Air power and colonial control : the Royal Air Force, 1919-1939
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Air power and colonial control : the Royal Air Force, 1919-1939
（Studies in imperialism / general editor, John M. MacKenzie）
Manchester University Press , Distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St. Martin's Press, c1990
Available at 12 libraries
Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Air policing was used in many colonial possessions, but its most effective incidence occurred in the crescent of territory from north-eastern Africa, through South-West Arabia, to North West Frontier of India. This book talks about air policing and its role in offering a cheaper means of 'pacification' in the inter-war years. It illuminates the potentialities and limitations of the new aerial technology, and makes important contributions to the history of colonial resistance and its suppression. Air policing was employed in the campaign against Mohammed bin Abdulla Hassan and his Dervish following in Somaliland in early 1920. The book discusses the relationships between air control and the survival of Royal Air Force in Iraq and between air power and indirect imperialism in the Hashemite kingdoms. It discusses Hugh Trenchard's plans to substitute air for naval or coastal forces, and assesses the extent to which barriers of climate and geography continued to limit the exercise of air power. Indigenous responses include being terrified at the mere sight of aircraft to the successful adaptation to air power, which was hardly foreseen by either the opponents or the supporters of air policing. The book examines the ethical debates which were a continuous undercurrent to the stream of argument about repressive air power methods from a political and operational perspective. It compares air policing as practised by other European powers by highlighting the Rif war in Morocco, the Druze revolt in Syria, and Italy's war of reconquest in Libya. -- .
Table of Contents
- Part 1: The origins of air policing - the emergence of independent air power, the frontier and Somaliland 1919-20
- Iraq and the survival of the RAF 1920-25 - the air control debate 1920-22, air control in action 1922-25
- the extension of air control - Great Britain and Ireland, Palestine, India, South-West Arabia, Africa
- the limits of air substitution - the air ministry and ground forces, tactical cooperation, substitution and the Navy. Part 2: The geographical environment of air policing - the long arm of the state, time and space, air power in a resistant medium
- indigenous responses to air policing - expectations, from terror to adaptation, resistance
- the technical dimension - air strategy, technology, training and doctrine
- imperial politics and the role of force - limited and unlimited uses of force, criticisms of air policing, air policing and disarmament
- comparisons - air power in Morrocco and Syria, the Italian Empire in Africa.
by "Nielsen BookData"