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Subject: Air strikes a failure but USAF spin used to build false security system
[email protected]    5/13/2001 5:00:37 AM
The Kosovo air campaign hit everything eventually they could, everything BUT the Serb army which marched back to Belgrade intact. The danger is we in the U.S. have declared this a "victory" for air strikes and now want to base our national security on a flimsy system of surveillance and stand-off air strikes, cutting our ground maneuver forces that actually win conflicts so the techies and gutless politicians can have an illusion of zero-casualty warfare. Details:
 
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Dave    RE:Air strikes a failure but USAF    5/13/2001 8:06:24 AM
I would agree with you completely. Serbia capitulated to NATO mostly due to political and diplomatic pressure, not due to military losses incurred by the NATO airstrikes. In fact, in the long run it was probably benificial that NATO had not seriously destroyed the Serbian military, because it is this same military that is going to have to keep Albanian rebels in check within the Presevo region of southern Serbia. The whole NATO air war in 1999 really left me with questions about how effective Western airpower truely is. If you think about it, Serbia for close to two months took on the best the West had to offer in aircraft and technology, and escaped with losses that were anything but severe. It is interesting to note that after the whole air war was over, I read an Associated Press article about how the North Koreans were "extremely impressed" by how a country like Serbia- which had similar terrain, air defenses, and military equipment- was able survive the NATO airstrikes relatively intact. A harbinger of things to come, perhaps?
 
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[email protected]    RE:Air strikes a failure but USAF    6/12/2001 3:30:21 PM
Talk about a nice spin! Hey, I heard that the German Army wasn't really defeated in WWI, but some armor fanatics used the final Allied offensive to base their national security on a flimsy system of armored warfare! Wow! Isn't it amazing how history just repeats itself over and over! You need to look closer at the relationship between the CINC that ran the Kosovo air campaign and the "strategy" that Allied air forces followed. That being said, Allied air forces are still flying daily sorties in support of the ground forces in Kosovo. So, when will our ground maneuver forces get around to "actually winning?" Sorry, cheap shot. Our nation is asking for miracles from our soldiers, sailors and airmen in Kosovo (specifically) and the Balkans (in general). Perhaps our services would be better off if we quit trying to refight past conflicts and got on with the business at hand?
 
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TheCynic    RE:Air strikes a failure but USAF    6/13/2001 7:06:08 AM
Airpower is damned useful and powerful, but not all-conquering. Yes, I agree it is asking for a miracle to want air strikes, in and of themselves, to roll back determined aggression on the ground, in certain circumstances. There are times in which they've worked magnificently - The Gulf War, 1991. But consider: without the threat of the U.S. ground maneuver forces facing them in the sand, would the air campaign alone have sufficed to stop the Iraqis from undertaking a land offensive into Saudi Arabia, even as late as January, 1991, and eventually, with losses, winning on the ground anyway? Alright, there are the logistic constraints, which would have been made more acute with hostile air supremacy. But would airpower have been powerful enough, by itself (no ground troops) to mow down the Iraqi Army in such numbers and at a rate quickly enough to stop enough of them getting to the airfields and overrunning them? And if that happened, would carrier-based airpower be a good enough substitute to destroy the dug-in Iraqi soldiers, in such numbers as to break their morale and force them back to their country? This is the heart of the question about reliance on airpower (note: not airpower as a crucial component of an over-all defense - no argument there - but RELIANCE on it). In the above scenarion re: Iraqi Army, 1991, I have grave doubts. Ditto about airpower's utility, by itself, in the Balkans.
 
