Best Military Strategy for Iraq?

I am starting this thread to discuss mainly in strategic point of view, on how to finally defeat the insurgency in Iraq by using military action.

This thread is not to applause the war, to support political point of views, to argue whether the war is right or wrong etc. The purpose is solely to get the opinions of ATS members on what might be the best and effective military strategy that can be applied in Iraq war.

In the past wars, like the Vietnam war, experts, generals & other war planners debated for example of using: armor on a rugged terrain, mechanized infantry, elite forces (SEAL, LRRP, MACV SOG, Green Beret, Marine Force Recon etc.) airborne troops, psychological warfare, air cavalry etc.

Currently, does the U.S. using the right strategy? For example sending more infantry troops? (Sending more divisions in great numbers) More units or branches of the armed forces?(I suppose almost every major of the US armed forces are currently involved)More military hardware like armor & AFV etc? More air support?

Would not it be similar to what happened in Vietnam? Like the search & destroy stuff, where once an enemy unit (opposing force) is located and locked by a maneuver, a tremendous firepower will be used to destroy the enemy.

In a classic war (like the war in the past with clearly defined frontlines) which had won by the U.S., where infantry will neutralize an opposing force by a maneuver. I. E. by attacking in the plank.

Bottom line, US is fighting an insurgency in Iraq, a type of a guerilla warfare where a full conventional force may not be effective.

I am hoping to get some opinion from ATS members who can give their useful insights in this subject matter.



[edit on 12-1-2007 by searching_for_truth]

[edit on 12-1-2007 by searching_for_truth]

[edit on 12-1-2007 by searching_for_truth]

I'm sorry I have to put it this way but i want to get my point across.
There is only one way to effectivly put an end to an insurgency in any war. Eliminate the opposition.
In the old days of war armys slaughtered their enemy....men, women , and children. Everytime i turn the television to the news and they talk about Iraq I see images of crowds of Iraqis waving guns and shouting death to america, or someother type of anti-america rhetoric. If we really want to put an end to the insurgency then why dont we just take all of those anti-democracy people and make them disapear or put them in some sort of labor camp(not a concentration camp but a work re-education facility) where they can learn to be productive in thier country. Im not saying that i think this idea is a pretty one, it sucks i know, but sometimes you have to think what is best for mankind as a whole and not for a group of people. If we want to clean up the middle east then we need to extinguish the instigators and set a course for them ourselfs. Either that or we just pull out and EMP or bomb the crap out of the region and let them be isolated from the rest of the world. EMPing them every so often.

When will the world realize that while the extremists say they want us out of the middle east if we leave then they'll want isreal gone and if that were to happen then they'll just say they want this and that until they have everything thier way.
For example in Somalia a senoir al-qeada leader has said that they will start an Iraq style insurgency and kill anyone who helps pr likes the somalian government. Dont they realize that somalians dont want to live under strict islamic rule? They talk about being the good guys but yet when extremists do get into power they cant even govern thier own people fairly, they just want to control everything. If they did care about thier own religion then why are they killing thier own people?

Anyway back to what i was saying, insurgents only careabout one thing...power. They arent concerned with allah or getting america out, they just want to controll the lives of other people under harsh rule or whatever suit them(as in the insurgents that are in power). I hate thinking or saying that the west and rest of the world is civilized but compared to extremists we are.
We would need to initiate harsh rule in the region to set the population straight. I'm not racist or anything, i'm just trying to state a posible solution to the middle east "problem". I wish the world could come together and stop screwing each other over but i dont see that happening any time soon.
Any way abotu my whole post it will definitly not happen that way cause the world will lash back hard against the U.S. cause humans only seem possible to think in the now and not the long term.

Originally posted by Section03
We would need to initiate harsh rule in the region to set the population straight.

Those people are only suffering from a brainless war.
At this point there is no simple solution. It the US stay or leave, it is chaos anyway. At this point they should leave the country.

A few days ago ATS member JIMC5499 started a thread that provided a link to a very well done article on exactly this subject. It's a somewhat long article but given the gravity and complexity of the Iraq situation, if you're looking for a two-paragraph solution you're deluding yourself.

