Capter 3 Continues...
Who is the King of Land Warfare?
Isoroku Yamamoto was doubtless the most innovative and "extraordinarily talented" military
man of his age, and the use of aircraft carriers in the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor and the great
victory he achieved represent the stroke of genius he left on the history of naval combat. What is
hard to understand is that the same Yamamoto actually was unable to grasp the epoch-making
significance of his own creative tactics. After commanding the combined fleet in dealing a
severe blow to the U.S. Navy, he still held to the belief that only battleships were the main
decisive force at sea, once again throwing the key that would open the door to victory and that
was already in his grasp back into the vast waves of the Pacific ocean. While the first person to
make a mistake can still be an object of pity, the second person to make the same mistake is
simply incredibly stupid, particularly those people who make mistakes which have already been
made but which they are just unable to anticipate. What is regrettable is that in the history of war
there are frequent examples like this in which thinking lags behind acting. Just as with Isoroku
Yamamoto at that time, although the U.S. Army used helicopters to smash the Iraqi armored and
mechanized units, once the gunsmoke in the Gulf cleared it inexplicably reverted to its pre-war
level of thinking, shunting aside the helicopters which by all rights should have been the new
favorites in the war. It is said that during the entire ground war, other than one desperate fight put
up by the "Medina" armored division of the Republican Guard when it was surrounded south of
Basra by the U.S. VII Corps, there was hardly any tank warfare worthy of the name. However,
the Americans, who had clearly already used helicopters to inaugurate a new age in ground
warfare, [proceeded to] increase development outlays for other weapons, including tanks, while
appropriations for helicopters was the only thing cut back. Sticking to their outmoded ways, they
are still treating tanks as the decisive weapon in future ground warfare. [8]
Actually, as early as the Vietnam war, helicopters had begun to display their abilities in the
hands of the Americans, and soon afterward, the Soviet Union let helicopters show their exceptional skills in the hilly regions of Afghanistan, as did the British in the Falkland Islands.
However, because their opponents were mainly guerrillas and non-armored infantry, it delayed
the challenge that helicopters would pose to tanks a full 20 years. The Gulf War finally gave
helicopters an opportunity to show what they could do. This time, not counting the helicopter
units of the allied forces, the U.S. military alone deployed 1,600 helicopters of various models to
the Gulf, and this enormous group of helicopters was sufficient to form one complete helicopter
army. However, at this time the Americans, who had all along boasted of their innovative spirit,
showed no originality at all, but just like the French who in World War II dispersed their tanks
and assigned them to the infantry, they had the helicopters serve as a force attached to the
armored and mechanized units and other troops. Fortunately, the helicopters, which were
destined to establish their name in this war, did not allow this to mask their royal demeanor.
Just as the Americans were praising the "Patriot", the F-117, the "Tomahawk" missiles, and other
battlefield stars to the skies via CNN, the helicopters were unfairly given the cold shoulder (with
just the "Apache," which was a favorite, getting passing marks). Other than the "Final Report to
Congress" written by the Department of Defense after the war, very few people still recall that it
was the helicopters, not some of the other favorite new weapons, that performed first-rate service
in "Desert Storm." In the 20 minutes preceding the start of the continuous bombing, which lasted
more than a month, following a ground-hugging flight of several hours, the MH-53J and AH-64
helicopters used "Hellfire" missiles to carry out advance destruction of Iraqi early-warning radar,
opening a safe passage for the bomber groups and showing the incomparable penetration
capabilities of helicopters. As the most flexible flying platform on the battlefield, they also
undertook a large number of the supply transport, medical evacuation, search and rescue,
battlefield reconnaissance, and electronic countermeasures missions, etc., and during the battle of
Khafji, the main force which rapidly checked the Iraqi offensive and finally drove back the Iraqi
military was again helicopters. During the war, the thing which truly left a deep impression and
demonstrated the deep potential of the helicopters was "Operation Cobra." The 101st [Airborne]
Division used more than 300 helicopters to perform the single most far-reaching "leapfrog"
operation in the history of war, establishing the "Cobra" forward operations base more than 100
kilometers inside Iraq. Subsequently they relied on the base in cutting off the only escape route
for the Iraqi military scattered behind the Euphrates River valley, as well as intercepting the Iraqi
troops fleeing along the Hamal [as published] dike road. This was definitely the most deeply
significant tactical operation of the ground war during the war. It proclaimed that, from this
point, helicopters were perfectly capable of conducting large-scale operations independently.
