Regime Change and the Role of Airpower

<p>Drawing from the vision of airpower theorists and building on insights gained from studies on various regime changes this thesis advances a theory of regime change and outlines a strategy for the use of airpower. In order to remain in power regimes must continue to provide goods to the group of people responsible for its rise to power - the winning coalition. Different types of regimes rely on different types of goods to satisfy their winning coalition. This thesis advances the hypothesis that adversely affecting these goods will create policy failure increase dissatisfaction among the winning coalition and cause members to seek out a new coalition and regime to provide the lost goods. Additionally since many regimes supply goods to third parties in order to retain their support a third hypothesis was introduced to account for the influence of international support. Analysis of an American and South Vietnamese regime change demonstrated that overthrowing a particular type of regime is directly related to attacks on certain types of goods thus providing a better model for airpower strategists planning a regime change. The theory outlined in this thesis is founded on theoretical limits for regime types and few regimes actually exist at these extremes still the more democratic a regime the more airpower should focus on public goods. Conversely the more autocratic a regime the airpower should attack private goods.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p>