Check-out his post and most definitely read the link he includes. It's well worth it. A very well-written and compelling article to be sure.

JIMC's Thread

searching_for_truth, I don't think you're going to find any good answers to your question. The Iraq study group didn't come up with any good solutions to the problems in Iraq even after months of study. Bush and his military advisors have been unable to come up with any good solutions after YEARS of dealing with the reality of our screw-up in Iraq - at least not one that involves drafting hundreds of thousands of troops. No one in Congress has offered a reasonable solution, either - and many of our "Coalition Allies" are either leaving or have left. There aren't good solutions to be had.

Which George W. Bush, of all people, should have known. There was no positive outcome to an invasion of Iraq in the 1990-91 Gulf War - which is one of the primary reasons the President George H. W. Bush didn't invade Iraq at the time. As Bush 41 wrote in his 1998 book A World Transformed:

Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. [....] Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different — and perhaps barren — outcome.

And the troop "surge" we're witnessing right now won't work, either - mostly because it isn't really a surge. We have somewhere around 135,000 troops in Iraq right now (1/12/2007), depending on how you count (if you include troops staged in Kuwait, etc.). Bush wants to add ~22,000 more troops or so as part of this "surge" - which would bring our total number of troops in country to somewhere in the neighborhood of 155,000-160,000 troops, total.

The problem is that we have already had 160,000 troops in Iraq as recently as December 2005. The "surge" isn't really a surge, it is a trickle of troops over a couple months that amount to about 15% of the total troops in country as of right now. As John Stewart said on the Daily Show last night, 15% isn't a surge, it is a tip (the kind you leave at a restaurant) - and not even a good tip...

So what do we do? I say we let them have their Civil War.

I don't say that to be glib, or without respect for the consequences of an Iraqi Civil War (which are dire), but because I believe that Iraq is going to experience a Civil War one way or another, be it now or 10 years from now, and we might as well leave before thousands more people die because of a mistake.

If you study history you will see that countries only experience civil wars when they have serious, divisive social problems which they are unwilling to address any other way. Iraq is such a country. They're facing decisions about the role that religion will play in their government, about the sharing of money gleaned from the sale of oil, about whether the Kurdish population in northern Iraq should have the right to secede at some point in the future and form their own country, etc.

Iraq has not shown any ability to solve these problems on its own. We cannot solve these problems for them. Therefore, we should leave.

And maybe in the future we'll remember that saying "We will be greated as liberators..." is not a plan.

just nuke iraq, and that will end all

im sure by the time no one will have the balls to say no to the US

but it destroys the image of the US once and for all... Wait.. the US has no image to begin with

[edit on 1/12/2007 by warset]

I respect the opinion of all the members who replied
Yes, we can look at this from various angles. I mean as far as this thread is concern, basically, what I am hoping to achieve is analyze the fact that the we opted for a military action in Iraq as the solution for the insurgency problem. Since we chose this option, then we better do it right.

Wrong strategy can be very devastating in many ways. Think about the lives of the men in uniform that were sacrificed (not to mention civilian casualties). When we read it in the news, it could just be another statistics. But there is more than that. If you are part of that ''statistics'', say your son, your father etc., then you will know that it is not a simple statistics.

This leaves us here; What is the best military strategy for Iraq?
Best strategy that will minimize the lost of lives, the one that will really work. A very smart action that will cause a swift victory. The right plan that will work, the right action at the right place and situation. The right strategy in a specific kind of war.

We should have learned from the past.

Let me mention again Vietnam. (I know that we can not compare Vietnam & Iraq). But please, allow me to tell you a little story.

I can still recall when I was a child. When someone who was very dear to me hugged & kissed me goodbye. I can remember I was crying together with my sister. His destination? Vietnam. He served with the US Marines. That moment of goodbye was the last time I saw him. It was difficult to understand for me at that young age what was really happening. Everything is just like a dream now.

This maybe one of the reasons why I have stayed in Vietnam from 1992 up to present.

