LIMITS OF AIR POWER

Rating:
Summary: Guidlines for Air Attacks
Review: I found Clodfelter's work to be a rather complete summary of the use of air power during the Vietnam war. Clodfelter writes from the standpoint that war is a continuation of politics through alternative means (von Clausewitz). He analyzes the air campaign in Vietnam in terms of the presumptions of the military and political leadership of the time. He speaks at length at the motivations and results of the three major campaigns: Operation Rolling Thunder, Linebacker I, and Linebacker II. As an undergrad history major at Loyola University Chicago, I found "The Limits of Air Power" to be excellent.

Rating:
Summary: Guidlines for Air Attacks
Review: I found Clodfelter's work to be a rather complete summary of the use of air power during the Vietnam war. Clodfelter writes from the standpoint that war is a continuation of politics through alternative means (von Clausewitz). He analyzes the air campaign in Vietnam in terms of the presumptions of the military and political leadership of the time. He speaks at length at the motivations and results of the three major campaigns: Operation Rolling Thunder, Linebacker I, and Linebacker II. As an undergrad history major at Loyola University Chicago, I found "The Limits of Air Power" to be excellent.

Rating:
Summary: Almost Right!
Review: Mark Clodfelter's "The Limits of Air Power" is an interesting book that explains the development and deployment of strategic air power during the Vietnam War. The book is based on excellent research and provides a good overview of all of the political and military nuances that guided the application of strategic bombing above the 20th parallel.

Clodfelter falls short in his conclusion that the war as fought by the communists was primarily a guerilla war prior to TET 1968, and that strategic air power would not have provided the same results in 1965-66 as did Operations Linebacker I and II during 1972. The primary combatants until 1968 were the Viet Cong but they were supplied with arms and material by the North Vietnamese. Although they did not require food from NVN for their subsistence, they sure needed arms and ammo. Surprisingly, Clodfelter overlooks this obvious point.

I believe the application of an intense strategic bombing campaign in 1965-66 -- as conducted during Linebacker II might have produced the results that were achieved during December 1972. Instead of being so certain about his conclusion -- maybe he should simply let the reader decide.

Rating:
Summary: Not just about Air Power in Vietnam
Review: On one level, Mark Clodfelter's "The Limits of Air Power" is a learned assault on the myopia of Air Force commanders and the canonical vision that political constraints doomed the military to defeat in Vietnam. On another, more important level, it is a thoughtful analysis of the classic Clausewitzean dictum that "war is politics by other means," which has implications far beyond the air campaigns against North Vietnam.

Clodfelter uses a simple, but effective framework to examine political efficacy of three major air campaigns against North Vietnam: Rolling Thunder (March '65 to October '68), Linebacker I (April '72 to October '72), and Linebacker II (December '72). For each campaign, he assesses to what extent the bombing helped achieve the civilian leadership's "positive political objective" (i.e. what political purpose the US was trying to achieve by the use of force). At the same time, he identifies and assesses the various "negative political objectives" that put constraints on the use of force (i.e. what political purposes were endangered or aggravated by the use of force). Finally, he considers other factors that could constrain the use and effectiveness of air power, such as doctrine, weather, technology, personnel, etc.

The author's conclusions are persuasive, although not exactly groundbreaking in their originality. In short, Clodfelter argues that Linebacker II (aka "Christmas Bombings"or "Eleven Day War") was a more effective political tool not because air power was finally unleashed with a fury against Hanoi as Air Force planners had been calling for all along, but rather because the positive and negative political objectives of December 1972 were so less ambitious and less constraining from those of pre-1968. Nixon's primary positive objective was to secure the continued withdrawal of US combat troops while not abandoning South Vietnam to an imminent communist take-over. Détente and Kissinger's diplomacy ensured that China and the Soviet Union would not intervene, and Nixon's landslide re-election the month before removed major domestic issues from the equation. Moreover, the conventional nature of the March '72 Easter Offensive exposed the North to punishing air attacks on their major combat units that seriously endangered their ability to defend themselves. Thus, the pain Linebacker II inflicted led Hanoi to agree to terms that gave the US "peace with honor" but left them able to fight another day. President Johnson's more sweeping positive objective (i.e. "a stable, independent, non-communist South Vietnam"), along with his many negative objectives (a legitimate concern of superpower escalation, a desire to protect his domestic Great Society Program and win support for the US abroad), and fundamental disagreement among his advisors on the chief objective on the air campaign, all combined to undermine Rolling Thunder's utility as a political tool.

