Defeating with Drones: Challenging Airpower Theories with Evidence from FATA

• In Event: Weapons and Arms Transfers

Abstract

Operation Desert Storm had a profound impact on American airpower as well as on scholarship explaining the use of coercive airpower against states. Coercive airpower theorists lauded the primary use of airpower to coerce (deter from taking an action or undo an action) an adversary. However, the post-Cold war era after Desert Storm saw a surge in asymmetric and irregular warfare during which air power proved to be insufficient in coercing non-state groups. Theorists such as Van Creveld, Lambeth, Boot, and Biddle argue that traditional counterinsurgency tactics—not airpower—are effective against guerillas, terrorists, and insurgencies and airpower has failed to achieve strategic gains. My findings challenge these conclusions, as I argue that the exclusive use of unmanned aerial vehicles in Pakistan’s tribal belt, known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), have achieved tactical gains as well as had strategic impact. With qualitative data collected from 116 interviews with FATA residents, this paper assesses the effectiveness of the American drone program in Pakistan’s tribal areas, examines whether the use of drones generated coercive leverage via decapitation, attrition, and punishment (Pape 1996, Byman 2006, Schelling 2008, Johnston 2012, Lyall 2014), and challenges conventional airpower theories.

Author

• Neha Ansari, Tufts University