During the last decades airpower has become a useful tool for military interventions. Earlier research argues that air operations during the first Gulf war proved that strategic bombing could be effective due to modern technology and precision guided munitions. John Warden developed a theory based on strategic bombing, where he sees the enemy as a system, which is illustrated by a five-ring-model. The theory is widely discussed in the modern airpower debate, and has also been criticized because it has not been proved in any large-N study. Therefore, this essay aims to test Wardens five-ring-model in a comparative case study where two modern air operations have been chosen for investigation. The two operations are Operation Deliberate Force that took place Bosnia, 1995, and Operation Odyssey Dawn/Unified Protector that took place in Libya, 2011. The two operations have many similarities but differ in the time it took to reach their designated goals.

The results indicate that Wardens theory is not capable of explaining why the two operations differed in the time it took to achieve its goals. The operations did not act according to Wardens five-ring-model to a sufficiently large extent when other targets were more frequently attacked than the ones that Warden advocates to be the most effective. Warden states that his theory is very general and can be used for any opponent, but the results of this essay indicate that it may be to general to be able to explain the outcome of an operation.