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7. Global Reach, Global Power in the Post–Cold War Era
- The University Press of Kentucky
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123 7 Global reach, Global Power in the Post–Cold War era Since 1947, the u.S. Air Force has been a part of the American military establishment, heavily involved in war fighting, procurement, and the development of strategy and doctrine. Today, the uSAF has an important seat at the table for all decisions regarding the use of force and commands a sizable portion of the overall defense budget. The uSAF continues to control the bulk of u.S. nuclear assets and flies combat missions daily in Afghanistan. The uSAF remains an integral cog in the u.S. defense complex. However, the demands on military forces have changed in ways that threaten to undermine the position of the uSAF. The collapse of the Soviet union robbed the uSAF of its peer competitor force. nuclear weapons became less relevant to u.S. security, making air force control of those assets a less important bureaucratic bargaining chip. Some aircraft, including bombers designed to penetrate Soviet air defenses, lost their missions. Bureaucratically, this forced the uSAF to rethink its missions and repurpose its fleet. At the same time, the Soviet collapse eliminated many political obstacles to the use of airpower by making it easier for the united States to employ force against rogue states. As the last chapter detailed , Colonel John Warden supplied the strategic and operational logic of the new air force, built around highly effective fighter-bombers, stealth aircraft, precision-guided munitions, and information dominance. Initially, the Kosovo War and the conflicts that made up the War on Terror seemed to support the air force’s vision of power. However, two related developments in the conduct of war since 9/11 have cast doubt on 124 Grounded the uSAF’s ability to adapt and endure. The first of these changes involved the development of a new model of ground-air cooperation that put a strong emphasis on joint effort, and the second was the rise to prominence of unmanned aerial vehicles, which threaten the air force’s sense of identity. Together, these developments challenge not only the air force’s anti-Clausewitzian tradition but also the wisdom of the bureaucratic boundaries that have divided the u.S. military establishment since 1947. This chapter concentrates on the former, the next chapter on the latter. Kosovo The 1999 Kosovo War represents a critical case in any evaluation of the effectiveness of airpower. At first glance, airpower worked; the Serbian army retreated from Kosovo after a three-month bombing campaign involving roughly 1,000 nATo aircraft. on closer inspection, the case for the effectiveness of airpower appears weaker, though hardly nonexistent.1 The Kosovo War involved an almost profound imbalance of power between combatants, with a collection of the world’s largest, wealthiest, and most powerful nations fighting against a small, isolated, and relatively poor Balkan state. If airpower could ever have an independent decisive effect it would have been in the Kosovo War. The breakup of Yugoslavia produced several wars in the 1990s, the last of which involved the wayward Serbian province of Kosovo. Kosovo was crucial to Serbian national identity but populated mostly by ethnic Albanians, and their desires for regional autonomy were met with harsh Serbian violence. The north Atlantic Treaty organization intervened in a growing conflict between Serbian armed forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in March 1999 after several years of failed diplomacy. The nATo air campaign, supported by KLA guerrilla attacks inside the province, forced Serbia to capitulate and withdraw in June, after eighty days of bombing. The debate over the effectiveness of airpower in Kosovo revolves around three questions. First, did the Serbian government believe in the possibility of a nATo ground invasion of Kosovo and withdraw in order to prevent the destruction of its army? Second, what effect did the Kosovo Liberation Army attacks have on Serbia’s ability to maintain control of [54.167.52.238] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 01:45 GMT) Global reach, Global Power in the Post–Cold War era 125 the wayward province? Finally, what impact did political isolation have on Serbian decision making, especially after it became clear that russia would not intervene on Serbia’s behalf? The threat of a nATo land invasion loomed over the Serbian decision to hold on to Kosovo.2 Although Serbia could perhaps hold out against an extended air campaign, it could not hope to resist a direct invasion . However, key nATo members refused to commit to the threat of a land...