If Iraq Descends into "Civil War"

Talk of a civil war in Iraq seems misguided on a couple levels. One, there are too few Sunnis to carve out a chunk of territory and battle it out with the Shias and Kurds in a classic civil war where each side owns its own territory and has its own government. Really, if the situation in Iraq goes to Hell over religion, we are talking about open civil strife in which the Shia majority ethnically cleanses or kills the Sunni minority:

Many Department of Defense and CENTCOM analysts are putting the chances of an Iraqi "civil war" at 60-70 percent. However, this civil war would be more like Bosnia in the early 1990s. That is, the majority of Iraqis (Kurds and Shia Arabs) trying to kill or drive out the minority (Sunni Arabs). The Sunni Arabs are well aware of this, and more of them are openly lining up with the government.

And if you define civil war this broadly, Iraq has been in "civil war" for virtually all of Saddam's rule (and you might go back several centuries while you are at it) with either the Shia or Kurd being targeted (or both) by the Sunnis. Indeed, under this definition, our invasion in 2003 didn't stop the civil war, it just changed who has the ministries and heavy weapons and hence gets to be called the government of Iraq.

So I can't take seriously the idea of worrying excessively about a "civil war." In one sense, it is here and always has been. In the other classic North-South sense, it just isn't going to happen.

But still, the question of what we would order our troops to do in case of open civil strife is important.

First of all, let me go back to objectives in Iraq from an old post in November 2004:

Look, we are not guaranteed of getting a real democracy in Iraq. I hope the Iraqis are up to building rule of law and democracy. They need to do this and all we can do is help. They sure as heck deserve freedom after all they’ve endured. But maybe we’ll just get a decent authoritarian government in Baghdad. Maybe, like Taiwan or South Korea did, Iraq will then evolve into a real democracy in time. Anything in the continuum of democracy to not-brutal authoritarian government will be an improvement over what we’ve seen.

Given what the old ways gave us, an effort to change the rules seems in order. I want to try for democracy in Iraq. But I’ll settle for 1970s-era South Korea.

Even if we fail to birth democracy quickly, we can get it eventually if we keep trying. And simply stopping a minority from oppressing the majority and putting the majority in charge is progress of a sort, even if the majority exacts revenge for past mass murders. Not that I think that we will have to settle for less than the establishment of a democracy, but my point is that even if we reach for that and fail, a lesser result does not mean failure overall for the war.

So in this light, what should our military do if civil strife breaks out inside Iraq in earnest?

Going back to an early article of mine, we should not try to fight all sides to stop the war. This looks eerily like "peace enforcement" as defined in the early nineties. We intervened on the side of the Shias and Kurds by deposing Saddam and should not defend the Sunnis who have moved way too slowly to abandon hopes of a Baathist restoration and join the government. The Shias and Kurds do have reason to be impatient for some signs of goodwill after all the Shias and Kurds have endured as victims and as the government.

On the other hand, we can't support the Shias if their goal is to slaughter Sunnis and push them out of Iraq. We just can't. Even though impulses for revenge might be understandable given what the Shias and Kurds endured, it would be wrong to support punishment outside of trials under a proper legal system.

So, we must not side with the Sunnis; must not support Shia atrocities (the Kurds too, I suppose in theory, but they are more likely to take advantage of open civil strife to just pull out of Iraq than to join in the revenge campaign); must protect our troops and lines of communication and supply to Kuwait and Jordan; and must deter the Iranians or even the Syrians from invading.

In this light, we'd have to do several things:

--So we pull most of our units into brigade formations set for conventional operations centered around our major land bases and air bases. This is for se;f protection, to get out of the way of Iraqis fighting each other, and to have forces ready to fight Iranian conventional forces coming across the border.

--We identify Iraqi army and security units that are not going factional and continue to supply them. Anybody else that goes Shia or Kurd and joins in a real civil strife campaign is cut off from food and ammunition. This will slow down the fighting.

--We protect key bridges and choke points and do not allow any factional forces through. This is another method to passively hinder the fighting.

--We heavily patrol the major highways to Kuwait and Jordan. This keeps our supply routes open and preserves freedom of movement and also tends to keep the ethnic units from moving freely.

--We surge air power to the region to protect our forces and warn off potential invaders.

--And we work to convince the Iraqi government to control their factions in order to minimize the chance that continued fighting will cause still-loyal units to break. Loyal units will need to be sent carefully to protect key positions that keep factions apart without forcing these units to attack other forces that have devolved into militias, when the loyalty of the army units to the nation (as opposed to their tribe or religion) may be fragile.

And then we ride it out and then drive on after the fighting dies down, trying to bend the situation back to our favor. Full democracy might have to become a more distant goal as we support the majority in their efforts to end the terror and Sunni insurgency in the wake of a major ethnic/religious bloodletting. But partial victory is better than defeat. And partial victory allows for the chance that full victory comes later.

Wars have setbacks. This would be a major one, no doubt. But it would not necessarily be fatal if we keep our heads and don't panic. And for the record, I think the situation is not nearly as dire as the conventional wisdom states. I think we have a good shot at turning over security duties to Iraqis and creating a real if fragile democracy.

The job won't be over by far, but another crisis will be over.

The Samson Option

I am not comforted by the notion that Israel can deter Iran if we just do nothing about Iran's looming nuclear weapons. Discussions that Israel could lob an awful lot of nukes at Iran and therefore take care of the problem if deterrence fails ignore the fact that there is no way that Israel would restrict its retaliation to Iran if it loses Tel Aviv.

Consider the Israeli strategic situation. Their enemy isn't a particular state but the Arab world collectively plus Iran. If Iran hits Israel with a nuke and that nuke does significant damage to Israel, Israel is wounded and perhaps an inviting target for hostile states like Syria and even barely friendly states like Egypt which has a population that hates the Jewish state notwithstanding little things like peace treaties. Add the Palestinian-majority Jordan and the always hostile Saudis and you might have the makings of a 1948 Round 2 as hostile Arab states try to throttle Israel where they failed sixty years ago.

Heck, Iran under that whackjob Ahmadinejad might consider it a real honor to take a spear for the team if it gets rid of Israel.

So if Israel is hurt badly enough (and I don't know if a lesser or greater loss than Tel Aviv would reach this level--but there is some level of damage that would make Israel vulnerable to a conventional/chemical invasion), there is no way that Israel will restrict their nuclear retaliation to Tehran and a few other Iranian cities.

If Israel has 40-60 nukes (and I just don't believe the numbers cited some places that reach 500), Israel might use half--say 25--to strike out and cripple their enemies while leaving a reserve to threaten even more damage if attacked again by chemicals. Israel would nail Iran with perhaps a dozen to hit Tehran, some major cities of religious or economic importance, and Iran's nuclear reactors and major oil-exporting ports.

Then hit Damascus and Syria's major port. And hit Cairo and Alexandria and perhaps Port Said. And hit Amman. Take out Mecca, Medina, and Riyadh. And possibly Beirut just in case. Tripoli would probably also be targetted.

I just don't think a nuclear strike that worked would remain bilateral. There is no way Israel would take the risk of a follow-up conventional invasion by hostile states emboldened by a mushroom cloud over Israel. The only way a nuclear war might remain bilateral is if Israel shoots down the Iranian missile. Israel would strike back--perhaps at an isolated economic target like Kharg Island just to hurt Iran yet avoid mass murder. But Tehran might be targetted anyway--I just don't know what the psychology of the situation would generate.

And what the hell would our planet look like in the aftermath of this mass death and destruction?

Just one more reason that we can't afford to let the nutball Iranian regime get nukes. We have to act. Just wishing for the best when Iran is run by nutjobs is criminally negligent.

Faint Praise

The United States, Japan, and Australia concluded talks about security issues in Asia:

"Supporting the emergence and consolidation of democracies and strengthening cooperative frameworks in the Asia-Pacific region was a particular focus of our attention," they said in a joint statement.

