Air power in humanitarian intervention: Kosovo and Libya in comparative perspective

Abstract

It would be hard to overstate the importance of air power in humanitarian intervention (HI) and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). Yet, the role of air power in HI and R2P has been understudied. This article seeks to remedy the lack of systematic investigation. It does so by developing a framework for assessing the effectiveness of air power during military operations in HI and R2P and applies it to NATO’s air campaigns in Kosovo (Operation Allied Force) and Libya (Operation Unified Protector). Upon examination NATO is revealed to have fared better in Libya than Kosovo in positively accomplishing its stated humanitarian objectives, minimizing collateral damage and reducing the costs for the interveners, all of which are aspects considered by the model. The relative effectiveness of Operations Unified Protector is generally attributed to geography, diplomacy and technology. It is argued that better ground support, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and burden sharing are needed to enhance the utility of air power in HI and R2P even further.

Keywords:

• Air power
• humanitarian intervention
• R2P
• NATO
• Kosovo
• Libya

Notes

1. Air power is defined as the “ability to project power from the air and space to influence the behavior of people or the course of events.” (The UK Ministry of Defence 2009, p. 7). On air power, see for example, (Douhet 1942, Warden 1988, Pape 1996, Mitchell 2010).

2. HI and R2P refer to the use of military force publicly stated to end the violation of human rights in another country. This definition allows for the fact that the interveners’ real or sole motivation might not be the establishment of human rights when they invoke HI and R2P. Moreover, it deliberately excludes intervention undertaken without military force to alleviate large-scale human suffering. This is appropriate for the purposes of this article as it seeks to address the role of airpower in HI and R2P during military operations.

3. The most ambitious pieces in this regard are: (Robinson 2000, Peifer 2008, Bosilca et al. 2013, Dorn 2016). The publication closest to the current investigation is (Gregory 2015). Gregory’s study does however not adopt the humanitarian framework developed here and addresses an entirely different set of research questions. His “book focuses primarily on the employment of air power against military ground formations … with the purpose of analyzing contemporary thinking on air power among politicians, military leaders, and the general public” (Gregory 2015, p. 3).

4. For other publications assessing the effectiveness of air power outside the context of HI and R2P, see e.g. (Horowitz and Reiter 2001, Allen and Vincent 2011, Kocher et al. 2011, Allen and Martinez Machain 2017).

5. These figures are based on GNP comparisons for the year prior to the intervention. The World.

Bank and OECD National Accounts Data for GNP counts the United States as 9 trillion United States and Serbia as 6.5 billion in 1999. In 2010, the United had a GNP of 11 trillion and Libya 50 billion. (The World Bank 2017).

6. The lead-up to the war in Kosovo was however longer than that in Libya. As Ramesh Thakur (2016, p. 205) puts it: “it took NATO over a year to intervene in the Balkans in 1999 with air power. In Libya, it took just one month to mobilize a broad coalition, secure a UN mandate to protect civilians, establish and enforce no-fly and no-drive zones, stop Gadhafi’s advancing army and prevent a massacre in Benghazi”.