It's because the Army made the decision, during and after the Vietnam War, to continue to orient itself around a conventional-warfare strategy. A major if unstated premise of the Powell Doctrine - previously known as the Weinberger Doctrine - was that the US would avoid protracted guerrilla warfare situations.
How this came about is described by Andrew Krepinevich, Jr., in his 1986 book The Army and Vietnam. Krepinevich supported the Iraq War prior to the March invasion. But his book is a thoughtful analysis and criticism of the Army's unwillingness to embrace a thoroughgoing counter-insurgency strategy in Vietnam, and its implications for later developments. One important point he makes is this (p. 9-10):
In a conventional war, supplies and support are brought up from the rear to support combat operations focused on the destruction of the enemy's armed forces. In an insurgency, supplies and support are at the front, among the people, and the direction of the logistical flow is opposite that of the line of advance (it flows from the "front lines" - the people - to the insurgents' rear base areas.) ... A common error on the part of "conventional" military people has been to view the interruption of infiltration or external support for the guerrillas as the key to isolating and defeating the insurgents.I was reminded of this today when I saw this article in the Los Angeles Times:
"We have to deny the enemy sanctuary," said Col. Frederick Rudesheim, an infantry brigade commander in ambush-prone territory northwest of Baghdad who led a large-scale assault last week on a suspected guerrilla safe haven near Tikrit. "Unless we get this under control, there is fertile ground for external influence."- Bruce Miller
Hearing: Steve Earle, "Ashes to Ashes"
Tags: andrew krepinevich jr., counterinsurgency, vietnam war
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