Air Power and the Origins of Deterrence Theory before 1939

Journal of Strategic Studies

Volumn 15, Issue 1, 1992, Pages 73-101

  Overy, R J ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0347050641     PISSN: 01402390     EISSN: 1743937X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/01402399208437474     Document Type: Article

References (109)

1. R.B. Byers, ‘Deterrence under attack: crisis and dilemma' in Byers (ed.), Deterrence in the 1980s: Crisis and Dilemma (London, 1985), p. 18;
2. see too G. Quester, ‘The Strategy of Deterrence: Is the concept credible?' in ibid. pp.60–95;
3. P. Morgan, Deterrence: A Conceptual Analysis (Beverly Hills, CA: London: Sage, 1977/83), esp.pp. 16–24, 205–15;
4. G. Snyder, Deterrence and Defense: Toward a Theory of National Security (Princeton UP, 1961).
5. L.E.O. Charlton, The Menace of the Clouds (London, 1937), p. 25.
6. C. Messenger, The Art of Blitzkrieg (London, 1976) p. 31.
7. On the origins of strategic air power, see N. Jones, The Beginnings of Strategic Air Power: A History of the British Bomber Force 1923–1939 (London: Frank Cass 1987);
8. B. Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age (Princeton UP, 1959) chs. 3–5;
9. G. Quester, Deterrence before Hiroshima (NY, 1960).
10. R. Aron, The Century of Total War (London, 1954), p. 41.
11. C. Falls, The Nature of Modern Warfare (London, 1941) pp. 18–19.
12. Falls regarded the bomber as the central weapon in total war: ‘one might almost say that it is based upon indiscriminate attack, especially from the air, directed against the civilian population' (p.6).
13. B.A. Carroll, Design for Total War: Arms and Economics in the Third Reich (The Hague, 1968) p. 40.
14. Public Record Office, London (PRO), AIR 9/8 COS 156, note by the First Sea Lord, 21 May 1928, p. 2.
15. PRO AIR 9/8, notes on a Memo, by the CIGS, 23 May 1928, p.2. The author quotes similar views from French and German sources, including the following from one German writer: ‘In wars of the future the initial hostile attack will be directed against the great nerve and communication centres of the enemy's territory … in fact against every life artery of the country … the war will frequently have the appearance of a destruction en masse of the entire civil population rather than a combat of armed men.'
16. H. Klotz, Militärische Lehren des Bürgerkrieges in Spanien (self-published, 1937), p. 53.
17. U. Bialer, The Shadow of the Bomber: the Fear of Air Attack and British Bombing 1932–1939 (London: R. Hist. S. 1980) p. 21.
18. See also Klotz, p.50, who gives the following figures to indicate the development of air technology. The ratio of 1918 performance to that of 1937 was as follows: speed 1:3.8; rate of climb 1:5.8; bomb load 1:6.0; range 1:8.0.
19. PRO AIR 9/8, COS 76th Meeting, ‘The War Object of an Air Force', May 1928, p. 1.
20. On the ‘Ideal Bomber' see M. Smith, British Air Strategy between the Wars (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984) pp. 240–7.
21. For a general discussion of the issues involved in mobilising science see S.J. Deitchman, Military Power and the Advance of Technology (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983).
22. Charlton, Menace, p. 22.
23. M.S. Sherry, The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon (New Haven: Yale UP, 1987), p. 32.
24. H. Macmillan, Winds of Change (London: Macmillan 1960) p. 522.
25. J. Konvitz, ‘Représentations urbaines et bombardements stratégiques 1914–1945' Annales No. 4 (1989), pp. 824–8.
26. PRO AIR 9/8, Air Ministry, note by planning dept., 17 May 1928, p. 3.
27. PRO AIR 9/39, ‘Air Policy and Strategy', 23 Mar. 1936, Appendix L, pp.3–6. See too AIR 9/8, Air Ministry note 26 May 1938, p.6: ‘There is ample evidence to prove that our industrial population is most susceptible to panic and loss of morale … German attacks on England greatly affected public opinion.'
28. PRO AIR 9/8, AVM P.B. Joubert de la Ferté to Air Ministry, 2 May 1929.
29. L.E.O. Charlton, War over England (London, 1936), pp. 158–81, 218–25.
30. New Fabian Research Bureau, The Road to War, Being an Analysis of the National Government's Foreign Policy (London, 1937), pp. 177–8.
