Without US NATO can't defeat Libya

Telegraph:

The Western alliance marks 100 days of bombing Libya on Sunday with political leaders adamant that the regime, which violently crushed a popular uprising in February, is isolated and collapsing from within.

However defence analysts said it has still not identified a clear line of attack that would break the veteran leader's grip on power.

"This campaign is about inflicting pain on the regime but there is no precedent where air power alone has taken a government down without encircling the city," said Shashank Joshi, of the Royal United Services Institute.

...

From antiquity to the present, you overwhelm an enemy by using a combined arms operation that includes heavy and light infantry as well as heavy and light cavalry. tanks and aircraft are a substitute for the latter two. Without all phases you can find yourself in a stalemate war of attrition that is a grind on both sides and creates more casualties and cost more. It is a lesson liberals refuse to learn. The liberal way of war is to try to win on the cheap which requires a constant escalation of effort.