As of this writing US and British troops have been in Iraq for a couple of days and are advancing rapidly towards Baghdad. The operational methods displayed are striking enough that I think they represent a significant evolution in the art of war.
Military tactics have been adapting to deal with technological change since the day someone first thought to grind his stick into a point, but the Industrial Revolution accelerated the pace of change and created problems never before seen in history. The railroad allowed the concentration of great numbers of troops in a small area to be maintained practically indefinitely, and advances in firearms technology made the clashes between these bodies of troops ever more dangerous. The transitional wars of the mid-19th century (US Civil War, Franco-Prussian War) show the trend towards ever more bloody battles, but it was the First World War that brought the problem to a head.
In WWI each side was able to sustain in the field armies of such size as to create a continuous front running from the English Channel to neutral Switzerland (and, on the other side, from the Swiss border to the Mediterranian Sea), leaving no opening for either army to get past the other. This left bloody frontal assaults as the only option; an option made appallingly costly by the combination of trenches, barbed wire, and the machine gun. Only by massive expenditure of lives and equally massive artillery bombardment could an opposing line be cracked. Cracking the enemy line, though, only created more problems for the attacker; he was faced with moving troops and supplies forward over the battle-torn No-Man's-Land, while the defender had free use of his rail lines to move up more troops and supplies. The offensive usually ground to a halt when the attacker reached the limit of his artillery's range.
Two solutions developed over the course of the war to get around these problems. First, the Germans developed a new tactical doctrine, what we might call the First Generation of modern mobile warfare. They formed small units of special assault troops and trained them intensely in the new methods. They turned away from the multiple week long artillery bombardments that had become standard up to that point (and which served mainly to let the defender know where the attack was going to take place and give him the opportunity to move reserves into position) in favor of a very short, very intense bombardment lasting only a few hours. On the heels of this bombardment the small units of assault troops would quickly move into the enemy positions, avoiding the strongpoints and pushing on to the rear as quickly as possible. They sowed confusion and panic in their path and came very close to winning the war for Germany when unleashed in strength on the Western Front in 1918. In the end, though, they were worn down by the same logistical difficulties as had beaten earlier offensives. The defender could still move faster than the attacker.
The Allies took a different approach. Taking the problem of getting across the trench line as an engineering problem, they came up with an engineering solution. An armored vehicled, tracked to get across broken ground, armed to give direct fire support to the infantry. The tank was born and it crashed through the German defenses, playing a critical part in ending the war.
In the 1920's and '30's several officers (Fuller, Swinton, de Gaulle, Guderian) gave thought to combining these two methods. They added the tank to the German assault tactics, and developed the idea of aerial bombardment as a substitute for the artillery which could not keep up with a very rapid advance. These new ideas found fertile ground in the German Army and were unleashed upon the world in 1939. Mechanization of the armies gave them the mobility to strike deeply and sustain a rapid advance, finally out pacing the defender's response. The combination of fast-moving mechanized ground troops and intense bombardment from artillery and close air support became the norm for conventional warfare for the remainder of the 20th century. We might call these 'blitzkrieg' tactics the Second Generation of modern mobile warfare.
What we are seeing in Iraq as of this writing the Third Generation.
The basic pattern has remained unchanged since 1916; highly trained, highly motivated troops moving as quickly as possible, striking into the enemy's rear areas before he can react, demoralizing the enemy troops with the speed and violence of the attack, cutting them off and taking them prisoner. As with the Second Generation, though, technology has added capabilities that enhance an army's ability to carry out those manuevers.
'Smart' munitions, pre-programmed missiles and guided bombs, allow fire support to be placed with a precision never before seen, and they can follow the troops anywhere, on call when needed. Satellite global positioning and communications systems allow troops to navigate with certainty over even the most inhospitable deserts, and stay in communication with headquarters while doing it. Unpiloted drones and satellites combine with conventional aerial reconaisance and electronic eavesdropping to locate the enemy and data networks rapidly share that information with all friendly units. The 'fog of war,' the uncertainty as to where the enemy -- and often one's own -- are and what they are doing, has been greatly thinned.
This data processing advantage does not get as much attention as the smart bombs, but it is at least as crucial. An important aspect of war-fighting that doesn't get talked about much is the decision loop. Basically, a staff takes in information, distills it into a picture of what's going on out on the battlefield, makes decisions about what to do next, and transmits those orders out to the troops. The side that can complete that process faster has a tremendous advantage over the other side. By the time the slower side processes its information and sends out its orders, the situation has changed and the orders are no longer relevant. They have lost control of the battle. The force which can most rapidly assess the battlefield situation and execute orders based on that assessment will almost always win the battle.
The integration of these advances in electronics into the mobile warfare doctine allows a lightning war that can be carried out with not just a tremendous operational advantage over a less well equipped enemy, but also with minimal damage to the civilian population. This is a welcome change from 20th century doctine, when slaughtering the enemy's civilians was considered a legitimate tactic by all sides. One is reminded of the great suffering inflicted on civilians during the 17th century, and the reaction against such in the 18th century, when Frederick the Great could boast that the peasants in the fields and the tradesmen in the towns would neither know nor care when the nation was at war. Once again civilian life is uninterrupted outside the immediate battlefield, and even there damage is minimized.
As with most technological and doctrinal advances in warfare it is not the advance itself which is important, it is the difference in the pace of adoption. At the beginning of WWII the Germans had a significant battlefield advantage because of their superior implementation of Second Generation mobile warfare tactics. By the end of the war all the combatants had adopted the same methods and the German advantage disappeared. The advantage on the battlefield does not come from having an advanced piece of hardware; it comes from having an advanced piece of hardware that the other guy doesn't have. At the moment only the United States, and to a lesser extent Great Britain, have the capability to execute a Third Generation mobile warfare campaign. Even otherwise first rate military establishments are at a relative disadvantage and the glorified police/criminal gangs that pass as armies in the Third World are comletely helpless. The long term effect of this disparity in capabilities remains to be seen.
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