“Students in most universities have it easy. They don’t have to worry about exam questions such as ‘Can we kill 10 million people, beginning one day next week?'”


This is an article about Air University; established in 1946 by the U.S. Department of War in order to train senior American Air Force officers to serve as strategic thinkers in the realm of national security. In 1949 that meant conceiving of ways to implement a successful strategy in which the Soviet Union would be defeated with nuclear weapons:


“In the statistics of modern war, a loss of approximately 4% of a nation’s population saps its will to resist…”


Six months after this article was first read, the Soviets tested their first Atomic bomb; click here to read about that event.


Click here to read about the invention of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile

Read Towards a Nuclear Strategy<br>(Pathfinder Magazine, 1949) for Free

Air University newspaper articleAir University magazine articleair war college historyAir University curriculum 1949Air University air war college cold war1940s nuclear war strategyearly nuclear strategy 1949USAF nuclear strategy 1947General George Churchill Kenney USAFGeneral George Churchill Kenney Air University1949 Strategies for Nuclear WarAir University Maxwell Field Alabama
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