How Not to Attack Islamic State

One ex-general wants America to bomb more—but that’s a bad idea

One Air Force ex-general thinks the air war against Islamic State militants—133 air strikes and counting—is far too few to defeat it. But what he advocates instead would embroil the United States into a protracted war in Syria and Iraq.

That’s a bad idea, especially since he argues that aerial bombing alone is all we need to do the job.

“IS cannot be reasoned with—they must be terminated,” writes David Deptula at the Web site Breaking Defense. Deptula was the principal planner for the Air Force’s 1991 bombing campaign against Iraq, and he proposes a three-step plan to blunt Islamic State advances in both “Iraq and Syria,” attack its command and control systems and make the terror group “ineffective.”

The method is lots of aerial bombing—without the need to deploy ground forces. “To accomplish these objectives we need to begin with an aggressive air campaign,” Deptula writes.

“Where airpower is applied like a thunderstorm, not a drizzle; 24/7 constant over-watch, with force used against every move of IS forces and personnel,” he adds.

It’s not necessary for the U.S. to send special operators to help pilots guide bombs to their targets from the ground, Deptula writes. This is true. The Air Force and Navy can combine targeting pods attached to fixed-wing fighters and specialized reconnaissance planes to pinpoint air strikes.

But the thrust of his argument is for a massive air campaign. It wouldn’t be as large as the 1991 air campaign against Iraq, but he uses that war as an example, along with the 1999 Kosovo War and the 2001 bombing campaign that helped topple the Taliban.

To be sure, U.S. air strikes blunted Islamic State attacks into Iraqi Kurdistan and helped Iraqi army and Peshmerga troops retake the strategic Mosul Dam. Air strikes can be effective within a larger operational and strategic plan. The U.S. has also heavily relied on Navy F/A-18F fighters—twin-seaters to facilitate targeting without help from ground troops—to attack Islamic State forces.

But Deptula’s own examples work against him.