"We welcomed China's constructive engagement in the region and concurred on the value of enhanced cooperation with other parties such as ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and the Republic of Korea."

Yep. However little there is, we all welcome China's constructive engagement. The very focus on democracy is a bar way too high for Peking to meet. So we all welcome what little good China does but recognize that under the current regime there is no way they will ever do much more.

But don't think this is all about stopping China! Oh no:

China's growing influence was expected to a major issue at the talks following remarks by Rice earlier this week urging the Communist giant to explain its military build-up.

Downer Saturday moved to dampen fears that the trilateral meet was designed to produce a containment strategy on China, saying it was natural for three countries with so much in common to meet to discuss security.

At a press conference after the meeting, Downer sought to reassure China there was no "conspiracy" against it.

"This is a very natural relationship... and shouldn't be interpreted as an act of conspiracy against China, of course it's not," he said.

"It's not for China to feel that we are ganging up on China or that Australia is suddenly changing its policy on China."

Downer said the three countries were committed to helping Beijing participate fully in the region.

This is an alliance. And any alliance has a threat that the alliance is "allying" against. Sure, we all hope China won't activate this alliance, which increasingly will include India; but we are making it clear that it is up to China whether China participates fully in the region on our terms of democracy or faces powerful foes who will prevent them from being a threat to what we have built since World War II.

Outrage

For the hard core Left that has organized protests over the Iraq War on the third anniversary of the invasion, it must be disappointing that few people are out on the streets with their bongos and papier mache puppets chanting about the alleged crime of overthrowing a despot and freeing an entire nation.

On the other hand, hundreds of thousands of lazy elite French college students are rioting over the prospect of not having guaranteed employment regardless of their performance. We in America who work on an "at will" basis can only marvel at the nerve of these whining pampered thuglets.

Yes, I know, rioting students have a long tradition in Europe. But one must question their idealism when they are protesting for the right to be lazy when they could be protesting the liberation of Iraqis from a murderous despot.

And yes, I'm enjoying the spectacle way too much. I may even feel guilty about it later.

UPDATE: Whoa. An Instalanche. I really need to just learn that mocking French elites is the road to traffic and quit discussing little things like the future of the Air Force and such.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Mad Minerva writes to note that the French government will likely capitulate. The romance of the Revolution and all ... Heck, I read a McDonalds was attacked, so the protests are now sanctified as a defense of the very culture of France.

Swarming Attention

A lot of attention is being paid to Operation Swarmer. This despite the fact that this assault on a ten by ten mile area is actually pretty quiet:

In Operation Swarmer, described as the biggest helicopter-borne operation in three years when it began Thursday, the joint U.S.-Iraqi force captured six people, not further identified, allegedly responsible for the March 11 killing of Amjad Hameed, a journalist for the television network al-Iraqiya, and his driver, the government reported.

About 80 suspected insurgents overall had been detained as of Saturday, and 17 were released after questioning, said Lt. Col. Edward S. Loomis, a 101st Airborne Division spokesman. He said the search teams turned up 15 weapons caches containing 352 mortar rounds, 84 rocket-propelled grenades and a "significant amount" of material for making improvised roadside bombs, among other items.

I have to ask why so much attention is being directed at a fairly routine mission. Not to play down the simple technical aspects of carrying out a battalion-sized air assault, but there is not a major fight going on--or even much contact at all.

So are we doing something more significant under the radar elsewhere?

UPDATE: I read on Strategypage that the press attention is just the result of a slow news day. Nothing to report so make a lot about a routined operation. I must admit this explanation of press inadequacy rather than deep plans is much simpler.

Air Force Rejoining the Army

The military seems to be in the process of rejoining the Air Force and Army for all practical purposes. The Air Force has created TACP (Tactical Air Control Party) Strykers and the Army is happy to have them. They will train and fight together:

TACPs are going to Iraq, where they will serve their designed purpose, to make a new air force/army concept work. This involves formally linking air force fighter squadrons with army combat brigades. The air force and army units would regularly train together in peace time. This means that the commanders and staffs from the two services would frequently meet to plan these exercises. That would give everyone an opportunity to bring each other up to date on new equipment, weapons and ideas in each service. The first units will consist of several F-16 squadrons and a Stryker brigade. One reason for using the Stryker brigade is that these units have the latest communications and computer gear, which is designed to easily communicate with similarly equipped warplanes overhead. The new combinations will be called a Joint Mission Capability Package (Joint MCAP). If this experiment works, reserve and active duty warplane squadrons would be linked, via a Joint MCAP arrangement, with army brigades, with the idea that, if the army unit had to ship out to a combat zone overseas, its MCAP air force squadrons would go with it.

The Army has always been envious of the Marines who had their own air force dedicated to supporting the troops on the ground. The Air Force always had more important jobs to do. But now the Air Force is providing ground support so successfully that even Army artillery is looking like an inferior option to Army forces when it comes to timely and accurate fire support. I applaud the Air Force for this change in emphasis.

And to add to the change, but not quite like a Marine Expeditionary Force that has a ground division and an air wing under one headquarters, the Air Force will earmark squadrons to particular brigades.

Will the military go the extra step of subordinating the squadrons affiliated with the brigades to the parent Army Unit of Employment headquarters?

And will the next step be to mix Army attackand scout helicopters, artillery units, and armed and recon UAVs with Air Force planes and UAVs into single fire support units?

Will this in time suck the ground support mission from the Air Force to the Army as Army and Air Force capabilities overlap and work together?

This all makes sense to me. The Air Force provides ground support because it is the only game in town. Strategic missiles are not high priority. Deep interdiction is no longer a priority since there are no second and third echelons of enemy forces arrayed behind the first wave of attackers as in the Cold War NATO front. And in air superiority, only China can threaten our dominance with both numbers and quality--and that only one day if ever.

If so, my advice to the Air Force remains: Aim High:

I think the Air Force needs to go up to space and let the ground guys take over the aerial missions needed to directly support the troops.

Air superiority (including counter-air missions against enemy airfields), space control (both offensive and defensive), ICBMs, air transport, and electronic warfare should be the Air Force missions. Missions that are directly in support of ground forces should be controlled by those services with either helicopters or UAVs.

Science fiction calls space assets "ships" but there is no reason we must have a space navy in the future. Aim high, Air Force. Space Force has a nice ring, too.

The Air Force should refocus its missions. Let me add that I think "space control" should include missile defense against ICBMs. And my list isn't exhaustive by any means. I just tossed them off as I wrote. We might even consider having an Air Force special forces regiment designed to use ground forces against enemy nuclear weapons. They would understand nuclear weapons use and maintenance so they can quickly identify nuclear assets when inserted in either teams or as an entire regiment to take out an enemy nuclear missile base or facility.

The process of rejoining the Air Force with the Army is beginning. The Air Force can either fight for a shrinking market share and essentially go out of business as it loses missions and Congress wonders why we retain a separate rump service to operate a military airline with some fighter aircraft and a small ICBM force; or look to the future, aim high, and offer a new and unique product that nobody else can offer--United States Space Force.

At least He Defends the War ...

This author (via Real Clear Politics) defends the decision to go to war as we approach the three-year anniversary of H-Hour against Saddam's regime:

The failures of the occupation are legion: delayed elections, inadequate security, eroding infrastructure, complacency over the tortures at Abu Ghraib, and a heavy death toll among Iraqi civilians and our troops. But had we allowed Saddam's regime to persist, in defiance of its obligations under 17 UN security council resolutions, the consequences would have been an unalloyed catastrophe. The Uday-Qusay dynasty would have ensured further extreme oppression, unless and until the regime collapsed in chaos. It is a fine judgment whether a rogue state or a failed state, prey to the barbarities that jihadists are trying to inflict on Iraq now but without hindrance, would have been the worse prospect. The notion that terrorism has been brought to Iraq uniquely by the west's overthrow of Saddam, who bankrolled it and was the most likely conduit for Islamist groups to obtain WMD, is astonishingly ahistorical.

