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

<strong>Air</strong> <strong>Power</strong>’s Role in Asymmetric Operations: The Case of <strong>the</strong> Second Lebanon War
o<strong>the</strong>rwise riskier strategy of using ground troops – it clearly faced challenges in <strong>the</strong>
execution. What are <strong>the</strong> lessons to draw from those challenges?
A first lesson is perhaps not that air power is a categorical failure, but that it does not
promise <strong>the</strong> antiseptic elixir that some leaders are seeking. Ra<strong>the</strong>r, air is best used as
part of an air-ground team, particularly against dispersed, intermingled target sets. War is
risky <strong>and</strong> costly, <strong>and</strong> unless a state is willing to execute a strategy likely to achieve victory,
<strong>the</strong>n it should think hard before launching an attack. In <strong>the</strong> case of Israel, it maintained
<strong>the</strong> enticing view that <strong>the</strong> IDF could use air power <strong>and</strong> win “on <strong>the</strong> cheap,” risking few
casualties, but in so doing took a short-sighted electoral view ra<strong>the</strong>r than a longer term
strategic view.
Second, as this chapter argues, <strong>the</strong> shortcomings of air power in <strong>the</strong> Second Lebanon
War may be emblematic of <strong>the</strong> challenges of using air power in irregular warfare in
general. While air power can make useful contributions in conventional settings, its utility
in a guerrilla-style conflict may be more limited. Ra<strong>the</strong>r than eroding <strong>the</strong> adversary’s
morale, <strong>the</strong> inevitable civilian casualties – prompted by Hezbollah’s tactic of hiding <strong>and</strong>
firing from within densely populated urbanised civilian areas – only served to galvanise
support against <strong>the</strong> IDF. In that sense, <strong>the</strong>se efforts to destroy Hezbollah katyushas were
ultimately counterproductive, since <strong>the</strong>y antagonised <strong>the</strong> population <strong>the</strong>y were intending
to enlist in its cause. In <strong>the</strong> war’s aftermath, <strong>the</strong> Wall Street Journal observed that “as
Israeli bombing continued fiercely day after day, devastating sou<strong>the</strong>rn Lebanon <strong>and</strong>
parts of Beirut, Lebanese leaders began aiming <strong>the</strong>ir ire at Israel, at times even praising
Hezbollah’s fight.” 400
The Lebanese government’s support for Israel, which had been
strong at <strong>the</strong> outset, gradually eroded as Israeli strikes fell upon Lebanon’s civilian areas;
<strong>the</strong> consequence was <strong>the</strong> eroded tenability of Israel’s military approach.
Third, <strong>the</strong> outcome of a conventional military against an asymmetric adversary shows that
not just air power, but military force in general may have limited effectiveness in this type
of non-conventional environment. As a RAND counter-insurgency manuscript asserts,
“reliance on combat power overestimates its utility <strong>and</strong> ‘miscalculates <strong>the</strong> relevance of noncombatants
<strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong>ir attitudes to <strong>the</strong> outcome of <strong>the</strong> struggle.’” 401 Indeed, in asymmetric
or irregular settings, in which <strong>the</strong> adversaries lack <strong>the</strong> large industrial, communications,
or military centres of gravity of regular armies, <strong>the</strong> centres of gravity become <strong>the</strong> citizens’
will, an object that both sides may vie for through <strong>the</strong> “battlefield of <strong>the</strong> media.” And as <strong>the</strong>
case of <strong>the</strong> Lebanon war <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> magnet for foreign fighters <strong>and</strong> civilians shows, “citizens”
may not mean <strong>the</strong> citizens of that particular state, but <strong>the</strong> individuals who are inclined in
a similar ideological way, whe<strong>the</strong>r <strong>the</strong>y live in Somalia, Syria, Lebanon, or Egypt.
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<strong>Air</strong> <strong>Power</strong>, <strong>Insurgency</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> “War on Terror”