Iran Proves Airstrikes Topple Armies, Not Regimes — SkimNews
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- Operation Epic Fury has destroyed thousands of Iranian targets and killed many top leaders, yet Iran retains significant offensive capability, per the article's framing of why the campaign has not forced regime capitulation.
- Historical precedent backs that pattern: Nazi Germany fought to the end despite systematic Allied bombing, North Korea held on as U.S. bombers obliterated its cities, and North Vietnam outlasted the U.S. despite more than one million tons of ordnance dropped across successive punitive air campaigns.
- Air superiority proved decisive when adversaries deployed regular ground forces: Operation Desert Storm in 1991 saw the Iraqi army defeated in under 100 hours of ground combat, NATO's 78-day Kosovo campaign in 1999 forced Milosevic's withdrawal of Serb forces, and the European-led 2011 air campaign in Libya rapidly destroyed Qaddafi's tanks and artillery around Benghazi.
- Ukraine is the parallel case: Russia has not vanquished the country more than four and a half years after invasion despite near-daily strikes on cities, power infrastructure, and industry, sustained by Western weapons and economic aid that kept its military resupplied.
- China and Russia materially sustain Iran's war effort: China bought Iranian oil and gas until a U.S. naval blockade in April and has supplied short-range air defense systems, while Russia provides intelligence to target U.S. forces in the Gulf and helped develop Iran's supersonic antiship missiles.
- Insurgency gap: in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Vietnam, militant groups used IEDs and ambushes then melted back into the civilian population, denying airpower the conventional targets it needs and ultimately defeating the U.S. political objectives in all three theaters.
Why it matters: The article draws a sharp line U.S. war planners must hold as they prepare alongside NATO and Asian allies for peer-level conflicts: air superiority remains decisive against ground-force adversaries, but punitive bombing alone has never toppled a willing regime — so treating 'Operation Epic Fury' as proof airpower is broken would discard a core Western military advantage in the wrong fight.
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