10 Lessons From Iraq (NSR- Duh)

[lemon boy]

Got this from another bb I post at, thought it was interesting. It is primarily about military doctrine so I wouldn't get tooooooo hot and heavy on the political side of the equation.
sorry about formatting, lazy.


A Grave New World

10 lessons from the war in Iraq

By Ralph Peters

Drawing rigid lessons from the military experience of the moment is foolhardy. The human capacity for mischief plays havoc with doctrinaireanalysis. Yet, our military establishment and, especially, its civilian leadership fell prey to a worse temptation: Clinging to a vision of war as they wished it to be, while the dimensions of conflict changed in ways that mocked their cherished plans.

We need to be wary, but we can't refuse to learn. We must do our best to harvest the enduring lessons from our recent military campaigns, while winnowing out the case-specific issues. Thereafter, we must be merciless in amending our doctrine, our procurement programs, our force structure and, above all, our mentality - if we are to lessen our risks in the grave, new world around us.

Ten lessons from Iraq seem incontestable:

1. Technology still can't win wars by itself. Does anyone remember "shockand awe," the farcical concept deskbound theorists sold to civilian Pentagon cadres who lacked military experience? The air campaign that was supposed to defeat Saddam Hussein's regime overnight and prove that ground forces were obsolescent (if not obsolete) was a contractor's fantasy that rapidly became a decision-maker's embarrassment.

Nothing worked as planned. Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of hardware couldn't persuade a determined opponent to quit. An enemy whose mentality had not even been considered shrugged off our sound-and-light show.

We found that precision weaponry, for all its virtues, could be too precise, failing to inflict sufficient pain to create an atmosphere of catastrophic defeat. We preened about "network-centric warfare," but its proven masters aren't our service technocrats. The innovators have been the ragtag terrorists who exploited the internet, cell phones and the global media far more effectively than we performed with extravagant, irrelevant technologies.

2. Land warfare still demands ground troops. The paradox of the high-tech 21st century is that the security problems we face are overwhelmingly of flesh and blood, arisen from a rage of souls in failing civilizations. And it still takes human beings to solve human problems - especially duringconflicts in that most daunting of human creations, the city.

Soldiers and Marines, grudgingly marshaled in theater, had to win Operation Iraqi Freedom the old-fashioned way, fighting along road and river lines, through sandstorms and ambushes, then climaxing the land campaign with bold thrusts into Baghdad. They proved, yet again, that muscle and mind still trump metal and microchips. And in counterinsurgency efforts, technology plays a useful, but distinctly secondary role.

3. We need those ground troops in sufficient numbers. Mass is back. Calculating how cheaply military operations can be conducted simply makes them less likely to succeed. Numbers still matter, so if you got 'em, use 'em. Our Army and Marine Corps are too small for our inescapable globalroles. Yet, Iraqi Freedom was supposed to pave the way to a cut of two to three Army divisions. Now the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) is struggling to prevent a temporary (and still far from adequate) increase of 30,000 in Army end strength from becoming permanent - in order to preservefunding for Cold War legacy systems. OSD's first loyalties appear to be to the defense industry, rather than to our national defense.

4. Speed is the dominant battlefield requirement. In the 1980s, officers spoke of "operating inside the enemy's decision cycle." Today, our forces must "operate inside the media cycle."

The hostile global media, led by al-Jazeera, won the First Battle of Fallujah. Our Marines did everything expertly and by the book. But the book called for deliberate urban operations, which gave the media time to muster world opinion against us and break the nerve of key leaders.

We won the Second Battle of Fallujah because we used overwhelming force, we didn't shirk from doing what was necessary - and we did it fast. The full-bore operation was over in less than a week.

Our armed forces will never again face a single opponent on any battleground. We will always be confronted with a third "combatant" at whom we can't return fire: the media. The only way to win is to speed the kill.

> 5. The enemy must be convinced of his defeat. Because we deployed
> too small
> a force to Iraq, the ground campaign that brought us Baghdad
> failed to
> result in a conclusive victory. The Sunni-Arab heartlands of Iraq -
> the
> source of support for Saddam Hussein's regime - never felt the
> agony of war.
> Many a Sunni-Arab town or city hardly saw an American soldier or
> Marine for
> months after we believed we had won decisively.
>
> Our enemy didn't feel defeated. He felt tricked, betrayed and shamed.
> Compounding our problems, we worried not only about friendly
> casualties, but
> about enemy casualties during combat operations - we didn't want
> to hurt
> Iraqi feelings. As a result, our technical knockout fostered the
> rise of a
> resistance.
>
> The enemy who doesn't suffer may raise his hands above his head,
> but he
> won't surrender in his heart. Our enemies and their supporters
> must be
> broken down to a sense of utter hopelessness.
>

[lemon boy]

pt II.


