Airpower Over Libya Revisited

First, I need to apologize for not engaging with the comments to some of my recent posts here at ID. In particular, the comment thread to this post on a Tokyo Naval Treaty is quite good, and I've also received some good e-mails on the idea. I'm bashing my way through the final stages of a book, however, which has drained the life out of everything else I've been doing. In any case, here are my thoughts on the recent success of the Libyan rebels:

One of the crucial military questions that emerged from the campaign involves the effectiveness of airpower. With one long ground war winding down and another in full swing, the United States and its allies are extremely reluctant to deploy ground forces. The leaders of the major intervening countries made clear that ground troops would not play a major role in the Libyan intervention, with U.S. President Barack Obama most emphatic on this point. With ground troops unavailable, the burden of military intervention falls on air and naval forces. The Libyan campaign began with a no-fly zone that quickly morphed into a large-scale campaign to support rebel efforts to destroy the Gadhafi regime. The early course of the campaign recalled the first months of the Afghanistan War, in which the United States overthrew the Taliban with airpower, special forces and Northern Alliance ground forces.

Galrahn was making the anti-airpower case on Twitter yesterday; it's unusual for me to be more bullish on airpower than just about anyone, but I think I'm slightly more optimistic than he.