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During World War II, Allied air forces dropped nearly 2.7 million tons of bombs over enemy territory. However, the escalating levels of destruction achieved with air attacks during World War II intensified war to levels never seen before.

Traditionally, states have utilized wars as a way to violently intimidate an enemy, settle disputes and achieve multiple objectives. Additionally, it highlighted air superiority as an extraordinary tool of military force to achieve victory. Two decades after the end of the First World War, quick implementations of aeronautics into military affairs vastly altered traditional warfare, which made battlefields of these new wars above ground apparent.

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He also anticipated how the speed and free reign of airplanes as instruments of reconnaissance would later be used to attack enemies on and behind their own lines. 3), predicted that aeronautics would open up a new field of action: a field situated above ground. In the beginning of the 20 th century, Italian General Giulio Douhet (1921, p. According to Mueller (2010), air power became an important element of military warfare as soon as civil aviation itself existed, but with the latter occurrence of World War I and World War II, military applications for airplanes and airships quickly multiplied. The successful implementation of air power in a war scenario is a relatively recent phenomenon in modern history. Palabras clave: poder aéreo, conflicto armado, nuevas amenazas, guerras asimétricas, actores no estatales, supremacia militar, guerras modernas. El poder aéreo ha sido utilizado en el último siglo como una herramienta de gran importancia en términos militares, ya que dadas sus ventajas estratégicas, reflejaba supremacia militar y lograba incidir en el resultado favorable de las tradicionales guerras interestatales, evidenciadas en el sistema internacional.Įl nuevo siglo ha resaltado la existencia de una nueva forma de lucha con características diferentes de las guerras interestatales, pues las nuevas confrontaciones encaran nuevas formas de amenazas propias de la guerra irregular, emplean medios asimétricos de lucha y, por ende, la ventaja militar del poder aéreo se ve cuestionada. Keywords: air power, armed conflicts, new threats, asymmetric wars, nonstate actors, military supremacy, modern warfare.Įl objetivo de este artículo es analizar el papel del poder aéreo en las guerras modernas. Amidst these struggles, irregular warfare techniques are employed as asymmetric means to fight, questioning the military advantage provided by air power.

The new century has highlighted the existence of a new form of struggle with different characteristics than traditional warfare, as these new confrontations face new threats which deviate from conventional warfare. These advantages reflected a military supremacy in traditional wars between states, evidenced in the international system. Air power has been used in the last century as an important military tool, due to its strategic advantages. The objective of the following article is to conduct an analysis of air power and its role in modern warfare.

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He is a full time professor within the Department of Political Science and International Relations of the Universidad del Norte (Colombia), and is currently enrolled in a doctoral degree program in International Security at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED), through the Instituto Universitario General Gutierrez Mellado (IUGM). in Government, Homeland Security and Counterterrorism from the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy (IDC-Israel). Nuevas guerras, nuevos desafios: Repesando las ventajas estratégicas de la supremacia aérea en las guerras modernas New Wars, New Challenges: Rethinking Strategic Advantages of Air Supremacy in Modern Warfare *

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