Fred Kaplan details that the origin of both Gulf War victories began in the early 80's. With the advent of digital technology, a new war-fighting doctrine was born. With the defeat suffered in Vietnam, a whole generation of officers determined never to repeat Vietnam's mistakes. Among those were Huba Wass de Czege, who wrote a major revision that broke the Army's previous strategy of attrition warfare, setting up static lines against the enemy's assault, and repulsing it with superior firepower. De Czege began a new strategy that emphasizes lightening strikes behind enemy lines and emphasizing speed. Speed Kills. When the first Gulf War began, many of De Czege's students were part of Norman Schwarzkopf's staff and the Gulf War was a combination of superior firepower matched with feints and the classic deep strike behind Saddam's army, still in Kuwait.

With the advent of smart bombs and their increased use in the combat the military could better target its weapons while employing deception. Increased accuracy also meant less civilian causality. Fred Kaplan said of this strategy, "Operation Desert Storm was really two wars--the air war and the ground war--each fought autonomously and in sequence. Gulf War II was an integrated war, waged simultaneously and in synchronicity, on the ground, at sea, and in the air. The vast majority of air strikes, from Air Force bombers and attack planes as well as Navy fighters, were delivered on Iraqi Republican Guards, in order to ease the path of U.S. Army soldiers and Marines thrusting north to Baghdad." As mentioned previously, synergy of all of the services became a reality. In addition Fred Kaplan stated, "Another new thing, which started in Afghanistan and continued in Iraq, was the systematic inclusion of the so-called "shadow soldiers," the special operations forces. The 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act, which was best-known for giving new authority to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also made special ops a separate command, with its own budget." The warriors of the night became an integral part of American strategy.

A pundit recently pointed out that an army that combines the use of Dolphins and satellites is a tough army to beat. This is an army that is capable of using what is available to fight. Americans use old-fashioned "Yankee know-how" in war as effectively as they do in business. The entrepreneurial spirit that exists outside the military has now made its way into the military. Anglosphere nations power lies not just in its economics prowess but its military as well.

What Gulf War II showed is that the future war on terrorism will be fought with actual combat, imaginative diplomacy, and through actual subversion of terrorist sponsor states. The combat tactics of Gulf War II demonstrated that the United States has the capability to either strike with the thunder of armed columns or the lightning speed of special ops operating in the shadows. To win the war on terror in the 21st century we will need armed forces that can essentially fight under any and all conditions. Nothing replaces a well-trained soldier carrying out the policies of diplomats; but without the soldier, diplomacy is nothing more than an empty bluff.

India and the Anglosphere