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Coercive Airpower in the Eelam Conflict
19 May 1991
Israeli made Kfir Jets (use US General Electric made Jet engines)
used in Eelam wars by Sri Lanka Air Force
The use of air power has been the most salient feature of the
current conflict in the north and east. As a consequence of the fact
that the LTTE controls a substantial portion of the north- the
interior- there have been two types of air operations: tactical and
strategic.
Tactical air power is used on the battle field. Strategic air power
is used to attack targets behind the battle field- in the opponent�s
territory. Tactical air power is part of ordinary military action
which seeks to rout opposing forces on the battle field, whereas
strategic air power is coercive, in that military coercion seeks to
change the opponent�s behavior (agree for a ceasefire, give up
conditions or territory, agree to hold talks on terms favorable to
the assailant etc) and indirectly affect the opponent�s ability and
will to sustain battlefield operations.
Right now in the context of the government�s stated and express
desire to conclude, a temporary peace at least, the concept of
coercion becomes crucial in examining the role of air power in the
war against the Tiger. At the conventional level the military
instruments traditionally used for coercion are strategic air and
naval forces, while tactical air and ground forces are concerned
with directly influencing events on the battle field. (Given the
reduced vulnerability of modern states to naval blockades, air power
has emerged as the main tool of conventional coercion.) Although
technically this country cannot be said to possess a strategic
airforce the need to affect the LTTE beyond the warfront in the
territory it controls has given rise to strategic bombing.
The central question is, in the north, under what conditions is
strategic bombing with conventional munitions likely to create the
desired coercive leverage? Coercive air power can be directed at
civilian and/or military targets. There are two models which exploit
the vulnerability of the civilian population in the opponent�s
territory. The first which seeks to gain the enemy�s compliance by
slowly raising the risk of civilian damage is called the Schelling
Model (the idea of manipulating the risk of civilian punishment for
political purposes has largely come to be identified with the work
of Thomas Schelling. Others also shared in the development of this
idea chief among them Morton Kapalan in his Strategy of limited
Retaliation).
Czech made 4-seater Zlin Z-143L aircraft
Key: Under this strategy bombing would gradually be escalated in
intensity, geographical extent or both. �The key however is not to
destroy the entire target set (population concentrations and the
economic infrastructure that provides the population with essential
goods and services) in one fell swoop.� This model�s premise is that
coercive leverage comes from the opponent�s anticipation of future
damage and hence spares a large part of the opponent�s civilian
assets in order to preserve the threat of further destruction. In
addition the assailant in this model gives a clear signal that the
bombing is contingent on the opponent�s behavior and will be stopped
if he complies with the assailant�s demands. (�To be coercive
violence has to be anticipated...It is the expectation of more
violence that gets the wanted behavior if the power to hurt can get
it at all� � Thomas Schelling �Arms and Influence�)
The second counter civilian strategy is called the Douhet model-
after its chief proponent Giulio Douhet. It rests in on the belief
that infliction of high costs can shatter civilian morale
�unraveling the social basis of resistance� and causing citizens to
pressure the opponent to abandon his territorial and political
ambitions. The Douhet model is simply what is known as terror
bombing. However the military theoreticians and generals of the West
have established the euphemistic concept instead. Under this
strategy it is expected that civilian morale could be damaged by
exposing large portions of the population to the terror of
destruction by causing severe shortages of services and goods such
as food water textiles and industrial goods.
Like the Schelling model the Douhet model focuses on population and
economic targets. There is however a fundamental difference. The
Schelling model holds ultimate ruin in abeyance. The Douhet model
calls for immediate devastation.
The third and final strategy of coercive air power is the
Interdiction model. Unlike the Douhet and Schelling models which aim
at civilian vulnerability, the Interdiction model aims at the
opponents military vulnerabilities. The fundamental premise of the
model is that coercive leverage could be secured by attacking rear
area military targets.
�The goal is to neutralize the enemy�s military potential before it
can be brought to bear on the battle field.� Aerial interdiction
sometimes includes economic targets to the extent that these are
assumed to be part of the opponent�s �war machine.� (The Industrial
Web Theory put forward in the 1930s emphasized precision attacks
against critical economic bottlenecks to cause an adversary�s war
economy to crumble. During the bombing campaign against Germany, the
eight air force targeted armament ball bearing and synthetic oil
production as well as the German transportation network.)
Russian made transport-combat MI-35 used by SLAF in Eelam wars
The interdiction model assumes that in a conventional dispute or in
a guerrilla war which is in the process of incorporating
conventional methods, battlefield demands for resources are often
inelastic especially in high input conflicts and therefore
successful aerial interdiction of critical supplies can quickly lead
to military disaster.
Air operations in LTTE controlled territory in the north con be
tentatively classified into the Schelling and Interdiction models.
