You've struck on the key strength of air power here. It is not in attacking targets, air power cannot be used to deny access to land, factories or oil, only infantry can do that.
But, air powers key strength is in disrupting logistics. Not only can it be used to destroy the transportation network, but in conjunction with sufficient intelligence, it can be used to disrupt production - for the short term. By disrupting an enemies ability to move food and supplies, you demoralize the military (not the population), and you greatly reduce their fighting effectiveness. Making them easy pickings for well supplied troops coming in from the other way.
Air power is most dominate at sea, because the key element, men, have no where to hide. Because America does not fight sea battles anymore, it makes our air force (and navel birds) very expensive methods of disrupting the enemies ability to move food and supplies. Effectively, we have a multi billion dollar partisan army on hand. If we took the time to use intelligence to cultivate rebel groups in enemy nations, we could do a much more effective and less expensive job of it.
But then, partisan armies don't make for good coverage on CNN. |