When the throngs of Iraqi soldiers ran from the fortifications destroyed by the helicopters and
knelt to beg to surrender, they were in turn herded into a group by the helicopters just like a
cattle drive on the Western plains, and the view that "only the infantry can ultimately resolve a
battle" has now been radically shaken by these American "flying cowboys." Originally, however,
the initial intent of the leapfrog operation by the helicopters was just to provide support for the
armored units that were to handle the main offensive, but the unexpected success of the
helicopter units caused the plan to fall far behind the developments in the battle situation.
Because of this, Schwarzkopf had to order the VII Corps to attack 15 hours ahead of time, and
although under the command of General Franks the speed of the advance of the VII Corps
through the desert was far faster than that of Gudarian, who became famous at the time for
launching tank blitzkriegs, he [Franks] did not win the good "blitzkrieg" reputation that the
previous generation did, but actually was rebuked for "moving forward slowly, one step at a
time, like an old lady." Following the war, General Franks refuted the criticism that came from
the allied headquarters in Riyadh, based on the reason that the Iraqi military still had fighting
capabilities. [9] In reality, however, neither the critics nor those who refuted them had grasped
the essence of the problem. The reason that the mobility of the tanks under General Franks'
command was criticized was precisely because of the comparison with the helicopters. To this
day, there has still been no example of combat which has demonstrated that any kind of tanks
can keep up with the combat pace of helicopters. Actually, this did not just involve mobility. As the former "kings of land warfare," the tanks are
being challenged by the helicopters on all fronts. Compared to the tanks, which have to
constantly labor to overcome the coefficient of friction of the earth's surface, the helicopters'
battlespace is at treetop level, so they are totally unaffected by any surface obstacles and their
excellent mobility is sufficient to cancel out the flaw of not having heavy armor. Similarly, as
mobile weapons platforms, their firepower is by no means inferior to that of the tanks, and this
represents the greatest crisis encountered by tanks since they ascended the stage of warfare with
the nickname of "tanks." What is even tougher for the tanks is the energy required to organize a
sizable tank group assault (transporting a given number of tanks to a staging area alone is a
massive headache) and the risks one runs (when tanks are massed, they are extremely vulnerable
to preemptive strikes by the enemy), so they really have no advantages to speak of when
compared to helicopters, which are good at dispersed deployment and concentrated strikes, and
which can be massed to engage in conventional warfare or dispersed to fight guerrilla warfare. In
fact, tanks and helicopters are natural enemies, but the former is far from a match for the latter,
and even the outmoded AH-1 "Cobra" helicopters, not to mention the AH-64 "tank-killer"
helicopters, destroyed upwards of 100 tanks during the Gulf War while sustaining no casualties
at all of their own. Faced with the powerful strike capabilities of the helicopters, who can still
maintain that "the best weapon to deal with tanks are tanks?" [10]
We can now say that helicopters are the true tank terminators. This new star, which rose
gradually over the waves of the Gulf, is in the process of achieving its own coronation through
the illustrious battle achievements during the Gulf War, and there is no doubt that it is just a
question of time before it drives the tank from the battlefield. It may not take very long before
"winning a land battle from the air" is no longer an over-dramatized slogan, and more and more
ground force commanders are reaching a consensus on this point. Furthermore, the new concepts
of a "flying army" and "flying ground warfare" in which the helicopter is the main battle weapon
may become standard military jargon and appear in every military dictionary.
Another Player Hidden Behind the Victory
Leaving aside the point that as commander in chief of the three services Bush certainly knew the
time the attack was to begin, when viewed simply in terms of the CNN television broadcasts, the
whole world was the same as the U.S. president in that they saw at the same time the soul-
stirring start of the war. In the information-sharing age, a president doesn't really have much
more in the way of special privileges than an ordinary citizen. This is where modern warfare
differs from any wars of the past, with real-time or near real-time reports turning warfare into a
new program that ordinary people can monitor directly via the media, and thus the media has
become an immediate and integral part of warfare, and no longer merely provides information
coming from the battlefield.
