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350 ai r p o w e r in 20 t H Ce n t u ry do C t r i n e s a n d em p l o y m e n t - nat i o n a l ex p e r i e n C e s American and Coalition airpower, which was overwhelmingly American airpower when counting sorties and bombs dropped, demonstrated what modern air forces armed with stealth, precision, and superior C2 could do against even a well-equipped enemy. In a six week air campaign that preceded the Coalition ground assault, the Iraqi air defense were first taken down, then key leadership and command and control targets were destroyed. Finally, the elite units of the Iraqi army were systematically targeted and heavily attritted. By the end of the air campaign, the Iraqi forces were demoralized they had lost much of the fighting power. When finally unleashed, the ground forces needed only four days to overwhelm the huge Iraqi army. 43 Warden’s ideas and the group of airpower planners he led in the Pentagon had great influence over the air war plan in 1991. Many can rightly argue that the key concepts expressed by Warden are very close to the traditions of the Air Corps Tactical School. 44 The question was whether the airpower success in Iraq in 1991 signified a true revolution in military affairs in which airpower now plays the key role in applying military force, or the product of a set of unusually favorable circumstances. The NATO air campaign against Kosovo in the 1999 was an instance of defeating a nation using air power alone. But the victory came only after a frustrating 78day campaign and the goals of the campaign were very limited, Serbian withdrawal from the Province of Kosovo. In fact, the 1999 campaign demonstrated many flaws in the NATO and American application of airpower. As a coalition operation there were serious difficulties in developing a united strategy. Partner air forces found it difficult to operate alongside the Americans because other NATO nations had not invested in precision munitions or modern C2 systems. In the biggest air campaign since the Gulf War, it was still not clear that a true revolution had occurred. 45 Still, the most impressive feature of the campaign was the American capability to strike targets precisely. In 2001 in Afghanistan and 2003 in Iraq the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy proved exceptionally capable in fighting against conventional enemies with little or no airpower. With huge technological advantages American airpower managed to cripple and destroy whole Iraqi divisions before they even reached the front. 46 Moreover, they did so with such precise effects that civilian casualties and damage to the civilian infrastructure was minimal. At the dawn of the 21st Century the U.S. Air Force and Navy have such a techno- 43 The best critical history of the Air War of 1991 is Thomas Keaney and Eliot Cohen, Revolution in Warfare? Air Power in the Persian Gulf (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1993). 44 See David Mets, The Air Campaign: John Warden and the Classical Airpower Theorists (Maxwell AFB: Air University Press, 1999). 45 An excellent critical analysis of this campaign is Tony Mason, Operation Allied Force, 1999 in A History of Air Warfare, ed. John Andreas Olsen (Washington DC: Potomac Books, 2010) pp. 225- 252. 46 See Williamson Murray, Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2003 in A History of Air Warfare, pp. 279-296.
u.s. air fo r C e do C t r i n e:. tH e se a r C H f o r deCisive effeCt 351 logical superiority and well-trained force, that the dream of winning a conventional state on state war with airpower in the lead role has become a reality. It is a doctrine for war that requires such complex and expensive technology that only the United States can realistically apply this doctrine. Yet, in the ongoing counterinsurgency campaigns in Afghanistan since 2001 and in Iraq since 2003, the technological advantage does not play the same central role as it might in conventional war. Current conflicts against non state forces offer no strategic target set or industrial nodes whose destruction will cripple the enemy forces. If unconventional wars are the norm for the coming decades, American airmen will have a frustrating future.
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National Experiences - British Commission for Military History

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