The history of the air campaign over Libya has yet to be fully written. What might appear as yet another “operation in the Middle East” to the casual observer is in fact a revolution in global politics and the role of the United Nations (UN) as a global leadership body. The world collectively redefined what sovereignty is and what it means to the people of the world.

After a decade of counterinsurgency operations, the 1999 Kosovo air war is a distant memory. Unlike the grueling, ground force–centric wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Operation Allied Force was a case study in coercion conducted at a safe distance to achieve limited ends using limited means. Despite flawed assumptions and the friction of a coalition operation, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) achieved its objectives at a reasonable cost and without combat fatalities. The NATO intervention reversed ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and helped set conditions for bringing democracy to Serbia

The Nation and its allies face a strategic turning point that necessitates the optimization of joint and multinational airborne joint forcible entry (JFE) capabilities to meet future security challenges. The security environment has been shaped more by surprise than inevitability, and the future presents “a complex and uncertain security landscape in which the pace of change continues to accelerate”—thus the ability for the United States and its multinational partners to respond quickly with assured access to introduce the capabilities required to secure its interests.