Kosovo and the Great Air Power Debate

The capitulation of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic on June 9, 1999, after seventy-eight days of bombing by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), is being portrayed by many as a watershed in the history of air power. For the arst time, the use of air strikes alone brought a foe to its knees—and at the cost of no NATO lives. The prophecies of Giulio Douhet and other air power visionaries appear realized.1 Lieut. Gen. Michael Short, who ran the bombing campaign, has argued that “NATO got every one of the terms it had stipulated in Rambouillet and beyond Rambouillet, and I credit this as a victory for air power.”2 This view is not conaned to the air force. Historian John Keegan conceded, “I didn’t want to change my beliefs, but there was too much evidence accumulating to stick to the article of faith. It now does look as if air power has prevailed in the Balkans, and that the time has come to redeane how victory in war may be won.”3 Dissenters, of course, raise their voices. Noting the failure of air power to fulall its promise in the past, they are skeptical of its efacacy in Kosovo. Instead, they point to factors such as the threat of a ground invasion, the lack of Russian support for Serbia, or the resurgence of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) as key to Milosevic’s capitulation. Without these factors, dissenters argue, air strikes alone would not have