For decades our military has been designed and funded as a conventionally superior force on the battlefield employing the most devastating and advanced weapon systems the world has ever seen (World, War I, II, Operation Desert Storm, and Phase I of Operation Iraqi Freedom). However, in low intensity conflicts (LICs) or irregular warfare (IW) campaigns, U.S. forces are faced with an irregular enemy, one that does not choose to fight our forces directly but rather through unconventional or indirect methods. For over 60 years, the Department of Defense has had an appalling record of protecting its air bases and personnel while deployed around the world in support of low intensity conflicts. However, the way the military defends and protects these air bases still revolves around a Cold War threat, a conventional threat. The strategy of global power projection and forward presence are the cornerstone to U.S. defense. To enhance combat capabilities in the Air Force and to defeat irregular warfare (IW) forces in any environment, the answer lies within the concept of Integrated Swarming Operations (ISO); the complete integration of a highly trained security force, skilled in the employment of successful counterinsurgency tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), with today's most sophisticated Command, Control, Communications, Computer and Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) platforms into a battlefield swarm. In doing so, ISO allows security forces to achieve their three critical air base defense Mission Essential Tasks (METs) of 1) tactical ISR, 2) intercepting the threat, and 3) application of force as well as the Air Force's Integrated Base Defense (IBD) Objectives of "See First, Understand First, and Act First." / US Air Force (USAF) author.

The Soviet blockade of western Berlin between the 23 June 1948 and 12 May 1949 - and the airlift that was organized to defeat it - was the first major confrontation between the Soviet Bloc on the one side and the United States and its allies on the other. It was at the point where the shared cooperation arising from common interests during the Second World War finally dissolved and became the Cold War with the potential to develop into a hot war. Yet for all its acknowledged importance in the history of the Cold War, no historian has hitherto investigated the British component of the Berlin Airlift to discover how it worked in practice and if British involvement was actually necessary to the success of the Allied operation as a whole, or whether the Airlift could have been undertaken more effectively by different approach. Given its acknowledged importance, the Airlift has been poorly served by its historiography. It forms a very minor part in the post-war histories of Germany; and even in the more specialist scholarly literature on the early stages of the Cold War, it receives scant attention. Insofar as it has received any detailed scrutiny, the Airlift of 1948-9 is presented regularly as a sub-plot in the wider drama of the Berlin Blockade, and it is the US dimension of the Airlift which has produced the best historiography. The American aspect, Operation VITTLES, predominates in the current literature and there is no equivalent on the RAF side to the USAF professional historians' output. Beyond this US dimension, there is a general dearth of academic papers in journals and of scholarly monographs. Popular books exist in quantity providing narrative overviews for the general public but this literature can be based on assumptions about the British dimension to the Airlift that do not stand up when tested against the surviving evidence. This study seeks to address its principal questions - examining the scale and extent of the British participation, and gauging its utility and significance in iii relation to the broader multi-national endeavour to defeat the Blockade - by a close study of the rich and plentiful primary archival sources held in Britain, the United States and elsewhere using the combined methodologies of the historian and the logistician. The thesis evaluates British participation in the Berlin Airlift and reveals that her aircraft were demonstrably indispensable logistically. However, performance - and that of the Royal Air Force especially - was substantially lower than that of the American task force. At the time, the official explanation given to the public was that the USA operated more and larger aircraft. The thesis reveals that there were additional causes. It examines how the Americans might have replaced the British, as was feared within the Foreign Office and the RAF and as they had the French. Redistribution of the whole American task force to bases nearer to Berlin in the British Zone of Germany would have increased the tonnage delivered but the thesis finds it would not have been sufficient. Deploying more US resources is the other possibility investigated and the limitations of American capability to do so are revealed and the potential impact on the plans to continue the Airlift into 1951 identified.

