Air War Feels Good, Does Little More

My current favorite analyst of diplomatic and strategic matters - George Friedman - writes at Geopolitical Futures. His topic today is a summary of why the Russian air attack, largely by drones, on Ukraine infrastructure is unlikely to be decisive.

He breaks no new ground, but his column is a good summary of the successes and mostly failures such bombing has racked up. It turns out that beating up the civilian population from the air tends to stiffen the public will to resist.

The main strength of bombing civilian targets is that it helps the attacker’s people feel better to be inflicting pain and suffering on the enemy, which pain and suffering are quite real. There isn’t a lot of evidence that such attacks contribute to victory.