Using Vietnam as an example for us to analyze a certain military startegy, did we do it right? And now it's all over, maybe we can really analyze what could have gone wrong. What was the alternative action? Was it unavoidable? 58,209 lives of US fighting men perished. Just like that. was the strategy worth it? Did it work?

In Iraq, the trend may be different. Again, are we on the right track as far as the current military strategy is concern?

I think that how wars are fought is primarily a political issue, not in a linear dogmatic Claustwitzian way, but in terms of national intention. Soldiers will rightly feel impeded by the worldwide military incompetence of politicians, but that's nothing new. As such I personally think that the best course of action is complete withdrawl because the politicians, American ones mostly in this case, are incompetant of winning this war. They lied* about why they invaded, they had no credible exist strategy and they have forgotten why they are there. Frankly they should hand over to Arab countries who are far more capable of installing order even if that solution too will exploit the Iraqi populace, it will at least reduce the death count.


* either to themselves or to the people who elected them, you choose

[edit on 13-1-2007 by planeman]

OK. But we got to admit, we are not in control. As Bush stated, we won't stop until we win. I don't think that I can, as a single entity, would change the course of action. They want additional 200,000 troops? Fine. So either we like or not, this war will continue. Since they are going to do it, then better do it smartly, do it right this time.

Bush: If you don't like my Iraq plan, tell me yours

Source: CNN

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush on Saturday challenged lawmakers skeptical of his new Iraq plan to propose their own strategy for stopping the violence in Baghdad.

This is interesting, please read the rest of the news Here

"We have a new strategy with a new mission: Helping secure the population, especially in Baghdad," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "Our plan puts Iraqis in the lead."

So it seems that the new strategy is that they will put more Iraqis forces in the frontline.

During Vietnam war, there was this thing called "Vietnamization" It is basically the same thing as putting more local troops to be in charge.

It did not work in Vietnam. I wonder if this strategy will ever work in Iraq.

May I start by saying that I am on record as stating that we [UK/US] should not have invaded Iraq the second time and that I believe the war is illegal.

I tend to look at things as they really are and am usually not blinkered or blinded by official views and all the gobbledegook press officers in both militaries and governments push out.

In other words, like it or not, my view is black or white. There are no grey areas. There is only right and wrong.

The facts, as I see them, are as follows:

1. We invaded Iraq because Saddam was alleged to have weapons of mass destruction, but to date, no nuclear weapons have been found and the bio/chemical agents that he did have, had mostly been destroyed or encased in concrete.

2. We were then told that not finding WMD did not matter because in reality, it was all about regime change and getting rid of Saddam - but The Mother of all Battles did not take place and Saddam legged it;

3. The war was officially over, but nobody remembered to tell the liberated Iraqis;

4. In a couple of weeks, the US took over Bagdhad and the north whilst we Brits took over Basra and the south of Iraq;

5. The US backtracked on a deal they made with the Shiites. An uprising started which has been going on, ever since;

6. No post war plan for the redevelopment of Iraq was put in place.

No we're up to date.

Firstly, the so called terrorists or insurgents - apart from the foreign fighters, are not. They are indiginous Iraqis fighting to liberate their country from the Infidel Crusaders who have - in their eyes, outlived their welcome.

I have banged on about this till I am blue in the face. What we need to do now, is start to win the hearts and minds of the average Iraqis. Win them over - I don't care how. That's not MY problem.

The carrot and the stick approach can be of use in this environment. It works, but lethal force should and must be used only as a last resort.

If you cannot win the hearts and minds of the indiginous population and help rebuild their lives, then get out. You are only prolonging your agony and costing the lives of more of your young men.

Mr Bush has, in my view, got it disastrously wrong. Sending another
21,000 soldiers to Iraq, will not so much as ease the problems but can only serve to exacerbate them.

As I have pointed out, I respect the members’ political views on the war in Iraq. But the section where I posted this thread is really not to discuss these views.

My intention, since this thread is "Weaponry", I thought that posts & reply to this thread should be at least focus on strategy & tactics in strict military sense. I really think that this section is for the members who like topics about Military weapons, various units of the armed forces of different countries & other stuff that pertain to "Weaponry".

