Air Power Meets Clausewitz: Military Coercion as Limited War

Abstract

This article presents a critical evaluation of the study of military coercion, a field that has gained growing prominence since the end of the Cold War. Its purpose is to analyze what may be the most representative work to come out of this line of research: Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War, by Robert A. Pape (1996). It will interrogate the underlying premise of the work – one shared by the remainder of the substantial literature in this area – according to which military coercion is fundamentally different from war. This interrogation takes into account the contrast between Pape's approach (1996) and Carl von Clausewitz' theory of war (1993). It concludes by identifying what lies at the heart of military coercion and war, and makes two central assertions for the study of military coercion: 01. that military coercion is essentially war and, as such, is a wholly political phenomenon, with results entirely subordinate to politics; and 02. that the occurrences which Pape defines as successful military coercion are nothing more than manifestations of limited war – limited war being one of the two possible forms that war can take.