Letters

摘要

I have, for the past 15 years, attempted to correct misunderstanding of the targeting philosophy my staff and I advocated during Operation Allied Force. I have focused that effort on professional forums and in classrooms, combined, joint, and Air Force. I have intentionally avoided responding to the myriad of well-intentioned but misinformed articles appearing in this and other publications. The article that appeared in the April edition of Air Force Magazine ["Watershed Air War," April, p. 58] has, however, prompted me to make an attempt to set the record straight. My staff and I believed from the very beginning of Operation Allied Force that the desired end state could best be achieved by targeting the strategic center of gravity. Our analysis was that Milosevic and the men and women who suppported him constituted that strategic center of gravity. We did not wish to "target Belgrade" because "it would have been much easier to hit large fixed visible targets." We wished to strike a target set centered in and around Belgrade because we believed that affecting those targets would bring pressure to bear on Milosevic to a much greater degree than would striking tanks and armored vehicles in Kosovo. Military operations are conducted in order to have the desired effect on the adversary. The desired effect was to stop the killing in Kosovo, bring Milosevic to the table, and force him to accept NATO terms. I believed then and continue to believe now that airpower is most effective if applied against the strategic center of gravity from the beginning of a conflict. We had a purpose to our effort and it had nothing to do with the "ease" of attacking the targets. In fact, the risk involved in striking at the strategic center of gravity was much greater than the risk involved in striking tanks in Kosovo.