Air Campaign as Regime Change
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Still upset but decided to go a bit more analytical for my follow up thoughts on Iran. With respect to the prospects for regime change, I have my doubts.
Airpower has a limited capacity to destroy a political system.
This means that airstrikes can destroy targets associated with the preservation of a regime, including leadership on the one hand and centers of administration and symbolic value on the other.
The “regime” is one of the innermost circles of John Warden’s Five Rings system for thinking about airpower, indicating that airpower has long sought to direct targeting at the essentials of an enemy government.
But airpower cannot dictate outcomes on the ground. The capacity to destroy is limited by real, physical constraints (there are more police stations in Iran than Tomahawk missiles in US stocks) and by the fact that the attacker suffers from stark informational constraints.
People on the ground necessarily understand the political situation better than the people selecting targets from afar. The United States can kill the Supreme Leader, then another, and then another, but it cannot determine who the next Supreme Leader will be, and it will eventually run out of functional munitions. Damage to the regime may spur demonstrations (although historically this outcome has been extremely rare), but airpower cannot dictate which anti-regime faction will take power.
Just like I had doubts about the same thing in Venezuela. But don’t listen to me, when you can listen to Bob Pape…