CAS’ Reading List 2010

Centre for Air Power Studies

Concordia res parvae crescent“Work together to accomplish more”

www.airpowerstudies.co.uk

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Foreword

Not unlike 1920 and 1947, 2010 will be a challenging year for the RAF. Afghanistan remains the main operational effort, yet, given the national fiscal

environment, resources are tight, and some tough decisions will have to be made about our future force structure in the Strategic Defence and Security Review. As military professionals, it is, therefore, more important than ever that we understand how air and space power contributes to the defence and security of the United Kingdom; and the context – social, political and economic – in which we will operate.

Much of this understanding can be gleaned though the excellent in-service education and training that we provide; but there’s no substitute for gaining a deeper background knowledge by reading authoritative and well argued publications, to whet the appetite for further study. This is the fourth year that a Chief of the Air Staff’s Reading List has been published, and all RAF stations and major deployed operating bases will receive copies of the ten important books on the list. My intention is to ensure that airmen and airwomen have access to an increasing library of relevant reference material, updated annually to reflect the best current thinking, and this year’s list deals with a broad cross-section of topics of interest, including air power, strategic studies, the changing character of warfare, history, ethos and international relations.

This means there should be something for everyone, from Richard Overy’s magisterial Battle of Britain, the definitive history for the 70th anniversary, to the excitement of Immediate Action, a less academic read evoking the ethos of the RAF today through its description of Chinook operations in Afghanistan. I’d also like to draw your attention to the primers on space and cyber-war, two domains that will pay a central role in the future delivery of air power, and which were identified by February’s Defence Green Paper as the most significant emerging dimensions of conflict. But as in the lists for previous years, I’d encourage you to use the reviews contained in this pamphlet as a guide to pick out the titles that you think will be of most interest to you.

Recently, the Chief of Defence Staff emphasised the need for us all to think more deeply – ‘to have explored a minimum body of professional strategic knowledge’. The Chief of the Air Staff’s Reading List 2010 provides the means for you to take further steps down this road, and I hope you enjoy the books contained in it.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton KCB ADC BSc FRAeS CCMI RAFChief of the Air Staff

CAS’ Reading List 2010

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Contents

A History of Air Warfare 2

Sky Wars: A History of Military Aerospace Power 3

The Making of Strategy: Rulers, States and War 5

Immediate Response 6

The Battle of Britain 7

War Since 1990 8

The Return of History and the End of Dreams 9

The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One 10

The International Politics of Space 11

Inside Cyber Warfare: Mapping the Cyber Underworld 12

Contents of CAS’s Reading List 2007 13

Contents of CAS’s Reading List 2008 14

Contents of CAS’s Reading List 2009 15

CAS Reading List is Edited and Distributed on behalf of The Chief of the Air Staff by The Director of Defence Studies (RAF).

A HiStoRy oF AiR WARFARe

By Olsen (ed)

Publisher: Potomac Books Inc (2010)ISBN-10: 1597974404, 432 pages Review by Air Cdre (Ret’d) Peter Gray

Colonel Olsen is the Dean of the Norwegian Defence University College and a well respected author on air power subjects. He has lectured widely in Europe and America, including at

RAF Defence Studies Conferences. This book is intended to be an introductory text for students of air warfare and is designed to give them an overview of air power from its inception through to 2006. The book can either be taken as a complete chronological history of the application of air power; or chapters can be taken as stand-alone items in their own right.

Colonel Olsen has assembled an outstanding array of authors, all of whom are genuine experts in their fields. For example, Richard Overy writes on ‘The Air War in Europe, 1939-1945’; Lawrence Freedman on ‘Air Power and the Falklands, 1982’; and Tony Mason on ‘Operation Allied Force, 1999’. One of the key challenges to any editor of such a volume is to ensure that his authors, especially those of the highest calibre who are usually in the greatest demand, conform to some degree of uniformity in their approach to the campaigns that they have been allotted. Olsen has managed to do so with conspicuous success.