31. Quester, Deterrence, p. 97.
32. Bialer, Shadow of Bomber, pp. 129–30.
33. R. Macleod (ed.), The Ironside Diaries 1937–1940 (London: Cassell, 1962), p. 62, entry for 22 Sept. 1938.
34. R.A. Chaput, Disarmament in British Foreign Policy (London, 1935), pp. 335–59.
35. N. Gibbs, Grand Strategy, Vol.I: Rearmament Policy (London: HMSO, 1976), p. 534;
36. see too U. Bialer, ‘Elite Opinion and Defence Policy: Air Power Advocacy and British Rearmament during the 1930s', British Journal of International Studies 6-1 (1980), pp.32–51.
37. Sherry, American Air Power, pp.79–80;
38. H. Ickes, The Secret Diary of Harold L. Ickes (London: 1955), Vol. II, pp. 468–9.
39. E.W. Sheppard, ‘Hep! Hep!' RAF Quarterly, Vol. 9 (1938), p. 40;
40. see also Charlton, Menace, p. 13: ‘[Air power] can be treated as a threat, the mere hint of which may suffice to coerce a country which lies peculiarly open to attack … air forces may in course of time produce an equilibrium which could be the forerunner of universal peace … ';
41. J.M. Spaight, Can America Prevent Frightfulness from the Air? (London, Sept. 1939), p. 42: ‘in air power one finds the answer to those who believe that because war has become so terrible it will not be lightly engaged. What does prevent it from being lightly engaged in the world as it is at present, is the possession by the intended victim, as well as the intending aggressor, of adequate force: that, and nothing else.'
42. PRO AIR 8/258, Bombing Policy file, ‘Fighters or Bombers' n.d. [1938], p. 8.
43. PRO AIR 8/244, Air Staff, ‘The Role of the Air Force in National Defence', 5 July 1938, p. 9.
44. W.J. Reader, Architect of Air Power. The Life of the First Viscount Weir of Eastwood 1877–1959 (London: 1968), p. 231;
45. see also M. Smith, ‘Rearmament and Deterrence in Britain in the Thirties', Journal of Strategic Studies (hereafter JSS) 1/3 (Dec. 1978) pp. 313–37.
46. National Archives, Washington DC, (NA), RG 94/508, Memo, for the Secretary of War, 16 Feb. 1938. ‘Air Corps Program', p.7.
47. PRO AIR 14/381, Plan W1 ‘Appreciation of the Employment of the British Air Striking Force against the German Air Striking Force', April 1938, p.1.
48. PRO AIR 8/251, Air Ministry (Plans) to Chief of Air Staff (CAS hereafter), 9 Sept. 1938, p.2; AIR 14/194, Bomber Command, ‘Note on the question of relaxing the bombardment instructions and initiating extended air action', 7 Sept. 1939, p.8.
49. PRO CAB 64/15, COS 603, ‘Estimated Scale of air attack on England in the event of war with Germany', 20 July 1937. It was estimated that Germany could deliver 1,000 tons daily against Britain by April 1939, or 644 a day if France were also attacked. Even by 1940 Bomber Command could still only promise to deliver 100 tons a day in retaliation in the first week, dropping to 30 tons a day thereafter (AIR 14/194, record of a conference with CAS, 28 Apr. 1940). Scheme ‘L' in spring 1939 planned a British bombing capacity of 3,795 tons by 1941 (total of all operational squadrons). See AIR 8/250, Cabinet Paper 218(38), ‘Striking Power of the Metropolitan Bomber Force, 15 April 1939', p.2.
50. R.J. Young, ‘The Strategic Dream: French Air Doctrine in the Inter-war period 1919–39' Journal of Contemporary History 9-1 (1974), pp. 63–76;
51. K-H. Völker, Die deutsche Luftwaffe, 1933–1939: Aufbau, Führung und Rüstung der Luftwaffe sowie die Entwicklung der deutschen Luftkriegstheorie (Stuttgart, 1967), pp. 86–9, 195–201.
52. NA RG18/223 Box 1, RAF War Manual, Part I, Operations (May 1935), p.57.
53. PRO AIR 2/1830, Manual of Combined Operations, 1938, para. 22.
54. PRO AIR 9/99, Note, the attack of air forces on the ground, 9 May 1940, p.2.
55. PRO AIR 9/8, CAS ‘note upon the Memo, of the Chief of the Naval Staff', May 1928, p.3: ‘One Air Force cannot destroy the organisation of another Air Force by bombing': AIR 9/98, ‘Reports on trials to determine the effect of air attack against aircraft dispersed about an aerodrome site', July 1938. See also M. Smith, ‘The RAF and Counter-force Strategy before World War II', RUSI Journal 121-1 (Spring 1976), pp. 68–72.
