A fallacy that bombs - literally

By Khody Akhavi
Asia Times

"......In the changing landscape of 21st-century warfare, a technologically superior US military has been forced to adapt its strategy to combat counterinsurgency tactics. Guerrilla warfare is waged on city streets, often amid civilian populations. Hence air power can never be an effective substitute for ground fighting.

This was witnessed during last year's war between Israel and the Islamist resistance group Hezbollah. During a four-week period, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) relentlessly bombed Lebanon, destroying much of the country's infrastructure in the process. But the objective of the IDF's massive use of air power - to eliminate the threat of Hezbollah permanently - was never accomplished.

"Military historians have a name for the logic behind Israel's military campaign in Lebanon. It's called 'strategic bombing fallacy'," Brookings Institution fellow Philip H Gordon wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post during the 2006 war. "Far from bringing about the intended softening of the opposition, bombing tends to rally people behind their own leaders and cause them to dig in against outsiders who, whatever the justification, are destroying their homeland."

As the US public's tolerance for troop casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan steadily shrinks, the Bush administration finds itself in a precarious situation. Reliance on air power and the cumulative effect of errant bombs portends an ominous future for US political goals in the region. "