ABSTRACT
In a 1940 Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) lecture, Major Muir S. Fairchild developed a fundamental argument common to Airmen of yesterday and today. He found that, in the past, “the ground commander was forced to accept an intermediate objective; he was left no choice; he must defeat the enemy’s armed force as a preliminary to final military pressure through occupation of the enemy’s critical areas.” He went on to observe that “this intermediate step to the ultimate goal has been required ever since the beginning of armed conflict. In fact, it has been so consistently necessary as to lead many military men to accept the enemy’s armed forces as the true military objective” (Fairchild 1940, 11, emphasis in original). Of course, the military men Fairchild referenced were those who fought wars on the surface. According to Fairchild and fellow ACTS instructors, the advent of airpower gave birth to a new breed of warrior who, from his vantage point in an aircraft well above the ground, looked beyond the enemy’s armed force for the true military objective in war. The fact that airpower could bypass enemy fielded forces, then, led in the last century to the dogmatic belief in some airpower circles that it therefore should.
