This paper makes a case for understanding air power through the lens of police. After first rethinking a key period in the history of air power (colonial bombing campaigns) as a police mechanism, the paper then moves to consider the impoverished conception of war and police in contemporary critical theory. The final section turns to perhaps the most pressing issue in current air power debates, namely drones, and suggests that a consideration of air power as police power helps us read drones as a continuation of the police logic inherent in air power since its inception.
AgambenG, 1993, “The Sovereign Police”, in The Politics of Everyday Fear Ed. MassumiB (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN) pp 61–63
4.
Air Staff Memorandum, 1920, “On the power of the air force and the application of this power to hold and police Mesopotamia”, March, Air Ministry Records, London
5.
BadiouA, 2003Infinite Thought: Truth and the Return of Philosophy (Continuum, London)
BiddleT D, 2002Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914–1945 (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ)
8.
BlackmoreT, 2005War X: Human Extensions in Battlespace (University of Toronto Press, Toronto)
9.
CarmichaelB WDeVineEKaufmanK JPenceP EWilcoxR S, 1996, “StrikeStar 2025”, research paper presented to Air Force 2025, Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, AL
10.
CharltonL E O, 1931Charlton (Faber and Faber, London)
CordesmanA H, 2003The Lessons and Non-lessons of the Air and Missile Campaign in Kosovo (Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC)
13.
CoxJ L, 1985, “A splendid training ground: The importance to the Royal Air Force of its role in Iraq, 1919–32”Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History13157–184
14.
CrosthwaitH L, 1928, “Air survey and empire development”Journal of the Royal Society of Arts77162–15
DeanD J, 1986The Air Force Role in Low-intensity Conflict (Air University Press, Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, AL)
17.
DeanM, 2006, “Military intervention as ‘police’ action?”, in The New Police Science: Police Powers in Comparative Perspective Eds DubberMValverdeM (Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA) pp 185–206
18.
Der DerianJ, 2001Virtuous War: Mapping the Military—Industrial—Media—Entertainment Network (Westview Press, Boulder, CO)
GrondinD, 2011, “The other spaces of war: War beyond the battlefield in the war on terror”Geopolitics16253–279
35.
HaddalC CGertlerJ, 2010, “Homeland security: Unmanned aerial vehicles and border surveillance”, report for Congress, 7–5700, Congressional Research Service, Washington, DC
36.
HardtMNegriA, 2000Empire (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA)
37.
HardtMNegriA, 2004Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (Penguin, New York)
38.
HartiganR S, 1982The Forgotten Victim: A History of the Civilian (Precedent Publishing, Chicago, IL)
39.
Hearing before the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, 2011Rise of the Drones: Unmanned Systems and the Future of War (US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC)
40.
HobsbawmE, 1994Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century (Penguin, London)
41.
HollandT, 1928, “Introduction”Journal of the Royal Society of Arts77161–162
42.
HuyssenA, 2003, “Air war legacies: From Dresden to Baghdad”New German Critique90163–176
43.
J H H [pseudonym], 1933, “‘Police’ bombing in outlying regions”The Naval Review21461–465
44.
KaplanC, 2006, “Mobility and war: The cosmic view of US ‘air power’”Environment and Planning A38395–407
45.
KillingrayD, 1984, “‘A swift agent of government’: Air power in British colonial Africa, 1916–1939”Journal of African History25429–444
46.
Kingston-McCloughryE J, 1937Winged Warfare: Air Problems of Peace and War (Jonathan Cape, London)
47.
MannersR A, 1962, “Land use, labor, and the growth of market economy in Kipsigis Country”, in Markets in Africa Eds BohannaPDaltonG (Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL)
48.
LongoriaM A, 1992A Historical View of Air Policing Doctrine: Lessons from the British Experience Between the Wars, 1919–1939 (Air University Press, Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, AL)
NeocleousM, 2000The Fabrication of Social Order: A Critical Theory of Police Power (Pluto Press, London)
51.
NeocleousM, 2008Critique of Security (Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh)
52.
NeocleousM, 2011, “The police of civilization: The war on terror as civilizing offensive”International Political Sociology5144–159
53.
NeocleousM, 2013a, “Cujus est solum and the no-fly zone: Police power, all the way to Heaven”Radical Philosophy182.
54.
NeocleousM, 2013b, “The police dream of pacification: Accumulation, class war and the hunt”Socialist Studies (forthcoming)
55.
OmissiD, 1990Air Power and Colonial Control: The Royal Air Force 1919–1939 (Manchester University Press, Manchester)
56.
PandyaM, 2010, “The Cold War present: The logic of defense time”, in Anthropology and Global Counterinsurgency Eds KellyJ DJaureguiBMitchellS TWaltonJ (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL), pp 137–151
57.
PartonN, 2009‘Air power and insurgency: Early RAF doctrine’, in Air Power, Insurgency and the ‘War on Terror’ Ed. HaywardJ (RAF Centre for Air Power Studies, Cranwell) pp 31–42
58.
PortalC F A, 1959, “Air Force co-operation in policing the Empire”, lecture at RUSI, London, 17 February, 1937, in The Impact of Air Power Ed. EmmeE M (D Van Nostrand, Princeton, NJ) pp 351–362
59.
RundquistE K, 2009Desert Talons: Historical Perspectives and Implications of Air Policing in the Middle East (Maxwell Air Force Base, Montgomery, AL)
60.
SatiaP, 2008Spies in Arabia: The Great War and the Cultural Foundations of Britain's Covert Empire in the Middle East (Oxford University Press, Oxford)
61.
SauerFSchoringN, 2012, “Killer drones: The ‘silver bullet’ of democratic warfare”Security Dialogue43363–380
62.
SeverskyA P, 1942Victory Through Air Power (Simon and Schuster, New York)
63.
SherryM S, 1987The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT)
64.
SingerP W, 2009Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century (Penguin, New York)
65.
SmithM, 1984British Air Strategy Between the Wars (Clarendon Press, Oxford)
66.
SmithR, 2001The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World (Penguin, London)