National Experiences - British Commission for Military History

pr e s e n ta z i o n i / pr é s e n tat i o n s 15
Vi n c e n z o ca M P o r i n i 1 *
T
here couldn’t be a better time to present the public with this collection
of essays which analyse, from different National points of view
(and therefore from different cultural points of view), air power and
its essential contribution, both in theory and in action, to the employment of
the military instrument in international affairs management, through different
historical moments linked in a fully coherent continuum. The topical interest
of this issue is due to the events of the last twenty years, when different modes
of employment of the armed forces and very different and sometimes opposed
doctrines have been applied, thus allowing observers and analysts to support
each his own, often contrasting, thesis.
Thus, the first Gulf War, conducted in a very traditional way, witnessed a massive
and almost exclusive use of air power in the first phase, which actually destroyed the
capabilities of Saddam’s strong land forces. At the beginning of the land campaign,
the latter could only oppose a weak resistance, carried out in a single and fruitless
attempt at counter-offensive: they had been so worn out by air raids that they didn’t
actually represent an obstacle for the coalition forces, who stopped before reaching
Baghdad due to the political will to prevent the collapse of Iraqi institutions.
In the Balkans campaigns there was a more political use of air forces which, besides
operational aims (the denial for Belgrade to use air force in support of their
own land operations), were meant to put pressure on Milosevic to make him accept
NATO conditions. That explains the effectiveness of the 1995 short raid campaign,
which saw the participation of our Tornados and brought the Serbians to the negotiation
table, leading to the Dayton agreement. The conflict was thus solved by the use
of the air force.
A few years later, during the crisis in Kosovo, in a similar context, we thought
the same strategy could be applied, and that a few days of calibrated raids would
be enough to bring about a political solution. On the contrary, it took almost three
months to bend Milosevic’s will, despite the effective guerilla conducted on the terrain
by Kosovo militia. Then, the Kumanovo agreement was signed and coalition
troops could enter Kosovo in a permissive environment: but the level of tension was
such that their presence on the terrain had to be extended well beyond plans. It was
thus proved that, in the political context that followed the fall of the Berlin wall, the
political goals of a military mission could only be achieved by the various components
of the military instrument working together in a coordinated and consistent way.
Then, there was Afghanistan, a very peculiar operational environment where,
*1 General A.M., former Chief of Defence Staff.