Bombing to win air power and coercion in war cornell studies in security affairs by robert a pape 1996 01 30 robert a pape books amazonca. In bombing to win air power and coercion in war pape shows that strategic airpower has never been the panacea many theorists and war planners had hoped and believed it would be and he argues the advent of advanced precision guided technology does little to change that fact. Coercive air power can succeed but not as cheaply as air enthusiasts would like to believe pape examines the air raids on germany japan korea vietnam and iraq as well as those of israel. Published april 18th 1996 by cornell university press start your review of bombing to win air power and coercion in war write a review dec 08 2013 raj agrawal rated it really liked it shelves saass books papes bombing to win is not an argument for strategic bombing but is a book that looks at airpower in the context of denial threat to military failure vs . The most important instrument of modem military coercion and the most useful for investigating the causes of coercive success and failure is air power this instrument has been used to execute concrete coercive strategies that correspond to the conceptual categories of punishment risk and denial a fourth strategy which pursues both punishment and denial effects simultaneously is