How Did We Win the War?
Exactly which elements of central U.S. strategy mattered most in winning the war in Iraq? Before the war, there was much talk of overawing the Iraqis with so spectacular a show of aerial firepower that they would instantly surrender, seeing how impotent they were to stop the U.S. attack. It seems clear that this particular application of "shock and awe" did not perform as advertised. It did, however, do sufficient damage to Iraqi command and control that individual commanders probably had little access to central commanders (if indeed the latter survived the initial attacks). In a tight dictatorship, commanders are selected for their lack of initiative (otherwise they threaten the regime). Disconnecting them from their usual chain of command might make them much riper for surrender.
Moreover, such commanders are unlikely to take chances. In such a context, they can be neutralized long before they have given up. That concept suggests why the U.S. strategy was to drive for Baghdad past isolated but clearly undefeated Iraqi units. There was much talk of trying to get to Baghdad before the Iraqis had managed to dig in, but the reality seems to have been that the Iraqis would never have done much more than they did.
Focused bombing had another important virtue. Before the war, there was much talk of elaborate underground tunnels that would be used to turn Baghdad into a new Stalingrad. While they were being built, however, many of these structures were photographed by U.S. satellites—not because Baghdad was a particular target, but because it was a place of interest. A vast archive of such photographs gives the United States enormous advantages because many structures now invisible were quite obvious while under construction. Many of our weapons go to designated coordinates rather than to places producing particular signatures. We talk about netting sensors to produce a useful tactical picture, on the basis of which weapons can be guided. Those sensors include not only those currently staring at an enemy, but also those that stared at the enemy in the past.
Given the archives, plus good intelligence built up over the decade since the Gulf War, weapons could be guided so as to destroy much of the invisible structure of the city. Readers might remember reporters describing huge secondary explosions, night after night. Those were almost certainly hidden arms dumps blowing up. Such destruction made it far less likely that anyone in Baghdad would be fighting a new kind of Stalingrad battle.
Centralized rule meant that everyone in Iraq looked to Baghdad for instructions. When Baghdad fell, that signaled local Baath Party members that the war was over, and they surrendered, even in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, which had been expected to hold out.
Our strategy worked far better than anyone had imagined. Several Russian generals, who predicted either a much longer war or U.S. failure, were particularly embarrassed. Now we must ask whether anyone watching learned the lessons that we should be learning from our success—and the Iraqi's failure.
Strategic Lessons Also Learned
At the strategic level, the war was fought under a new national security strategy that envisaged a combination of deterrence and preemptive action. When it was announced, many commentators observed that any preemptive doctrine is quite dangerous as a basis for action. Who can really tell what some government is planning? At what point does one government decide that another is threatening enough to be worth acting against? Surely Cold War-style deterrence still works well enough.
To these questions, the U.S. government answered that deterrence failed on 11 September 2001 to an extent that many outside the United States failed to appreciate. The United States had the world's greatest concentration of military power on 10 September 2001. It seems clear that the Taliban government of Afghanistan was well aware that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda group was using Afghanistan as a rear-area base from which to conduct terrorist attacks abroad. Whether or not the Taliban were aware of the details of the 11 September plot, they were aware that al Qaeda actions might point back to Afghanistan. So why did the massive power of the United States have no apparent effect on the Taliban? Why did deterrence fail?
The current administration would argue that military strength is hardly enough. Those we hope to deter must be sure that we will use our strength against them. Deterrence is unlikely to be effective unless we demonstrate our willingness to act, particularly in cases in which it has become common wisdom that we are unwilling to do so. The Middle East has become the primary case in point. The implicit reasoning is that no Western power will chance the disruption of the world oil supply. Action in Iraq showed that the U.S. government does not feel bound by that sort of thinking.
Does that mean we will fight an endless series of small wars to deal with all possible enemies before they can become real threats? That seems quite unlikely. No one planning to attack us, however, can be sure that we will not fight back, or even preempt. That implicit threat might make us unpopular, but it is likely to make our deterrence effective.
