His Air Force career spanned 30 years, from 1965 to 1995, and included tours in Vietnam, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Korea, as well as many assignments within the continental United States.

In 1965 (on his twenty-second birthday), he married his high school sweetheart, Marjorie "Margie" Ann Clarke, and on December 5, 1966, became the father of twins, Elizabeth Kathleen, and John Warden IV.

[6] In April 1967, Warden was a member of the 334th Tactical Fighter Squadron, flying the F4 Phantom II, when he was first deployed overseas to South Korea in response to the Pueblo incident.

It was also at this point in his career that he began to attract attention from senior officers and members of the Intelligence Community, both for his ability to think strategically and conceptually, and for his ideas about force structure, concepts, and doctrine, that normally did not interest fighter pilots.

[8] Warden has been compared to famed aviator Billy Mitchell: "a thinker on a grand scale; a rebel who constantly sought ways to improve himself and his organization without having the patience to explain his reasoning or seek consensus; a revolutionary who refused to take political and personal sensitivities into account in his eagerness to change things fast, and a gentleman of unfailing integrity".

He directly challenged the prevailing doctrine entitled AirLand Battle, which held that air power must always play a subordinate role to ground operations, and was not strategic in and of itself.

General Norman Schwarzkopf, who was in charge of the CENTCOM (Central Command) area telephoned the Pentagon on August 8 and asked that the Air Force "put planners to work on a strategic bombing campaign aimed at Iraq's military, which would provide the retaliatory options we needed."

The model that came to mind was Operation El Dorado Canyon, the 1986 American air raid on Libya, in which USAF and Navy aircraft struck Libyan sites in retaliation for Muammar Qaddafi's terrorism.

[1] David Halberstam asserted in War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals (2002): ...if one of the news magazines had wanted to run on its cover the photograph of the man who had played the most critical role in achieving victory, it might well have chosen Warden instead of Powell or Schwarzkopf.

[17] Warden's view of the enemy as a 'system' and of the primary importance of the command, control, and communications apparatus within that system, combined with his belief in bombing for functional disruption, strategic paralysis, and systemic effect, was at the heart of the Instant Thunder air campaign in the first Gulf War, and has played an important role in changing the United States view of Warfighting at both the strategic and operational levels.

Rice, Colonel Warden became the Special Assistant for Policy Studies and National Security Affairs to the Vice President of the United States, Dan Quayle.

Quayle also credited Warden with introducing senior government officials to the Six Sigma concept of business management and quality control, and with strengthening National Security through the enhancement of industrial competitiveness.

Colonel Warden's impact will be felt for years to come as the more than eighteen hundred Majors who graduated during his time as Commandant, some of whom have already reached General Officer rank, continue their careers in the Air Force.

[20] John Warden retired from the Air Force in June 1995, and shortly thereafter started his own consulting company to pursue the application of strategy in the business world.

[22] The Gulf War Air Power Survey documents how Warden managed to "define the debate on the military strategy for 1991 through his presentations to Generals Powell and Schwarzkopf".

Scholars such as Robert A. Pape, Edward N. Luttwak, Alan Stephens, Richard P. Hallion, and Phillip S. Meilinger all agree that Warden is one of the most influential strategists since the Second World War.