CAS Reading List 2017
I take great pleasure in recommending to you my ten reading list choices for this year. At the heart of my recommendations are two books that focus unerringly on the application of air power: John Andreas Olsen’s opus magnum, Airpower Applied, and Karl Mueller’s Precision and Purpose: Airpower in the Libyan Civil War. Both books explore important themes about the successful application (and, in some instances, the unsuccessful misapplication) of air power, making them vital reading for air power specialists and those involved in developing policy, but they also illustrate why broader reading is essential too.
Air power does not, by definition, exist in a vacuum — its utility and effectiveness can only be fully appreciated when considered in the international, political and technological contexts in which it operates. Hence, whilst it would have been easy for me to recommend a selection of ten excellent volumes that have recently been written on air and space power specifically, I consider that it is more useful to present a broader range of titles. In order to provide the opportunity to analyse the context in which air and space power is applied, I highly recommend Understanding Modern Warfare, edited by Dr David Jordan et al, and Defense of the West by Stanley Sloan: together, these two volumes provide a very sound foundation to understand the geopolitical context of our times and the application of the military instrument. In addition to the study of air power and the context in which it is employed, it is equally important to get under the skin of our enemies and those with whom we co-exist in a climate of strategic competition — this is why Fawaz Gerges’ ISIS: A History and Mikhail Zygar’s All the Kremlin’s Men respectively make such valuable reading.
Our partnerships are vital too, and I am delighted that Brian Laslie’s The Air Force Way of War provides us with the opportunity to recognise the 70th Anniversary of the formation of the United States Air Force. I am indebted to Lieutenant General David Deptula, Dean of the US Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Power Studies, for his detailed review of Laslie’s book, which puts into proper perspective the achievements of those far-sighted and determined US airmen who in the 1970s and 1980s grasped the lessons of the Vietnam War and built the solid foundations on which air power became supremely effective during Operation DESERT STORM and ever since. It is, of course, a journey on which the Royal Air Force has been a close companion, on exercise and across the globe on combat operations.
Identifying the lessons of past and current campaigns is an important element in securing our future success, but it is only through effective and innovative leadership that the right lessons can be implemented successfully. General Stanley McChrystal has distilled in his book Team of Teams his vast experience of combat leadership into a philosophy which is illuminating for all who hold leadership responsibilities. I commend it, and all the other volumes contained in my reading list, to you: reading them makes us better informed, more self-aware, and better equipped to meet the vast array of leadership and conceptual challenges that face our Service and country as we look to the future. And, ultimately, the fighting effectiveness of the Royal Air Force will be enhanced through your assimilation of the lessons you draw from your critical analysis of these books. Enjoy your reading.
Sir Stephen Hillier KCB CBE DFC ADC MA RAF Air Chief Marshal — The Chief of the Air Staff
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