Unlike a direct broadcast of a World Cup soccer match, everything that people saw, other than
that which was first limited by the subjective perspective of the television reporters (the 1300
reporters sent to the front lines were all aware of the "Revised Regulations Regarding Gulf War
News Reports" that had just been issued by the Pentagon, so each person in his own mind
exercised restraint about what could and could not be reported), also had to go through the
security reviews at the joint news offices set up in Dhahran and Riyadh. Perhaps U.S. military
circles and the media had both learned the lesson during the Vietnam war when the discord
between the two was so great, but this time the news agencies and the military got along very
well. There is one figure that perhaps can illustrate this issue very well. Of the more than 1300
news items released throughout the entire period of the war, only five were sent to Washington
for review, and of these four received approval within several hours, while the remaining item
was canceled by the press unit itself. With the concerted assistance of the news reporters, the
battlefield commanders successfully influenced the eyes and ears of the entire world, getting
people to see everything that the military wanted them to see, while no one was able to see
anything that they did not want people to know. The U.S. press uniformly abandoned its vaunted neutrality, enthusiastically joining the anti-Iraq camp and coordinating with the U.S. military just
like an outstanding two-man comic act, quite tacitly and energetically arriving at the same script
for the war, with the force of the media and that of the allied army forming a joint force
regarding the attack on Iraq. [11] Not long after Iraq invaded Kuwait, reports quickly appeared in
the various media that a massive U.S. force was streaming into Saudi Arabia, causing the Iraqi
military on the Kuwait-Saudi Arabia border to flinch and quietly creating the momentum for a
"hobbling" operation. The day before the start of "Desert Storm," the Western media again
trumpeted the news of a U.S. carrier fleet passing through the Suez Canal, which served to
confuse Saddam and have him believe that, with disaster looming, the U.S. forces had still not
completed their deployment. Similarly, without the support of the embellishment by the media,
none of the so-called high-tech weapons sent to be used in the Gulf War would have been as
awesome as people believed. In the upwards of 98 press conferences held throughout the entire
course of the war, people saw images of how the precision-guided missiles could penetrate the
air vents in a building and explode, of "Patriots" intercepting "Scuds," and numerous other shots
that left a profound impression. All these things represented an intense visual shock to the entire
world, including the Iraqis, and it was from this that the myth about the unusual powers of the
U.S.-made weapons was born, and it was here that the belief was formed that "Iraq would
inevitably lose, and the U.S. was bound to win." Obviously, the media helped the Americans
enormously. We might as well say that, intentionally or otherwise, the U.S. military and the
Western media joined hands to form a noose to hang Saddam's Iraq from the gallows. In the
"Operational Outline" that was revised after the war, the Americans took pains to suggest that
"the force of the media reports was able to have a dramatic effect on the strategic direction and
the scope of the military operations," while the newly-drafted field manual FM100-6
(Information Operations) goes even farther in using the example of the media war during the
Gulf War. It would appear that, in all future wars, in addition to the basic method of military strikes, the force of the media will increasingly be another player in the war and will play a role
comparable to that of military strikes in promoting the course of the war.
Unlike battlefield propaganda, which has an excessively subjective tinge and is easily rejected by
an opponent or neutral individuals, because it is cleverly cloaked as objective reporting the
media has a quiet impact that is hard to gauge. In the Gulf, in the same manner that the U.S.-led
allied forces deprived Iraq of its right to speak militarily, the powerful Western media deprived it
politically of its right to speak, to defend itself, and even of its right to sympathy and support,
and compared to the weak voice of Iraqi propaganda, which portrayed Bush as the "great Satan"
who was wicked beyond redemption, the image of Saddam as a war-crazed aggressor was played
up in a much more convincing fashion. It was precisely the lopsided media force together with
the lopsided military force that dealt a vicious one-two blow to Iraq on the battlefield and
morally, and this sealed Saddam's defeat.