The chapters have been designed to focus on some of the key campaigns in which air power has been tested or deployed to great effect. They all have a high degree of relevance and topical interest and will invariably stimulate the reader into further research. The accounts focus on higher levels of warfare – primarily the strategic and operational rather than deep technical or tactical details. The interrelationships at the political level therefore come to the fore. This is very much a book that can be approached from a wide variety of viewpoints and even the most casual reader will gain considerably from examining some, or all, of the campaigns.

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Sky WARS: A HiStoRy oF MiLitARy AeRoSpACe poWeR

By David Gates

Publisher: Cambridge: Reaktion, 2003ISBN-10: 186189189X, 224 pages

Reviewed by Seb Cox

Over the years there have been innumerable historical surveys of air power some concentrating on the technology, others on the operational aspects, and some taking a

more all-encompassing approach. David Gates’s short – a mere two hundred pages – paperback study makes up in thoughtfulness what it lacks in physical weight. In a tour d’horizon first published in the centennial year of the Wright Brothers pioneering 1903 flight Gates analyses the first hundred years of military activity in the third dimension.

In a readable style, which nevertheless combines scholarship with elegance, he takes the reader from the origins of manned powered flight to the Second Gulf War but eschews the more straightforward chronological or national approaches. The book is divided into two parts with the first two chapters and one hundred and fifty pages devoted to a history of air power and the last part of the book devoted to examining the major issues as he sees them. He looks at ideas in tandem with technology, ignoring the conventional watersheds of the First and Second World Wars, and thus his early chapters instead cover “War in and from the Skies 1903 – 1943” and “The Aerospace Era 1943-2003”. The year 1944, of course, ushers in the space age, but also simultaneously the jet age and thus the modern aerospace era.

Gates examines the development of theory from pre-Wright visionaries such as H G Wells, through Douhet and Mitchell alongside the apparently inexorable improvement in the technology of air power. However, he is also acutely conscious of the political, strategic, and industrial factors which are so crucial in determining its actual employment and, just as important, the nations which emerge on the winning side. Hence he points to the fact that “Prophetic though at least some of [H G] Wells’s musings turned out to be, the precise way in which air power was actually incorporated into warfare owed rather less to visionaries and theorists than it did to the deeds of practitioners, to the realities of combat, to the limitations of technology and to the varying institutional dynamics and often shifting strategic priorities of individual countries.” He also reminds us that “A state’s capacity for developing and maintaining air power ineluctably depends to a large extent upon its economic, technical and industrial base”. So, for all its modernist pretensions and ideological fascination with air power, and notwithstanding the fact that Douhet was an Italian, Mussolini’s Regia Aeronautica could not surmount its fundamental weaknesses in these areas to overcome the RAF in the Mediterranean, despite numerical and other advantages. Likewise, Nazi Germany’s significant technological advantage in jet and missile development availed it nothing as the V-weapons proved as barren of military and political effect as they were flawed in doctrinal conception.

The author also points to the importance of other technologies to aerospace power, notably the microchip. He argues that it was The West’s ability simultaneously to sustain high levels of military force and to mass produce such items with all their subsequent profound impact on both military networks and everyday life (today’s mobile phones carrying more

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computing power than Apollo 11’s moon-landing flight computer), which convinced Gorbachev that the Soviet Union could not compete. The extraordinary effectiveness of Western, particularly American, air power in the 1991 Gulf War underlined the message. But the relative simplicities of 1991 were replaced by the ambiguity of subsequent Balkan conflicts and the later Iraq and Afghanistan imbroglios.

In the second part of the book Gates provides a short treatise on the nature of air power which covers familiar ground in terms of its characteristics such as flexibility and limitations such as impermanence, but is more challenging when addressing what we might term “problematics of air power” such as cost, blues-on-blue, and the increasing and potentially restrictive impact and influence of outside factors, including the 24-hour media and international law.

He also explores the wider cultural impact of air power, including the transfer of technology from the military to the civil sphere, encompassing everything from radar to GPS.

A short but important chapter “Bases Ashore and Afloat” self-evidently examines the advantages and disadvantages of land and sea based air power, both operational and political, including the vexed question of US-basing and the presence of nuclear weapons. Rather idiosyncratically the book ends with an examination of “Missile Defence Dilemmas” which, whilst of value in itself, does rather leave many of the interesting strands developed in the book dangling when a short formal conclusion could have drawn them together.

