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[Previous entry: "Global Reach II"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "From Guantanamo to Nasiriya"] 26 March 2003: "Schools of thought on warfare"As other bloggers have noted, there's an amazing amount of bollocks being spoken, written, etc. about the supposed Coalition plan. A marvellous example was Robert Fisk (who, as ever, refuses to let himself be hampered by silly archaic concepts like "journalistic objectivity," separating fact from opinion, or at least formulating an informed opinion when failing to do so) in this column: It was Iraqi policy to let the Anglo-American armies "roam around" in the desert as long as they want, and attack them when they tried to enter the cities. Which seems to be pretty much what they are doing.Erm, no. In military terms, they would be outside Baghdad. It's called "maneuver warfare," and Mr. Fisk might do well to look into it. Recommended works on this topic are William Lind's Maneuver Warfare Handbook (you know, I only shelled out €12 for my copy; what's with the list price?) and, of course, Basil Liddell Hart's Strategy (I wonder if Amazon delivers in Baghdad?). My following points rely heavily on these works. I think the Coalition battle plan is based on the concept that Iraqi armed resistance is house of cards, and Saddam Hussein and his Inner Circle are the card which will bring the house crashing down. Rather than laboriously dismantling the house card by card, the Coalition is going for that card. Another analogy is Liddell Hart's: If we watch a torrent bearing down on each successive bank or earthen bank in its path, we see that it first beats against the obstacle, feeling and testing it at all points.In the case of Operation "Iraqi Freedom," we may consider Basra, Nasiriyah etc. to constitute the "crumbling obstacles" of which Liddell Hart speaks. In this regard, my opinion differs somewhat from Diane's other "in-house expert", RandyFromSanDiego, who argues that what we are seeing is a classic Clausewitzian approach. The standard interpretation of the Clausewitzian approach is to destroy the enemy's capacity to fight by destroying his forces; this will probably be applied to the Republican Guard, but where the regular Iraqi army and Popular Army are concerned, the Coalition's plan is to bypass them where practicable—looking for Captain Liddell Hart's "small crack" (maybe I should rephrase that?)—counting on the obstacles they present to crumble with the fall of "Fortress Baghdad." This scheme arguably owes more to Sun Tzu than to von Clausewitz. On this point, my opinion also diverges from that of Rachel Lucas' history teacher; this is Blitzkrieg; not the incorrect sense of "the Blitz" which the English gave to German bombing during the Battle of Britain, and which has—unfortunately—endured, but the genuine article of finding the weakest-defended point in the enemy line (like the Ardennes), smashing through it, and exploiting that breakthrough to its fullest extent with mechanised forces while the slow-moving "leg infantry" wears away at the flanks (again, as described by Liddell Hart). Certainly, the bombing of population centres Lucas' professor mentions happened (Warsaw, Rotterdam), but it did not form part of the doctrine of Blitzkrieg. During Operation Barabarossa—the invasion of the Soviet Union—the German strategy was not to take on large concentrations of Red Army troops head-on, but to outflank and encircle them, thus cutting off their supply lines, and wait for the obstacles to crumble. And so back to Robert Fisk, who is one of many commentators prematurely referring to Baghdad as a repeat of Stalingrad. (While I'm plugging books anyway, add Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor to the stack.) The comparison is less than apt; in Baghdad, there will be no far bank of the Volga with railheads to where troops from the vast hinterland may be rushed by train, to be shipped across by a flotilla of boats and thrown into the desperate defence. Baghdad may have the Tigris, but it does not have its own Siberia; it has, erm, well, Tikrit, and that's about it really. For the same reason, there can and will will be no equivalent of "Operation Saturn" to encircle the besiegers. A more apt comparison for the forthcoming battle might be Berlin. Which was a nasty battle as well, of course, but one should remember that the Coalition forces are no Red Army taking revenge on an entire nation, and the Iraqis are no German troops trying to hold out long enough for the Americans, rather than the Russians, to reach them. Replies: 1 Comment
Fisk isn't even trying for a real military analysis. He's sly enough to know exactly what he's doing: the whole of his article is designed to set up a comparison of the coalition with Nazi Germany. Even the oh-so-practiced hemming and hawing that he doesn't like WW2 analogies is calculated. Dan Hartung said @ 03/27/2003 04:25 AM Z-8 |
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