Strategic Targeting and International Law: The Ambiguity of Law Meets the Reality of a Single-Superpower World

• Author: Jeffery K. Walker
• Position: Lieutenant Colonel Walker is a retired US Air Force judge advocate
• Pages: 121-131

VII

Strategic Targeting and International Law:

The Ambiguity of Law Meets the Reality

of aSingle-Superpower World

Jeffrey K. Walker1

Strategic Targeting in Recent Conflicts

Mycharge is to address strategic targeting and the law of war. And isn't this

an ironic moment in history for such adiscussion? For just at the moment

when the evolution of the technology of aerial bombardment allows for the fulfill-

ment of Billy Mitchell's vision, we stand on the verge of jettisoning his underlying

theory as anachronistic and redundant. For 60 years, airmen have bemoaned that if

they but had pinpoint accurate, survivable, and reliable all-weather day/night weap-

ons, the vision of the strategic bombardment gurus would inevitably and inexorably

be proven correct. We now have the technology, but no longer the need.

As is surely evident in Afghanistan and Iraq, strategic bombardment just isn't

the main event anymore. Kosovo was the seeming fruition of the airman's years of

toil—acampaign limited from the outset to a purely air operation and therefore by

necessity heavily focused on strategic targets. The problem is that air power didn't

win the Kosovo campaign. The bombing showed little effect on Serbian ground

forces and the will of the Serb regime showed little signs of cracking in the face of

around-the-clock bombing—in fact, just the opposite. And ultimately, the precipi-

tating event that caused Slobodan Milosevic to fold his tents was the very public