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Definitions aside, does the presentation of the aerospace as a single continuum really matter? The answer unfortunately is it depends. In general usage, for all its inappropriate application, no, the use of the term aerospace doesnt seem to represent the source of any major problems. When used by a military organisation to describe roles and responsibilities, however, as has been done by the RAAF, the use of aerospace must be viewed more critically.
Current RAAF attempts to use the aerospace-as-a-singlecontinuum construct appear to be driving a belief that one doctrine can adequately account for the physical differences between air and space. This flies in the face of conventional practices. Military forces that operate in different environments have always had fundamentally different characteristics and thus different doctrines. This is reflected in the current structure of the ADF, comprising the three distinct services, with each service focused on the development of operational expertise in one given environment. Traditionally, the single Services have existed in order to develop environment specific expertise and capabilities. Specifically, the Navy is the maritime environment expert, the Army is the land environment expert and the Air Force at least in the pastwas the air environment expert. The services accordingly have developed doctrine to support operations in their specific environments. Current Navy and Army single-Service doctrine publications, titled Australian Maritime Doctrine and The Fundamentals of Land Warfare respectively, reflect this single environment focus. Previous editions of RAAF doctrine likewise focused on a single environment, air, with this focus implicit in the title of The Air Power Manual. With the release of the fourth edition of AAP1000 the RAAF seems to have attempted to maintain this single domain focus, but has chosen to define its environmental responsibility as the aerospace, rather than the air environment. The real danger of this approach is that, by failing to recognise space as a distinct environment, existing air power doctrine may then be inappropriately applied to the space environment. Inappropriate doctrine will always handicap the employment of current competencies and any attempts to develop capabilities for the future. Recognising this fact, the USAF seems to have now acknowledged the error of its original aerospace construct, stating that Attempts to combine space and air operationsthe aerospace philosophyhave served to retard the development of space doctrine.
Without the acknowledgment of space as a separate environment, the RAAF will never be able to develop meaningful space power doctrine and capabilities. With this in mind the RAAF must acknowledge that aerospace does in fact mean air and space, and move to develop doctrine and capabilities accordingly.
Further Reading
Lambeth, B., Mastering the Ultimate High Ground Next Steps in the Military Uses of Space, RAND, Santa Monica, 2003. White, General Thomas D., The Inevitable Climb to Space, Air University Quarterly Review, Maxwell AFB, 1958. RAAF, AAP1000 Fundamentals of Australian Aerospace Power, Aerospace Centre, Canberra, 2002. Oberg, J., Space Power Theory, UASF Air Warfare College, Montgomery, 1999.
Any Air Force which does not keep its doctrine ahead of its equipment, and its vision far into the future, can only delude the nation into a false sense of security. - General Henry H. Arnold, USAAF, 1946
Pathfinder is a fortnightly bulletin from the Air Power Development Centre. Its title is a tribute to the Pathfinder Force which operated within RAF Bomber Command from August 1942. The original Pathfinders were an elite navigational group with the role of preceding each raid and accurately lighting up the target area with incendiary fires to permit visual bombing by the main force. The first commander was Group Captain (later Air Vice-Marshal) D.C.T. Bennett, a Queenslander who trained with the RAAF in 1930-31 before transferring to the RAF, and many other Australians also flew with the force. The emblem we have adopted is Fiery Mo, the unofficial insignia carried on No. 6 Squadrons Hudson aircraft in New Guinea during 1943.