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

Chapter 9
aversions to <strong>the</strong>ir employment. In contrast, however, air strikes had been “almost riskfree.”
The IAF had not lost an aircrew member since a Phantom was lost over Lebanon in
1986. The use of ground forces became a defensive-only kind of employment, a mentality
reflected in <strong>the</strong> planned decommissioning of several brigades, decreases in <strong>the</strong> number
<strong>and</strong> quality of tanks – <strong>the</strong> IDF had stopped producing its top-line Merkava tank – <strong>and</strong>
increased investment in long-range bombers. 358 When <strong>the</strong> goal was to retrieve two Army
personnel, why risk getting more captured?
Reinforcing <strong>the</strong> attractiveness of air power was that campaign after campaign seemed to
validate it as a decisive instrument. Conflicts such as <strong>the</strong> Gulf War <strong>and</strong> Kosovo seemed to
provide sweeping evidence in support of <strong>the</strong> argument that air power <strong>and</strong> high-precision
st<strong>and</strong>-off weapons alone could coerce an adversary <strong>and</strong> bring about victory. For example,
without <strong>the</strong> use of any ground forces <strong>and</strong> with seventy-eight days of air strikes, <strong>the</strong> allied
coalition had successfully forced <strong>the</strong> Serbian President, Slobodan Milosevic to fold, leave
Kosovo, <strong>and</strong> accept G8 terms, seemingly providing an overwhelming success story for air
power. Competing explanations have suggested that air power only in conjunction with
<strong>the</strong> threat of ground forces, Russian withdrawal of support for Serbia, <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> role of
<strong>the</strong> Kosovo Liberation Army, helped bring about an end to <strong>the</strong> Kosovo war. 359 But <strong>the</strong>se
operations none<strong>the</strong>less helped reinforce <strong>the</strong> IDF’s growing attachment to air power as an
antiseptic way to win wars at low cost. Reflecting <strong>the</strong> IDF’s strategic thinking on <strong>the</strong> utility
of air power in <strong>the</strong> particular case of Lebanon, Israeli leaders had “referred to Lebanon as
an updated edition of <strong>the</strong> successful NATO aerial operation in Kosovo in 1999.” 360 Lastly,
domestic level factors had grown increasingly favourable towards economic stability over
state security, making high-risk strategies, such as those that might involve high casualties,
less attractive. As one analyst who visited <strong>the</strong> area noted: “Israeli governments in recent
years have been so preoccupied with stoking <strong>the</strong> economy that <strong>the</strong>y have been reluctant
to take <strong>the</strong> steps necessary to ensure long-term security for fear of spooking <strong>the</strong> markets.”
361
In its place was a mindset in which success <strong>and</strong> failure were measured by <strong>the</strong> number
of fallen soldiers, which was likely to be higher through <strong>the</strong> use of ground forces than
through air power. Yet this measure inevitably constrained options available to achieve
<strong>the</strong> state’s objectives. As one Israeli critic noted: “if counting <strong>the</strong> fallen causes vacillation
<strong>and</strong> indecisiveness, <strong>and</strong> annihilates ambition to deliver a strategic victory, how could gains
become anything but losses, in terms of strategic objectives or loss of life?” 362
The combination of <strong>the</strong>se factors – individual level preferences, strategic cultural changes
after <strong>the</strong> First Lebanon War, <strong>the</strong> apparent lessons of conflicts of <strong>the</strong> 1990s, <strong>and</strong> aversion
to casualties <strong>and</strong> instability – led Israeli military <strong>and</strong> civilian leaders to be convinced
that air power generally <strong>and</strong> strategic bombing specifically could antiseptically win wars
<strong>and</strong> make l<strong>and</strong> warfare “anachronistic.” <strong>Air</strong> power was thought to provide a low-cost
<strong>Air</strong> <strong>Power</strong>, <strong>Insurgency</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> “War on Terror” 147