However, the effects of the media have always been a two-edged sword. This means that, while
it is directed at the enemy, at the same time on another front it can similarly be a sharp sword
directed at oneself. Based on information that was disclosed following the war, the reason that
the ground war abruptly came to a halt after 100 hours was actually because Bush, influenced by
a hasty assessment of the course of the war that was issued on television by a battlefield news
release officer, later came to a similarly hasty decision of his own, "dramatically shortening the
time from strategic decision-making to concluding the war." [12] As a result, Saddam, whose
days were numbered, escaped certain death, and it also left a string of "desert thunder"
operations, which were ultimately duds, for Clinton, who came to power later. The impact of the
media on warfare is becoming increasingly widespread and increasingly direct, to the point
where even major decisions by the president of a superpower such as this one involving the
cessation of hostilities are to a very great extent rooted in the reaction to a single television
program. From this, one can perceive a bit of the significance that the media carries in social life
today. One can say entirely without exaggeration that an uncrowned king has now become the major force to win any battle. After "Desert Storm" swept over the Gulf, no longer would it be
possible to rely on military force alone without the involvement of the media to achieve victory
in a war.
An Apple With Numerous Sections
As a war characterized by the integration of technology that concluded the old era and
inaugurated the new one, "Desert Storm" is a classic war that can provide all-encompassing
inspiration to those in the military in every country. Any person who enjoys delving into military
issues can invariably draw some enlightenment or lessons from this war, regardless of which
corner of the war one focuses on. Based on that, we are terming this war, which has multiple
meanings with regard to its experiences and lessons, a multi-section apple. Furthermore, the
sectional views of this apple are far from being limited to those that we have already discussed,
and it is only necessary for one to approach it with a well-honed intellect to have an unexpected
sectional view appear before one's eyes at any moment:
When President Bush spoke with righteous indignation to the United States and the whole world
about the moral responsibility being undertaken for Kuwait, no responsible economist could
have predicted that, to provide for the military outlays of this war, the United States would
propose a typical A-A "shared responsibility" program, thereby launching a new form for sharing
the costs of international war -- fighting together and splitting the bill. Even if you aren't a
businessman, you have to admire this kind of Wall Street spirit. [13]
Psychological warfare is really not a new tactic, but what was novel about the psychological
warfare in "Desert Storm" was its creativity. After dropping an extremely powerful bomb, they
would then have the airplanes drop propaganda leaflets, warning the Iraqi soldiers several
kilometers away who were quaking in their boots from the bombing that the next bomb would be
their turn! This move alone was sufficient to cause the Iraqi units which were organized in
divisions to collapse. In the prisoner of war camp, one Iraqi division commander admitted that the impact of the psychological war on Iraqi morale was second only to the bombing by the
allied forces. [14]
When the war began, the A-10 was viewed by the Americans as an outmoded ground attack
aircraft, but after forming what was dubbed a "lethal union" with the "Apache" helicopter, by
eliminating Iraqi tanks on a large scale it staved off its own elimination, reaching the point where
it became one of the myriad dazzling stars in the air over the Gulf. By matching a weapon that
was far from advanced with other weapons, they actually achieved miraculous results like this,
and the design and use of these weapons can be an inspiration that is hard to express in a few
words.
With regard to General McPeak, who was hastily given the job of the Air Force chief of staff not
long before the war started, the toothmarks he left in "this apple" were during the war, when he
was able to achieve his dream of breaking down the barriers between the strategic and tactical air
forces and establish mixed air force wings, as well as his use of the "subtract seven and add four"
approach following the war to bring about the most richly original reform of the Air Force
command structure in its history. That is, following the elimination of seven Air Force
commands, including the strategic, tactical, transport, logistics, systems, communications, and
security commands, he organized them into the four air combat, mobility, material and
intelligence commands. [15] It is hard to imagine how General McPeak's colleagues would have
taken such a bold innovation had there been no Gulf War. [16] However, those of us who were
outsiders during the Gulf War have no way of achieving enlightenment and lessons from it, et
cetera, et cetera.
