Air war\ue005are is inherently a di\ue003cult to imagine activity, and images o\ue005 urban devastation, carpet bombing, and mass civilian casualties dominate public discourse. With the emergence o\ue005 24/7 television and the Inter\u00ad net in the 1990s\u2014a period that also coincided with the maturation o\ue005 precision weapons and airpower as the dominant component o\ue005 strate\u00ad gic war\ue005are\u2014the challenge o\ue005 \u201cseeing\u201d airpower ironically magni\ue002ed even more. Air war\ue005are \u201cstatistics\u201d and gun camera video accumulated, but they communicated video game heartlessness and suggested per\ue005ection while emphasizing the almost industrial nature o\ue005 the air war\ue005are enterprise (Air\u00ad men even spoke o\ue005 the \u201cproduction\u201d o\ue005 sorties). Habitual operational se\u00ad curity and the sensitivity o\ue005 operating \ue005rom \ue005oreign bases, together with the internal challenges o\ue005 jointness, \ue005urther constrained the telling o\ue005 the airpower story.

Airpower\u2019s inherent quality and these constraints have made destruction the most accessible and visible element o\ue005 the enterprise. Airpower and its targets have become intrinsically subject to greater review and audit because o\ue005 the very economy o\ue005 e\ue001ort and the triumph o\ue005 discrimination. Te air- power story then, located almost always in \u201cenemy\u201d territory, has naturally become one-dimensional. Te \ue005riendly brie\ue002ng and public relations \ue005unc\u00ad tion has largely been reduced to one o\ue005 incident management o\ue005 the occa\u00ad sional, though highly magni\ue002ed, mistake (i.e., industrial accident).

Israel \ue005aced all o\ue005 these problems and more in 2006. Even ignoring the bigger question o\ue005 prejudice against the Israeli state, Israel \ue005ollowed all o\ue005 the sel\ue005-de\ue005eating patterns o\ue005 conveying the modern air war story. What

Tis article is an excerpt \ue005rom William M. Arkin, Divining Victory: Airpower in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War (Maxwell AFB, AL: Air University Press, August 2007). Arkin is an independent military analyst, jour\u00ad nalist, and author. He writes the \u201cEarly Warning\u201d column \ue005or washingtonpost.com (where he previously wrote the \u201cDO\ue004.MIL\u201d column \ue005rom 1998 to 2003) and is a longtime NBC News military analyst. Arkin is also an adjunct at the School o\ue005 Advanced Air and Space Studies, Air University, Maxwell AFB, Alabama.

is more, it operated with even more obsessive security classi\ue002cation and in\ue005ormation control than the United States, making even the statistics o\ue005 Israeli De\ue005ense Forces\u2019 (IDF) activity sparing and inconsistent. Hezbollah, on the other hand, practiced not only consummate operational security but also mounted an extremely skill\ue005ul and centralized in\ue005ormation war, practicing admirable and strict message discipline. Hezbollah was \ue005urther aided by a government o\ue005 Lebanon that \ue002lled emotional, disorganized, and inaccurate space that let the terrorist organization bask as a seemingly passive bystander.

When I went to Lebanon and Israel in September 2006, I knew that telling the story o\ue005 the air war, whatever I would \ue002nd, would be di\ue003cult. So many minds had already been made up about Israel, about the destruc\u00ad tion it caused, and about the \ue005ailure o\ue005 airpower. I was well aware that al\u00ad though a truth-telling e\ue001ort was \ue002rst needed to sort out what had actually happened \ue005rom the \ue005alse images and propaganda, I also was mind\ue005ul that images o\ue005 bomb damage and enumerations o\ue005 a relentless e\ue001ort could also end up conveying exactly the opposite o\ue005 the actual meaning. Te task at hand then is to tell the story o\ue005 an airpower-dominated campaign, one that was deeply \ue000awed in its design yet impressive in its e\ue003ciency, with\u00ad out being either pedantically \ue005ault\ue002nding or apologetic about a modern instrument that is still little understood, even by its practitioners.

