Uppsatsens resultat visar att det saknas ett entydigt luftmaktsteoretiskt ställningstagande. Istället återfinns en tudelad teoribild, dels den svenska traditionella defensiva luftmaktsteorin, men också den som inriktas mot en västlig modern expeditionär luftmaktsteori. Resultatet stöds av slutsatserna från studien av förmågeutvecklingen, en utveckling som spänner över en bred men traditionell förmågebas. Huruvida ett tudelat teoretiskt ställningstagande och ett i huvudsak traditionellt förmågeutvecklingsprogram, kommer vara effektivt att möta framtidens uppgifter och ekonomiska realiteter återstår att se. / The result of this paper can be summarized in that there are different air power theories in the strategic documents. There is mainly a twofold strategy based on a national non-alliance defence concept focusing on cooperation as well as a modern western airpower theory. The paper also shows an airpower development which focuses on traditional capabilities and may in some way lacking the means for facing possible future demands on airpower. However, based on the results, the Swedish airpower will still be a major instrument for political use in the future. In regards to the efficiency of a twofold theory, based on the assumption of increasing defence cost and varied future military tasks, there is no way of saying what the consequence will be, we will just have to wait and see.

The F-4 Phantom II was the United States' primary air superiority fighter aircraft during the Vietnam War. This airplane epitomized American airpower doctrine during the early Cold War, which diminished the role of air-to-air combat and the air superiority mission. As a result, the F-4 struggled against the Soviet MiG fighters used by the North Vietnamese Air Force. By the end of the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign in 1968, the Phantom traded kills with MiGs at a nearly one-to-one ratio, the worst air combat performance in American history. The aircraft also regularly failed to protect American bombing formations from MiG attacks. A bombing halt from 1968 to 1972 provided a chance for American planners to evaluate their performance and make changes. The Navy began training pilots specifically for air combat, creating the Navy Fighter Weapons School known as "Top Gun" for this purpose. The Air Force instead focused on technological innovation and upgrades to their equipment. The resumption of bombing and air combat in the 1972 Linebacker campaigns proved that the Navy's training practices were effective, while the Air Force's technology changes were not, with kill ratios becoming worse. However, the last three months of the campaign introduced an American ground radar system that proved more effective than Top Gun in improving air-to-air combat performance. By the end of the Vietnam War, the Air Force and Navy overcame the inherent problems with the Phantom, which were mostly of their own making.

Dr. Robert A. Pape utgav sin bok Bombing to win: Air power and coercion in wars år 1996. Det är en kvantitativ analys där Pape’s målsättning är att presentera en teori som beskriver hur luftmakt skall användas för att lyckas och testa den mot alla strategiska luftoperationer under 1900-talet. Han analyserar användandet av tvångsmakt historiskt för att sedan dra vissa slutsatser och se samband mellan då tvångsmakt fungerade och inte i syfte att kunna förutse när tvångsmakten kommer fungera i framtiden. Pape förespråkar att tvångsmakt ska användas för att slå mot motståndarens militära svagheter. Slutsatsen blir att det är hotet om militärt misslyckande som Pape kallar för nekande som avgör och därför bör luftstridskrafterna användas för att neka fiendens styrkor framgång på slagfältet. I augusti 2008 utspelade sig ett kort men intensivt krig mellan Ryssland och Georgien. Det var första gången Ryssland invaderade ett land sedan Afghanistan 1979. Efter kriget står det klart att Rysslands användande av sina luftstridskrafter spelade en stor roll i det snabba avgörandet. Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka om Pape’s teorier passar in på Rysslands användande av sina luftstridskrafter under konflikten med Georgien 2008. Slutsatsen är att Rysslands agerande i många avseenden var helt i linje med det som Pape förespråkar. / Dr. Robert A. Pape published his book Bombing to win: Air power and coercion in wars in 1996. It is a quantitative analysis where Pape’s goal is to present a theory that describes how air power should be used in order to succeed, and test it against all strategic air operations during the 1900s. He analyzes the use of coercive power historically and then draw some conclusions and make connections between when coercive power worked and not in order to be able to predict when coercive power will work in the future. Pape advocates coercive power should be used to strike against the opponent's military weaknesses. The conclusion is that it is the threat of military failure, which Pape calls denial that determines whether or not you will be successful and therefore air power should be used to deny enemy forces success on the battlefield. In August 2008, a short but intense war took place between Russia and Georgia. It was the first time Russia invaded a country since 1979, when they invaded Afghanistan. After the war, it is clear that Russia's use of its air power played a major role in the quick decision. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether Papes theories fit into Russia's use of its air power during the conflict with Georgia in 2008. The conclusion is that Russia's actions in many respects was entirely in line with what Pape advocates.

