What would the Iraq War look like if fought today? Technological developments since 2003 have swung hard in favor of the defense, raising serious questions about the viability of large armored thrusts. Ukraine war passing the two-year mark only emphasizes this, standing in stark contrast to the lightning three-week Iraq campaign.
I was unlucky enough to be in both Desert Storm as an infantryman and OIF 1 as a pilot. In my experience what most overlook is the discipline and overall human quality of a western army over a west Asia army. Iraq had the 4th largest army on the planet and top tier Soviet equipment in 1991, and we went through them like shit through a goose. Mostly because of devastating air power. There was less of a prep for OIF but more higher level leaders had been in Iraq the first go around. Remember during DS most of the generals were Vietnam vets. As a side note I was opconed to 3rd ID with an infantry BCT from the 101st ABN. 3rd ID absolutely laid waste to everything. I’m a light infantry/airborne guy at heart, but watching a mechanized division go to work from a helicopter pilots point of view was awesome to say the least. I think only the Russians or Chinese could stop something like that. Problem is it takes a month to get that kinda unit into place.
Guys, good questions, but Ben has undertaken a challenging task here and worked through it in my opinion brilliantly. Very hard to make these kinds of comparisons and decide what variables can be controlled and which must be adjusted to make the initially apples-v-oranges contrast a workable apples-v-apples comparison, without creating incoherent scenarios. He bent factors in favor of the defense but found that nonetheless, modern offensive forces and op-art would prevail. This is an excellent hypothesis that bears more serious testing.
That requires wargaming. The appropriate tool is "Gulf Strike" (Mark Herman, Victory Games, 1983), ideally the 3rd ed. (later release, a bit expensive these days). That one modelled a Soviet invasion of Iran, later expanded to include Iran-Iraq and Desert Shield, developed for Andy Marshall at DoD/ONA.
Then test it to ensure it accurately replicates both the Iran-Iraq War (firepower-attritional sludge match) and the maneuver-warfare blitz during the 1990-91 Gulf War. Then amend it to reflect the situation and forces employed during the 2003 invasion. One would have to modify the forces and create unit counters, but that's all part of serious analysis.
We'd have to review the adjustments for suitability, judgment being required in any such work. Remember that Ben's deeper purpose here is to explore the narrative that in contemporary/future land warfare, advantage has slipped back toward the defensive side for the first time since 1939. He rightly questions that premature proposition, and approaches it with an excellent case-study research design. I think we all can agree that that the proposition warrants hard analysis, and his hypothesis development effort above providesis an excellent first step toward scientific testing.
Isn't this an apples and oranges comparison? Ukraine is the first near-peer war we've had probably since the Iran-Iraq war. Of course it's going to be more likely to be static, less likely to be dynamic. I'm not sure it's about the technology. Mearsheimer did a good piece recently on the myth of blitzkrieg, how it's worked exactly once in a peer conflict.
I was unlucky enough to be in both Desert Storm as an infantryman and OIF 1 as a pilot. In my experience what most overlook is the discipline and overall human quality of a western army over a west Asia army. Iraq had the 4th largest army on the planet and top tier Soviet equipment in 1991, and we went through them like shit through a goose. Mostly because of devastating air power. There was less of a prep for OIF but more higher level leaders had been in Iraq the first go around. Remember during DS most of the generals were Vietnam vets. As a side note I was opconed to 3rd ID with an infantry BCT from the 101st ABN. 3rd ID absolutely laid waste to everything. I’m a light infantry/airborne guy at heart, but watching a mechanized division go to work from a helicopter pilots point of view was awesome to say the least. I think only the Russians or Chinese could stop something like that. Problem is it takes a month to get that kinda unit into place.
Great read as usual!
Guys, good questions, but Ben has undertaken a challenging task here and worked through it in my opinion brilliantly. Very hard to make these kinds of comparisons and decide what variables can be controlled and which must be adjusted to make the initially apples-v-oranges contrast a workable apples-v-apples comparison, without creating incoherent scenarios. He bent factors in favor of the defense but found that nonetheless, modern offensive forces and op-art would prevail. This is an excellent hypothesis that bears more serious testing.
That requires wargaming. The appropriate tool is "Gulf Strike" (Mark Herman, Victory Games, 1983), ideally the 3rd ed. (later release, a bit expensive these days). That one modelled a Soviet invasion of Iran, later expanded to include Iran-Iraq and Desert Shield, developed for Andy Marshall at DoD/ONA.
Then test it to ensure it accurately replicates both the Iran-Iraq War (firepower-attritional sludge match) and the maneuver-warfare blitz during the 1990-91 Gulf War. Then amend it to reflect the situation and forces employed during the 2003 invasion. One would have to modify the forces and create unit counters, but that's all part of serious analysis.
We'd have to review the adjustments for suitability, judgment being required in any such work. Remember that Ben's deeper purpose here is to explore the narrative that in contemporary/future land warfare, advantage has slipped back toward the defensive side for the first time since 1939. He rightly questions that premature proposition, and approaches it with an excellent case-study research design. I think we all can agree that that the proposition warrants hard analysis, and his hypothesis development effort above providesis an excellent first step toward scientific testing.
Isn't this an apples and oranges comparison? Ukraine is the first near-peer war we've had probably since the Iran-Iraq war. Of course it's going to be more likely to be static, less likely to be dynamic. I'm not sure it's about the technology. Mearsheimer did a good piece recently on the myth of blitzkrieg, how it's worked exactly once in a peer conflict.