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Article: Air Power, Strategic
- Article from:
- Dictionary of American History
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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AIR POWER, STRATEGIC
AIR POWER, STRATEGIC.
Strategic air power employs aerial weapons to bypass the surface battlefield and to strike at key wartime industries. Typical targets are the transportation network, including railroads, bridges, marshaling yards, and harbors; the petroleum industry, including refineries and tank farms; the electrical generating system; and the aerospace industry. Intensive strategic bombardment campaigns, such as those conducted against Germany and Japan in World War II, embrace many target systems and compare to traditional sieges, in which all elements of a nation's economy and military strength
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including its means of sustenance and its civilian ...