h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The U.S. has the largest expenditure for military purposes in the world, greater than the next dozen or so nations combined. It's military is the most technologically advanced and technology dependent. This is of overwhelming value in set battles on open fields against a similarly organized military force, as was evidenced in Desert Storm. Yet it was less effective in Afganistan, where resistance on the Eastern front is still strong, and where the Taliban has reestablished a foothold of sorts including a live radio broadcast. We prove unable to find Osama and control only Kabul with any authority.
This leads to the question of how effective our offensive will be against Iraq. Granted, the Iraqi resistance will be reduced in it's strength after twelve years of sanctions, and by a complete lack of air support. To the north and south of the country are hostile factions. Yet, even the U.S. itself is acknowledging that a successful invasion of the nation could take up to three months. Iraq seems intent on defending Baghdad to the bitter end, which will invite U.S. warplanes to level the city, killing any civilian population foolish enough to remain there. Memory will serve some of us that the U.S. managed to drop more bombs of the Vietnamese than they did on the Germans in WWII, and had a negligible affect on the Viet Cong to conduct military operations. Air superiority always looks good on paper, but it does not guarantee a win against a dedicated foe. The Serbians rolled over easily under the weight of bombs, but knew also they would quickly be welcomed back into the International community. Iraq is looking more and more like Texas East, and they probably are painfully aware of that fact. Resistance therefore is guaranteed to be greater. Ground troops, in the form of infantry, will be forced to take the city itself. Even after bombing people back to the stone age, a sizeable invasion force is required when a nation seeks to conquer and control populated territory. The English will be familiar with this concept, as such military requirements eventually cost them their empire.
This invites several logistical problems for our highly moderized military. We are currently at a strength of roughly one-half what our effective combat regulars was at the height of Vietnam. Modernization and diversification of assignments has caused the actual nuber of fighting troops to diminish, even as our total army size has increased. Our special forces units are already deployed at over a level of 2/3 in "advisory" missions around the globe. Junior officers, Captains and Lieutenants, in the current armed forces are receiving less combat oriented training than at any time in the history of the military, and junior officer attrition over the last ten years is almost double any time in history. This means the men leading our ground troops into combat are less equipped than ever to manage what is a already a numerically diminished fighting force. The volunteer army is a novel idea, but even volunteers are often reluctant to sign up for assignments that by definition involve being maimed or killed as a part of the job description. In close combat that requires individual initiative, such as urban warfare, these circumstances can have disastrous results. Refer to Somalia for an idea of what can happen on a small scale. A technologically superior force can be quickly be hamstrung but even the most disorderly and ill-armed mob. Imagine what happens when trained professionals of any caliber are pitted up against oneanother. Refer to Vietnam for an idea of what can happen then.
The Pentagon is well aware of our limitations and has several solutions. The initial stopgap is the use of reserve units in combat. The concept of being a reserve unit in itself does not lend those troops an equal footing in training or equipment to a full-time professional military unit. And when facing a defender who is fighting in a city he is likely to know and for the "perceived" freedom of his own nation, attacking units will be sorely tested even with an overwhelming level of aerial bombardment in support.
The Pentagon is also considering using professional military "for hire" units, such as those who gained fame in the Balkan conflicts. These units are international forces with their own agendas and often limited respect for rules of engagement. One, Dynacorp, was found to be trafficking in sex slaves during the Bosnian conflict, even after the UN forces had arrived on the scene. Such mercenary forces often have a negative affect when interacting with civilian populations of a conquered enemy. This could encourage strong negative response from the southern fundamentalist communities of Iraq, who are reluctant to trust the U.S. after being encouraged to revolt a decade ago only to be left holding the bag when allied forces failed to support their uprising.
In the north of Iraq lies the Kurdish question. Kurdistan is an unrecognized territory which contains an ethnically distinct population that crosses into Turkey as well. They are the former targets of Iraqi chemical weapons often refered to as Saddam's assault on his own people. The Kurdish experience under Turkish dominion has not gone much better. Their langauge in written and spoken form is outlawed and they have limited rights in Turkish society. Any attempt at democratizing Iraq will call into question the hippocracy just across the border. Also, there are rumors that Turkey is planning on using U.S. assurances of allowing the Turkish army to incur across the border to establish a "protection zone" will allow the Turks to reclaim the Northern oilfields they were deprived of by British cartographers after the British left the area in the middle of the last century. This would contradict the assertion made by the U.S. in regard to Iraq a decade ago, when liberating Kuwait after Iraq attempted to annex that nation claiming a prior sovereign interest.
Another key issue is escalation. In the event that the U.S. is accurate in their assessment that Iraq possesses wepons of a biological and chemical nature, they will be likely to use them in the darkest hours of their defensive operations. Most likely they would be used on their own soil to slow any incursion or disrupt supporting or supply units in the rear, but they have the potential to be deposited on civilian populations in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Jordan, and potentially Israel. This will make a retaliation in kind a possibility that the U.S. and Israel both refuse to rule out. Nuclear retaliation has been mentioned in both nations. So an invasion to reduce proliferation has the potential to escalate to the point of an exchange of mass destructive firepower.
These issues should be something for us all to ponder as we recklessly cheer on our leaders as they hurtle us toward war. Fighting is a complicted and messy business and I have only scratched the surface of a few issues, Refugees, humanitarian relief, collateral damage, infrastructure reconstruction, increased likelyhood of anti-American action and sentiment, an escalation of asymetrical warfare domestically, so many things also need to be addressed before the public signs off on this fight.

