Airpower and Infrastructure: Lord of the Rings

The third ring (infrastructure) of John Warden’s Five Strategic Ring theory is often neglected over the importance of leadership (first ring) versus fielded forces (fifth ring). Lines of communication transmit all of a society’s military, economic, and political goods, services, and information. Infrastructure provides the framework that links the various elements of a nation’s power. This infrastructure contains critical nodes that are vulnerable to airpower. By understanding this infrastructue, we better understand an adversary as a complex, adaptive, and open system. The paper espouses a practical theory of airpower based on the synergistic relationship among societal structure and lines of communication that comprise infrastructure. Rather than isolating different elements of a society and their concomitant targets, the theory views targets in a more holistic way. Of note, the theory articulates a culturally based paradigm with airpower applied against the linkages within a society’s systems processes, rather than a ＂one-size-fits-all＂ target list (form). The theory describes a way to think about airpower, not a way to execute its missions.

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