Air power has shown its usefulness throughout many wars and has been an effective tool for military interventions during the last decades. How airpower should be applied has been a highly debated topic for as long as it has been around. However, its use in humanitarian interventions is comparatively unresearched. One theorist that have received a lot of attention is John Warden and his five-ring-model. The purpose of this thesis is to test Wardens theory in humanitarian interventions, in order to contribute with research on the use of airpower in humanitarian interventions. This thesis is a comparative case study examining two similar and successful humanitarian interventions, Operation Deliberate Force and Operation Odyssey Dawn/Unified Protector. Results show that Wardens theory can not explain the success of the use of airpower in the operations. There are however some interesting similarities between the two operations that could be the key to success in humanitarian interventions. Further research is required to investigate this conclusion. / <p>Uppsatsen skriven VT 2018 under Termin 4 Officersprogrammet 16-19 med inriktning mot flyg. Examen genomförs VT 2019.</p>

Air power has shown its usefulness throughout many wars and has been an effective tool for military interventions during the last decades. How airpower should be applied has been a highly debated topic for as long as it has been around. However, its use in humanitarian interventions is comparatively unresearched. One theorist that have received a lot of attention is John Warden and his five-ring-model. The purpose of this thesis is to test Wardens theory in humanitarian interventions, in order to contribute with research on the use of airpower in humanitarian interventions. This thesis is a comparative case study examining two similar and successful humanitarian interventions, Operation Deliberate Force and Operation Odyssey Dawn/Unified Protector. Results show that Wardens theory can not explain the success of the use of airpower in the operations. There are however some interesting similarities between the two operations that could be the key to success in humanitarian interventions. Further research is required to investigate this conclusion.

During the last decades airpower has become a useful tool for military interventions. Earlier research argues that air operations during the first Gulf war proved that strategic bombing could be effective due to modern technology and precision guided munitions. John Warden developed a theory based on strategic bombing, where he sees the enemy as a system, which is illustrated by a five-ring-model. The theory is widely discussed in the modern airpower debate, and has also been criticized because it has not been proved in any large-N study. Therefore, this essay aims to test Wardens five-ring-model in a comparative case study where two modern air operations have been chosen for investigation. The two operations are Operation Deliberate Force that took place Bosnia, 1995, and Operation Odyssey Dawn/Unified Protector that took place in Libya, 2011. The two operations have many similarities but differ in the time it took to reach their designated goals. The results indicate that Wardens theory is not capable of explaining why the two operations differed in the time it took to achieve its goals. The operations did not act according to Wardens five-ring-model to a sufficiently large extent when other targets were more frequently attacked than the ones that Warden advocates to be the most effective. Warden states that his theory is very general and can be used for any opponent, but the results of this essay indicate that it may be to general to be able to explain the outcome of an operation.

Airpower has shown its usefulness throughout many wars and was seen as a key instrument in the Libyan war 2011. However, the use of airpower and how it should be applied has been a highly debated topic for as long as airpower has been around. Two theorists, John A. Warden III and Robert A. Pape, have received a lot of attention and there is a debate regarding which one of these theorists has the best solution on how to use airpower. The purpose with this essay is to apply some of the two theorists’ ideas on the Libyan war 2011 and investigate their explanatory power in the conflict. To reach an answer, a case study has been used with a theory testing method which would further seek to contribute to the debate that exists between the two theorists. Results show that some parts of the theorists’ ideas have a high explanatory power in the conflict and some parts do not. As individuals, they cannot explain the whole war, but together their ideas have a high explanatory power in the conflict. Based on the ongoing debate that provides two different ways of using airpower, the conclusions suggest that a combination of the two theorists’ ideas might be the answer to how airpower can be employed in the best way for future operations. Further research is required to investigate this thesis. / <p><strong>Uppsatsen skriven VT 2017 under Termin 4 Officersprogrammet 15-18 med inriktning</strong><strong>mot flyg. Examen genomförs VT 2018. </strong></p>

The debate amongst theorists on how to best utilize airpower is still ongoing. There is some consensus among scholars that attacking military targets directly is an effective strategy, one of those theorists is Robert A. Pape. Most research on the subject only examine historical cases and does not factor in more contemporary difficulties. The purpose of this study is to examine Robert A. Pape’s airpower theory of denial in a comparative case study. The two cases, Operation Odyssey Dawn and Enduring Freedom, are succesful contemporary operations where airpower played a major role in a military intervention with the intent to examine which part of Pape’s theory is still curant in modern and dynamic conflicts. The results show that the denial strategy contributed to the success in both cases for the most part by providing air support to ground troops. The effect of operational interventions differed between the cases and the reasons why may have several explanations. Strategic intervention had neither effect nor occurrence in either case which may be due to the operations reaching objectives in a short amount of time and to restrictions on collateral damage. Further research is required to cement the conclusions.

In 2011, a coalition of member states in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization together with partner nations outside of the alliance cooperated against the Libyan regime led by Colonel Muammar Khadaffi. The primary goals of the operations in Libya were to protect the civil population from attacks by the Libyan regime, maintain the no-flyzone and arms embargo. The operations in Libya proved to be successful and many authors claims that airpower were the main key to the victory.John A. Warden III and Robert A. Pape have been mentioned in discussions about airpower and there have also been a debate regarding which theory that best describes how air power should be used. Some authors who have examined the Libyan war claims that the outcome can be understood with John Wardens theories while other claims that it can be understood from Robert Papes theories.This study aims to examine and try to understand the outcome of the air campaign in Libya 2011. Based on the accomplishment of air power in the Libyan civil war along with the debate between John Warden and Robert Pape the conclusion of this study is that the success in the war can be identified in both theories. John Warden’s theory about strategic airpower together with Robert Pape’s theory about direct support of ground forces seems to be the key factor that ended the war with a successful outcome.