General Franks observed that Speed kills and Colonel Peters followed this thought by observing, “But the campaign the U.S. military fought cast off the rules of the modern era. We fought the first post-modern war. In the final grudge match between Clausewitz and GI Joe, it was a shutout. And no other military on earth could have done it…. The Russian advisors [to the Iraqi army] fail to grasp the profound changes in our military and the American way of war. …They clearly had no sense of battlefield awareness, speed, precision and tactical ferocity of America’s 21st century forces.”
Indian writer Pramit Pal Chaudhuri wrote in India’s Hindustan Times, “Russia provides the type of weapons needed for mass wars of millions of men, thousands of warplanes and tanks. What New Delhi is looking for today is smart weaponry, stuff that will allow it to attack a terrorist camp with smart missiles or stealth-drop commandos. This is exactly what Russia cannot provide. As it is, even the warplanes it sells now have to get their more advanced avionics and missiles from Israel or France.” Many nations will re examine their military strategy and the weapons that go with it. Countries like India are now studying our tactics to adopt for their very own. The Anglosphere superiority in technology allows them to be able to fight any kind of war in any place of the world.
Keegan viewed the second Gulf War as an old fashioned war when he agreed with Frank’s assessment, “Speed Kills” when he wrote, “the blitzkrieg effect being achieved simply by speed and efficiency of execution.” The speed with which this battle took place was breathtaking. Keegan stated, “The dash from Kuwait to the vicinity of Baghdad was done at a speed unequalled in military history. The convoys, moreover, brought not only ammunition, water and food, but also the tanks, loaded on to transporters, without which there would have been breakdowns…The US Army transport services pride themselves, justifiably, on their ability to deliver necessities on time and over distance.”
What will be viewed is the flexibility of the American forces. As the old adage goes, a plan fails to survive the first bullet flying and this was certainly the case. The war began with a strike on Hussein’s headquarters in an attempt to cut off the head of the regime and when Turkey failed to allow the 4th Army to break from the North, Franks had to change the game plan.
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