From: Fengxi Zhou <fengxi@prancer.eche.ualberta.ca>
Subject: Re: desert storm operations
Organization: University Of Alberta, Edmonton Canada
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 17:39:22 GMT


From Fengxi Zhou <fengxi@prancer.eche.ualberta.ca>

mclno@oasys.dt.navy.mil ("Jeffery Capt. Shue") writes:
: 
: From "Jeffery Capt. Shue" <mclno@oasys.dt.navy.mil>
: >
: It looks like a cakewalk now but at the time it didn't look like it
: would be that easy. Remember that Iraq had just fought a war with Iran
: so their troops were supposed to be veterans. The United States hadn't
: fought a major war since Viet Nam and most of the junior officers and
: troops had no combat experience. The intelligence guys with the satellites

To be more precise, Iraq just fought a major tribal war with all the modern
weaponery they can get hands on, and US hadn't fought and won any major war
since WW II.  In Korea, they fought to a stalemate to the technically inferior
opponents (MacArthur (sp?) virtually took whole N. Korea before he was beaten
back to the south and stabalized at 38 parallel).  The humiliation in Vietnam
is still fresh in the minds of US military.  Bush and military saw a chance
of beating up a paper tiger and they grabbed it.  Remember how Bush changed
his response during first few day of Gulf crisis?  They knew it's a no-lose
war.  The trick is to win it at minimum cost which they achieved nothing short
of marvelously, diplomatically and militarily.  US military might ensured a
maximum overkill which quickly crushed Iraqi defence.

: simply counted noses, tanks, APCs, aircraft and other hardware. (Which
: points out the problem with relying solely on electronic means of gathering
: intel.) With the combination of alot of 1st class hardware and supposedly
: veteran troops it looked (on paper) like the coalition forces were in
: for a fight. The fact that Iraqi forces simply collapsed and their will
: was broken is extremely difficult to predict.  The rapid destruction
: of Iraqi forces  was due to a combination of factors including the technologica
: l edge and the doctrinal edge (also the fact that the majority of Iraqis
: in Kuwait thought it was wrong for them to be there).
:
Part of the demoralization was also due to the clear knowledge of "no-win war"
from Iraqi perspective.  Not many people with clear mind are willing to fight
and die for a no-win situation. 

: Yes we walked all over them but we were also very lucky and in some
: cases they were very stupid. If Saddam had invaded Saudi Arabia in August
: 1990 before we had sufficient troops there the story would have been
: vey different.
:
The progress of the war would be different but the outcome not.  That way 
Saddam exposed his huge flank to Marine attack which is a US specialty.  There
is no way he could defend the all the coast line.  Yes, it would be lengthier.
But probably actually easier because he had to spread his forces over a much
larger area and prone to air and sea attack.  And mind you, Saddam was not so
stupid as to believe he really could win the war militarily.  He was fight a
political war.  Any part of the long chain of diplomatic events, from FUSSR
and/or Chinese support to Israeli involvement to discord among Arab nations,
could complicate thing much more than half dozen army divisions do.  He was
counting on the non-military factors to help him.  The forces in Kuwait was
a sort of "deterrant" force.  He didn't even set up meaningful defence along
Saudi-Iraqi border because he took some of coalition leader's words too
literally.


Anyway, just my $0.02CAN.

: J.P. Shue
: Standard disclaimers apply.
: 
:
Fengxi 
: 

Newsgroups: sci.military