Airpower And The Cult Of The Offensive

The belief that airpower is inherently offensive is a recurrent theme throughout airpower theory and doctrine. Before World War I, dogmatic belief in the dominance of the offense in land warfare affected the military decisions which resulted in the disaster of the trenches. Termed the "cult of the offensive" by scholars, faith in offense became so unshakable in pre-1914 Europe that military organizations dismissed as irrelevant the numerous indications of the waning power of the offense as techn