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The Zoomie    RE:Air strikes a failure but USAF    6/13/2001 10:26:29 AM
There are very few aerospace power advocates who take the extreme point of view that air can do it alone. To paraphrase: Terrestrial forces are essential to holding the enemy by the nose so that other maneuver forces can kick him in the.... Aerospace power as all conquering? Never. There are limits to the successful application of every form of military power. Aerospace power cannot hope to bring long term stability to a region like the Balkans. Only boots on the ground backed by a long-term, strong commitment from our leadership and populace can bring the sort of change required to break the centuries-long cycle of Balkans violence. Much of the USAF's current push is to be recognized by the other services as a maneuver force, and that aerospace forces should, at times, be supported in their manuevers by land and maritime forces. This is often misunderstood as "air can do it alone." However, I have yet to talk to a single airman in the USAF who believes that aerospace power will ever do it alone.
 
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[email protected]    RE:Air strikes a failure but USAF    7/1/2001 11:06:04 PM
There are no new conflicts. All wars are the same, just the weapons change. The ongoing Balkans conflict can trace it's origins back to a failture of Byzantine politics. The political problem is both sides (Christian Europe and the resurgent Islamic revolution want the same group of mountains that they have been fighting over since around 1354). Quasi-guerilla tactics are being used right now, although that has not always been so. This limits the effect of airpower, there being no supply lines to interdict, and recon, the major function of airpower, is of little value if you don't have the troops to follow up. While there is always a military solution, like the middle east and Ireland the military solution for the Balkans creates more and worse problems then it solves. Since there is no desired result (goal)announced for the airstrikes I'm not sure if they can be considered a failure or a success. I think they were mostly a waste, unless more evidence was needed that warfare is subordinate to politics. Douhet was proven wrong over 50 years ago. Anyone dragging that idea back out of the grave should be ignored. T.
 
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evlstu    RE:Air strikes a failure but USAF    7/2/2001 2:34:22 PM
There WAS a solution until 83 years ago. It was called the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The central government kept a pretty good lid on things until it was destroyed by the First World War and the losses sustained fighting Russia and Italy (mainly). The various balkan nationalities within the empire had a secure market for their trade goods within the empire (i.e. they didn't have to pay the tariffs). And they were protected (hopefully) from outside invaders (usually the turks). Unfortunately, ethnic hatreds turned out to be more important than security and prosperity.
 
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ed pike    RE:Air strikes a failure but USAF    7/20/2001 5:27:39 PM
depends what you count as a success and what you count as a failure. tacically - us airpower (the rest of nato airforces mostly just made noises - as they themselves admitted after the war) failed to destroy the serbian army - true. but, this same airforce succeeded in causing significant damage to serbian national infrastructure. the incessant bombing with no end in sight is what caused serbia to capitulate (and i emphasize not the actual physical bomb damage accrued in 73 days but rather the psychological "no end in sight" part). success and failure depend more on circumstances of the situation in which you are using airpower (or any other power for that matter - using ground forces in vietnam and somalia didn't really achieve usa goals either). winning a war against a politically and militarily weak nation without resorting to ground forces is not new - it happened quite often before the advent of airplanes if the weak nation happened to have a coastline - then it was called "gunboat diplomacy" (the british and the americans especially did a lot of it - but not only them). it also depends on the culture of the target-nation - how much they depend on state infrastructure (electricity, telecommunications, waterworks etc) to get along in life, and how important the issue being fought over is to the average "joe" and how much he is willing to suffer for it. airforces today are much much much much more efficient in planting bombs on targets than they were 60 years ago - but that doesn't mean that planting those bombs is a more efficient means to achieving the political goal of the war - sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. the usa has the advantage that it has no enemies who can reach it over land, so it can afford to defend its national territory with planes and navies only. it also has the advantage that it is almost self-sufficient in almost every aspect of modern existence - however, its autarkic ability is not always the cheapest or the best so it has reasons for maintaining a foothold (literally "foot") in other places around the world (like the saudi oilfields) - when those areas can be threatened by land then ground forces are neccessary to defend them (though if a huge unpopulated desert separates the enemy from the client-states critical locations then airpower will usually be very efficient and enable a reduction in the size of the ground component. when the threats are close to the important locations - more ground forces are needed. so basically, maintaining ground forces is for the usa not a must but rather a useful asset that the usa can live without but will live better with. cheerio
 
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