Introduction
Airpower has been an indispensable part of Western use of force after the Cold War. This has given rise to a sometimes-heated debate on airpower and its limitations. It has been suggested that the quick collapse of Iraqi troops during the 1991 Gulf War once the coali-tion ground offensive began can be explained by the month-long air bombing that preceded the ground war. The air campaign, the argument goes, neutralized the Iraqis’ ability and undermined their will to continue the fight. In this way, operations seemed to confirm the notion that airpower and air superiority were crucial to the outcome of modern war. Air force operations in Bosnia in 1994–5, but above all in Kosovo in 1999, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, and Libya in 2012 further strengthened the impression that airpower was a relatively cheap, effective, and politically viable way to wage war. The Kosovo War, in particular, has even been regarded as a watershed in the history of warfare, because Serbia was defeated by action from the air alone (e.g. Olsen 2003; Lambeth 2001).
But how credible is the claim that airpower alone can win wars or that air superiority is tantamount to winning wars? Studies of the wars in Chechnya, where Russia unquestion-ably enjoyed air superiority, show that the relationship between airpower and victory is not entirely unambiguous (de Haas 2004). Later research on the 1991 Gulf War, moreover, has shown that it is debatable to what extent the Iraqis’ will and capacity for continued resistance was affected by the initial bombing (Press 2001). The real value of the so-called “Afghan Way of War” has also been questioned (Biddle 2007). Similarly, it has been questioned as to what extent the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic’s decision to withdraw from Kosovo and meet the conditions of the Rambouillet Agreement was caused by NATO bombing, lack of Russian support, the threat of a ground invasion, the Kosovo Albanian guerrilla resistance, or the threat to indict the Serbian leader at the International Crimes Tribunal in the Hague (Lambeth 2001; Hosmer 2001; Gow 2003; Byman & Waxman 2000).
The independent causal power of airpower on the outcome of war and militarized crises is one of several cross-cutting themes in the theoretical discourse of airpower. This means that the relative utility of airpower is surrounded by similar questions as the use of force in other domains. It also means that there is an implied causal link between the use of airpower and victory in war. How have ideas about this relationship developed? How are the normative and explanatory aims of military theory understood in the airpower debate?
The aim of this chapter is to introduce modern airpower theory and its core assumptions.
The central theme running through modern airpower debate is how effective airpower is for achieving tactical, operational, and strategic effects. The great divide in this debate is between those who believe that airpower alone can induce the opponent in a conflict to
behave in a desirable way and those who believe that airpower – as other means at the state’s disposal – must be understood in a broader strategic context. In this way, the central debate is between those who believe that airpower should be seen as an independent strategic resource and those who believe that it primarily should be used for operational-tactical purposes to support ground and naval forces. Since the latter idea has already been discussed in Chapter 6 on joint operations, the focus of this chapter is on how airpower as a stand-alone resource and how it is considered to contribute to military power. Obviously, airpower can be used for both purposes, but because strategy is constrained by scarce resources, one must prioritize.
The American Colonel Peter Faber (1997a; cf. Garden 2002) suggests that air warfare contains offensive operations, control of airspace, supporting air operations, and logistics. Of these components, the main focus of airpower theory has been kinetic air force operations.
Logistics, reconnaissance operations, and control of airspace from the ground (through radar) have received far less attention in airpower theory. Similarly, space – sometimes included in the concept of airpower – has not received extensive theorizing (Gray 1996a; DeBlois 2004).
It is also worth pointing out that airpower theories have been developed by, or for, the great powers. On the one hand, it may be argued that this does not matter. The logic of targeting and strategic effect, in short, should hold regardless of whether it is a Danish F-16 or a US F-16 that drops a bomb on a power plant. On the other hand, airpower is associated with access to capital-intensive high-technology, commonly associated with great powers and their comparatively larger defense budgets. There are thus confounding variables involved in airpower theory. In the above example of F-16:s, it is not entirely obvious that the strategic outcome of bombings will be similar since the targeted state in all likelihood are aware of the fact the US have much more latent military resources than Denmark. The fact that the Great Powers possess so-called escalatory dominance (cf. Chapter 3) thus makes airpower theoriz-ing suffer from potential biases.
