Making the Connection: An Air Strategy Analysis Framework

This study analyzes and builds on Dr. Robert Pape's framework for analyzing airpower strategies. The analysis shows the underlying value of his Targets and Timing, Mechanism, Outcomes construct as well as the considerable clarification and expansion it requires in order to perform comprehensive air strategy analysis for the broad range of strategic air and space tasks. An enhanced framework is proposed, the elaboration of which comprises the bulk of the paper. Considerable time is spent describing the structure and logic of the framework and the models it contains. The three elements of the expanded concept, called the Air Strategy Analysis Framework, are political Outcomes, a policy process model called the Mechanism, and the last element, describing airpower Actions. The new framework's principal addition is the categorization of political outcomes an air strategist should assess. They are target entity, domestic, and third party outcomes. This gives the framework the scope that allows for analysis of a wider range of airpower's political effects in addition to structuring inquiry into competing strategies. The Mechanism is the air strategist's core policy process theory flanked by threshold assumptions and an action focus. Next, there is an analysis of the components of the airpower Action element that comprises the air strategist's means for stimulating the policy process.

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