Steven Paget, ed. Allies in Air Power: A History of Multinational Air Operations. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2020. 314 pp. $45.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8131-8032-8.
Reviewed by Eric J. Perinovic (Temple University)
Published on H-Nationalism (June, 2022)
Commissioned by Douglas I. Bell (Rotterdam International Secondary School)
Editor and contributor Steven Paget has overseen the publication of an exceptional addition to the history of airpower by collecting eleven contributions from a diverse array of scholars that focus on instances of multinational cooperation in military air operations during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Paget makes a compelling case for this anthology and its focus on multinational collaboration by highlighting that while unilateral/national air operations have long been the primary focus of historical scholarship, they have become a rare undertaking for most air forces. In fact, despite the high frequency of multinational operations since the First World War, there has been a relative sparsity of detailed historical analysis conducted on these highly complex and strategically important historical events. This anthology—a volume of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies' Aviation and Air Power series—is a step toward redressing that imbalance.
The chronological scope of the work spans from the infancy of multinational efforts during the First World War to the use of attack helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles in contemporary United Nations peacekeeping missions. The emphasis in many of the chapters focuses on the actions of policymakers and high-level military personnel, which is understandable given that multinational air operations are by their very nature products of international negotiation and intense strategic planning. Additionally, many of the chapters also provide insight into the tactical and operational challenges of carrying out those strategic visions, and Steven Paget and Walter Dorn focus explicitly on those lower levels of command and control in their chapters. In his preface, Paget acknowledges that the contributions center largely on collaboration between Western air forces due to the frequency of their participation in multinational operations and quotes Stephen Cimbala and Peter Kent Forester in stating: “burden sharing was the electric current” by which postwar Western democratic states realized common military and policy objectives (p. 3). He also recognizes that the United States specifically serves as a locus of analysis in many of the chapters given its preeminence in international operations, military capability, and technological developments. To that end, the United States appears as a principal actor in nearly every chapter. However, multiple case studies flip this paradigm to an extent and cast the United States in a supporting/secondary role relative to the efforts of other air forces. While the focus on Western experiences predominates, Walter Dorn’s contribution on the employment of airpower employed by the United Nations provides a fascinating counterpoint by analyzing the experiences of smaller air forces—including those of Brazil, India, Senegal, South Africa, Sweden, and Ukraine—in managing the challenges of multinational collaboration needed to meet the unique demands of peacekeeping operations.
The collection of case studies begins with a contribution from Bert Frandsen that flips the paradigm of US centrality and details the large multinational effort required to rapidly bring US military aviation from near irrelevance to leading the Allied air offensive in 1918. Given the global scope of the Second World War, multiple chapters are dedicated to covering diverse instances of cooperation during that conflict. These chapters deal largely with the experiences of the Western Allies in theaters across the globe. While each entry tells a distinct narrative, together they serve to provide a broader demonstration of the challenges faced and the application of lessons learned in fostering increasingly complex, yet efficient, international collaboration among the Allies as the war progressed. Matthew Powell’s chapter on the almost complete lack of engagement or unity of command between France and the United Kingdom during the “Phony War” of 1939-40 demonstrates how the high degree of cooperation forged by the end of the First World War shown in Frandsen’s chapter had been entirely undone in the interwar period. This lack of engagement fundamentally undercut the ability of the UK and French air forces to mount an effective or coordinated response during the Battle of France. Andrew Conway’s chapter in turn builds on Frandsen and Powell’s entries to show how the United States and the United Kingdom fostered a close working relationship during the Western Desert Campaign of 1941-42. Conway shows that there was a degree of mistrust and friction at the outset as the UK sought to act as a senior partner for the materially richer, but largely inexperienced, US Army Air Forces. This in turn led to challenges in harmonizing disparate personalities, operational doctrines, and command responsibilities. However, Conway highlights the importance of interpersonal cooperation in fostering multinational operations by showing that the positive working relationship between General Lewis Bereton and Air Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder was instrumental in overcoming these challenges. John Moremon flips this paradigm in his chapter on engagement between the United States and New Zealand to show how the former served as both the senior partner and the material provider for the Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) in a relationship that started strong but had soured somewhat by the war’s end. While the relationship was initially mutually beneficial, by the war’s end, the RNZAF came to chafe at being the junior partner in the arrangement, which Moremon attributes largely to the abrasiveness and inflexibility of General Douglas MacArthur to utilize the RNZAF in active combat operations as the war shifted to the South West Pacific theater. Stephen Renner’s contribution on the relationship between the German Luftwaffe and the Royal Hungarian Air Force offers a counterpoint to the Allied-centric chapters that precede it. Renner shows a relationship defined by a structural imbalance and overt authoritarianism that rendered the Hungarians less as partners and more as subordinate auxiliaries of the Third Reich that completely lacked operational autonomy by 1945. This chapter also shows how resource scarcity and successive military defeats and operational failures eroded cooperation to the point that it became overt subordination. This provides a neat contrast to the Allies, which experienced ever-increasing military success and material surpluses as the war progressed.