56. PRO AIR 14/194, Bomber Command, Note, 7 Sept. 1939, (italics in original).
57. NA RG 18/231, Andrews Paper, ‘The Airplane in National Defense' n.d. [1932]. See too Library of Congress, Washington D.C., Andrews Papers, Box 11, Lecture by Maj. Harold George, ‘An Inquiry into the Subject War', 1936, for a clear summary of counter-value strategy: ‘the very make up of modem industrial nations are much more vulnerable because of the existence of the economic structure, which our present civilisation has created than were the nations of a century ago … It appears that nations are susceptible to defeat by interruption of this economic web. It is possible that the moral collapse brought by the breaking of this closely knit web will be sufficient, but, closely connected therewith, is the industrial fabric which is absolutely essential for modern war.'
58. PRO AIR 14/225, Air Ministry Directive to Bomber Command, 13 Dec. 1937, p.2 (italics in original).
59. H.S. Hansell, The Strategic Air War against Germany and Japan (Washington D.C., Office of AF Hist., 1986), pp. 10–19;
60. idem, The Air Plan that Defeated Hitler (Atlanta, GA: Higgins-McArthur/Loginoand Porter, 1972), pp. 50–63;
61. R. Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: A History of Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force 1907–1964 (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University, Aerospace Studies Inst., 1972) pp. 59–62.
62. Quester, Deterrence, p. 102 (italics in original).
63. See also Spaight, Frightfulness, p. 43;
64. ‘Make air attack less possible by making the defence stronger and readier, make the riposte to it certain to be more prompt and powerful if it does occur, and you go far to make war unlikely.'
65. On France, P. Le Goyet, ‘Evolution de la doctrine d'emploi de l'aviation française entre 1919 et 1939'. Revue d'histoire de la Deuxième Guerre Mondiale, Vol. 19 (1969).
66. C. Messenger, ‘Bomber' Harris and the Strategic Bombing Offensive 1939–1945 (London, 1984), p. 23.
67. PRO AIR 16/261, ACM Dowding to ACM Newall, 24 Feb. 1939, pp.1–2; see also AIR 9/99, HQ Bomber Command to Air Ministry, Dec. 1937, in which it was argued that the best counter-force strategy lay with fighter aircraft ‘destroying enemy bombers in flight'.
68. Spaight, Frightfulness, p. 43.
69. Sherry, American Air Power, p. 82.
70. Survival in the Air Age: A Report of the President's Air Policy Commission (Washington, DC: US GPO, 1 Jan. 1948), p. 12.
71. PRO AIR 14/225, Draft of letter from ACM Sir Edgar Ludlow-Hewitt to Air Ministry, n.d. [early 1938]. These figures were rightly regarded as an exaggeration by the Air Staff.
72. O.E. Schüddekopf, Britische Gedanken über den Einsatz des Luftheeres (Berlin, 1939) pp. 42–55.
73. K-H. Völker (ed.), Dokumente und Dokumentarfotos zur Geschichte der deutschen Luftwaffe (Stuttgart, 1968), doc. 200, ‘Luftkriegführung', 1936, p. 82:
74. ‘Attack on cities for the purpose of terrorisation of the population is fundamentally rejected'. See too K. A. Maier, ‘Total War and German Air Doctrine before the Second World War' in W. Deist (ed.) The German Military in the Age of Total War (Leamington Spa: Berg 1985), pp. 213–18.
75. M. Walker, German National Socialism and the Quest for Nuclear Power 1933–1949 (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 13–41:
76. W. Dornberger, V2 (London, 1954);
77. R.J. Overy, ‘From “Uralbomber” to “Amerikabomber”: the Luftwaffe and Strategic Bombing', JSS 1-2 (Sept. 1978), pp. 154–75.
78. PRO AIR 8/250, RAF Expansion Scheme ‘M', Memo, by the Secretary of State for Air, ‘Relative Air Strength and Proposals for the Improvement of the Country's Position', 25 Oct. 1938.
79. R.W. Krauskopf, ‘The Army and the Strategic Bomber 1930–1939', Part I, Military Affairs, Vol. 22 (1958/9).
80. PRO AIR 9/105, Anglo-French Staff Conversations, ‘Preparation of Joint Plans of Action for Franco-British Air Force', 19 Apr. 1939, pp.2–3.
81. PRO AIR 9/8, 69th COS, ‘The War Object of an Air Force', 22 May 1928, pp.1–3: ‘It is clear, therefore, that in the late war, military works, military establishments, workshops or plant, and also transportation systems and centres of communications which could be used directly or indirectly for the needs of the enemy army, navy or air force, were regarded as legitimate objectives of air bombardment, whether situated within or without the actual zone of military land operations.'
82. For a general discussion of British pacifism and public opinion see M. Ceadel, Pacifism in Britain 1914–1945 (Oxford, 1981).
