On 5 June 1967, the Israeli Air Force launched a surprise attack against the Egyptian Air Force and started what was to be known as the Six Day War. The Six Day War is a good example of when a small nation manages to singlehandedly defeat a superior adversary. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the success of the Israeli Air Force and their contribution to the victory. The use of air power in the Six Day War will be analyzed, using John Warden’s Five Ring Model and Shaun Clarke’s theories about risk-based coercion and SPOT-bombing. Research findings indicate that Shaun Clarke’s theories about coercion may to some extent explain the success of the Israeli Air Force. Attacking the armed forces created the threat of further violence against more valuable and vulnerable targets causing the Arabic leaders to choose peaceful solutions instead of continued fighting. Furthermore, the SPOT-bombing analyzes show that the psychological effect that the Israeli Air Force had on their adversary played a significant role in the campaign against Egypt. However, Warden’s model could not explain the reasons behind the outcome of the war.

Air power alone cannot hold ground and secure the population. How then can air power contribute to irregular conflicts? Robert Johnson states in his article Predicting Future War that air power have the potential to determine the outcome of irregular operations. Even though air superiority was achieved during the two battles of Fallujah in Iraq 2004 there is a difference in the outcome of the two operations, Vigilant Resolve and Phantom Fury. The purpose of this thesis is to examine if Warden´s theory The Enemy as a System and his Five-Ring Model can explain the variation in the outcome of the two battles using a comparative case study. Research findings indicate that the Five-Ring Model cannot explain why the second operation, Phan-tom Fury was a victory. The findings indicate that striking the most critical ring, i.e. Leaders, did not contribute to victory. Instead, results indicate that the most critical ring leading to victory in the second operation were Infrastructure. The main conclusion of the thesis is that the theory cannot explain the variation in the outcomes and that Warden´s Five-Ring Model cannot be applied to an irregular enemy and therefore needs to be questioned and further researched. The findings further strengthen earlier research stating that the most critical part of an enemy may not always be represented by Leaders.

John A. Warden’s theory the enemy as a system has been influential and attributed to large scale victories, such as Operation Desert Storm. It advocates offensive use of air power by parallel attacks on the enemy’s strategic center. While doctrines of small states are dependent and influenced by the military thinking of great power nations, its capacity and necessary priorities for the use of air power may differ. This study examines Warden’s theory through two cases, the Six Day War and the Second Lebanon War. Both relied on air power executed by a small state, Israel. The result show that Warden’s theory can partly explain Israelic victory during the Six Day War, but with substantial differentiations from the theory’s advocation of attacks on the enemy strategic leadership. The findings are ambiguous and neither strengthens nor weakens the theory. The analysis of the Second Lebanon War indicates that air power was insufficient in achieving strategic victory in the war against Hezbollah, even though the execution of the air operation had significant resemblance to Warden’s theory, thus weakening the theory.

På vilket sätt skiljer sig de militära domänernas förmåga att bidra till framgång vid tvångsmaktsförsök? Vad förklarar skillnaden? Tidigare forskning menar att det finns skillnader som systematiskt går att förklara utifrån perspektivet att: mindre kostsamma hot leder till bristande trovärdighet och således liten sannolikhet för framgång. Studien undersöker dessa två frågor genom en kvantitativ empirisk analys utifrån historiska observationer och genomför en teoretisk prövning utifrån ett kontrasterande perspektiv till tidigare forskning; ett mindre kostsamt hot bidrar till hög trovärdighet utifrån Daryl G. Press teori. Resultatet från denna studie visar att det finns tydliga skillnader mellan domänernas effekt för framgång inom det empiriska underlaget. Dessa skillnader är föränderliga inom den undersökta perioden. Efter andra världskrigets slut framstår marina- och luftstridskrafter ha ett mer tydligt samband med framgångsrik tvångsmakt relativt markdomänen. Press teori predikterar utfallet med tillräcklig säkerhet för att ifrågasätta tidigare forsknings slutsatser kring bristande trovärdighet som effekt av minde kostsamma hot.

