Airpower is the most glamorous offensive and defensive instrument of war in military history. The knights of the sky dueled thrillingly above the trench warfare of World War I. Bombers and fighters, as well as the development of radar and cutting-edge reconnaissance and attack strategies, helped decide the course of World War II. In the Pacific theater, American and Japanese air carriers fought for supremacy; in the Atlantic theater, airpower incinerated cities on strategic bombing campaigns and tracked, found, and destroyed submarines and merchant navies. But the way war is waged has changed dramatically since World War II. A deterrent during the Cold War, in Vietnam the limitations of airpower against an elusive guerilla force were all too clear. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, modern smart munitions have not made fighter bombers more effective against many kinds of targets than their predecessors in World War II used to be. As guerilla warfare becomes the norm, and as ballistic missiles, satellites, cruise missiles, and drones increasingly take the place of quarter-billion-dollar manned combat aircraft and their multi-million-dollar pilots, airpower triumphs are becoming a thing of the past. In The Age of Airpower, internationally recognized military expert Martin van Creveld vividly narrates the story of airpower from the scenes of its greatest exploits to the point where it is on the verge of being eclipsed, a victim of the changing nature of war and the ever more impersonal and computer-controlled weaponry of the future. - Jacket flap.