Purpose: This work examines the transition in aerial warfare that took place during the Korean War (1950-1953). Before the conflict, air power was conceived of primarily an instrument of unlimited, or total, warfare. Yet Korea, and all subsequent air wars, have been limited. The transitional nature of the Korean air war has not yet been adequately explored by historians. Methods: The story of this shift is presented in two parts, the first examining the doctrines of the United States Air Force (USAF) immediately before the Korean War, the second comparing them to the USAF’s actual campaigns in Korea. This focus on the USAF reflects both its status as the principal air service in Korea and its influence on the theories and doctrines of all air arms in the post-World War Two era. The USAF’s planning immediately before the Korean War focused on its role in a possible total war between the United States and the Soviet Union. It was thus unprepared and ill-equipped for the limited war in Korea and had to improvise its operations there. Findings: The inability of the USAF to conduct an unlimited war in Korea frustrated many Americans, who could not understand the political considerations that limited the conflict, seeing only that the USAF, the world’s most powerful air arm, was prevented from using all of its resources. While the resulting controversy contributed to a change of administration in the United States, it had less of an effect on the USAF. After the Korean War ended, its leadership continued to focus on unlimited war, dismissing the conflict as an aberration from which little about the operation of aircraft in war could be learned. Conclusions: The failure to recognize the lessons of the Korean War has had serious consequences. There have been no total wars since 1945; every air war of the past sixty years has been limited. Limited warfare is defined by restrictions on air power. The USAF and other air arms were slow to adapt to the changing conditions. The Korean War was a more significant event in the history of aerial warfare than is generally appreciated.

Au travers de l’étude du renseignement aérien en France de 1945 à 1994, il s’agit de replacer l’emploi de cet outil décisionnel sur une échelle de temps longue afin d’en comprendre sa perception chez les décideurs français. Pour analyser les évolutions du renseignement aérien, nous avons comparé les expériences opérationnelles avec les corpus doctrinaux et les innovations technologiques du système de collecte. Notre étude s’est appesantie sur les implications tactiques, stratégiques et politiques de notre objet d’étude pour expliciter les différentes dimensions de ses perceptions d’emploi. Afin de mieux comprendre ces facteurs évolutifs dans le contexte français, nous avons également introduit des points comparatifs avec les Etats-Unis et la Grande-Bretagne. C’est également un moyen d’entrevoir l’influence de facteurs étrangers sur les évolutions d’emploi et de perceptions du renseignement aériens français, tout en précisant les spécificités françaises. Entre la mission de collecte, défini comme la reconnaissance et l’ensemble du renseignement aérien, la question qui se pose est de savoir ce qui doit être compris comme objet focalisant la perception du décideur militaire ou politique. Le renseignement aérien peut-il être compris, en France, comme un service de renseignement à part entière ou juste comme un système de collecte au service d’un acteur décisionnel ? L’autre question est de savoir comment les différentes évolutions qui ont touché notre objet d’étude ont influencé ses perceptions d’emploi. Au-delà de ces problématiques, celle du rapport entre l’image et le décideur, spécifique au renseignement aérien, influence t-elle également sa perspective d’utilisation ? / Through the study of the Aerial Intelligence in France from 1945 to 1994, is to replace the use of this decision making tool on a long time scale to understand his perception among French policymakers. To analyze the evolution of Aerial Intelligence, we compared operational experiences with the doctrinal corpus and technological innovations of the collection system. We worked on tactical, strategic and political implications of our object of study to clarify the various aspects of his job perceptions. To better understand these evolutionary factors in the French context, we also introduced comparative points with the United States and Britain. It's also a way to perceive the influence of foreign factors on the using developments and perceptions of French aerial intelligence, but while specifying the French specificities. Between the collecting mission, defined as the reconnaissance and the entire Aerial Intelligence, the question arises is to know what is understood like the object to the perception of military or political decision maker. The Aerial Intelligence can it be understood in France as a separate intelligence service or just as a collection system at the service of decision-actor? The other question is how the various developments that have affected our object of study have influenced his using perceptions. Beyond these issues, the relationship between the image and the decision maker, specific to Aerial Intelligence, influences also its perspective of use?

The aim of this paper is to outline the share of airmen from the Czech lands in the formation, organizational and personnel construction, technical development and operational deployment of the Austro-Hungarian Air Force in the pre-war period and especially during World War 1. Simultaneously, this work will also try to determine their percentage share in the entire Austro-Hungarian Army and Naval Air Forces. The national (or provincial) origin of the personel of the Austro-Hungarian Air Force has not yet been the subject of historical research in any of the successor states. The reason was the fact that this young weapon was not statistically monitored - unlike other weapons. For Austrian historiography, the ethnic composition of the Austro-Hungarian aviation was not a subject of adequate attention. In Czech and Czechoslovakian historiography, for a long time, it was stated that number of the Czech airmen in the Austro-Hungarian Air Force was "insignificant". However, this age-old thesis, which has never been credibly proven, is subject to criticism in this work, leading to its re-evaluation. In particular, the reconstruction and analysis of statistically relevant samples of people revealed that in fact the representation of airmen from the Czech lands was above average and the Czechs had a solid...