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Public Affairs, the Peruvian Air Force, and Partnerships

AFCLC Outreach Team
“I remember growing up in Minnesota and watching my dad and my brother”.

It was within the walls of her family’s kitchen where 2nd Lieutenant Madeline Krpan’s desire to join the Air Force was awakened at a young age. Her father’s vivid tales of life in the Army combined with her brother’s experience in the Air Force served as inspiration for Krpan early on.

“I grew up in a military family,” Krpan said. “My dad was a helicopter pilot in the Army and my older brother is currently an F-15E pilot in the Air Force. I always heard their stories about their missions around the world and I was raised in such a way that I always knew the military was an option for me”.

An option for Krpan who, at the time, was still uncertain of her future and her career path. She said, in her spirit, she felt she was meant to be in the Air Force; but, she also had another fire burning inside of her. Krpan wanted to be a journalist and tell people’s stories….in both English and Spanish.

“I love telling stories and speaking Spanish. I’m not a native speaker but, I started studying Spanish in the 7th grade and it quickly became a passion of mine. I’ve been studying ever since,” she said.

Unsure of how her passions would fall in line with the Air Force’s mission, she reluctantly applied for an Air Force ROTC scholarship at the University of St. Thomas.

“I knew I was passionate about journalism and about Spanish, so I went ahead and applied,” she said. “I had been told that people really only receive technical scholarships for technical career fields or majors like engineering, meteorology, or math. So, I was delighted when I received an acceptance letter and was awarded the opportunity go to school and study Spanish. It was at that moment when I knew the Air Force was right for me, I knew from that moment on, I would study Spanish in college, commission, and become an officer in the Air Force”.

Once she commissioned, Kpran applied for the Language Enabled Airman Program and continued to seek opportunities to improve her language skills…including one that was very close to her base. While stationed in Tucson, Arizona, Krpan heard about the upcoming PANAMAX exercise at Twelfth Air Force (Air Forces Southern). Several partner nations were joining forces for the annual exercise to discuss defending the Panama Canal and she wanted to be a part of it.

Multidomain Observing and Orienting: ISR to Meet the Emerging Battlespace

Maj Sean A. Atkins, USAF
The development and proliferation of advanced technology is once again changing the battlespace and shifting the character of conflict from what the US military has prepared for. Still in development, the multidomain operations (MDO) concept proposes a better integration of capabilities across all maneuver domains to overcome challenges that increasingly defy current operating approaches.

Preparing for Multidomain Warfare: Lessons from Space/Cyber Operations

Maj Albert "AC" Harris III, USAF
The Air Force is driving progress toward multidomain command and control (C2) solutions to ensure Airmen have the right tools to fight an ever-evolving adversary. Yet even with such progress, it is going to take time before the service sees significant change across the force. To help speed the enhancement of multidomain C2, tactical leaders should shape their operational environment in a way that cultivates multidomain thinking. 

An Ethical Decision-Making Tool for Offensive Cyberspace Operations

Maj Benjamin Ramsey, USAF, PhD
This article highlights legal ambiguities associated with offensive cyberspace operations and suggests an ethical decision-making tool that mission planners and senior leadership can use to approach them. As US Cyber Command reaches full operational capability, it is imperative that its teams conduct missions in accordance with international law and in an ethically responsible manner. 

The Other Side of the COIN

Maj Will Selber, USAF
The USAF has played a pivotal role in the Global War on Terror. Although the focus of its contribution has centered on its core capabilities, thousands of Airmen filling roles on provincial reconstruction teams, as joint expeditionary tasked Airmen/individual augmentees, and as air advisors, give the Air Force its most experienced counterinsurgency (COIN) force in its short history. However, if history is any guide, the USAF is in danger of squandering this unique expertise. 

Air Advising in Afghanistan: Building an Organization in Flight

Col Matthew A. Douglas, USAF, Dr. Jonathan Ritschel
In 2016, we deployed as air advisors assigned to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Train, Advise, Assist Command–Air, Kabul, Afghanistan. While there, we were responsible for helping Afghan leaders develop the Afghanistan Air Force (AAF) into a professional, capable, and sustainable organization. We’re not naïve to the conditions and history, in trying to push Afghan progress and autonomy throughout the years.

Artificial Intelligence: Myths and Realities

Maj William Giannetti, USAFR
Even though the Air Force’s relationship with technology through the years has been intimate, many myths govern its thinking about artificial intelligence (AI). The myths center around a loss of control or influence Airmen might experience if AI is integrated into daily operations. This article proposes the USAF consider an initiative that will help it prepare Airmen for the career-changing implications AI might have in the future.

Kiffin Rockwell, the Lafayette Escadrille and the Birth of the United States Air Force

By: T. B. Murphy
Reviewer: Capt Herman B. Reinhold, USAF
With Kiffin Rockwell, the Lafayette Escadrille and the Birth of the United States Air Force, T. B. Murphy—a fighter pilot himself—reminds readers of the US Air Force’s (USAF) long legacy dating back to the American pilots who flew in the French Air Service with the Lafayette Escadrille during World War I. 

Airpower Reborn: The Strategic Concepts of John Warden and John Boyd

Edited by: John Andreas Olsen
Reviewer: Capt Jason P. Rimmelin, USAF
In Airpower Reborn, John Andreas Olsen brings together six leading airpower theorists and attempts to reshape the narrative regarding the modern application of airpower. Olsen, the editor and first of the six authors, introduces the book by highlighting a perceived disparity between the traditional, ground-centric view of airpower and its strategic potential before outlining the reader’s journey through airpower’s history and future.

Radio Failure: An Airpower Consipracy

By: Lee Downer
Reviewer: Dr. John L. Mahaffey
Radio Failure is a fictional work based partially on a historical event. In this sense, the book might be referred to as the literary equivalent of a cinematic docudrama. The docudrama, as presented in both film and print, is a difficult genre to perfect as it requires the viewer, or in this case the reader, to depart from a historical storyline to follow one that unfolds in its shadow or in some cases, changes the event altogether. 

Bill Lambert: World War I Flying Ace

By: Samuel J. Wilson
Reviewer: SMSgt Christopher Wlodarczyk, USAF
William Lambert, from Ironton, Ohio, a recipient of the Distinguished Flying Cross, was America’s second leading ace behind the famous Eddie Rickenbacker. Like Rickenbacker, Lambert patrolled the dangerous skies over France during the “Great War,” delivering justice to the Iron Cross as a member of Britain’s Royal Flying Corps, No. 24 Squadron.

Cyberspace in Peace and War

By: Martin C. Libicki
Reviewer: MSgt Justin J. Jacobsen, USAF
Today’s threat environment has become more complex than ever. With never-ending attacks from terror groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and rogue states causing trouble on the world stage, it is easy to forget about what is behind the scenes during these conflicts.

Air Power: A Global History

By: Jeremy Black
Reviewer: SFC Brian Christopher Darling, Army National Guard
To call Jeremy Black a prolific writer is an understatement. In the same year that he published Air Power, he also wrote a comprehensive history of counterinsurgency (COIN) operations entitled Insurgency and Counterinsurgency: A Global History. 

Marked for Death: The First War in the Air

By: James Hamilton-Patterson
Reviewer: Maj Ian S. Bertram, USAF
World War I aviation typically conjures visions of biplane dogfights, silk scarves, and mess halls filled with drunken ballads dedicated to fallen comrades. Marked for Death, James Hamilton-Paterson’s work, explores these stereotypical aspects of the “Great War” alongside entertaining vignettes of fear and boredom on the front, hypoxia in the air, and the finer points of machine gun interrupter gears.