Fair Test?

Leading up to the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the Pentagon advertised that it had a strategy to stun the Iraqi leadership into rapid submission -- “shock and awe.” The strategy combined a massive bombing campaign centered on Baghdad with a lightning-quick dash by coalition ground forces from Kuwait to the Iraqi capital. Although the performance of coalition ground and air forces has been extraordinary by any measure, and the numbers of smart bombs and weapons used unprecedented, the Iraqi regime hadn’t collapsed. Iraqi resistance, in and out of uniform, remained strong.

If the shock-and-awe strategy hasn’t lived up to expectations, when will it? Why was it a key ingredient in the U.S. war plan in the first place? If it proves unsuccessful, is shock and awe a flawed concept, or is it being misapplied in Iraq?

As principal author and co-chairman of the group -- composed also of James Wade and retired four-star officers L.A. “Bud” Edney, Fred M. Franks, Charles A. Horner and Jonathan T. Howe -- that conceived, in the late 1990s, the shock-and-awe concept and the parallel strategy of rapid dominance, I do not consider these to be academic questions. The answers require an understanding of how the shock-and-awe approach of Army Gen. Tommy Franks and his Central Command staff compares with our group’s.

The original contingency war plan was an updated variant of Desert Storm that relied on overwhelming force to destroy the Iraqi military. But both Franks and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld were dissatisfied with the long build-up time and large number of forces needed to implement the plan. Furthermore, since the 1991 Gulf War, the technological advances of U.S. firepower have increased America’s military advantage over Iraq up to fivefold, and the extraordinary success in ending Taliban rule in Afghanistan using minimal U.S. forces surely built Pentagon confidence that a new plan could be developed to exploit the U.S. edge in fighting power.

Franks was asked to come up with the plan that would exploit our overwhelming firepower advantage and bring about the collapse of Iraqi resistance as quickly as possible. The principal war aims were to depose and disarm Saddam Hussein.

There were also some important political goals.

One was seizing Iraq’s oil wells before Hussein’s forces torched them, to prevent an environmental disaster and preserve the key resource on which Iraq’s reconstruction depended. Another goal was heading off the possibility that Iraq might try to provoke Israel to enter the war, by quickly destroying any Scud missiles in western Iraq that could reach Israel. Potential chemical and biological weapons sites also had to be rapidly secured. Throughout, minimizing Iraqi civilian casualties and infrastructure damage were key priorities in the planning.

The plan had to be extremely flexible because establishing a second front in northern Iraq required the approval of Turkey’s government. As it turned out, the Turkish parliament rejected the U.S. request to use Turkey as a staging base for American troops. The U.S. Army’s most modern division, the 4th Infantry, had to be rerouted through Kuwait, and still has not fully deployed.

Achieving these disparate and difficult goals, some often contradictory, fell to Franks. He, Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spent hours shaping and reshaping the plan. It remains unclear who was the principal advocate of “shock and awe” to cause the speedy collapse of the Iraqi leadership. Rumsfeld was a rump member of the original shock-and-awe group, so he knew about the concept.

The plan Franks briefed President Bush on featured a combination of extraordinary technology and shock and awe to bring down Hussein’s house rapidly. Four times the ordnance dropped on Iraq in 1991 would be employed in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

The surprise “decapitation strike” at Hussein and his inner circle accelerated the war plan. Intelligence estimates that senior Iraqi generals might defect, or not fight, tempered the opening salvos of the war. Such restraint, it was believed, might motivate Hussein’s generals to give up. But Iraq’s military and political leadership did not cave in. And when the bombing campaign against Baghdad began March 21, surprise and suddenness in eliminating a good portion of Iraq’s army and Baath Party leadership outside the Iraqi capital had been lost because of changes in the war plan.

Not only did the vastly outgunned Iraqi army choose to fight; irregular Iraqi militia harassed and ambushed 300-mile-long coalition resupply lines.

Shock and awe did not achieve its goals in part because Hussein was apparently still in charge and had enough of an army left to defend his country. The coalition’s strategy shift has been most evident in the last 10 days. The Republican Guard and much of the Iraqi army have been destroyed or turned into a rabble.

At this point, the destruction of the Iraqi army and the Republican Guard must precede Hussein’s removal and the disarmament of Iraq. Let there be no question, however, that the superiority of coalition arms and fighting power makes that outcome simply a matter of time. Just as former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic capitulated after a 78-day NATO bombing campaign in 1999, so, too, might Hussein raise the white flag even before the battle of Baghdad begins.

It’s impossible to assess shock and awe as a strategy without full knowledge of the details available to the Pentagon. But some conclusions are in order.

Central to our group’s concept of shock and awe is forcing, convincing or cajoling an adversary to do our will. In other words, destroy enemy morale by eliminating its means to fight and power to govern. Inducing an opponent prepared to die for a cause to passively surrender is the ultimate goal of shock and awe. Something akin to that happened in Japan to end World War II. Unfortunately, the mere mention of Hiroshima and Nagasaki conjures up images of nuclear war and wholesale destruction of civilian populations.

Our shock and awe is the direct opposite: using a minimum level of force to achieve rapid, decisive victory at least cost to civilian lives.

To achieve that, four conditions must be satisfied: total or near-total knowledge of how an adversary thinks, which involves more than an assessment of its military strengths and weaknesses; brilliant execution; rapidity -- the more shock and awe delivered in a set time, the greater its effects. Fulfilling these three conditions lets attackers control the entire environment in which the enemy operates, from communications to sending forces into battle.

The targets for this kind of shock and awe are military capacity and the levers of political power. Rather than hit targets in Baghdad, as Operation Iraqi Freedom does, the Republican Guard and other army divisions would have been attacked and destroyed as quickly as possible. Simultaneously, the Baath Party, its membership and institutions of power would have been hit and destroyed. The intent, after a day or two -- or even sooner -- would have been to confront the leadership in Baghdad with the reality that its ability to resist had suddenly vanished. This shock and awe also would employ types of force that do not exist today, for example, “bedlam brigades.” Forces designed to create bedlam would heighten the shock and awe.

Because this war began earlier than scheduled and because a sizable northern front was never established, the impact of its shock and awe was limited. For one thing, suddenness was unobtainable.

Whether our version of shock and awe would have greatly hastened the demise of Hussein’s regime is unknowable. But when the war ends, the Pentagon might well be advised to take a second look at it. If the war in Iraq presages how force will be used in the future, then maximizing its political effect and the ends it is meant to achieve will be increasingly important priorities. Perhaps shock and awe will contribute.