This thesis proposes major revisions to the history of the naval defence of Britain’s Eastern Empire during the critical period 1935 – 42 as the Royal Navy (RN) sought to manage the increasing risks posed by three potential Axis enemies across divergent theatres. It challenges the prevailing historical interpretation which explains the successive defeats suffered by the RN at the start of the war with Japan as the inevitable consequence of resource weakness and imperial overstretch already evident in a deeply flawed pre-war strategy “Main Fleet to Singapore”. The dominant narrative argues that: Britain never had the naval resources to protect a two hemisphere Empire let alone cope with a triple threat from Germany, Italy and Japan; it certainly could not pose any effective counterweight to Japan once it was fighting for its life in Europe; and it compounded resource weakness by consistently underestimating the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and failing to recognise the potential of modern airpower at sea. Britain’s strategy for defending its Eastern Empire through naval power therefore rested on convenient self-deception regarding Japanese intent and the balance of relative capability whereas in reality the RN was decisively outmatched. Furthermore, most historians suggest that, while Britain’s initial war with Japan ended in ignominy, this had little impact on the overall global struggle against the Axis because Britain’s role in the East was essentially irrelevant to the Allied cause whatever the losses to its own imperial standing. This thesis contends that the dominant narrative is neither satisfactory nor sufficient and reflects important gaps in the historical record. But it also argues that the historiography of the last 50 years has defined the RN role in protecting the Eastern Empire in very narrow terms, focusing almost exclusively on the defence of the Far East territories and the prospects of deploying a fleet to Singapore. In reality, the Eastern Empire encompassed a much wider area and it faced existential threats on its western boundary as well as in the east. Ensuring the security of this wider area had profound implications not just for Britain’s own war-making potential but for the overall Allied cause too. The thesis therefore offers an interpretation which, for the first time, investigates thoroughly the inter-dependencies between different theatres of war hitherto viewed principally in their own terms. By taking this wider perspective, it demonstrates that not only was there more coherence and continuity to RN policy and strategy towards the Eastern Empire in this period than historians have traditionally accepted but that it also reflected greater realism about what truly mattered and where naval resources should best be concentrated at any given time. In doing so, it shows how and why prevailing accounts are defective. The thesis proposes five main arguments across the period 1935 – 1942. First, it shows that the RN of 1939 was stronger, more capable, more innovative, and more ambitious in its strategic goals than the mainstream accounts of its inter-war history have generally ii accepted. It is simply not the case that meeting the demands of a multi-theatre war over the next three years as the output of the rearmament programme became available was out of reach as many have argued. It then demonstrates that British strategy to ensure adequate security through naval power for the core territories of the Eastern Empire in the face of the Triple Threat was more flexible and realistic, and better directed at what would prove to be the critical points in the first half of the war, than the prevailing historical narrative recognises. Thirdly, by looking at all relevant theatres simultaneously, it argues that Britain’s investment in the Middle East, and the RN commitment to the Eastern Mediterranean, from 1940 – 42, were essential both to protect the Eastern Empire and its resources and to enable it to generate maximum war potential. This commitment also vitally influenced the security of the Atlantic lifeline. It was not a diversion but an essential complement to meeting the threat from Japan. The thesis then re-examines the disasters suffered by the RN in the first phase of the war with Japan. It argues that promises of US naval support in the Atlantic and exaggerated expectations of the deterrent power the US could exercise against Japan allowed Britain’s war leadership to believe it could maintain a forward defence strategy in the Middle and Far East theatres simultaneously. This goal was never realistic with the resources Britain was able and willing to deploy overseas; yet it was the Admiralty, rather than the Prime Minister, who showed a reckless disregard for the resulting risks in the immediate run-up to war. In reality, the exercise of naval power to secure what mattered in the Eastern Empire did not ultimately depend on holding Singapore. The final line of argument is that it is simply not possible to reach a secure judgement on the eastern theatre without a proper understanding of how it interacted with the other war theatres and how this then influenced the decision-makers of the day. The thesis shows how the entry of Japan into the war confirmed that the Indian Ocean was an inescapable defence commitment, critical not just for Britain but also the wider Allied cause, ranking indeed second only to the Atlantic lifeline in importance. Despite the defeats suffered in the first months of the Far East war, the thesis demonstrates how the RN could still generate sufficient power by mid-1942 to defend this theatre against any naval force Japan was likely to deploy. The 1935 start date for the thesis marks the point when the threats posed by a resurgent Germany, an increasingly hostile Japan, and unpredictable Italy, moved from theoretical to real. The end of 1942 is an appropriate finishing point because, as the thesis explains, it marks the end of any credible threat from the Axis to the core Eastern Empire through either the Indian Ocean or the Middle East.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2006. / Thesis Advisor(s): Mark J. Eitelberg, Stephen L. Mehay. "March 2006." Thesis (M.S. in Management)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2006. Includes bibliographical references (p. 163-165). Also available in print.

