Executing strategy from the air

Abstract

Air power played a decisive role from start to end in the 2011 military campaign mounted by NATO and coalition forces in Libya. Less than 48 hours following the adoption of resolution 1973 on 17 March, French warplanes and American and British Tomahawk cruise missiles were heading for Libya in an effort to eliminate a significant portion of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s air defence. Within a week NATO declared that it would assume leadership over the implementation of the UN-mandated no-fly zone, along with the arms embargo.1 When Operation Unified Protector ended seven months later, NATO and the broader coalition of national forces had carried out an estimated 26,000 sorties over Libya, more than half of which were strike sorties, with most targets in major cities or ports such as Tripoli, Brega, Misrata and Sirte.2 All in all almost 6000 targets were reportedly hit, among which roughly 300 ammunition dumps, 600 battle tanks and armoured personnel carriers and 400 rocket launchers. In the 2011 Libya campaign airpower thus played the lead role, a development that students of war science have just begun to examine more seriously. The experiences from Libya will no doubt feed into the intense debate over the utility of airpower in contemporary military conflict that has been going on for at least two decades. Arguably, it was the massive use of airpower in the first Gulf War against Iraq in 1991, inspired by the ideas of US Air Force Colonel John Warden, which first provoked this debate. The discussion widened and deepened following NATO’s bombing campaign against Serbian forces in Kosovo and parts of Serbia in 1999, as a result of the specific challenges in the European theatre of operations. While the Libya campaign resembled the first Gulf War in several respects, there is no denying that the complex political management of the operation had similarities with the 1999 Kosovo operation. The reasons for relying heavily on airpower in the Libya campaign was the UN Security Council resolution 1973, which prohibited the deployment of ground troops.3 There were simply few realistic alternatives to launching a massive air assault. But can and should airpower have aleading role in executing strategy as well? For example, would it be possible to degrade the Libyan air defences to such an extent that the enemy’s capability to challenge the no-fly zone as well as to attack the civilian population was virtually eliminated? This chapter begins by posing some generic questions concerning the use of airpower while paying attention to the experience of using airpower since the end of the Cold War. After a brief description of the particular legal requirements put in place by Security Council resolution 1973, the chapter turns to the Libyan setting. The evolution of and tensions within the mission are outlined and analysed, from the overlapping national operations launched in late March by the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Canada, to the NATO-led Unified Protector framework replacing the former.4 The chapter concludes by arguing that depending on the setting, airpower can indeed be a vital instrument in regaining the peace.