United States Air Force

The United States Air Force was established as an independent military service on September 18, 1947, under the National Security Act, separating from the Army Air Forces that had carried out American strategic and tactical airpower operations throughout World War II, including the strategic bombing campaigns over Germany and Japan and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Built around the doctrine that airpower, including strategic bombing, air superiority and, from the Cold War onward, nuclear deterrence via long-range bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles, constituted an independent and decisive dimension of modern warfare, the new service organized itself around Strategic Air Command, Tactical Air Command and later a wide array of specialized commands. The Air Force played central roles in Cold War nuclear deterrence, the Korean and Vietnam Wars' air campaigns, the 1991 Gulf War's demonstration of precision-guided airpower, and subsequent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, continually advancing jet fighter, bomber, airlift, and, later, stealth and unmanned aircraft technology. The Air Force ceded its space and cyber operational responsibilities in part to the newly created United States Space Force in 2019, while remaining the primary American service for air superiority, strategic airlift and long-range strike.