This week’s Time magazine:
Summarised here
No one is talking about a ground invasion of Iran… it can be done better and more safely by air.
…A U.S. strike would have a lasting impression on Iran’s rulers. U.S. officials believe that a campaign of several days could set back Iran’s nuclear program by two to three years. Hit hard enough, some believe, Iranians might develop second thoughts about their government’s designs as a regional nuclear power.
Some U.S. foes of Iran’s regime believe that the crisis of legitimacy that the ruling clerics would face in the wake of a U.S. attack could trigger their downfall, though others are convinced it would unite the population with the government in anti-American rage.
Yeah, that’ll work. Because an air campaign has achieved how many military objectives in, um, ever?
Were the Time writers asleep during the Israel-Hizbollah conflagaration? Why isn’t the article pointing out how ridiculous this crap is? (And, assuming the summary is a fair representation of the content, why the hell is the possibility that this is all nonsense buried at the end as a modifier?)
I am beginning to suspect that the love of air campaigns despite evidence is directly driven by the fact that air campaigns are very, very expensive, and very very profitable for arms manufacturers. Follow the money.
Gah. And that’s even leaving aside the fact that this article appears at all, preparing us step by step for the notion of war with Iran.
Um, if you want regime change, why not wait for the next Iranian elections? That’s what we have to do about the villains in the White House and the broken souls in Downing Street.
Wow. That made me feel ill. :-/
Air campaigns mean no US casualties. No US casualties means much less negative public opinion in America. As with Kosovo – when the war is utterly unjustified, they can’t afford questions to be asked.
The TIME article is simply part of the lead in to war, as with Iraq.
The ‘no casualties’ angle is tempting, but I don’t think has enough explanatory power. I believe the evidence is that the US war machine (and that of most govts, apparently) is convinced that an air campaign will actually achieve military goals.
The only explanation I can think of for that delusion is propaganda from arms manufacturers.
Dude, I think you should just trust our leaders. They know what they’re doing.
On the face of it, if the only aim is to destroy nuclear sites, an air campaign may actually feasibly achieve that I would have thought. Israel destroyed an Iraqi reactor in 1981 with a bombing raid.Much better at attacking fixed structures than people, or ideas.
Of course a terrible idea in every other sense, especially thinking it will cause a revolution as everyone is suddenly convinced by bombs raining on their country that this USA was always right. And scary indictmant again of Time as a Government mouthpiece.
This all makes me think of bullies beating up littler kids and stealing their lunch money, then expecting those kids to be their friends afterwards.
You need to refine your question a little Morgue.
“Because an air campaign has achieved how many military objectives in, um, ever?”
Umm, heaps. The successful campaigns far outweigh the failures.
Given properly defined, military objectives that are within its capabilities, air power can be incredibly effective.
What air power is crap at is achieving political objectives (which are not the same as military ones), which is what would be required of it in any use against Iran that wasn’t part of a full on all-out war. The repercussions would far outweigh any percieved benefits.
The effectiveness of air power is roughly limited by the objective/capability idea, and the intelligence that designates the targets (precision weapons will go exactly wear you aim them, but whether or not the aim point is actually the thing you want to hit is another question). The recent campaign in Lebanon is a good example of air power being used to try and achieve things it is not capable of.
Given fixed, definable targets, air power can indeed be the magic bullet it appears to be in the eyes of politicians and at times the general public. However, this is very rarely the case. The ‘surgical strike’ is largely a myth. The 1981 Israeli raid on the reactor at Osirak was very succesful in setting back Iraq’s nuclear programme. However, that was one highly visible, easily identifiable target. I doubt the Iranians are so obliging.
Air power is attractive to politicians because it is seen as quick, easy, and painless. However, it has never won any war on its own. It can’t take and hold ground, and almost always has a negative effect on public opinion, something which has been known since at least the 1930’s.
It wasn’t an either/or proposition, Morgue.
Samm: good points.
Billy: understood.
Following on from Samm, I always like to point to Iraq in 1991 as good example of the appropiate use of air power.
Using air power (with very little use of other armed forces), the United States was able to achieve an exact military goal: destroying the logistic bases and supply lines of the Iraqi army in Kuwait, causing the demoralised enemy to flee (meaning the retreating forces made a nice target along those straight desert roads).
The Iraqi army was driven out of Kuwait with very little resistance or casualties for the United States: a clear victory for air power.
Then, with the creation of the “no-fly zones” in Northern and Southern Iraq, the United States was able to achieve vital political goals: protecting their Kurdish allies in the north, while allowing the Iraqi government to crush the pro-Iranian revolt in the south. In the south, the air campaign was wonderfully successful: it allowed Iraq to operate with impunity while still projecting a “we’re doing all we can” posture to the world’s media.
Both cases where air power was able to effectively achieve the aims of the United States: perhaps explaining their love affair with it during the planning of any current and future invasions.
So basically: Air strikes can achieve certain specific aims, but most of what they can achieve is not something people here necessarily approve of?
“When I discuss the possibility of an American military strike on Iran with my European friends, they invariably point out that an armed confrontation does not make sense — that it would be unlikely to yield any of the results that American policymakers do want, and that it would be highly likely to yield results that they do not. I tell them they cannot understand U.S. policy if they insist on passing options through that filter. The “making sense” filter was not applied over the past four years for Iraq, and it is unlikely to be applied in evaluating whether to attack Iran.”
Colonel Sam Gardner
The End of the “Summer of Diplomacy”: Assessing U.S. Military Options in Iraq
September 2006
(via Billmon.)
Pearce: I’d estimate that that’s a fair summary.
On the other hand, if we were to pretend that a moral consideration of the situation could be left to one side, the question that Morgue, Ben, and samm raised would remain.
How effective are air strikes at ‘winning hearts and minds’? Ben’s description of them as ‘much better at attacking fixed structures than people, or ideas’ is successful, I think, in getting at this question.
The obvious point here is that individuals and the ideas they hold about the world, not the ‘fixed structures’ they create, are the basis for conflict between parties guided by variant attitudes and values.
As some of us have already suggested, it seems at the least a dubious proposition that a people can be convinced to change these ideas by violence and coercion, not to mention a confusing and contradictory demonstration of democracy and freedom.
A more likely outcome is further ideational retrenchment followed by the emergence of yet more ‘fixed structures’, likely of the ideological variety. And as Ben pointed out, these are apparently the most impervious to missile strikes and bomb blasts.
This appears to be a tautological barrier to any kind of rapprochement unlikely to be surmounted by the kind of self-interest currently evident.
“How effective are air strikes at ‘winning hearts and minds’?”
I’d say about as effective as trying to win a woman’s love by raping her.
People might be interested in this piece from Atlantic Monthly:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200412/fallows
and the followup piece here:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200605/fallows-iran
They basically had a bunch of experts sit down for a run-down of the options on Iran, and they concluded that there is just no military solutions. If the aim is to stop the Iranians from building a nuclear weapon, bombing them will only make it absolutely clear why they need one.