Against those disastrous scenarios, there are clear advances. We no longer have to bear one major risk: a psychopathic despot overcoming a porous sanctions regime, and using oil sales to pay for resumed WMD production. The absence of WMD was a huge intelligence failure; so it is fortunate that we are no longer reliant on Saddam's word. As Professor Graham Pearson, of the Bradford University school of peace studies, has written, focusing on stockpiles is misconceived: "In an aggressor state, there is no requirement to have such stockpiles as the national strategy is not one of having an ability to retaliate in kind but rather ... to use chemical and biological weapons at a time of its choosing." Saddam did possess dual-use facilities that, according to Charles Duelfer of the Iraq Survey Group, could quickly have produced chemical and biological weapons.

I dispute that the failures he listed are accurate, however.

Delayed elections? Delaying the elections is what war opponents demanded all the way up to vote on the constitution--delay the vote until Iraq is more secure, they said. We held firm and held the elections as scheduled. Each one was more successful than the one before it.

Inadequate security? Is the fact that we have not won yet proof that we have had inadequate security? We are in fact winning, so saying our level of security is insufficient just because we haven't won yet is like saying in January 1945 we hadn't committed enough force to defeat the Axis since we hadn't won at that point. Talk to me again if we lose and we'll discuss this question. And when we win, it will seem a pretty silly question.

Eroding infrastructure? We are building (not rebuilding) the electricy and water net to provide services to people who did not have it before. Equitable distribution, higher demand, and terror attacks have made it look like less is available but only from the vantage point of a journalist in Baghdad.

Complacency over torture at Abu Ghraib? What torture? Abuse, sure, but it barely made it beyond hazing practices at British public schools for Pete's sake. And we investigated how long and punished how many? And we are closing the prison out of fear of bad publicity. Complacency? I think not. Quite the opposite. And rightly so. We expect better of our troops and almost always get it. But calling what we punished "torture"? Sheesh.

A heavy death toll among Iraqi civilians and our soldiers? Um, no. For Iraq's civilians, it isn't much compared to the Saddam toll. The common factor of course is that the Baathists then and now target civilians. The difference is now the victims fight back with our help and can look forward to the day when the killers are themselves dead, in jail, or exiled. As for our troops, if the author doesn't know that we suffer losses at historically low levels, I don't know what else I can say.

But heck, if he can still support the overthrow of Saddam even while holding these views, he may be made of sterner stuff than a lot of conservatives over here who once supported the war at least to some degree.

Guiding the Objective Force Through a Desert Storm

The third anniversary of the Iraq War is coming up. I really don't feel like redebating--yet again--the reasons for going to war. The war was morally just. Iraq was a threat to the region and our security. And Iraq was committed to conquest, terror, and acquiring WMD. Opponents of the war have not been honest in debating or redebating this question so far, so I see no reason to debate the questions of the war just because it will be March 19th. 

So instead, let me revisit an older war, the Persian Gulf War (aka Desert Storm or the Second Gulf War). We just passed the fifteenth anniversary of that war, so what the heck, what should we have learned from that war? 

We still need heavy armor and notwithstanding the program to field the networked Future Combat Systems (FCS), we will have Abrams and Bradleys around for decades to come. Experience in the Iraq War has renewed the appreciation for the value of sheer weight of armor in protecting our vehicles. I set forth some of my concerns in Military Review several years ago. 

I was skeptical of the Stryker as a replacement though I conceded that having a medium force to bridge the gap between leg infantry and heavy mechanized forces was in order. I did draw the line at some of the criticisms like complaints that the vehicle could not drive off the ramp of a C-130 in fighting form. What kind of cluster would we be getting into if our troops have to fight their way off the plane ramp? Iraq experience has convinced me that my initial worries about the Stryker were misplaced--though they must still be used for their niche and not as a replacement for heavy armor. 

In the summer of 2001, I entered a Military Review contest on the lessons of the Persian Gulf War ten years after the victory. Sadly, the contest fell apart in editor transition. And when I inquired quite a bit later about the piece, Military Review found my lost entry and looked at it as a stand-alone, but decided against publishing. Pity, since I felt that Desert Storm showed the need for heavy armor rather than seeming to prove heavy armor obsolete. 

I've left the essay as is so keep in mind that the term "Objective Force" is out and "Future Force" in. And that is not just a terminology change, I should add. Future Force is a more evolutionary thing for an ongoing war than the Objective Force concept, which assumed a strategic pause in our need for land forces. And IBCTs are now Stryker Brigade Combat Teams. 

Plus, I guess I have to admit that this just isn't going to get published anywhere, considering it is two wars behind the curve and the lesson of heavy armor seems to have been relearned in the last few years. 

But hey, if you are an editor and are interested, pop me an email on the left. 

If I'm up to it, I may critique this later since it is coming up on five years since I wrote it. 

Here it is, from June 2001:

DESERT STORM 

The United States Army, which is fielding Initial Brigade Combat Teams (IBCTs) as a step toward its leap to the Objective Force, must apply the lessons of Desert Storm to keep ground forces relevant. Learning from Desert Storm, despite our decisive victory, seems pointless to many given the gathering wisdom that chaos rather than armies will be our future "enemy." Arguing that we must prepare the Army for combat exposes such advocates to charges by those conversant in the language of computers, networks, and business that they are mere traditionalists who miss the Cold War and just don't understand the new world. In its haste to disprove critics who accuse the Army of preparing to fight the last war, the Army must not uncritically accept what those critics say are the lessons of the Persian Gulf War. 

Those critics have discounted heavy forces and numbers in their assumption that victory is our birthright. The Army cannot simply think of the war with nostalgic warmth as a glorious but irrelevant episode. Operation Desert Storm is the most recent significant war that the Army has waged and must provide the basis of the Army's transformation process. The old complaint that generals prepare to fight the last war has been replaced by the complaint that our generals prepare for war. This assumption must not stand. We must examine the Gulf War accepting that the lessons of war are still necessary to learn. And we must do so before our next war. 

INFORMATION STORM 

The Army seeks a networked Objective Force that wields precise firepower combined with vastly superior situational awareness. The campaign will develop at incredible speed with current sequential tasks carried out concurrently or at a compressed rate. This "Information Storm" is designed to stun and crush anybody that dares to deploy on a battlefield against us. The 2001 Division Capstone Exercise (DCX) against the renowned OpFor at the National Training Center was a breathtaking demonstration of this capability. But these were digitized Legacy Force units--excellent but heavy. Executing this Information Storm anywhere in the world is a separate and far more difficult challenge. 

Much of the impetus for the transformation process draws strength from the difficulties the Army has had in responding to the military operations other than war that have proliferated since 1989. Task Force Hawk's lengthy deployment to Albania during Allied Force and the hypothetical problem of airlifting troops into Rwanda during the slaughter there earlier in the '90s highlighted the Army’s mobility problem. The Army found it could not easily move its superb heavy units to theaters far from established bases or to ones that lack an infrastructure suitable for mechanized forces. To solve this dilemma, precise firepower and situational awareness, as tested in DCX, will allow the Army to be lightened and reduced in numbers so that the Objective Force may be airlifted rapidly from the Continental United States (CONUS) and sustained with minimal in-theater support units and efficient just-in-time logistical support. The first division will be fighting in five days. The Army hopes to put five divisions on the ground ready to fight in 30 days. 

Unfortunately, the very success of Desert Storm has obscured its lessons and allowed us to focus transformation too much on non-war crises. Indeed, in attempting so much it risks overlooking that whatever future conflict America enters could be "war." We cannot forget that the Information Storm we wish to unleash on a future enemy will be war with all the death and destruction that the term should imply. If we accept that the Objective Force will fight wars, then the differences between what we have should have learned and what we did learn will be the difference between winning and losing that future war. 

GLIMPSES OF THUNDER AND LIGHTNING THROUGH A DESERT SAND STORM 

Operation Desert Storm can teach us lessons in strategic mobility; the utility of heavy armored forces; the size of the Army; and our confidence in victory. In all four areas, Desert Storm has lessons that we have either refused to accept or have failed to comprehend fully.  

