America's Stunning Victory-(Modern Day Blitzkrieg and the M1-Abrams)

It is now apparent that Iraq is on the verge of defeat. The threat to U.S. lines of communications has been countered. Any delays to America’s forward advance were therefore insignificant. At the same time, Iraqi forces were unable to launch an effective counterattack. As these words are written, Iraq’s best divisions are being shredded, the Iraqi people are turning against the regime of Saddam Hussein, and the prospect of a sudden Iraqi collapse is before us.

If Saddam’s army collapses or surrenders in the next two or three weeks the war will be nothing short of a blitzkrieg operation. The word “blitzkrieg” is German for lightning war. Instead of fighting for many months or years to defeat a country, lightning warfare collapses a country in a matter of weeks. This method of warfare is chiefly attributed to two British military theorists, J.F.C. Fuller and B.H. Liddell Hart. In describing the application of the blitzkrieg technique against Poland in World War II, Fuller explained: “German armoured tactics were based on speed more so than on firepower, for their object was to accelerate confusion.” This passage helps us to understand why British and American troops were ordered to advance rapidly into the very heart of Iraq. The object was, as Fuller stated, “to accelerate confusion.” Fuller also noted that “points of resistance, fortified areas, anti-tank positions, woods and villages were normally avoided, and the lines of least resistance leading to the enemy’s rear were sought out.” This is exactly what U.S. and British forces have done in Iraq. And just as this technique worked in the Second World War, it works today.

The speed of the coalition advance, the massive bombing campaign and the direct strike at the dictator himself,

accelerated Iraqi confusion as allied forces bypassed fortifications and heavily defended urban areas. In 1939 the German forces collapsed Poland in 27 days. The coalition timetable in Iraq appears to be of similar length. What is astonishing is the small size of the invading forces in the Iraq operation. We are now seeing the effectiveness of real-time battle management. In the divisional engagements now taking place we see that Iraqi forces cannot react or coordinate their moves in a timely fashion. This is not only due to bombing, but is also due to rapid U.S. troop movements. Consequently, the Third Infantry and First Marine divisions are picking apart the Republican Guard divisions in front of Baghdad.

The American operational method differs from the German blitzkrieg in the incredible precision of America’s firepower. United States forces now combine firepower superiority with high maneuverability. Add to this the real-time management of friendly forces that gives U.S. troops a rare invulnerability. We are seeing this demonstrated before our eyes. The only way to cope with this kind of advantage is to use weapons of mass destruction, including electromagnetic (EMP) warheads, to disrupt America’s decisive command-and-control advantage and to counter America’s firepower advantage. It is safe to say that the Iraqi position has deteriorated to such an extent that a coalition victory can only be disrupted if Iraq uses biological, chemical or atomic weapons. Even in that event, it is probable that such attacks would be self-defeating for the Iraqi regime, both morally and militarily.

It was recently acknowledged that the Pentagon planned a 30 day operation against Saddam Hussein. Despite the disruption of this plan by Turkey’s refusal to allow the Fourth Infantry Division to pass through Turkish territory and attack from the north, the operation will probably be accomplished within the allotted 30 days. Those in the media who erroneously allege that U.S. officials promised victory in hours or days have been lying, and their ulterior motives deserve closer scrutiny. Such reports reveal a sour impulse to portray victories as defeats and rapid advances as “setbacks.” Politically distorted persons, some of them military professionals, have mischaracterized this campaign in a way that is unfair to the Bush administration and the Pentagon. Retired U.S. Gen. Wesley Clark recently suggested that a quick coalition victory is “not going to happen.” Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter told a Lisbon radio interviewer on Tuesday, “The U.S. is going to leave Iraq with its tail between its legs, defeated. It is a war we cannot win.”

Those who oppose the war out of ideological hatred, who are eager to gloat over an American defeat, have dug a pit for themselves. When this war is over, who will want to be associated with the wrongheaded claims of those who secretly looked forward to America’s defeat? Evidence of Iraqi duplicity and the horror of Saddam’s terror regime will be proved. For those too lazy to read the documentary evidence before the war, there will be pictures and eyewitness testimonials broadcast on television in the aftermath. Of course, persons animated by anti-American ideology will cling to their bitter rhetoric; but these will be separated from sane opinion by a clear and ever-widening divide.

Through all of this, America’s real enemies have learned an important lesson: namely, that U.S. military power can only be effectively opposed by employing mass destruction weapons at the outset of a conflict. If U.S. power is to be overthrown in the world, that overthrow must rely upon nuclear, biological and chemical munitions. Only an attack that destroys U.S. conventional military advantages is workable, and this attack must be overwhelming. In order to work effectively a mass destruction attack must decapitate the U.S. leadership. It must cripple the U.S. economy and paralyze the American military. Anything short of this merely invites destruction in turn. The same lesson can be drawn from the terror attacks of Sept. 11. As destructive as the attacks were, the United States is a huge country with nearly 290 million people. Killing 3,000 persons and destroying two large buildings only served to stir the sleeping giant into action.

Ironically, those in Iraq and Afghanistan who celebrated Sept. 11 as a victory are now stewing in defeat. This is the fruit of Sept. 11. Instead of stimulating an Islamic holy war against the West, the United States will have effectively eliminated two hostile regimes. We may shortly learn that both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are dead. The lesson of these actions will not be missed in Tehran, Damascus, Pyongyang or Beijing. Dictatorships suffer from intrinsic weaknesses. They are economically brittle, technologically backward and administratively challenged. It cannot be repeated too often that the weapons of choice for such regimes must therefore be nuclear, chemical and biological. Only by leveling the playing field with such weapons do the inferior states of the totalitarian periphery stand a chance against American technological and administrative vitality.

