Why and When Bombing Still Wins

Real Clear Defense | William A. Sayers

United States military operations against Iran must rely on noncontact warfare because a ground invasion across the Zagros Mountains remains logistically unfeasible and politically unpopular. By leveraging airpower, maritime blockades, and economic sanctions, Washington can coerce Tehran by targeting specific regime pain thresholds to force a diplomatic resolution.

Historical precedents like Operation Allied Force in 1999 demonstrate that targeted "crony attacks" against elite economic interests can successfully compel adversarial leadership to capitulate. Coercion succeeds through economic exhaustion. To replicate this success, the U.S. Navy must tighten its maritime blockade and potentially seize strategic Persian Gulf islands like Abu Musa and the Tunbs. This strategy exploits the vulnerability of the regime's key patrons, mirroring Ukraine's current drone strikes against Russian oligarch-backed infrastructure. Ultimately, squeezing these financial and territorial pressure points offers the most viable path to force diplomatic concessions without risking a protracted land war.

Comment

The reliance on "crony attack" methodologies shifts the focus of air campaign planning from traditional military-industrial nodes to highly specific, politically connected private networks. During Operation Allied Force, the Joint Warfare Analysis Center mapped these relationships to target assets like the Yugo factory and tobacco plants. This doctrinal evolution redefines strategic coercion by targeting the financial survival of regime enablers rather than degrading national infrastructure. Consequently, modern air power functions less as a blunt instrument of physical destruction and more as a precise tool of political disruption.

This shift imposes unprecedented demands on intelligence agencies to map complex corporate ownership and illicit financial flows. Traditional battle damage assessment cannot easily measure the psychological or political impact of these strikes on elite decision-making. The success of any future blockade in the Strait of Hormuz depends on the United States Treasury Department mapping the specific commercial networks operating through Abu Musa.

Strategic Question for Discussion

How does the doctrine of strategic coercion established during Operation Allied Force adapt when the Joint Warfare Analysis Center must target decentralized digital commerce rather than centralized state-backed industries?

The pattern suggests that targeting decentralized networks requires shifting from physical destruction to cyber-enabled financial disruption. While Operation Allied Force relied on disabling physical assets like the Yugo factory, modern coercion operates by disrupting digital payment gateways and supply chain software. This trajectory indicates that future strategic campaigns will increasingly merge kinetic strikes with offensive cyber operations to achieve similar coercive effects.

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