Bombing to Provoke: Rockets, Missiles, and Drones as Instruments of Fear and Coercion

The rapid proliferation and growing sophistication of aerospace weapons—rockets, missiles, and drones—have altered the landscape of warfare. The influence of these weapons on the battlefield is felt profoundly, yet the mechanism of coercion by which these weapons alter the will of the adversary is poorly understood.

In Bombing to Provoke, Jaganath Sankaran argues that it is not what these aerospace weapons physically do but what they prompt the target state to do in response that matters for...