Air Power, Insurgency and the “War on Terror” - Prof. Joel Hayward's ...

Chapter 9
<strong>Air</strong> <strong>Power</strong>’s Role in Asymmetric Operations:
The Case of <strong>the</strong> Second Lebanon War
Sarah E Kreps
Israel’s 2006 war in Lebanon has been widely criticised as a strategic <strong>and</strong> tactical
failure, <strong>and</strong> arguably for good reason. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) achieved
nei<strong>the</strong>r of its strategic objectives – Hezbollah remained armed <strong>and</strong> Israel failed to
get back alive its two captured soldiers – <strong>and</strong> was unable to destroy many of its targets
at <strong>the</strong> tactical level. 351 That Hezbollah did not lose <strong>and</strong> in fact did better than several of
Israel’s historical Arab state adversaries prompted its leadership to claim success <strong>and</strong> cult
status. 352 That Israel sacked its military leadership <strong>and</strong> commissioned an investigation into
<strong>the</strong> government’s h<strong>and</strong>ling of <strong>the</strong> Second Lebanon War implied some self-censure <strong>and</strong> an
interest in improving its wartime deficiencies.
What seemed to emerge as one of <strong>the</strong> most significant deficiencies <strong>and</strong> indeed casualties
of <strong>the</strong> war was air power. Critics almost invariably linked <strong>the</strong> IDF’s operational challenges
with its over-reliance on air power. In one representative post-mortem, a member of
<strong>the</strong> Knesset questioned: “why hadn’t we internalized <strong>the</strong> limitations of air power?” 353
Systematic analysis of air power’s limitations was sparse, whe<strong>the</strong>r it is limited specifically
against short-range rockets or in asymmetric operations more generally. This lead to
<strong>the</strong> possibility that any “lessons learned” would cast air power as a categorical failure for
asymmetric operations ra<strong>the</strong>r than give it a more careful parsing as to what air power
activities proved successful <strong>and</strong> under what specific conditions.
This chapter seeks to address those analytical shortcomings by doing <strong>the</strong> following.
First, it specifically addresses <strong>the</strong> motivations behind <strong>the</strong> use of air power in <strong>the</strong> Second
Lebanon War, arguing that air power seemed to provide an antiseptic, low-casualty
answer for modern warfare <strong>and</strong> clouded <strong>the</strong> possibility of o<strong>the</strong>r strategies, including
a more balanced combination of air <strong>and</strong> ground strategies that may have been more
effective in achieving its objectives. Second, it evaluates why reliance on air power was
ultimately counterproductive against an asymmetric adversary such as Hezbollah <strong>and</strong>
suggests that <strong>the</strong> intermingling of civilians <strong>and</strong> combatants virtually ensured that <strong>the</strong>
Israel would inflict civilian casualties. Through its strategic use of <strong>the</strong> media, Hezbollah
used <strong>the</strong> inevitable collateral damage to intensify support for its ideology <strong>and</strong> recruitment,
providing an almost unlimited supply of combatants willing to fight against <strong>the</strong> IDF. Third,
<strong>the</strong> chapter broadens its analysis, evaluating <strong>the</strong> effectiveness of air power in asymmetric
operations more generally. Does <strong>the</strong> Second Lebanon War mean that militaries should
demote air power as an instrument for o<strong>the</strong>r asymmetric environments or are <strong>the</strong>re
<strong>Air</strong> <strong>Power</strong>, <strong>Insurgency</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> “War on Terror” 145