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Aerial warfare is the use of military aircraft and other flying machines in warfare; this includes military airlift of cargo to further the national interests as was demonstrated in the Berlin Airlift. Developing from unpowered observation hot air balloons in the 18th century, aerial warfare has become a high-technology affair that has led to many advances such as propulsion, radar, and the use of composites and engineered materials such as carbon fibers.

Aerial warfare started in the mid-nineteenth century with the use of espionage balloons, continued into the mid-twentieth century with the invention of the ICBM, and the technological development continues today with unmanned aerial drones and spy satellites.

World War I
Very shortly after the Wright brothers' famous flight in 1903, the potential military applications of flight were pondered and researched. It didn't take long after the beginning of World War I on August 4 1914 for the utility of mechanical flying machines to become apparent. Initially, airplanes were used in the same role as kites in ancient China and balloons in the American Civil War—reconnaissance. Both France and Germany would monitor the other's troop movements using aeroplanes. However, the use of aerial reconnaissance by both sides denied the element of surprise to both sides—making it seem profitable to eliminate the enemy's air capability while retaining one's own ability. Unsurprisingly, opposing air forces began to attack one another.

Air superiority or command of the air was sought by both sides. Air superiority is the ability to maintain aerial warfare capability while denying that ability to one's opponent. The military air power contests quickly evolved from crude pistol firing in 1914 to sophisticated interruptor gears in 1915 that allowed the enemies to fire at one another through their propellers. The era of the dogfight was born.

As the war raged over the skies of Europe, it became obvious to all that planes suited to one task, e.g. bombing, often had woeful performance when thrust into another role, e.g. defending one's airspace from enemy attack. A bomber would typically be too large, heavy and unmaneuverable to survive against smaller aeroplanes, so airplanes came to be designed with specific roles in mind. This diversification air power resulted in the creation of two types of military airplanes: fighters and bombers.

By the end of World War I, not only had the airplanes diversified, but the major classes of tasks that air forces were to take on had been identified: close air support and strategic bombing.

Improved warplanes
The end of World War I didn't see the end of the development of the warplane. Biplane designs were abandoned for superior monoplane designs, and wings became thicker to provide better lift at high speeds. Engineering improvements resulted in airplanes that had more powerful engines and could fly much faster than WWI-era planes.

Aircraft carriers
However, a truly big change was to come not just in the technology of aerial warfare—but in techniques. Airplanes went to sea.

Initial attempts to deploy airplanes from ships designed to carry them, aircraft carriers, were never truly tested in combat during the first world war; however, the U.S. and the U.K and Japan all realized the future potential of aircraft launched from ships, and development of such systems expanded in the postwar period. The powers realized that merging air and naval power would give their air forces long-range killing power that a strictly land-based air force could never have. However, aircraft carriers and the planes they carry are all oil-powered machines—they are heavily dependent upon oil.

Oil and War
It must not be overlooked that oil has always played a role in war since the beginning of the twentieth century. A mechanized army requires oil for daily operations (especially during campaigns), and that army also requires the material support of an industrial, oil-powered economy. For a country to have the ability to mass produce the types of munitions that its mechanized armies need requires that country to have access to plentiful sources of oil.

In the 1930s, Japan began a program of imperial expansion in the South Pacific and China. Japan felt safe in conquering such large regions due to the superiority of its mechanized military. The advantage of large numbers of tanks, airplanes and battleships made it not strategically unsound for Japan to attempt to conquer, for example, China—a country several times Japan's size. The calculation made by the Japanese military, which was in control of Japan, was that Japan's military power made conquest safe to do, and therefore acceptable to do. Indeed, the actions demonstrated by Germany, Italy and Japan at this time prompted U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt to label those countries "bandit nations."

The United States, United Kingdom and the Netherlands did not approve of Japan's expansionist policies, and in 1941 they placed an oil embargo on Japan that resulted in Japan declaring war on the U.S.—the instigator of the embargo. Japan's first act upon declaring war was to attempt to destroy the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. The long-range killing power of the aircraft carrier was demonstrated when over 2300 U.S. sailors and airmen were killed on December 7 1941 without any of them having a chance to see (let alone combat) the Japanese ships that had launched the attack.

Radar
U.S. Pacific Fleet had been taken by surprise. Pearl Harbor proved the importance of being able detect enemy aircraft early. In Britain, even before the start of World War II, the Royal Air Force had been researching ways to detect enemy airplanes from a distance using radio waves. During the war, radar became effective enough that the British were able to consistently detect and destroy incoming enemy aircraft. .

Over time and continuing after the war, radar would find its way into more types of military equipment. Originally based only on the ground, radar would end up being deployed inside airplaines, ships and missles. Eventually, some nations would continually scan their entire airspace using radar as part of the doctrine called Mutually assured destruction.

Close Air Support
Since the beginnings of aerial warfare using airplanes in World War I, militaries primarily used airplanes to support ground operations; this is known as close air support or tactical air support. During the first world war, close air support, while extremely valuable during certain battles and renown for its psychological impact on the targeted troops, was almost never the decisive factor. In World War II, it was different.

Early in the war, the Axis powers used aerial boming and strafing to greatly harass enemy troops. Later, the Allies developed well-thought-out plans for utilizing air power, and deficiencies in the skills of Allied troops were made up for by obliterating Axis ground forces from the air.

As the war progressed into 1941, the Germans, who had started the war with substantial technological and skill advantages, began to realize that every advantage and every strategy they had relied upon earlier had been countered by their enemies. In particular, during the Battle of Britain a large number of Luftwaffe pilots had been killed, and fundamental vulnerabilities in the Luftwaffe had been exposed. Germany needed a way to get bombs over Britain without sending their pilots to rapid deaths. The answer to the problem was thought to be the V2 rocket.

Civilian Terror
When fired from over 300 miles away, the V1 and the later V2 rockets designed by Wernher von Braun we too inaccurate to hit something as small as a military base or troops in a field; however, V2s could hit something as large as London—a city rich in civilian targets. World War II saw the first attempts to create civilian terror though aerial bombardment; however, the idea had started in WWI, and the philosophy behind this was first espoused in the post-WWI period.

In 1921, Italian General Giulio Douhet had claimed that attacking the civilian populace of an enemy country was a necessary way to prevent the long, bloody trench warfare of WWI from recurring, and many credit Douhet with creating the philosophy behind strategic bombing. Douhet thought that the bombing of civilians would cause the people to rebel and force their government to surrender. Previously in WWI, Germany had tried to terrorize Londoners by sending bomb-carrying Zepplins over England, but the large, slow, hydrogen-filled Zepplins had proved to be too easily blown up by British fighters—resulting in chillingly high casualty rates for Zepplin crews. In World War II, it was different.

In the 1940's, the technology, philosophy and tactical planning came together to make mass slaughter from the air a reality. Stalingrad was the first city in history targeted for systematic destruction from the air.