On 3 June 1999, Slobodan Milosevic capitulated to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) after 78 days of air attacks against Yugoslavia. NATO’s war against Milosevic became widely acclaimed as the first war to be won through an air-only military campaign. Such an air campaign seeks to accomplish objectives by attacking targets. The net result of striking those targets was to coerce the enemy to concede to attackers’ demands to help create the desired political and military end state. NATO realized success in its bombing campaign against Yugoslavia through crony attack.

Crony attack, the strategy of targeting key elite supporters...

Crony attack is a coercive air strategy. By targeting assets of the key supporters of the enemy leader, crony attack can weaken the regime’s resolve to oppose our desired policy. In short it is a way to coerce the enemy to do what we want. This strategy assumes a disaggregated model of enemy government decision making. Although there is a single leader in whom ultimate power is vested, that leader is advised and supported by a small subset of the population. Those key elites may be coerced through damage to assets they own, making their support of the leader less...

Crony attack is a strategy to affect adversary policy change by inflicting cost on the influential subordinates of the leader. It recognizes the importance of the single decision maker, the adversary’s leader, as outlined by Bueno de Mesquita. More specifically, targeting the utility of the regime’s elites indirectly reduces the utility of the leader due to their influence, enmity, or even the threat of insurrection. The degree to which cronies can influence the leader varies depending on the government’s power structure on a scale of democracy to autocracy. Success also depends on the severity of policy change being demanded. Crony...

A strategy to affect policy change by influencing cronies must rely on an analysis of who those cronies are. Thus, the crony attack strategy relies primarily on intelligence. Like any other strategy, however, crony attack must define the objective, the means of achieving the objective, and the method of the attack. A network of cronies must be carefully mapped out, and it must be based on the nature of the relationship with the leader to help determine how best to influence the regime. This chapter outlines the basics of such analysis. As the next chapter shows, any actual planning and...

Operation Allied Force pitted NATO against Slobodan Milosevic in what has been called a humanitarian intervention, coercive diplomacy, the first information war, and the first war won by airpower alone. It was NATO’s first war as a coalition. Though one of the primary considerations in conducting the war was to keep the alliance together, it was hardly a homogenous or monolithic effort. Americans held most of the leadership positions and conducted the majority of the strike and support sorties. They also conducted some tactical operations, such as B-2, F-117, and cruise missile strikes that were classified “US Only” and were...

Crony attack is a coercive air strategy. In the case of many regimes, by targeting assets of the key supporters of the enemy leader, crony attack can weaken the regime’s resolve to oppose our desired policy. In short it is a way to coerce the enemy to do what we want. Crony attack assumes a disaggregated model of enemy government decision making. Although there is a single leader who wields ultimate power, a small subset of the population advises and supports that leader. Those key elites may be coerced through damage to their assets, making their support of the leader...