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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (93379)	4/14/2003 3:48:11 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

Good article in "Slate" on why our military is so much better. A couple of excerpts and the URL Force Majeure What lies behind the military's victory in Iraq. By Fred Kaplan >>>>>So when and how did the U.S. military get this good? The elements of swift victory in Gulf War II have been well laid-out: the agility and flexibility of our forces, the pinpoint accuracy of the bombs, the commanders' real-time view of the battlefield, the remarkable coordination among all branches of the armed services (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines) and special operations. But these elements, and this degree of success, have not been seen in previous wars, not even in the first Gulf War 12 years ago. Three major changes have taken hold within the military since then?a new war-fighting doctrine, advanced digital technology, and a less parochial culture.<<< >>>The Marines, meanwhile, were going through a similar transformation. Col. Mike Wiley, vice president of the Marine Corps University at Quantico, revised his branch's war doctrine on the basis of a 1979 briefing called "Patterns of Conflict" by a retired Air Force colonel named John Boyd . Boyd too had concluded that successful warfare involves surprise, deception, sweeping quickly around flanks, and creating confusion and disorder in the enemy's ranks. The Marine Corps commandant at the time, Gen. Alfred Gray, considered himself a Boyd disciple and ordered his officers, who led the assault into Kuwait, to avoid frontal assaults and to maneuver around the Iraqis and attack their flanks.<<< >>>>We may never know how much special ops have been doing in Gulf War II. Certainly, these forces were in the Iraqi capital days or weeks before the war began, scoping out targets and lining up contacts. They were in the western deserts again, hunting Scuds and preparing airfields. They were in the north, training Kurds and securing oil fields. They were probably accompanying, and perhaps advancing, the 3rd Infantry and 1st Marine divisions all the way from Kuwait to Baghdad, scouting targets and transmitting their positions to the air commanders back at headquarters. We don't yet fully know the lessons of this war?in part because it isn't over yet and in part because, as James Carafano, a former Army officer now with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, put it, "90 percent of the war was going on out of our vision." Most of that 90 percent was being conducted by special ops (no embedded reporters there) and by the laptop-wielding joint-forces crew in Qatar (a few embeds, but no access to that part of the operation). What they were and are doing, however invisible, formed a large part of what made this war so stunning and new.<<<<<< slate.msn.com