedom provide even greater proof. Contributor Bio:  Air University Press Walter Gary Sharp Sr. serves as a senior associate deputy general counsel for intelligence at the US Department of Defense, where he advises on legal issues related to intelligence, covert action, intelligence and counterintelligence policy, intelligence oversight, information security, information sharing, security classification policy, information operations, and computer network operations. Prior to his appointment, Dr. Sharp served as an associate deputy general counsel for international affairs at the Department of Defense; the director of legal research for international, comparative, and foreign law at the Law Library of Congress; the director of global and functional affairs within the Bureau of Legislative Affairs at the State Department; and a principal information security engineer at The MITRE Corporation. A veteran with 25 years of service, Dr. Sharp retired as a decorated US Marine Corps lieutenant colonel with prior enlisted service. His military assignments include commanding officer of a field artillery battery, senior prosecutor, deputy legal counsel to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and international law adviser for the commanding general of the Unified Task Force in Somalia during Operation Restore Hope. Dr. Sharp's military decorations include the Defense Superior Service Medal, and his many awards for writing excellence and academic achievement include the Judge Advocate General's School Alumni Association Annual Professional Writing Award and an American Bar Association Award for Professional Merit. Dr. Sharp is the author of numerous articles and three books: UN Peace Operations (1995), CyberSpace and the Use of Force (1999), and Jus Paciarii (1999). He serves as an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center where he currently teaches a counterterrorism course, The Law of 24. He has also taught graduate-level seminars on United Nations peace operations and international peace and security. He lectures internationally in universities and other diverse public forums on wide-ranging topics of international law and national security law, such as international peace and security, conflict management, and peacekeeping operations.