What has that got to do with the war on terror? After all, we knew before the war that al Qaeda and Saddam were working at cross-purposes. One was interested in creating a transnational Islamic state. The other ruled a secular nationalist state. One wanted to submerge local governments in a new empire; the other wanted to preserve and extend his own empire. How could they possibly be related?
The answer is that in many cases nominal ideology cloaks other motives. Osama and Saddam are (or were) both interested in power, and the United States is a barrier they must eliminate. As for terrorists, it seems that many of them are motivated by a combination of the thrill of illicit action and a hatred of the West, so they can move surprisingly easily between different ideological camps. There has long been evidence, for example, that the prime planner of the 1993 World Trade Center attack, Ramzi Youssef, worked with both Iraqi intelligence and with al Qaeda, perhaps simultaneously. He mainly was interested in creating maximum bloodshed in the United States.
Deterrence helps convince governments that it is in their interest to deny support to antiAmerican terrorists because otherwise we will blame the governments from whose territories attacks have originated. In this sense, Saddam's Iraq was a major player in the terrorist world. Saddam may or may not have helped al Qaeda directly, but he certainly used state-sponsored terrorism as an instrument. Had he been allowed to flourish, he would have provided a refuge to many of those who had previously gravitated to al Qaeda.
The destruction of the Iraqi government is a key element in making U.S. deterrence credible. Moreover, a failure to fight in Iraq in 2003 would have been counterproductive. Most people thought the United States was at peace with Iraq in 2003, but U.S. and British forces had been fighting a low-level war against Saddam for years. Enforcement of no-fly zones meant attacking Iraqi air defenses.
Thus, in 2003 the Bush administration faced a choice among continued low-level war, war at a higher level, and surrender. Peace would have meant abandoning the no-fly zones and the embargo, freeing Saddam to rebuild his military force. American inaction in the 1990s seem to have convinced Saddam that the United States really would not have the will to contest any new action on his part. The low-level war was not succeeding, so the choice was surrender or attack.
Probably from the first, the only logical goal for the United States was to destroy Saddam's regime. Nothing short of that would have bought long-term security for the other Gulf states because even a disarmed Saddam could have rearmed. The nominal diplomatic goal, however, was to reduce the Iraqi threat by eliminating Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Early in 2003, the U.S. government claimed that the Iraqis had, as in the past, evaded the rather limited inspections the United Nations had managed to impose, and that intelligence made some violations quite manifest.
Enter the French. They consistently told the Iraqis not to worry because the United States would not be permitted to attack. There was, therefore, no reason for Saddam to make more than a cursory effort at disarmament; he was safe. His recalcitrance justified the U.S.-led attack that destroyed his government, and that might have killed him. Had the French not made their assurances, Saddam might have saved himself by agreeing to a very intrusive arms control regime, knowing that once he had been declared clean he could revive his programs. From his point of view, nemesis came with a French, not a U.S., brand name. Perhaps we should see the French as invaluable allies in this war.
Heavy Armor Played an Important Role
Heavy ground forces still have a very important role. No, they did not defeat a mass Iraqi army in pitched battles. It seems clear that most of the Iraqi soldiers decided not to fight at all. Much of what happens in battle, however, is psychological. Army units break at some point at which troops consider it honorable to surrender. What we might have seen in Iraq is that troops will not surrender without heavy armor on the ground. We might still be able to destroy those troops using precision weapons and modern sensors and command systems. Our goal, however, is to win, not necessarily to kill the maximum number of enemy troops. Winning at a moderate cost in enemy casualties might be worth our while if we hope to convert our recent enemy into a friendly country. Such victory also will carry a much lower cost in U.S. casualties, and that is what seems to have happened in Iraq.
This lesson, if it is valid, has enormous implications. The current trend is toward lighter and more mobile ground forces equipped with modern sensors. Experiments have shown that such forces can destroy larger but more conventionally equipped units. These experiments, however, cannot capture exactly what it takes to defeat enemy forces, as in Iraq. Obviously, it is not clear just how we can work out the psychological value of, say, a tank-heavy force, but the Iraqi experience suggests that we ought to spend significant resources to do so.