Airpower: concepts and strategic context
We begin the chapter with a discussion of key concepts, before moving on to the causal logic implied in airpower theory. As in the other chapters on military operations, this conceptual discussion has clear connections to Chapter 2 on war and Chapter 3 on strategy. A conceptual discussion of airpower should relate to its nature, air superiority, and the strategic context in which airpower is relevant.
Air power and its characteristics
What does the term “airpower” mean? Philip Meilinger (2003: 1) defines airpower as “the ability to exercise power from air or space to achieve strategic, operational or tactical objec-tives.” At least two aspects of this understanding of the concept deserve more attention. First, it includes space, which sets it apart from previous definitions, and it makes contemporary satellite systems into an integral and essential resource in the use of airpower (cf. Klein 2004). Not only are monitoring and intelligence gathering facilitated by satellites, but also command and control. For example, the US Air Force is already using its satellite system to obtain information on weather, targets, and to evaluate effectiveness, and it can desig-nate targets from the ground directly to manned or unmanned aircraft. Second, airpower includes “the exercise of power.” What is somewhat surprising, however, is that there is a lack of analysis of the concept of “power” among airpower theorists. It is surprising since neighboring disciplines such as political science and sociology usually consider “power” as
an “inherently contested concept.” The political science literature on the concepts of power or freedom often distinguishes between “power to act” and “the power to protect from.”
Similarly, it is common to separate “freedom to” and “freedom from.”
These two dimensions of the concept of power are also relevant in airpower theory, as will become evident in the discussion of the concept of “air superiority.” What Meilinger seems to have in mind with his understanding of airpower is similar to Dahl’s concept of power, since Meilinger’s concept is intimately associated with incompatible interests involved in war. In his classic formulation, Dahl (1957; 1991) suggested that “A has power over B to the extent that A can get B to do something B would not otherwise have done.” Similarly, Meilinger understands airpower is a relational concept insofar as the use of “power” includes at least two actors. Dahl’s understanding of power is also intentional and causal, i.e. the use of force is deliberate and such conscious acts causes an effect. Power, in short, is used to accomplish goals. For example, in 1990, Iraq could wield its airpower against Kuwait, but not against the US at the same time. Hence, airpower is not an objective resource, but must be seen in relation to other actors.
Another recurring theme in the development of airpower theory is the extent to which it can be understood as inherently offensive. Almost all of the early airpower theorists in the 1920s held that airpower was offensive by nature. Air forces would not get stuck in trench warfare similar to the Western Front, it was argued. This position was further reinforced by the absence of a functioning air defense system with radar and long-range air defense sys-tems. These theorists envisioned air forces as cavalry in the air that, unhindered by trenches or minefields, could envelop opposition units easily and cordon off the battle space. One of the early “pioneers” of airpower theory, the Italian General Guilio Douhet (1869–1930), assumed that it was impossible to defend against airpower. The US General William Mitch-ell and other early American airpower theorists held similar positions. A text from the US Air Corps Tactical School (ACTS) in 1926 even suggested that “it was futile to try to prevent hostile air operations . . . As soon as the bombers were in the air, they were practically impos-sible to prevent.” (West 1999: 7) In Britain, Hugh Trenchard emphasized that air forces were inherently aggressive and claimed that “nothing is more annoying than being attacked by something you cannot defend yourself against” (Meilinger 2003: 46). According to Faber (2002), this has subsequently led airpower theorists to mostly ignore theorizing about defen-sive air power.
The notion that you cannot defend against airpower also meant that early theorists such as Douhet (1999) argued that air forces should be used for pre-emptive strikes. If you are unable to defend against assault from the air and the effort of air forces determine the outcomes of war, it becomes rational to pre-empt the opponent’s attack by launching an attack in advance.
