Air Power, Insurgency
and the 'War on Terror'
22 / 23 August 2007
The Conference of:
The Air Power Studies division,
King’s College London
and
The Royal Air Force
Centre for Air Power Studies
In today’s ambiguous strategic environment it is common to see the campaigns against terrorism and various insurgencies being characterised as primarily soldiers’ struggles. Media coverage of those campaigns routinely depicts platoons of soldiers in body-armour patrolling hostile suburbs. Yet the media seldom shows air forces and their aircraft despite these playing significant roles in almost all aspects of the multi-faceted, multi-theatre War on Terror and the various insurgencies that it reportedly includes.
This conference – to be held at the historic and prestigious
The convenor intends the conference to attract practitioners, policy-makers, academics and especially university students, and for it therefore to wrestle analytically with big air power-related themes and topics at the heart of current strategy and security debates.
Programme
Day 1:
0900 Registration & Coffee
1055 Admin Introduction: Mr Chris Finn
1100 Conference Welcome and Introduction: Group Captain Neville Parton
1115 Keynote Address: Professor Matt Uttley, “The Air Power Challenge: Continuity and Change in the Strategic Environment”
1200 Group Captain Neville Parton, “Air Power and Insurgency: Early RAF Doctrine”
1245 Lunch
1345 Air Vice-Marshal Peter Dye, “Royal Air Force Operations in Southwest Arabia 1917-1967”
1430 Dr. Richard Grossman, “’Looks Suspicious’: The
1515 Tea
1545 Dr. David Jordan, “Air ower in Urban Insurgencies: the Battles of Surabaya and Fallujah”
1630 Keynote Address: Dr. Philip S. Meilinger, "Starting with a Blank Sheet: Principles of War for a New Century”
1715 Close
Day 2:
0900 Keynote Address: Professor James Corum, “It’s Not Air Control Any More: The Contemporary Realities of Employing Airpower in Small Wars”
0945 Professor Caroline Kennedy-Pipe and Mr. Andrew Mumford, “Unnecessary or Unsung? The Strategic Role of Air Power in
1030 Coffee
1100 Speaker A (Longcroft Room) Dr. Sibylle Scheipers, “Transatlantic Interoperability and the Law of Armed Conflict: Air Power Targeting Decisions in
Speaker B (Smuts Room) Captain Steinar Sanderød, “The Use of Air Power Today: Have New Ethical Dilemmas Occurred?”
1145 Speaker A (Longcroft Room) Ms. Evelyn Krache Morris, “Techniques and Gadgets, Hearts and Minds: An Analysis of Operation Ranch Hand”
Speaker B (Smuts Room) Ms. Sarah Elizabeth Kreps, “Airpower after
1230 Lunch
1330 Speaker A (Longcroft Room) Mr. Thomas Withington, “Air Power and the Soviet Invasion of
Speaker B (Smuts Room) Group Captain Afzal Ashraf, “The Ethics of Air Power in the Age of the Global Salafi Jihad”
1415 Speaker A (Longcroft Room) Dr. Christina Goulter, “Urban Close Air Support in Counter-Insurgency Warfare: Lessons from
Speaker B (Smuts Room) Mr. Christian F. Anrig, “Neglected Contributors: the Continental European Air Powers”
1500 Closing Address: Sir Glenn Torpy, Chief of the Air Staff, RAF
1530 Tea
1600 Farewell: Mr Sebastian Cox
1615 Disperse