Mobility  

We learned that it takes too long to deploy to distant theaters. We learned that the preoccupation with applying overwhelming force to win quickly hindered our rapid initiation of the offensive. The accelerated deployment schedule and commitment to fight early is a striking contrast to the long build-up of Desert Storm as it changed from a shield to a saber. How we get a strategically mobile yet still lethal Objective Force out of the transformation process is unclear, but we know we want it. This need for speed drives the process, yet speed is primarily useful to repel a "bolt from the blue" invasion against an already identified ally. In most other scenarios, speed will be irrelevant or create problems. 

What if we succeed in reaching our speed goal? How will we mobilize national and world opinion for war when deployment means fighting--soon? The time it took in 1990-91 to deploy the heavy divisions to the Saudi desert was not squandered by the government. The President marshaled public opinion here and abroad for the necessity of waging offensive war to liberate Kuwait. He had six months to convince a wary public and Congress that a ground war over a small albeit important kingdom was in our interests. In an era when no mortal threats by a peer competitor loom over America, a President will have to convince the people that we will go to war in five days against a smallish country for smallish aims. We may create the pre-1914 environment of "mobilization means war." If we succeed in transforming the military so that it enters combat a week from the "go" order, how will we ever deploy it? How will a president garner domestic and international backing for war in five days? Boarding the C-17s may mean war. 

What if we don't need to rush to the theater? What if we have plenty of time before the fighting starts--or there is a question of whether war will start? Enhanced speed of deployment will be wasted if we don't go into combat immediately. Will we feel compelled to fight as soon as we arrive in theater even if we should not? If we can wait, will we not wish we had the heavier forces that we are preparing to abandon by the end of the transformation process?  

Heavy Armor 

The single-minded focus on speed in deployment logically led to criticism of our heavy divisions and the determination to replace heavy armor as the core of our war winning forces. Decisive battlefield victory in Desert Storm appeared to give us the luxury of discounting heavy armor. The heavy forces that smashed their way into southern Iraq are now judged dinosaurs unable to reach a theater in time to do any good. Task Force Hawk's lengthy deployment confirmed this lesson and reinforced the trend to lighten the Army. Surely, the theory goes, our vehicles can be lighter and still deliver victory if we compensate with other advances. This lesson assumes overwhelming victory as a constant in the equation and holds that the only thing left to do is speed up the process to get a better result. Victory is not a given. The lighter forces that result will need to replicate VII Corps' clenched fist driving into the Republican Guards with smaller fingers poking the enemy individually as they arrive. We believe technology will allow this to work. We shall see.

One way we believe technology will help compensate for light vehicles is a God-like view of the battlefield for our commanders. We assume that a transparent battlefield and superior communications will allow us to run circles around our foes and always shoot first. Today's push for a light deployable Army is bolstered by the dubious lesson that a footloose maneuver-oriented Army ran around a numerically superior and immobilized Iraqi army. But Iraqi forces successfully maneuvered into blocking positions against the American-led left hook even though they operated without battlefield awareness. Although they failed to stop VII Corps, they did turn to meet the attack head on. Clearly, our information dominance did not paralyze the enemy. Only our heavy armor and massive firepower allowed us to bulldoze our way through the Iraqi defenders. 

In less ideal terrain and against a smarter enemy, this feat could not have been achieved with light armor. French light armored forces in the Gulf War were deemed too weak for the main punch and were given a screening role on the far western flank where they were unlikely to encounter serious opposition. Extolling the flexibility of French forces to bolster the rationale for the IBCT should not obscure the actual combat experience of the Gulf War. Light forces, whether light infantry, paratroopers, light armor, air mobile infantry, or Marines, were either not deployed, sent to the flanks, or reinforced with armor for a secondary thrust. Heavy forces delivered the decisive blow. 

The Army certainly needs IBCT-like forces. The creation of these medium units, however, should come at the expense of the Army's light forces and not the heavy forces. If we want foot infantry, we already have four divisions of Marines, paratroopers, and Rangers. Fortunately, the digitized Legacy Force will remain the core of the counter-attack force for some time. We have time to reconsider whether we can have lethality, survivability, and lightness.

Numbers  

The weight of individual fighting vehicles was only part of the new wisdom of deploying an invincible Army. The very size of the Army needed to win, already reduced greatly since the Soviet Union collapsed, is questioned too. 

We believe our technologically advanced force smashed the Iraqis despite being outnumbered. In fact, the Coalition decisively outnumbered the Iraqis in the Kuwait Theater of Operations and possessed superior technology. We learned we will never fight alone so why worry about numbers? Allies will provide the cannon fodder, right? Yet the most significant force that fought alongside the Army in the Gulf was not any allied force, but the United States Marine Corps. The burden in almost any future ground war will be on the Army's shoulders. Even a ground war over Kosovo in Europe itself could not have depended on Europeans. 

We also learned that fighting more than one Major Theater War (MTW) will never happen since nobody took advantage of our commitment to Desert Storm to challenge us elsewhere. But that deterrence was made possible by a military still at Cold War strength. The military designed to fight the USSR and North Korea proved capable of fighting Iraq while deterring North Korea. That is hardly shocking. Anticipating the Objective Force, the current "two MTW" standard (which isn't really "two" because of the often-forgotten "nearly simultaneous" inserted there) may be abandoned formally. If this is done, deterrence will suffer. In addition, any hope we may have to retain the capability of fighting a peer competitor will vanish.  

Victory  

It seems safe to emphasize rapid deployment, abandon heavy forces, and discount mere numbers of troops because of the most unfortunate lesson. We learned we are unbeatable. Braced for thousands of casualties to break an Iraqi army hardened by its long war with Iran in the 1980s, we were stunned by the apparent ease of victory. Although few would admit this if pressed on the point, the very fact that we are seeking a smaller, lighter Army and are willing to thrust it into combat piecemeal upon arrival in the theater is unassailable proof that we do assume victory. 

And we assume other countries know this too and so will never challenge the Army on the battlefield. All threats are asymmetric now. This is wishful thinking. Victory in Desert Storm will not give us credit toward the next war. We have to fight each one individually because every future enemy will have chosen to fight despite our last victory. They aren't scared of us. They may respect our power, but they think they can win. We must respect that determination. The proper lesson is that a military equipped and trained for the fiercest foe is ready to win decisively against lesser foes; and that decisive victory can lower casualties if it ends the war quickly. 

We learned that we will not accept losses to win--because we did win decisively with few deaths; and we learned we cannot kill too many of the enemy--because of the "Highway of Death" images. Force protection, reliance on air power, and our fascination with non-lethal weapons are the result. We should have learned the public is prepared to lose thousands if the objective is worthy; and that as long as the outcome is in doubt, we can pound our enemy without guilt. Only after the Iraqi army was in full retreat did questions of excessive force gain a sympathetic ear. Have no doubt, if American troops had suffered losses breaking through Iraqi defenses, the sense of fair play would have dissolved. 

Inexplicably, many seem to have drawn the conclusion that we did not win the Persian Gulf War despite battlefield success. Saddam Hussein's continued rule and the low level air war that continues are cited as proof. Since the war did not end all the problems we sought to resolve, we are to believe it failed. By this logic, World War II was a failure because a costly Cold War followed. We can extend this logic back to the Revolution since the British did not immediately vacate all American land and did not accept American independence until the War of 1812. Under this strict measure, it may not be possible to win any war. This is cynicism raised to ridiculous proportions. America and its allies won the Persian Gulf War. Just as true, the world continued and we must deal with old, new, and continuing problems. That is life. 

