It was actually the Axis's successes with paratroop and glider assaults in the early period of the war that inspired the Western Allies to develop and expand their own airborne forces. The glider assault at Belgian Eben Emael provided a model for other militaries as it provided an example of the possibilities of airborne troops. Other German operations between 1940 and 1941 were not as successful as the Eben Emaul raid; the paratroop and air landings in the Netherlands accomplished some of their objectives, but at great costs. A similar fate befell the air assaults in Norway and OperationNiwi, an airlanding in Belgium by Fiesler Storch aircraft managed to succeed despite significant losses. German airborne assaults crested during Operation Merkur, the invasion of Crete. Like other these examples, losses in transport aircraft were even more severe and the operation exposed real problems in German paratrooper doctrine such as relying on dropped weapons canisters. The losses of Merkur were so high that it hamstrung German paratroop operations for the rest of the war as Hitler and Goering became reluctant to conduct another large-scale operation like the Crete invasion. Losses in transport aircraft, the end of air superiority, and fuel restrictions further hamstrung German air operations. The paradrops for the Battle of the Bulge were largely failures and were a sad postscript to Eben Emael.

Compared to the Germans, the Italian paratroop operations were much more restricted. The 1940 successes of the Germans inspired Mussolini to expand his paratroop forces and these formations were to be used as the Italian spearhead for Operation Hercules, the invasion of Malta. But this operation never came to pass and the Italian paratroopers assumed a role as an elite light infantry formation much like German paratroopers did. Japan's paratroop formations had a much more active war, especially in the invasion of the Dutch East Indies. But the same factors that limited Germany's air assault operations were doubly true for Japan. But the large geographic spaces of the Pacific did make commando air assaults attractive. The IJA's Giretsu Airborne Unit conducted a suicide commando raid on Okinawa in May 1945 to destroy American aircraft on the ground. The commandos traveled in obsolete Ki-21 bombers that crashed onto the American airfields and placed explosive charges on the aircraft. The success of this operation prompted the IJN to plan for Operation Tsurugi, an attack on Saipan. The end of the war stopped this one-way operation, but it was in advanced stages of preparation by the end of the war.

Ultimately, the greatest impact of Axis airborne operations was on that of their enemies. Although the actual successes of Axis airborne operations was actually quite mixed when measured between losses and gains, these operations did frighten Allied planners into action. Panic and fear of massive German paratrooper assaults in 1940 created a degree of panic behind the lines that enabled German victory in France and the Low Countries and this panic in turn created an impression that German airborne forces were larger and more effective than they were in reality. Although Crete was a Pyrrhic victory for the German airborne arm, it strengthened the hand of Western advocates of larger paratroop divisions and making mass air assault a major feature of Allied invasion operations. The Germans' use of assault gliders likewise showed the validity of the concept. The Axis victories using these units demonstrated the flexibility and speed inherent to airborne operations, which was also a useful pretext for the expansion of Allied airborne forces. By demonstrating the actual effectiveness of air assault, the Axis actually encouraged the Western Allies to consider this a viable form of warfare.