Small Wars, Small Investments, and Big Dividends: Clarifying Airpower's Indirect Approach Amidst New Strategy and Controversy

Abstract

The second anonymously-posited reflection on aviation foreign internal defense (AvFID) and building partnership capacity (BPC) reflects valid sentiments within the White SOF community, but is misplaced for two reasons. First, the Air Force is making adjustments to meet the BPC imperative, thought they are minor, greatly insufficient, and existentially threatened at the time that this text is being written. Second, the community of Air Force advisors is not alone in terms of facing hardship in advocating their mission within a service oriented towards conventional mindsets and a command focused on direct action. Career Army Special Forces (SF) advisors voice similar frustrations. The debate between Black SOF and White SOF proponents is one marked by emotion and parochialism. Much like any passionate quarrel, there is some logic to each partys position. Hegel, master theoretician of dialectic, summarized this state of affairs best by noting that, In a true tragedy, both sides must be right.

Open PDF

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 2012
Accession Number
AD1022960

Entities

People

  • Nick Dipoma

Organizations

  • Air Command and Staff College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Biomedical
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Human Systems
  • Space
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Contingency Operations (Military)
  • Employment
  • Foreign Relations
  • Green Berets
  • Interagency Coordination
  • International Organizations
  • Military History
  • Military Organizations
  • Military Science
  • National Politics
  • National Security
  • Organizational Structure
  • Personnel Management
  • Recreation
  • Short Takeoff Aircraft
  • Sociopolitics
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Economics
  • Irregular Warfare and Special Operations Cyberspace Operations against Adversarial Threats.
  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.