Afghan's Air War Drops With The Departure Of Petraeus

Two U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets of Strike Fighter Squadron 31 fly a combat patrol over Afghanistan, Dec. 15, 2008. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Aaron Allmo

Petraeus Gone, Afghan Air War Plummets -- The Danger Room

When Gen. David Petraeus took over the Afghan war effort, the conflict took a violent turn. Especially that part of the war launched from above. Petraeus relaxed the restrictions on air power, and strikes from sky returned to a level all-but-unseen since the war’s earliest days. In October of 2010, coalition planes unleashed their weapons on more than 1,000 missions.

Now, Petraeus is gone, and the air war — like the rest of the conflict — has cooled a bit from its fever pitch. In the three full months since Gen. John Allen assumed command, strike sorties are down more than 25% over the same period in 2010: 1,631 attack runs, compared to 2,198 last year, according to U.S. military statistics. In October, the drop was particularly stark: 616 strike sorties, down from 1,043 during the previous October. It’s a particularly remarkable trend, given that there are more aircraft than ever patrolling Afghanistan’s skies. And it may be a sign for how the rest of the Afghan war is waged.

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My Comment: Stats do not lie .... and what they reveal is that Petraeus preferred air power.