The postwar chapters continue to show the increased permanence and progressive efficiency inherent to multinational operations during the Cold War and beyond while also highlighting endemic structural challenges that permeated each conflict. Corbin Williamson’s analysis of multinational aircraft carrier operations during the Korean War demonstrates that the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia were again able to limit the negative impact of operational differences and disparate training through persistent engagement and clear delineation of responsibility along national lines. Williamson describes the success of these operations as solidifying the foundations that had been laid during the Second World War to render multinational engagement a permanent feature within Western military aviation. Steven Paget’s chapter builds on Williamson’s by demonstrating that multinational engagement had become a permanent fixture for Western militaries by the time of the Vietnam War but was still far from perfect in practice. He shows that in utilizing the service of the Royal Australian Air Force’s (RAAF) 2 Squadron, the US 35th Tactical Fighter Wing learned through intensive trial and error that the best means to maximize capabilities while mitigating shortcomings in employing allied contingents in multinational operations came through the standardization of equipment, intensive peacetime collaboration, and combined training.
Richard Hallion’s chapter on coalition air operation during the Persian Gulf War examines one of the largest multinational efforts in a time of conflict since 1945 and one in which non-US partners contributed around 25 percent of the total strength. It builds on the earlier chapters to again demonstrate how multinational operations remained plagued by endemic operational challenges due to disparate national training levels, equipment standards, and political mandates and still enjoyed immense success through persistent engagement, operational flexibility, and adaptive capacity. Maria Burczynska’s chapter highlights that while the success of NATO’s first combat air operation over Kosovo justified the alliance’s continued existence after the Cold War’s end, it obscured large disparities in military capabilities, equipment standards, command integration, and political will that, while identified as areas of concern, remained largely unresolved by the time of NATO’s intervention in Libya in 2011. Benjamin Lambeth offers an interesting counterpoint to Willamson’s chapter by highlighting the intensive planning that occurred between the US, UK, and Australia to coordinate air operations ahead of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. While challenges still occurred, this proactive effort allowed for clear delineation of responsibilities, greater efficiency, and more equitable burden sharing. Moreover, the positive experience sparked a desire among the three countries to not let the high level of interoperability decay with the end of active operations. This led to the establishment of permanent joint exercises and the posting of Royal Air Force (RAF) and RAAF personnel to United States Central Command (CENTCOM). A. Walter Dorn’s chapter offers an interesting counterpoint to the rest of the collection with his focus on the cultivation of multinational air power capacity for service during United Nations Peace Operations. This chapter departs from the US- and Western-centric chapters that precede it and instead focuses on the unique challenges experienced by the UN in marshaling air power contributions from disparate member states to meet highly diverse peacekeeping needs focused largely on operations in sub-Saharan Africa. Dorn also offers recommendations for improving the efficiency of these operations moving forward. Structurally, Dorn’s chapter is divided between several case studies that examine multiple aspects of the UN’s airpower efforts. These include an assessment of the UN’s intervention in Katanga as well as the UN’s contemporary use of attack helicopters, full-sized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) such as Predator drones, micro-UAVs, and strategic airlift capacity in support of humanitarian missions.
Somewhat perplexingly given the scope of the work and the emphasis on Western collaboration, there are no entries that deal significantly with the multinational air operations conducted by NATO during the Cold War. While the entries are understandably focused on operations during times of active conflict, NATO’s “peacetime” air defense mission was predicated on intensive multinational integration, burden sharing, and the establishment of permanent (and ongoing) command structures such as the Allied Air Forces Central Europe and Allied Air Command to enable an immediate response should war break out in Europe. The inclusion of a chapter detailing NATO’s efforts during the Cold War would have provided greater context for Maria Burczynska’s work on the challenges and successes experienced by NATO during Operation Allied Force in 1999 as well as Richard Hallion and Benjamin Lambeth’s analyses on coalition building in 1991 and 2003.
This collection is an excellent contribution to scholarship’s understanding of the successes and failures of multinational air operations over the last century and serves as a useful starting point for further forays on the topic. The use of case studies enables the reader to rapidly become knowledgeable about the broader principles of multinational collaboration and their application within the individual case studies while allowing for straightforward comparative analysis across the chapters. However, the prevailing focus on the experience of Western actors limits the diversity of analysis and the work’s intervention. This volume is a very useful primer and jumping-off point for graduate students and advanced undergraduates who are conducting research on the history of airpower in general, and specifically for those interested in multinational or coalition operations.
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Citation:
Eric J. Perinovic. Review of Paget, Steven, ed., Allies in Air Power: A History of Multinational Air Operations.
H-Nationalism, H-Net Reviews.
June, 2022.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=56276
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