If we pursue this to the limit, we will see that there are even more aspects to this apple, but not
all of them are by any means things that can be pointed out or circled everywhere. To tell the
truth, its flaws and questionable aspects are nearly as numerous as its strengths, but nonetheless
this cannot cause us to treat it with the slightest contempt. Although this was a war that is rich
with implications, it still cannot be treated as the encyclopedia of modern warfare, at least it does not provide us with any completely ready-made answers regarding future warfare. However,
after all, it does represent the first and most concentrated use of a large number of new and
advanced weapons since their appearance, as well as a testing ground for the revolution in
military affairs triggered by this, and this point is sufficient to earn it the position of a classic in
the history of warfare, as well as providing a completely new hotbed for our budding thoughts.
Footnotes
[1] See "The Gulf War -- Final Report of the Department of Defense to Congress," "Defense in
the New Age: Experiences and Lessons from the Gulf War," and other research reports.
[2] The first chapter ("A Unique War") in the research report Military Experiences and Lessons
of the Gulf War put out by the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies holds that
"Actually, the uniqueness of the Gulf War to a very great extent keeps us from being able to
draw lessons and experiences from it...in fact, just how much in the way of important, long-term
experiences and lessons can be drawn from the Gulf War is a major issue." (The Gulf War, Vol
2, Military Science Publishing House, 1992 internal publication, p 155)
Following the Gulf War, people in the Chinese military, who had been shaken intensely, from
the very beginning accepted the views of Western military circles almost completely, and at this
point there are quite a few of them who are beginning to rethink the lessons and experiences of
the Gulf War. (Conmilit, Nov 1998, No 262)
[3] The anti-Saddam alliance in the Arab world was centered around Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and
Syria. According to General Khalid, who was a commander of the allied forces in "Desert
Storm," Iraq posed an enormous threat to them, so "we have no other choice but to ask for the
assistance of friendly forces, particularly the United States." (see Desert Warrior, Military
Translations Publishing House, p 227)
The Americans also took the alliance very seriously. For details, see "Attachments to the Final
Report of the Department of Defense to Congress," No 9, "Alliance Construction, Coordination,
and Combat".
[4] Chapter 2 ("U.S. Military Reliance") of the research report Military Experiences and Lessons
of the Gulf War put out by the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies points out that
"this war demonstrated without a doubt that, whether with regard to politics or logistical support,
the U.S. military must rely on friendly states and allies. Without the considerable help of other
countries, the United States has no way to carry out any major emergency operation. Other than
in small operations, the option of 'going it alone' is basically unworkable, and all diplomatic and
defense policy decisions must be based on this understanding." (Ibid.).
[5] In the research report on the Gulf War done for the House of Representatives by L. Aspin and
W. Dickinson, there is high praise for the "Goldwater - Nichols DOD Reorganization Act,"
writing that "the Goldwater - Nichols DOD Reorganization Act ensured that the three military
services would pull together to fight the same war." The report also quoted Secretary of Defense
Cheney, saying that the said act "is the legislation with the most far-reaching impact on the
Department of Defense since the 'National Security Act.'" The generals in the military also had
high praise for it, with Navy Admiral Owens, who was formerly vice chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff terming the "Goldwater - Nichols DOD Reorganization Act" "one of the three
great revolutions in military affairs in the United States," and "this act stipulated that in all
conflicts, the fight would be conducted using a joint force, and it also clarified that chiefs of staff
of the services are no longer combat commanders. The combat commanders are the five theater
commanders in chief." (Journal of the National Defense University, No 11, 1998, pp 46-47;
Conmilit, No 12, 1998, p 24).
[6] General Merrill McPeak, who was Air Force chief of staff during the Gulf War, stated that
this was "a war which involved the massive use of air power and a victory achieved by the U.S.
and multinational air force units," and "it was also the first war in history in which air power was used to defeat ground forces" (Air Force Journal (U.S.), May 1991). In a statement prior to the
war, his predecessor Michael J. Dugan noted that "the only way to avoid much bloodshed in a
ground war is to use the Air Force." Although Dugan was seen to have overstepped his authority
and was removed from his post, his views were not at all mistaken.