Sure, there are people who are pros & cons of the war in Iraq. I consider that as a sensitive topic and would not want to touch that area.

For example, a General or any other military officers assigned to a certain war may not necessarily be politically or emotionally attached to his assignment. As a fighting man of the armed forces, the views must be totally different: To perform the duty professionally.

If someone gives you an assignment, better do it properly right?

If the answer to the Iraq insurgency problem is military action, then the next question is if it is really a military action, then what and how?

If the answer is not, then that would mean nothing to discuss because this thread is dedicated of discussing a certain military strategy to win a war. This could be based on the studies of the past wars that the US was involved or various theories on professionally handling some kind of warfare.

I am using Iraq as a current situation in which may not be very different from other wars that the US had fought. In fact, yes, the war was declared “over” for a long tine ago because the objective of the war was already achieved. That was until the insurgency problem came out. This means the military has to adapt to the condition of this type of fighting in which there is no main frontline.

You should have noticed how the military started modifying its AFV like the Stryker to suit the new type of fighting in Iraq. Military has to use latest technology on how to detect IED. There are also hi tech experimental gadgets to be used by the infantry such as the “Land Warrior” stuff etc.

U.S. can send additional 200,000 troops as a part of a new strategy. US can also send small lethal Special Forces as a part of the strategy. It can go up to psychological warfare. Another thing which may be used is something similar that was used in Vietnam like the infamous Project PHOENIX a clandestine operation designed by CIA to assassinate leaders of the insurgency. After the war, the VC admitted that such operations like this almost destroyed the whole insurgency operations.

The list of strategy can even just go on up to winning the hearts & minds of the people.

just drop the end all bomb. garenteed to sterilize the lot who teach their children hate and the hate religion. the EMP bomb. also will garentee to send them back to their roots. no electronics garenteed means they all can ride a camel. only way to really win a war is to stop it at its source. sterilization.

You've got yourself into a quagmire which by any means is didficult to get out of..


1)You cannot leave now or the place will become a new terrorist haven that is worse than Pakistan/Syria etc.. (Note it WASNT one during Saddam's reign).

2) You increase troops and that just puts more american lives at stake, not to mention inflame public opinion and violence..

Its sooo messy in there that one cannot distinguish between sectarian violence, terrorists and true militia(only targeting coalition forces).
I just cannot believe have strategists did NOT perceive this before Bush went in all-guns blazing. Its a nightmare with little hope.
I simply cannot think of an effective strategy that will reduce the daily killings and return stability..
Just cannot think of one..
sorry

Originally posted by searching_for_truth

My intention, since this thread is "Weaponry",

Mr Miyagi say best way no get hit, no be there. Mr Miyagi say withdraw.

Divide and conquer.
Since the U.S. is building mega-bases in the country, let's dispose of the withdrawal fantasy, just as Clinton promised a Balken withdrawal 10 years ago.
A chance to settle the major political differences was lost during the constitutional charade of two years ago, but a strategy of splitting Iraq into a loose confederation of Kurd, Shia and Shiite sections with strong man self policing governments seems like the most workable structure for a lasting governmental structure.
Bagdad presents special issues, as a nieghborhood "ethnic cleansing" would be a bloody mess.
On the other hand, killing Al Sadr and the Mahdi army might be the message that needs to be sent to Shiites inside Iraq and Iran.
Developing a real winning strategy involves defining what winning means.
Long term goals of the U.S. may be to not to develop the "Democracy" Bush proclaims, but keeping an American presence in the heart of the biggest oil producing region in the world.
If this involves standing back and paying mercinaries as in Afganistan and Ethiopia keeping the naturally antagonistic parties in a balance of hostility while serving U.S. interests, then success may be judged on the free flow and price of oil from the region.

This is what bothers me.

In Vietnam, we lost 58,000 over 8 years of conflict, basicly (1965-1973). But the politicians and president still kept the war going, despite the huge opposition of the people at home, to the point where people were getting killed at home at protests like Kent State. Today's opposition doesn't seem nearly as strong as the opposition was to the Vietnam war, and im speaking of public opinion and demonstration. So when you compare a man like Linden Johnson to George Bush, you come out thinking Johnson might perhaps be the more intelligent or sensible of the two. And he didnt give in to the public pressure and the mounting casualties in what he believed was a "defining struggle of the 20th century to contain communism" from spreading thru the region.