Nonetheless, there is something to be learned from admitting the imperfection of the victory. Ten years after the war began, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz stated that Kuwait "got what it deserved" in August 1990. Limited wars for limited objectives may limit the war duration and destruction but also limit the ability to shape the post-war situation. In an age with no looming threat that can call upon sacrifices to defeat, we must accept that we cannot have total war results with limited war means. Lesser objectives are not worth a hard struggle, it seems. Desert Storm taught us that going to war for small goals, even when our national interest is involved (preserving access to oil and reversing the conquest of a friendly state are certainly important), is difficult. Notwithstanding the difficulty, Desert Storm should also have taught us that the American people can be persuaded to fight for objectives consistent with our vital interests. Going to war with that support was invaluable. 

Ironically enough, for those critics who demand a greater purpose than "just" self-interest, we actually achieved one. The Persian Gulf War was more than the liberation of Kuwait. We learned we beat a second-rate military power, but by smashing a scaled down replica of the Red Army, America really beat the USSR by proxy. The Gulf War was the military victory that confirmed the end of the Cold War as a decisive Western victory. With the obvious domination of American ground and air power culminating in the 100-hour ground war, no revivalist Russian nationalist can argue that the West did not really beat the Soviet Union. 

Victory also reassured Americans that we won the Cold War--we did not merely falter last in an exhausting struggle between two teetering systems. Victory made America a "hyper power" feared or envied. Without the military victory of the Persian Gulf War, we may have viewed ourselves as lucky survivors of that struggle rather than the victors who dominate the globe. Remember that the fall of the Berlin Wall took place scant years after the argument was made by Professor Paul Kennedy that America was a declining power burdened by "imperial overstretch." Victory has given us the confidence to leap beyond the security of our current capabilities and seek the Objective Force. With common sense to restrain our wilder impulses, this is a good result. 

GLOBAL STORM? 

Technologically superior heavy forces and air power decisively prevailed in Desert Storm after a laborious deployment to the Gulf. With lighter and fewer but technologically superior troops, we expect to deploy globally from CONUS and smash any enemy rapidly and with few casualties. Desert Storm, updated to Information Storm, will become a Global Storm. Our Information Storm cannot become global without tradeoffs. If we lighten the Army too much and optimize it for stability operations, our troops will be shocked if we must fight even a single MTW, let alone something worse. Training to beat the Soviet first team provided tremendous benefits when we faced a lesser opponent such as Iraq. Now we train for lesser threats and too many question whether that is overpreparing. 

What we ultimately should have learned is that 1991 was made possible by more than a decade of work that rebuilt the post-Vietnam United States Army from its nadir and focused it on conventional warfare to defend Europe and South Korea. Although this was a narrowly focused mission, because of its excellence the Army was able to win on the offensive in the desert at the end of a long logistics tether away from major established bases. Desert Storm demonstrated that a good combat-ready Army can adapt to unfamiliar situations. We should certainly have learned that our ability and willingness to put combat-ready soldiers on the ground translates into real power. Without that power, there will be no new Army storms worthy of the name.

UPDATE: This was at least picked up by the Army site Stand!-To back in 2006.

The Envy of the Neo-Reals

The Left's criticism of our so-called idealistic policy of promoting democracy relies on the superiority of the realist policy. Having been a realist in the Cold War, I consider myself to be a realist still, but that reality requires a strategy to replace the one that failed so clearly one clear day on September 11, 2001.

Reforming the Arab and Moslem worlds (or rather, helping them reform themselves) may take decades if it can be done, but I don't see an alternative. And I don't think the Arab world is incapable of reforming any more than Asian values prevented Asian countries from adopting democracy; or Latin culture prevented South American countries from adopting democracy (heck, add Spain in here, too); or centuries of despotism, monarchy, or communism prevented East Europeans from adopting democracy. Arabs in America's culture do just fine, thank you, so don't dismiss democracy in Iraq or the wider Arab world so quickly.

Strategypage argues that we have planted this seed of reform:

After centuries of Turkish domination, the Arab world was told to rule itself, or at least try to. This effort at self-rule is still a work in progress. There have been many failures, in the form of long (often over a decade) civil wars, and even longer periods of rule by tyrants like Saddam.

It's been a tragic situation, as the political chaos has resulted in slow economic, educational and cultural growth. While countries like South Korea, China, Taiwan, India and Malaysia, that were behind the Middle East economically half a decade ago, and had no natural resources like oil to rely on, are now way ahead of the Middle East economically, educationally and in terms of scientific and technical accomplishment. This is the sort of thing that is now a hot topic in the Arab world, and has been since the fall of Baghdad three years ago. That was the tipping point for many Arabs. Not the fall of yet another hapless Arab dictator, but the way it was misreported and misunderstood by the Arab media, and many Arabs watching events unfold. It was embarrassing, and striking, with video of Saddam's Information Minister standing in Baghdad, insisting that the Americans were losing, while U.S. tanks could be seen in the background. This proved to be a decisive event for many Arabs. Dreams and illusions are nice, but they don't pay the bills. Blaming America, while lining up outside the U.S. embassy to get a visa and emigrate to the "land of the enemy," was now recognized as another symptom of an Arab disease. It was in the wake of Baghdad's fall that many more Arabs accepted that change had to come from within.

In the short run we may have to do things that a realist would approve (like dealing positively with Saudi Arabia because they have lots of oil), but in the long run we have no choice but to hasten the change in the culture of the Arab world and change what it means to be a realist.

But the Neo-Realist Left (can we call them Neo-Reals?), I guess, can only look on with envy at China's foreign policy and how China eagerly calls the bad boys of the continent and makes deals with the corrupt and evil in Africa in the name of realism (via the Weeky Standard blog):

The calls are being answered, in part because African governments view China as a more cooperative partner than the West. China has refused to back regular Western rebukes of African corruption and human-rights abuses and last year used its permanent seat on the UN Security Council to block genocide charges against Sudan--source of about 7% of China's oil--for the massacres in Darfur. "The U.S. will talk to you about governance, about efficiency, about security, about the environment," says Mustafa Bello, head of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, who has visited China seven times. "The Chinese just ask, 'How do we procure this license?'"

I've noted China's Africa policy before.

I guess all those Neo-Reals will have to peel the "Free Tibet" bumper stickers from their Volvos.


If it makes them feel any better, I never believed they would have seriously supported any action to actually, you know, "free" Tibet from the Chinese.

Do Not Become Confused

The war in Iraq has not lessened the President's determination to protect us from other threats.

Our revised national security strategy just released still envisions pre-emptive action to prevent nuclear threats from developing. And Iran is still on our radar screens:

When the consequences of an attack with weapons of mass destruction are potentially so devastating, we cannot afford to stand idly by as grave dangers materialize. ... The place of pre-emption in our national security strategy remains the same," Bush wrote.

The report had harsh words for Iran. It accused the regime of supporting terrorists, threatening Israel and disrupting democratic reform in Iraq. Bush said diplomacy to halt Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons work must prevail to avert a conflict.

"This diplomatic effort must succeed if confrontation is to be avoided," Bush said.

One, Iran is determined to have nuclear weapons so diplomatic efforts will fail if their goal is to convince Iran to abandon the goal of nuclear weapons. My hopes for diplomacy involve gathering allies to forcefully stop Iran.

Two, this President has not forgotten that his duty is to protect us. Considerations of his popularity and the make-up of Congress will not prevent him from doing his duty.

And three, the case for war is being made. Terrorism, waging war against us in Iraq, threatening the use of nuclear weapons, and general oppression.

Add them up and we will take action rather than rely on the good will of the mullahs for our protection.

Do not become confused. We are at war. Our enemies know it. And our President knows it, too. Do the math.

We've had years to figure out how to address the Iran problem. I assume we have not wasted that time. I assume that we are quiet to avoid telegraphing our punch.

The only question is what action we will take. And when, of course.

Squeezing the Pillsbury Nuke Boy

The ability of North Korea to inflict tremendous harm on South Korea even without nukes is my main reason for not wanting to actively topple their regime by force.

The fact that they are isolated and not the leaders of millions of suicidal Kimmunists around the world is another reason I think we can isolate and contain their regime until it collapses. Call them a weaker version of the old Soviet Union.

