We would be hard pressed to repeat the 91 gulf war today.
Great article, VERY informative read! Thanks for posting, 2nd!!!
Their basic goal is to eject the US Navy from the South and East China Seas in order to secure their sea lanes.
When you total up the number of islets and reefs they're building up, it's eye-opening; it's not just 3, or 5, or 10.
In many ways the China of today is the Japan of the 1930's.
Eventually, this is something that might involve us. :(
The Chinese and Russians have the severe disadvantage of being “war-less” for too long. All that pretty shiny stuff is great unless it doesn’t survive combat.
People have been dismantling Soviet hardware for a long time in different places. The Chinese don’t even know if they can get their military to battle because they haven’t done it since they fought Vietnam in the late 70’s(except for the India dustup).
I wonder if the Chinese learned that settling for a cease-fire rather than completing the job, when you have the upper hand,
will lead to more war,
which will lead to the MSM vilifying your son,
which will result in a new leader with no relevant experience whose only desire is to act on a radical political agenda that will set your country back to third world status
However, when he wrote; “While the Gulf War did not demonstrate that deep strike could decisively win modern wars, it undoubtedly did show that long-range precision strike could help disrupt enemy operations, and even seriously attrite fielded enemy forces.”. . .he was wrong, deeply wrong.
The strategic air campaign was never about attriting fielded forces. We didn't do a body count. Estimates ran up to 30,000 enemy troops killed but we don't know. A body count was not a measure of effectiveness. Drop a single bridge and you effectively isolated/removed enemy forces from the battle because they could not move. . .they were essentially 'dead.' Blow up fuel, pull the power and the army dies in place. . .they become combat ineffective. Body count, not a factor. Body count is interesting but look for weak points, centers of gravity that if hit properly, the effect is way beyond the tactical (body count) value.
Col John Warden and his Center of Gravity (CoG) ‘Five Rings” strategic targeting theory was employed and devastating. . .the strategic air campaign destroyed the Iraqi forces ability to:
1) Command troops (destroyed communication nodes, senior leadership isolated and muted)
2) Operate on the battlefield (hitting decisive points to knock out lines of communication, dropped bridges, closed highways, interrupted supply and maneuver avenues from the highest levels to the tactical level)
3) Support fielded forces (Can't communicate with them, can[t resupply them, can't organize them. . .it's over).
The deep strike part of the Gulf War, the strategic air campaign, was instrumental in winning the war decisively and quickly as we did. Without it we still would have won but at a much higher cost and taken much longer. The strategic air campaign (deep strike), the 42-day strategic air campaign was highly effective and that was why we waited before the ground war—we were knocking the stuffing out of them and they could not move (no gas, not order, no clue) and dies in place, and those that stayed in place died as well.
The unclassified Gulf War Air Power Study (GWAPS) details how effective the technology we had was, but most importantly, it diagrammed why the strategic (deep strike) air campaign was so effective.
Bottom line: The deep strike (strategic air campaign) DID demonstrate that deep strike could decisively win modern wars. I submit that Gulf War I was the first time in history air power was the primary fire with ground forces supporting. This in no way is meant to insult or minimize the ground war--I was in it as a FAC--I am just saying the ground part supporting the air campaign, that the air campaign did more that 'disrupt' enemy operations. . .it stopped effective enemy operations.
Boo Yah ! They better be skeered !!
Come at them like a spider monkey I will :)
Bump
They learned much and adjusted.
In a direct conflict, these facts will lead to many many more millions dead than necessary.
The Russians also learned a lot from that war, even though the USSR collapsed shortly afterword.
This is even though the Iraqi army was mostly consisted of monkey model equipment for their Republican Guards (stripped down t-72’s and MiG 29’s). The rest of the Iraqi army used 1960’s era equipment at that time, with some soldiers carrying Mosin Nagant rifles, STG44’s and PPsh’s!