What to Target
What to Target
The Economy or Military Forces?
This chapter presents the final lecture of the Air Force Course, “Primary Strategic Objectives of Air Forces” by Muir Fairchild. In this lecture Fairchild concludes that the fundamental decision in air warfare is whether to attack an enemy’s national economic structure or its military forces. Attacking the economic structure is a purely offensive action, while attacking enemy forces has both offensive and defensive objectives. In modern war, technologically sophisticated weapons play an increasingly important role, and destroying the means of producing such weapons prevents the arming of the enemy’s military. The targeting of the enemy nation’s economic structure thus denies the opponent the hope of victory and increases the costs of continued resistance.
Keywords: Muir Fairchild, Air Corps Tactical School, HADPB, strategic wartime objectives, air forces, offensive actions in war, defensive actions in war
Kentucky Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
