Air Power in International Politics
| Author | Ingemar Dörfer |
| Date | 01 November 1969 |
| DOI | 10.1177/001083676900400306 |
| Published date | 01 November 1969 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Air
Power
in
International
Politics
Ingemar
Dörfer
It
is
ironic
that
Finland
is
the
Scandin-
avian
country
where
practicians
of
af-
fairs
of
state
with
the
greatest
success
have
indulged
in
theorizing
and
writing
about
national
security
policy.
May
be
a
hard
won
insight
that
security
does
not
come
free
of
cost,
or
the
necessity
to
make
up
in
skill
what
one
lacks
in
power
resources
is
the
explanation;
to
paraphrase
the
present
President
of
the
American
Motion
Pictures
Association
’I
sleep
better
each
night
knowing
that
some
of
these
writers
are
in
charge
of
Finnish
foreign
policy’.
Dr.
Lukkarinen,
a
colonel
of
the
Finnish
Air
Force,
has
followed
the
example
of
this
distinguished
group
and
written
a
book
containing
a
wealth
of
information
on
air
power.
The
scope
of
the
study
leaves
it
refreshingly
free
of
the
pedantry
that
is
all
too
often
the
fate
of
academic
dissertations.
At
the
same
time
this
implies
a
certain
lack
of
focus
that
leaves
most
of
the
empir-
ical
evidence
more
interesting
than
the
conclusions.
For
the
sake
of
clarity
I
believe
the
author
would
have
been
well
advised
to
concentrate
on
the
in-
teresting
conclusions
and
spend
greater
effort
to
support
them.
Now
he
tries
to
span
the
whole
immense
field
of
’air
power’
which
leaves
us
with
a
book
of
considerable
interest
to
people
who
want
to
find
out
about
aviation.
In
the
first
two
chapters
the
scope
and
the
method
of
the
study
are
pre-
sented,
as
well
as
an
exploration
of
the
relation
of
air
power
to
national
power.
One
is
somewhat
surprised
to
find
that
’Books
and
magazines
and
newspaper
articles
which
have
greatly
publicized
the
question
of
whether
air
power
did
or
did
not
determine
the
final
course
of
World
War
II,
have
further
complicated
any
clear
thinking’
(p.
17).
Certainly
many
such
pamphlets
have;
it
is
all
the
more
important,
then,
to
mention
the
pioneering
work
of
men
such
as
Webster,
Frankland
and
Klein
who
have
all
facilitated
the
mental
process
in
this
respect.’
A
chapter
on
civil
aviation
contains
many
interesting
statistics.
A
chapter
on
air
power
politics
and
air
power
doctrines
reviews
the
classics
of
land-
air-
and
seapower,
including
Mac-
Kinder,
Haushofer,
Mahan,
Spykman,
Douhet,
Mitchell
and
Seversky.
One
is
tempted
to
reflect
that
repetition
all
too
often
replaces
innovation
in
Scan-
dinavian
social
science
dissertations.
An
excellent
introduction
on
the
writ-
ings
of
these
men
was
published
at
Princeton
one
generation
ago,
with
a
particularly
good
chapter
on
the
air
power
advocates
by
Edward
Waner.2
A
case
study
on
air
power
at
Munich
is
supplied.
Again
many
forgotten
facts
are
retained
from
the
garbage
heap
of
history,
as
Trotsky
put
it,
not-
ably
the
transmission
of
300
combat
aircraft
between
the
USSR
and
Czecho-
slovakia
during
the
summer
of
1938
(p.
163).
By
and
large
this
is
a
history
of
German
air
rearmament
rather
than
a
case
study
focused
on
the
Munich
crisis.
It
is
fair
to
say
that
this
story
has
been
written
with
greater
clarity
by
George
Quester;3
other
case
studies
on
air
power
and
Munich
were
written
decades
ago.4
The
inexplicable
failure
of the
author
to
refer
to
Klein’s
classic
investigation
of
Germany’s
economic
preparations
for
war,
may
explain
some
strange
statements
in
this
chapter.
Relying
on
some
of
the
same
documents
that
Klein
used,
the
author
repeats
the
myth,
demolished
by
Klein,
that
Ger-
many
’in
the
late
1930’s ...
more
than
any
other
Power,
had
geared
her
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