This thesis examines the technology used for tools and equipment for humanitarian landmine clearance. The main focus is on the removal of mine and unxeploded ordnance contamination in the poor, heavily mined countries, particularly Afghanistan and Cambodia. Initially, the process of humanitarian demining in these countries was examined and described, and the relevant literature reviewed. Three studies were undertaken with a dual purpose of (a) providing relevant contributions to the science of mine clearance and (b) evaluating some of the methods commonly used in humanitarian demining research. (i) A statistical analysis of the evaluation of mine detection systems in trials was undertaken. This demonstrated that (a) this statistical analysis is straightforward, and (b) feasible sized trials do not yield useful results from analysis of the crude minedetection rate. An enhancement to the evaluation process, "Margin of Detection," was suggested. (ii) Research into improved "prodders" for detecting mines was undertaken with as much consultation with deminers as possible early in the research cycle. "Sensing prodders" were shown to function technically but not to improve the overall demining process. Measurements showed that many deminers prod in hard soils with suÆcient force to detonate some mines; rotary prodders were developed to reduce the force required for excavation, but success in the laboratory could not be duplicated in eld conditions. From this work a potentially useful tool for deminer training was developed, which might reduce the risks of accidental detonation. (iii) The limits of a high-tech detection technique (neutron irradiation and detection of prompt gamma rays) were examined (a) to advance understanding of this method and (b) to demonstrate the feasibility of early evaluation of technologies before extensive research is started. This neutron technology was shown to oer potential benets to military demining, but to be unlikely to have general application when the higher clearance standards and lower equipment budgets of humanitarian demining were applied. The thesis ends with conclusions and suggestions for some further work. Throughout the thesis, the research is focussed on investigating practical problems which deminers have suggested as important constraints on their work.

Thesis (M.A. in National Security Affairs)--Naval Postgraduate School, Sept. 2004. / Thesis Advisor(s): Daniel Moran. Includes bibliographical references (p. 85-90). Also available online.

Thesis (M.S. in Defense Analysis)--Naval Postgraduate School, Dec. 2004. / Thesis Advisor(s): Hy Rothstein, Erik Jansen. Includes bibliographical references (p. 99-106). Also available online.

Thesis (M.S.)--Naval Postgraduate School, 2004. / Title from title screen (viewed Sept. 13, 2004). "June 2004." Includes bibliographical references (p. 87-89). Also issued in paper format.

Thesis--Air Command and Staff College, Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, April 2005. / "April 2005." Thesis advisor: Dr. Bert L. Frandsen. Performed by Air University Press (AUL/LP), Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, Ala. "AU/ACSC/6244/2004-05." Includes bibliographical references (p. 29-30). Also available online from the Air University Research Information Management System (AURIMS) and the DTIC Online Web sites.

Thesis (M. S.)--Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. / Committee Chair: Mavris, Dimitri; Committee Member: Bishop, Carlee; Committee Member: Brown, David; Committee Member: Costello, Mark; Committee Member: Schrage, Daniel.