This is the same thing today, except with radical militant Islam. We are afraid it will spread throughout the region, that the terrorists will have bases and training camps in the wake of our leave, and attack us at home or at our bases in neighboring countries, or attack weak spots like our embassies or tourists. The region is different mostly because it encompasses the middle east and just a few small pockets of southeast asia & central or western asia (Chechnya and Uzbekistan), not southeast asia in it's entirety.

But back then it was a political ideology. Today it is a religous one, which is even more radical and willing to die for the cause. By fighting it, we are making the fire bigger and we cant exactly put it out, so in this case it is not something you should be confronting conventionally with an army on the ground like we have in Iraq. That is a shooting gallery. So many targets, just standing around, or doing slow patrols. It's like take your pick, if your sneaky you may get one good shot with an AK-47 before being blown away, how miserable is your day to day life and how strong is your radical faith? Alot will die this way because they feel it gives them more dignity and guarantees them paradise.

I'm personally afraid that Bush will keep troop levels at the current level or 'surged' until the day he leaves office, while also starting or participating in new conflicts in the region with a neighbor(s) of Iraq using sea and air assets instead of ground invasions. This will make the 2008 election quite a somber one, one of life and death really, with a new emphasis on who can take charge and "win the war", now one widened even larger by the previous president, encompassing more than 2 countries in that region. I hope and pray this doesn't happen, that he is sensible enough to avoid that.

In my opinion, we have the precision technology to where, if we focused it, we could continue our war on terror, keeping the primitive terrorists running in circles from us and dying from our precision air attacks, while withdrawing our ground troops and forcing the Iraqi Govt to 'put up or shut up', only receiving air support from us, and only receiving ground support from us in the most dire of circumstance, and only special forces in smaller numbers if that occurs. We take all the reservists and conventional forces HOME! They dont make a damn of difference I tell you. They are acting as a wall made of flesh, sure it is holding back the water of the insurgency, but it cannot hold forever, the day its removed (it wont be breached) the water will flood the plains between the two rivers, just like ancient times..

When the Shiite majority realizes that the Sunni insurgency is going for the gold and trying to take over and kill them all if/when we leave the country, perhaps they will fight in their armed forces with a new sense of urgency, bringing new army recruits, or new militia recruits for islamist gangs to protect the hood, but only if we left.

So, my answer to winning the war in Iraq is to remove for all intents and purposes, 80% of more of the forces we have on the ground there. All the conventional regiments of army and marines, all the reserve regiments, all those withdrawn and saved for a more pressing threat (North Korea and Iran). Then, up the amount of air attacks and precision attacks from sea, and turn it into more of an Afghanistan style war, where only 40,000 or so troops from all the Nato countries including America, Canada, the UK, & the Dutch are holding off all those Taliban and Al-qaeda, with the use of extensive precision air strikes and armed locals who are trully compelled to fight for their country.

If we left Iraq tomorrow, they'd rip it into three and be calling it by 3 different names before the sun went down over Baghdad.

Originally posted by planeman

Originally posted by searching_for_truth

My intention, since this thread is "Weaponry",

Mr Miyagi say best way no get hit, no be there. Mr Miyagi say withdraw.

Yeah! this is very practical. A least, to withdraw from a war is still a part of a military strategy.

Originally posted by Daedalus3
You've got yourself into a quagmire which by any means is didficult to get out of..

1)You cannot leave now or the place will become a new terrorist haven that is worse than Pakistan/Syria etc.. (Note it WASNT one during Saddam's reign).

2) You increase troops and that just puts more american lives at stake, not to mention inflame public opinion and violence..

Yeah! This is the hardest part. A sort of catch 22. I can remember one of the lessons in a battlefield. In a firefight, in a heat of a battle, when you retreat, the chances of getting hit/killed (as your back turned) while retreating is almost the same while moving to an attack.

