Air Power and the Coercive Use of Force

In June 2000, Brigadier General John D. W. Corley, director of studies and analysis for the U.S. Air Force's European headquarters at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, made a bold proclamation after the publication of his 10,000-page report on the 1999 air campaign over Kosovo, Operation Allied Force. He declared, "We were able to take on [Slobodan] Milosevic and vanquish him. We were able to meet this objective through the hard leverage of aerospace power." ¹

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's strategy review at the Pentagon is examining the force structure the military will need for the conflicts in the next decades. General Corley's remarks and the outcome of Operation Allied Force support a tendency to view air power as the cheap and easy military solution to foreign policy problems and to lend support to three axioms that have become generally accepted by policymakers. First, air power saves the lives of U.S. soldiers on the ground. Second, the advanced technology of precision-guided munitions reduces collateral damage, thus making war less bloody and more morally acceptable. Third, fear of this sophisticated technology coerces an enemy to do our will. In sum, advocates of air power claim that it is a silver bullet--an infallible, invulnerable instrument with universal application.

Although Corley's views rightfully praise the consistent and dependable performance of the U.S. military, one should not blindly accept the conclusions of his report and the general utility of air power. The belief that air power used alone can vanquish an enemy is dangerous for any strategic thinker or policymaker. Operation Allied Force was a successful test of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) will and cohesion. Its lessons, however, are not found in its victory, but in its problems and paradoxes.

Although Operation Allied Force enjoyed a successful conclusion, it taught the military about the limits of air power as a coercive tool: morally and practically, its use does not come without risks or costs. These lessons caution the U.S. military and senior policymakers not to become overconfident in its ability to coerce but to explore more deeply the concept of coercion in order to define explicitly the role and capabilities of the U.S. military in international conflicts.

Coercion and Capitulation

From the outset of Operation Allied Force, the expectation that air power would have an influence on the flow of refugees confuses the capabilities of air power. As a practical matter, no military alternative that would have prevented the expulsion of 800,000 Kosovar Albanians at an acceptable cost to the allied coalition was plausible. Decisionmakers chose air power because it was an act that could be done, and done quickly, even though it hardly related to the situation on the ground.

Many in the defense community, including those who flew in Operation Allied Force, were acutely aware of the limits of air power. After the first days of bombing, pilots' reactions mirrored those of many editorial writers, who asked, "What is air power doing to stem the flow of refugees?" The air campaign coincided with--but did little to deter--the intensification of Operation Horseshoe, the Serb military effort to expel ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. Airmen understood that their mission was not to curb this tide but to destabilize Yugoslav president Milosevic's regime, even though his seemingly successful effort to cleanse Kosovo ethnically appeared to undermine their efforts. Milosevic's eventual capitulation surprised those who flew in the war as much as it did the general public, and many airmen did not believe that the 11 weeks of bombing had directly caused Serb forces to retreat from Kosovo. Operation Allied Force was an aberration because coercion of the regime worked without occupying Kosovo, and NATO was lucky it did. The operation also was an aberration because of the minimal collateral damage to all parties.

The defense community faces a challenge because its last major...