Despite the best efforts of airpower advocates, there's nothing like planting your boots on the soil of an enemy's capitol to demonstrate that you've defeated them.
"You may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life – but if you desire to defend it, protect it, and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men into the mud."
"You may fly over a land forever; you may bomb it, atomize it, pulverize it and wipe it clean of life – but if you desire to defend it, protect it, and keep it for civilization, you must do this on the ground, the way the Roman legions did, by putting your young men into the mud."
T.R. Fehrenbach This Kind of War, 1963