I think you've scratched things pretty well.

I read about a guy in the newspaper this morning who's commanding a unit slated to go to Turkey. He's had 21 years of training for this moment he says. Notice he didn't include combat experience, and he's a colonel. Americans have finally achieved the ancient distinction once held by the French of having officers who couldn't find their asses in broad daylight despite extensive training.

The colonel said that he was in awe of his leaders and believed that he was going to be defending American freedom, including the freedom to protest against the war. He doesn't pay attention to the protestors of course, having staked his claim to the moral high ground of condescending protectiveness.

What he doesn't appear to appreciate is his unquestioning participation virtually guarantees the war debate will at some point be cast as a choice between supporting "our troops" and treason.

It doesn't surprise me about the use of surrogate troops or mercinary proxies. It's sort of reminiscent of the Roman use of Barbarian levies, troops that eventually compromised the whole political framework of the Roman state. At it's height, the Empire probably had no more than 150,000 men in its legions and the percentage of Romans in this army declined over time.

Many oppressors in the Third World rely on both mercenaries and paramilitary units, which are nothing more than vigilante mobs armed by the oppressors, so the official army doesn't have to dirty its hands with the actual oppression. This has been especially true in Chiapas for example.

So it's interesting that you note the trend in Unites States operations. They are behaving true to form, with plausible deniability built in when American troops are finally brought up on charges of committing atrocities, if they ever are.

I was thinking just the other day that Bush is a heartbeat away from meeting his maker just like everybody else, and knowing what a drunk he is, this isn't such a remote possibility for the near future. Cheney is no paragon of health either so apparently the puppet show might eventually have to rely on the puppeteers coming forward and showing their hands, faces and everything else.

It would be interesting to see who they really are, although I think we might already know. We just don't know the internal organization right now very well.

I'm wondering how many of them have stars, bars or eagles on their shoulders, cuffs or lapels?

I have to say it never fails to stun me, how insane our leadership truly is? They publicly acknowledge that by initiating a war with Iraq they anticipate the use of at least chemical weapons by the Iraqi defensive forces. So, in order to eliminate the threat we are actually going to push the issue and make it a reality.
Better yet is our truly frightening revelation that we are trying to develop low payload, low fallout nuclear ordinance for use in battlefield situations. This would allow us to follow up on our vow to use the vaunted wepaons of mass destuction in our arsenal in a preemptive strike against nations that are seeking to develop them. Who besides me finds this to be incomprehensible logic? So to preserve our security we will crush and poison the civilian populations of other nations whenever we decide we don't like the policies of their governments.
Pity not everyone was smart enough to be born here in the U.S. to affluent parents.

It sounds to me like the same old protestant ethic, retreaded a little. Proof that you're one of the Elect is provided by you being born into the privileges of wealth or by God's Providence, able to deprive others of their wealth, by force or deception.

It's a pity such a privileged position doesn't apparently carry any social responsibility.

The good news is, or maybe it's the bad news, that every Empire declines. And from the looks of it, I would say that America is merely the last gasp of the British Empire, which will problaby lose it's standing around the time fossil fuels become as scarce of diamonds. By my reckoning, that will be sometime around 2050. I guess it would be a bad idea to have kids at this point, considering what we'll be leaving them.

I think there'll probably be another flood first and diamonds aren't that scarce anyways.

I can swim. Reminds me of a song by the band TOOL. About how when the earthquake comes to L.A. and wipes out all the pretentious, phony and freakishly evil people who live out here by pushing us into the Pacific. Some say we'll see Armageddon soon...

I hate to think of it happening, especially with you there, but it would probably take a disaster of apocalyptic proportions in the United States to curb this unbridled militarization, don't you think?