The emergence of airpower, in short, implied that victory in war was determined by whoever attacked first. This line of thought was later elaborated in more detail by Bernard Brodie in the 1950s. Brodie (1959: 402) suggested that nuclear weapons made Douhet’s ideas about the anticipatory attack relevant. It is worth noting that Brodie wrote his text before the Cold War superpowers had developed robust second-strike capabilities, which made the logic behind pre-emptive strikes less relevant. Meilinger (2001: 105) notes that “if the only thing that makes Douhet relevant is nuclear weapons, then he is completely irrelevant” because none of the superpowers from the 1960s onwards could defeat the other instantly, always risking a devastating second strike. It is, moreover, not only the early airpower theorists that assumed that air forces are inherently offensive. US colonel and influential modern airpower theorist John Warden (2000: 21–3) emphasizes that the offensive has advantages over the defensive in air warfare. Warden even claims that a defensive strategy can never lead to
victory – only “drawn” results in war. Hence, to some extent airpower theory is still charac-terized by the “cult of the offensive” (cf. J. Snyder 1984).
A further recurring theme in the history of airpower theory is the notion of decisive battle. This, of course, demonstrates the close relationship between Western strategic thought in general and airpower theory. Being able to defeat the opponent in a great battle and thus determine the outcome of the entire war has consistently been held as an ideal in Western military theory – at least since Clausewitz. Mahan’s discussion of the decisive naval battle (see Chapter 8) is another manifestation of this idea. It is also a recurring theme in airpower theory. We can consider Douhet’s suggestion of bombing of civilians, ACTS thinkers’ ideas about bombing nodes in the society to achieve system collapse, Wardens ideas about decapi-tating enemy leadership, and the late 1990s thoughts on “shock and awe,” as expressions of accomplishing the ideal of determining the outcome of war by one, decisive blow.
Airpower advocates also highlight a number of other characteristics of airpower that dis-tinguishe air forces from other services. Both British Air Marshal Timothy Garden (2002:
137–57) and Meilinger (2003: 1–2) argue that airpower has innate strengths and weaknesses.
Airpower is flexible, they suggest, because it can be used for a wide variety of tasks. It is also attractive to decision-makers – both civilian and military – since air power offers a way to quickly exert military power over long ranges, with relatively low risks of suffering losses.
Air forces are also quick to withdraw from the conflict if necessary. The new development of precision-guided munitions, moreover, has led to the political level being able to con-trol the military operations more carefully and even participate in the targeting process to a greater extent than before. Since the sky is omnipresent, it is also suggested that air power by definition increases the possibility of surprise, since it can attack from all directions. Garden and Meilinger also point out, however, that airpower is capital-intensive and air forces are dependent on often vulnerable base and logistics infrastructure. Another inherent limitation of airpower is its transient nature, i.e. air forces cannot permanently occupy their domain, but are dependent on land or sea operations for such tasks. Another inhibiting and related factor for airpower is that it cannot control territory, although it can greatly limit the opponent’s ability to maneuver and master the same territory.
Air superiority and its significance
Perhaps the clearest sign that airpower is exercised is that one party holds air superiority in a war. How has the latter term been understood? Douhet (1999: 297) suggested “to have com-mand of the air means to be in a position to prevent the enemy from flying while retaining the ability to fly oneself.” Douhet’s concept set forth two fairly tough demands: you should be able to operate freely in the air, while the opponent should not be able to fly at all. Douhet thus understood airpower in terms of freedom of maneuver, to operate freely from the opponent’s operations. It is also clear that he understood the concept as binary; either you have air supe-riority, or you do not. Those suggesting that air superiority was a relative concept and could be differentiated in time and space were dismissed for mistaking command of the air for local, short-term superiority. Douhet (1999: 297) went as far as to claim that (emphasis in original):
[T]o have command of the air means to be in a position to wield offensive power so great it defies human imagination. It means to be able to cut an enemy’s army and navy off from their bases of operation and nullify their chances of winning the war. It means complete protection of one’s own country, the efficient operation of one’s army and navy, and peace of mind to live and work in safety. In short, it means to be in a position
to win. To be defeated in the air, on the other hand, is finally to be defeated and to be at the mercy of the enemy, with no chance at all of defending oneself, compelled to accept whatever terms he sees fit to dictate.
