Editor’s Note
Will conventional weapons be able to deliver victory? Going by the example of Ukraine, the answer is unlikely. The author, a historian, quotes examples from the last Great War when German defence production and morale largely remained unaffected by Allied bombing.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stated several times that this is not an era of war and that problems must be solved without recourse to force. The statement was made in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war but is also generally applicable to the West Asia conflict. This was reflected in the Indian position, which explicitly took neither the Israeli nor Palestinian side.
On the face of it, this seems absurd as we are in the third year of the Ukraine war and have just completed a year of the Israel-Hamas conflict. Neither of the wars seem to be ending any time soon. In West Asia, Israel has escalated the scope of the conflict by attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iran has targeted Israel with missiles. Houthi rebels in Yemen have also joined the fray. However, on deeper reflection, it seems clear that none of the conflict parties are near achieving their political objectives. One can even question if the parties involved reasonably expect success. None seems to know what the ‘end game’ is likely to be. PM Modi was merely drawing attention to this stark reality.
The Russia-Ukraine war seems to have degenerated into an exchange of missile salvos. In West Asia, while the Israelis go about killing Palestinians in Gaza with other adversaries, it is an exchange of missile salvos, much on the lines of the Russo-Ukraine war. These look more like grudge matches than any war that needs viable strategies and tactical plans.
It seems like a throwback to the Second World War days when the Italian Giulio Douhet believed in the moral effects of bombing. Air power could break a people’s will by destroying a country’s “vital centres”, he said. One is also reminded of the often quoted saying of the Marshal of the Air Force Arthur Harris (popularly known as ‘Bomber Harris’): ‘The bomber will always get through’! Today, it could be modified to ‘, but the missile will always get through’. The result of these theories saw the Allies bombing campaign against the Germans. Post-WW II analysis clearly showed that the bombings neither affected morale (as Douhet mistakenly predicted) nor the production of war-like stores. At the height of the Allied bombing campaign, the German war production achieved its peak.
The massive bombardment of North Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1970s had very little effect on the outcome of the Vietnam War, which the Americans decisively lost, ‘revisionist’ Rambo movies notwithstanding. Much closer to our times, in the early days of Islamist terrorist attacks, the US launched cruise missiles in Afghanistan and Iraq. Ultimately, the American ground forces (boots on the ground) had to be inducted in both places.
Missiles do have great range and are also very accurate. However, the throw weight in the case of conventional munitions is limited. Purely in military terms, the damage done is equal to that of a regiment of artillery at the most, no more, no less, although at great ranges. Essentially, long-range missiles were meant to carry nuclear weapons. Using them to carry conventional bombs is a modern innovation.
A note of caution: if the missiles are to carry nuclear weapons, then the whole equation changes and both Douhet and Harris’ theories of air power become viable. After all, just two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended Japan’s resistance.
One can conclude from these historical examples that the aerial campaigns being carried out in the ongoing wars cannot achieve strategic objectives.
Col (Dr) Anil Athale,
(Author is a military historian)