I think that disaster is already happening, it's just that everyone's too stupid to notice. The U.S. economy is lumbering to a halt. ANd with a big tax cut forcing reductions in govt spending, combined with a war that will shift much of the govt budget to military spending, the market and industrial production will finally drop like Mike Tyson's last boxing opponent. It's a good time to think about staying in for graduate school. This slow down will last a while. Especially once we start getting a better idea of how many corporate balance sheets are complete B.S. And if we go down, we will take the rest of the world with us. Can you say 1930's. ALl we need is major climactic change. Funny how our current policy seems to be propelling us toward global warming as a reality of our daily lives. I'm starting to believe my own armageddon theory. Scared yet?

Yeah, I think you're right, and, no, I'm not scared.

Because I won't be standing in line with a bunch of starving people in front of a boarded up supermarket. I'll be on my way home, even if I have to walk all the way and when I get there, there won't be a bunch of starving people in line because in the desert they won't last three days and they won't know where the food and water is or how to get it.

Then I'll just sit this one out, and when it's over, I'll go roundup the Mormon strays, butcher a few and throw a party.

I hope this site's still up when the party starts out there(or is that a 49?) and I'll be expecting an invite. Meanwhile I'll be by my new pool waiting for the bank to foreclose on me.

Just make sure there's water in the pool so you don't get too thirsty waiting.

Naahh! I'll have a fridge full of beer. If I'm out of beer, we've definitely reached the end of civilization.

Funny, I would have never taken you for somebody who would perpetuate that Egyptian bias. And it's not even Egyptian beer! Yik!!

Funny you mention the Egyptians as I just posted in another thread the nature of my tattoo work. They happen to be Egyptian, although I confess I selected them mostly because of their symbolic signifcance, rather than an association with any actual belief system. And for the record, I will drink whatever is on sale. So if that means Egyptian, so be it. ALthough usually it's some off-brand Yugoslavian import or, during important sporting events Budweiser. Don't you know it's not safe to drink the water in Cali. We've got MTBE in our groundwater, great for cellular damage. And in my neighborhood we have rocket fuel in the ground water thanks to Boeing and Rocketdyne. It was even a superfund site until they realized just how much it had spread, and that there was no hope of clean up. So I will stick to beer thanks, it's safer than the alternative.

The Egyptian stuff is supposed to be more nutritious because the grain was still in it.

Some archeologist was supposed to be making a replica of it for commercial use but I don't know if the business ever got off the ground. If it did, you could literally drink your lunch and probably not starve although you might be annoyed by the grain stuck in your teeth.

Sounds like the Bock beers that German monks made famous in the dark ages. Helped them get through all the fasting, and still fit in their robes afterward. And it made the nuns more pliable after religious services.

A couple of points:

The national guard does have combat units, but they require training to bring them up to active duty standards as was proven by the 48th Infantry Brigade (Georgia Army National Guard) during Desert Shield. They need at least a 45-60 day training cycle to be ready to go. They just returned from a six month deployment, so it might not take so long. Most combat support units don't need that much training to be ready. That's what the Army Reserves are primarily used for.

Not all of our leaders, even in the combat arms, have combat experience. The military retires people after 20 years, and not every one has been able to go to Panama, the Gulf War, or Sommlia. That doesn't necisarily mean they're not qualified. It was our experience during the Gulf War, that it was easier than training at the National Training Center.

What are saying then, Mr. Moron? That these stupid wars area actually training exercises? Training for what?

It easy to say that Desert Storm was a good training ground considering ther was little fighting beyond the rather intense aerial bombardment. Consider that most of our casualties were friendly fire and you have a good idea of how stiff the resistance was. I wager the war will be more difficult to prosecute this time against a legistimate, although crippled enemy who's effective fighting force is roughly 80,000 (with another 1 million conscripts to use as shields). My concern is that with a force off 225,000, I estimate the actual size of the U.S. fighting force to be less than 60,000 which will most likely pree less qualified units into actual engagment as the fight has all the earmarks of bogging down in an urban environment. If you are a veteran, I don't have to tell you that modern urban combat has not evolved much beyond the tactics that have been in use for 50 years now, and that gives the advantage to the defense.

As far as combat experience goes, I realize that you may consider it unnessasary in theory. But I restate that, our army is less well trained than even a decade ago. More essentially, Saddam's republican guard is led by some veterans who's fighting experience dates back to a decade long war against Iran, supression wars in the North, and more fighting during the aftermath of the Gulf War when Iranian backed Shiites led an uprising. They know the territory they will be fighting in, and they have fought there repeatedly. Even with aging equipment, and an overwhelming aerial assault, they are going to be reasonably confident about their chances of stalemating us long enough to create some real casualties, which they know from our history books is the key to stopping U.S. support for any fight.