AS usual, Kegan does an excellent analysis...I especially likes what he says about the press...

Keegan's analysis merely reinforces that the US and a few of its true friends are the only nations that have true war-fighting military establishments. Throughout most of the world, the military functions primarily to suppress the population, and consequently not well suited to fight a war.

Why didn't Saddam use Iraq's natural defenses? Because he is a butcher, not a fighter.

Hartin ... great point!

Why didn't Sadaam trot out the WMDs?

Greetings:

The converse is true, though. Look at the missions where we've had the most difficulty..."police" or "humanitarian". The US military is designed to fight a war, not to supress a population (or police it).

Perhaps we need to develop another division-sized unit, purely military police. And, perhaps a permanent full-time civil affairs division. The military's got the stuff to deliver (for example) humanitarian aid...

Just some ramblings...

He should have followed the French and just surrendered!

I disagree.

Our soldiers aren't police. To train them as police would would compromise their capabilities as warfighters. Moreover, such a force would lend legitimacy to claims of imperialism. Also, a military trained to suppress a populace could conceivably to so at home.

That's a fabulous article and I heartily recommend the whole of it to everyone.

Saddam's plan was so inept, my only conclusion is that he must not have been fully in touch with the reality of the situation. Surrounded by flatterers, he never had to face the gravity of the impending invasion, and broke the first rule of lying-- never start to believe your own lies.

The story that always haunts me is the tale that, after Cheney fired General Dugan for inappropriate comments right before the first Gulf War, Saddam held a meeting at which he and his generals concluded that Dugan would probably overthrow President Bush in a coup. That story showed me how out of touch Saddam's gang was with the workings of Western societies.

A coup?

This is true, Fred. Because of the American distrust of the military being used as anything else but for fighting a war, it does have problems doing other tasks...because we learned at the very beginning we didn't want to be surpressed and controlled by the military...maybe that's the idea we need to export...

don't find this analysis very helpful. he totally ignores the role of air power in this war. it's a great plan for defending iraq from pre-wwii invaders.

I agree with most of Keegan's points, but his supposition that the Republican Guard should have been deployed forward at the border is wrong. Had that been the case, the US would have used the same initial game plan of blasting a hole through the lines with combined artillery and air assault and proceeded to cut off the RG from Baghdad dislocating the only 'effective' fighting force in Iraq. With American forces in their rear and relentless air assault in the open desert terrain the RG would have been even more useless then they were. A more effective strategy would have been to deploy light forces to contest every terrain feature across Iraq, and retain what armored forces they could within Baghdad proper where air forces would have more difficulty accounting for them. Of course, Hussein's foolish plot of leaving them outside of Baghdad and far behind the lines proved to be the worst of both worlds.

I agree with bleh
3ID would have followed the exact same path.
The difference would be that the RG would have been cut off from Baghdad before being pounded into sand.

Good article. It is true, however, that air power is not mentioned. If the Republican Guard had been deployed in the south "to blunt the coalition onset" (para 13) would they not have been blasted by the airforces there in any event ? Consequently, they would not have been able to do any more blunting in the south than they did around Bagdad.

I like Kegan as well. But I have to say that if Saddam had taken every one of his suggestions the result would be exactly the same.

Our army columns crossed very few bridges and the few the crossed could have been replaced in hours. The Marines came up through more bridges but did so driving in amphibious carriers anyway.

On the experience of the media I don't take the thesis on the "embeds" saw "military reality." I think some have, or more accurately some have seen some reality. Recall that the great majority of the US "media" in vietnam, both on the ground and manning the desks at home had been WWII and/or Korean service veterans. Their criticism of the war was not based on left or right but on seeing us having a problem in a war of attrition moicromanaged from Washington so soon after essentially going to a bloody draw in a war of attrition in Korea.
The US correctly stopped fighting wars of attrition as a military decision after vietnam.

I give my kudos to the way this war has been fought and to our armed forces. But I don't think having a cadre of reporters who have seen splinters of reality of a quick victory against a vastly out-gunned foe is all "good."

Yep, a new era of air power has arrived - something they've wanted to do for years...and it is very impressive..

The only way to slow the coalition forces down would have been highly organized RPG attacks early-on buy trained soldiers against the more lightly armed Marine units. In all reality, the Iraqis have no defense whatsover for either the 3ID or 4ID. Their armor is too strong and firepower too imense.

However, the Marines travel in LAV's which can be punctured by RPG attacks.

All roads to Baghdad should have been heavily mined. Hundreds of miles of trenches with undergound tunnels should have been dug (hell they had years) so that coordinated hit-and-run RPG attacks couldve taken out advancing Marine columns.

And finally, Saddam did not have nearly enough snipers to pluck light infantry entering cities and villages.

All in all, a very poor defense indeed. But thats what happens when you dont have the loyalty of the vast majority of your army.

Well here's the thing about air power.. Rumsfeld and his jedi contrary to popular theory are not 'air power' guys per se. They are very into combined arms tactics, which traditionally has been resisted by air force (who are into 'deep' strikes) and army types(who want heavier artillery and tanks). If anything has shown its merit its combined arms by putting Iraq on the horns of a dilemna. The ground forces advance forced the Iraqis to mass (easy targets for air force) while air assaults forced them to disperse (easy target for ground force). Most decided to run away instead of face this paradox. Probably a wise choice. Rummy is to something: faster, lighter, combined arms.

Saddam's mistake was trying to engage a country that could kill any random soldier for $100k... and could afford to kill all of them.

Oooh Dishman, you may have hit the nail on the head....

Yep, dishman nailed it!

A very good piece if you were fighting a war early in last century. Few of his points are pertinent to the war Saddam had to fight. None of the tactics he describes would have mattered a whit.

This war was about technology.

Our technological edge makes our military an overwhelming force. Constantly evolving technology allows our forces to merge under a cohesive command and control to become a multi-pronged real-time weapon.

The battlefield was monitored and managed in real-time video. The Iraqi's were in another era info and recon-wise.

The army that made the difference was the vast corps of thinkers, geeks, engineers, techies and entrepreneurs who pump high tech goodies into our military...right along with the lastest domestic doodads.

As in the past our ability to produce weaponery and motivated men/women is our strength. Piss us off and we get real good at it real quick.

I agree with Fred that we need a full division of military police for the future.

Some things change but some things are always the same. On thing that is the same whether you believe in RMA/"transformation" or more traditional arrays: is that "war is an extension of politics."

No crime in putting a tank round into a hotel with civilians where there was a sniper yesterday, but we certainly can not be doing that in two weeks.

This is going to be a huge nation building and military policing endevour, unles some one is suggesting we take our chips and leave after disarming a country sandwiched between Iran, Turkey and Syria.

Oil fields are very suseptable to sabatouge. We are going to have to distruute several million metric tons of food and supplies every month.

As the son of a former military policeman, let me tell whoever is afraid of it being used in the states along with "black helicopters"..I would rather have had trained military policmen in my airport then some untrianed guardsman with rifle.

Military policmen ARE trained in civil law and they have a proven history and record probably ten times better than many local and state police.

The comments about placing the Republican Guard on the border probably has to do with shortening their lines. If they were to be used defensively, you want them covering as small a section of ground as is possible. The border with Kuwait is the best place to do that without giving up large swathes of the country.

There's no way Iraq could have won the war, probably, but I'm with Keegan in that it was misfought by the Iraqi side to the extent that it was far, far, far easier for the coalition than it had to be.

I was going to comment on the air element, but plenty of people have seen the error in this piece.