Population Centric Warfare

The Air Force, stung by my attacks, is ready to launch a new campaign, doubling its advertising budget at a moment when "service leaders think the stakes are high." Not the stakes in Iraq or Afghanistan, but the budgetary stakes, where the Air Force is hoping to mount a propaganda campaign aimed at winning the hearts and minds of the American people away the other services:

The proposed advertising campaign’s goals are laid out like the strategic targeting plan of an air war. The targets are 220 million adults. The goal is that each adult over a year’s span will see 30 Air Force advertisements, from ads on Web sites to full-page newspaper ads to prime-time television ads.

What they really need to worry about, though, is John McCain. A naval aviator in the White House could be the end of them.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2008/02/population-centric-warfare/48656/