The Soviet theorists of the 1960s were correct when they wrote: “Strategic missile troops will be the basic troops of modern massive armed forces. They are the decisive force at the disposal of supreme commands.” If you cannot win with conventional forces, if you are thoroughly outclassed on the battlefield, you must turn to the great equalizer. What the United States must do now, in the wake of its victory in Iraq, is anticipate the anti-American coalition’s intensification of WMD proliferation. This will be their response to America’s victory. Since this is a potentially effective strategy, the United States must solidify its defenses against such weapons.

Dead Dog,

Thanks! That was well worth the read. If not for the concerns I have that nukes, if they have them, will be used as an endgame, then I would agree with everything this guy said.

In the article, the author says, "It is safe to say that the Iraqi position has deteriorated to such an extent that a coalition victory can only be disrupted if Iraq uses biological, chemical or atomic weapons. Even in that event, it is probable that such attacks would be self-defeating for the Iraqi regime, both morally and militarily."

I believe the big flaw (if, and only if, they possess the nukes) is in this fellow’s optimism. This what leads him to all but declare victory at this time and to think in Western terms of battles won or lost and attribute these motives to the Iraqi (and at a larger scale, that of Islam) mindset. I would remind him that for every trooper on the ground there, it ain't over until he can move about freely without the worry of being hit. In fact, for the men in the combat units, I would wager that the bitterness of death is inversely proportional to the time left until formal cessation of hostilities.

Further, the Islamofascists are not thinking in terms of decisive wins on a single battlefield. The widespread theology of jihad and significance of suicide attacks seem lost on this fellow. Nyquist remarks that “America’s real enemies have learned an important lesson: namely, that U.S. military power can only be effectively opposed by employing mass destruction weapons at the outset of a conflict,” yet he fails to grasp two significant things: 1. The conflict is still in motion in Iraq. And, 2. The use of such weapons might have even greater symbolic power for Islamofascists if used at the very moment of Infidel victories.

I recall reading the remarks of a Russian officer that choppered into the remains of an Afghanistan village as mop-up action was taking place. He spoke to a few survivors and surveyed the miserable conditions they lived under. He noted that most mud huts held only a pot and a copy of the Koran. He asked an old man what they hell was wrong with them that prevented them from wanting a better life. The old man replied that the Russian saw life as something precious and that the Muslim, in fact, embraced death and sought it.

To his credit, the author keeps the significance of NBC weapons front and center - as it should be. In my mind, the real victory here will be if there is not use of WMD's. In fact, I view the operations we undertake in the war in terror to be totally lacking if they do not include the assumed use of NBC weaponry in their core doctrines of battlefield order.

With each regime that is toppled, the treat level will rise for every remaining tyrant, despot and monster. Many killers throughout the world hate this country and have no compunction about killing personally or en mass. The trouble we have in comprehending this threat is that we constantly refer to our Judeo-Christian notions of culture and assume that bullies need to be stood up to and, sometimes, thrashed and they will topple like a house of cards. This has been true for much of our collective Western history, but it is NOT a constant.

We have had hints of this in the past. In WWII, there was a distinct difference in combat operations between the Pacific and the European theaters. To revisionists, the distinction has been alluded to as racism, but the veteran and tactician, the difference was that the Nazis would come again to fight another day in addition to being suffused at the trooper level with common ethical beliefs. Even thought they represented a bigger immediate threat and needed to be dealt with first, there were essential commonalties between the combatants. In the Pacific, however, the common cultural threads (however tenuous) were absent. The fighting was on another level entirely.

In my view, the Western heritage of compassion and forgiveness that flows from our deepest Judeo-Christian values are the very stumbling blocks that blind us from comprehending the operational doctrines of Islamofascism and, too often, block the correct analysis that must underlay a successful campaign that will destroy the threat and secure some reliable level of peace for the next generation or two. The characteristic altruism of America and its inability to truly see the danger until it is upon us is the primary threat to American survival.

In the war on terror, in particular, this is of the greatest importance because these wars must be continued from this point forward until some level of secure global dominance is achieved. Like President Bush said, this is going to be a long, long process. A single war against a developing country, or two, will not settle the issue. In fact, if Bush wins a second term and pursues this policy, it will still be far from settled. The need (and cost) to extinguish the amorphous nature of terror in its current embodiment of Islamofascism is, unfortunately, lost on most Americans and even more horrible, on many of our “leaders.” The failure of GB I to finish Saddam in GW I is evidence of this failure. At the time, I was foaming at the mouth because our 'leadership’ could not, or would not, pursue the needed cure to its logical conclusions. Today’s conflict is directly due to that lack of political will.

If the immediacy of Islamic nuclear retaliation is lost on the body politic at large, then the will and popular imperative to establishing global empire and American domination is even farther removed from the public consciousness. At some level, this idea is active in the politics of our Leftist enemies already; the issue is that they see the need for America to submit to global governance. Middle-Americans and those of casual politics need to be informed and on-board for the new realities of American hegemony. This is the major second threat to American survival.

As the author notes, “Killing 3,000 persons and destroying two large buildings only served to stir the sleeping giant into action.” Admiral Yamamoto correctly made this observation of an America that was resolved and unified against Japan. Americans put down their hammers, plows and pencils for the rifle and set out to finish the job the Japanese had started. Today, against the Islamofascists, I have grave reservations whether or not we truly understand the scope of our enemies, the depth of their evil or the duration that victory in such a conflict will entail.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.