The Russian-Georgian war of 2008 drastically changed Europe´s and Sweden´s political climate.Russiashowed that it is capable of successfully completing complex campaigns including ground, naval and air assets. However, not much has been said about the theoretical framework and doctrine of the Russian military of today. Even less has been researched about Russian use of air power and applied air theory. Are air power assets still considered primarily as support of ground offensives or has the theoretical framework changed? John A. Warden III´s theory presented in The Air Campaign and The Enemy as a System have had a big impact on western air power use. HasRussia also changed its approach on the use of air power to include the theory of Warden? This thesis researches Russian use of air power in the war with Georgia 2008. The empirics are then compared to Warden´s theory of air power use to answer the question if Russia´s air power use in the war with Georgia 2008 was done in cohesion with what Warden suggests. / Kriget i Georgien ändrade under några få dagar i augusti 2008 Sveriges och större delen av Europas säkerhetspolitiska klimat. Efter kriget står det klart att Ryssland genomförde en lyckad operation och nådde sitt mål att slå Georgien militärt. Väldigt lite har dock skrivits om Ryssland och dess militära teorigrund. Än mindre har skrivits om Rysslands flygstridskraftsanvändande teorigrund varför det kan vara intressant att vidare undersöka kriget i Georgien. Det råder ingen tvekan om att västvärldens militärer har tagit starkt intryck av John A. Warden IIIs teori om fienden som ett system och hans bok The Air Campaign. Har även rysk militär inspirerats av Wardens tankar och försökte ryska flygstridskrafter i så fall praktisera dessa under kriget i Georgien 2008? Denna uppsats undersöker om ryskt luftmaktsanvändande under kriget i Georgien kan sägas vara inspirerat av John A. Warden IIIs teori som presenterades i hans The Air Campaign och The Enemy as a System.

Konflikterna i södra Afrika under 1900-talets andra hälft är något som idag är främmande för många och som direkt för tankarna till apartheid regimen. Hårt pressat av omvärlden på grund av deras raspolitik kämpade Sydafrika i många år en oftast anonym konflikt mot kommunistiska styrkor som hade stöd från Kuba och Sovjetunionen. Under vissa perioder, speciellt mot krigsslutet, eskalerades stridigheterna och stora konventionella operationer bedrevs långt in i Angola för att hindra framfarten av fientliga styrkor.  Sydafrikas användandet av stridsflyg kopplas i denna studie till John A. Warden III:s teorier om hur luftmakt bör användas. Warden är mest känd från perspektivet att hans teorier var grundläggande i planerandet av Gulfkriget i Irak och andra amerikanska luftoffensiver under 1990- och 2000-talet. I detta arbete undersöks i hur stor utsträckning det är möjligt att finna spår av Wardens luftmakts-teorier i Sydafrikas gränskrig. Resultatet av studien visar, genom en analys, hur enskilda händelser och operationer korrelerar med utvalda begrepp ur Wardens teorier. Däremot finns det inga indikationer som pekar på att det större strategiska perspektivet överensstämmer med Wardens större konceptuella idéer. / The conflicts in southern Africa during the second part of the 20th-century are today a piece of half-forgotten history that immediately invokes images of the South African apartheid regime. Under immense pressure from the outside world, South Africa fought a conflict against a communist force that enjoyed support from states such as Cuba and the Soviet Union. The conflict tended to rise and fall in intensity and during the latter part of the war; conventional operations were executed deep into Angolan territory in order to halt the enemy offensive. In this study the South African use of fighter jets are compared to John A. Warden III’s theories on how an air war should be fought. Wardens claim to fame came with the Gulf war and the following conflicts that used methods that spawned from his ideas on how airpower should be used. This essay examines to what extent Wardens ideas are applicable to the South African border war.  The analysis shows that specific events and operations correlate with Wardens ideas, however there are no significant signs of what might be interpreted as operations of the type of conceptual thinking that Wardens uses on the larger, strategic scale.

