Aerial Warfare: A Very Short Introduction
(Libby/OverDrive eBook, Kindle)

Ledwidge (Royal Air Force College) effectively updates Higham (1988), Budiansky (2003), Gates (2003), and Olsen (2007). Not a comprehensive history so much as a synopsis of recurring themes and related insights, his work will interest specialists and general readers seeking a clearly rendered big picture. Firmly concluding that control of the air does not win wars by itself and that the ultimate solutions are political, Ledwidge writes of lessons learned and expensively forgotten, inter-branch incompatibility, and strategic ossification--the same pathologies that afflicted older combat arms--but juxtaposes all that stumbling with air forces' ultimately successful search for precise targeting. Ledwidge is at his best when addressing air power's newest Achilles heels: up-to-date technologies are staggeringly expensive, and some can be defeated by cheap, low-tech countermeasures. And unmanned strike aircraft make irresponsible actions more tempting by removing the risk of friendly casualties. There are a few factual errors, but Aerial Warfare puts the ongoing struggle for control of the air in its proper perspective. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --John L.S. Daley, Pittsburg State University