Look I hate to break it to you like this but, you're being lied to. You've been lied to for a long time and repeatedly. By your governments. I know; absolutely shocking right? But I'm not talking about expenses scandals or tax havens or grand conspiracies involving architectural choices at Denver airport (no really, there's a conspiracy theory about that). No instead i'm talking about the great myth; airpower.
Regular readers will know that I'm likely not talking about the construction of wind farms, but just in case someone new stumbles upon this little read slice of the information superhighway, I should clarify. I'm talking about airpower in the military sense. The use of manned aircraft and other airborne assets in military operations. Military aviation is a relatively new phenomenon in the history of the world, having only really been cemented as viable around a century ago during that little spat between the European Great Powers we now all know as World War I. Of course this isn't to say that the air had never been used in warfare before, far from it, carrier pigeons have been utilised for almost a thousand years and observation balloons were used as early as the French Revolutionary War. But it wasn't until the early 20th century that engineering had progressed far enough to create aircraft that could fly fast enough and carry enough fuel and equipment to be viable in combat. Of course I'm speaking relatively, WWI era military aircraft were incredibly crude, bombs were often delivered by hand and early examples of armed aircraft used to shoot their own propellers off but regardless, a new dimension of warfare was born, one that would never go away.
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| From this... |
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| to this in less than a century |
The purpose of this piece isn't to dismiss the usefulness of airpower out of hand, it is an incredibly useful tool in a commander's toolbox. In fact, in any potential peer-state conflict (fight against another country with similar technology to yourself), air power is essential. Without sufficient air cover and support, ground troops would be at the mercy of the opposing side's own air assets and fire support would be limited to artillery (again another useful/essential tool, much older than airpower, but suffers from limitations of its own - maybe i'll write about it another time) and of course that artillery would also be vulnerable to enemy aircraft. Air parity, i.e. control of the air over your own forces, is the absolute minimum any modern state needs to prosecute a war against a peer effectively.
But herein lies a major problem, peer state conflicts have been increasingly thin on the ground in recent decades. That's not to say they don't happen, they do, but the largest air campaign fought between modern forces since World War II was the Falklands war, 34 years ago. More recent conflicts have been characterised by a more asymmetrical nature with conventional forces engaging in warfare among a population as opposed to on a battlefield with well defined lines, Airpower is undoubtedly still useful in these instances, particularly in a close-in support role as the irregular forces currently faced by the armies of the world rarely have an effective answer to modern aircraft. However it is here that we get to the true topic of this piece: the myth, the lie, the ultimate falsehood that is the recent reliance on airpower in post Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts.
Ultimately the use of air assets in a conflict zone by western powers is a ploy. A trick. It's a way for our governments to seem like they're doing more than they actually are. Something bad happens? Airstrikes, airstrikes, airstrikes. Our foes can't do the same thing to us, they're accurate,* they're relatively inexpensive and ultimately... strategically useless. It has been the dream of military planners the world over since the dawn of military aviation to win wars solely from the air. From the Zeppelin bombings of Britain in WWI, to the saturation bombing of WWII, to the carpet bombing campaigns of Vietnam... none have succeeded in completely winning or even entirely turning the tide of a war. In order to win a war, one side has to be put in such a position that the continuation of hostilities is no longer feasible for them. In order to do that, their very ability to operate must be stripped from them, their supply lines cut, territory taken etc etc. Aircraft alone cannot do that, particularly the latter. In order to stop a force from operating, taking and holding territory is essential as it limits the foe's ability to manoeuvre his forces, thus restricting his ability to effectively mount offensives. But in order to hold territory, you need men on the ground. People sat in trenches and bunkers, stood on street corners, holding what they have; this is notoriously difficult to do when fighting an insurgency but not impossible. Unfortunately this is costly and risky, it would involve considerable amounts of materiel and men and people would undoubtedly die. Western governments by and large no longer have the stomach for this kind of thing after two ponderous, bloody, and seemingly inconclusive wars in the last decade and a half. Thus, airstrikes are an easy fallback solution, a veneer, the appearance of action when in fact very little is being achieved in the long term.
*Accuracy of airstrikes among a civilian population is a tricky thing and targets are only as good as the intelligence gathered...from the ground.
This is not to say that the air campaigns in Syria, Iraq, and Libya have been entirely ineffective. Of course not, allies on the ground in these theatres were, and undoubtedly still are, incredibly grateful for this support. In the case against the fight against IS/Daesh, it has dealt some serious body blows to their oil operations, but such things can be rebuilt. Until those refineries and fuel dumps are captured and held by people - the fighting shall grind on.
Wars cannot be won by air alone.
Thanks for reading,
Wheelchairman2
All images belong to their respective authors and are used under fair use.
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