Deliberate Force A Case Study In Effective Air Campaigning

Every airman or person interested in the art and science of air and space warfare should read this book. True to the direction of Gen James Jamerson, former deputy commander in chief of US European Command, and the author, the Air University Balkans Air Campaign Study (BACS) has emerged as a balanced and wide-ranging discussion of the Deliberate Force air campaign, which occurred during the fall of 1995. Exploiting the sources and resources available to them, the BACS team members have laid out a mile-wide and foot-deep exploration of the context, theoretical foundations, planning, execution, leadership, and effects of this milestone event. In so doing, they have contributed significantly to our knowledge about the political, military, technical, and human elements that shape air campaigns and influence their outcomes. Moreover, the BACS offers insights into persistent questions of military planners, such as the relationship of diplomacy and war; the synergy of land power, space power, and airpower; and the role of chance and "fog" in the conduct and outcome of air and space warfare. Finally, because the BACS team from the start wrote this report for immediate declassification, virtually the entire report and all of its substantive elements are available here as an open source, only four years after the event. Given its scope, this book should contain material of interest to all aerospace-warfare practitioners and/or thinkers, regardless of their area of expertise.

This monograph examines how the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization employed air power to obtain national objectives in Operation Linebacker II, Operation Deliberate Force, and Operation Allied Force. Operation Linebacker II took place from 18-29 December 1972. It was the only maximum effort bombing campaign of the Vietnam War that targeted the heartland of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, ultimately compelling the negotiations that ended the conflict. Operation Deliberate Force, the final operation of the Balkans Air Campaign, was a seventeen-day effort that sought to undermine the military capability of the Bosnian Serb Army and led to the 1995 Dayton Accords. Operation Allied Force was a seventy-eight-day air campaign in 1999 that successfully sustained offensive operations against Serbian forces led by president Slobodan Milosevic and impelled their removal from Kosovo. This monograph primarily uses Dr. Mark Clodfelter's Framework for Evaluating Air Power Effectiveness as a means to evaluate these campaigns and test the hypothesis that an air campaign positively impacts national objectives when it effectively targets an enemy's military vulnerabilities in which it has no equal means of response. These case studies demonstrate air power's ability to obtain or positively contribute to the achievement of national objectives when used as the predominate or sole means of combat power. Findings indicate that while effective targeting was crucial to these campaigns, there were other factors of equal or greater importance. Although each case study provides unique insights to the effective use of air power in pursuit of national objectives, common themes for all three include the evolution of national objectives to match military capability, the isolation of the adversary from its perceived allies, and a type of war waged by the adversary conducive to targeting or exploitation by air power.This compilation also includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.This monograph examines the specific employment of air power in each of these campaigns to assess how it affected success in achieving national objectives. Borrowing heavily from Robert Pape's Bombing to Win, this monograph hypothesizes when an air campaign effectively targets an enemy's military vulnerabilities in which it has no equal means of response, it positively impacts national objectives by making continued military action imprudent. This hypothesis acknowledges that targeting may diverge from original campaign objectives in order to leverage the decisive but devastating effects of air power. To evaluate this hypothesis, this monograph uses the case study framework and the methodology outlined by air power historian and theorist Dr. Mark Clodfelter. In his article, "Airpower Versus Asymmetric Enemies: A Framework for Evaluating Effectiveness" Clodfelter provides a catalogue of variables and associated questions to apply to historical and potential uses of air power to determine its effectiveness. These criteria are further discussed in chapter one of this monograph; however, this monograph primarily considers his variables: (1) the nature of national objectives; (2) the nature of the enemy; (3) the type of war waged by the enemy; and (4) the magnitude of U.S. or allied military controls. It also applies supplemental campaign evaluation criteria from the 1994 Joint Force Air Component Commander (JFACC) Primer and the 2014 Joint Publication 3-30: Command and Control of Joint Air Operations.

James Hickey proceeds from the premise that throughout history, humans have demonstrated a proclivity for using violence against one another as a means to achieve an end, means enabled, in many respects, by the technologies available at the time. Advancing technology has often been a prime enabler of ever-increasing levels of violence and attendant human suffering. At a few junctures in history, however, certain technologies have seemingly provided the armed forces that possess them the ability to fight wars with decreasing levels of violence and suffering. Today, precision-guided munitions (PGMs) with their high degree of discrimination and accuracy again hold such promise. This book seeks to answer the question: Do PGMs mitigate suffering in war, and have these weapons changed the way decisions regarding war and peace have been made? Answering this question helps us understand possible shifts in emphasis in modern warfare, both in terms of methods employed and of the greater concern placed on limiting human suffering during conflict. This book will help students of ethics, just war and military history and senior military and civilian leaders to understand the possible outcomes and wider implications of their strategic choices to use such technology.

James Hickey proceeds from the premise that throughout history, humans have demonstrated a proclivity for using violence against one another as a means to achieve an end, means enabled, in many respects, by the technologies available at the time. Advancing technology has often been a prime enabler of ever-increasing levels of violence and attendant human suffering. At a few junctures in history, however, certain technologies have seemingly provided the armed forces that possess them the ability to fight wars with decreasing levels of violence and suffering. Today, precision-guided munitions (PGMs) with their high degree of discrimination and accuracy again hold such promise. This book seeks to answer the question: Do PGMs mitigate suffering in war, and have these weapons changed the way decisions regarding war and peace have been made? Answering this question helps us understand possible shifts in emphasis in modern warfare, both in terms of methods employed and of the greater concern placed on limiting human suffering during conflict. This book will help students of ethics, just war and military history and senior military and civilian leaders to understand the possible outcomes and wider implications of their strategic choices to use such technology.

Air power for warfighting is a story that's been told many times. Air power for peacekeeping and UN enforcement is a story that desperately needs to be told. For the first-time, this volume covers the fascinating range of aerial peace functions. In rich detail it describes: aircraft transporting vital supplies to UN peacekeepers and massive amounts of humanitarian aid to war-affected populations; aircraft serving as the 'eyes in sky' to keep watch for the world organization; and combat aircraft enforcing the peace. Rich poignant case studies illuminate the past and present use of UN air power, pointing the way for the future. This book impressively fills the large gap in the current literature on peace operations, on the United Nations and on air power generally.