Limiting Risk in America's Wars: Airpower, Asymmetrics, and a New Strategic Paradigm

Titles in the Series

The Other Space Race: Eisenhower and the Quest for Aerospace Security

An Untaken Road: Strategy, Technology, and the Mobile Intercontinental Ballistic Missile

Strategy: Context and Adaptation from Archidamus to Airpower

Cassandra in Oz: Counterinsurgency and Future War

Cyberspace in Peace and War

Transforming War

PAUL J. SPRINGER, editor

To ensure success, the conduct of war requires rapid and effective adaptation to changing circumstances. While every conflict involves a degree of flexibility and innovation, there are certain changes that have occurred throughout history that stand out because they fundamentally altered the conduct of warfare. The most prominent of these changes have been labeled Revolutions in Military Affairs (RMAs). These so-called revolutions include technological innovations as well as entirely new approaches to strategy. Revolutionary ideas in military theory, doctrine, and operations have also permanently changed the methods, means, and objectives of warfare.

This series examines fundamental transformations that have occurred in warfare. It places particular emphasis upon RMAs to examine how the development of a new idea or device can alter not only the conduct of wars but their effect upon participants, supporters, and uninvolved parties. The unifying concept of the series is not geographical or temporal; rather, it is the notion of change in conflict and its subsequent impact. This has allowed the incorporation of a wide variety of scholars, approaches, disciplines, and conclusions to be brought under the umbrella of the series. The works include biographies, examinations of transformative events, and analyses of key technological innovations that provide a greater understanding of how and why modern conflict is carried out, and how it may change the battlefields of the future.

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

© 2017 by Phillip S. Meilinger

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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ISBN: 978-1-68247-251-4 (ebook)

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First printing

To

Nick, Rachael, Emma,

and Mason

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

List of Acronyms

Introduction

1.Liddell Hart and Limiting Risk

2.Winners: Britain, Wellington, the Arab Revolt, and Operation Torch

3.Losers and a Tie: The Sicilian Expedition, the Imjin War, Bonaparte, Gallipoli, and the Norwegian Campaign

4.The Rationale for a Second Front and Indirectness

5.Reasons for Success or Failure

6.Limited Wars with Limited Aims and Means

7.Descent into Disaster

8.An Idea Whose Time Has Gone

9.A New Paradigm for Success

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Illustrations

Basil H. Liddell Hart

Defeat of General Braddock

Esto es malo

Col. T. E. Lawrence

Curtiss P-40 Warhawk

Model of an Athenian trireme

Statue of Admiral Yi Sun-sin

Napoleon Bonaparte

The landing site at Suvla Bay

German paratroopers landing in Norway

Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder

Normandy, D-Day, 1944

Anzio Campaign, 1944

USS Enterprise

North American P-51 Mustangs

North American F-86 Sabres

General Norman Schwarzkopf

General Chuck Horner

Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk

Iraqi bunkers damaged by precision-guided munitions

C-130 Hercules

Mistreatment of detainee at Abu Ghraib

A General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper

U.S.-based Air Force operators controlling Predators and Reapers in the Middle East

Joint STARS

Preface

The United States has lost its way regarding military policy and strategy. Since World War II the country has enjoyed the largest defense budget of any nation in the world—orders of magnitude greater than any potential adversaries. This abundance of funds has seemingly resulted in the most capable armed forces in history. Few would contest the prowess, professionalism, training, and first-rate equipment of America’s military forces in all the conventional branches, as well as in space.

Yet, that enviable military force has proved remarkably ineffective in the results it has achieved. Yes, the West won the Cold War, but it is not clear that a hot war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact was ever a serious possibility, and it is also true that political, cultural, and economic factors were just as important in the fall of the Soviet empire. Even so, deterrence is a very good thing, and the Cold War victory was a major achievement that redounds to the military’s credit—that of the United States as well as NATO. As for shooting wars: Korea was at best a tie, and at considerable cost—$341 billion in 2010 dollars and 36,000 Americans dead over a three-year period. The misadventure in Vietnam, despite a decade of effort, in excess of 58,000 American dead, and trillions of dollars spent, was an abject and humiliating failure. And now we see disaster looming in Iraq and Afghanistan; both conflicts have dragged on for over a decade and cost trillions of dollars and thousands of lives—hundreds of thousands, if one counts the civilian populations of those two unhappy countries.