> 6. The details of combat operations must be left to military
> professionals.This is a lesson we just can't seem to learn.
> Ideology may get you into
> Baghdad, but it will not get you back out.
>
> We're blessed to have an apolitical military. Attempts to use it for
> partisan purposes, rather than for our nation's strategic
> requirements,pervert the institution's essential values. Afraid
> that the projected costs
> would be so high it would be difficult to "sell" toppling the
> Iraqi regime
> to Congress and the American people, the civilian leadership in
> OSD refused
> to allow our military to prepare for a full range of
> contingencies. Detailed
> planning for an occupation of Iraq was forbidden. Everything was
> supposed to
> happen by magic.
>
> The ideologues got their war, but the result was a great thing
> done very,
> very badly. Every American casualty that was suffered during the
> invasionand the subsequent occupation lies at the feet of the
> inexperiencedcivilians in OSD who refused to heed the advice of
> those who had dedicated
> their lives to uniformed service.
>
> 7. Occupations have fundamental requirements. Presence matters.
> Occupations are manpower-intensive. The defeated population must
> see their
> occupiers at virtually every turn. There is no such thing as
> occupation-lite. You must begin with a crushing weight of numbers to
> psychologically disarm a population shocked by the failure of
> their national
> regime. And you must impose martial law immediately.
>
> Martial law has nothing to do with capricious brutality. Rather,
> it assures
> the population that their persons and their property will be safe,
> eventhough their world has collapsed around them. Martial law only
> penalizesthose who seek lawless advantage or who intend to
> continue resistance:
> criminals, insurgents and terrorists.
>
> Everything we hope to achieve during an occupation stems from the
> rule of
> law. And while you can loosen restrictions quickly, if the situation
> warrants, it's almost impossible to tighten up controls after you have
> permitted social chaos and rampant criminality to flourish.
>
> It's also essential to involve the local population in the
> reconstruction of
> their own country. Turning Iraq into a looting orgy for U.S.
> contractors was
> exactly the wrong thing to do: It inflated expectations beyond the
> possible,while failing to engage a worried, needy population.
>
> It is always wise to place as much responsibility for recovery on
> localshoulders as possible. By immediately hiring local
> contractors and co-opting
> the local sources of power by exploiting their greed, we would
> have saved
> billions, moved faster and put hundreds of thousands of young
> Iraqis to work
> - instead of leaving them unemployed and embittered.
> The
> repairs might have been inefficient and payrolls certainly would
> have been
> padded, but that would have worked to our advantage.
>
> Put people to work and keep them busy. Get the delinquents off the
> streetcorners. When complaints arise that the power isn't on or
> the taps remain
> dry, you can point to the local entrepreneurs you paid to provide
> for their
> compatriots.
>
> Devolve onerous responsibilities as quickly as possible, while
> maintaining a
> monopoly on power. Besides, the Iraqis knew how to repair their own
> infrastructure. For all of our technological prowess, we didn't.
>
> 8. Military intelligence is broken. Despite some fine tactical
> improvisation, it's undeniable that our military intelligence
> services, as
> presently configured, are incapable of providing the intense,
> incisive and
> imaginative support combat commanders require. The reason is
> simple: We
> trusted technology and slighted the human factor.
>
> Our intelligence system remains better suited to fighting the
> absent-without-leave Soviet Union than it is to the ultra-human
> struggles in
> which we have found ourselves - and which will dominate our
> military future.
> Why did we place technology above people? Because the human factor is
> troublesome, undependable and frustrating.
>
> But human talent is nonetheless indispensable. Satellites can't
> peer into
> the human soul. Computers can't predict what an enemy will do
> impulsively.Nor will any machine do so in our lifetimes, despite
> the extravagant
> promises of the apostles of technology.
>
> I recall visiting Fort Huachuca, Ariz., in 1984. A lieutenant colonel
> assured me that, by the 1990s, intelligence hands like me would be
> obsolete.Artificial intelligence was going to solve all of our
> problems. He was
> wrong, of course. But his promises have been replaced with other,
> equallyfoolish claims.
>
> If we were forced to discard every technical-collection system to
> which we
> have enslaved ourselves, but could replace the hardware with more
> skilledanalysts, agents and interrogators, we would be far more
> successful.Certainly, technology can help us. But there is no
> substitute for talented,
> trained and dedicated human minds fixed on our enemies.
>
> 9. Language skills and cultural knowledge are vital combat
> multipliers.A single officer fluent in the local language and
> aware of cultural nuances
> can be far more valuable to our military than entire squadrons of
> F/A-22s.
>
> If there is any single factor our military services neglect that could
> enhance our strategic and tactical performance, it's the command
> of foreign
> languages. How can we "know our enemies" if we don't know what they're
> saying?
>
> Although valuable, current foreign-area-officer programs and hasty
> pre-deployment courses barely scratch the surface of our needs.
> Officers
> should be required to develop at least a rudimentary ability in one
> high-threat foreign language, and superior skill levels should be
> rewardedhandsomely. This goes against our thinking about what an
> officer should be,
> but we are going to have to change our thinking as the world
> changes around
> us.
>
> A battalion commander forced to rely on a local-hire translator is
> no longer
> the most powerful figure in his or her battalion. We will never
> penetrateour enemy's local codes unless we can enter his mindset,
> and language skills
> are the indispensable key.
>
> The reply I got from one four-star general that "OPMS won't
> support language
> training for officers" was fodder for satire. If the Officer Personnel
> Management System isn't giving us what we need, then we need to
> change the
> system. And wartime is the one time when we can do it.
>
> To their credit, the Marines are shaping an ambitious language-skills
> program. The Army must make a similar commitment. Languages are
> weapons.
> 10. The three crucial types of operations in which our forces will
> engageare strategic raids, punitive expeditions and full-scale
> invasions, followed
> by occupations. Forget the self-imposed rule that "if you break
> it, you own
> it." While our extended presence in both Afghanistan and Iraq
> makes sense,
> we can't reconstruct every troubled society on earth. And some (think
> Somalia) will be so fundamentally hostile to our values that we
> can only
> punish them and leave.
>
> While the forms of conflict are complex, ever-mutating and never fully
> predictable, we can project the need for brief strategic raids
> that strike
> finite targets, then leave; longer punitive expeditions that
> engage a more
> complex enemy, reduce his capabilities, then leave; and full-scale
> invasions, some of which will be followed by occupations.
>
> Such operations demand an expeditionary mentality in every
> service, but
> that's only a return to our military heritage. From the "shores of
> Tripoli"to the Army's campaign against the Moros, from our
> frontier days to
> clandestine special operations, we've known how to fight, win and,
> whenappropriate, leave.
>
> Certainly, there will be times when we wish to extend a helping
> hand to the
> opponent we knocked down. But some enemies should just be left
> lying there.
> Empires, even postmodern ones, need to be able to tell the difference.
>
> Ralph Peters is a retired U.S. Army officer. The author of 20 books,
> including the forthcoming "New Glory," he has experience in 60
> countries on
> six continents. This article is the first in a series on 21st- century
> warfare. In subsequent issues, the author will develop the themes
> summarizedhere.

