The Quest for Relevant Air Power

CONCLUSION │ 353
trine, the chief of the Air Staff ordered the formation of the RAAF
Air Power Studies Centre in 1989, providing Australia with an
edge in doctrine development in the post–Cold War era. In France,
the opposite occurred throughout the 1990s. Attempts at formalising
doctrine were primarily driven by exogenous factors, and
the chief of the Air Staff considered formal doctrine dogmatic,
inhibiting innovative thinking. Only recently has doctrine development
in France received top-level cover. Germany’s uneasiness
with deployed offensive operations also might have led to a lack of
top-down support for doctrine development. Only the defence reform
starting in 2002 put an end to doctrinal stagnation.
In contrast, the Netherlands entered the post–Cold War era
with the least historical and political baggage. Partly as a consequence
of that and due to natural inclination, the RNLAF senior
command was receptive to the importance of sound education
and doctrine. As argued above, General Manderfeld regarded
education as vital for operational effectiveness. His successor,
General Droste, directly linked deployed operations to the need
for adequate air power doctrine in his foreword to the RNLAF’s
first published version of its air power doctrine in 1996. 9 In general,
the RNLAF’s senior command echelon has been receptive to
doctrine development as well as to education.
The senior command’s attitude to doctrine also proved to be crucial
in the case of the SwAF. Whereas the first and second attempts
at developing a national air power doctrine were bottom-up approaches,
only with sufficient top-down backing and resource allocations
did the third attempt result in a published doctrine.
The Continental European air forces—particularly the senior
command levels—have gradually recognised the value of air
power doctrine in the post–Cold War era and have started to
emulate their Anglo-Saxon counterparts. This is reflected not only
in the air forces’ doctrine development but also in the dissemination
and teaching of air power thought. However, they have not
yet come up with truly innovative thinking. As the air power conferences
in Sweden and the Netherlands reveal, the Western air
power debate is still dominated by Anglo-Saxon thinkers. Moreover,
though the defence colleges in the Netherlands and Sweden
developed rigorous air power reading lists for their students, none
of the four air forces has yet produced an intellectual air power