A description of a practical theory of airpower using chaos and complexity theory. The focus is how airpower best influences operational and strategic objectives by considering the adversary as a system and focusing on lines of communication infrastructure targets. Lines of communication transmit all of a society's military, economic, and political goods, services, and information.
Infrastructure provides the framework that links the various elements of a nation's power.
This infrastructure contains critical nodes that are vulnerable to airpower. By understanding this infrastructue, we better understand an adversary as a complex, adaptive, and open system. The paper espouses a practical theory of airpower based on the synergistic relationship among societal structure and lines of communication that comprise infrastructure. Rather than isolating different elements of a society and their concomitant targets, the theory views targets in a more holistic way. The theory describes a way to think about airpower, not a way to execute its missions.