2018 marks the 20th anniversary of the introduction of a technology called JDAM, a satellite-guided Joint Direct Attack Munition device. This has been called a revolution by some yet it really represents the tendency of Americans to overestimate the effectiveness of air power to the point of worshipping it. I see this most often in my military history classes. There is always at least one Air Force officer that has nothing but praise for the range and destructiveness of everything from lasers to warthogs to bombs. Airpower has a place in a modern military but it has fallen short of its goals since the original theorists stated them.
Billy Mitchell, Guilo Douhet and others thought airpower could be decisive, and by the time of World War II technology had advanced to match their vision. Countries spent a small fortune on air forces trying to gain an edge over their enemies. The Strategic Bombing survey found airpower wanting. As analyst Loren Thompson pointed out, one particularly disappointing episode during World War Two saw 835 bomber sorties against a single Japanese factory and produced only 4 percent damage while sacrificing 40 bombers.
Assuming the weather cooperated by offering clear skies and the bombs managed to hit their target, the morale of the population didn’t collapse like theorists said it would. In authoritarian regimes like Nazi Germany, the loss of morale from bombing raids was more than compensated for by the apparatus of the state. Nations could quickly overcome any rare hits. The Japanese, for example, had the trains running in Hiroshima two days after the dropping of the atomic bomb. The German factories were often underutilized to begin with and they could use slave labor to harden or repair hit factories without sacrificing essential production. The Russians used the motivation of secret police and the Soviet State to relocate their factories out of range of bombers. In short, the role of airpower wasn’t decisive but became a series of responses and counter-responses in another front of warfare and the exercise of state power.
But that was 70 years ago, airpower advocates might add. Yet airpower being more precise in hitting targets still hasn’t produced a revolution in warfare. The first generation of smart bombs used during the Gulf War could be confounded by dust, smoke or the rare rain. (Of course, dust and smoke are never encountered in warfare.) The second generation was used in the Second Gulf War and the overwhelming airpower might have dazzled American audiences and shocked the Iraqis, but that didn’t translate into a stable post-Saddam government and didn’t prevent an insurgency from forming. In fact, modern theorists like Victor Davis Hanson have argued that the overwhelming use of airpower actually encourages hit-and-run tactics in urban areas, where American air assets are less effective.
Airpower is often a popular choice with policymakers and even generals because it does offer some advantages with little initial cost. The American public is risk-adverse to any casualties, such as the 19 in Somalia that resulted in the mission being cancelled. So airpower is a way to use force without having the risk with “boots on the ground.“ Many nations don’t have an air force, highly trained pilots, or the most advanced fighters and this can be a way for politicians to look like they are solving problems, being tough, killing terrorists, and defending American interests without doing the hard work of inserting troops, capturing territory and key leaders, or having a robust, well- thought-out strategy.
So Boeing should pat themselves on the back for a technology that has been a useful tool for the new generation of American fighters like the F-35. Airpower has a role, particularly in denying the enemy air superiority, the ability to strike behind enemy lines, and the ability to insert additional soldiers in unexpected places. But the extremely high cost of modern airplanes and their dubious effectiveness, as well as the overreliance of politicians on them, suggest this is not a revolution but more of a 100-year fad.