Overall, however, this is a most valuable introductory survey on air power which will both educate the newcomer and challenge the supposedly knowledgeable. It is highly recommended.

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tHe MAking oF StRAtegy: RuLeRS, StAteS And WAR

By James S Corum & Wray R Johnson

Publisher: Williamson Murray & others (ed)Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007ISBN-10: 0521566274, 704 pages

Reviewed by Gp Capt Clive Blount

What is ‘Strategy’? This is a question that has plagued academics, policy-makers and generals for many years and has spawned many different definitions. Whilst there has

been much written by the great theorists - and the study of such greats as Clausewitz and Tzun Zhu forms the basis of syllabuses of Staff Colleges and Business Schools alike - the messy, flawed, emotional process by which states have in the past developed strategies in support of their national interest has largely been ignored. It is this omission that this book seeks to rectify. Originating from work at the US Naval Academy during 1985-1986, and largely consisting of a series of essays by leading academics, ‘The Making of Strategy’ is based on a series of case studies covering the practical making of strategy in history - ranging from fifth-century Athens, through Europe during the War of Spanish Succession and the war for American independence, to the major wars of the twentieth century (including the cold war). Having not been recently updated, it would benefit hugely from additional material examining the post cold war world, but as an informative textbook, it is certainly no less useful because of this omission.

The book focuses of the making of strategy at the highest level and frequently goes above that of military command to the wider national interest – it rapidly becomes clear, for example, that economics forms a key driver in strategy formulation, and the illustrations prove that this has been true since the time of Thucydides! Other omnipresent strands include the need for a clear political aim, the importance of culture and the need to learn the right lessons from history. Also examined are the evolution and ‘revolutions’ in policy-making wrought by societal change – for instance as absolute monarchy gave way to mass politics – and the effects of technological change, not just in weaponry, but the effects of development in wider areas such manufacturing and communications. The case studies also make it very clear that operational success is insufficient in the face of poor strategic direction… “Mistakes in operations and tactics can be corrected, but political and strategic mistakes live forever”.

A historical and analytical ‘tour de force’, this book will stand reading and re-reading many times and provides a rich mine of examples and thought-provoking views to inform anyone interested in warfare and international relations. Envisioning Strategy as “a constant adaptation to shifting conditions and circumstances, in a world where chance, uncertainty and ambiguity dominate”, the case studies in this comprehensive book provide a wealth of background to inspire and inform thoughts on future strategy, and enable the reader to place current conflict firmly within the context of historical experience.

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iMMediAte ReSponSe

By Mark Hammond

Publisher: London: Michael Joseph (Aug 2009)ISBN-10: 0718154746, 320 pages

Reviewed by Air Cdre Carl Scott

On entering the Officers’ Mess at Royal Air Force Odiham, you will see before you a room whose walls are lined with small, framed photographs. This expanse of young faces represents a

collection of remarkable acts of tenacity and courage. What makes these portraits remarkable is that this is not remote history, all but a handful of these faces are still serving, most still flying on a constant stream of operational tours. This is the home of the Chinook Force; a Force with no concern about ‘relevance’, a world so inherently ‘joint’ that the word is rarely heard, one so operationally focussed that it has held a place at the very heart of the fight since the first aircraft survived to reach the shores of San Carlos Sound in the Falkland Islands in 1982. It represents an unparalleled concentration of operational experience and talent. (The three Squadron Commanders at RAF Odiham, for example, hold 5 DFCs between them). The story of this Force is a remarkable one, which deserves to be told. So the inevitable challenge which lies before this book must be: is this the one, (ironically but appropriately crafted by a Royal Marine) to tell that story?

It is all too easy to approach this slim volume with suspicion borne of, not entirely unreasonable, prejudice. It seems that we are unable to engage in any activity without the shelves filling with countless ghost-written accounts of dubious authenticity and dismal quality. The task of the ghost writer is all too often to accumulate the distinctive speech patterns of the era, the slang of war, to confer specious credibility on pages littered with clichés. There is, however, more to ‘Immediate Response’ than this. Clare Macnaughton is married to a Chinook pilot and understands the community. Mark Hammond, to his credit, is large enough to risk the honesty required to expose himself in print. The result is more, far more, than might have reasonably been hoped.

