November 21, 2004
A REVOLUTIONARY NEW THEORY OF WAR
Victory in Fallujah (Jack Kelly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 21st, 2004)
The rule of thumb for the last century or so has been that for a guerrilla force to remain viable, it must inflict seven casualties on the forces of the government it is fighting for each casualty it sustains, says former Canadian army officer John Thompson, managing director of the Mackenzie Institute, a think tank that studies global conflicts.By that measure, the resistance in Iraq has had a bad week. American and Iraqi government troops have killed at least 1,200 fighters in Fallujah, and captured 1,100 more. Those numbers will grow as mop-up operations continue.
These casualties were inflicted at a cost (so far) of 56 Coalition dead (51 Americans), and just over 300 wounded, of whom about a quarter have returned to duty."That kill ratio would be phenomenal in any [kind of] battle, but in an urban environment, it's revolutionary," said retired Army Lt. Col. Ralph Peters, perhaps America's most respected writer on military strategy. "The rule has been that [in urban combat] the attacking force would suffer between a quarter and a third of its strength in casualties."
The victory in Fallujah was also remarkable for its speed, Peters said. Speed was necessary, he said, "because you are fighting not just the terrorists, but a hostile global media."
Fallujah ranks up there with Iwo Jima, Inchon and Hue as one of the greatest triumphs of American arms, though you'd have a hard time discerning that from what you read in the newspapers.
The swift capture of Fallujah is taxing the imagination of Arab journalists and -- sadly -- our own. How does one portray a remarkable American victory as if it were of little consequence, or even a defeat? For CNN's Walter Rodgers, camped out in front the main U.S. military hospital in Germany, you do this by emphasizing American casualties.
For The New York Times and The Washington Post, you do this by emphasizing conflict elsewhere in Iraq.
But the news organs that liken temporary terrorist success in Mosul (the police stations they overran were recaptured the next day) with what happened to the terrorists in Fallujah is false equivalence of the worst kind. If I find a quarter in the street, it doesn't make up for having lost $1,000 in a poker game the night before.
The resistance has suffered a loss of more than 2,000 combatants, out of a total force estimated by U.S. Central Command at about 5,000 (other estimates are higher) as well as its only secure base in the country. But both the Arab media and ours emphasize that the attack on Fallujah has made a lot of Arabs mad. By this logic, once we've killed all the terrorists, they'll be invincible.
"The experience of human history has been the more people you kill, the weaker they get," Thompson noted.
Posted by Peter Burnet at November 21, 2004 5:52 AM
Military Spencerianism in action. The cultural traits which make us rich and free also make us strong. Religion, ordered liberty, linear time, reality-based linguistics--the list goes on and on. We made mass armies obsolete, now we are making guerilla warfare in urban terrain obsolete. On top of all this, the military revolution which will come about fron nanotechnology has yet to come online.
How fortunate for humanity that our values flow from the same wellspring as our power.
Posted by: Lou Gots at November 21, 2004 7:07 AMMilitary Spencerianism in action. The cultural traits which make us rich and free also make us strong. Religion, ordered liberty, linear time, reality-based linguistics--the list goes on and on. We made mass armies obsolete, now we are making guerilla warfare in urban terrain obsolete. On top of all this, the military revolution which will come about fron nanotechnology has yet to come online.
How fortunate for humanity that our values flow from the same wellspring as our power.
Posted by: Lou Gots at November 21, 2004 7:09 AMFalloujah is perceived as a massacre, the US as a foreign oppressor, Alawi as a puppet. We can kill millions of Iraqis as we did in Viet Nam and they will continue to fight us and we will eventually lose. All this "revolution in military technology" nonsense will not save our bacon in Iraq. We are there for the oil and they know it and they will fight and die to drive us from their homeland, just as we would if the Chinese invaded the US. The sooner we understand this the sooner we can get on with the necessary work of rebuilding our economy and our international reputation. America can be a great country again but not if we squander our resources and our credibility by continuing this senseless slaughter.
