Within the first 100 days of his second time period, U.S. President Donald Trump has proven a willingness to lean on airpower when his administration decides that navy pressure is important overseas.
Up to now, the second Trump administration has launched restricted airstrikes in Somalia and carried out a weekslong air marketing campaign towards the Iranian-aligned Houthis who rule most of Yemen. The president has additionally threatened direct strikes towards Iran itself ought to talks on a brand new nuclear deal collapse.
This flip to airpower for Trump is sensible to me. Airpower is affordable compared with floor wars, and it normally comes with fewer casualties for these conducting the strikes. This helps clarify why U.S. leaders, together with Trump as a self-proclaimed “anti-war president,” usually discover it engaging.
But when the Trump administration isn’t cautious, it might fall into what navy strategists informally name the “airpower trap.” This occurs when the acknowledged targets of navy pressure are too massive for airpower alone to realize, doubtlessly resulting in a face-saving escalation of battle that might – if historical past is a information – attract floor forces from the U.S. or their native allies.
U.S. presidents equivalent to Lyndon Johnson, Invoice Clinton and Barack Obama all fell into this entice. In Vietnam, the Balkans and Syria, respectively, all ended up with far greater wars than they bargained for, with penalties for civilian casualties, worldwide peace and injury to America’s status overseas.
As an professional on U.S. nationwide safety coverage and the Center East area, I imagine the Trump administration is at risk of falling into the airpower entice in Yemen and will doubtlessly do the identical in Iran ought to it elect to make use of direct pressure towards Tehran. Recognizing this navy and historic danger, and choosing some form of off ramp from continued airstrikes, is perhaps the most effective hope the U.S. authorities has to keep away from an extra escalation into full-scale warfare.
The bounds of air bombardment
Analysis reveals airpower is best when it’s used for restricted targets – issues like taking out leaders of terrorist teams or degrading rival capabilities – or in help of floor operations for extra bold ends, like bolstering or overturning governments.
Given the sophistication of U.S. airpower, a typical fallacy amongst American strategists specifically is to assume massive strategic features will be achieved solely by dropping bombs from above.
However when airpower alone fails, leaders can really feel the stress to develop the scope of battle and find yourself with greater navy commitments than anticipated.
Johnson’s preliminary airpower-only technique for making an attempt to cease communism in South Vietnam failed miserably, resulting in his resolution to commit half 1,000,000 U.S. troops into warfare. That expanded battle presaged years of warfare, with huge humanitarian and political penalties for folks in Southeast Asia and America, in addition to lasting reputational injury to the U.S.
Yemenis carry the coffins of civilians killed in U.S. airstrikes whereas taking part of their funeral procession on Could 1, 2025, in Sanaa, Yemen.
Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Pictures
Fearful about U.S. and NATO credibility, Clinton escalated airstrikes – practically to the purpose of introducing floor troops – for the bold finish of stopping genocide within the Balkans in the course of the early Nineteen Nineties. Likewise, Obama’s preliminary airpower-only technique to “degrade and destroy” the Islamic State group rapidly faltered, main Obama, underneath intense stress at residence and overseas, to introduce 1000’s of floor troops to fight the group’s territorial features throughout Syria and Iraq.
In every case, counting on airpower alone in the end failed to fulfill their targets.
The airpower entice in Yemen
There are causes to imagine that situations in Yemen imply that Trump, too, might be falling into the same entice.
Trump has adopted an airpower-only technique to “completely annihilate” the Houthis, a strong insurgent motion that every one however received the current Yemeni civil warfare. The proximate reason for the air marketing campaign, a coverage inaugurated by the Biden administration and expanded dramatically by Trump, is to revive the free move of delivery within the Pink Sea that the Houthis have disrupted by pressure to protest Israel’s ongoing warfare in Gaza.
The early indicators are that this air marketing campaign isn’t going effectively.
Regardless of the U.S. burning via finite munitions provides at a price of US$1 billion to bomb a minimum of 800 websites since March 15, the Houthis are undeterred and the quantity of Pink Sea delivery stays as depressed as ever. Houthi assaults on U.S. ships and Israel proceed. A Houthi missile narrowly missed Israel’s Ben-Gurion airport on Could 4.
Actually, the direct assaults on the Houthis and the quickly rising casualty depend amongst Yemeni civilians from the Trump administration’s bombing marketing campaign look like strengthening the Houthis’ political place in Yemen. In a very surprising case, U.S. bombs reportedly hit an African migrant camp, killing and injuring dozens of individuals.
The humanitarian disaster from the brutal bombing marketing campaign by the Saudi-led coalition towards the Houthis within the late 2010s had the same impact.
Airpower performed an enormous half then, too. The Saudi coalition, supported by the U.S., engaged in some 25,000 air raids towards the Houthis, killing or maiming roughly 19,000 civilians. But regardless of such overwhelming pressure, the Houthis saved seizing territory and finally received the civil warfare, in line with consultants.
They’ve been the nation’s de facto rulers ever since.
Now, Trump is exploring choices to additional escalate to defeat the Houthis. Experiences point out his administration is contemplating arming, coaching and enabling anti-Houthi resistance fighters who’re loosely affiliated with Yemen’s authorities in exile to launch floor operations.
Between diplomacy and quagmire
Proxies are a typical software U.S. leaders flip to when caught within the airpower entice. Generally these proxies fulfill American coverage targets, such because the Kurdish Individuals’s Safety Models, or YPG, which helped the U.S. defeat the Islamic state caliphate in 2019.
A U.S. Air Pressure F-5 Skoshi Tiger drops three normal goal bombs on Vietnam on Feb. 28, 1966.
Picture by Underwood Archives/Getty Pictures
Usually, U.S. proxies fail on each strategic and humanitarian phrases, resulting in additional escalation, strategic quagmires for the U.S., and lack of life and political sovereignty for the folks underneath assault. South Vietnam was an instructive instance.
Riven by corruption, poor governance, weak point and political infighting, the South Vietnamese military and authorities proved so ineffective at combating the North Vietnamese that Johnson determined to launch a floor warfare as soon as U.S. airpower failed.
Right now, the anti-Houthi resistance in Yemen appears to be like much more just like the South Vietnamese authorities than the Kurdish YPG. In keeping with a 2025 report from the Soufan Heart, a safety assume tank, the anti-Houthi forces are poorly skilled and regarded incapable of pulling off victories over the Houthis with out main U.S. help.
In the meantime, the anti-Houthi resistance consists of an estimated 85,000 fighters, in contrast with some 350,000 for the Houthis.
Absent persevering with the air warfare or escalating it right into a extra all-encompassing battle, U.S. officers can nonetheless pursue diplomacy with a view to attempt to discover a political resolution to the Yemen battle.
Regardless of the Trump’s administration public threats, the U.S. is already negotiating with the Houthis’ essential sponsor, Iran.
For his or her half, the Houthis proceed to insist that they may cease attacking ships within the Pink Sea if the U.S.-backed Israeli warfare in Gaza halts, one thing that occurred in the course of the current Gaza ceasefire.
The Trump administration would possibly contemplate looking for alternate options, equivalent to direct or oblique talks, if it needs to keep away from getting caught in a widening battle in Yemen. Historical past is stuffed with examples of what occurs when airpower takes on a logic of its personal.