We can talk to the North Koreans all the multi-lateralists would like as long as we smile politely and walk away from any deal short of their complete and verifiable nuclear disarmament. And squeeze them so that their collapse is slow enough that there is never a clear crisis point for the North Koreans to confront and react to--deciding on war perhaps to reverse a clear collapse or crisis. Call it the reverse of what Iran has been doing--avoiding a clear break while professing a willingness to "talk" even as the press quietly ahead toward nukes.

So I am heartened that we make progress on squeezing the nutjobs in Pyongyang:

Shutting down access to North Korean money laundering bank in Macao, China, has apparently done more damage than previously thought. The North Koreans have long engaged in drug smuggling, counterfeiting and money laundering to provide foreign currency for foreign imports. Some of these imports are for weapons programs, but there are also a lot of consumer goodies to keep the few thousand key leaders in the communist police state happy. Take away the toys, and the protectors of the state get angry and restless. More coup rumors can be expected, especially as the U.S. goes after other banks that support North Koreans criminal activities.

A criminal gang with a UN seat. That's all North Korea is. And yet Taiwan is not considered a country by the "international community." Go figure.

Swarmer

So we send in American and Iraqi airmobile infantry in an air assault to isolate an area.

And then Iraqi ground forces move in. And the target area is northeast of Samarra. It looks like the equivalent of two battalions took part.

Any relation to the terror bombing of the Shia shrine there? I wonder what we found?

UPDATE: Pretty quiet so far. Appears to be a couple companies of American troops plus aviation assets involved and a couple battalions of Iraqis. Iraqi battalions tend to be smaller so two could fit in the number given and it makes sense that two separate units--one going overland and one by air assault--were involved. The American number could indicate one battalion but from earlier unit designations and the fact that the number appears to be total Americans involved and not just infantry, I'll guess two companies of the 101st.

And note that the reporter seems confused that the military uses the term "air assault." "Assault" in this case is not a synonym for "attack." We didn't Arc Light a chunk of Iraqi real estate. It just means that the troops were moved in by helicopter directly into the combat zone.

The 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) trains to assault from the air. By helicopter. Which is different from the 82nd Airborne, which jumps from perfectly good planes to land by parachute.

Still, I wonder if the enemy skedaddled because of a security breach, notwithstanding the second article's reporting that we achieved "tactical surprise." That term doesn't exactly mean the same as no surprise by a long shot.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Still quiet:

In Operation Swarmer, described as the biggest helicopter-borne operation in three years when it began Thursday, the joint U.S.-Iraqi force captured six people, not further identified, allegedly responsible for the March 11 killing of Amjad Hameed, a journalist for the television network al-Iraqiya, and his driver, the government reported.

About 80 suspected insurgents overall had been detained as of Saturday, and 17 were released after questioning, said Lt. Col. Edward S. Loomis, a 101st Airborne Division spokesman. He said the search teams turned up 15 weapons caches containing 352 mortar rounds, 84 rocket-propelled grenades and a "significant amount" of material for making improvised roadside bombs, among other items.

A lot of effort for some weapons caches. Nobody is willing to defend them, that's for sure. Is this because nobody was there or they ran before we arrived? If they ran, why? Brains or fear?

With Four You Get Egg Roll

Secretary Rice is in Australia for meetings with Australia and Japan and China is on the menu:

Rice arrived in Australia Wednesday evening and begins three days of meetings Thursday, culminating in the first ministerial-level Trilateral Security Dialogue with the Australian and Japanese foreign ministers, Alexander Downer and Taro Aso.

The top US diplomat, who will also hold separate talks with Prime Minister John Howard, has said Beijing's military and economic rise would be the focus of the trilateral meeting since it was the major force driving regional changes.

On top of the US-India alliance that is growing and Indian-Australian discussions, the major players are coming on board to deter China from an aggressive foreign policy.

Really, it just goes to show you how unthreatening we are in the big picture despite our power. In classic international relations theory, you'd expect nations to ally against America to balance our power.

In practice, few people really believe we are about to use that power to create a new empire (notwithstanding the hyper-ventilating going on at organic markets over the trail mix bin). In practice, people worry about a far weaker China getting even a little stronger and cooperate with us to block Peking.

Even Russia's alliance with China is more about fear of China than fear of America. The Russians are pointing China at America to keep Peking from thinking of threatening Russia while Russia is weak.

As much as I think we need to keep a vigilant eye on Peking, I'd never trade places with them. Not for all the tea in -- oh never mind.

The Will to Kill

When I've discussed dealing with Iran I've mostly focused on the need for regime change. But I've always assumed that it would be a military coup-driven change resting on the support of the people who will be grateful that Iranians are toppling the mullahs. I've not had much faith in the ability of the Iranian people to pull down the regime in an Insert-Your-Color-Here Revolution.

Strategypage notes that people power revolts rely on a regime too reluctant to unleash the forces of the security apparatus on the people--either from moral sensibilities or fear the guys with guns won't shoot at the people if ordered to do so. And the Iranian regime is more than happy to kill and has the killers reliable enough to do the job:

While the Islamic conservatives in Iran have the support of, at most, a third of the population, they do have over a hundred thousand armed men who are willing to kill to keep their religious leaders in power. ...

The old school defenders of the Islamic tyrants in Iran appear ready to carry out some sustained killings to keep their masters in power.

We can't count on a clean revolt to rid us of this problem. And if we do, there will be a Tiananmen Square-style bloodbath as hopeful dissidents are slaughtered by the imported bully boys the mullahs rely on to keep their regime in power.

I hope instead we've been courting key military units to turn on the regime loyalists and march on the palace with our support. If not, then an aerial campaign to set back Iran's nuclear drive will be the only option other than just accepting Iran as a nuclear power.

UPDATE: TM Lutas gently chides me (and Strategypage) for not citing the basis of saying the Basij are loyal killers. It's a fair cop. I did search for a bit to find my source for importing loyal Islamists to staff the Basij but could not find it. So I went from memory. All I could find in my site with five more minutes of searching was an unlinked reference from a couple years ago:

Were I calling the shots (to be fair, really easy for me to say from my desk), I’d be pushing for a takeover by the Iranian military in the new year, with help from American forces during the rotation of forces in Iraq. US forces could move in to secure nuclear and other WMD sites and to back up the Iranian military. I read that the polls are good for us in Iran. I read that elements of the military are favorably disposed toward us. I read that the mullahs don’t trust the regular military and don’t really trust the Pasdaran—what might be considered analogous to Saddam’s Republican Guards as far as trust is concerned. Instead, like Saddam with his Fedayeen, the mullahs have imported foreigners to man the Basij paramilitaries to terrorize dissidents.

And let me add a link to a 2002 report that doesn't back up the imported part, but does state that the Basij are considered the loyal enforcers:

Due to its zeal, the Basij is often employed – with special Revolutionary Guards units – when it is believed necessary to use extreme measures to repress dissent or protest. According to some estimates, there are some 90,000 armed men in Basij militia.

There are also about a million in reserve. My guess is that imported zealots would naturally be in the active component.

I stand by my assumption that any revolt to topple the mullahs will require organized military forces if it is to win. That could be American or Iranian regular or even some Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards). Anything else is likely to just be a regime-ordered massacre. And don't even think the vaunted international community will do anything or even care.

Future Combat System

The GAO has a report on the problems with technology roadblocks in fielding the Future Combat System (FCS). While conceding the Army is working on overcoming problems:

Yet, today, the program remains a long way from having the level of knowledge it should have had before starting product development. FCS has all the markers for risks that would be difficult to accept for any single system, much less a complex, multi-system effort. These challenges are even more daunting in the case of FCS not only because there are so many of them but because FCS represents a new concept of operations that is predicated on technological breakthroughs. Thus, technical problems, which accompany immaturity, not only pose traditional risks to cost, schedule, and performance; they pose risks to the new fighting concepts envisioned by the Army.