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This dissertation articulates the Federal Republic of Germany’s critical role in establishing and sustaining the modern multinational European aviation sector. It demonstrates how Bonn employed its 1959 acquisition of the Lockheed F-104G Starfighter combat aircraft to take advantage of the Eisenhower administration’s efforts to reduce the US military presence in Europe and achieve strategic goals of military, political, and economic primacy within NATO through multinational cooperation and consortium building. In fostering the European Starfighter consortiums and their successors, West Germany embraced a leadership role that saw it build one of NATO’s largest air forces and become a primary political and economic driver of the continent’s multinational military-aviation projects. This dissertation is predicated on intensive archival research conducted in Germany, Belgium, and the United States. This work employs economic, political, and military historical lenses of analysis to argue that the Starfighter’s legacy represents a long-term success that allowed the Federal Republic to leverage a role of normalized leadership within a decade of joining NATO, boost its moribund aviation sector, and take a leading role in contemporary multinational aviation concerns such as the Panavia Tornado, Eurofighter Typhoon, and Airbus Space and Defense. / History

Airpower developed significantly during the First World War while leaders adapted to integrate it into the constantly evolving combined arms system. First World War airpower is often viewed as insignificant in relation to the wider conflict. This generally stems from the perception that airplanes fought in a parallel air war or failed to achieve "decisive" air-to-ground results. These conceptions oversimplify the impact of pursuit and bomber aviation and ignore the monumental role of aerial observation and overall battlefield integration. The true impact of airpower during the war is revealed through the lens of combined arms operations rather than through the examination of airpower as a singular weapon. This study utilizes a layered approach analyzing the ideas, organization, planning, and battlefield execution to assess the integration of airpower into the combined arms systems for the French, British, and American forces on the Western Front in 1918. Each of these armies led an Allied force in a critical battle during the summer of 1918: the Second Battle of the Marne, the Battle of Amiens, and the Battle of Saint-Mihiel. This study chronologically flows through these three battles and reveals that the air element emerged as increasingly synthesized into the modern combined arms systems of 1918.

This thesis is a narrative and analytical history of the Hungarian air service. It follows its development from the Allied intervention of 1919 through the end of the Second World War. Denied an air force by the Treaty of Trianon, Hungarian airmen determined to thwart the inspection system and preserve national air power. The prohibition against military aviation persisted after the Commission was withdrawn, and through Hungarian diplomatic efforts, a relationship was established with Italy that included substantial assistance to the clandestine Hungarian air service. This low-grade arms build-up continued through the 1930s, during which there was a robust discussion about air power theory and the nature of future aerial warfare in Magyar Katonai Szemle [Hungarian Military Review]. After the rise of Hitler, Germany offered arms credits and support for Hungary’s obsession with regaining the territory lost in the post-war settlement. The air service grew mainly through imported aeroplanes, the purchase of which ceased to be secret after the Little Entente recognised Hungary’s equality of arms. The Hungarian air force became independent in 1939, and enjoyed public acclaim after decisive air-to-air victories over Slovak pilots during the occupation of Upper Hungary. The General Staff never accepted its autonomy, however, and succeeded in reclaiming control of the air force in 1941. After Hungary joined the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, the air force provided air defence and interdiction in support of the Rapid Corps. Its mounting losses were made good by German aeroplanes, some of which were produced in Hungarian factories. As the Allied bombing campaign against Hungary intensified in 1944, most of its aircraft were devoted to homeland defence. The force ceased to exist as a true national service after the German-led coup in October 1944, but continued a fighting withdrawal to the west until captured by American forces.

Airpower played an important supporting role in the Korean War, and as General of the Army Douglas MacArthur pursued victory in the war and President Harry S Truman's objectives altered throughout the first year of the conflict, tension arose between the two men. One issue in these frictions was the restriction of airpower. Not only MacArthur, but also his admiring subordinate Lieutenant General George E. Stratemeyer commanding the Far East Air Forces, and Fifth Air Force commander Major General Earle E. Partridge opposed the restrictions which had been imposed on airmen from the outset of the conflict. Stratemeyer did so partly because of his loyalty to MacArthur, who wanted latitude in coping with the situation in the field and defeating the Communist enemy. Partridge did so because he thought they endangered his personnel and limited the effectiveness of airpower in the war. These commanders had a fundamentally different opinion from Washington regarding the likelihood of overt Soviet intervention in the war, and because they did not think the Korean War would become a world war, they were more willing than Washington to prosecute the war more aggressively. MacArthur's conflict ended with his removal in April 1951, and Stratemeyer (who suffered a heart attack weeks afterward) continued to advocate for forceful American foreign policy in Asia during his retirement. Partridge eventually earned four stars and long after the war likewise continued to disfavor the restrictions which had been put in place. Between oral history interviews in 1974 and 1978, however, Partridge reconsidered the issue of restrictions. He expressed that the Korean War had been a considerable challenge without a wider war, implying that restrictions had perhaps been important.