Looking to the skies: Operation Unified Protector and the strategy of aerial intervention

In: International interactions: empirical and theoretical research in international relations

Abstract

What are the different ways in which an intervener can use airpower to enhance a rebel organization's ability to capture government-held territory? Multiple studies have analyzed how foreign airpower can be employed as a counterinsurgency tool, intended to reduce the frequency and lethality of insurgent attacks. However, many civil wars are fought conventionally, and non-state actors can benefit from military interventions that helps them to overcome the advantage in capabilities often enjoyed by their government adversaries. I analyze how airpower can be used in support of a rebel organization engaged in a conventional civil war, contributing to its ability to produce salient battlefield information. I argue that that an intervener can employ direct attack against heavy weapons and anti-aircraft assets, and interdiction of command and control capabilities and logistics, in order to diminish the government's advantage in conventional capabilities. In doing so, foreign airpower contributes to the rebels' ability to capture territory, a crucial intermediary goal and source of battlefield information when attempting to impose defeat on the government. Through a quantitative case study of Operation Unified Protector and the 2011 Libyan Civil War, I find that coalition airstrikes against the Libyan government's heavy weapons, logistics, and anti-aircraft assets contributed to the Libyan rebels' ability to capture territory. By contrast, strikes against the government's command and control capabilities had no effect.