TheMythofAirPower Daryl G. Press inthePersianGulfWar andtheFuture of Warfare The Myth ofAir Power inthe PersianGulf War OnFebruary 24,1991, U.S. ground troops,supported by British,French, andArab forces, moved northfrom Saudi Arabiato liberate Kuwaitand destroy the Iraqimilitary . 1 Fourdays later the job wasapparently done:The Kuwaiti agonceagain ew overKuwait City ,andwhat remained of the Iraqimilitary was in full retreat. Astonishingly,only sixty-three Americanswere killed in aground operation thatmost analysts expected wouldcause thousands of U.S. casualties. 2 How did the coalition’s ground forcesdestroy the Iraqiarmy so quickly andwith so few coalitioncasualties? Does the PersianGulf Warheralda future ofU.S. mili- tarydominance and low-cost U.S. militaryoperations? What are the lessons fromthe ghting forU.S. foreign policy? The conventionalwisdom among historians, military analysts, and foreign policy decisionmakersis that air power neutralizedthe Iraqimilitary before the ground warbegan. 3 Thisinterpretation of the Gulf Warhasimportant im- Daryl G.Press is Assistant Professor inthe Government Department anda Research Fellow at the Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College.He isalso an Associate of theJohn M. OlinInstitute for Strategic Studiesat theWeatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. Theauthor would like to thankStephen Biddle, Stephen Brooks,Daniel Byman,Eliot Cohen,Eu- geneGholz, David Kang,Thomas Keaney ,Jennifer Lind,Thomas Mahnken, Michael Mastanduno, KarlMueller ,Kenneth Pollack, BarryPosen, Joshua Spero, Allan Stam,and William Wohlforth for helpful comments onearlier draftsof this article. Previous versions of this article were presented at the Dartmouth Seminaron International Politics, the JohnM. Olin Institute forStrategic Studies, the StanfordUniversity Center forInternational Security andCooperation, the ColumbiaUniver- sity Institute ofWarandPeace Studies, andthe New YorkMilitary Affairs Symposium. 1.Thirty-six countries joined the coalition againstIraq, but the groundoffensive canbe fairly char- acterized asaU.S.operation with British support. Thecoalition’ s groundforce comprised nine and two-thirds U.S.divisions, two-thirds of aBritish division (two brigades),and two-thirds of a Frenchdivision (two brigades),along with several less-capable Arabdivisions. Onlythe U.S.and British forces were given important roles in the offensive. 2.The number of U.S.soldiers andmarines killed duringthe groundwar is fromStephen T. Hosmer, PsychologicalEffects of U.S . Air Operations inFour Wars, 1941–1991 (SantaMonica, Calif.: RAND, 1996),p. 155. This numberexcludes the twenty-eight Americans killed bya Scud missile thathit abarracksin Dhahran,Saudi Arabia, during the groundwar .Foran account of prewar es- timates of U.S.casualties, see BenjaminS. Lambeth, TheT ransformation of American Air Power (Ithaca,N.Y .:Cornell University Press, 2000),p. 2. 3.For the most prominent analysesthat support this view,see Eliot A.Cohen,Director , Gulf War Air Power Survey (Washington,D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Ofce [GPO],1993), 5 vols. (herein- aftercited as GWAPS), plus Summary Report. See specically GWAPSSummary Report, pp. 116–117; International Security, Vol.26, No. 2 (Fall2001), pp. 5– 44 ©2001by the President and Fellows of HarvardCollege and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 5 International Security 26:26 plicationsfor U.S. foreign policy andfor U.S. militaryprocurement strategies. ForU.S. foreign policy,the Gulf Warseems to show— and the 1999Kosovo conict appears to conrm— that air power isnow so lethal, and American air power sodominant, that the United Statescan win nearly cost-freemilitary victoriesagainst its foes. For U.S. militaryprocurement debates,the lessonsare equally clear:The United Statesshould signi cantly alter its military procure- mentpriorities to favor air power overground forces;in the future, decisive battleswill be wonfrom the air. 4 U.S. condence in airpower is soaring, but the conventionalwisdom about itsdecisiveness in the Gulf Warhasnever been rigorouslytested. It is undeni- able thatfor six weeks— during the period nowknown as the aircampaign— coalitionaircraft dropped tonsof bombsand missiles on Iraqitargets. It is also undeniable thatIraq’ s ground forceswere totallyineffective againstthe coali- tion’s ground forces.But those facts do not prove thatthe bombing caused Iraqiineffectiveness. The questionsthat must be answeredare: Why were the Iraqiground forcesso incapable during the ground war?W ere they neutral- GWAPS, Vol. 2,Pt. 2,p.107; James A. Winnefeld, Preston Niblack,and Dana J. Johnson, A League of Airmen: U.S. Air Power inthe Gulf War (SantaMonica, Calif.: RAND, 1994),pp. 5,285,287; Thomas A.Keaney,“TheLinkage of