Quick someone tell me the last time a bombing campaign against a state caused that state to collapse? Can you think of one? I surely can not think of one instance where a bombing campaign caused a state actor to collapse.
In case any reader has forgotten or you have not read any of my previous blogs, I have said that I consider IS to be a revolutionary movement based on a radical religious-based identity (and I am not saying that all Muslims are radical), not an ethno-nationalist movement, and gasp, not a terrorist movement--though they make ample use of terrorizing the locals to acheive governing authority. IS uses terror and force to control the population in the territory it is attempting to govern in its attempt at creation of a modern Islamic Caliphate. IS is using force to push existing government forces and local militias out of the territory it is attempting to control. I am basically arguing that IS is a quasi-state actor trying to build a country (a quasi-state actor because no other set of actors is willing to recognize this state as legitimate).
Back to the original question of this post. If--big if--IS is a state-like actor, why should we expect that a bombing campaign is going to be enough to defeat IS? The Doolittle Raid did not cause Japan to surrender, neither did the March 1945 fire bombing of Tokyo, it took two atomic bombs after years of hard fighting and mounting irreplaceable losses. Bombing Dresden did not cause Germany to surrender, rather years of fighting and growing insurmountable losses of which Dresden was only one caused Germany to fall in WWII. Bombing the North during the Vietnam War did not cause North Vietnam to lose, did it? For my two cents, the world must do a better job of supplying and supporting ground forces against IS or find a different strategy for containing and ultimately defeating IS, air strikes are simply not going to be the answer.
In case any reader has forgotten or you have not read any of my previous blogs, I have said that I consider IS to be a revolutionary movement based on a radical religious-based identity (and I am not saying that all Muslims are radical), not an ethno-nationalist movement, and gasp, not a terrorist movement--though they make ample use of terrorizing the locals to acheive governing authority. IS uses terror and force to control the population in the territory it is attempting to govern in its attempt at creation of a modern Islamic Caliphate. IS is using force to push existing government forces and local militias out of the territory it is attempting to control. I am basically arguing that IS is a quasi-state actor trying to build a country (a quasi-state actor because no other set of actors is willing to recognize this state as legitimate).
Back to the original question of this post. If--big if--IS is a state-like actor, why should we expect that a bombing campaign is going to be enough to defeat IS? The Doolittle Raid did not cause Japan to surrender, neither did the March 1945 fire bombing of Tokyo, it took two atomic bombs after years of hard fighting and mounting irreplaceable losses. Bombing Dresden did not cause Germany to surrender, rather years of fighting and growing insurmountable losses of which Dresden was only one caused Germany to fall in WWII. Bombing the North during the Vietnam War did not cause North Vietnam to lose, did it? For my two cents, the world must do a better job of supplying and supporting ground forces against IS or find a different strategy for containing and ultimately defeating IS, air strikes are simply not going to be the answer.
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