Thinking further about Mr Bush’s tap dance today at Annapolis, I had some thoughts about troop withdrawal. What if we have to go out the way we came in?
Shooting.
Martin van Creveld is a professor of military history at Hebrew University and the author of a number of very insightful books. Two in particular convey a very serious message to a United States trying to create an overseas empire in the Middle East. His 1991 Transformation of War and his 1999 The Rise and Decline of the State are very troubling examinations of where we are, and where we are trying to go, as a nation. He’s got a think piece in The Forward that can curl your nose hairs as he compares Iraq to Viet Nam:
"Whereas North Vietnam at least had a government with which it was possible to arrange a cease-fire, in Iraq the opponent consists of shadowy groups of terrorists with no central organization or command authority. And whereas in the early 1970s equipment was still relatively plentiful, today's armed forces are the products of a technology-driven revolution in military affairs. Whether that revolution has contributed to anything besides America's national debt is open to debate. What is beyond question, though, is that the new weapons are so few and so expensive that even the world's largest and richest power can afford only to field a relative handful of them. "Therefore, simply abandoning equipment or handing it over to the Iraqis, as was done in Vietnam, is simply not an option. And even if it were, the new Iraqi army is by all accounts much weaker, less skilled, less cohesive and less loyal to its government than even the South Vietnamese army was. For all intents and purposes, Washington might just as well hand over its weapons directly to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Clearly, then, the thing to do is to forget about face-saving and conduct a classic withdrawal."He’s talking here about the classic collapsing cordon, in which forces slowly withdraw to a chosen point of evacuation, maintaining a strong defensive perimeter, and typically fighting off attacks designed to pierce that perimeter, rather than harrying attacks designed to keep an enemy off-balance. You've got to fight, maintain unit integrity, keep constant contact with friendly units on your flanks, and keep the enemy out of the cordon, all while falling back in an orderly manner.
In a retreat like that, the soft logistic “tail” must be evacuated first, if possible. Truck drivers, doctors and nurses in large hospital facilities, cooks and bakers, engineers, supply clerks, all the myriad support units needed to supply a fighting Corps have to leave while the battalions fight and slowly close in on the evacuation point.
The last time US forces had to do this sort of maneuver was in Korea, when the 1st Marine Division earned undying fame retreating from “Frozen Chosin” protecting the rest of 10th US Army as it moved south to the port of Hungnam for evacuation. Approximately 4,200 Marines fought off 120,000 Chinese troops. While researching for specifics, I discovered an order that Mao Dze-Dung issued to one of his commanders, General Song Shilun:
"The American Marine First Division has the highest combat effectiveness in the American armed forces. It seems not enough for our four divisions to surround and annihilate its two regiments. (You) should have one or two more divisions as a reserve force."
Can we do this in Iraq?
No.
We don’t have a lot of truck drivers, cooks and bakers, engineers, supply clerks, etc. What we’ve got is Halliburton, and Bechtel, and the other civilian recipients of Republican Party largesse, and they employ Philippinos, Bahrainis, Indians, Sri Lankans, and who knows what other nationalities to operate our logistical tail. In a retreat like Korea, the English-speaking bosses and managers of Halliburton and Bechtel will be long gone, and US troops will be stumbling over the workers, many of whom probably have limited English, at best. Not to sound racist, but it would be like a Chinese fire drill.
During the invasion of Iraq, in 2003, mechanized US troops drove on so fast they outstripped the supply reach of the civilianized logistical tail. Remember all the stories of troops limited to 1 and 2 liters of water per day? One MRE per day? Some units even had ammo shortages. It took weeks for a bloated but unprepared civilian supply system to catch up.
A mechanized unit can carry no more than 3 to 4 days supplies in their organic units. In the mobile attack, it’s possible to bypass strong defensive points, and pick them off later. You can’t do that in the fighting retreat. You’ve got to fight for your life every time you encounter resistance during the withdrawal. That’s high expenditure of ammunition and fuel, in theory at every village, crossroads, ridgeline, and any other geographic point where defense is possible.
A fighting withdrawal could be difficult.
Martin van Creveld:
"Handing over their bases or demolishing them if necessary, American forces will have to fall back on Baghdad. From Baghdad they will have to make their way to the southern port city of Basra, and from there back to Kuwait, where the whole misguided adventure began. When Prime Minister Ehud Barak pulled Israel out of Lebanon in 2000, the military was able to carry out the operation in a single night without incurring any casualties. That, however, is not how things will happen in Iraq.
"Not only are American forces perhaps 30 times larger, but so is the country they have to traverse. A withdrawal probably will require several months and incur a sizable number of casualties. As the pullout proceeds, Iraq almost certainly will sink into an all-out civil war from which it will take the country a long time to emerge — if, indeed, it can do so at all. All this is inevitable and will take place whether George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice like it or not."
I don’t want to see this happen.
Comments
Lurch, 2 things: one, Arthur is going to be doing some World War 1 stuff shortly. Everything we see now is a result of that war in some way or another, and I agree, as that is my "favorite" war. My 2 grandfathers were on opposing sides, maybe that makes me wonder why I am here. Pictures you can see posted here (ignore the email):
http://www.gwpda.org/photos/maier.htm
Can you belive my grandfather and his brother were in the same machine gun crew?
And #2, David Halberstam was on NPR this afternoon. As soon as I got in my car, he said, talking about the speech, "This is stupid."
