The Quest for Relevant Air Power

186 │ GERMAN Air Force
findings about environmental pollution and assisted the civilian
SAR service. 221 Particularly during the 1997 and 2002 floods in
Germany, GAF helicopters provided assistance and flew rescue
missions. 222 In the course of the 2002 floods, Tornados were also
tasked with reconnaissance missions, and the GAF medevac fleet
evacuated patients from hospitals. 223 Moreover, Airbus medevac
aircraft have evacuated wounded German and European citizens
on numerous occasions from abroad. 224
How Has the German Air Force Responded
to the New Intellectualism in Air Power
Thinking and Doctrine?
During the second half of the Cold War, German airmen were
particularly concerned with the GAF’s role within the Western Alliance
and especially with the strategy of flexible response. With
the end of the Cold War, there was no longer a need to ponder
these issues. Instead, German air power thinking had to be directed
towards the new challenges of the post–Cold War era. Particularly,
the recent defence reforms have given German air power
thinking a new impetus.
Air Power Doctrine
The establishment of the Air Power Centre (Luftmachtzentrum
or LMZ) represents the GAF’s most significant step in tackling
conceptual and doctrinal aspects in the post–Cold War era. The
centre itself is a product of the adoption of Air Force Structure
6. 225 As such, it can also be regarded as an attempt to respond to
the requirements of military transformation. The Air Power Centre
is responsible for the development of national air power doctrine,
German contributions to allied air power doctrine, and concept
development and experimentation. 226 Moreover, as previously
mentioned, Germany was also the lead nation in setting up the
JAPCC, which became operational in early 2005 in Germany.
During the Cold War, the GAF did not have national basic air
power doctrine manuals. According to a RAND study of 1986,
such documents were believed to violate the “spirit and purpose”
of the GAF’s integration into NATO. 227 Consequently, attempts to