Customer Reviews

Bombing to Win: Air Power and Coercion in War (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs)

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I found this book both stimulating in itself and relevant to many current and near-future issues. I believe that anyone who is interested in defense policy is likely to find much in it which is at once novel, provocative, and convincing. In particular, Pape explicates many of the concepts involved in warlike coercion with admirable clarity, formulates hypotheses of considerable power and precision, and then proceeds to test these against historical evidence. In doing so he reinterprets many historical data in ways which I always found informed and stimulating, and usually quite convincing. Indeed, readers whose primary interest is in military history per se, rather than policy, are likely to find the historical analyses well worth the price of the book, I would judge.

Fundamentally, the book is a critical examination of the proposition that it is cheaper to coerce opponents in war to concede defeat or some important element of it by indirect means rather than to compel compliance through frank conquest. For most of this century, many political and military leaders have subscribed ardently to strategic bombing as just such an indirect means, and it is the base of experience which this has generated to which Pape turns to test and refine his hypotheses. In so doing, he makes his book also a critique of strategic bombing.

Pape acknowledges that the threat of total nuclear devastation of its society can be used to coerce a state whose armies are intact. Short of this, however, he concludes that coercion without conquest is extremely difficult, and that when it works it does so by convincingly depriving the enemy of the military means to resist conquest:

"The evidence shows that it is the threat of military failure, which I call denial, and not threats to civilians, which we may call punishment, which provides the critical leverage in conventional coercion. Although nuclear weapons can make punishment the critical factor, in conventional conflicts even highly capable assailants often cannot th! reaten or inflict enough pain to coerce successfully, Conventional munitions have limited destructive power, and the modern nation-state is not a delicate mechanism that can easily be brought to the point of collapse."

Pape considers other coercive strategies as well: "Punishment strategies attempt to raise the costs of continued resistance; risk strategies, to raise the probability of suffering costs; denial strategies, to reduce the probability that resistance will yield benefits," and, "The use of air power for decapitation--a strategy spawned by precision-guided munitions and used against Iraq--strikes against key leadership and telecommunications facilities." (He does not address embargo and blockade very directly, although his arguments are certainly relevant to assessing their probable effectiveness as methods of coercion: Pape argues that escalation and decapitation are, along with punishment, relatively ineffective, and would surely assign no higher value to embargo and blockade.)

More formally, Pape advances a two-part theory, dealing with the conventional and nuclear cases. (He acknowledges that, "It is possible that modern chemical and biological weapons have, or soon will have, nearly equivalent capability" to nuclear weapons as instruments of punishment, but does not pursue the issue further, perhaps for lack of relevant historical evidence.) With respect to conventional coercion, he introduces what he calls the conventional denial theory:

"Conventional success is a function of the interactions among the coursers strategy, the target state's military strategy, and the target state's domestic politics. The denial theory of coercion incorporates six propositions about conventional coercion:

"1. Punishment strategies will rarely succeed....

"2. Risk strategies will fail....

"3. Denial strategies work best....

"4. Surrender of homeland territory is especially unlikely....

"5. Surrender terms that incorporate heavy ad! ditional punishment will not be accepted....

"6. Coercive success almost always takes longer than the logic of either punishment or denial alone would suggest."

On nuclear coercion, Pape concludes:

"In contrast to conventional coercion, the accepted wisdom on nuclear coercion is mostly right. It succeeds by manipulating civilian vulnerability, according to four propositions:

"1. Nuclear coercion requires superiority....

"2. Denial strategies are not useful in nuclear conflicts....

"3. Risk strategies can be useful in nuclear disputes....

"4. Nuclear punishment should be effective but rare."

Having stated his theses, Pape proceeds to the historical analyses which he adduces in their support. Before doing so, however, he makes some broader arguments, one of which struck me as particularly resonant:

"The citizenry of the target state is not likely to turn against its government because of civilian punishment. The supposed causal chain--civilian hardship produces public anger which forms political opposition against the government--does not stand up. One reason it does not is that a key assumption behind this argument--that economic deprivation causes popular unrest--is false. As social scientists have shown, economic deprivation often does produce personal frustration, but collective violence against governments requires populations to doubt the moral worth of the political system as a whole, as opposed to specific policies, leaders, or results. Political alienation is more important than economic deprivation as a cause of revolutions."

I would observe in this connection that it is always difficult to understand the attachment that foreigners feel for their peculiar institutions, so different from those we regard as normal and proper--the more different, the more difficult. Our way of life is of course greatly superior to all others: we all know this in our hearts and cannot understand why those people are not eager to overthrow their syste! m in favor of an imitation of our own. This is a major trap which leaders no less than the man in the street fall into time and again.

As stated, Pape's fundamental theses are not restricted as to instruments of coercion, beyond the distinction between conventional and nuclear. Natheless, as his title indicates, his primary focus is on air power--bombing--as a coercive instrument, arguing that, "Of the major components of modern military power--land, sea, and air power--each of which can be used for coercive purposes, air power, particularly strategic bombing, most cogently reveals the relative effectiveness of different coercive strategies." Thus his historical analyses all center around air campaigns.

This is an excellent study of what conventional "strategic" bombing has and hasn't accomplished in war.

Pape covers the ground very thoroughly, and shows how bombing has really worked in war. He concludes that bombing enemy homelands has seldom been effective, and in this I must agree.

The book has one real flaw though. The author is in love with the phrases "strategic" vs. "tactical" bombing. Because of this, he deprecates the effects of the late stage "strategic" bombing of Germany, because "tactical" bombing of some of the same targets was taking place simultaneously. But so what? The important thing is what effects bombs have on a target, not whether they fall out of a B-17 or a P-47!

Aside from this caveat, I can't think of a better introduction to the whole issue of "strategic air war." Just be sure and check out Alfred C. Mierzejewski's COLLAPSE OF THE GERMAN WAR ECONOMY to understand what strategic bombing does when done right.

It uses a method that I like of taking previous examples and attempting to prove his theory form that. His theory is that coercion on your enemy will only work if directed against their military.

I found it very good. I would have liked a clearer description of this theory at the front as I found it a bit difficult to understand exactly what he was getting at.