Responding to the Emir of Afghanistan’s 1919 declaration of jihad against British forces, the Royal Air Force sent a single biplane to Kabul that dropped 20 bombs. The Emir sued for peace immediately after the attack. Since then, airpower has been used as a tool of forceful coercion. It provides a range of hard and soft power resources to deter or compel, express national will, or execute policy. Aircraft can be dispatched rapidly, arrive at distant locations quickly, and deliver weapons or humanitarian aid with precision. Properly understood and applied, it can serve as an effective tool to achieve some national objectives.
Starting in the 19th century, naval action—actual or threatened—to coerce, deter, or compel an adversary in situations short of conventional war was called gunboat diplomacy. Airpower diplomacy is similar in that aircraft and warships both can operate independently in international waters and airspace, providing political leaders policy options that do not always require the acquiescence of other nations.
Warplanes or Warships
Airpower and gunboat diplomacy are often confused. In discussing the former, experts routinely cite operations when airpower was used in a coercive role in conjunction with ground or naval forces. A 1999 RAND study noted that analyzing airpower’s influence in the context of combined arms warfare “is misleading because a particular military instrument never operates in a vacuum.”1 But airpower sometimes has been used in a vacuum for coercive diplomacy. Operation El Dorado Canyon, two Gulf of Sidra freedom-of-navigation exercises, and the U.S. response to the Achille Lauro hijacking are good starting points to consider whether airpower or gunboat diplomacy was at play and to sharpen our understanding of airpower diplomacy.
Operation El Dorado Canyon: The United States in 1986 retaliated against Libya in response to its underwriting of the Berlin terrorist bombing earlier that year. The operation solely used airpower—U.S. Navy aircraft from carriers in the Gulf of Sidra and U.S. Air Force planes deployed from land bases in Europe. The principal targets were Libyan military installations and hardware. From the perspective of dictator Muammar Gaddafi, it is likely airpower was considered the primary force in this operation, regardless of whether the planes came from land bases or aircraft carriers.
Gulf of Sidra Operations: The United States conducted freedom-of-navigation exercises in 1981 and 1989 to demonstrate that U.S. forces would operate anywhere in international waters regardless of Gaddafi’s repeated declarations of a longitudinal “line of death.” In the 1981 freedom-of-navigation exercises, Libyan warplanes were intercepted by U.S. Navy fighter aircraft from the USS Nimitz (CVN-68). After evading a missile fired by a Libyan aircraft, the U.S. warplanes shot down both Libyan planes. In 1989, U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcats operating in international airspace but inside the “line of death” shot down two Libyan warplanes in response to claimed hostile acts toward their aircraft. While freedom-of-navigation operations normally are conducted by warships, the principal tools of influence in the Libyan events were warplanes.
Achille Lauro Hijacking: In October 1985 U.S. warplanes—launched from the USS Saratoga (CV-60)—intercepted an Egyptian airliner carrying Palestinian terrorists who earlier had hijacked the pleasure cruiser Achille Lauro. The U.S. planes forced the airliner to land, which allowed law enforcement officials to take the terrorists into custody. Again, the coercive element in this operation was solely airpower, and the fact that the planes flew off a ship had no bearing from a coercive perspective.
In determining whether warplanes or warships were the main tools of coercion in an operation, some naval experts hold that warplanes of an aircraft carrier are organic weapon systems and thus are a mere extension of naval power. But in determining the influential factor it is useful to consider what ultimately altered the considerations or actions of the coercive act’s recipient. While the aircraft carriers clearly enable air coercion, in the above instances, the coerced parties did not care or may not even have known whether the planes flew from a ship or shore base.
Airpower Alone Can Influence
The following examples in which aircraft were the sole tool of influence more clearly demonstrate the coercive potential of airpower diplomacy.
Operation Babylon: The June 1981 Israeli air strikes on Iraqi nuclear facilities at Osirak used airpower alone. Israel claimed the attack set back Iraq’s nuclear ambitions ten years. The operation was a military success, with no Israeli aircraft lost, but may have been only partially successful in its strategic impact. While the immediate threat posed by the Iraqi nuclear program was halted, Iraq expanded its nuclear weapons program after the raid.
Operation Classic Resolve: In 1989, elements of the Philippine military attempted to overthrow the government of President Corazon Aquino. Aquino requested U.S. air strikes to support loyal Philippine forces. The U.S. government flew warplanes over rebel-controlled areas as a show of force with orders to shoot down any opposition aircraft. The insurgents were informed of the orders to shoot down their aircraft but were not made aware that the U.S. fighters were not authorized to bomb rebels on the ground. The rebellion was ended without additional U.S. intervention, but many credit the U.S. employment of airpower as a major element in the coup’s collapse.