How effective was the Schelling model in undermining the LTTE�s will
to sustain the war?� (The Douhet model is not possible in Sri Lanka
for two reasons. One it does not possess a modern strategic air
force and the necessary conventional munitions. Two, the Tiger is
not another government). The counter civilian strategy prescribed by
the Schelling model is intended inter-alia to distance the people
away from those prosecuting the war by posing the risk of
destruction and hardship. It certainly led to an exodus to Colombo
from the peninsula and presented the Tiger with a possible manpower
crisis. But this strategy did not create the desired political
crisis for the Tigers because civilian hardships were offset by
supplies from Tamilnadu and the extraordinary volume of expatriate
remittances.
Valvettithurai: The last occasion on which Valvettithurai was bombed
thoroughly- only the Tiger base there was spared- it did not create
the necessary volume of open civilian displeasure to coerce the
Tiger leadership into considering methods other than war to mitigate
the suffering of their kith and kin in their township. Coercive
airpower in the form counter civilian Schelling model as used in the
peninsula apparently failed to take note of an important fact: that
from the late fifties one of the main tasks of Tamil politics has
been to impress upon the Tamil population the need to countenance
tremendous civilian punishment to achieve important political- and
later- territorial aims.
The pogroms of 1958, 1977 and 1983 clearly strengthened the case.
The net result is an almost indelible association among the ordinary
Tamils between putting up with destruction of civilian assets and
lives and the achievement of political objectives or the extraction
of concessions from Colombo.
The counter-civilian models of coercive bombing presupposes that
economic devastation will undermine civilian morale which in turn
would divert the opponent�s attention away from the war front.
Major Muir Fairchild, Britain�s Director of Air Tactics and strategy
in World War Two, referring to the counter-civilian coercive
airpower had remarked, � We obviously cannot and do not intend to
kill or injure all the people. Therefore our intention in deciding
upon this method of attack must be to so reduce the morale of the
enemy civilian population through fear- fear of death or injury for
themselves or their loved ones- that they would prefer our terms of
peace to continuing the struggle and would force their governments
to capitulate.� This approach is typical of the military leadership
in societies where it is unequivocally under civilian authority
dependent on the popular will for its survival.
Did the government gain any coercive leverage through the Schelling
model of strategic bombing in the peninsula?
The Tiger�s unilateral ceasefire in January 1991 some may tend to
argue was a consequence of it. This is incorrect because civilian
vulnerabilities- the objective of the Schelling model- as it was
quite evident as soon as the ceasefire was called off did not affect
the political will of the LTTE to begin a rapid and intense
escalation of its military operations. It is a fallacy amply exposed
by many scholars on modern warfare that the punishment of civilian
populations by strategic bombing with conventional munitions (unlike
in the case of nuclear or biological munitions) can undermine or
dislodge the real or assumed leadership of that population. But it
continues to claim many adherents in modern military establishments
mainly because the equation involved in the counter civilian model
is simple.
The LTTE ran a war machine which is not an integral part of the
northern economy. The war machine or in other words the
infrastructure that is necessary to maintain its troops and battle
field operation is located in the �interior�: the Tiger controlled
portion of the north. Therefore the interdiction model is extremely
crucial in determining the outcome of battles as well as in
debilitating the LTTE�s ability to �oil� its war apparatus.
Deep interdiction in the �interior� theoretically has to be aimed at
ammunition storage facilities food f fuel and explosive supply point
communication bases camps and factories where mortars, shells and
other war material are produced. Then it has to thwart the LTTE�s
ground strategy by choking off the logistical flows on which the
strategy is dependent: aerial interdiction of lines of communication
between the battle front and bases or population centers.
Deep interdiction can be successful only if targets are correctly
identified and if the industrial infrastructure necessary for the
production of mortars and shells is part of the Jaffna economy. The
problem, however, is that this industrial infrastructure that is
necessary for metal casting, making of moulds, precision lathes etc
is located in Tamilnadu.
Although camps had been on many occasions correctly identified they
were more often than not bombed days after the Tigers vacated them.
This rotation system of setting up camps in the peninsula has posed
difficulties for aerial interdiction.
The often declared curfew in Kilinochchi is obviously for the
possible aerial interdiction of LTTE�s lines of communication with
the battlefront since Kilinochchi�s open spaces roads on irrigation
bunds and channel banks can drastically expose and jeopardize Tiger
supplies through t he district. But this tactical interdiction�s
succss is possible only under the following conditions that Tiger
supplies of men and material emanate from Jaffna; that the supplies
are large; that they send convoys during the day when detection is
possible as a result of the curfew which would preclude the
possibility of civilian transport. Deep interdiction may seriously
affect the LTTE when it launches a full fledged conventional ware
dependent on an economic and industrial infrastructure located in
the north. But that may never be because of the Tamilnadu factor.
The LTTE rear base where its basic war material is secured is still
Tamilnadu. Hence tactical interdiction may play a more crucial role
in the future use of air power for coercive leverage.
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