STARING AT WAR : The Military Options in the Gulf: Warfare by Attrition or Blitzkreig?

U.S. military doctrine has long been rooted in the nation’s ability to overwhelm an opponent with superior resources, primarily firepower applied in massive doses. First advanced during the Civil War, the doctrine was developed and perfected in the two world wars. In all three cases, victory was achieved not by superior fighting skill or brilliant tactics but by materiel and industrial superiority. The strategy of overwhelming the enemy in attrition-style warfare has guided U.S. military organization and strategy ever since.

At first glance, the doctrine of attrition plays to America’s emotional penchant for quick, decisive and relatively painless victory. It selects a set of targets to be destroyed in succession by the cumulative effects of massively applied firepower.

Should war break out in the Persian Gulf, air power would be the chief messenger of this firepower. Iraq’s long-range missiles and aircraft would be the first to be targeted, lest the conflict expand into neighboring states, namely Israel. U.S. commanders would then turn their aerial sights to surveillance and communications centers, as well as to command bunkers, in an effort to render their Iraqi counterparts blind, deaf and mute. Third, Iraqi supply lines would come under attack. Finally, to provide ground forces with the necessary freedom of movement, U.S. and allied pilots would have to achieve and maintain air superiority.

According to traditional attrition doctrine, once the initial set of targets has been destroyed, the largest groupings of enemy forces would be engaged in a broad frontal attack. Though this strategy has limitations, such an assault on Iraq’s defenses in Kuwait would not be as daunting as might at first seem.

Iraqi forces are dug in behind a formidable belt of sand embankments, deep tank traps, minefields, barbed wire and trenches with oil cans ready to be ignited. If air and artillery fire compels them to remain in their holes, overcoming the fortifications would become a challenge for military engineers. Armored bulldozers would plow through sand embankments and fill in anti-tank ditches. Minefields could be neutralized by lengths of explosive-filled pipe, or by using fuel-air explosives, whose immense ground pressure would detonate the Iraqi mines. Burning oil cans would benefit attacking U.S. forces more than protect Iraqi soldiers, since U.S. and British tanks have thermal-imaging sights able to penetrate thick clouds of smoke. Iraqi tanks lack these devices; smoke would blind their efforts to target indirect artillery fire as well as direct-fire weapons.

The size of the international deployment will permit planners to select multiple points of attack along the Iraqi defense line. Because Iraqi units are thinly spread over 300 miles, attacking units would achieve better than the 3:1 superiority at the point of attack that attrition doctrine says is necessary for offensive success. Attacks would be conducted elsewhere along the Iraqi line to “pin” the defenders, preventing them from shifting reinforcements to a breakthrough sector.

Once U.S. armored units break into the rear of the Iraqi defensive lines, they would branch out and attempt to roll up their flanks. A major road at about the center of the Kuwaiti border with Saudi Arabia runs north-south. An attack launched along this road would only have to travel 30 miles to reach the Bay of Kuwait. An armored thrust across this line would cut off at least one-third of the Iraqi defensive force in eastern Kuwait, along the gulf coast and inside Kuwait City. It is unlikely that a cohesive Iraqi defense could continue after the loss of such a large portion of force.

But the attrition option does have a number of shortcomings. A frontal attack would pull Iraq’s mobile reserves, massed in northern Kuwait and southern Iraq, southward--the opposite of the intended strategy--as they attempt to seal off the breakthrough. The interior of Kuwait would be turned into a battlefield, resulting in the destruction of much of what infrastructure remains. Most important, it would inevitably produce more casualties than other options, since attrition-style warfare emphasizes massed formations to produce massed fire.

Given the political pressures to limit U.S. casualties, some advocates of the attrition option favor complete reliance on air power. They support a massive bombing campaign, with precision-guided munitions and highly lethal weapons, to break the back of the Iraqi military. They believe that massive firepower would achieve victory when the percentage of Iraqi equipment destroyed and the proportion of Iraqi dead induce retreat or surrender or, possibly, when the full inventory of Iraqi forces is destroyed.

The primary flaw of air-power-attrition doctrine is the assumption that the enemy will buckle once the rate of fire reaches these intolerable levels. Yet the history of wars in this century shows intense firepower by itself rarely results in victory.

An alternative to the doctrine of attrition-style war is to emphasize “maneuver” warfare--armored formations fighting a highly mobile, fluid style of combat. This is the option so effectively employed by the Germans in World War II and by the Israelis in the past three decades. In manuever warfare, the objective is to avoid a static exchange of firepower. Rather, highly mobile, hard-hitting units seek out weak points in the enemy’s rear zones. In so doing, the enemy’s military system is destroyed both physically and psychologically.

Manuever warfare, then, can produce a very high payoff while reducing the numbers in direct contact with the enemy. Hence: lower casualties. It is an option particularly effective against a doctrinally rigid and inflexible opponent, like Iraq. In a combined arms-manuever option, air power would play an equal, complimentary role.

Proponents of maneuver warfare favor the “turning movement” or “flanking” operation through the Iraqi desert and around the Iraqi defenses. Although from a logistics perspective a 200-mile swing through the desert would be difficult, such an operation could have a high potential for success. By placing the bulk of their troops in defensive fortifications, Iraqi commanders have completely forfeited mobility. Against a static, linear defense, a war of manuever would be very effective.

Coordinating air and rapid ground attacks, U.S. forces would attempt to isolate Iraqi units and force the Iraqis to fight for their lifelines, straining a traditional military weakness--command and control. By placing a strong armored force astride the flank or threatening Iraqi communication and supply lines, U.S. armored units could “turn” the Iraqi defenses. While they would likely attempt a counteroffensive, Iraqi defenders would be forced to begin a withdrawal. Should they fail, the turning movement could become a full encirclement. The success of a flanking move would depend, above all, on the speed and tempo of U.S. armored forces and the close support of strike aircraft.

In a war with Iraq, the preferred option is to combine the firepower of tactical air power with the rapid mobility of ground units. But even a war of manuever would require frontal attacks along the Iraqi fortified line. Defending Iraqi forces must be “pinned” so they cannot influence the battle taking place to their rear.

If the option to go to war is chosen, then the United States must be prepared to fight a war to win. Though military planners will be under enormous pressure to limit U.S. casualties, relying exclusively on firepower is unlikely to produce the intended results. But the manuever option does offer a chance of bringing about the collapse of the Iraqi defense in Kuwait. Whatever option is chosen, the cost in human lives is likely to be high.

In Praise of War

Rupert Brooke, who enlisted as an officer immediately after the war started in 1914, wrote one of the more famous English poems extolling the wonder of battle. A member of England’s elite, he attained almost mythic status when he died in 1915.

Now, God be thanked Who has matched us

with His hour,

And caught our youth, and wakened us

from sleeping,

With hand made cure, clear eye, and sharpened

power,

To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,

Glad from a world grown old and cold and

weary,

Leave the sick hearts that honour could not

move,

And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,

And all the little emptiness of love!