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Pilots and Rebels: The Use of Aircraft in Unconventional Warfare : 1918-1988

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Background
1. Title and Subject. `Pilots and Rebels: the use of aircraft in unconventional warfare 1918-1988' this book narrate the events related to air warfare against guerilla, insurgent, nationalist and Marxist movements.

2. Author. The name of the author of this book is Philip Anthony towel.

3. Thesis. The role of air power in unconventional warfare from 1918 to 1988 has been defined by author. He has narrated the events with commentary to highlight the use of aircraft and its effects. The author objective is to determine the use of aircraft or air power to counter the rebels, insurgents, revolutionary movements. Further to hold the colonial territories. Aircrafts were also used to support the insurgents against communist invaders.

Contents
4. The book explores the use of aircraft in unconventional warfare. It has been written in four parts by distinctly narrating the events in chronological order. The use of air power and its effect has been discussed in detail.

5. Biplanes and Nomads 1918-1939. In first section author discussed that RAF employed aircrafts and armored cars effectively to maintain order in large part of the Middle East between the two World Wars. Aircraft were useful at that time because nature of the terrain and nomads in Iraq, Aden and Afghanistan in 1920s. These methods did not work in urban and more developed areas like India and Palestine where nationalism was spreading. The uprising in Palestine was contained by political concessions and the massive use of ground as well as air forces.

6. Lysanders, Liberators and the Resistance 1939-45. Second part is quite short and it explains that Air power helped insurgent movements against Axis forces and finally defeated them. They were pushed out of France Yugoslavia and Greece. How ever support to Poland and Malaya proved more difficult. Allied support to these insurgencies depended upon very largely on whether aircraft could reach them to bring munitions, provisions and liaison officers.
7. Harvards, Marxists and Nationalist 1945-1954. It explains that aircraft were used against guerrillas in the Greece civil war, insurgency in Malaya, the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya and the French experience in Indochina. These campaigns were basically against Marxist or nationalist movements. Here writer explains that aircraft have also been used to attack white guerillas in the Greece civil war and in Yugoslavia.
8. Helicopters and insurgents 1954-88. During this period helicopter dominated the war against guerrillas. Helicopters were first used to move troops and evacuate casualties on small scale by the American in Burma, by the British in Malaya and by French in Indochina. Gunship helicopter were employed in Algeria by the French. The American utilized the same weapons on an extensive scale in Vietnam in the 1960s, as the Russian did in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The British used helicopters mainly to transport and supply troops in unconventional wars. From 1952 the helicopters become the supreme counter-insurgency weapons.
9. Technology started to change in 1970s, when hand held anti aircraft missiles, such as the soviet SAM-7, British Blowpipe and American stringer began to spread around the world. The supply of American stinger missile to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan really changed the face of war.
10. American experience in Vietnam and soviet in Afghanistan had established the insurgent supremacy over the science of the west. In fact technology, courage and support of the people all play a vital role in guerrilla warfare and insurgency. The nations fighting for their lives and nothing to loose in term of world opinion like Israel, still use offensive air power on vide scale in rural areas against insurgents. The struggle between aircraft and guerrillas is therefore by no means over.

11. Evaluation

(a) Author has adequately covered the thesis "The role of air power in unconventional warfare from 1918 to 1988", but his research was limited to government documented record only, No independent view of insurgents or guerrillas has been given.
(b) Author has placed the extracts from references to narrate event. Some times shift in moods is obvious even within paragraph. A lot of verbosity is used.
(c) Airpower had been most effective in the desert and against relatively unsophisticated enemy. Most post -1945 insurgencies were to take place either in cities or the jungle and neither location was ideal for the use of air power
(d) The air power is only effective if guerrillas or insurgents don't have covert supply of food, arms and ammunition.