__________________________________ Stratfor Intelligence Services -- Helping businesses make better, more informed decisions every day. http://www.stratfor.com/services __________________________________ STRATFOR's Global Intelligence Update March 22, 1999 The Airstrike Option: Vietnam, Desert Storm and Serbia Summary: In threatening air strikes against Serbia over Kosovo, Bill Clinton, the anti-war protestor, is following the same policies as Lyndon Johnson, the man he protested against. Air strikes, isolated from a general warfighting strategy, do not convince adversaries of resolve but of weakness. Serbia, like North Vietnam, is drawing the conclusion that the U.S. is not prepared to wage war against Serbia in an effective way. Like Vietnam, Serbia sees weakness in U.S. policy. Analysis: It is once again time to think about air power. President Clinton made it clear on Friday that he felt that Serbia had already gone over the line that justified air strikes. Over four hundred strike aircraft are in theater and B-52s are standing by in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. Several cruise missile armed vessels are in range. The stage is set. We have discussed extensively the issue of intervention in Kosovo, ranging from the complexities of peace keeping to possible Serbian responses to an American air campaign. It seems quite likely that the United States and NATO will, at some point, bomb Serbia. Regardless of whether the air strikes go ahead, this is a propitious time to consider the utility of air power as a force, by itself, for influencing the behavior of adversaries. The use of air power to compel political acquiescence has a long but not particularly distinguished history. First, the Germans launched an air campaign against Great Britain in 1940 intended to force the British to accept a peace treaty that acknowledged German domination of the European continent. The campaign failed to achieve its end. Second, the Anglo-Americans launched a massive air campaign against Germany in 1943-1945. The goal of this campaign in the mind of some air power advocates was to force unconditional surrender without the need for a land assault. In the minds of most strategists, the goal was to attack and destroy Germany's industrial infrastructure so as to undermine Germany's ability to wage war. Unconditional surrender required the death of many tankers and infantrymen, while the post-war Strategic Bombing Survey cast serious doubt on the effect of the air assault on German wartime production. Third, the United States launched a massive air campaign against Japan in 1945. Its goals were similar to the air campaign against Germany. The Japan campaign has the greatest claim to success. Even here, the outcome was ambiguous, since it is not at all clear that it was the conventional air campaign that compelled surrender. Surrender came only after atomic bombing, different in nature from conventional air attack. The more serious challenger for war-ender was the naval blockade, which was fully in force by 1945. All three of these campaigns are examples of great powers using the air campaign as an instrument against other great powers. We also have examples of the use of air power by a great power against a secondary or even tertiary power: the U.S. air campaigns against North Vietnam, and then against Iraq in 1991. These may be more germane in evaluating a bombing campaign against Serbia or any other minor power. The initial theory of the campaign against North Vietnam was divided into two parts. The first was the assumption that North Vietnam did not take American resolve seriously, that North Vietnam did not think the United States was truly committed to the defense of South Vietnam. The second assumption was that North Vietnam would not place at risk its own infrastructure, industrial, military and social, merely to continue its support of the National Liberation Front in the South. Therefore, the theory went, once the North experienced an intense bombing campaign, it would quickly understand American resolve and it would also rationally calculate that continued support for the NLF was not in its interests. The North would either abandon the war in the South or negotiate an acceptable settlement. The North Vietnamese saw the air campaign in a very different light. They saw the air campaign as proof of a lack of will and an inability on the part of the United States to risk serious casualties. For both demographic and political reasons, the North understood that the United States could not afford to lose 5,000 men a week in combat. From the North Vietnamese point of view, the use of air power represented a desperate attempt on the part of the United States to wage war without incurring the risks and costs of warfare. The recourse to air power during the early stages of war convinced the North Vietnamese that the Americans lacked resolve. The North Vietnamese strategy, therefore, was to absorb the American air attacks while drawing the United States into a war of attrition on the ground in the South. They understood fully that they would absorb much greater casualties than the Americans in such a war. But they also understood that the Americans, in the final analysis, would find almost any level of casualty unacceptable -- while they were prepared to incur massive losses. The psychology behind this strange calculus had to do with something social scientists like to call "issue saliency." In simple English, this means simply the relative importance of an issue to each side. To the United States the future of South Vietnam was an important issue but not one on which the survival of the United States in any way depended. For North Vietnam, the absorption of South Vietnam into a united, communist Vietnam was a matter of fundamental national interest. No other interest superceded it. Therefore, the idea that the United States could stage an air campaign that could impose a level of pain sufficiently high to dissuade North Vietnam to abandon a national obsession was delusional. It was not clear that any level of pain would have persuaded North Vietnam to capitulate on this subject. Second, it is not clear that, short of carpet bombardment with nuclear weapons, the United States possessed sufficient aircraft and weaponry to impose the necessary level of pain. How much pain would Washington's army have endured before surrendering at Valley Forge? How much pain would the American Confederacy have been willing to endure, even after Gettysburg, to secure secession? How high a price were the Russians willing to pay at Leningrad or Stalingrad? These are measurable, quantifiable indications of national endurance. It takes a great deal to compel capitulation where fundamental national interests are at stake. Threats of bombing North Vietnam back to the stone age not withstanding, it is simply not clear that air power has ever had the ability by itself to impose levels of suffering that are unendurable to a people committed to a national goal. In Vietnam, to the contrary, the air campaign convinced the North of the lack of American resolve. It understood that a nation seriously committed to the defense of South Vietnam would not take recourse to the air campaign as the foundation of its