Two Expeditions—Suez and the Falklands

Abstract

Military concepts are most severely tested when they have to be adapted and applied at the extremities of foreseen circumstances. The inherent flexibility of air power should mean that the air arm has an advantage in making this adaptation; but it has often proved difficult to translate that flexibility into effective military capability. This was particularly the case in the two decades after the Second World War, at a time when the major Western air forces were sacrificing much of their flexibility in order to equip and train for the role of strategic nuclear strike.