Understanding Small Air Forces

The USAF fails due to wrong mind-set.The USAF fails to work effectively with small air forces in combined and coalition operations. The USAF fails to accomplish the task to effectively design and rebuild new air forces, such as the Afghan and Iraqi Air Forces. The USAF further jeopardizes to overcome small air forces as potential future adversary forces. How is it possible to state that the most powerful, well equipped and trained air force in the world fails with tasks like these? The answer is inherent in its greatness, as it creates a mind-set that limits the cognitive flexibility to understand others’ contextual situations, such as small air forces. Even though most air forces build upon the same theoretical building stones, the way they apply air power is vastly different. In other words, there is more than one template for the application of air power, and the most useful one is not the USAF’s. The reason is that different contextual environments require different methods. These differences become clearer if we play with the contextual environment of the USAF. Imagine that the USAF has approximately 200 fighters, 2000 officers, with their main task to defend a country similar to the state of Alaska.

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