To bomb or not to bomb? Counterinsurgency, airpower, and dynamic targeting

Air & Space Power Journal, Winter, 2007 by Jason M. Brown

These examples show how the effectiveness of air strikes relates to understanding the insurgents' network structure and integration with the population. The hierarchical structure of hamas made it vulnerable to air strikes, whereas the decentralized structure of Hezbollah enabled it to remain combat effective despite the destruction of many fighters and much equipment. (17) Israel's experience shows that, much like treating a cancer, combat operations prove more effective on an immature and isolated insurgency.

In a counterinsurgency campaign, understanding what targets to hit represents just the first step. The second involves the way we strike them--arguably a more vital process in irregular than in regular warfare. Because insurgents operate within a population, they are difficult to distinguish from innocent civilians and can disappear quickly. When targeting them, counterinsurgency forces cannot afford delays, multiple attacks, and occasional misses. attacking insurgents requires speed, lethality, and precision.

Speed, Lethality, and Precision

In 2004 the presence of a few Marine snipers, reacting quickly and using deadly accuracy, wreaked havoc on insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq. (18) Airpower cannot match the speed, lethality, and precision of a sniper, but the sniper example shows the importance of these factors in engaging insurgents kinetically. Historically, airpower has fallen short with regard to these criteria when engaging insurgents on its own. Beginning in the 1980s, however, the Israelis developed tactics using unmanned aerial vehicles and precision-guided munitions to counter mobile surface-to-air-missile systems. (19) They eventually adapted these tactics to target terrorist leaders in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, giving airpower a new role in counterinsurgency warfare. Although technology has made airpower more viable in targeting insurgents and terrorists, we must improve our processes to achieve the level of speed, lethality, and precision needed to fight them.

The first criterion, speed, is especially critical in counterinsurgency because of insurgents' mobility and ability to melt away quickly into the population. We have only fleeting opportunities to strike them. If a commander decides to engage an insurgent target, he or she usually does so when the target is distinguishable, stationary, and vulnerable to attack with low risk of collateral damage. The target situation can change very rapidly, however, especially in an urban environment. Insurgents can move, and civilians can become a factor at any time. When commanders see an opportunity to strike, their forces must do so in seconds or minutes, not hours.

Col John Boyd argued that the individual who observes, orients, decides, and acts (OODA) at a faster tempo than his enemy will succeed in combat. This notion is just as relevant in irregular warfare as it is in regular warfare. The OODA loop deals not only with combat success but also with adapting to survive. (20) Therefore, insurgents must make every effort to keep their loop short. In looking for ways to accelerate our loop, we tend to focus on technical, logistical, and tactical improvements. These can improve aspects of the observe, orient, and act phases, but the decide portion consists of cognitive processes and comprises the nexus of "Clausewitzian friction." (21) This makes the decision phase the most time-consuming process during the dynamic targeting of insurgents with airpower. In 1928 Wing Cdr R. H. Peck of the Royal Air Force discussed his experience in dealing with decision-making delays while fighting insurgents in Iraq: