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.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:fhs-9158 |
| Date | January 2020 |
| Creators | Cvetkovski, Niklas |
| Publisher | Försvarshögskolan |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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