21st Century Power

This book uses the 21st Century Foundations series format to re-introduce to the military community the writings of General Thomas S. Power, the third Commander in-Chief of the Strategic Air Command. His unappreciated works contain many insights into military topics such as technology and arms races, the nature of deterrence, the military utility of space, and others. Unifying them all was Power's quest to maintain nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union. Although Power is considered a quintessential Cold Warrior, his ideas are timely considering today's challenges of re-energizing the morale and technology of US strategic forces in the wake of foreignadvances, discerning what deterrence means in the "Second Nuclear Age," and planning the future of space and cyber power.

This will be a unique book for a number of reasons. First, no book - nor any academic article - has ever been written on General Power. Consequently, he has been largely forgotten by the modern defense community. However, Power was a very eloquent defender of strategic nuclear airpower and deterrence. This controversial book will shock airpower and military historians that have been led to believe Power was merely a lesser caricature of Curtis LeMay. Additionally, Power's insights are desperately needed by the military today. The Air Force's Global Strike Command's commander has claimed "SAC is back," but the command is still searching for its "soul." Nuclear theorists such as Thomas Schelling have recently offered that the US may need to return to an "escalation dominance" deterrence (which Power championed) rather than the traditional "escalation control" paradigm to deal with emerging powers. Power's thoughts on technology are also directly relevant to the formation of space and cyber power. Power desperately needs to re-emerge as a top-rate military theorist, and this book can do much to ensure that happens.

This book has recovered Power's work largely from speeches and articles written formilitary publications as well as congressional testimonies during his active duty career. However, Power's controversial nature also provides a unique opportunity for this book. Unique to this volume will be at least one transcript of Power's legendary briefings to civic leaders who visited SAC headquarters. These talks are from SAC audio archives that have not previously been transcribed. These talks are essential to showcase Power's renowned ability to captivate an audience well-known then but virtually forgotten today.