Air superiority is supposed to deliver a quick triumph. But history has shown that promise to be written on the wind
To explore the roots of Donald Trump’s Iran military strategy and the pugnacious rhetoric of his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, means looking back 105 years. In 1921, a year before Benito Mussolini and his blackshirts marched on Rome to launch the Fascist era, an Italian general named Giulio Douhet published The Command of the Air, proposing a revolution in warfare.
Victory in the future, he said, would no longer come from the grinding trench combat of the great war. Instead it meant large-scale aerial bombardments, targeting not just combatants but civilians and civilian infrastructure and logistics.
“[It] is much more important to destroy a railroad station, a bakery, a war plant, or to machine-gun a supply column, moving trains, or any other behind-the-lines objective, than to strafe or bomb a trench.
With diligent planning and help from our allies and a clear objective victory from the air is achievable.
We just had none of those things.
This has literally never been true, and there are no examples of this ever happening in history, besides maybe the only use of atomic bombs, on Japan. Pure delusion.
Iraq 1991.
ETA: Ground pounders big mad.
Lol. Won via ground assault.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War#Ground_campaign
After air superiority was obtained.
What you are failing to see is that air superiority is a component, not THE ONLY COMPONENT necessary.
True, and I’m not saying air superiority is not useful or critical, but it alone does not and cannot win a war. Your own example proves that wrong.
Yeah but even the ground war needed a clear plan, coordination with allies, and the other stuff I’m too drunk/high to remember.
Certainly can’t disagree with that
Before all of that, you need to define your objectives, otherwise anything or nothing can be a ‘victory’.
Help to do what, invade another country? Iraq and Afghanistan wasn’t enough?
Iran in particular is designed as a state that can operate like terrorist cells. You can’t just destroy a central body and the government goes away.
And again, why invade? Iran was on the brink of revolution, it’s state under financial pressure. It would have sorted itself out. But now, when the strictness of war is at play?
Precision strikes have historically not worked as a regime killer. It make’a no sense to rely on a strategy that’s a proven failure.
So why do it?
I personally think it’s to solidify the Iranian regime, so that they become determined and focused once more. This will ensure that they stay a significant threat in the region and that the Israelis have an advantageous adversary to point their fingers at.
But yeah, fuck all of this. It’s just so dumb.
Starving a country via sanctions has never resulted in a revolution, except maybe South Africa. While the stated purpose is to cause enough misery within the population they overthrow the government, the real purpose is to weaken it so it can’t defend its people when we’re ready to bomb them.