national strategy. They understood, particularly in its early stages, that the air campaign was a bluff, covering up American weakness. Indeed it was a bluff. McNamara and Johnson both hoped that the air campaign would persuade that North Vietnamese to back down. For some reason, in spite of the fact that they were fully aware of their own lack of resolve, the Johnson administration genuinely believed that this lack of resolve would not be apparent to their adversaries. It is not that an air campaign cannot work. Its problem is that it cannot work except as part of a comprehensive warfighting program in which the air campaign operates as part of a single, integrative, strategic, operational and tactical package. The purpose of this package is, as Clausewitz saw clearly, to destroy the enemy's ability to wage war primarily by rendering its armed forces inoperable. Air power used as a weapon against populations has consistently failed. Air power used in isolation as an instrument against conventional military power has similarly failed. However, air power, when it is used as part of an integrated war fighting system, is invaluable. In 1991 during Operation Desert Storm, air power was used as a direct instrument of war, intended to reduce the ability of the Iraqis to wage war. It was not intended to signal American resolve nor was it intended to win the war by itself. Rather, air power was an all out assault on the Iraqi war fighting ability. Starting as an assault on Iraq's command, control, communications and intelligence capabilities and on its air defense system, it shattered the ability of Baghdad to command its armies in the field. Following this, the air campaign turned on the major formations of the Iraqi army in Kuwait, destroying tactical command and communications, as well as killing soldiers and destroying equipment. At the end of the air campaign, Allied forces were able to encircle, engage and destroy Iraqi forces, while aircraft cut off the retreat on the famed "highway of death." Air power made the successful ground war possible, but without the ground war, Kuwait would not have been liberated and Desert Storm would have failed. Political leaders seeking low risk ways to wage war are constantly tempted by air power. They expect the other side to collapse in fear at the very thought of bombing. During the early stages of Vietnam, the Johnson administration seriously hoped that the air campaign would constitute the essence of the war or, to be more honest, as an alternative to waging war. Now, there are some cases in which this may happen. That is a case where the issue at hand is of only marginal importance to the people being bombed. But it is not effective when the campaign is against a country pursuing its fundamental national interest. In that case, the only thing that can dissuade the nation is to take actions that threaten the very survival of the regime or even of the nation. It was when the Japanese realized that the survival of the nation was at stake that they capitulated to the air campaign. The North Vietnamese never felt that either the nation or even their regime was at risk from the air campaign. Therefore, the campaign was futile. In the later stages, in 1972, air power may have motivated the North to be more flexible at peace talks, but it never caused them to abandon fundamental national interests. In this sense, Serbia reminds us of Vietnam. From the Serb point of view, the introduction of NATO forces into Kosovo will end their sovereignty over it. They see this as part of an ongoing American campaign to dismember Serbia. Having blocked the secession of predominantly Serbian regions from Bosnia, they are now seeing support for the secession of predominantly Albanian regions from Serbia. They see this inconsistency in American and NATO policy as a sign of a desire to destroy Serbia as a nation. The question of Kosovo, like the question of South Vietnam, represents a challenge to a fundamental understanding of what the Serbian nation means. Whatever other calculations might intrude, the threat of air attacks will not cause them to surrender fundamental national interests. Serbia has studied both Desert Storm and Vietnam very carefully. It is aware that Serbia's terrain and weather reduce the effectiveness of an air campaign substantially, as compared to what the U.S. was able to achieve over Kuwait and Iraq. They are also aware that the United States has not deployed anywhere near the ground forces it had available during Desert Storm. The Serbs are fully aware that neither the United States nor NATO have the stomach for the type of casualties that they would have to absorb if they were prepared to attack Serbia. Finally, they are aware that during a bombing campaign, stories about Kosovo casualties in the Western Press would be replaced by pictures of dead Serbian children; and that human rights protestors, eager to be on both sides of any photogenic issue, would quickly begin condemning the war on the Serbian people. What makes all of this possible is the Serbian government's sense that it has the support of the Serbian people. The Clinton administration's dream is that a bombing campaign will drive a wedge between the Serbian government and the Serbian people, with the people demanding a change in policy because they were unwilling to endure the pain. Milosovic knows his people better than Holbrooke, Albright or Clinton. He also knows his history. There is not a single instance in history in which an air campaign caused a split between a government at war and its people. It didn't happen during the Battle of Britain, in Germany, in Japan, in North Vietnam and it hasn't yet happened in Iraq. Milosovic is betting that it will not happen in Serbia. Thus, an air campaign, isolated from a comprehensive warfighting strategy designed to defeat the Serbian army is not only unlikely to succeed. Its success would be unprecedented in history. The Serbs, as a nation, have too much at stake to permit their territory to be occupied by foreign troops. Moreover, with Russian winds shifting, the Serbs calculate that they may well have a great power ally prepared to sustain them, just as North Vietnam did. The U.S. could have defeated North Vietnam by invading it. It chose not to, rationally understanding that the prize was not worth the cost. The United States can defeat Serbia by invading it, but again, the prize isn't worth it. The problem is that as in Vietnam, the United States can neither commit the forces needed to win nor abandon the issue. In search for a solution at a cost the United States can bear, Clinton, the anti-war protestor, is paradoxically following the precise policy of Lyndon Johnson, the man against whom he protested. ___________________________________________________ To receive free daily Global Intelligence Updates, sign up on the web at: http://www.stratfor.com/services/giu/subscribe.asp or send your name, organization, position, mailing address, phone number, and e-mail address to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________________________ STRATFOR, Inc. 504 Lavaca, Suite 1100 Austin, TX 78701 Phone: 512-583-5000 Fax: 512-583-5025 Internet: http://www.stratfor.com/ Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