Wow, WK, great family photos. :) Some nice shots of a really ineptly managed war. I didn't understand the comment about ignoring email, but I did have a few comments and questions.
I'm not surprised that your grandfather and his brother were in the same unit. Historically most German Army units were geographically cohesive. Especially so in pre-WWI units when the "Army" was actually composed of units raised locally, and remember that "Germany" at that time was actually more like a Confederation. If I remember right, there was a Prussian Army, a Bavarian Army, and another that owed allegiance to Baden-Wuerttemburg, I think. The various political entities were united under the command of the Prussian General Staff in time of war.
Each "Army" was distinguished by different cuffs, buttons, Waffenfarben, and cockades, those little buttons on the forage caps. The cockades on the caps that can be distinguished look like they might be Prussian. Do you know where your grandfather lived?
You must have a very adventurous family history. :) Congrats.
Lurch,
My email comment was becasue the email associated with those pics is old and doesn't work anymore. The email I use here is the correct one. I had a few glasses of wine last night. ;-)
Thanks for the comments on the pics. My grandfather gave me those pictures (I have others that I never submitted, some pretty graphic). He never spoke about his war experience to anyone. I find that happens a lot with veterans, for another example my father-in-law who was in the Marines in the Pacific Theater in WW2. Apart from the fact that he was a shooting instructor that is (leading to deafness in one ear), he never spoke of his experience.
To answer your question, yes I know where my grandfather lived, a tiny village called Locherhof in the Black Forest, about an hour south of Stuttgart in the state of Baden-Wuerttemburg. If that helps, and you can make any surmises, I'd be grateful, thanks!
Keep up the good work!
Lurch, good post, and one which keeps coming back to me for re-thinking.
I'd suggest reading Harold Coyle's "The Ten Thousand" for a fictional perspective on the difficulties of a fighting withdrawal.
Planned correctly, that withdrawal from Iraq would involve early, and very obvious, stockpiling of supplies along the evac route, probably what is now MSR Tampa. Your point about not just leaving equipment is very well taken; we'd end up fighting variants of our own stuff very soon down the road. But, this is if the military is allowed to plan "correctly", sans expertise and massaging by the suits. Who, we've seen to our dismay, labor under the delusion that they know how to plan and execute. I have a fear that "cut and run" would be a charitable description of what the R's eventually come up with. I pray not.....
Thanks for the additional information, WK. I'm vaguely familiar with the area you describe as your grandfather's Ort. I did some odds and ends in that general area while I was stationed in Germany. I don't know the village the village itself, but it has quite a few Google entries, mostly for its football team. Have you ever had th chance to go there?
Some additional information about WWI uniforms and rank and State designations are available here, if you're interested http://www.worldwar1.com/sfgarmy.htm ("Introduction" and "August 1914") and here http://www.worldwar1.com/sfgrank.htm.
There's a fellow who has posted some really nice pics of his great grandfather here http://www.pbase.com/jgr/geissler and the pics give some nice examples of Achselstuecke, if you have any interest. And because discussion in the intenet is ENDLESS, you can find others discussing Urgrossvater Geissler's pics here http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/message/an/topics.Military.german/83.
Neil, thanks for the compliment. I've read all of Coyle. I found his first three books a lot more interesting than the later ones, because he discusses the nuts and bolts of Company level operations. Even though I was a grunt, and not a treadhead, I still think like a NCO, sadly. I liked 10,000, mainly because of the literary allusion to Xenophon's "Anabasis". I think though, we get so much propaganda about the Abrams tank as the greatest thing since sliced bread, that a real meeting engagement with German Leopard II tanks might be a rude awakening. Let's hope it never happens.
Re the planned evacuation, via MSR Tampa: prepositioning supplies will require a LOT of defensive positions to protect those supplies, no? More troops to defend pre-positioned sites means less troops on your collapsing cordon. Plus, the cordon would most likely not be fighting organized units, as in Korea, but something more like the VC in Nam, where you had the equivalent of local militias that apeared for an attack, and then faded back into the populace. Limited troop levels guarding depots can't pursue these attackers; they'll hit, withdraw, reform, and hit again later. And the withdrawing columns might end up fighting on all four sides.
That's all supposition, and despite the R's presumed military preeminence, I think there will be a negotiated settlement, allowing an unopposed phased withdrawal. If that doesn't work, it could get real ugly, and the F-16 drivers in the Air Force are gonna get a lot more practice at ground support.
Lurch,
Thanks for that info. I'll check it out. I had found this site at one point http://www.feldgrau.com but it's more AFTER WW1. Boy these internets are a wonderful resource. ;-)
Yes, I've been to Locherhof, most recently last year. Still have cousins and aunts and uncles living there. Absolutely gorgeous countryside, very peaceful.
I know feldgrau. For people with waay too much time on their hands [graceful blush] it's got some nice minutiae.
Is there a churchyard cemetery in Locherhof? Don't forget those relaitves, WK.
Indeed there is a churchyard cemetery in Locherhof, Lurch. Many many relatives buried there. We exchange Christmas greetings every year, I mean with the relatives still alive! Family tree in Locherhof goes back to the 1600s. I may try to get back there for a visit in the next 2-3 years, but we'll see.
BTW, this is an interesting addendum to your and Neil's conversation above.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200512/iraq-withdrawal
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