http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/137543552

Transitioning to a Space & Air Force: Moving Beyond Rhetoric?

Efforts within the Air Force to integrate its two primary components, air and space, have yielded at best slow and dubious results. Many space advocates and analysts assumed that the vital role space played in the Gulf War would result in space being recognized as warranting an equal position with the air component of the Air Force, if not the creation of a separate service. Although rhetoric has seemed to support those assumptions, actual progress has remained slow. In this paper, the role played by organizational culture and an indicator of organizational commitment, is also considered. The trials of teaching and integrating space into an already existing structure at the senior Air Force Professional Military Education (PME) institution, the Air War College, is examined as illustrative. The conclusion reached is that the current environment is not conducive to integration, and that rhetoric will likely continue to outpace substantive progress, with potentially negative result.

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