The book retraces Major Hammond’s steps through three tours in Afghanistan, all in rapid succession, each distinct in character. In the cauldron of the most difficult period, when 3 Para were defending isolated platoon houses in the District Centres of Helmand, he earns his Distinguished Flying Cross. The structure is elegant, the pace, relentless. There are insights beyond the ‘whiff of cordite’ and the ‘arc of tracer’ in the closely observed culture: the courtly dance that couples adopt to deal with a partner departing for war, the constant tics of ‘detachment tourettes’, the layers of cultural references that intelligent, humorous minds create about them under duress (‘..we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto, I thought...’), the loathing of celebrity culture and the dark humour (a game of ‘shag, marry, kill’ on the run-in to a fire-fight). These small notes mark the difference between this account and the commercial white noise. Psychological depth and strategic vision may be carefully rationed, but this is a work of considerable heart and authenticity. It captures the energy, the frustrations and prejudices of the front line. It serves as a noble, surprisingly humble tribute to all those who fight. It is, in its way, an act of great courage.

No one book can tell the many stories that adorn that quiet room in Hampshire, but this is one story from amongst them, and it is, beyond all else, an honest book. There can be no higher praise than that. It deserves to be read, and with pride. It should be read by any who would presume to command.

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tHe BAttLe oF BRitAin

By Richard Overy

Publisher: Penguin, 2004ISBN-10: 0141018305, 176 pages

Reviewed by Gp Capt (Ret’d) Ian Shields

First published in 2000 under the title The Battle and reprinted in its present format and title in 2004, this short (only some 120 pages of text) monograph by Richard Overy, Professor of

History at King’s College, London, falls firmly into the revisionist school of history. That is not to say that Professor Overy lessens the importance of the battle in the overall ebb and flow of the Second World War, or that he suggests any lack of bravery on the combatants and supporting actors on either side, rather he rises above the mythology and presents an honest, balanced and above all immensely readable account of what has become a defining moment in our Service’s brief history.

In four short chapters, Professor Overy first sets the events of the summer and autumn of 10940 in context. The German victory in France was as staggering in its speed and scale to the Germans as it was to the French and the British, and there were much stronger feelings that a settlement between the protagonists was the sensible way forward than our popular history might suggest: but the first of the myths exploded. The Professor’s next chapter compares the two sides in terms of materiel, leadership and technology and here a second belief is punctured: that of “The Few” since the sides were much more evenly balanced than we like to believe. He maintains his commendably disengaged approach with the third chapter on the battle itself where he avoids demonising or lionising either side, dismisses yet more of the misconceptions, such as why the Luftwaffe switched its efforts to bombing London and the major cities rather than continuing with attacking Fighter Command’s assets, and traces the path of battle with remarkable brevity, insight and analysis. And the book reaches a fitting climax in the final chapter where Professor Overy analyses to what extent it was a victory, and highlights how little its significance was understood at the time.

There are a number of key messages that pervade this book. First was the central role that intelligence played in giving the British if not a total victory then at least the means to avoid defeat; it is worth reading this book with one eye on contemporary events in Afghanistan in respect of how to analyse vast quantities of data. Second was the role played by Hitler and his lack of strategic direction or even of a clear plan, although the Professor is clear in his analysis that Hitler did not turn his attention East until later than some suggest. Finally, the degree to which both sides’ misperception of the other’s strengths is a constant theme: how it played out psychologically is one of the most important messages of the book.

Professor Overy has not destroyed the reputation of “The Few”, nor has he enhanced it: this honest appraisal, based on the hard facts of history rather than wishful and myopic thinking, does us all a great service by putting fact over fiction. There is no doubt of the importance of the Battle of Britain in the course of the Second World War, and its contribution to stiffening Britain’s determination to survive and then succeed. As the Professor summarises towards the end of this excellent book, there is an ironic juxtaposition that we lost 443 pilots in four months in comparison with the countless millions around Moscow, Sevastopol and Stalingrad: “the ‘few’ did indeed save the many from a terrible ordeal” (p. 121).

