Not by Air Alone
KAGAN, FREDERICK W.
Not by Air Alone by Frederick W. Kagan IF A SINGLE IMAGE FROM THE GULF WAR is firmly fixed in America's mind, it is that of a guided missile striking the door of an Iraqi bunker. The moment that...
...air war defeated Saddam...
...The current crisis is precisely the sort of situation least suited to solution by air power alone...
...Today, there are only six and one-third heavy divisions in the entire Army...
...Air power deals in probabilities: the probability that someone has identified the right target, that the pilot finds that target, that the bomb or missile fired hits the target, that the bomb actually destroys the target, and so on...
...although more than half of these targets were successfully destroyed, Saddam Hussein was able to direct and supply many Iraqi forces through the end of the air campaign and even immediately after the war...
...After 38 days of intensive air attack, significant portions of the Iraqi army were combat-capable, and the dictator did not surrender...
...In the present crisis, America's primary aim, in the event of military action, would be to destroy Saddam's ability to manufacture weapons of mass destruction...
...The concerted campaign to destroy mobile Scud launchers did not achieve any confirmed kills...
...There is no doubt that we could defeat Iraq again both on the ground and in the air (and, of course, any ground attack should be preceded and accompanied by a substantial air campaign...
...inspectors steadily diminishes our intelligence about possible locations of weapons-production sites...
...The answer is yes, if we rely exclusively on air power...
...The United States was forced to conduct a ground war in part because the air campaign failed to destroy the Iraqi army and Saddam's ability to wage war...
...If our objective is to remove Saddam from power and destroy Iraq's capability to manufacture weapons of mass destruction, it is ground forces that must play the decisive role...
...This is why we have demanded on-site inspections...
...It is inevitable that an air attack, no matter how extensive, will leave numerous targets intact...
...but against populations and troops that have survived such bombings, neither the threat of air attacks nor their execution is necessarily convincing...
...It is also why ground forces will be essential in any campaign to destroy Saddam's mass-terror ability...
...Another division is devoted to training and modernization programs and is not deployable...
...Only an encounter with American ground forces changed things...
...One of those is in Korea—and there it must remain, especially when tensions with Iraq draw the rest of the Army to the Middle East...
...The ground war that followed offered no images to compete with it, and the speedy subsequent peace brought a belief that, for the first time in history, attack from the air had won a war...
...Frederick W. Kagan is an assistant professor of military history at West Point...
...Indeed, when lead American units encountered the Republican Guard formations, those formations were supplied, communicating with headquarters, and ready for action...
...The moment that CNN flashed that image around the world, it became the symbol of America's technological supremacy...
...They can check, or bring in specialists to check, whether a building actually did house weapons-making facilities and, if so, whether those facilities were destroyed...
...In 1990, we deployed the equivalent of six heavy divisions to the Gulf and had five more in reserve...
...But this belief is wrong, and, not only wrong, but dangerously so...
...Ground forces are essential for yet another reason: Our history with Saddam has taught him that ground forces are decisive where air forces are not...
...The report points out the obvious fact that, although "some air war planners hoped that the air war alone would cause the Iraqis to leave Kuwait...
...The GAO found that "lack of intelligence about most Iraqi nuclear-related facilities meant that only less than 15 percent were targeted...
...Since then, the United States has steadily reduced its ground forces, justifying that reduction on grounds that enormous air and technological superiority more than compensate...
...After 100 hours of ground war, most of the Iraqi army had been disabled or destroyed—and Saddam gave up...
...We have taught him that, though air attack will hurt him, ground attack will destroy him...
...Ground forces, unlike air forces, deal in certainties...
...the Army has been reduced from 16 divisions to 10...
...Yes, Iraq can be deterred, coerced, or defeated—but, for certain, only on the ground...
...Unfortunately, the belief that air power won the Gulf War has helped to erode our ability to conduct an assault on the ground...
...So is destroying such weapons impossible...
...It is true that soldiers on the ground will fail to identify all possible targets, just as satellites and reconnaissance aircraft will, but when targets are indeed attacked, soldiers on the ground know whether those targets have been destroyed—meanwhile, electronic sensors can only guess...
...In other words, targeting is only as good as the intelligence it is based on, and mobile targets are difficult to find and destroy...
...Many have come to believe that air power by itself is adequate to resolve crises such as the current one in Iraq...
...Since 1991, air power proponents have boasted of our ability to destroy an enemy's command, control, and communications (called "C3") and to interdict supplies...
...According to the GAO report, "Central Intelligence Agency analysis showed that more than 70 percent of the tanks in three Republican Guard divisions located in the Kuwait theater of operations remained intact at the start of the ground campaign and that large numbers were able to escape across the Euphrates River before the cease-fire...
...If we had to go to war with Iraq tomorrow, we could field perhaps two-thirds of the armored forces we sent in 1990...
...The views expressed here are his alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S...
...Therefore, at the conclusion of any bombing campaign, not only will we not have destroyed all of Iraq's most alarming capabilities, we will not even know for sure what has been taken out and what still stands...
...But the GAO report concludes that, with the air war, "Iraq's C3 and [supply] capabilities were partially degraded...
...Soldiers on the ground know when an enemy tank has been destroyed...
...It is unfortunate that the apparent success of the air war in 1991 has obscured this basic truth and has seduced us into allowing our ground capability to dwindle...
...A recent General Accounting Office report has undermined the claim that the U.S...
...The continued absence of U.N...
...Military Academy, the Army, or the Defense Department...
...the materials needed to produce those weapons are by their nature highly mobile...
...It is true that Iraq is also much weaker than it was in 1990, but the task of deposing Saddam and eradicating his weapons capabilities is more daunting than that of ejecting the Iraqi army from Kuwait...
...And because bomb-damage assessment is notoriously difficult, it is certain that some targets left untouched will be reported destroyed...
...But it is critical to remember the lesson about air power: The threat of air attack can have a significant psychological impact on an enemy who has not known attack from the air...
...after 38 days of nearly continuous bombardment, a ground campaign was still deemed necessary...
...Thus, threatening a ground attack could intimidate Saddam in a way that the threat of air power will not...
...Since 1991, America's armed forces have been cut across the board by over 30 percent...
...And the difference between knowledge and guesses, when dealing with weapons of mass destruction, is vital...
Vol. 3 • December 1997 • No. 12
