| Abstract
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Air power's use in recent conflicts has shown a clear evolution in its lethality, reliability, utility, and most importantly, its decisiveness. More specifically, American air power has increasingly been able to demonstrate an ability to fight and win wars, not by supporting surface forces, but by being supported by them. Air power has become America's "tip of the sword" and is the primary military tool in its arsenal. This has far-ranging political ramifications they may not only affect the way the US wages war, but also how often it decides to do so. This thesis explores the evolution of modern US air power by examining its use in three modern conflicts. These specific cases have been chosen as they represent conflict across the conventional spectrum of conflict and demonstrate air power's decisiveness at all levels of combat operations. The Gulf War is an example of a conventional interstate, high intensity war, employing air power in strategic, operational, and tactical roles. UN/NATO missions over Bosnia were a Chapter VII UN operation and represent medium to high intensity conflict, since it evolved from a police action into an application of coercive force. The invasion of Afghanistan in 2003 is clearly high-intensity conflict, but differs from the Gulf War in that there was little to no strategic operation and air power was employed primarily against opposing ground forces. It is also distinctive due to the uniqueness of Afghanistan which caused great difficulty to the US deploying and employing forces, this resulted in only a minimal deployment of ground forces coupled with overwhelming air power, developing a new air-ground synergy, in reference to proxy and special forces.
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