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WAR SinCe 1990

By Jeremy Black

Publisher: Social Affairs Unit, 2009ISBN-10: 1904863361, 176 pages

Reviewed by Gp Capt John Alexander

This is not a conventional work of military history. Nor is it just about the recent past; Black turns his questioning mind to present and future conflict, arguing it will help define the future world.

A renowned eighteenth-century military historian, in War Since 1990 Black argues for an understanding of conflict from a non-Western perspective, rather than the traditional focus on Western technological determinism. His thesis is concisely argued in 170 pages, with reference to key secondary sources, using Western and non-Western narratives of recent conflict and two views of the future.

The strength of the book is Black’s account of war since 1990. In the Western narrative the combination of nuclear weapons and the victory of liberal democracy in the Cold War made inter-state industrial war obsolete. Furthermore Western military dominance derived from the information-age Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) allowed liberal interventionism without requiring mass armies, conscription, a war economy, high casualties or a warrior ethos. Such interventions were typified by the liberation of Kuwait, intervention in the Balkans, and the containment of Iraq. It allowed many Western countries, under US protection, to give up credible armed forces. In contrast, Black’s account of ‘Third World’ war since 1990 is of continuing Cold War proxy wars in Africa and Asia, of instability, of authoritarian regimes, civil wars and coups, reaching an apogee of horror in Rwanda.

At first the war on terror, in the defeat of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan using special forces, air power and indigenous forces, demonstrated the effectiveness of the RMA against forces fighting conventionally, although 9/11 was also a terrorist RMA in which Al Qaeda used weapons of mass effect. However, the limitations of Western force were soon seen in Iraq and Southern Lebanon (in 2006) when adaptive adversaries avoided and indeed exploited the Western way of war, culminating in the war in Afghanistan which for Black represents Western immersion in a ‘Third World’ civil war.

War Since 1990 is less certain about the future. Black presents two views. The first is the return of great power rivalry: an USA increasingly concerned with China’s rise and its ability to confront US conventional dominance, and a Europe progressively more concerned with Russia. The second is more ‘war amongst the people’ in states collapsing in conflict, and growing populations struggling for resources.

Black concludes the long dominant Western focus on military technology is no longer appropriate and present needs should not crowd out future options. Future militaries will need diverse capabilities, underpinned by evidence-based analysis, including the study of military history both to educate the military and for the military education of politicians and public. Hence works like War Since 1990 help avoid the reductionist approaches that caused us to think the RMA had made history redundant, by changing the paradigm of war, and enabling decisive Western victory using its conventional military dominance alone.

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tHe RetuRn oF HiStoRy And tHe end oF dReAMS

By Robert Kagan

Publisher: April 29, 2008ISBN-10: 030726923X, 128 pages

Reviewed by Air Cdre Neville Parton

In the Return of History, Robert Kagan consciously references one book, and perhaps unconsciously references another. The conscious reference is to Francis Fukayama’s The End

of History and the Last Man, which argued, perhaps somewhat naively, that with the fall of communism around 1990 the world had now moved to a point where there was only one dominating ideology in the world – that of liberal democracy. The possibly unconscious reference is to E.H. Carr’s famous critique of the liberal approach to international relations in the 1920s and 1930s, The Twenty Year Crisis, which provided a particular perspective on the idealistic approach, packaged in a relatively small book (for an academic!), and written in a very lucid and easily read style.

Of course readers will be forgiven for asking what this has to do with air power – and the answer is – nothing directly. However just as Carr’s book in the 1930s summed up the dangers of depending upon what was then termed as ‘international public opinion’ as a means of preventing nations from carrying out undesirable acts, Kagan’s does the same for the 21st century belief in the inevitable victory of liberalism as the dominant force in the world political system. He provides some very strong arguments regarding potential future developments in international politics, and reinforces the message that whilst democracies generally see the use of force as a last resort, other political systems do not.

Preserving the ‘democratic ideal’ as a future is a goal that will have to be worked for, and whilst much of this may be accomplished in the diplomatic and economic arenas, autocracies seem to have a greater respect for force, which politicians would do well to consider. The world still has the capacity to be a very dangerous place, and the increase in real spending on military capability by non-democratic states should be a particular concern – and cause us to examine our own spending priorities. And with regard to the application of force, air power, as has been seen on a number of occasions during the last decade, provides a unique capability for both signalling intent and creating effect which make it a very flexible tool in such a world.

