First, with respect to Slap's post. These excerpts from Warden:
Next, it became a powerful targeting tool because it provided a high level understanding of any opponent relevant to the objective for that opponent.
True in the ideal, unfortunately, it relies on fallible humans making the right choices, therefor...
We should really think about close air support as something that happens because of a big mistake on someone’s part. The idea should be to conduct operations in such a way that it is not needed.
That myth has killed more people than it should have. I will agree that if if you resort to combat, any type, a mistake has been made by someone or several someones. But once combat is required, you are flat not going to end it with air power.
Finally, if a situation arises where close air support is needed, the decision to use it should be in the context of the operational level situation at the time.
That's either an ambiguous or a meaningless statement. In the way I think he means it, it's not always possible and Afghanistan is an example -- the Operational level of that war is Afghanistan. The various actions that take place within that operational context are tactical and air support thus becomes of necessity tactically determined.
JW: The political objectives we used to put together the first Gulf War air campaign were as follows:

- Iraq to be out of Kuwait.
- Iraq not to be a strategic threat to its neighbours for at least a decade (as a result of losing so much of its offensive capability including its WMD programmes).
- Iraq functional and able to defend itself against its neighbours.
- The Middle East/Persian Gulf area to be more stable.
I guess two out of four is okay. I also guess that the failures in the last two plus the need for Northern and Southern Watches show the best laid plans and all the rings can be upset by dumb humans making decisions...
I would agree that in all areas of competition ranging from business to war, strategy is absent or poorly done. We definitely need to get better at it. Given the performance (or lack thereof) of economics, I don’t think, however, that economics would be my model.
Well, I can agree with him on that one...

I also agree with most of Bill's comments.

As to the two questions of JMM:

White's corollary; "A theory rigorously tested may prove that an observation was either correct or incorrect and later experience may prove that the testing or the tester was not adequately rigorous."

I agree on leadership. With a caveat. For most people, the transition is not a problem but there are a few people who do well in peacetime yet cannot adequately handle the stress of combat and, conversely, a few excellent combat leaders cannot cope with the boredom and tedium of peacetime.

Thus his statement is essentially correct but the theory and the reality differ due to human vagaries. Make that statements, plural...