Also, let me know if you can't find it, and I will dig it up.
The successes of the 1990s led to a school of thought within the military, particularly in the U.S. Air Force, that a qualitative shift in warfare already had taken place. Advances in both the technology and the doctrine of the air campaign had advanced to the point that air power could paralyze an enemy's capability to wage war.
The Air Force has always believed they could single handedly win any war. The only time troops on the ground were not required was when two atom bombs were dropped.
Saddam's security forces are highly effective, in large part because of their brutality.
Bullies are always effective when none can stand against them. They have proven cowards before.
There is an analogy here with the Bay of Pigs, which was predicated on the assumption that the landing of a few hundred paramilitaries, coupled with U.S. air power, would trigger a rising against Cuban leader Fidel Castro. There was never an expectation that the direct force would be successful, only that it would trigger indigenous forces. It could be argued that the cancellation of planned air strikes represented a major shift from the original plan, but it is extremely unlikely that even air strikes would have led to an uprising. Castro's security services were simply too good and his popularity was too secure.
The plan was to provide air support so that the landing could succeed and the units move into the hills to organize the opposition. The planning and schedule left a lot to be desired. But when JFK pulled the air support that screwed everyone on the ground. The landing would never have been executed if JFK’s cowardice had been known ahead of time.
The U.S. Army has not assaulted a very large, defended city in its history.
Golly-gosh, I guess Hue doesn’t count. Oh that’s right, it was a U. S. Marine operation.
Since the United States is casualty-averse, its doctrine calls for maneuvering around urban areas without entering them.
I don’t believe that the United States is alone in that doctrine. Only the ChiComs believe in the massive assault theory of war.
On the other side – in its extreme form – there is Stalingrad and the memory of what defensive warfare can do to a mobile enemy when drawn into a major city.
Stalingrad was a fixation of Hitler and not based on sound military strategy. In addition, Russia has always relied on slowly surrendering territory until its greatest defensive weapon comes to bear, the Russian Winter.
When the PLO stood and fought, Israel declined combat, knowing that urban warfare provides a huge advantage for the defender, particularly one familiar with the landscape. When the Soviet army closed on Berlin in 1945, it had complete air superiority, ringed the city with artillery, outnumbered the defenders and was enormously better armed, equipped and trained. The German defenders – children and old men in many cases – knew that the war was lost. Nevertheless, the Soviets suffered tens of thousands of casualties taking the city.
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Those familiar with the war will recall that General Zhukov was a major hero at the end of the war for his drive on Berlin, but even then he was prepared to sacrifice soldiers to his cause. As Glantz notes, he "would replicate this bloodletting in strikingly similar fashion when, in April and May 1945, the 1st Belorussian Front, under his direct command, would lose 37,610 killed and missing and 141,880 wounded in the Berlin operation, about half of the total casualties suffered by the three participating Soviet fronts."Gregori Arbatov was a rifle company commander in the Red Army in the Battle of Berlin. He took terrible casualties. Some of them were men he had led in the Battle of Moscow, and so many others. Fifty years later he still shook with fury at the thought of Stalin's insistence on taking the city. Arbatov said any sane man would have surrounded Berlin, pounded it with artillery, and waited for the inevitable capitulation. 'But not that son of a bitch Stalin. He sent us into the city, with all those crazy Nazi kids, and we bled.' The estimated casualty cost was 100,000.--David M. Glantz, Zhukov's Greatest Defeat: The Red Army's Epic Disaster in Operation Mars, 1942 (University Press of Kansas, 1999; David M. Glantz
Seriously, the war against Iraq will be totally different than Desert Storm. I imagine we'll continue the covert preparations until our SF guys have tracked down Saddam. They'll create new holes in his head then we'll begin overt military operations to paralyze his forces. We'll send in the "inside-out" forces to rout the few diehards left in his army around Baghdad.
I guess my main concern is how we prevent some random Scud commander from launching at the outset. Hopefully, we'll have our psyops people ready to simulate normal radio traffic to his commanders (eg. "All is well, Ahmed").