The air campaign over Libya has rekindled the debate about what exactly air power can accomplish without “boots on the ground.”
The First Gulf War, followed by the Iraq no-fly zones and the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, suggested to some theorists that much could be accomplished without recourse to ground troops. Then came the Second Gulf War and its bloody aftermath in Iraq, plus Afghanistan, to suggest that only full-scale, all-arms interventions can really lead to regime change.
Chris Pocock has been covering the defense beat for AIN for over 30 years. He is a British citizen and a graduate of the University of Cambridge. Chris worked in the air cargo business for ten years before becoming a full-time writer in 1983. He subsequently edited two air cargo journals before becoming AIN’s Defense Editor. He retired from that position in 2018, but still contributes to the publication. Chris has written extensively on aerial reconnaissance, including four books on the history of the U-2 spyplane. He also lectures on this and other topics related to intelligence-gathering in the Cold War.
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