[assgasorgrass]

gobble gobble?

[lemon boy]

NO FUCKING LOVE! Biked my ass off (still hurts) and didn't hear a thing. But, I did get way way past all the gapers who had no idea the road was closed and had a real nice morning regardless. You?

[mr_gyptian]

I like a lot of what Ralph has to say. Every incursion/war needs to be carefully analyzed on how to improve the next time around.

however, right off the bat criticizing the Shock and Awe kills a little bit of his credibility. while the principal author of the doctrine is a professor. calling the likes of Chuck Horner a desk jockey is ridiculous. dismissing the man that ran the air campaign in the first half of the Gulf War is egregious to say the least.

read the link and you'll see that what happened in Iraq is nothing close to shock and awe. http://www.ndu.edu/inss/books/books%...0-%20Dec%2096/

[assgasorgrass]

Idaho opens Friday, 15th. Still trying to decide if I want to go out on opening weekend, because it is a weekend. Might do a little cast and blast. Steelhead fishing is pretty friggin' hot right now and there are gobblers there as well. Long season ahead, we go until May 25th, can take two birds if one is adept enough. Way to get out there.

[lemon boy]

Sadly we can only take one, not that it matters, I hunted hard last year and blanked. I can get a fair number of weekdays in so I don't have to deal with the total weekend nightmare but still go out many weekend days.