Is Clodfelter's work - and particularly his framework - relevant to the international security questions of today? Absolutely. And not just from the perspective on air power. What are the United States' positive political objectives in the War on Terror? What are the concomitant negative objectives that will constrain how that war is waged? A critical inquiry of these questions will reveal that US political objectives and constraints are far more ambitious than those of the Johnson Administration, let alone Nixon. The ability of force to achieve those objectives by themselves is, for all intents and purposes, impossible.

Clodfelter is a political scientist and this book is pure political science, so for those interested in war stories and the like, this book most definitely isn't for you. However, if you are looking for a cogently argued and thoroughly researched assessment of the use of force for political purposes, this book is not to be missed.

Rating:
Summary: Not just about Air Power in Vietnam
Review: On one level, Mark Clodfelter's "The Limits of Air Power" is a learned assault on the myopia of Air Force commanders and the canonical vision that political constraints doomed the military to defeat in Vietnam. On another, more important level, it is a thoughtful analysis of the classic Clausewitzean dictum that "war is politics by other means," which has implications far beyond the air campaigns against North Vietnam.

Clodfelter uses a simple, but effective framework to examine political efficacy of three major air campaigns against North Vietnam: Rolling Thunder (March '65 to October '68), Linebacker I (April '72 to October '72), and Linebacker II (December '72). For each campaign, he assesses to what extent the bombing helped achieve the civilian leadership's "positive political objective" (i.e. what political purpose the US was trying to achieve by the use of force). At the same time, he identifies and assesses the various "negative political objectives" that put constraints on the use of force (i.e. what political purposes were endangered or aggravated by the use of force). Finally, he considers other factors that could constrain the use and effectiveness of air power, such as doctrine, weather, technology, personnel, etc.

The author's conclusions are persuasive, although not exactly groundbreaking in their originality. In short, Clodfelter argues that Linebacker II (aka "Christmas Bombings"or "Eleven Day War") was a more effective political tool not because air power was finally unleashed with a fury against Hanoi as Air Force planners had been calling for all along, but rather because the positive and negative political objectives of December 1972 were so less ambitious and less constraining from those of pre-1968. Nixon's primary positive objective was to secure the continued withdrawal of US combat troops while not abandoning South Vietnam to an imminent communist take-over. Détente and Kissinger's diplomacy ensured that China and the Soviet Union would not intervene, and Nixon's landslide re-election the month before removed major domestic issues from the equation. Moreover, the conventional nature of the March '72 Easter Offensive exposed the North to punishing air attacks on their major combat units that seriously endangered their ability to defend themselves. Thus, the pain Linebacker II inflicted led Hanoi to agree to terms that gave the US "peace with honor" but left them able to fight another day. President Johnson's more sweeping positive objective (i.e. "a stable, independent, non-communist South Vietnam"), along with his many negative objectives (a legitimate concern of superpower escalation, a desire to protect his domestic Great Society Program and win support for the US abroad), and fundamental disagreement among his advisors on the chief objective on the air campaign, all combined to undermine Rolling Thunder's utility as a political tool.

Is Clodfelter's work - and particularly his framework - relevant to the international security questions of today? Absolutely. And not just from the perspective on air power. What are the United States' positive political objectives in the War on Terror? What are the concomitant negative objectives that will constrain how that war is waged? A critical inquiry of these questions will reveal that US political objectives and constraints are far more ambitious than those of the Johnson Administration, let alone Nixon. The ability of force to achieve those objectives by themselves is, for all intents and purposes, impossible.

Clodfelter is a political scientist and this book is pure political science, so for those interested in war stories and the like, this book most definitely isn't for you. However, if you are looking for a cogently argued and thoroughly researched assessment of the use of force for political purposes, this book is not to be missed.

Rating:
Summary: A FAR better book than the unkind review below suggests
Review: This book isn't perfect. Several times I found myself thinking 'hmm, I don't think that's a fair conclusion', mainly because of the author's occasional unsustained assertion, hyperbole or sweeping generalisation. But heck, this book deals with a very contentious topic, so the author isn't going to please everyone anyway.

The research is good, the argument compelling (even if not always agreeable) and the prose clear and engaging. In short, this is a good book. It's certainly much better than the anonymous reviewer from Montgomery, AL, suggests.

I teach airpower, and I encourage my students to read this book. They shouldn't swallow it all hook, line and sinker, but they SHOULD read it.