Tyler Durden wrote: [...]
> PS: Anyone notice the conceptual similarity between "shock and awe" and > "blitzkrieg"? Yes, similar in some respects, though not the same. "Shock and awe" (terrible name for a quite sensible idea) was about a military force which is overwhelmingly stronger than its opponent attempting to win quickly and with minimum casualties on either side by rapidly and completely disrupting the enemy's ability to respond intelligently. Blitzkrieg (not a word the Germans used officially in 1939 & 1940 - I'm told it was coined by an Italian journalist) was about a quick victory over an opponent of similar strength to oneself, by a deep and rapid penetration, close co-operation between arms, and continual re-evaluation of objectives by field officers on the ground. Blitzkrieg is one of the roots of S&A - but it has others including the punitive expeditions of colonial times, the British attempt to support indirect rule in Iraq by airpower alone in the 1920s, the massive aerial bombardments of Germany and Japan in WW2, the nukes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, unrelenting Israeli pressure on the Palestinians, and even US actions in places like Grenada and Panama. The US has *not* used "shock and awe" in this campaign. If it had it might have thrown everything at Iraq in the first few hours - all the MOABs, all the cluster bombs, all the bunker-busters, all the B1s, B2s, B52s can drop. It might have sent airborne troops in on the first day, ignored Basra, dropped men in Baghdad. The ideal "shock and awe" opening to the war would have had the citizens of Baghdad see those 3000 missiles go off more or less simultaneously, in the first 30 minutes, not the first 3 days, a ring of fire round their city, to the background of the exploding bombloads of 100 B52s. The TV and radio and military communications would have been knocked out. The presidential palaces and guards barracks would not have been just hit, but removed. The dazed citizens would have wandered into the streets in the morning to find them already patrolled by Americans. If Saddam Hussein had survived the bombing he'd have woken screaming to see not his own bodyguard but the SAS. In fact the war has been run like a classic tank campaign, a blitzkrieg - tightly controlled armoured penetration over narrow fronts, avoiding easily defensible places, keeping on the move, attempting to catch the enemy in the open and destroy him by rapidly bringing together local massive concentrations, but just steaming past an enemy unwilling to fight or hunkered down in cities or fortifications. Guderian or Tukachevsky or Tal would have recognised the strategy instantly. (Zhukov or Montgomery might have wanted larger, heavier formations). The tremendous advantage given by the total air superiority has been used just ahead of the attack, as a sort of updated version of the moving barrage of WW1. It has actually been quite a successful blitz. They are still making better time than the Germans did on the road to Warsaw. I don't know why they are not trying the shock and awe strategy. I can think of a number of possibilities. They aren't mutually exclusive. In declining order of likelihood: - perhaps they have a greater respect for the Iraqi military than they let on - maybe, despite the hype, the battlefield technology is not yet in place, or not in great enough strength. The news over here has mentioned British marines trying to find the launch sites of the missiles aimed at them and that hit Kuwait. The pre-war propaganda was all about JSTARS or whatever spotting the launch site instantly and targeting retaliation within seconds. But we're still using blokes with binoculars. - maybe shock and awe is a bad idea anyway. It might just be too risky. If you throw everything you have got at them on day one, what do you do if they don't cave in on day two? OK, you make sure you have enough kit to keep on doing it - that's actually part of the doctrine - but sooner or later it runs out. And there are loads of other countries out there who need their dose of S&A. It is a very expensive kind of warfare. - it could be that the military is just too innately conservative for the much-hyped S&A - perhaps there are some new tricks they didn't want to use in sight of Iran - which (rumour has it) the PNAC types want to invade next (I hope to God they don't) - perhaps they're saving it for a final attack on Baghdad - maybe they wanted to use all their nice tanks before they were obsolete. They haven't had a real fast-moving large scale tank battle in ages. They never got to fight the Russians, in 1991 they were mostly shooting at the backs of men running away. It would have been a shame to let an entire generation of big boy's toys rust unused. The RAF somehow found a role for the last Vulcan bomber in the Falklands... - perhaps the generals took one look at the likes of Rumsfeld and Cheney and Perle and the other PNACs and thought to themselves, without moving their lips: "Fuck you, Sir! We'll do it our way, Sir!" - maybe they realise that treating the whole world the way a crackhead pimp treats last year's whore who tries to steal his stash isn't going to stop terrorism.
