Lieutenant Colonel Kenneth C. Schow, Jr., Usaf
During the Lebanon conflict, the Israeli Air Force(IAF) employed the most advanced combat aircraft in the world to attack targets in southern Lebanon in an effort to compel the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Shi’ite forces to reduce the frequency of guerrilla attacks against Israeli ground troops. This thesis evaluates the effectiveness of those air raids in supporting the Israeli coercive strategy. This study contends there were two reasons for this failure. First, the asymmetry of motivation favored the Shi’ites, which negated the effectiveness of air strikes as a“carrot.” Second, the air strikes were unable to create a realistic fear of escalation for the targets. This was caused by two factors: the Lebanese environment and the inability of the air strikes to add significantly to the costs of the target organizations.
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