Executive summary

Joint Force Quarterly, April, 2008 by D.H. Gurney

normally read a book every night. At the end of the course, all students must present and defend a thesis. It is a tribute to the rigorous liberal education imposed by the superb SAASS faculty that the thesis topics often appear offbeat and challenge traditional ways of doing business. SAASS is an education for the balance of a lifetime, and proof can be found in the fact that its graduates enjoy long careers and frequently second careers closely connected to strategy and policy. Regrettably, SAASS produces a small number of graduates annually, and even if the institution were expanded tenfold, we would lament that it is still too small.

JFQ calls readers' attention to the eleventh-hour arrival of an excellent article by Lieutenant General John A. Bradley, USAF, chief of Air Force Reserve, which can be viewed in the online edition of this issue at ndupress.ndu.edu. General Bradley speaks to building a viable Total Force while remaining operationally engaged. This article is also intended to assist policymakers in examining the recent history, current challenges, and likely future of the Reserve Components.

Contemporary U.S. airpower has no peer because its strength and flexibility are products of competition, debate, and conflict. Undeniably, this dominant form of military power projection is increasingly costly, even as it produces multiplying benefits that are internalized by every military Service as prerequisite for mission success. The competition for airpower ideas and resources can only grow more intense over time. The challenge before us is to preserve the benefits of Service competition while reducing the attendant inefficiencies. As an efficient investment of your time, we hope that you find this issue of JFQ thought provoking. We encourage your feedback, hopefully in the form of manuscripts delineating your lessons learned in joint, integrated, air, space, and cyberspace operations.

--D.H. Gurney

NOTE

(1) John J. Mazach, "The 21st-Century Triad: Unconventional Thinking about the New Realities of Conventional Warfare," Sea Power (March 2002), 53.