When the Taliban collapsed with the stunning suddenness of an overmatched prizefighter, it marked the belated fulfillment of a prophecy of Orville Wright.
“We saw that the aeroplane would give eyes to armies,” he said “and the armies with the most eyes would win the war.”
It was a gutsy forecast to make only a few years after he and his brother Wilbur had made their historic first flight of 1903. Airplanes were still fragile things, not much more than kites with motors attached. Yet almost independent of the nuts-and-bolts reality, the Wright brothers’ achievement inspired a steady stream of rhapsodic predictions that their invention had rendered traditional means of warfare obsolete.
Once man could soar like the birds, he was convinced of no longer having to fight as his ancestors did, with swords or rifles, cannons or battleships.
On the morrow of Pearl Harbor, Maj. Alexander de Seversky, a pioneering Army aviator, wrote a book designed to pep up the nation’s morale. It didn’t matter that the Japanese attack of Dec. 7, 1941, had crippled America’s Pacific fleet, he assured his fellow citizens in “Victory Through Air Power.”
“Once we have clear-cut dominance in the air,” he argued, “all else becomes a secondary subordinate, auxiliary operation.”
De Seversky’s words might as well have been taped to a wall of the White House situation room over these past weeks. U.S. commanders followed his formula with disciplelike fidelity.
First, they took out the Taliban’s air-defense systems and airplanes. Then, week after week, they methodically bombed troop concentrations, ammunition dumps and, at times it seemed, anything that moved in enemy territory.
Critics charged that there was no rhyme or reason to the air campaign. The anti-war crowd claimed that the U.S. was irrationally lashing out in frustration over the tragedy of Sept. 11.
But the generals knew what they were doing.
When, in good time, they shifted bombers and fighters to the Taliban’s frontline positions, the Northern Alliance was transformed instantaneously from a ragtag band into a first-class fighting force. For years, the Afghan opposition had barely been able to hold its own in a few remote corners of the country. Now, under the cover of U.S. aircraft, the rebels captured one city after another with a speed reminiscent of Hitler’s blitzkrieg.
The war against terrorism is far from over. Osama bin Laden is still on the loose. No doubt he still has followers abroad committed to fulfilling his evil designs, whatever their leader’s fate.
But it is clear that the Afghanistan campaign has finally taken the U.S. across that great divide in the history of warfare forecast by Orville Wright.
It was a long time coming. From his day to this one, a lot of wars have been fought where air power didn’t determine the victor. Just as Wright thought, airplanes, by flying over enemy trenches, were the generals’ eyes during World War I. But that conflict was settled when the Allies breached the German trenches thanks to an entirely different innovation: the tank.
World War II
In World War II, both sides thought air power would make the difference.
Hitler mistakenly bet on bombing England into submission. When the U.S. entered the war, the Air Force and the British RAF set out to destroy Germany’s factories. Their strategy rested on the assumption that in an age of mechanized warfare, if you take out the assembly lines producing an enemy’s tanks and cannons, the enemy has to fold his hand. After V-E Day, though, American military analysts found that, while Germany’s cities were reduced to rubble, the Nazis’ industrial production hadn’t been knocked out by bombing.
Just as in wars since time immemorial, the European campaign was won by ground forces slogging it out in bloody encounters with the enemy.
It might seem that America’s victory over Japan came through air power, because the atom bomb was dropped from a B-29. But the critical factor was the awesome destructiveness of the new weapon, not the means of its delivery. It would have had the same effect if an A-bomb had been floated into Tokyo’s harbor on a barge. Before Hiroshima, U.S. generals still assumed that, despite all the bombing of the Japanese, it would take an invasion from the sea to force their surrender.
Nor could air power give the U.S. victory in Korea and Vietnam.
In the later war, the appropriate air-war strategy was to interdict the supply lines linking the Viet Cong to their patrons in North Vietnam. Yet despite taking out mile after mile of jungle, all the air power at America’s disposal couldn’t turn the tide.
As late as Desert Storm, American military planners still hedged their bets on winning from the sky. During the relentless air assault on Iraq, they built up a huge ground force to deliver the knockout blow.
Handful of troops
This time, though, America won a stunning victory with but a handful of U.S. troops on the battlefields of Afghanistan.
This marks the second time in quick succession that the U.S. has pulled off that trick. American bombers persuaded Slobodan Milosevic to throw in the towel without any invading force entering Serbia (though the air campaign came too late to thwart the Serbian dictator’s murderous attacks on his Balkan neighbors).
What finally has made the difference? Why has air power belatedly lived up to its advanced notices?
Technology has been advancing at exponential rates of speed marked by Star Wars-like innovations, such as laser-guided missiles and ever-smarter smart bombs. It will take careful after-the-fact analysis, much like our flyboys conducted after World War II, to determine just which one was decisive.
But the history of warfare repeatedly shows that a little gadget virtually unnoticed at the time can make all the difference.
In classical antiquity, infantry held a distinct advantage over cavalry. Then, toward the end of the Roman Empire, German and Asiatic tribesmen mounted on horseback began to defeat hitherto-unbeatable Roman legions. The invaders had outfitted themselves with a simple equipment upgrade: the stirrup. By bracing their feet, cavalrymen could shove lances or swords at opponents without being thrown off, according to a law of physics that Newton would dub the equal-and-opposite reaction.
The history of warfare also shows that every advance in military technology has its social and political spinoffs. By making cavalry supreme, the stirrup gave rise to a medieval society dominated by knightly aristocrats. Centuries earlier, the ancient Athenians embarked on a massive shipbuilding program that made them masters of the waters of Greece. Those Athenian ships were propelled by human muscle, which gave their rowers the political leverage that led to the emergence of democracy.
It would be reasonable to assume that the final vindication of air power will have a parallel effect.
For the first time, we seem to be able to win wars without resorting to weapons of mass destruction or risking the casualties of a ground war. We could proclaim a new Pax Americana–to be enforced from the skies whenever there is a threat to international stability.
Next target
Already, that thought seems to be creeping into the Bush administration’s thinking. The president came into office seemingly committed to reducing the U.S. role as an international policeman. Now, some of his advisers, flush with success in Afghanistan, are talking about which other supporters of terrorism ought to be next on our target list.
Yet a bit of caution ought to accompany the recent success. Sometimes it’s the side with the leg up that falls victim to a new quantum leap in military technology.
Hitler’s lightninglike victories induced him into his fatal invasion of Russia. The Athenians were so self-hypnotized by their mighty fleet that they allowed themselves to get involved in an invasion of Sicily, which gave victory at home to their Spartan enemies.
The Greeks had a word for that kind of folly: hubris.
In military terms–our generals ought to note, even while lifting a much-deserved toast to their success–it means: Those who live by the sword court death by the same instrument.
