Air Power, Insurgency and the “War on Terror” - Prof. Joel Hayward's ...

Chapter 11
of warfare in this environment – would have led to better tactics <strong>and</strong> procedures which in
turn could have led to pacification not insurgency.
In contrast, Ricks waxes eloquent when discussing <strong>the</strong> activities of SOF <strong>and</strong> those few
o<strong>the</strong>r units that tried to underst<strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> Iraqis, talk to <strong>the</strong>m, treat <strong>the</strong>m as equals, eat with
<strong>the</strong>m, <strong>and</strong> try to win <strong>the</strong>ir hearts <strong>and</strong> minds.
Success occurred when small numbers of troops acted responsibly, not when large numbers
acted irresponsibly or like thugs. Sending in more ground troops would have simply
aggravated an already deteriorating situation because conventional forces are inappropriate
for conducting counter-insurgency (COIN) operations. Indeed, says Ricks, COIN ops have
always been ignored by <strong>the</strong> army: “After it came home from Vietnam, <strong>the</strong> Army threw away
virtually everything it had learned <strong>the</strong>re, slowly <strong>and</strong> painfully, about how to wage a counterinsurgency
campaign.” 448
Instead, big battalions fighting aggressively dominated army
doctrine, <strong>and</strong> this, regrettably, was on display in Iraq. 449 The lessons of COIN would have to
be relearned, slowly <strong>and</strong> with much loss of blood, in Iraq.
What we have seen in Iraq is an Army <strong>and</strong> Marine Corps that despite all of <strong>the</strong>ir rhetoric
about underst<strong>and</strong>ing Clausewitz <strong>and</strong> his most famous one-liner (“war is an instrument
of policy”), <strong>the</strong>y have, in reality, devoted little time, force structure, or budget towards
fighting COIN; <strong>the</strong> war that is <strong>the</strong> most political of all wars. Instead, <strong>the</strong>y fall back on <strong>the</strong>
parts of Clausewitz that appeal most to <strong>the</strong>ir institutional ethos: <strong>the</strong> deliberate drive to
find <strong>and</strong> destroy <strong>the</strong> enemy army; to fight <strong>the</strong> force-on-force engagement that is devoid
of political nuance.
It is my argument that for more than a decade following Desert Storm <strong>the</strong> US began to
experiment with a new paradigm in war: <strong>the</strong> use of overwhelming air <strong>and</strong> space power,
coupled with SOF, indigenous ground troops, <strong>and</strong> very robust intelligence assets <strong>and</strong>
C2 systems. The use of conventional US ground troops was avoided for <strong>the</strong> simple <strong>and</strong>
logical reason, now being proven so abundantly in Iraq, that putting boots on <strong>the</strong> ground
is dangerous <strong>and</strong> politically risky. This emerging paradigm proved remarkably successful
in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan <strong>and</strong> nor<strong>the</strong>rn Iraq. 450 When we broke that mould in
Afghanistan in Operation Anaconda, <strong>the</strong> result was near disaster. As one observer noted:
“Franks’ decision to use conventional ground forces would probably be something he
would sorely regret, resulting in more than a hundred casualties, <strong>and</strong> more Americans
killed than Special Forces had lost in <strong>the</strong> past eight years. Franks’s decision ended up
costing <strong>the</strong> US more lives in one day than any single combat mission since ... Mogadishu
in 1993.” 451 When we broke <strong>the</strong> mould again, in Iraq proper, we have <strong>the</strong> situation today.
<strong>Air</strong> <strong>Power</strong>, <strong>Insurgency</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>the</strong> “War on Terror” 185