What the Americans do have is ingenuity. Stephen Ambrose in his many books on World War II continuously observed that under the strain of combat, the American soldiers who were raised in freedom, constantly were able to adapt more freely to conditions on the ground than their German counterparts. Technology is not all that wins wars. It also takes the soldier on the ground to make it work. The American soldier is raised in a world of technology, so a strategy based on technology is second nature and this shows in combat as well. The American soldier brings this strength into battle.
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.
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