It’s true that there are very few examples in 20th century history of a bombing campaign that actually broke the morale of a people at war and sapped them of the will to continue the fight. The Battle of Britain did nothing but harden the resolve of the English, and the destruction of German cities didn’t stop the German people from fighting on to the end (even if Bomber Harris and Hap Arnold did much to hasten that end). The use of nuclear weapons was effective in the Pacific, but only after horrific fire bombings that did nothing to bring the Japanese to heel. Bombing worked in Serbia, but not in the First Gulf War or Vietnam. The Middle East has been no different. Wars have been won or lost by boots on the ground, with air power playing a crucial but secondary role in each of Israel’s major wars since its independence. In Israel’s current fight in Gaza, against a terrorist organization rather than a state actor, air power alone seems even less likely to produce a successful outcome. The great failure of the 2006 war in Lebanon was an overreliance on air power, and in Afghanistan in late 2001, the same problem contributed to the escape of al Qaeda’s leadership from Tora Bora. Still, there aren’t many instances of air power used to the effect of this report now coming out of Gaza:
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