Operation Allied Force: The Siren Song of Air Power
Abstract
Serbia has long considered itself an underappreciated vanguard of European values. This sentiment dates to the Ottoman conquest and runs through the 20th century: Serbia fought alongside the Allies on the Eastern Front in World War 1, losing more than a quarter of it population in the process. During World War 2, Serbian royalist fighters rescued and sheltered more than 500 downed Allied pilots and airmen in German-controlled Serbia. Being bombed by these same forces in 1999, with no ground forces committed to the conflict, was viewed by many Serbs as acts of cowardice and betrayal. Although many students, leftists, and intellectuals protested Serbia's involvement in the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the early 1990s, many of these same groups rallied to support Milosevic once the bombing began in 1999. This comports with Pape's belief that bombing campaigns have the potential to generate "more public anger against the attacker than against the target government."
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 09, 2023
- Accession Number
- AD1210351
Entities
People
- James Hagengruber
Organizations
- Naval War College