In contrast, John Slessor argues that air superiority is not a permanent state of affairs, but only a phase that is possible in a smaller theater of operations for a limited time. Slessor maintained that this is sufficient since the decisive moments in war by definition only take place at a specific time and place (Meilinger 2003: 69). Warden, meanwhile, differentiated the concept even more. Air superiority, according to him (2000: 10), ought to be under-stood as “sufficient control of the air to make air attacks – manned or unmanned – on the enemy without serious opposition and, on the other hand, to be free from the danger of seri-ous enemy air incursions.” His understanding seemingly follows Douhet’s, but with some qualifications. Warden also distinguishes sub-categories such as “air supremacy” (identical to Douhet’s “command of the air”), and – like Slessor – insists that air superiority can be
“local,” i.e. limited to a given battle space; “operational,” i.e. limited to an entire “combat theatre,” or even “neutral,” i.e. “neither side has won sufficient control of the air to operate without great danger” (Warden 2000: 10–11). For Warden, and unlike Douhet, therefore, air superiority is a relative term.
The most central of the causal claims involving air superiority within airpower theory is that holding such superiority leads to victory in war. This claim is firmly entrenched in airpower thought from Douhet to current air force doctrines, such as British Royal Air Force doctrine AP 3000 (2009). Douhet (1999: 298; cf. MacIsaac 1986: 627; Buckley 1999: 22–42) claimed that “to have command of the air is to have victory. Without this command, one’s portion is defeat and the acceptance of whatever terms the victor is pleased to impose” (emphasis in original). Even current airpower theorists strongly argue in favor of this causal relationship.
The causal story, in short, is that the holder of air superiority has an advantage compared to its counterpart, because the holder can implement their offensive operations undisturbed.
This allows the holder to influence the opponent at will, while the opponent cannot respond.
This means that air superiority is an end in itself for the air force, even if it serves as a means to influence the outcome of the war as a whole. It is only when air superiority is achieved, Warden (2000: 13–20) maintains, that air forces’ full potential can be realized.
There are, however, some problems with the causality in the claim that air superiority will lead to victory in war. First, Faber (2002) points out that the causal stories and mechanisms of the theories rely far too heavily on metaphors. Even if this is seemingly convincing, meta-phors rarely capture the full complexity of the phenomenon to be explained. For example, fol-lowing ACTS propositions about targeting key nodes in the opponent’s social and economic system, US Air Force General Frank Andrews (1884–1943) suggested that modern society was “as sensitive as a precision instrument.” This suggested that if you destroyed or disrupted a vital part of a watch, it would not work (Faber 2002: 56–7). The problem – of course – is that modern societies or states are not identical to a wrist watch. Similarly, it is certainly true, as Warden argues, that a human body ceases to function if you cut off its head. However, this does not necessarily mean that the same applies to a state that loses its leadership. States can naturally replace their leadership more easily than a human body can grow another head.
Ultimately, relying upon metaphors in the planning and targeting decisions can be misguided and lead to unnecessary death and destruction as well as poorly utilized resources.
Second, it is almost impossible to separate the independent causal powers of one tool in war from others. For example, if we claim – as some airpower theorists do – that air supe-riority leads to victory in war, it is extremely difficult to prove it, since there are a number
of confounding variables. Often the party with air superiority also has dominance on land.
This is of course related to the fact that air forces are capital-intensive and the side with the
This is of course related to the fact that air forces are capital-intensive and the side with the