Doctrine for a Smaller Air Force

Most of the world's large Air Forces including those of the United States, Russia, and China, are independent services with their own organization and doctrine. There also quite a number of medium size Air Forces who are also independent and have doctrine distinct from the other military services of their nation. These include countries like Israel, Brazil, France and Great Britain. But there are so many smaller Air Forces that are neither fully independent or have their own distinct doctrine. This is the situation in the country of Mali. It is not the size of the Air Force that determines the needs for independent doctrine. Rather, the need for independent doctrine lies in what the Air Force is asked to do for the country, what the Air Force can do given the resources it has, and what more it could do if its capabilities were fully realized and exploited. That is what this study seeks to show, using Mali as the focal point. The research is divided into three sections. The first examines what smaller Air Force doctrine looks like and what kinds of missions and responsibilities these smaller Air Forces are tasked to perform. It focuses on Israel and North Korea. This section concludes with a look at the United States joint doctrine concerning Military Operations Other Than War (MOOTW) and how missions in this area might be applicable to many smaller Air Forces. The second section looks at the situation of Mali Air Force and problems with its current doctrine. In Mali, air doctrine is not very consistent, nor is it well explained or understood. This section also looks at the difficulties Mali Air Force faces in developing doctrine that is applicable to its situation, both in missions it can or should perform and its equipment. This section also examines the question of an independent Mali Air Force and whether it should remain so.