Wall Street Journal
August 2, 2000

The Perfect War Led America's Military Astray

By Bernard E. Trainor

Most Americans will scarcely note today's anniversary of the Gulf War. Ten years ago, the cream of a battle-hardened Iraqi army stormed across the borders of oil-rich neighboring Kuwait and in a matter of hours brought it under the thumb of Saddam Hussein. Seven months later that army had either been destroyed or had fled back across the Euphrates River into Iraq and Saddam Hussein's military and economic infrastructure lay in ruins. Kuwait was liberated and the world stood in awe of the American way of war.

Though the outcome looks inevitable in retrospect, there were many doubters beforehand. No one was really sure how well our new all-volunteer army would perform in the crucible of battle. Popular support at home was far from assured if thousands of casualties ensued. Many experts predicted that all the new high-technology weapons systems would fail or be beyond a common soldier's ability to operate.

However, the war turned out to be no contest. Iraq was paralyzed by a sustained bombing campaign and when a ground offensive was launched Saddam Hussein's field forces proved no match for the Americans. The coalition remained intact, the troops performed well, the weapons systems worked, friendly casualties were minuscule and the Iraqis hastily abandoned Kuwait. It seemed like the perfect war.

But despite the Bush administration's hope that the defeat of the Iraqi army would lead to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, he remained firmly in power. Most of the Iraqi forces had escaped from Kuwait and ruthlessly put down rebellions against the Baghdad regime that had erupted in the north and south. The Gulf War turned out to be a modest victory snatched from the jaws of triumph.

The Air Force claimed the lion's share of credit. The world was treated to dramatic television sequences of air- launched missiles and sea-launched Tomahawks going down air shafts or blowing up bridges. What was not shown were bombing missions aborted due to cloud and weather interference or the relative inaccuracy of conventional bombs, which made up 82% of munitions dropped in the war. Also minimized was the fact that our most advanced targeting systems were inadequate against mobile targets. Not one of the mounted Scud missiles the Iraqis were firing into Israel and Saudi Arabia was located and destroyed.

Intelligence collection was seen as another great improvement in the war. Satellites, reconnaissance aircraft, electronic intercepts and a host of other systems provided the high command with detailed information on Iraqi forces. Unfortunately the intelligence community couldn't distribute the information in a timely fashion to front-line commanders. After the war, one senior officer said, "I knew no more about the unit I was facing than I did 20 years ago in Vietnam."

The American armed forces emerged from the Gulf War with a renewed sense of pride, but many in the military have drawn the wrong lessons from the war.

The Gulf War reaffirmed the Pentagon's orientation toward classical warfare where enemies meet on a common battlefield. But there is no enemy on the horizon likely to fight that kind of war against the all-powerful U.S. military. Future enemies are more likely to pursue "asymmetrical warfare," avoiding our strengths and exploiting our weakness, through terrorism, chemical and biological attacks on the homeland, or computer mischief. Intellectually, the military recognizes this likelihood, but culturally it is still wedded to its traditional concept of warfare as represented by its victory in the Gulf.

The military also has trouble coming to terms with another postwar phenomenon: peacekeeping in places like Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia and Kosovo. It is easy to understand the military's unease. Our soldiers are trained to close in on the enemy and destroy him with the utmost violence. That is the way it was in the Gulf. Peace operations, on the other hand, require restraint and a minimum of force. It is difficult to ask young American soldiers to be both warrior and constable.

Even in peacekeeping, senior officers want a clear objective and public support. They also want to avoid casualties so as not to lose public support. Thus "force protection" has become an overriding command obligation. The military has become casualty shy.

In a related development, the military has also become focused on a high-tech approach to warfare. The "revolution in military affairs" is now the mantra of those who seek remote, clinical and surgical solutions to what has traditionally been a close-in, chaotic and bloody brawl. This has weakened the concept of the warrior as the androgynous technician has gained ascendancy in some quarters.

Fascinated by what was achieved during the Gulf War, the Clinton administration turned to the Air Force to solve its problem with the Serbs in Kosovo. But while Slobodan Milosevic ultimately withdrew from Kosovo, there is no evidence that our bombing campaign was the main reason. Nonetheless, the "air option" remains an attractive form of coercive diplomacy. That is the danger. It may become too attractive to future generations of decision makers and make force the first option rather than the last one.

Mr. Trainor is a retired Marine general and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is co-author of "The Generals' War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf" (Little, Brown, 1996).