There have, however, been some successes for American arms over the past seventy years, most notably the First Gulf War (Desert Storm), as well as operations conducted in the Balkans in the 1990s (Croatia, Kosovo, and Serbia). These were followed by the action in Libya to depose Gaddafi and the initial takedown of the Afghan and Iraqi regimes in 2001 and 2003. The failure of American strategy during the occupation phases of those last two conflicts should not negate the stunning initial victories over the Taliban, al Qaeda, and the forces of Saddam Hussein.

When one examines the military operations of the past seven decades prosecuted by the United States, clear patterns emerge. The successes have been marked by the dominance of airpower, both land- and sea-based, space power, and the bold use of special operations forces (SOF). In the case of Desert Storm, for example, intelligence agencies determined that the Iraqi army was defeated by airpower—rendered combat ineffective—before major ground operations by the Coalition even began; more than 80,000 Iraqis deserted and another 86,000 surrendered with barely a fight. In other cases, American military forces were augmented by the wise and fortuitous use of indigenous ground troops, such as the Kosovar Liberation Army in Kosovo, the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, Libyan resistance fighters, and the Kurds in northern Iraq. Also key was the copious and networked system of land-, sea-, air-, and space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) assets that have become increasingly ubiquitous over the past three decades. Operations employing this formula were successes. On the other hand, American military failures are often linked to the insertion of massive numbers of conventional ground forces. It must also be noted that all of the U.S. failures since World War II were commanded by ground generals. This is not a coincidence.

It has been an unfortunate aspect of military culture and a standard trope in movies, novels, and computer games that infantry troops—boots on the ground—are the decisive factor in war. Soldiers and marines today would certainly agree with this truism, arguing that thousands of years of history support such a conclusion, and their doctrines clearly state this as a given. Soldiers and marines do not see it as parochial when their doctrines state that only ground power can be decisive in war. It is therefore one of the great paradoxes of the past several generations that this myth has survived despite so much evidence of failure to the contrary.

The age of airpower in the post–World War II era, especially over the past three decades, makes such thinking antiquated and dangerous, as the melancholy results gained (and not gained) by American ground forces so readily testify. Indeed, it is true that U.S. political leadership and the strategies and policies it has formulated have often been misguided and misinformed to the point of amateurishness. From the perspective of fifty years, the military strategy of President Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam now seems naive, not to say counterproductive. Yet, the military cannot claim it was stabbed in the back by weak-kneed politicians—the myth perpetuated by the German military in the aftermath of World War I, when it claimed it had never really been defeated in the field. It was, of course. In Vietnam, U.S. Army commanders had enormous latitude in how they fought the war in the south—with more than a half-million troops in-country and access to astounding amounts of land-, sea-, and air-directed firepower. It made little difference.

The United States has engaged in many military operations large and small since the end of World War II—probably more than any other nation in the world. But with the exception of the terrorist attack on 9/11, our national survival has seldom, if ever, been threatened. Instead, we have broadly defined our vital national interests as the safeguarding or independence of various countries threatened by outside aggression or internal turmoil abetted by outsiders—outsiders who are inimical to American interests. For many years we saw this as a zero-sum game with the communists in Moscow and Beijing; every victory for one side was a defeat for the other. In other cases, we have responded to the actions of dictators whose wholesale violation of the human rights of their own populace (Gaddafi in Libya for example) offended our sensibilities or threatened to spread to neighboring countries.

In such conflicts of choice, the United States must maintain popular support both at home and abroad. This is increasingly difficult when intervention costs a great deal of money, or worse, a great many American lives. Conditions are exacerbated when our military operations also result in the widespread death and destruction in those societies we are ostensibly trying to help. In short, in order to best achieve the political goals determined and defined by our political leaders, the United States must limit risk. Indeed, in this new world we must limit the risk (casualties and destruction) to our adversaries as well—especially to the indigenous populations, the soil they inhabit, and the infrastructure upon which they depend. The insertion of large numbers of conventional ground troops, despite the rhetoric of their advocates, greatly increases the risk to U.S. interests while at the same time incurring great cost and paradoxically lowering the odds of success. American military experience since World War II has made this abundantly evident.

Do not misunderstand: I am not advocating the use of a single service or medium to achieve political goals in today’s world. Modern war will almost always demand a combined-arms approach. Airpower will need to cooperate with land and sea components, and Army and Marine Corps units must be transported by air or sea to their destination and must be resupplied by the same methods. Upon arrival in theater, land forces cannot hope for victory without air superiority and the various air missions such supremacy provides: close air support, interdiction, strategic attack, airlift, ISR, and communications relay. For the U.S. military, today’s warfare has thus become joint warfare, a long overdue transformation that requires the seamless planning and operations of all the services working together in concert to achieve measurable results.

