The Aerial Pursuit of National Objectives PDF Download

Author: U. S. Military
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781701472303
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 88

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Book Description
This monograph examines how the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization employed air power to obtain national objectives in Operation Linebacker II, Operation Deliberate Force, and Operation Allied Force. Operation Linebacker II took place from 18-29 December 1972. It was the only maximum effort bombing campaign of the Vietnam War that targeted the heartland of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, ultimately compelling the negotiations that ended the conflict. Operation Deliberate Force, the final operation of the Balkans Air Campaign, was a seventeen-day effort that sought to undermine the military capability of the Bosnian Serb Army and led to the 1995 Dayton Accords. Operation Allied Force was a seventy-eight-day air campaign in 1999 that successfully sustained offensive operations against Serbian forces led by president Slobodan Milosevic and impelled their removal from Kosovo. This monograph primarily uses Dr. Mark Clodfelter's Framework for Evaluating Air Power Effectiveness as a means to evaluate these campaigns and test the hypothesis that an air campaign positively impacts national objectives when it effectively targets an enemy's military vulnerabilities in which it has no equal means of response. These case studies demonstrate air power's ability to obtain or positively contribute to the achievement of national objectives when used as the predominate or sole means of combat power. Findings indicate that while effective targeting was crucial to these campaigns, there were other factors of equal or greater importance. Although each case study provides unique insights to the effective use of air power in pursuit of national objectives, common themes for all three include the evolution of national objectives to match military capability, the isolation of the adversary from its perceived allies, and a type of war waged by the adversary conducive to targeting or exploitation by air power.This compilation also includes a reproduction of the 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community.This monograph examines the specific employment of air power in each of these campaigns to assess how it affected success in achieving national objectives. Borrowing heavily from Robert Pape's Bombing to Win, this monograph hypothesizes when an air campaign effectively targets an enemy's military vulnerabilities in which it has no equal means of response, it positively impacts national objectives by making continued military action imprudent. This hypothesis acknowledges that targeting may diverge from original campaign objectives in order to leverage the decisive but devastating effects of air power. To evaluate this hypothesis, this monograph uses the case study framework and the methodology outlined by air power historian and theorist Dr. Mark Clodfelter. In his article, "Airpower Versus Asymmetric Enemies: A Framework for Evaluating Effectiveness" Clodfelter provides a catalogue of variables and associated questions to apply to historical and potential uses of air power to determine its effectiveness. These criteria are further discussed in chapter one of this monograph; however, this monograph primarily considers his variables: (1) the nature of national objectives; (2) the nature of the enemy; (3) the type of war waged by the enemy; and (4) the magnitude of U.S. or allied military controls. It also applies supplemental campaign evaluation criteria from the 1994 Joint Force Air Component Commander (JFACC) Primer and the 2014 Joint Publication 3-30: Command and Control of Joint Air Operations.