What role has air-power played in warfare after 1945 Essay

What role has air-power played in warfare after 1945 - Essay Example However, in the event that the enemy proves stronger than anticipated, it uses airpower to carry out air offensives against the enemy. Airpower in this case refers to a military strategy that involves carrying out aerial bombardments from the air, which in most cases are done using fighter jets. Some of the wars that America has involved airpower include World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Serbian War and the Afghan War, just to name but a few. However, Corum (2007) claims that the use of airpower has been marred with controversy since 1945. In this regard, there are those that believe that airpower has helped in emerging victorious while there are critics who believe that airpower has been a failure in the U.S. warfare. The aim of this paper is to analyze the successes and failures of airpower based on case studies. Opinion is divided down the middle regarding the effectiveness of airpower in warfare. On one hand is a section of the society that believes that airpower has played a huge role in enhancing the success rates of the U.S. force in the wars it has fought in the past. On the other hand, are critics who feel that air power has not achieved any meaningful success in some of the wars that the U.S. has fought. The U.S. has fought, the U.S. military has been using airpower as a tactics of maintaining superiority by suppressing the enemy’s ability to fight. This was witnessed during the World War II in which the U.S. and its allies used airpower to gain superiority over their opponents (the German forces especially) through aerial bombardments. As a result, it became very hard for the German forces to mount strong resistance against the U.S. and its allies (Keegan 1990, p. 31). This enabled the allied forces win the war more easily than earlier anticipated. The events of WWII are one of the success stories of airpower in warfare. Apart from the success of Airpower in WWII, there exists other warfare where airpower has been successful. For instance, the use of airpower played a huge role in winning the Gulf War during Operation Desert Storm. The Desert Storm was a war against Iraq for its invasion of Kuwait. The war begun on August 2, 1990 and ended on February 28, 1991 with the U.S. and its allies emerging victorious. However, the success in winning this war has been linked mainly to the use of airpower. Momyer (2003, p. 5) reveals that the U.S. and its allies used airpower during the first days of intervention in the war to destroy Iraq’s air defense system, thereby allowing the allied forces to gain control of Iraq’s air before introducing the ground forces. The U.S. forces and its allied forces carried out massive bombardments from the air to gain control over Iraq’s airspace. In so doing, the allied forces also managed to capture all the Iraq government’s infrastructures before deploying the military to takel vantage positions. Momyer (2003) notes that the main aim of air attacks w as to pave way for the U.N. backed ground forces. In fact, reports show that after taking control of the air through aerial bombardments, the ground forces found it easy fighting the Iraqi forces as their major efforts was now devoted mainly to attacks against the communication lines that the Iraqi forces used. This was followed by assaults on the defense lines of the Iraq forces. In the end, the U.S. led forces emerged victorious in the war. Supporters of airpower have argued that without the use of airpower, the war would have taken the U.S. and allied forces more time to win than it actually took. This is because the Iraqi forces would have taken advantage of the air to attack the allied forces. Even though the airpower proved effective in winning the G