The key is to examine the political objectives of a particular campaign devised and directed by our political leaders, and to then determine the military’s role in achieving those objectives. All of the mediums must play a part, but airpower is unique in its ability to detect, deter, deliver, defend, deny, and destroy. Our land- and sea-based air assets have performed these missions with great success for decades. Strategic airpower helped keep the peace via nuclear deterrence throughout the Cold War. In addition, it has played a key role in treaty verification and in monitoring potential trouble spots around the globe. When fighting breaks out, the unique ability of airpower to strike hard and fast has been demonstrated on countless occasions. More importantly in this evolving world, political considerations dictate that the United States project military power quickly and precisely, with low risk to U.S. forces while inducing minimum collateral damage and civilian casualties in the area of operations. Airpower is particularly well suited to achievement of these diverse political and military objectives.

It is time to reorient U.S. military policy away from the use of conventional ground forces and toward a greater reliance on airpower, SOF, indigenous ground troops, and robust ISR. My argument in this book is that such a model should be the future of modern war for the United States.

Acronyms

Introduction

There is a school of thought that the best way to confront an enemy is to face him head-on, toe-to-toe, and begin slugging. In this view, the enemy army is the main center of gravity, and it must be attacked and destroyed as quickly as possible. The strength of the enemy must be taken from him. This was the advice of Carl von Clausewitz, the early-nineteenth-century Prussian general and theoretician whose masterful study, On War , is often cited as the foremost authority on strategy, policy, and the culture of war. His magnum opus is replete with dozens of statements repeating this theme:

•It follows, then, that to overcome the enemy, or disarm him—call it what you will—must always be the aim of warfare.

•It follows that the destruction of the enemy’s force underlies all military actions; all plans are ultimately based on it, resting on it like an arch on its abutment.

•To sum up: of all the possible aims in war, the destruction of the enemy’s armed forces always appears as the highest.

•"Battle is the bloodiest solution . . . it is always true that the character of battle, like its name, is slaughter [schlact], and its price is blood."¹

These are just a few of the many such unequivocal statements in On War. Regrettably, ground officers in the American military have taken such advice to heart.

Other ideas take a more indirect approach to fighting an enemy—an approach that is designed to be unexpected and incur significantly less cost and risk. In this type of war, it is not the enemy’s strength that is attacked, rather it is his weaknesses and vulnerabilities. These are the military strategies using our asymmetrical advantages that we must now pursue. The old ways of fighting have failed the United States. Tradition is simply not good enough as a reason for continuing with outmoded thinking. Giving undue consideration to tradition is simply giving a vote to the dead.

The most obvious form of indirect warfare that employs such an asymmetric strategy today is that of the insurgent or revolutionary. By definition, he is weak and at a tremendous disadvantage relative to the government apparatus opposing him. Revolutionary war by necessity becomes one of guerrilla operations, hit-and-run attacks, and raiding tactics. Theoretically (according to the model of Mao Zedong), the goal of the insurgent is to muster strength over time so that conventional operations are ultimately possible. At that point, the slogging match noted above once again comes into play. By 1948, the armies of Mao and his rival Chiang Kai-shek each numbered three million men and included heavy artillery, armor, and aircraft.² In Vietnam, the North resorted to conventional invasion in 1968 and 1972, but failed to topple the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government. In 1975, after the U.S. forces had pulled out, the North attacked with several divisions, and this time they were successful.

There is another form of asymmetric warfare that is all too prevalent in today’s world—that of the terrorist. Although this is part of the Maoist model, it can also be used separately. One could argue that some terrorist groups, the Baader-Meinhof Gang or the United Freedom Front, for example, had no real hope of overthrowing the government or system they hated; they were simply making a statement. Other terrorist groups, such as al Qaeda, Hamas, and ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), are deadly serious about their attempts to overthrow governments. Their tactics employ terror attacks against soft targets, usually civilians, in the hope they will instill fear (terror) in the population that will in turn induce an overreaction by the government. This only serves to garner support for the terrorists and sympathy in the court of public opinion. During the Vietnam War, it is estimated the North Vietnamese and their Vietcong allies assassinated up to 39,000 southern villagers as a deliberate act of terror to cow the remaining peasants into acquiescence.³