Originally posted by Section03
I'm sorry I have to put it this way but i want to get my point across.
There is only one way to effectivly put an end to an insurgency in any war. Eliminate the opposition.
In the old days of war armys slaughtered their enemy....men, women , and children. Everytime i turn the television to the news and they talk about Iraq I see images of crowds of Iraqis waving guns and shouting death to america, or someother type of anti-america rhetoric. If we really want to put an end to the insurgency then why dont we just take all of those anti-democracy people and make them disapear or put them in some sort of labor camp(not a concentration camp but a work re-education facility) where they can learn to be productive in thier country.

Sig Heil! Oh wait...it was the nazis that dissapeared ppl, sent them to "labor" camps (concentration camps really). Lol...you really need to be instructed on right and wrong. Wow...unbeliavable someone would actually believe that dissapearing people is in the best interest of democracy...not even going to go with the rest of that post.

Now regarding your question, searching_for_truth, I haved to second planeman and say that for the US, the best overall strategy would be pull out. (Well...actually the best strategie would have been not go in, Saddam at least kept in check his "revolucionaries"). As long as the US stays in Iraq, gives the insurgents a common target (besides the now obvious sunni-shii guerilla already going on). Not sunni, or shii want the US there, and the longer the US stays, the harsher the fighting will get against them.

If you recall, when the ocuppation just started, there were attacks, but not as bold as the attacks nowadays. Simply, the longer they have an enemy to fight, the bolder their techniques will start. At first, it was just machinegun ambushes, until someone was bold and crazy enough to say "Huh...if I put this old bomb next to the road...and with a mine..."

"Vietnamization" in iraq, has no chance of working. Why? Same reasons that Vietnam. The Iraqis do not want to fight that war, simple as that. Polls say, many would like saddam over the common infighting. Not vouching for saddam, but in his terror policy, he kept all that age infighting with shii and sunni disperse. not anymore. How can an Iraqi army be expected to work when among reclutes there will be fighting? Better yet, if iraqi "army" and police are common terrorist targets, and if the US is not prepared to fight them, the police are certainly not prepared, besides they get attacked more viciously for "cooperating"

So simply put, there is no viable strategy for Iraq, because in all signs and appearances, the iraqis will not ever want the US to remain there. In their eyes the US came to make a mess, and unfortunately they are probably right.

I have no doubts that the US will not win the hearts and minds of the Iraqis, simply for the reason they keep killing them. How can a population be expected to like the US when it is constantly under attack by insurgents and US forces alike?

An occupation force cannot be expected to ever succeed if the population is completely against it. Examples? Let's go to France and Holland, WW2. People joyfully receving the allies, waving flags at the streets, climbing on tanks. Even when the allies killed many civs for colateral damage, at the end, it was better than the prospective of the nazis. This is not the case with Iraq.

For the first few days, the occupation forces where received as victors, as you may recall, until the prospective of being occupied became worse than the previous situation.

So no, not 200,000 soldiers more (more fighting, more unrest). No special forces (will continued to be seen as a hostile presence, killing less, but killing nevertheless) psychological warfare would be disastrous, and well a phoenix project against an enemy that has no single head, and that after each succesful strike just provokes a more radical head.

Maybe (just maybe) aaaaa's strategy, but then, it would result in balkan sized countries, who now are unified factions to fight the other "countries", and will end up in the same infighting, since there is sooooo much oil at stake, who will want to stay on the side of the country with the less oil??

So again, I have to second Mr Planeman Miyagi, cut your losses, unnessary spending used for war could be used solely for humanitarian purposes,just picture how much could be repaired with the current budget for the war...though I doubt the US will be as generous in humanitarian help for what it destroyed than what it was for destroying it.

Call the UN. Have the UN help pacify with arab member countries involved. Involve neighbors. That big humanitarian help, much as Hamas in Lebanon, would probably help pacify the region. Apologize for the mess done, have all those poor boys who had no chance of returning home have a good funeral. Personal Request: Leave G.Bush in Iraq to fight alone, only wacko that would actually want to be there. Elect a good president. Peace