Operation Determined Falcon: In June 1998, Determined Falcon was conducted in response to Slobodan Milosevic’s continued military assaults on Albanian fighters seeking independence for Kosovo. This was a solely airpower effort that involved 85 aircraft from 13 NATO countries conducting overflights of Albania and Macedonia. NATO warplanes performed low-level high-speed fly-bys in various noncombat regions. While one target audience was Milosevic, another was the citizenry of the threatened regions. Shows of force such as this can calm the populace and reassure them of U.S. and allied support. One Albanian appreciated the effort saying, “it shows that they are for the liberation of Kosovo.”2
After the show of airpower, President Milosevic agreed to meet many of NATO’s demands. He did not, however, withdraw Serbian security forces from Kosovo. NATO was unable to resolve internal squabbling and failed to follow through with air strikes, which muted the potential effectiveness of the operation.
Bomber Flights over Korea: The United States used a show of airpower to respond to North Korean nuclear tests in 2013 and 2016. In 2013, the U.S. Air Force flew two nuclear-capable B-2 stealth bombers from the United States to Korean Peninsula to reaffirm an “unwavering commitment to defend South Korea.”3 The bombers dropped inert munitions on a range in South Korea.
More recently, a U.S. B-52 Stratofortress from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, conducted a low-level flight over Osan Air Base, South Korea, in response to a nuclear test by North Korea. “North Korea’s nuclear test is a blatant violation of its international obligations,” explained Admiral Harry B. Harris Jr., Commander, U.S. Pacific Command.4 Admiral Harris reinforced that the flight “was a demonstration of the ironclad U.S. commitment to our allies in South Korea, in Japan, and to the defense of the American homeland.”5
South China Sea Operations: Airpower diplomacy also is playing out in the skies above the South China Sea, where the United States and China are using warplanes to express national policy. The United States is conducting airspace freedom-of-navigation exercises and airborne intelligence-gathering missions above international waters over which China has claimed sovereignty. The flights have gathered information about the Chinese buildup on the contested islands and shoals of the region. Images of Chinese military activity on the islands have been made public, and a CNN journalist filed a report from an aircraft during one the flights.
The United States also deployed A-10 close air support aircraft and E/A-18G electronic warfare aircraft on maritime patrols over the South China Sea in 2016 to “assure access to the air and maritime domains in accordance with international law.”6
In response to these operations, China has demanded that the United States stop all flights in the disputed region, and Chinese fighters have conducted numerous aggressive and unsafe intercepts of U.S. aircraft. The routine fighter intercept of aircraft in international airspace is a reasonable exercise of national security, but these aggressive Chinese maneuvers are a clear attempt to influence the conduct of U.S. operations. In August 2016, the Chinese government sent bombers and fighter aircraft into the airspace around contested islands to conduct “normalized South China Sea combat patrols . . . safeguarding national sovereignty, security and maritime interests.”7
Soft Airpower
Airpower diplomacy also can serve in a cooperative role. It has provided humanitarian relief through the delivery of food and medicine, as well as the evacuation of civilians when ground or naval assistance is not available. The speed of delivery associated with airlift can greatly improve the impact of assistance in the early stages of a crisis. Soft airpower sometimes has less to do with compelling a certain behavior, and more to do with helping those in need and manifesting goodwill. Soft airpower operations include:
The Berlin Airlift: On 24 June 1948, the Soviet Union cut off all land access to West Berlin. During the 11-month blockade, military cargo aircraft from the United States and United Kingdom flew more than 277,000 missions in a narrow air corridor, over hostile territory, delivering some 2.3 million tons of supplies.8
Operation Hajji Baba: In 1952 about 3,700 Islamic pilgrims en route to Mecca became stranded in Lebanon. Thirteen U.S. Air Force C-54s flew them to the holy city in time for their religious observances.9 While land or sea transport could have achieved the same goal, there was a time component that only airpower could meet.
Operation Provide Promise: In the longest sustained humanitarian airlift in history, from 1992 to 1996 U.S. and allied aircraft delivered food, medicine, and supplies into areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina that U.N. convoys could not reach by land.
Developing Options
Airpower provides policymakers with a wide range of coercive and cooperative options. Air diplomacy also can be used to influence domestic opinion by providing a visible (if not always actual) representation of decisiveness. Airpower, however, can give political leaders a false sense of accomplishment, because the effectiveness of airpower diplomacy operations often is difficult to discern.
Airpower diplomacy is best evaluated in instances where aircraft are the principal or sole tools of influence and the impact of the operation is assessed from the perspective of the target or recipient. A clear and consistent understanding of airpower is essential to improve political leaders’ use of airpower diplomacy, hard and soft, in the attempt to achieve political objectives at home and abroad.
1. Daniel L. Byman, Matthew C. Waxman, and Eric Larson, white paper, “Air Power as a Coercive Instrument” (Santa Monica: RAND Project AIR FORCE, 1999), 21.