The combination of unique perspectives and considerable insight packaged into a very few pages make this a book that should certainly be on the mandatory reading list for any staff college. However anyone with an interest in gaining insight into future threats to world stability, as well as an overview of the way in which the international political system is developing, would also be well advised to read it.

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tHe ACCidentAL gueRRiLLA: FigHting SMALL WARS in tHe MidSt oF A Big one

By David Kilcullen

Publisher: London: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd (27 Mar 2009)ISBN-10: 1850659559, 344 pages

Reviewed Gp Capt John Alexander

If one were to read only one book on contemporary insurgency and counter-insurgency then this should be it. Dr David Kilcullen is one of today’s foremost counter-insurgency theorists and

practitioners and, along with others such as John Nagl and H.R. McMaster, was one of General Petraeus’s advisors when he was implementing the surge strategy in Iraq in 2007. Kilcullen is a former Australian Army officer, he has a PhD in Anthropology, he acted as counter-insurgency advisor to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and he is now counter-terrorist strategist for the State Department.

Much of this well-written book chimes with current UK counter-insurgency doctrine; indeed Kilcullen is referenced eleven times in the recent Joint Doctrine Publication 3-40 Security and Stabilization; more than air support or helicopters. Kilcullen the practitioner case studies the insurgencies he has experienced first-hand: Afghanistan, Iraq, West Java, East Timor, Pakistan and Europe. In these tactical studies he focuses on the importance of cultural understanding, rather than physical effects, and does not mention air power. But Kilcullen the theorist provides four models to explain today’s threat environment: a backlash against globalization; a globalized insurgency; an Islamic civil war; and asymmetric warfare in response to Western conventional dominance, based on air power. Kilcullen thinks these models combine to challenge our understanding of war, diplomacy and intelligence. The West is lagging in its adaptation to these challenges and needs to adopt a new lexicon and stop using terms like unconventional, irregular or asymmetric which reinforce the conventional paradigm.

Instead of arguing for more ‘boots on the ground’ Kilcullen challenges the West’s strategy. He warns the US has conflated local social networks and worldwide movements; traditional and post-modern cultures; local insurgencies seeking autonomy and broader anti-western campaigns. By misidentifying insurgents with limited aims and legitimate grievances as members of an international terror network we have created ‘accidental guerrillas’ through our unwanted presence in Islamic territories. Therefore the West is faced with strategic choices. These include intervention or containment; the balance of military and non-military; how much blood and treasure to expend; and where to prioritise geographically. Kilcullen’s preferences are clear: ‘counter-insurgency in general is a game we need to avoid wherever possible. If we are forced to intervene we now (through much hard experience) have a reasonably sound idea of how to do so. But we should avoid such interventions wherever possible, simply because the costs are so high and the benefits so doubtful’. Likewise we should therefore avoid any future large-scale, unilateral military intervention in the Islamic world.

Although Kilcullen is not explicit, he is advocating a strategy where air power is essential. Kilcullen’s model is to prosecute the ‘war on terrorism’ with strategic services like the US Office of Strategic Services of the Second World War, which included intelligence, information, psychological operations and capacity building, and more effort on strategic communications. The importance of air power in providing options for avoiding costly intervention is clear.

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tHe inteRnAtionAL poLitiCS oF SpACe

By Michael Sheenan

Publisher: Routledge, 2007ISBN-10: 0415399173, 248 pages

Reviewed by Wg Cdr Gerry Doyle

Quantifying the military reliance on space, and on the capabilities enabled by it, has been a growth area recently, verified by journal articles as well as by work undertaken directly in

military circles. One level beyond this, the importance of space-derived capability to national security is also becoming well understood; the inclusion of space as a dimension of the National Security Strategy should surprise no one. When one moves beyond security paradigms, however, the picture becomes less clear: what ultimately motivates countries to develop space capability? Credible answers must address issues of national prestige, development, resource monitoring and exploitation, environmental protection and many others alongside security. Plainly different countries will take different views of what comprises their national interests and why. Any military thinker wishing to take a view on space capability beyond the strictly tactical needs some understanding of the wider background, and this book addresses that need.