John Warden är en inflytelserik luftmaktsteoretiker som låg bakom koalitionens luftkampanj mot Irak 1991. Han menar att luftmakt bör användas för att slå ut motståndarens motståndskraft genom att rikta anfall mot kritiska tyngdpunkter. Han illustrerar tyngdpunkterna genom att måla upp motståndaren som ett system bestående av fem ringar som visar hur systemet bör angripas. Shaun Clarke menar att småstater inte kan använda Wardens luftmaktsteori eftersom det kräver stor massa och därför en stormakts resurstillgångar. Han lanserar därför SPOT-paradigmet som en väg för småstaten att anamma strategisk bombning på ett resurseffektivt sätt. Denna studie prövar Wardens och Clarkes förklaringskraft genom en fallstudie på Israels luftmaktsutövande under operation Protective Edge 2014, för att se om Clarkes påstående är giltigt och om SPOT-paradigmet är användbart för småstaten.Studien visar att femringsmodellen har låg förklaringskraft på Israels nyttjande av luftmakt. Man har i huvudsak inte följt Wardens rekommendationer. SPOT-paradigmet har däremot hög förklaringskraft och studien förefaller stärka teorin i småstatens luftanfall mot en svagare motståndare.

Luftmakt är i relation till andra tvångsmaktsmedel relativt nytt. Tvångsmedlet har använts under cirka 100 år för att påverka motståndarens beslutsfattande. Luftmakt anammades snabbt av resursstarka stormakter, som då också skapade grundförutsättningar för dess användande. Med tid och teknikutveckling har även mindre resursstarka stater tagit till sig luftmakt, men då också behållit stormakternas teoretiska grund och doktriner. Detta utgör ett problem för en resurssvag småstat – att använda ett tvångsmaktsmedel där det råder obalans mellan tillgängliga resurser och tänkt användningsområde. Shaun Clarke utvecklar år 2001 en luftmaktsteori för småstater där denna obalans i resurser omhändertas och utnyttjas. Ett problem kopplat till småstatsteori är att det ofta saknas empirisk grund för dess validitet, detta gäller även för Clarkes teori. Syftet med studien är att pröva hans teori mot två skilda fall, där småstater segrat med hjälp av luftmakt. Studiens fall är luftmaktsanvändning i Bekaadalen 1982 och Andra Karabakh-kriget 2020. Studiens resultat visar att Clarkes teori delvis kan förklaras i de båda fallen och kräver ytterligare prövning innan teorin kan bekräftas eller avfärdas med empirisk bevisning.

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.

The Falklands War is well studied but there are currently no theoretically based analyzes specifically aimed at explaining Operation Black Buck, a long-range bombing of Argentine targets on the Falklands with strategic bombers, despite its controversial and unique nature. By illustrating the case on the basis of a theory-consuming approach, this study examines the purpose of the operation in an effort to understand why the British Air Force justified the missions despite the great challenges.  The theoretical framework for this study is seen through the eyes of the most prominent theorists in modern air power debate; John Warden and Robert Pape. The important aspect in this study is not the authors disagreements but rather that their theories can be seen as complementary to each other in understanding this case.  The study shows that the purpose of Operation Black Buck was aimed at denying the Argentines the opportunity to use the airport at Stanley for military purposes. In addition, there was a deterrent value that indirectly gave a strategic effect by deploying strategic bombers to demonstrate will, determination and hint at the ability to strike the Argentine mainland. The driving force behind the operation was the British effort in trying to achieve air superiority which was a critical objective during the war.

During the cold war small states Air Forces operated as tactical resources in coalitions led by superpowers. After the cold war small states face new threats where the ability to fight independently is crucial to survival. Most of today’s air power theories focus on superpowers and do not mention specific details about its applicability within the small state’s context which leave small states in a state of confusion regarding their creation of doctrinal focus. Shaun Clarkes air power theory focuses directly on small states Air Forces and constitutes factors that conforms to the war principle of surprise. Clarke’s theory and the principle of surprise are both in need of critical empirical studies. This study contributes by supplementing the theory with the principle and conduct a case study on the Israeli Air Force performance during the six-day war and Yom Kippur war.  The result of the study strengthens the explanatory power of the theory by the conformance of its aspects with the successful operations of the six-day war while not being able to explain the operations of the less successful Yom Kippur war. The observation of underlying variables that may have affected the outcome means that the result cannot be generalized to other cases but indicates that it is an interesting aspect for small states as Sweden to consider during the creation of a doctrinal orientation.

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>