The lessons for the United States to be found in Iraq's 1980 invasion of Iran are warning lights that should caution us from reducing the capabilities of the United States Army. If heeded, they can build the foundation of victory ten or twenty years in the future. Some of the lessons of the First Gulf War that can help us prepare for victory:
· The need to maintain a combined arms approach to battle was demonstrated time and again. In one of their drives on Ahvaz, the Iraqis used only tanks in the belief that infantry and artillery would slow the advance. If the Army does not field artillery and support vehicles capable of keeping up with our superb Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles, we will need to sacrifice the speed of the Abrams and Bradleys to allow the slower supporting vehicles to keep up or risk arriving at our objectives with only a fraction of our combat power. Combined arms extends to the other services as well, especially air power. The absolute failure of Iraq’s air force to aid the Iraqi ground invasion highlights the waste of resources spent on this service. Our own Air Force, which is unchallenged in the air, must focus on supporting the Army’s ground operations.
· The demonstration that even troops apparently hopelessly outclassed can make a good showing--even if they have to do nothing more complicated than die in place in their bunkers--is useful. Iran’s ill-coordinated light infantry forces were stubborn obstacles to Iraq’s ambitions when deployed in the cities of Khuzestan. Fighting a determined foe block by block and house by house like the Iraqis did in Khorramshahr would force our Army to play by our enemy's rules. Although it is possible that information dominance could extend our superiority in open warfare to urban areas, that breakthrough has not happened. We must not forget that urban conditions may limit our technological and training advantages, lest we experience our own Khorramshahr debacle one day.
· The importance of gaining information dominance is clear from the Iraqi army’s experience of plodding to stalemate by advancing blindly as separate brigades with no situational awareness and ignorant of the location of its enemy. Iraq’s chief advantage, its numerical edge, was thrown away by Iraq’s inability to coordinate more than a brigade at once in battle. We must know when an objective is unguarded, such as at Susangerd in 1980; and when they are defended, such as at Khorramshahr, in order to generate a tempo of action that will paralyze the enemy. If we can harness the potential of information dominance, we will allow the Army to exploit its training and equipment advantages to create a fast and agile force whose flexibility and firepower stun an enemy by massing effort against weak points.
Information dominance must also be achieved before we ever arrive on the battlefield. Our Army is a power projection force that must be deployed largely from the continental United States. Our national intelligence apparatus must be able to tell the President and Congress when and where the Army is needed with enough certainty and warning time to get a significant force--not just a trip wire--on the ground and ready to fight. Iran’s failure prior to the war to deploy in Khuzestan, where the real threat was located, prevented Iran from utilizing its still formidable strength to halt the invasion at the border. Iran was able to halt the invasion, but then faced the task of expelling the Iraqis from the ground they held.
· Notwithstanding technological strides, well-trained troops with good morale are still important in the information age. In 1980, Iraq’s equipment was decent if not first rate--it was certainly lethal enough to win if well handled. Yet the troops who manned that equipment could not smash an outnumbered, divided and dispersed enemy that had been taken by surprise. The U.S. Army, which will not enjoy the luxury of outnumbering a foe by the six-to-one ratio the Iraqis enjoyed in Khuzestan, must be orders of magnitude better than any enemy if it is
to deliver decisive victory.
· We must not under-estimate our potential foes as the Iraqis did in 1980. They will be clever just as we are. They will believe in the cause for which they are fighting. And they, too, will fight to win. We cannot assume that the sight of an American soldier will panic our enemy and induce retreat and surrender in the same manner that Iraq thought the Iranians would collapse when confronted with Iraq’s overwhelming invasion force. That Iran fought even when the experts said they should give up is a lesson that must not be overlooked. We will need to fight, bleed, and struggle for victory. To assume any lesser effort will suffice is courting disaster in our hubris. Not far in the background, coexisting with our confidence in the quality of our military machine, is a contradictory fear of failure. Not wanting to repeat our experience in Vietnam, many speak of needing an “exit strategy” before committing troops. Such an approach seeks to minimize our losses under the assumption that we will at some point lose, so we had better know when to cut our losses and get out. It also assumes that the situation allows for an exit and that our enemy will allow it. The Iraqis desperately wanted out of the war they initiated in 1980 but were locked by Iran in a death grip that allowed for no easy exit. While planning for a tough, resilient enemy is prudent, we must never become paralyzed by concentrating on how that enemy can hurt us. We need to keep our focus on achieving victory.
· The need to establish a realistic war plan is also highlighted by Iraq’s invasion campaign. In one sense, the Iraqis did establish achievable military objectives. They did not aim for distant Tehran or the Strait of Hormuz but instead sought to capture adjacent Khuzestan--an objective within reach. Putting aside Iraq's failure to vigorously pursue the objectives established, one must step back and ask whether achievement of those objectives would have resulted in victory. Would the rapid seizure of Khuzestan have compelled Iran to sue for peace? It is possible; it would certainly have been better to vigorously pursue even an imperfect objective. We may not be able to answer this question for Iraq, but we must ask the question for ourselves before we embark on a military expedition. Setting a militarily achievable objective is not sufficient to bring victory. We must also reasonably expect that the attainment of that objective will lead to political victory by ending the war.
These lessons, although useful in isolation, teach us a larger lesson when taken together. Ending a war with victory should, of course, be the ultimate objective. Iraq’s many failings and Iran’s successful resistance teach us the need to overwhelm an enemy. If you give your foe the opportunity to resist, he may very well take it. If Iraq had been able to aggressively advance, reaching its objectives in days, Iran might have been shocked into submission. Iraq’s invasion force lacked the force quality, despite its numerical edge, to overcome stumbling blocks at Khorramshahr, Abadan, Ahvaz and Dezful to defeat the Iranians. Our own estimates of what it will take to win a MTW may well overlook the need for a margin of error. Fortunately, the goal of fighting two MTWs nearly simultaneously in effect gives us this margin.
The NDP provides another legitimizing process to reduce further our already small Army. It is also an opportunity for the Army’s defenders to validate the QDR’s sound reasoning for maintaining a high quality Army and halt what could easily become an annual ritual of reducing the Army after claiming to see no threats to American interests on the horizon. America needs an Army with enough soldiers to be robust enough to overcome setbacks and still emerge victorious. The Army needs the equipment, numbers and training to overwhelm an enemy force with such speed and decisiveness that we will win the war and not just the battle. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which has given America so much grief this decade, can teach the United States to avoid paying a high cost in its next war if we will heed the lessons of the First Gulf War. His five-division invasion force was too small and too poorly trained and equipped to smash Iran; and by the end of the war, nearly eight years later, Iraq needed an army of nearly a million troops to hold the line.
Finally, American victory in war requires a joint approach, with all the services contributing their unique capabilities. The core of any war effort, however, must be the ground elements provided by the Army, which alone is capable of taking on the most sophisticated or determined enemy and delivering victory. Complete victory comes when your soldiers plant the flag on the enemy’s territory and impose your will--not achieved when you can sail offshore or fly overhead with impunity. By any reasonable standard a well-equipped and superbly trained United States Army with global responsibilities is hardly too much for America's taxpayers to support in peacetime, given the public's expectations of decisive victory against even the toughest opponent.” (pp.17-19).
This paper is still available from the Institute of Land Warfare.
With talk of war being delayed until January or February or even later (and signs apparently supporting this timeframe such as British contracting for ships for January to June to move heavy armor), I should note that I don’t believe it. I think we will have enough very soon to smash Iraq thoroughly.
Countdown to Invasion: 8 days.
