John Warden and the Renaissance of American Air Power

****Included on the Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force's reading list for 2008 and the Royal Air Force's Centre for Air Power Studies 2008 Reading List****Dr. John Andreas Olsen has written an insightful, compelling biography of retired U.S. Air Force colonel John A. Warden III, the brilliant but controversial air warfare theorist and architect of Operation Desert Storm’s air campaign. Warden’s radical ideas about air power’s purposes and applications, promulgated at the expense of his own career, sparked the ongoing revolution in military affairs. Legendary in defense circles, Warden is also the author of The Air Campaign: Planning for Combat (republished by Brassey’s, Inc. in 1989). Presenting both the positives and negatives of Warden’s personality and impact in this objective portrait, Olsen offers a trenchant analysis of his revolutionary ideas and great accomplishments.

COL. JOHN ANDREAS OLSEN is currently assigned to the Norwegian Ministry of Defence and is a visiting professor of operational art and tactics at the Swedish National Defence College. His previous publications with Potomac Books include John Warden and the Renaissance of American Air Power, A History of Air Warfare, Global Air Power, and Air Commanders.