2. Christine Splar, “NATO Planes Deliver Hope to Albanians,” Washington Post, 16 June 1998.
3. Jethro Mullen, “U.S. says it sent B-2 stealth bombers over South Korea,” CNN, 28 March 2013, www.cnn.com/2013/03/28/world/asia/korea-us-b2-flights/.
4. Staff writer, “U.S. conducts B-52 bomber overflight in South Korea after nuke test,”
DoD News, 11 January 2016, www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/642180/us-conducts-b-52-bomber-overflight-in-south-korea-after-nuke-test.aspx.
5. Ibid.
6. Commander Task Force 70 Public Affairs statement, 15 June 2016.
7. Senior Colonel Shen Jinke, Peoples Liberation Army Air Force, Reuters, 8 August 2016.
8. Daniel L. Haulman, “Wings of Hope: The U.S. Air Force and Humanitarian Airlift Operations,” Air Force History and Museums Program, rev. ed. (2007), Appendix: Selected U.S. Air Force Overseas Humanitarian Operations, 1947–2007.
9. “Airlift for Allah,” Tune, 8 September 1952, 32, in Daniel L. Haulman, “Wings of Hope: The U.S. Air Force and Humanitarian Airlift Operations,” Air Force History and Museums Program, rev. ed. (2007), 6.
10. LTC Ellwood P. Hinman IV, USAF, The Politics of Coercion: Toward a Theory of Coercive Airpower for Post-Cold War Conflict (Maxwell AFB AL: Air University Press, August 2002), 3.
11. Richard Holbrooke, To End a War (New York: Modern Library Press), 4.
12. Benjamin Lambeth, “The Use of Military Force in the Contemporary Security Environment,” 2012 Royal Australian Air Force Conference—Air Power & Coercive Diplomacy, 10–11 May 2012, Canberra, Australia.
13. Robert Pape, “The True Worth of Airpower,”Foreign Affairs vol. 83, no. 2 (March/April 2004), 124.
14. Lambeth, “The Use of Military Force in the Contemporary Security Environment.”
Airpower Alone vs Combined Arms
Studies of air coercion often reference operations that are joint endeavors with air, naval, and/or ground forces. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Ellwood P. Hinman IV, for example, claims that his study of air coercion “considers only airpower that operates separately from America’s surface forces – not the combined-arms operations.”10 Yet Hinman references Operations Desert Storm, Deliberate Force, and Allied Force, during which airpower worked in concert with ground and/or naval forces. The operations discussed are typical of conventional combined arms warfare, where the impact of airpower in a coercive role can be assessed only relative to the forces with which it is aligned.
Operation Desert Storm: Desert Storm is a classic example of airpower in a combined arms campaign. The initial air campaign was a conventional action targeting the destruction of Iraq’s air force and antiaircraft capability, command and communications, and general military targets (including Iraqi military and political leadership) in Kuwait and Iraq. Even though airpower missions preceded offensive ground or naval action, the coercive component of Desert Storm did not rely exclusively on airpower but also on the presence of a massive international ground and naval force.
Operation Deliberate Force: In August 1995 NATO, in concert with United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) ground operations, conducted an air campaign to undermine the military capability of the Bosnian Serb Army. The Serbs had threatened and attacked U.N.-designated “safe areas” in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War.11 While airpower was the main force applied, the operation also included artillery attacks from a UNPROFOR ground force. Moreover, it was conducted at roughly the same time as Operation Mistral 2, a military ground offensive by the Croatian Army, Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatian Defense Council. Even though Mistral 2 may not have been under the same command authority as the NATO air campaign, the fact that ground forces were committed or arrayed for attack likely influenced the Bosnian leadership. As Benjamin Lambeth notes, “one must grant that not just air power, but a combination of other factors also played an indirect part in driving Serbia’s leaders to the negotiating table.”12
Operation Allied Force: In March 1999, the United States and its NATO allies used an airpower campaign to compel the withdrawal of all Yugoslavian military, police, and paramilitary forces from Kosovo. While they did not participate directly in combat operations, the activities of ground forces deployed across the theater may have influenced the outcome. The earlier use of ground forces in combat during Deliberate Force likely gave Milosevic a precedent to consider. The United States also simultaneously deployed a battalion from U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division to Albania. Concurrently, the U.N. Kosovo Force—at its height numbering 50,000 troops from 39 different nations—visibly prepared to conduct combat operations. After 78 days of bombing, Milosevic agreed to remove all forces from Kosovo. The ultimate impact of airpower alone on Milosevic’s decision is debatable. Robert Pape argued that “it was NATO’s threat to invade Kosovo by using airpower and ground forces simultaneously that turned the tide.”13 Lambeth, on the other hand, contended that “the use of air power alone forced the wholesale withdrawal of an enemy force.”14
Determining causation when airpower works in concert with land and naval forces in coercive diplomacy is difficult. The operation may have short-term, defined goals to coerce, compel, or deter an enemy, but an assessment of the effectiveness of one combat arm must take account of all the forces arrayed and employed.