In the summer o\ue005 2006, Israel \ue005ought an intense 34-day war with Hez\u00ad bollah, the \ue002rst sustained modern air campaign conducted by a country other than the United States. As soon as the \ue002ghting was underway, many were declaring airpower oversold and inadequate. Commentators clam\u00ad ored \ue005or more-decisive ground action, asserting that only ground \ue005orces could de\ue005eat Hezbollah rocket \ue002re, that the ground alternative would pro\u00ad duce a \u201ccleaner\u201d and less tangled outcome, bring about di\ue001erent political realities, reduce civilian casualties and damage, and make greater gains in the battle \ue005or hearts and minds. When the Israeli government itsel\ue005 seemingly expressed its \ue005rustration with airpower and escalated ground \ue002ghting well into the second week o\ue005 the campaign, airpower critics \ue005elt vindicated. Te antiairpower view could not help but \ue005urther echo with all o\ue005 the stark images o\ue005 Beirut, with the cavalcade o\ue005 statistics o\ue005 civil\u00ad ian deaths and destruction, and with the \ue005act that barely six months a\ue005ter

the initial Hezbollah incursion across the Israeli border, the air \ue005orce gen\u00ad eral who served as the chie\ue005 o\ue005 sta\ue001 o\ue005 the IDF\u2014the \ue002rst air \ue005orce o\ue003cer ever to command Israel\u2019s military\u2014was gone. What is more, despite all o\ue005 the claimed Israeli military accomplishments, Hezbollah was declared as strong as ever. Te war itsel\ue005 has thus been labeled a \ue005ailure by many, and many o\ue005 the war\u2019s ills are blamed on airpower.

It is precisely because the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war was not \ue005ought by the United States, because it was an intense and technologically complex irregular con\ue000ict \ue005ought between a nation-state and a terrorist organiza\u00ad tion, and because it involved di\ue003cult questions o\ue005 civilian protection and modern in\ue005ormation war\ue005are that the US Air Force and the US military should examine it closely. Analysis that does not assume \ue005ault or \ue005all prey to biased anti-Israeli, antiairpower, or antiwar assumptions opens the way \ue005or better military doctrine and plans; \ue005or a deeper understanding o\ue005 the issues associated with so-called \u201ce\ue001ects based operations\u201d and the battle \ue005or hearts and minds; \ue005or the achievement o\ue005 maximized civilian protections; and, dare I say, even \ue005or better military command and political direction and expectations in the \ue005uture.

Last September\u2014barely a month a\ue005ter Israel and Hezbollah imple\u00ad mented a UN-brokered cease-\ue002re\u2014I arrived at Beirut International Air\u00ad port as military advisor to a UN \ue005act-\ue002nding mission. Having previously been involved in postwar evaluations o\ue005 air campaigns in A\ue005ghanistan, Iraq, the \ue005ormer Yugoslavia, and even in Lebanon, I was \ue005ully prepared to \ue002nd much to be desired in the conventional narrative o\ue005 damage and de\u00ad struction, as well as much to criticize in the claims o\ue005 military achievement and/or \ue005ailure. Lebanon did not disappoint.

On the one hand, I arrived on a regularly scheduled airline at the ultramodern Beirut International Airport, took a taxi to a \ue002ve-star hotel, and hooked up to a high-speed Internet connection. Here in the heart o\ue005 Lebanon\u2019s capital, the \u201cdestroyed\u201d airport was already back in opera\u00ad tion; the electric power grid\u2014reportedly also bombed\u2014was operating as it had been prewar; everyone seemed permanently attached to their cell phones, habitually talking and texting: the city was abuzz with li\ue005e. It was immediately clear, at least to me, that Israel had exercised some degree o\ue005 discrimination: right or wrong, it had made choices o\ue005 what to bomb and what not to bomb.