Saudi Arabia Resumes Air Strikes in Yemen

The Independent reports:

Yemenis are wondering if the 28-day Saudi bombing campaign is really over or whether the war has simply entered a new phase. Air strikes were still taking place in Aden, Taiz and other Yemeni cities hours after they were supposed to have ceased.

And nobody in Yemen supposes that the war the Saudis escalated when they started bombing on 26 March can be concluded just because the bombs have stopped falling.

The Houthis, the Shia militia whom the Saudis are supposedly trying to displace from power, overran an armoured brigade headquarters in Taiz after heavy fighting as the air war ended. Whatever else Saudi bombing has done, it has not broken the Houthi’s grip on power.

The course of the air war has been very similar to successive Israeli bombardments of Lebanon and Gaza over the past 20 years. First, there are bloodcurdling claims how the enemy will be defeated by airpower alone. Then, it becomes clear that air strikes are doing a lot of damage to civilians – 944 Yemenis have been killed and 3,487 wounded so far, according to the World Health Organisation – but are not having a decisive impact on opposing military forces. Finally, there are mounting demands that air war ends from foreign countries, notably from the US, which has aided the Saudi airforce with intelligence and logistics.

The lack of success of the Saudi Air Force should come as no surprise. The Saudi Air Force is trained by the United States Air Force and has become imbued with the same misconceptions and errors as to the effectiveness of bombing campaigns.

Although the United States never fully succumbed to Britain's theory in WWII that carpet bombing enemy cities for the express purpose of killing civilians would lead to strategic victory, the U.S. did fall victim to the idea that, rather than being an operational tool, aerial bombing campaigns were strategy--that is, aerial bombing could win a war. U.S. theories on the use of aerial bombing evolved in small ways since WWII, but still focus on the destruction of key infrastructure necessary to the enemy's command and control. In fact, this and air-superiority are the primary mission of the U.S.A.F., and dominate and explain the programs and equipment sought by the Air Force.

This type of strategic bombing can be extremely helpful when facing an enemy that is centralized and dependent on a command and control infrastructure (e.g., Saddam's Iraq in both wars). However, it is much less useful when facing an enemy that is decentralized and/or not particularly dependent on infrastructure, as shown by every insurgency in which the U.S. has been involved. Yes, you can destroy a weapon's depot or artillery position, but, after a while, all an air force is doing is uselessly pounding the rubble. And in today's world, strategic bombing can be less than useless when the enemy cowers behind the skirts of women and children, or in bunkers beneath schools and hospitals.

The reality of war is that air power is most effective when employed in support of ground forces. Saudi Arabia has not realized any benefit from its air campaign because there is nothing important for it bomb on a strategic level. It needs boots on the ground, and an air force willing and able to provide close air support.