[7] Whether it is the report from the DOD or L. Aspin's report to the House of Representatives,
both give a high assessment of the "air tasking order," holding that "the air tasking order
orchestrated a precisely-planned, integrated air battle."
[8] According to predictions by Russian and Western military specialists, "today, the lifespan of
a tank as an individual target on the battlefield does not exceed 2-3 minutes, and its lifespan in
the open as part of a battalion/company formation is 30-50 minutes." This kind of estimate by the
experts notwithstanding, most countries still have tanks serving as a main weapon (Soldier
(Russia), No 2, 1996). In an article entitled "The Future of Armored Warfare," Ralph Peter states
that "'Flying tanks' are something that people have wanted for a long time, but when one
considers the rational use of fuel and the physical and psychological factors during battle, the
future need is still for ground systems. Seeing that attack helicopters are already a concentration
of the various features that we envisioned for flying tanks, we believe that attack helicopters can
complement armored vehicles, but cannot replace them." (Parameters, Fall, 1997).
[9] Into the Storm: A Study in Command is the book that General Franks wrote after retiring. In
it he mentions that the speed with which the VII Corps crossed the desert was not a mistake, and
that the criticism from Riyadh was unreasonable. (See Army Times (U.S.), 18 August 1997).
[10] See "Appendix to the Final Report of the Department of Defense to Congress," p 522.
[11] See "Appendix to the Final Report of the Department of Defense to Congress," Section 19,
"News Reports."
[12] U.S. Army Field Manual FM100-6, Information Operations, discloses the details of this
dramatic event (See pp 68-69). The television news reports on the "expressway of death" also had an effect on the overly-early conclusion of the war. (Joint Force Quarterly, Fall-Winter
edition, 1997-98).
[13] Section 16 of the "Appendix to the Final Report of the Department of Defense to Congress"
has a special discussion of the issue of "shared responsibility." Contrary to the general belief, the
main reason for the U.S. to get their allies to share the costs of the war was not the economic
factor, but rather political considerations. In 21st Century Rivalries, Lester Thurow notes that,
with regard to the $61 billion that the war cost, "compared to its annual GDP of six trillion
dollars, this expense was hardly worth mentioning. The reason that they wanted those countries
which did not send combat personnel to the war to provide fiscal assistance was entirely to
convince the U.S. public that the war was not America's alone, but was a joint operation."
[14] In the magazine Special Operations, Major Jake Sam [as published] reviews the
circumstances of the psychological warfare conducted by the 4th Psyops Group during the Gulf
War. (See Special Operations, October 1992). In the December 1991 issue of the U.S. military's
Journal of Eastern Europe and Middle Eastern Military Affairs there is also an article devoted to
psychological warfare during the Gulf War.
[15] Air Force chief of staff McPeak advocated the use of "mixed wings" made up of several
kinds of aircraft to replace the wings made up of just one kind of aircraft. He said that "if we
were to do something else in Saudi Arabia today, we would no longer use wings outfitted with
72 F-16s, but rather a wing made up of some attack airplanes, air defense fighters, jamming
aircraft flying outside the air defense zone, "Wild Weasels," and refueling aircraft, etc.... This
tactic may be of use when an armed conflict breaks out in some region of the world." (Air Force
(U.S. journal), February 1991.
[16] Secretary of the Air Force Donald Rice held that "the Gulf War explained this point
(experience) very thoroughly: Air power can make the greatest contribution during the unified
and integrated planning and implementation of combat operations." General Michael Lowe [as
published], commander of the Tactical Air Command, pointed out that "using various terminology such as 'strategy' and 'tactics' to limit the types and missions of aircraft is impeding
the efforts to develop air power, and at this point, we must carry out organizational and structural
reforms." (See Air Force Manual AFM1-1 Basic Aerospace Theories of the U.S. Air Force, p
329, footnote 8). Deputy Chief of Staff for programs and operations Jenny V. Adams [as
published] believes that the lesson to be drawn from the Gulf War is "to modify, not review, our
combat regulations." USAF Deputy Chief of Staff for logistics and engineering Henry Weiqiliao
[as published] also approves of carrying out reforms to reduce the weak links in the support area.
See Jane's Defense Weekly, 9 March 1991.