Written in 2007, which the author notes as the 50th anniversary of the Space Age, it provides an accessible introduction to thinking about its political realities. The first chapter provides a primer for the debates in international political theory that characterised the Cold War and its aftermath. Realisim, liberalism and Marxism all feature, alongside the other ‘usual suspects’, illustrated by the basic claims on space made by each school of thought. Chapters 2 and 3 then analyse the motivations of the USSR and the USA respectively, roughly in the 1957-70 timeframe. Chapter 4 looks at how each of these superpowers used space to promote and exploit cooperation with other nations, and ultimately with each other in the era of detente. Chapter 5 examines European Space policy, mainly by analysing ELDO and ESRO, the early European attempts to develop launchers and satellites, and why they ultimately merged to form ESA. In line with the book’s intent, more emphasis is placed on the political manoeuvring surrounding ESA’s formation than on analysing the technical successes it subsequently achieved. Chapters 6 and 7 provide the most obvious ‘hooks’ for the military reader, addressing the debates about the weaponisation of Space on one hand, and Space Control and anti-satellite technologies on the other. Chapter 8 changes the emphasis completely by considering the role of international organisations (principally the UN) and international law in promoting development through Space. Chapters 9 and 10 offer an Asian perspective on the politics of space, looking at how India and China harnessed space capability to meet their political needs. Finally, Chapter 11 addresses post Cold-War developments directly, and offers some suggestions for the future.

This is a balanced and accessible book that offers an informed perspective on the political aspects of national space capability. Realists will be pleased that security receives due recognition, but liberals will applaud its situation within the wider debate. Practitioners seeking a purely military/security focussed discussion will find that other books meet their needs better, but they would be well advised to read this book first, and choose their security text from the extensive bibliography. The author is a Professor of International Relations at Swansea University, and uses this book as the basis for two courses offered there annually. Those whose appetite for the field is whetted by this book may wish to contact him directly to enquire about opportunities for further study.

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inSide CyBeR WARFARe: MApping tHe CyBeR undeRWoRLd

By Jeffrey Carr

Publisher: O’Reilly, 2009ISBN-10: 0596802153, 240 pages

Reviewed by Sqn Ldr Nigel Jones

For millennia war was fought in only 2 domains, in the land and maritime environments. The 20th Century has seen the addition of a further 3: air, space and cyberspace. Over the

past 20 years the rapid growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web has seen an increasing interdependence within and between nations. This increasing globalization has seen a corresponding increase in our dependency, both as individuals and as nations, on this electronic infrastructure. The UK’s Centre for the Protection of National Infrastructure has identified the vulnerability of this infrastructure to cyber attack.

Competing in the domains of sea, land, air and space are very expensice, whilst the cyber domain is a relatively cheap area of operation. It uses hardware and software that is cheap and readily available on the high street and this equipment only requires a modicum of technical skill to operate. The very low entry cost coupled to the ubiquity of the equipment in Government and Business use makes it very attractive for our enemies to use.

Who will be enemies in this new domain, what are their targets, what weapons will they use and how can we defend ourselves. This book by Jeffery Carr goes a long way toward answering those questions. Carr uses a series of case histories describing how nation states, terrorist groups and criminal gangs have used the cyber domain to mount attacks on national infrastructure and critical business activities. The book also touches on the methods and techniques these groups use, but without delving into too much technical detail which may lose the lay reader. The book goes on to provide advice for governments, organisations and individuals on how to reduce the probability of suffering a successful cyber attack.Carr also provides an explanation of the doctrinal and ethical implications of this developing conflict domain. In doing so he highlights the difficulty in attributing attacks within cyberspace, and the complex nature of the relationship between state and non-state actor, using recent attacks within Chechnya, Estonia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan and Lithuania as examples.

This book is produced by O’Reilly, a publisher of technical books with an outstanding pedigree, and this leads to one of the few criticisms of this book. The fact that it looks like, and in places is laid out in the manner of a technical manual may put off some readers, however I would encourage them to embrace their inner geek, and continue reading as this is an excellent introduction to cyber warfare.

