Since the inception of air power, it has been axiomatic that bombing works to make conditions better only to the extent that it makes a ground war more productive, more winnable. When this idea is forgotten, bombing becomes an act of theater. And we ask the question: when violence becomes theater, what is its name?
Before the birth of powered flight at the dawn of the twentieth century, men fought with their feet on the ground. Especially in Europe this had the great advantage of confining military action to locations where there existed high concentrations of soldiers. For reasons we have not researched, soldiers fought in fields. Perhaps it was because this was the correct thing to do. Perhaps it was because towns were in valleys and defensible areas were on hills. Perhaps it was because the corpses could be more easily disposed of. But whatever might have been the reason, armies fought in fields. And poppies grew in their memory.
World War I was fought in trenches. Great gashes were dug in northern France and in Belgium. One long line of trenches contained German soldiers. Another long line of trenches contained French, English, and at the very end of the war, American soldiers. Trench warfare proved extremely effective in killing soldiers and in defending territory. But its extreme stasis also proved a vast drain on resources. Especially patience. Had one side held complete control the air and been able to provide its airforce with enough munitions, the trenches could be destroyed from the air, and air power would have proved decisive. A single bomb could kill dozens of soldiers and destroy many feet of trench, causing havoc. This never happened.
In WWII the air war was considered to be a vital part of the war. Germany made the greatest technical advances early on, developing unmanned rockets that could strike English targets. These rained death and destruction on British towns and cities, especially London. But the rocket's primay effect was symbolic rather than material. It is impossible to argue that the rocket had a profound effect on the way the war was waged or on its outcome. WWII was, however, materially different from WWI because the ground war was fought with tanks. Tanks neutralized the advantages of trenches. Men were on their own. Tanks and planes completely changed the dynamics of war. And did so in more than just these ways:
Air support was helpful in WWII, but the assumption about air support was that if fuel and munitions could be denied troops at the front, the front would collapse. Hence allied bombing missions focussed on the source of munitions. There were a few notable exceptions, times when bombing was used for the simple sake of causing widespread destruction - as in the firebombing of Dresden; but the general purpose of bombing in WWII was to hit so-called hard targets and reduce the enemy's capacity to fight.
So in the two greatest wars that were fought, wars in which air power made a difference, the air power did so not by killing soldiers. It did made a difference by reducing their effectiveness in waging war. In Vietnam, Americans tried hard to use air power for the same purpose. The goal was to destroy supply lines. But the Vietnamese travelled lightly. They understood the advantages they had over the Americans. And they used them well. The Vietnamese advantage was that there was a local supply of food and other support. Munitions are compact. Depending on the level of engagement, a person might carry many days' worth of munitions with him. But food and lodging are much more costly.
Call it home-team advantage. Vietnamese had it. Iraqis have it. Americans have consistently underestimated home team advantage. Home team advantage matters because territory is held by boots on the ground. Not by tanks. And certainly not by bombs. What is more inscruitable is that the longer we live with air power the more magic we seem to attribute to it. And the more magic we attribute to it, the more we depend upon it to fight and win wars.
Was it not Rumsfeld who quipped after 9/11 that we should bomb Iraq because that is where the hard targets are? It takes a keen and perverse mind to say such a thing. If it is meant as a joke, it depends on understanding that lots of people inside the beltway as well as outside could consider such a move desirable. Never mind that it could have no positive effect in the so-called 'war on terror.' The joke acknowledges that the strengths and weaknesses of air power remain what they have ever been. Bombing is ideally suited to destroying large industrial complexes. It is sometimes useful in hitting and destroying large supply convoys in open land. It is good at preserving fighters in the first person. In terms of doing what was required to capture Osama bin Laden or to take and hold territory it is just short of being useless.
Bombing is, however extraordinarily useful at causing collateral damage, killing innocent men, women, and children. And this is where it begins to have a problem. The fact now, the fact in WWII, WWI, and the fact in all previous wars in history is that ground territory is held securely when ground forces occupy it unopposed and when they manage to secure the peace. Bombing does absolutely nothing to hold ground territory. And it does absolutely nothing to secure it. "Boots on the ground" are what is called for. To make matters worse, it is frequently the case that locals are indifferent to the presence of troops in the absence of bomb-destruction. A goodly portion of the Lebanese would have gladly been rid of Hezbollah before the Israeli's invaded. But it is pretty hard to remain indifferent in this way when your sister or child has just been killed in an Israeli bombing raid.
So once the bombing is well along, people on the ground are much more are likely to oppose occupation or to actively and voluntarily support those who do oppose it than they were before. Bombing might change everything. It causes civilian men and women to lose innocent loved-ones and this causes them to actively seek ways to strike back. There are countless ways to do so. And a man's life can be long. So today's air raid on a small Lebanese town might create fifty dedicated terrorists who strike next year. Or next decade. It is impossible to know whether, on balance, bombing helped or hurt the military cause in Vietnam. It is reasonable to believe that it did destabilize Cambodia and cause the rise of Pol Pot. And this led to the extermination of two million civilians. Ironically, it was the Vietnamese, after they Americans had left, who toppled Pol Pot and restored Cambodia to its previous order.
In Iraq we are fortunate that the military has some notion that it is 'boots on the ground' that hold territory. It is unfortunate, however, that the people responsible for setting troop levels somehow thought that "holding a country is easier than taking it." Or that high-tech laser-guided bunker-buster missiles had any neutralizing effect on suicide bombers.
In light of such seemingly obvious facts, we are tempted to imagine that the people planning these wars see them much more as acts of theater than as rational exercises of force. In fact, it seems a little difficult to imagine otherwise. Rather, it would seem that they just love the idea of bombing things. Not because there is any military advantage to be gained by doing so.
The idea of bombing Damascus, for instance, has recently been floated at the Rapture Ready bulletin board. There, people see the destruction of 100,000 civilians as sort of unfortunate occurance, sort of like a flat tire or a bad hair day; but it is also as an opportunity to 'witness.' In such cases, bombing has long since lost any military or strategic importance it is simply theater. We wonder how many people had been unable to see the face of God before such an act will come to love Him for being associated with the mass murder of this number of innocent civilians. Could it be that the average pagan or atheist or Muslim will see God's glory in such an act? Collateral damage is not always expressed in the rubble of falling buildings. It's more lasting damage is in who it turns us into. When the people we hate use bombs against us as an act of theater what do we call them?
Copyright: Stephen R. Brubaker, 2006. All Rights Reserved