83. Gen. N.N. Golovine, ‘Air Strategy', Part III, RAF Quarterly Vol. 7, (1936) p. 429.
84. It is interesting to look at 1930s Air Ministry planning with this perception. There was much discussion of totalitarian states, of dictatorship, of populations whose leaders ‘enslaved' them and disregarded their fate. See especially PRO AIR 9/8, Air Staff Memorandum. ‘The Potential Dangers to the Security of the British Empire and our Consequent Defence Requirements', 15 Jan. 1936: ‘In Russia', ran the report, ‘the Soviet system provides an inexhaustible mass of slave labour and permits a disregard of the interests and welfare of the individual which would not be tolerated in the British Empire … We are therefore faced not only with the necessity of providing the forces essential for our security, but of providing them in competition with systems which tend to simplify the tasks of our potential enemies … '.
85. R.J. Overy, ‘Germany, “Domestic Crisis” and War in 1939' Past & Present, No. 116 (1987), pp. 141–7;
86. W. Wark, The Ultimate Enemy: British Intelligence and Nazi Germany (OUP, 1986), Ch. 7.
87. Gen. M. Weygand, ‘How France is Defended', International Affairs, Vol. 18 (1939) pp. 471–481.
88. NA RG 165/888.96, Memo, by Brig. Gen. Embick, ‘Aviation versus Coastal Fortifications', p.2; Memo, by Col. W. Krueger, ‘Air Defense as a Factor in National Defense', Dec. 1935, p.2, 4.
89. This point has been made convincingly by H. Strachan. ‘Deterrence Theory: The Problem of Continuity', JSS 7-4 (Dec. 1984) pp. 395–401.
90. See J. Mearsheimer, Conventional Deterrence (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1983), esp.Chs. 2–3. This is one of the few studies of deterrence before 1945. The argument developed here that deterrence is a direct function of military strategies rather than a function of existing weapons systems suffers from the almost complete absence of any discussion on air power and air forces before 1940.
91. PRO AIR 8/258, ‘Draft Air Programme' n.d. [1941], p.1.
92. On ‘political' deterrence see H.S. Dinerstein, ‘The Impact of Air Power on the International Scene 1930–1939', Military Affairs, Vol. 19 (1955) pp. 65–70;
93. E.M. Emme, ‘Emergence of Nazi Luftpolitik as a Weapon in International Affairs', Aerospace Historian Vol. 7 (1960);
94. M.S. Smith, ‘The RAF, Air Power and British Foreign Policy', Journal of Contemporary History Vol. 12 (1977).
95. E.M. Spiers, Chemical Warfare (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois P. London: Macmillan 1986), esp.pp. 58–64;
96. R. Harris and J. Paxman, A Higher Form of Killing: the Secret Story of Gas and Germ Warfare (London: Paladin, 1982) pp. 53–67, 107–36.
97. N. Polmar, Strategic Weapons: An Introduction (NY: 1982), pp. 3–4;
98. Quester, ‘Strategy of Deterrence', pp. 71–3;
99. Strachan, ‘Deterrence', pp. 396–7;
100. A.L. Friedberg, ‘A History of US Strategic “Doctrine” 1945 to 1980', in A. Perlmutter and J. Gooch (ed.), Strategy and the Social Sciences: Issues in defense policy (London: Frank Cass, 1981), pp. 40–1, 45–7;
101. D.A. Rosenberg, ‘American Atomic Strategy and the Hydrogen Bomb Decision', Journal of American History 66-1 (1979), pp. 62–76.
102. A strong sense of the continuities in air power from the 1930s to the 1950s can be found be reading the collected speeches and articles of Marshal of the RAF John Slessor, which he published in 1957 under the title The Great Deterrent (London, 1957).
103. Sherry, American Air Force, p. 76.
104. Survival in the Air Age, pp. 6–7.
105. D.O. Smith, ‘The Role of Airpower since World War II', Military Affairs Vol. 19 (1955), p. 72.
106. H.D. Smyth, A General Account of the Development of Methods of Using Atomic Energy for Military Purposes under the Auspices of the United States Government 1940–1945 (London: HMSO, 1945) p. 134.
107. Rosenberg ‘Atomic Strategy', p.68. By 1950 the USA still lacked this atomic capability. The Harmon Committee set up in 1949 to evaluate impact of atomic attack on the Soviet Union estimated that the attack would produce 2.7 million dead, 4 million casualties, and would reduce Soviet industrial output by 30–40 per cent. This was substantially lower than Soviet losses in World War II. See Friedberg, ‘Strategic Doctrine', p.46.
108. See, e.g., Gen. L.M. Chassin, Stratégie et bombe atomique (Paris, 1948), p. 260 ff.
109. Smyth, General Account, p. 134.