As I wrote in this blog, the wonder tank will not be built (and here, too). I mentioned the FCS issue in an article of mine that Military Review published in 2002 and commented on the problem of our assumed great leap forward in technology:

Although different authors project capabilities, some ordinary and some fantastic, the overall tenor of the debate has a science fair quality. If you could wish for a future combat vehicle, it would be nice to receive one that was beyond your wildest dreams. Reality is likely to be far less comforting in its ability to reconcile the Army's need for power and deployability. It must not count on fielding a system that "pushes the boundaries of technology well beyond what is achievable today." It may be as reasonable just to skip the inconvenient task of building an FCS and just wish for victory.

I concluded:

Building the FCS, however, is a high-risk venture. The Army should not spend whatever it takes attempting to meld multiple revolutionary technologies into one vehicle for all missions. The FCS should be different from the Abrams and Bradley but must be designed with near-term technology that incorporates modular improvements if the Army is to turn "gee whiz" ideas into actual hardware. Separated missiles and a sensor grid; active defenses; EGTs; and exotic engines, fuels, and weapons can be retrofitted to defeat more capable enemies. Barring successfully fielding exotic technologies to make the FCS work, the Army must consider how it will defeat future heavy systems if fighting actual enemies and not merely suppressing disorder becomes its mission once again. The tentative assumptions of 2001 will change by 2025. When they do, the Army will rue its failure today to accept that the wonder tank will not be built.

Main battle tanks are not yet obsolete since we have not come up with their replacement yet. And our assumptions sure have changed. As I noted here and here, the Abrams heavy main battle tanks will be around for quite a while.

You Are Invited to Take an Art Tour in My Home

I've been working on this for the last year and it is finally ready. Not that tough, but I just didn't make the time to finish it. When the weather gets better I'll add my patio and rock garden. And I can update the pictures, too, with new ones or just better quality photos when I get the chance.

Anyway, my humble art tour. [NOTE: This linked to an art tour I worked up. When I finally re-add that to this site, I'll link it]

Misleading Us Into War?

Prior to the Iraq War, many opponents of taking action against Iraq pointed to the actual nuclear threat of North Korea as opposed to the hypothetical threat of Iraq. They argued why are we attacking Iraq when we know Iraq does not have nuclear weapons yet while not dealing with North Korea which does have nukes?

Now, of course, they argue we were misled into the Iraq War since Saddam did not appear to have an active nuclear program (and they conveniently continue to forget that the administration did not argue Iraq was an "imminent" nuclear threat).

And as Iran comes up for consideration as the mullahs approach a nuclear capability at some unknown point in the future, North Korea is again brought up by opponents of dealing with Iran as a more dire threat that we should deal with first instead of Iran.

First of all, I return to my rule of thumb:

Better to stop the nutjob without nukes from getting their first nuke than stop the nutjob from getting their second nuke.

Second, as if "doing something" about North Korea first would involve anything other than groveling and shoveling money at the Dear Leader. "Deal with" North Korea first, indeed. Yeah, it would be let's make a deal alright. An Albright redux with bigger and better prizes just for playing.

And third, just how do we know North Korea has nuclear weapons? Seriously. They strongly imply they do. But Saddam was at least as vocal about his WMD prior to 2003 as the Pillsbury Nuke Boy's regime is today.

Says Strategypage:

Despite North Korean claims that it has nuclear weapons, American defense officials doubt this is the case. It is believed that if North Korea had a working bomb design, they would not hesitate to conduct one or more underground tests (which are easily detected). If a test failed, it would be more difficult to detect, given the amount of tunneling always going on in the north. This often involves high explosives, which is all that could be detected if a nuclear bomb failed to go "nuclear" (with only its high explosives detonating.) If North Korea did get a nuclear bomb design to work, they would want the world to know for sure.

So what intelligence are the proponents of dealing with North Korea first cherry-picking in their rush to dealing with North Korea first? How do they know North Korea's nuclear threat is looming? (Surely a more dire situation than even "imminent.")

As I've said before regarding North Korea's nukes, smoke 'em if you got 'em. Because, you know, I'd hate to be misled into surrendering to North Korea as much as I'd hate being misled into war over North Korea.

Devil's Advocate?

TDR reader and (more to the point) author Chris Fox was gracious enough to send me a copy of his latest novel, The Devil's Halo.

Chris has read my various posts on the potential for an EU that becomes hostile to America and so thought I'd be interested. When I read his book I'll write up my reaction, but it is already intriguing at first glance.

I've long gone back and forth between optimism that enough European states can be our friends if we fight for their friendship rather than turn our backs in frustration and an opposite pessimism that the entity "Europe" can never be our friend. Having noted that it has been our policy for a century to resist any hostile power taking control of Europe's industrial, scientific, and human power, it seemed logical that a hostile EU would become a potential enemy.

I remember immediately after the Cold War telling my American History 101 students in a community college that the split between the Colonies and Britain after the French and Indian War (Seven Years War) was natural given that the Colonists no longer felt a threat from the French and Indians and resented paying for defense by Britain in absence of any threat. I also predicted that Europe would pull away from us one day since the Soviet threat was gone and the Europeans would no longer feel it necessary to pay for a common defense.

Given the threats from Europe we have faced--Spain in 1898, Germany in 1917-1918 and 1941-1945, and the Soviet Union in the Cold War--it is unfortunately not far-fetched that another threat to us could arise. And given our clear policy of fighting any threat that seeks to control the continent, a new conflict with Europe one day is not out of the question. Chris Fox outlines one fictional future of conflict.

I hope The Devil's Halo is just a good read and doesn't push me into pessimism over the future of Europe-American relations.

Al Tet Averted?

When I wrote that signs of an impending enemy collapse in Iraq seem to be accumulating, I did not mean to imply that victory is inevitable. I think we are winning. But we need to persist in fighting and supporting the Iraqis until we actually win. If we don't persist until we win, we will lose.

So did the Iraqis really stop a bold plan to penetrate the Green Zone for the purpose of seizing America's embassy and other Western targets?

A senior Defense Ministry official confirmed the plot, and said the 421 al-Qaida fighters involved were actually recruited to storm the U.S. and British embassies and take hostages. Several ranking Defense Ministry officials have been jailed in the plot, the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, said the al-Qaida recruits were one bureaucrat's signature away from acceptance into an Iraqi army battalion whose job it is to control the gates and main squares in the Green Zone. The plot was discovered three weeks ago.

"You can imagine what could happen to a minister or an ambassador while passing through these gates when those terrorists are there," Jabr said in the interview conducted at his office in the Green Zone — a 2-square-mile hunk of prime real estate on the west bank of the Tigris River. The area is a maze of concrete blast walls, concertina wire and checkpoints.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said of the scheme: "I've heard about the report. I've not received anything definitive." He noted that initial reports often change.

And as I noted in the post cited above, is the current lull in attacks because the enemy was husbanding strength for a wider attack to exploit the confusion resulting from a Green Zone attack? If so, we may see the enemy forces held back for this start attacking again. And a couple of the signs of a potential looming collapse will disappear. We shall see.

UPDATE: Strategypage says there is chatter of a big attack in Iraq by al Qaeda:

The intelligence people are picking up chatter regarding a major al Qaeda attack in Iraq, coordinating a large number of fighters to pull something off like the Abu Greib operation last year, possible against Parliament or the U.S. Embassy. It doesn't have to succeed, just make a big splash in the media. Overall, al Qaeda attacks are way down, and the terrorist organization is taking a beating. All they can hope for now is some media victories.

With any luck the chatter is about the failure of the Green Zone attack. I hope that is what they planned and now the chatter is figuring out how to salvage something from this. Could we see a hasty attack out of fear of losing compromised assets? If so, we could have a jihadi television operation that fails in its military mission pretty soon.

Deep Penetration or Deep Plan?