It must be noted that the ideas and practices of insurgency warfare and terrorism have a logic all their own. Terror tactics embody the one-way street aspect of such conflicts that Westerners find so exasperating. Yes, the use of terror, torture, or physical coercion is strongly condemned by the United States and its allies. Yet, the depredations of jihadists—or for that matter the Vietcong—are seen in a different light. Often, such atrocities are viewed as the necessary, if deplorable, acts of a weaker power fighting against the might and prerogatives of the illegitimate government and its supporters. For that government to replicate these acts is, however, universally condemned. One of the best examples of this double standard is the Algerian Civil War, 1954–62. The Algerian rebels’ resistance became increasingly savage, and the French, unfortunately, reacted in kind. One of the more astute observers of the war referred to this collapse into barbarism as a growing canker for France, leaving behind a poison that would linger in the French system long after the war itself had ended.⁴ A government (or its supporters) simply cannot stoop to this level of violence, regardless of the provocations.

Another old canard is that insurgencies are all about poverty and repression. It is assumed that the insurgents have a legitimate complaint. That is why U.S. policy (so this argument goes) must be a holistic strategy that includes initiatives like land reform, economic development, and an end to corruption. It becomes our goal to eliminate the causes—or more to the point, the perceived causes—of the rebellion. In truth, insurgent warfare too often is not about poverty and repression. Nor does it concern freedom of speech or religion, freedom to elect a government, freedom from sexual or racial discrimination, and so on. To a large extent, modern terrorists, especially of the Islamic variety, are fighting against giving people such freedoms. It is Western hubris that assumes all cultures share our values and goals. If our counterinsurgency doctrines are incorrect regarding the motives, beliefs, and goals of jihadist insurgents, then our strategies for combating those insurgents will be incorrect as well.

Another misconception is that legitimacy is a crucial goal of a government attempting to defeat an insurgency or terrorist onslaught. This is another one of the one-way streets of insurgency. When the West provides aid to a given nation, its government is often branded a puppet or stooge of America and its allies. On the other hand, if the insurgents are helped by Russia, China, or Iran such charges are not leveled. Regardless, a host government must worry about the perception of legitimacy—does the U.S. presence undermine it? This is an important issue I will discuss later.

For all of these reasons and many others, U.S. and Western attempts to combat insurgents and terrorists have been fraught with complications and difficulties. Though the problems have been studied for decades, the correct lessons learned about how to fight such wars continue to elude us.

On the other hand, traditional sea power advocates advance one indirect method of dealing with an enemy that attempts to limit a nation’s risk. To sailors and theorists like Alfred T. Mahan and Julian Corbett, one does not strike an enemy directly (indeed, for a naval power that is difficult to do); rather, a sea power seeks the enemy’s vulnerabilities, not his strong points. Generally this is a country’s trade and economic foundation. A navy can blockade an enemy’s ports or destroy its merchant ships at sea. The result of this inherently strategic method of war is to slowly choke an enemy to death.⁵ Such strangulation blockades often take years to become truly effective, and they almost never, by themselves, induce a nation to capitulate.

In major wars between states, a belligerent sometimes realizes it cannot strike its enemy directly because it is not strong enough, doing so involves unacceptable risks, or it believes greater gains can be made by taking the war elsewhere. In such instances, it is not uncommon to open a second front—to take the war to a different geographical area. Numerical superiority is always a key factor to consider in war, so shifting the battle zone is an attempt to gain localized superiority by massing where the enemy is weak—mass versus dispersal. This is often the strategy employed when a traditional sea power is at war with a land power. This type of whale versus elephant conflict poses great strategic challenges to both sides. During the Napoleonic wars, for example, Britain did not have an army that was large enough to take on the French army without the aid of Continental allies. If such allies were unavailable, the British relied either on economic strangulation via sea power, or moving the war elsewhere. One of the second-front maneuvers discussed below is the campaign led by the Duke of Wellington on the Iberian Peninsula.

