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2 - Billy Mitchell and Air Power

from Part I - First Principles and Modern War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2021

Antulio J. Echevarria II
Affiliation:
US Army War College, Pennsylvania
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Summary

Chapter 2 analyzes the ideas of the airpower theorist William (Billy) Mitchell. It describes his life and his "America," which in the words of period novelist, F. Scott Fitzgerald, was "careless and confused." Mitchell, like his America, pursued his goals aggressively regardless of the consequences. This chapter also discusses how Jominian first principles – concentration, offensive action, and decision by battle – figured in Mitchell’s thinking. It ends by explaining how Mitchell’s model of war’s nature was essentially the same as Mahan’s, the traditional model.

Type
Chapter
Information
War's Logic
Strategic Thought and the American Way of War
, pp. 32 - 56
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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