The Airborne Mafia: The Paratroopers Who Shaped America’s Cold War by Robert F. Williams. Cornell University Press, 2025, 288 pp.
The Airborne Mafia provides a detailed look at how and why the US Army maintained a vibrant airborne culture and air-mobile capabilities throughout the Cold War instead of fully mechanizing its forces (10). Drawing on his experiences as a former airborne infantry noncommissioned officer, combat veteran and Combined Arms Center historian Robert Williams also touches on a host of questions that those looking at the US Army’s airborne community from the outside might ask. Civilians may struggle to understand why so many in the Army still place a premium on the parachutist badge as opposed to other badges or tabs. Service members from other branches may wonder how air assault fits into airborne operations. Soldiers, even those who are airborne qualified, often ask why the military continues to pour so much time, energy, and money into mass-exit parachuting techniques that seem to have limited use in modern combat. Williams’ answers to these questions are not novel but are an eloquent distillation of several history lessons at once.
Six chapters form an extensive look at the philosophies and careers of three pioneers whose careers illustrate a four-step Army-wide feedback loop—General Matthew Ridgway, General Maxwell Taylor, and Lieutenant General James Gavin. First, airborne warfare in the US Army started as a volunteer-based and dangerous experiment that promoted a certain elitism, attracting promising young officers before and during World War II. Second, airborne warfighting became a cultural phenomenon within the Army and iconic among the general public following increased media attention of its perceived successes in Italy and France. With great fanfare, units like the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions became “veritable military poster children of the age” (157). Next, some of the best and brightest officers who took part in those campaigns rose to high ranks and put other airborne-qualified leaders in positions of influence within civil-military relations at pivotal points during the Cold War. Finally, by the war in Vietnam in the 1960s, helicopter operations were standardized and air assault became a part of mobile airborne warfare that would prove relevant in almost every US military operation for the next 70 years at home and abroad.
In one sense, the book is written as interwoven biographies, tracing the respective views and exploits of the Ridgway-Taylor-Gavin “triumvirate” as they led the “airborne mafia.” Ridgway first appears in the book as a rapidly promoted lieutenant colonel turned two-star general, tasked with converting the 82nd Airborne Division into a truly capable unit. His knowledge of airborne operations at this point is nil, but his leadership philosophy—to not order his men to do anything he would not do himself—serves him well in establishing a style of leadership that stresses decentralized decision-making, readiness, and mobility. His storied career ends with disagreements with the Eisenhower administration over how to structure the Army in the nuclear era.
After starting as an instructor at West Point in 1941, Gavin finagled his way into jump school. Having gained extensive combat experience, he decided large-scale parachute operations were obsolete the moment World War II ended and spearheaded much of what is now known as air assault operations.
Taylor is introduced as Ridgway’s chief of staff, a reluctant paratrooper who made only six jumps ever—“view[ing] the parachute strictly as a vehicle … to be used when a better ride was not available”—but who continued on to command the 101st Airborne Division (25). He ends up as a staunch proponent of air mobility and global rapid response forces while serving as the Army chief of staff and later chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Williams defines airborne broadly and treats tactics and culture almost as if they were interchangeable—which may lead to clarity in explaining twentieth century developments but causes some confusion when making sense of twenty-first century vernacular, a juxtaposition that comes to head in his concluding thoughts, particularly in the final line of the book: “airborne culture has become army culture” (190). If Williams is referring here only to a disproportionate cultural influence across the force, he has persuasively demonstrated that characteristically “airborne” ways of thinking have permeated the Army’s cadences and traditions. He has offered a plausible account of why storied units like the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions still serve as rapidly deployable contingency plans in 2025.
On the other hand, it is worth noting that a sweeping claim about airborne influence only works with the broadest possible definitions. For example, he places air assault within the airborne conglomerate, though this can mask some deep and lasting cultural differences between the 101st Airborne Division—which has embraced a distinct air assault culture—and its rivals, who have decidedly retained a more narrowly-defined airborne moniker and continue to jump from aircraft. There is also, especially in the wake of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a thriving “joint/special operations mafia” to be reckoned with. As with air assault, any discussion of joint/special operations is complicated by significant overlap with airborne culture and tactics but distinctions of lineage—and different color berets.
There also are challenges to sweeping claims about airborne influence today that are more than semantic, and Williams displays an awareness of them. Emphasis on decentralized decision-making and mobility is not synonymous with airborne influence in every historical or contemporary case, and it is certainly possible to separate Army and airborne culture in today’s non-airborne units, such as air defense or cyber. Williams is unsentimental in stating that airborne operations may one day go the way of mounted cavalry and questions whether mass exits out of aircraft are already obsolete.
Definitions aside, one of the highlights of the book is how Williams deftly analyzes the airborne influence on atomic warfare. In 2025, as experts and analysts prepare for potential future conflicts, The Airborne Mafia is a reminder that the tug of war between large-scale and limited war is by no means new and will likely never be over. Just as Malcom Gladwell recently put a spotlight on the “bomber mafia” at work in the US Air Force after World War II (Bomber Mafia, Little, Brown, 2021), Williams shows how the airborne mafia withstood the rise of competing armor or nuclear mafias in the doctrine of massive retaliation or the fallout from Vietnam. The airborne mafia represented not just the counterweight to these other groups but also a middle way, addressing a diversity of threats.
The Airborne Mafia is a fantastic book, one of those rare contributions that lives up to the glowing endorsements on its back cover. Williams captures something of the essence of airborne culture, detailing the element of danger involved in jumps or rappels, possibly and especially into combat. This helps practitioners stay in a ready state of mind, with all the potential for swagger that comes with it. The book is accessible to newcomers without slowing the pace for those already steeped in airborne tradition and lore. Williams pays respect and portrays valor while avoiding veneration. He speaks clearly without oversimplifying. The book will be worthy of a wide readership for years to come.
Chaplain (Captain) Caleb Miller, USA