[DOWNLOAD] "Comments on "Reflections on the Balkan Air Wars" (Readers' Forvm) (Letter to the Editor)" by Air Power History * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Comments on "Reflections on the Balkan Air Wars" (Readers' Forvm) (Letter to the Editor)
- Author : Air Power History
- Release Date : January 22, 2010
- Genre: Engineering,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 169 KB
Description
Benjamin Lambeth's thought-provoking analysis, "Reflections on the Balkan Air Wars," [Air Power History, Vol. 57, No. 1, Spring 2010, pages 30-43.] offers up a broad range of superb insights, but also casts the application of U.S. airpower in the Balkans in a negative light, something the evidence he presents does not clearly support. In addition, a few factual errors coupled with some noteworthy errors of omission may cause some readers to pause when assessing the merits of this study. First of all, most observers would likely agree, "Operation Deny Flight" was not an air campaign per se. It was one response by NATO, only recently removed from its Cold War shackles, to support the United Nations in a complex peacekeeping operation happening literally in its own back yard. However ineffective that support may have been is due primarily to the controversial "dual key" arrangements agreed by NATO and the UN for the employment of force--a crucial game-changer and one not mentioned in this article. And, since the UN abhors the use of force under any circumstances, it was not surprising that for nearly two years, only pinprick type air attacks were authorized. But the UN was not the only partner resisting the use of force. To achieve consensus among the sixteen NATO nations, the Alliance deliberated each step of escalation in the use of force, first within the Military Committee (at three-star level), than even more ponderously within the North Atlantic Council (NAC) at the Ambassadors' level. Hence, to compare the application of U.S. air power in the first Gulf War with later events in the Balkans is to invite an entirely dissimilar (and false) comparison between two fundamentally different threat scenarios, each with completely different political-military dimensions.