Pentagon Chief's New Theory For A Lightning War With Minimal Human Cost In The Persian Gulf
Nov 29, 2002
Rumsfeld's 'blitzkrieg'
(1) Air attacks using precisions bombs will paralyse Iraq's ablility to fight back
(2) Highly-mobile ground troops will then move in to finish off the enemy
WASHINGTON - Pentagon officials have come up with a 'new' idea for attacking Iraq.
Their so-called 'effects-based' strategy is an adaptation of the blitzkrieg, or lightning war, perfected by Hitler's Wehrmacht in World War II.
It would comprise highly accurate, meticulously coordinated air attacks on critical targets to disrupt Iraq's ability to fight back cohesively.
Fast-moving ground troops would then move in to finish the job, according to Wednesday's Wall Street Journal.
Blitzkrieg was used to devastating effect by the Germans. In 1940, for example, they captured Copenhagen on April 9 and Oslo the next day.
They took The Hague on May 14, Brussels three days later and Paris precisely one month after that. Speed and surprise were the keynotes, light-tank units supported by planes and infantry were the weapons employed to achieve success.
While the benefits of the Pentagon's 'effects-based' operations are yet to be proved, the strategy itself has been eagerly endorsed by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Generally, such operations propose a different take on well-tested methods of warfare.
While the goal of traditional warfare is to deplete an enemy's forces and destroy its military infrastructure, effects-based warfare seeks to paralyse it.
The 'new' approach would enable the military to accomplish objectives quicker with less cost in lives, money and personnel, according to Air Force Major-General and author David Deptula.
When the first shots are fired in the next Gulf war, for example, helicopter-fired Hellfire missiles and laser-guided bombs will destroy radar sites and render Iraq's commanders incapable of tracking American aircraft.
Soon afterwards, 1 kg satellite-guided bombs will hit radio-relay stations, cutting the fibre-optic communication lines between field commanders and their bosses in Baghdad.
Effects-based operations are heavily dependent on technology and that has advanced significantly since the US last went to war against Iraq in 1991.
Then, the US bombed from the air for 40 days before the ground invasion began.
Less than 10 per cent of the bombs dropped were guided by satellite or laser signals.
Nowadays, Pentagon officials say more than 80 per cent of bombs would be precision-guided.
There is only one problem with the Rumsfeld-approved theory, according to critics: It has never been employed on a large-scale and there is no guarantee it will work.
Aspects of effects-based warfare were tried in Afghanistan and Kosovo but these were conflicts on a far smaller scale than the war envisaged against Iraq.
Rather than viewing the Afghan war as a triumph of high-tech weaponry, as Mr Rumsfeld did, some Army officers believe the conflict underlined the technology's shortcomings.
Operation Anaconda, for example, was a skirmish that was supposed to conclude in three days but lasted two weeks as 1,000 Al-Qaeda fighters fought back from their hideouts, undetected by any high-tech surveillance.
The concept of effects-based operations was born in a place known as the Black Hole, a top-secret Air Force planning cell in Saudi Arabia where the Gulf War air campaign was orchestrated.
When Defence Secretary Rumsfeld took office two years ago with a mandate to make the military more nimble, he quickly embraced the concept.
Recently, he has ordered senior US commanders to rewrite their plans, capitalising on precision weapons, better intelligence and the effects-based concept.
Some tried it out in Poland in September when they directed a military exercise dubbed Victory Strike.
The exercise began when helicopters from V Corps - one of the first units likely to be deployed for a war in Iraq - set off to destroy simulated radar and missile sites.
They rehearsed razing enemy radar sites and opening up the skies for F-16 pilots to begin a mock-attack with satellite-guided bombs.
>> News Archives |