Air andGround Power in the Future of Conict,” International Security, Vol. 22,No. 2 (Fall 1997),p. 147; Michael R.Gordonand Bernard E. Trainor, TheGenerals’ War: The InsideStory of theCon ict in the Gulf (Boston:Little, Brown,1995), p. 474; Rick Atkinson, Crusade: TheUntold Story of thePersian GulfWar (Boston:Houghton Mif in, 1993), p. 495; Hosmer, Psycho- logicalEffects of U.S . Air Operations; Robert A.Pape,“ TheLimits of Precision-Guided Air Power,” SecurityStudies, Vol. 7,No. 2 (Winter 1997/1998),pp. 93–114; Robert A.Pape,“ TheAir Force Strikes Back:A Reply to BarryW atts andJohn Warden,” SecurityStudies, Vol. 7,No. 2 (Winter 1997/1998),pp. 191–214; Aharon Levran, Israeli Strategyafter Desert Storm: Lessons of theSecond Gulf War (London:Frank Cass, 1997), p. 29. The only academic studies thatplace substantial emphasis onthe importance of the groundcampaign are Stephen Biddle, “Victory Misunderstood:What the Gulf WarTells Us aboutthe Future of Conict,” International Security, Vol. 21,No. 2 (Fall 1996), pp. 139–179; Stephen Biddle, “TheGulf WarDebate Redux,” International Security, Vol. 22,No. 2 (Fall1997), pp. 163–174; and my response to Biddle’s article in Daryl G.Press, “Lessonsfrom GroundCombat in the Gulf: TheImpact of Trainingand T echnology,”ibid., pp. 137–146. Several U.S.Army-sponsored accounts place emphasison the groundcampaign. See, for example, Robert H. Scales, Certain Victory:The U.S . Army inthe Gulf War (Washington,D.C.: Brassey’ s, 1997); Frank N.Schubert andTheresa L. Kraus,eds., TheWhirlwind War: TheUnited States Army inOperations Desert Shieldand Desert Storm (Washington,D.C.: Center forMilitary History,1995);and Richard M. Swain, “LuckyWar” : ThirdArmy inDesert Storm (FortLeavenworth, Kans.:U.S. Army Com- mandand General Staff College Press, 1997). 4.This position appearsto beguiding the current review of U.S.defense policy mandatedby U.S. Secretaryof Defense DonaldRumsfeld. See ThomasE. Ricks, “Rumsfeld Outlines PentagonOver- haul,” WashingtonPost, March23, 2001,p. 1; TomBowman, “ PentagonFaces Transformation,” Bal- timore Sun, March13, 2001, p. 1A; Greg Jaffe, “ PentagonLists Potential Cuts in About 30Weapons Programs,” WallStreet Journal, March26, 2001, p. A3; and Mortimer B.Zuckerman,“ Rethinking the Next War,” U.S. News andWorld Report, March5, 2001, p. 64. TheMyth of Air Power inthe Persian Gulf War 7 izedby the aircampaign? Or were they simply outmatchedby vastlysuperior U.S. andBritish ground forces? 5 Totestthe propositionthat air power neutralizedthe Iraqiground forces,I divide the argumentinto vedifferent versions: 6 (1) airpower prevented the Iraqisfrom maneuvering, whichis critical in desertcombat; (2) airpower dis- rupted Iraqicommand, control, communications, and intelligence (C 3I); (3) air powersevered Iraqisupply lines; (4) airpower attrited the Iraqiforces too heavily forthem to ght effectively; and(5) airpower broke Iraqimorale. Each versionmakes predictions about the conductof the Iraqiground forcesduring the ground operation.In thisarticle I use detailedevidence fromthe ground campaignto test these ve explanations. The evidence fromthe ground campaignshows that the conventionalwis- domabout the Gulf Waris wrong. Although airpower played animportant rolein the coalition’s victory,itsrole has been exaggeratedand misunderstood. Imaketwo primary arguments about air power during the Gulf War.First, air powerwas not decisive; it did notneutralize the Iraqiground forces.At the end ofthe aircampaign, Iraqi ground forcescould still maneuver ,andthey still had the C3I,supplies, numbers, andmorale to ght. Second, the six-week aircampaign did notplay anecessary,enabling role thatmade the ground war“ easy”for U.S. forces.Had there been noair cam- paign, U.S. andBritish fatalities in the ground warwould probably havebeen slightly higher.Butevidence stronglysuggests that with or without the air campaign,the coalition’s ground attackwould have led toa routof historic proportions.In sum,air power contributedto the coalition’s effort,but the air campaignwas neither sufcient nornecessary for the very one-sided victory. If airpower did notneutralize the Iraqiarmy ,why were the Iraqiground forcestotally ineffective during the ground campaign?The answeris that they were simply overmatchedby the U.S. andBritish ground forces.In 1991the Iraqis elded amilitarythat was mediocre even by thirdworld standards, and during the Gulf Warthey were facing the mostpowerful militaryforces in the worldon terrain ideally suitedto U.S. andBritish military strengths. Further- more,Iraq’ s timing wasterrible; Iraqinvaded Kuwait just after the Reaganmil- 5.An obvious third possibility is thata combination ofairbombardment and the coalition’s supe- riority onthe groundneutralized the Iraqiground forces. Itest this third possibility