America’s New Air Power

In 1948 - with the threat from Russia growing and the Cold War heating up - the American military was granted appropriations by Congress to invest heavily in the United States Army Air Forces. With a swaggering confidence, designed to reassure as well as impress, this film shows off the results of the investment, with footage of the latest in jet-powered technology, from the iconic F-86 fighter and the giant McDonnell Flying Wing to the bizarre XF-85 Goblin.

America hoped to steal a march on the military progress of the Soviet Union by investing heavily in air power in the early years of the Cold War. The urgency of this report is informed by fears that it was only a matter of time before other countries developed their own atom bomb. These worries, expressed in the film by the Chief of Staff of the US Air Force, Hoyt S. Vandenberg, and Secretary of State George C. Marshall, set the report in the context of its time, showing how the threat of massive retaliation as a deterrent to war was already being used as a strategy in the early years of the post-World War II arms race.