It was recently mentioned that U.S. Forces have dropped over 27,000 bombs on Syria and Iraq during Operation Inherent Resolve, the Obama administration's campaign against ISIS. Given the current controversies over the reliability of and possible political motivations behind American intelligence assessments, let's look behind this figure to see what these munitions have bought the U.S. during the campaign, and whether we can count on the Obama administration's related claims about the war on ISIS or the claims of his intelligence community in general.
Historically, air campaigns are mostly measured by aircraft sorties rather than munitions dropped. In the age of precision munitions (and almost all the weapons deployed in Inherent Resolve are in that category), perhaps things are somewhat different. Still, it is useful to examine this figure against the number of sorties flown and most particularly against the administration's claims of ISIS losses. In doing this, it is not my intention in any way to impugn the motivations, determination, or skill of the American aircrew, ground crew, support, command and control, or special forces elements that have carried out this campaign so far. Although ISIS anti-aircraft defenses are extremely weak, the very fact that American forces have managed to fly tens of thousands of missions safely and with negligible losses, often at night, and requiring frequent in-air refueling, is extremely impressive.
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