IF A SINGLE IMAGE FROM THE GULF WAR is firmly fixed in America’s mind, it is that of a guided missile striking the door of an Iraqi bunker. The moment that CNN flashed that image around the world, it became the symbol of America’s technological supremacy. The ground war that followed offered no images to compete with it, and the speedy subsequent peace brought a belief that, for the first time in history, attack from the air had won a war.
Since then, the United States has steadily reduced its ground forces, justifying that reduction on grounds that enormous air and technological superiority more than compensate. Many have come to believe that air power by itself is adequate to resolve crises such as the current one in Iraq. But this belief is wrong, and, not only wrong, but dangerously so. The current crisis is precisely the sort of situation least suited to solution by air power alone. If our objective is to remove Saddam from power and destroy Iraq’s capability to manufacture weapons of mass destruction, it is ground forces that must play the decisive role.
A recent General Accounting Office report has undermined the claim that the U.S. air war defeated Saddam. The report points out the obvious fact that, although “some air war planners hoped that the air war alone would cause the Iraqis to leave Kuwait . . . after 38 days of nearly continuous bombardment, a ground campaign was still deemed necessary.” The United States was forced to conduct a ground war in part because the air campaign failed to destroy the Iraqi army and Saddam’s ability to wage war. According to the GAO report, “Central Intelligence Agency analysis showed that more than 70 percent of the tanks in three Republican Guard divisions located in the Kuwait theater of operations remained intact at the start of the ground campaign and that large numbers were able to escape across the Euphrates River before the cease-fire.” Since 1991, air power proponents have boasted of our ability to destroy an enemy’s command, control, and communications (called “C3”) and to interdict supplies. But the GAO report concludes that, with the air war, “Iraq’s C3 and [supply] capabilities were partially degraded; although more than half of these targets were successfully destroyed, Saddam Hussein was able to direct and supply many Iraqi forces through the end of the air campaign and even immediately after the war.” Indeed, when lead American units encountered the Republican Guard formations, those formations were supplied, communicating with headquarters, and ready for action. Only an encounter with American ground forces changed things.
In the present crisis, America’s primary aim, in the event of military action, would be to destroy Saddam’s ability to manufacture weapons of mass destruction. The GAO found that “lack of intelligence about most Iraqi nuclear-related facilities meant that only less than 15 percent were targeted. The concerted campaign to destroy mobile Scud launchers did not achieve any confirmed kills.” In other words, targeting is only as good as the intelligence it is based on, and mobile targets are difficult to find and destroy. The continued absence of U.N. inspectors steadily diminishes our intelligence about possible locations of weapons-production sites; the materials needed to produce those weapons are by their nature highly mobile. So is destroying such weapons impossible?
The answer is yes, if we rely exclusively on air power. Air power deals in probabilities: the probability that someone has identified the right target, that the pilot finds that target, that the bomb or missile fired hits the target, that the bomb actually destroys the target, and so on. It is inevitable that an air attack, no matter how extensive, will leave numerous targets intact. And because bomb-damage assessment is notoriously difficult, it is certain that some targets left untouched will be reported destroyed. Therefore, at the conclusion of any bombing campaign, not only will we not have destroyed all of Iraq’s most alarming capabilities, we will not even know for sure what has been taken out and what still stands. This is why we have demanded on-site inspections. It is also why ground forces will be essential in any campaign to destroy Saddam’s mass-terror ability.
Ground forces, unlike air forces, deal in certainties. Soldiers on the ground know when an enemy tank has been destroyed. They can check, or bring in specialists to check, whether a building actually did house weapons-making facilities and, if so, whether those facilities were destroyed. It is true that soldiers on the ground will fail to identify all possible targets, just as satellites and reconnaissance aircraft will, but when targets are indeed attacked, soldiers on the ground know whether those targets have been destroyed — meanwhile, electronic sensors can only guess. And the difference between knowledge and guesses, when dealing with weapons of mass destruction, is vital.
Ground forces are essential for yet another reason: Our history with Saddam has taught him that ground forces are decisive where air forces are not. After 38 days of intensive air attack, significant portions of the Iraqi army were combat-capable, and the dictator did not surrender. After 100 hours of ground war, most of the Iraqi army had been disabled or destroyed — and Saddam gave up. We have taught him that, though air attack will hurt him, ground attack will destroy him. Thus, threatening a ground attack could intimidate Saddam in a way that the threat of air power will not.
Unfortunately, the belief that air power won the Gulf War has helped to erode our ability to conduct an assault on the ground. Since 1991, America’s armed forces have been cut across the board by over 30 percent; the Army has been reduced from 16 divisions to 10. In 1990, we deployed the equivalent of six heavy divisions to the Gulf and had five more in reserve. Today, there are only six and one-third heavy divisions in the entire Army. One of those is in Korea — and there it must remain, especially when tensions with Iraq draw the rest of the Army to the Middle East. Another division is devoted to training and modernization programs and is not deployable. If we had to go to war with Iraq tomorrow, we could field perhaps two-thirds of the armored forces we sent in 1990. It is true that Iraq is also much weaker than it was in 1990, but the task of deposing Saddam and eradicating his weapons capabilities is more daunting than that of ejecting the Iraqi army from Kuwait.
There is no doubt that we could defeat Iraq again both on the ground and in the air (and, of course, any ground attack should be preceded and accompanied by a substantial air campaign). But it is critical to remember the lesson about air power: The threat of air attack can have a significant psychological impact on an enemy who has not known attack from the air; but against populations and troops that have survived such bombings, neither the threat of air attacks nor their execution is necessarily convincing. It is unfortunate that the apparent success of the air war in 1991 has obscured this basic truth and has seduced us into allowing our ground capability to dwindle. Yes, Iraq can be deterred, coerced, or defeated — but, for certain, only on the ground.
Frederick W. Kagan is an assistant professor of military history at West Point. The views expressed here are his alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Military Academy, the Army, or the Defense Department.
