When Does Aerial Bombing Work?

Abstract

Coercion through air power has been and continues to be an important tool of foreign policy. Multivariate probit analysis is used to test three hypotheses on all instances of air power coercion from 1917 to 1999: (1) air power coercion attempts are more likely to work if they exploit military rather than civilian vulnerabilities, (2) the regime type of the target affects the chances of success, and (3) success is less likely if the attacker demands that the target change its leadership. Results show that coercion is more likely to work if the target's military vulnerability is higher, but higher levels of civilian vulnerability have no effect on the chances of coercion success; that target regime type has no effect; and that success is less likely when the attacker demands the target change its leadership.