Aerial warfare is a late bloomer in military theory. Though it was part of the battle, its dominance was not distinguished from the army and navy. The battle is always dominated by the ground forces. It is the forces on the ground that manipulate and brings victory to the battle complemented by modern weaponry. It was, until plane was discovered and utilize as a weapon for war. Personally, every time air power is mentioned and anything that describe related to combat planes, two movies come into the picture; Top Gun and Behind Enemy Lines. Though fictional, but the movie vividly depicts the reality of character of air power such as the superiority it exudes dominating the air space and the magnanimity of the effect towards the enemy.
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This concept was used in various assault of by a nation or allied forces during the war or vice versa. Since the Battle of Gallipoli in 1915 the presence of air power was notice to support the navy and the army is evident. Air power victory cannot be claimed alone in this context because of the primordial role of naval support and the ground forces in the battle. But who will control the air? Back to Douhet’s claimed in his The Command of the Air Book (1921) that the introduction of aeronautics to armed conflict had created a new battlefield, beyond those of the land and sea. He argued that an air force should be independent from land operations, yet it should work in coordination with them. For this reason, armies and navies should be allowed to acquire the aerial means to ‘aid and integrate’ their land and sea operations. This is true that on his premise that who controls the air controls the ground. However, the independence of air warfare operation cannot be downplayed as it was vital in the Yugoslavia wars where in NATO launched successive airstrikes during the Kosovo conflict. Further, the Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm during the Gulf War are important markers in the evolution of air power (Martin,