Police officers stand guard in a cordoned off area after a van ploughed into the crowd on the Rambla in Barcelona, Spain, on August 17, 2017. Utrecht Robin/ABACAPRESS.COM/ABACA/Press Association. All rights reserved.The Barcelona attack followed a pattern that has developed over nearly three years and stems from the start of the intense US-led air war against ISIS which began back in August 2014. That was instigated by the United States following the taking of Mosul by ISIS and its wider control of much of Northern Iraq, and the air war then evolved into a very considerable operation involving a broadly based coalition of states. While it did include a few regional states such as Jordan, the overwhelming majority of the attacks have been undertaken by the US Air Force and Navy, but aided by many other states especially France and the UK, together with Australia, Canada, Germany, Belgium and several others.
The air war has used tens of thousands of missiles and guided bombs and after three years the Pentagon reports that the coalition assault has killed at least 60,000 ISIS fighters. This is in itself quite an achievement since the DoD view three years ago was that ISIS had a total force of no more than 30,000. Either the original estimate was wrong or ISIS has had a steady flow of new recruits from the region and beyond, the evidence pointing to the latter.
The air war, though, has been effective and has aided the defeat of ISIS in Fallujah, Ramadi, Mosul and elsewhere, although the costs to civilians have been huge – western Mosul has been likened to the ruins of Stalingrad. Tacitus comes to mind – “we made a desert and called it peace”. We are moving into an era of conflict where traditional methods of military control simply do not work.