This New York Times article argues that the military perhaps should not have driven on Baghdad so quickly in 2003 during the Iraq War while the fedayeen nipped at our supply lines:

From the first days of the invasion in March 2003, American forces had tangled with fanatical Saddam Fedayeen paramilitary fighters. Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, who was leading the Army's V Corps toward Baghdad, had told two reporters that his soldiers needed to delay their advance on the Iraqi capital to suppress the Fedayeen threat in the rear.

Soon after, General Franks phoned Lt. Gen. David D. McKiernan, the commander of allied land forces, to warn that he might relieve General Wallace.

The firing was averted after General McKiernan flew to meet General Franks. But the episode revealed the deep disagreements within the United States high command about the Iraqi military threat and what would be required to defeat it.

The dispute, related by military officers in interviews, had lasting consequences. The unexpected tenacity of the Fedayeen in the battles for Nasiriya, Samawa, Najaf and other towns on the road to Baghdad was an early indication that the adversary was not merely Saddam Hussein's vaunted Republican Guard.

The paramilitary Fedayeen were numerous, well-armed, dispersed throughout the country, and seemingly determined to fight to the death. But while many officers in the field assessed the Fedayeen as a dogged foe, General Franks and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld saw them as little more than speed bumps on the way to Baghdad. Three years later, Iraq has yet to be subdued. Many of the issues that have haunted the Bush administration about the war — the failure to foresee a potential insurgency and to send sufficient troops to stabilize the country after Saddam Hussein's government was toppled — were foreshadowed early in the conflict. How some of the crucial decisions were made, the behind-the-scenes debate about them and early cautions about a sustained threat have not been previously known.

These forces, it is argued, should have been defeated and not bypassed to prevent the insurgency that developed after the war.

But this argument is undercut by the same authors in a story the previous day that argues that Saddam never expected we'd go all the way to Baghdad and that the fedayeen were not viewed by Saddam as the core of an insurgency to fight our occupation but as regime enforcers who could keep the Shia down until regular Iraqi forces could intervene:

As American warplanes streaked overhead two weeks after the invasion began, Lt. Gen. Raad Majid al-Hamdani drove to Baghdad for a crucial meeting with Iraqi leaders. He pleaded for reinforcements to stiffen the capital's defenses and permission to blow up the Euphrates River bridge south of the city to block the
American advance.

But Saddam Hussein and his small circle of aides had their own ideas of how to fight the war. Convinced that the main danger to his government came from within, Mr. Hussein had sought to keep Iraq's bridges intact so he could rush troops south if the Shiites got out of line.

General Hamdani got little in the way of additional soldiers, and the grudging permission to blow up the bridge came too late. The Iraqis damaged only one of the two spans, and American soldiers soon began to stream across.

The episode was just one of many incidents, described in a classified United States military report, other documents and in interviews, that demonstrate how Mr. Hussein was so preoccupied about the threat from within his country that he crippled his military in fighting the threat from without.

Only one of his defenses — the Saddam Fedayeen — proved potent against the invaders. They later joined the insurgency still roiling Iraq, but that was largely by default, not design.

That is, Saddam was refighting his last war--trying to prevent a repeat of 1991 when the vacuum led to a Shia uprising after Desert Storm and the Iraqi military had to bloodily suppress it.

This was no deep plan by Saddam to suck us into an insurgency. I've long thought that this was a ridiculous argument. Nobody plans on getting their butts whipped. Saddam hoped to survive in his Baghdad palaces long after we tired of the struggle and went home, protected by French and Russian greed and American fear of casualties.

Let me repeat what I've long believed was Saddam's strategy. This is different from my summer 2002 Red Team analysis of what I thought Iraq's apparent strategy should be with hindsight tossed in. From October 2004:

Saddam first of all did not think we’d invade. He expected another round of air strikes, perhaps a little tougher than Desert Fox in 1998 but no worse than Kosovo in 1999 where a ruler of sterner stuff and destined for greatness (like Saddam) would have withstood the barrage.

If we did invade, he figured that we’d march out of Jordan and Kuwait (he couldn’t ignore our troops there) to hit him from the west. With Saddam’s troops deployed to the east and north, they’d be largely safe from such an invasion axis of advance and thus preserved for the post-crisis security mission. Our troops would advance into the Baghdad area where Saddam’s more loyal troops would fight us at the red line, if necessary pulling into the cities as a last ditch defense where soft Americans would not pursue him. By sending important people and material to Syria prior to the invasion reaching the Baghdad area, Saddam would negate the advantage to us
that American control of the west of Iraq would normally mean in terms of cutting Saddam off from his Syrian friends.

With Americans stalled outside Baghdad out of fear of inflicting civilian casualties and enduring American casualties, the imported Islamists supplemented by loyal Baathists using arms caches scattered around the country would harass American and British forces. The Baathists would have plenty of money, too, thanks to the UN and some of our so-called friends. And speaking of the international community, in the UN the bought French and Russians and Chinese would push for a ceasefire to halt the humanitarian crisis amply broadcast by al Jazeera, CBS, CNN, and all the other gullible, hostile, or docile (to stay in Iraq) news media.

So yeah, guerrilla warfare was pre-planned. But it seems to be only a component of a layered plan to win the war. Saddam did not willingly plan to give up his palaces for a hole in the ground in some brilliant plan to trap America in an insurgency. Saddam just isn’t that good a strategist, people. And I don’t think that would work anyway. People advancing this thought are looking at the past and assuming cleverness in creating it. Saddam had multiple defenses that he thought would hold at some point and keep him in power. Saddam was wrong and now he is up for trial by a free Iraq. That was quite the diabolical plot, eh?

I think my analysis holds up well enough but I underestimated Saddam's optimism. According to the latest Times articles, Saddam didn't expect the fedayeen to wage a long insurgency so much as he expected them to hold out and emerge when we pulled out to keep the Shias down until the safely stashed away rabble infantry divisions could move south in strength.

And what if we had slowed down to try and completely destroy the fedayeen before driving on Baghdad? Given that we still fight them, Saddam would still control the Sunni heartland and sit in Baghdad three years later as we try to hunt them down. Can critics of ignoring the fedayeen in the advance really be arguing that the persistent counter-insurgency in Iraq we have fought these last nearly three years could have been short-circuited by fighting a tough counter-insurgency in the south while Saddam supplied them from his sanctuary?

Indeed, the fedayeen didn't seem to follow Saddam's plan at all. Instead of being held as the Baathist enforcing arm after we withdrew from Iraq or even laying low to fight as insurgents as some in the West assume was the plan now, the fedayeen launched suicidal human wave assaults on our supply and combat columns. The fedayeen were gunned down in numerous desperate charges in all manner of conditions, including night and dust storms when they falsely thought we could not see them. And, in fact, we did hold off a bit before 3rd ID made its final drive on Baghdad to give airborne troops from 101st AB and 82nd AB a chance to secure cities infested with fedayeen along our main supply line. So again, what exactly is the criticism? That we didn't completely eliminate them before taking Baghdad? What rot.

Indeed, in the light of the latest Times articles it is no wonder we did not anticipate the fedayeen would be used to wage insurgency and terror--any intelligence we might have gained about how Saddam planned to use them would have made the fedayeen seem irrelevant since we planned on overthrowing the Saddam regime and not just poke our heads into southern Iraq for a few weeks and then leave when the French and Russians said to get out.

We were absolutely right to drive on Baghdad as fast as we could before the Iraqis could regroup and fall back into Baghdad to raise the cost of capturing the city. Had Saddam realized his plan was failing, if we had given him time he might have decided to pull his troops into Baghdad for a final stand. I argued before and during the campaign that we needed to drive fast on Baghdad. Speed was my mantra. I still hold that view. Speed is life, as pilots like to say.

There was no deep Saddam plan to suck us into an Iraqi quagmire. Saddam guessed wrong and got his butt stomped; and now he sits in an Iraqi court on trial for his crimes. Great plan, eh?

It seriously amuses me that critics of the war can deny we are doing anything successful in Iraq and constantly cry that we had no plan; yet they look at Saddam getting his regime changed and see a great plan in his clear defeat. Amazing.