Warden, Pape och Sexdagarskriget

Sammanfattning: This study intends to contribute to the understanding of air power theory by studying the contrasting theories of John A. Warden and Robert A. Pape onto a single case. Warden advocates strategic bombing, while Pape condemns it. The theories are applied onto the Israeli air power in the Six-Day War, a war which played an important role for air power and where air power played an important role for the outcome. Both theories are among the most discussed and criticized ones, including by the other author respectively. By thoroughly examining them onto the same single case, their generalizability is evaluated in relation to each other. The empirical data consisted of six descriptive works of the war, from which each event of air sorties was analysed and matched with the theories. The air sorties of each theory were then evaluated by occurrence and effect to the wars outcome, i.e. the contribution to the Israeli victory. The results of the analysis imply that Warden’s theory have a better ability to explain the success of the Israeli Air Force than Pape’s theory, but no major conclusions of their generalizability can be drawn. None of the theories where found fully sufficient to explain the case, i.e. some parts of the theories did not occur in Six-Day War according to the study.