Counter-Insurgency: Echoes from the Past
Oct 2007, Vol. 152, No. 5
By Glenn Torpy
As the ninetieth anniversary of the formation of the Royal Air Force approaches on 1 April 2008, the thoughts of air power academics, historians and airmen alike will inevitably return to the establishment of the Service. And as they consider the events surrounding that formation, key amongst all of them is the visionary role that the very first Chief of the Air Staff, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Trenchard, played in creating the world’s first independent air force against repeated and often fierce opposition. His success in that endeavour was greatly assisted by the successful use of air power in operations at the edge of the British Empire in places such as Somaliland, Iraq, and the North-West Frontier in what would later be categorized as ‘operations against wild men in wild places’, and what would now be characterized as counter-insurgency (COIN) warfare.
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By Glenn Torpy
As the ninetieth anniversary of the formation of the Royal Air Force approaches on 1 April 2008, the thoughts of air power academics, historians and airmen alike will inevitably return to the establishment of the Service. And as they consider the events surrounding that formation, key amongst all of them is the visionary role that the very first Chief of the Air Staff, Marshal of the Royal Air Force Lord Trenchard, played in creating the world’s first independent air force against repeated and often fierce opposition. His success in that endeavour was greatly assisted by the successful use of air power in operations at the edge of the British Empire in places such as Somaliland, Iraq, and the North-West Frontier in what would later be categorized as ‘operations against wild men in wild places’, and what would now be characterized as counter-insurgency (COIN) warfare.
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