Conversely, France found itself in a similar dilemma: its fleet was no match for the Royal Navy, so an invasion of the British Isles was impracticable. How does a nation use its asymmetrical strengths against an enemy’s weakness? As a young general, Napoleon Bonaparte theorized that a campaign to capture Egypt to facilitate a move east of Suez, eventually resulting in the conquest of India, would hurt Britain badly while also avoiding its superiority at sea. He therefore opened a second front in an attempt to use his superior army and capitalize on his own expertise. This campaign will also be discussed below. Later, Emperor Napoleon was still unable to mount an invasion of Britain, and opted to institute the Continental System—a reverse blockade aimed at denying the seafaring British Empire economic markets in Europe.⁶

The problems facing Britain and France were much the same, as were the solutions they adopted to overcome them: avoid a direct confrontation that played to the enemy’s strength, while instead hitting the enemy unexpectedly elsewhere where he was more vulnerable, while at the same time posing less risk to the attacker. As we shall see, setting up the necessary conditions to fulfill these opposite goals was difficult. As is so often the case in war, the cost-benefit analysis performed prior to a campaign is a tricky business. Risks are often minimized and expected gains exaggerated. It is only later, when an operation turns sour, that it is realized the initial net assessment was in error. Several such cases will be discussed below.

These are not peripheral operations in that they are not frivolous attacks conducted with disposable forces, nor are they conducted out of geographic necessity because they are the only place where the enemy can be attacked.⁷ Rather, these second-front operations are generally amphibious or expeditionary strikes in a separate theater of war. The purpose of these attacks may be to inflict a serious blow on enemy strength, if enemy troops are present in large numbers; to gain resources such as oil or agricultural products while denying them to the enemy; to split the enemy alliance by knocking a weaker member out of the coalition; to assist an ally by removing pressure being applied to it by diverting the forces and attention of the major enemy; for domestic political reasons, such as raising the morale and hopes of the populace; or to influence a third party (i.e., to deter it from entering the war, or as a prelude to further operations in the same theater). As always, the political objectives sought are the primary driver in determining whether a military operation is successful or not. If a nation seeks to coerce another nation into ceasing the occupation of a neighboring province, for example, a military strike against the aggressor that causes it to withdraw its forces is a clear victory, even if not decisive in the traditional sense.⁸

In essence, second fronts were a means of using armed force in an unexpected or indirect way to strategically outflank or turn an enemy and to avoid his strengths. Although such operations are not as prevalent in the post–World War II era, their use over millennia still offers valuable lessons that inform modern operations.

I will discuss a number of such second-front operations in military history. My hope is to draw conclusions as to why some of these attacks were successful but others failed. Interestingly, all of the modern examples involve Great Britain.⁹ There is a reason why Basil H. Liddell Hart wrote eloquently regarding the British Way of War—the Strategy of the Indirect Approach. Also of note, another great British military strategist of the twentieth century, Major General J. F. C. Fuller, expressed similar views. Risk avoidance was a key feature of these strategies.

Risk avoidance is, or certainly should be, a major consideration in American decisions to go to war. For the past fifteen years the United States and its allies have been engaged in disastrous wars in the Middle East. Although the intent was a rapid victory achieved by a direct application of heavy force against Afghanistan and Iraq, the results have been long and costly failures. The U.S. strategy followed in these wars was traditional—they began as wars of annihilation using large conventional forces, but quickly became wars of attrition that eventually ended in defeat for the greater power. Our great strength on the ground was countered by guerrillas and jihadists who employed their own asymmetric advantages to sap the strength and resolve of the United States and its allies. It is my contention that the initial takedowns of the Afghan and Iraqi governments were achieved in a remarkably short time using overwhelming airpower, as well as special operations forces (SOF), copious intelligence-gathering and analysis systems, and collaboration with indigenous troops. Unfortunately, U.S. political and military leaders then used hundreds of thousands of conventional ground troops in both countries in an ill-advised attempt to occupy territory and establish new governments.

It is time to think seriously about the way America fights a war. Traditional methods have not worked well for the United States since the end of World War II, and we have been very slow to recognize that truth. We need to seek other strategies. The United States has great asymmetrical advantages over potential enemies and those advantages must be exploited. Because a key aspect of this strategy relies heavily on airpower, it is useful to discuss it here.

It has become apparent over the past three decades that airpower is playing an increasingly important role in warfare. Surface commanders realize successful operations are virtually impossible without the extensive employment of airpower. Few question airpower’s ability to be decisive at the tactical and operational levels. Indeed, all the services today recognize the overwhelming importance of airpower to military operations. It is not coincidence that the U.S. Navy’s capital ship is the aircraft carrier and that the Army and Marine Corps have invested so heavily in thousands of helicopters as well as fixed-wing fighter jets (in the case of the Marines). Rather, the disagreements among the services occur over who will control those dominant air assets and how they will be employed. Often, airpower’s effectiveness at the strategic level of war is the issue that causes dissension. Airmen have claimed since the