they proved to be guilt-free.
Several Iraq experts are convinced that many Iraqi soldiers felt so shamed by the deprivation of their professional identities and livelihoods that they were driven either to join the armed resistance or to suicide. If these soldiers had been allowed to retain their uniforms and arms, the experts believe, and had been given proper leadership, they would have been useful in combating the postconflict resistance. Without the support of this large contingent of recruits, the former regime members and foreign terrorists who form the core of the resistance would have had a far harder time generating an insurgency. True or not, this analysis demonstrates the kind of intellectual understanding needed to approach the many dimensions of modern warfare.
The time dimension has always been an important factor in military operations. But today, due to virtually instant communications, time has become critical. Compare the speed and volume of communication of mail packets between England and the American colonies. Or look at today’s airmail compared to the speed and volume of communications possible using global cell phones or E-mail. An image of an enemy sniper hiding in an enemy stronghold can be transmitted around the world for analysis and identification. Within seconds the sniper can be targeted and killed with a precision weapon.
It is vital that modern military forces learn how to exploit this time factor.
In Operation Iraqi Freedom, the 3rd Infantry Division (ID) closed on Baghdad with astonishing speed. In so doing they broke with traditional doctrine on movement of ground forces, which emphasizes the maintenance of orderly boundaries with allied forces and the importance of logistical supply. In Iraq, as the 3rd ID moved toward Baghdad, they did none of that. They isolated pockets of enemy forces in their rear, lost contact with adjacent friendly forces, and hurtled forward, even when their lines of logistics support became vulnerable to enemy attack or were unable to keep up. The swiftness of their advance was so great that it preempted the enemy’s ability to create defensive rings around Baghdad. By ignoring the traditional doctrine, the 3rd ID and adjacent Marine Corps units imposed their own time-lines on the enemy; and the enemy was unable to keep up with the pace of the battle. The ponderous command-and-control system of the Iraqis, their inability to move freely (due to Coalition airpower), and the speed of our Abrams tanks overwhelmed an Iraqi defense that was never able to establish itself. Even as the Iraqi propaganda spokesman, dubbed “Baghdad Bob,” claimed that Coalition forces were being defeated, Coalition tanks were rumbling up the streets of Baghdad a few blocks away.
The environments associated with combat come in many forms. These could include weather, public opinion, electronics, communications, cultures, and peoples, as well as geography and the many other environments associated with war.
In Operation Iraqi Freedom a very harsh sandstorm threatened to mask the movement of Iraqi tanks from Coalition airpower. This would have allowed Iraqi forces to directly engage Coalition ground forces closing on Baghdad and disrupt our uniquely rapid pace of attack. In Operation Desert Storm, an aircraft called Joint STARS made its debut — a Boeing 707 with a large radar system mounted under the fuselage. This radar system can see through sandstorms and observe the movement of ground forces en route to attack our forces. In Iraq, bomber aircraft equipped with bombs guided by Global Positioning Satellite navigation signals were able to take the Joint STARS target coordinates and guide these weapons to the Iraqi tank columns, even though the pilots were unable to see their targets. The combination of the Joint STARS radar and the GPS-guided bombs defeated the effects of the sandstorm; and we were able to control the weather environment.
Meanwhile, we were able to influence our own American media environment by embedding print, TV, and radio reporters in troop formations. The reporters provided firsthand objective reporting of events, without censorship. In spite of the ugliness of war, this worked in the favor of the Coalition because of the courageous and honorable way Coalition forces conducted themselves in combat.
The successful military is a well-disciplined team. Individual heroics, while prized, do not provide the foundation for success in battle. Rigorous training, iron discipline, dedicated reliance on one another, and strict adherence to orders are the attributes that make a team prevail during combat. The team — whether it is a flight of bombers, a flotilla of ships, or a squad of riflemen — must also have leadership… leadership that resides at many levels. The best leaders understand the doctrines and history of their military art and have the judgment and initiative to direct their team(s) when the killing starts. The rigidity of command must not conflict with informed judgment and initiative to change plans once our forces are engaged with the enemy. This is true both for commanders in their headquarters and for subordinates locked in the fight.
The single biggest impediment to such initiative is the rapid growth in information grids, the communications nets that pass the information, and the computers that correlate and display the information. While the ability of the national leader to see into the gun sights of an individual rifle or into the bomb sight of bomb-laden aircraft is undeniably impressive, this ability can also elevate decision making to levels that deny the on-scene leader the freedom to use his own judgment and initiative. Wise leaders at increasing senior levels therefore provide appropriate guidance and authority that empower subordinate leaders to make decisions while engaged in the struggle.
TRANSFORMATION
This kind of enlightened leadership lies at the heart of the so-called Rumsfeld “Transformation” of our military.
But transformation has also — predictably — become the fashionable Pentagon buzz word. The word means many things to many people, according to their agendas. A plan to acquire a new ship, plane, or tank was labeled transformational by the program’s advocates. Individual service leaders seeking to protect their budgets from being trimmed recast outmoded doctrines, force structures, and strategies as transformational.
Yet a few truly brilliant individuals understood that transformation was not about money, programs, or forces; it was about the nature of the threats and challenges to our national security in the future and how we should train, configure, and plan to best protect our vital interests. It meant that military Services were going to change if only to better integrate their individual strengths. It meant that the components of battle would not be Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, but land, maritime, air, and space. It meant that capabilities would not be capital “A” as in Army but small “a” as in armies, and that the great and useful pride each Service has in its history, uniforms, and ways of doing business would have to be subordinated to what makes best sense when fighting a particular enemy. Transformation was about comparing the Service weapons needed to conduct a mission or do a task — eliminating duplication. It meant training as one, with members from all the Services, in order to build the trust and confidence of a team. It meant that we had to think about war in new ways.
In the operations to stop the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, the forces were joint (meaning elements of two or more U.S. Services operated as one force), and combined (meaning forces of two or more nations operated as one). Because of the nature of the enemy force, the terrain, and the constraints placed on the use of force by the political leadership, the primary combat tasks were most often conducted from the air. Once the military leadership gained an understanding of how to transition the conflict from an attrition-based strategy to an effects-based strategy that put unbearable pressure on the Serbian leadership, the conflict was terminated.
One may then ask why this need to transform has been emphasized only recently? Surely our military forces have been fighting jointly since World War II, so what is the big deal?
The big deal has been the emergence of airpower as the dominant force in war fighting. Though this statement was true in 1941–1945, it was not then recognized as such, since the massive scope of the conflict gave opportunities for all forms of military power to claim dominance. In Desert Storm, airpower was only one form of military power used to drive the Iraqis out of Kuwait, but it was clearly the dominant force. Airmen from the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force understand how to employ airpower efficiently. All too often nonairmen misuse its capabilities. They tend to think they understand how to employ airpower, but more often, they think solely in terms of their own domain. A soldier normally sees airpower as a means to provide fire support to his engaged