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Contents of CAS’ Reading List 2007

The Narrow Margin By Derek Wood and Derek DempsterPublisher: Pen & Sword, 2003

Another Bloody Century: Future Warfare By Colin S GrayPublisher: London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2005

Firestorm, the Bombing of Dresden, 1945Edited by Paul Addison and Jeremy A. CrangPublisher: Pimlico, London 2006

Landscapes of the Jihad: Militancy, Morality, Modernity By Faisal DevjiPublisher: London: C Hurst, 2005

Leadership and Command Edited by G D SheffieldPublisher: Brassey’s (UK) Ltd, 2002

Terrorism Versus Democracy : The Liberal State Response By Paul WilkinsonPublisher: Routledge, 2000

Vulcan 607 By Rowland WhitePublisher: Bantam Press, London, 2006

Tedder: Quietly in Command By Vincent Orange. LondonPublisher: Frank Cass Publishers, 2004

The Limits of Air Power The American Bombing of North Vietnam By Mark ClodfelterPublisher: University of Nebraska Press, 2006

Revolt on the Tigris By Mark EtheringtonPublisher: Cornell University Press, 2005

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Contents of CAS’ Reading List 2008

Nato’s Gamble: Combining Diplomacy and Air Power in The Kosovo Crisis 1998-1999 By Dag HenriksenPublisher: Naval Institute Press, Annapolis

John Warden and the Renaissance of American Air Power By John Andreas OlsenPublisher: Potomac Books, Inc., Washington

Strategy for Victory: The Development of British Tactical Air Power, 1919 – 1943 By David Ian Hall Publisher: Praeger Security International, London

Divining Victory : Air Power in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah WarBy William M ArkinPublisher: Air University Press, Maxwell

Arms, Economics and British Strategy : From Dreadnoughts to Hydrogen BombsBy G.C. PedenPublisher: Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

War, Peace and International Relations: An Introduction to Strategic History By Colin S. Gray, Publisher: Routledge, London and New York

Just And Unjust WarsBy Michael WalzerPublisher: Basic Books, New York

Politics and Propaganda : Weapons of Mass SeductionBy Nicholas Jackson O’ShaughnessyPublisher: Manchester University Press, Manchester

“Bomber” Harris: His Life and TimesBy Air Commodore Henry ProbertPublisher: Greenhill Books

The Royal Air Force Day by DayBy Air Commodore Graham PitchforkPublisher: Sutton Publishing

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Contents of CAS’ Reading List 2009

Constant Vigilance By Nigel WarwickPublisher: Pen and Sword Aviation

Understanding Modern WarfareBy David Jordan, James D Kiras, David J Lonsdale, Ian Speller, Christopher Tuck, C Dale WaltonPublisher: Cambridge University Press

Learning to eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and VietnamBy John A NaglPublisher: Chicago University Press

Air Power in Small WarsBy James S Corum & Wray R JohnsonPublisher: University Press of Kansas

Learning Large Lessons: The Evolving Roles of Ground Power and Air Power in the Post–Cold War EraBy David E. JohnsonPublisher: RAND

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and InheritanceBy Barack ObamaPublisher: Cannongate Books

Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of IraqBy Linda RobinsonPublisher: Public Affairs

Swords and PloughsharesBy Paddy AshdownPublisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Nemesis: The battle for Japan, 1944-45By Max HastingsPublisher: Harper Perennia

The Past as Prologue : The Importance of History to the Military ProfessionEdited by Williamson Murray and Richard Hart SinnreichPublisher: Cambridge University Press

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The views expressed by the reviewers in this list are theirs and theirs alone.

Inclusion of a particular book within the reading list should not be taken to mean that

the Royal Air Force or the Ministry of Defence endorses the contents. Manuscripts with

challenging and even contrarian views will be included in order to stimulate thinking,

discussion and debate.

16

Notes

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Notes

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Produced by Air Media Centre, HQ Air Command, RAF High Wycombe - 0138_10CW © Crown Copyright/MOD 2010

The Royal Air Force Centre for Air Power Studies

www.airpowerstudies.co.uk