Veteran, US Army ('70-'73)
Mike:
I respect you for the service you rendered the country three decades ago, but your comments reflect the classic error of fighting the last war. Moreover, they reflect enemy propaganda more than historical reality. We will not kill million of Iraqis. If millions are killed, it will be the Jihadists and Baathists who do it. America did not kill millions of Vietnamese. That "honor" was reserved for the Communists you fought.
Posted by: X at November 21, 2004 8:20 AMMike:
Massacre? You mean like beheadings or killing innocent women? I agree senseless slaughter should be stopped, that's why we're eliminating the terrorists at the source.
Oppressor? Who set up a functional democracy after genocidal tyranny?
Puppet? Alawi is making tough decisions every day.
The whole oil argument should be up in smoke by now. Have you noticed oil prices shot up, Mike? If we just went along with the French and Russians we would have been pumping as much as Uncle Saddam could sell. We're there to change the region in a fundamental way, and it's shocking how many people cannot (choose not to?) see this obvious fact.
The hostile media is by far our deadliest enemy, doing more to spread falsehoods than a thousand Bin Laden tapes.
P.S. America's greatness is not contingent on international popularity, and may in fact have an inverse relationship to said.
Posted by: JackSheet at November 21, 2004 8:37 AMI think it goes without saying that more Americans and Iraqis differ with Mr Welsh'sviews than agree with him. But rehashing the merits of THIS war is not the point of this blog. My point is that in their disdain for THIS War, the significance of victory in lawless enclaves like Fallujah is being completely missed.
Our enemies today do not, and will not, come well identified. In fact, they fight amongst the civilian populations they take hostage. For all our determination to deal with them where ever they are, carpet bombing of towns and cities where
There will be battles, if not campaigns, in the future when ALL (aside from the looney extremes) will agree a massive search and destroy mission is required (and supported). Perhaps then, everybody will give our current leaders -- and for God sake the men and women in the field -- the credit they deserve. And the battle of Fallujah will be remembered the way it should be.
Posted by: Moe from NC at November 21, 2004 8:41 AMHell, Mike's not even fighting the last war. He's fighting the war before that one.
Posted by: H.D. Miller at November 21, 2004 9:53 AMMike-
The enemy is not like us. The civilian population is behind the effort (I've got a nephew over there). The death cult of radical Islamism wants America destroyed. Their power is in direct proportion to the support they recieve from the dictatorial regimes in the region. The fight was taken to us and the alternatives are few. It is impossible to negotiate with any totalist ideology which we would have happily ignored until 9/11 made it impossible and foolish to do so. Peace will come only through the establishment of free and accounatble governments.
The oil thing is nonsense. Free and open markets are the result of free and open societies.
Tom:
Well said.
Oil is much cheaper to buy than steal.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at November 21, 2004 3:40 PMThanks, Jeff.
Posted by: Tom C., Stamford, Ct. at November 21, 2004 3:54 PMRE: "We will not kill million of Iraqis. If millions are killed, it will be the Jihadists and Baathists who do it."
Actually, if we quit this war before it's won... if we let the Islamo-fascists use Iraq as a base of operations, and use Iraq's oil to finance their war against us... if the US is ever attacked with nuclear or biological weapons created or launched from Iraq... then it is possible we could end up killing millions during our retaliatory attacks.
It is to be hoped that our current efforts will be successful. Otherwise, I can imagine a scenario in which Baghdad, Damascus, Teheran, Cairo, Riyadh, Mecca, and Islamabad are all destroyed by American nuclear weapons... again, in retaliation for the destruction of American cities.
This isn't a war for oil, but it's clearly a war about oil.
If Kuwait exported only dates, would the US and the world have come to its rescue in '91 ?
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 21, 2004 9:48 PMOur technological advantage over, well, everybody else, is getting to be much greater than that which the British enjoyed over the Fuzzy-Wuzzies. It's total air supremacy plus precision guided munitions, and the best is yet to come in both departments. What's coming to pass is a situation in which high-tech trumps low tech, medium-tech, and the logistic tail needed to counter high tech. This isn't 1970, Mr. Doggie. The Hajjis don't have the FORMER SOVIET UNION to hide behind any more. But don't worry too much: we're not going to have to kill them all, not unless they really want us to.
Posted by: Lou Gots at November 21, 2004 10:01 PM