Can you say Doughet?

I find this paragraph interesting.

This illustrates another salient feature of air power: its ability to temper the malevolent tendencies of societies accustomed to the rewards of modernity. Given air power's ability to strike war-supporting infrastructure, the powerful impulse of economic self-interest complicates the ability of despots to pursue malicious agendas. American air power can rapidly educate cultured and sophisticated societies about the costs of war and the futility of pursuing it. This is much the reason why air power alone delivered victory in Operation Allied Force in Kosovo in 1999, without the need to put a single U.S. soldier at risk on the ground.
It took NATO air forces 78 days to have what was essentially third world country throw in the towel. And couple of things to consider about OAF:
-USAF made serious deviations from it's aproach (IADS was still being hit late in campaign instead of being destroyed first and quickly
-B-2s never went in alone but were escorted by EW planes (and, as said before, against third world country)
-FRY AF kept numbers of planes operational (MiG-21s and light attack mostly)
-NATO destroyed very few AFVs (around 10 IIRC), which makes one wonder what would happen if ground war would be fought

I agree that air force alone can be effective, provied it has clearly defined goals that are within it's capabilities. Which is basically blowing stuff up. "El Dorado Canyon" was such case. "Desert Fox". 1992 (?) strikes against Iraqi intel service HQ as a response to Iraqi plot to kill Bush I in Kuwait. "Accountability" and "Grapes of Wrath" (not purely AF missions but close enough) were less clear as goals were less clear.

So if your goal is just to make a point or punish somebody by damaging his infrastructure then air force (cmbined, if needed, by navy cruise missiles) is a way to go. If your goals are wider than you need ground troops.

So what explains the rapid collapse of the Taliban and al-Qaida in 2001? Modern air power. More specifically, the marriage of precision weapons with precise targeting by tiny numbers of Special Forces troops on the ground. The results were stunning. Putatively invulnerable positions the Taliban had occupied for years literally disappeared in a rain of satellite-directed bombs from B-1s and B-52s flying so high they could be neither seen nor heard.
I guess he didn't hear about certain force called Northern Alliance