LTC Gian Gentile wrote this op/ed for the San Francisco Chronicle and was kind enough to send me a heads up at the time of publication (November 9). I’ve been snowed under enough not to post it until now. Apologies to him — and you, dear reader — for the delay.
Want to stop Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs, from going off in Iraq and killing American soldiers and Marines? Then end the war.
This is not a political or policy statement on my part but a simple matter of fact based on my personal experience as a tactical battalion commander in west Baghdad in 2006 and on history. How did the warring sides in World War I stop the deadly artillery barrages that became endemic to that war? When the states involved agreed politically to end the war and the deadly artillery stopped.
In WWI, the supreme goal on the battlefield was to attack deep enough through enemy trench-lines to get at the other side’s artillery. But the conditions of trench warfare were such that none of the warring sides was able to get through deep enough and long enough to destroy the other’s artillery. Adjustments in the tactics of fighting and moving within the trenches were tried but, without a political agreement to end the war, the deadly artillery continued.
Artillery in WWI was a fundamental condition of the battlefield, like mud – something that could not be changed regardless of how much technology was applied or tactical innovation created. This is the case with IEDs in Iraq.
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Whatever you think of his views on Iraq, his characterization of the First World War is out of date and wrong – the sort of thing that makes Dan Todman throw radios at the wall!
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 11/15/2007 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
Dear LTC Gentile, it’s called “war,” but it’s not a war you understood.
“Just as Alexander’s exploits only reached the Middle Ages as a dim, fantastic tale, so in the future people
will probably look back upon the twentieth century as a period of mighty empires, vast armies and
incredible fighting machines that have crumbled into dust.”
Van Creveld
To Mr Robinson:
Your opinion, but fellow battalion commanders of mine while in Iraq agreed with the analogy of ieds to artillery in world war 1 as conditions of those respective battlefields. Too, i am not going to drop names but many historians of the first rate read the piece and agreed with it. Whatever, you got your opinion and i got mine, based on a combination of history and experience in Iraq.
Mr SoldierNoLongerinIraq: I dont understand your post. Please help me to. Am i supposed to infer something from Van Crevald relevant to my oped piece?
thanks
gian
“Your opinion, but fellow battalion commanders of mine while in Iraq agreed with the analogy of ieds to artillery in world war 1 as conditions of those respective battlefields”
My guess would be that he’s criticizing your assertion that “none of the warring sides was able to get through deep enough and long enough to destroy the other’s artillery.” I suspect both the Germans of March-April 1918, and the British of September-October 1918 would disagree with that assertion.
“Just as Alexander’s exploits only reached the Middle Ages as a dim, fantastic tale, so in the future people will probably look back upon the twentieth century as a period of mighty empires, vast armies and incredible fighting machines that have crumbled into dust.”
OK, I guess the point in the Van Crevald quote that i am supposed to infer is that everhting i write and that i have done in war is irrelevant since it will not stand the test of time and empires and history.
But come on, we can do better than the stodgy old historian Van Crevald; how about this one?
“I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment’s gone
All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity
Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind.
Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do, crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see
Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind”
Kansas
Neither side on the Western Front found enemy artillery to be an insurmountable problem. The Germans developed defence in depth in order to reduce the casualties that they suffered from artillery when manning linear trenches. The British developed more effective counter-battery fire using sound ranging and flash spotting. This doesn’t undermine the point you’re making – I think you’re right that at present there is no effective counter to IEDs – but illustrating it with an analogy which relies on popular myths about the First World War doesn’t do the argument any favours.
It just isn’t true that the First World War was a futile stalemate which only ended when both sides decided to negotiate a peace. The Germans surrendered on very unfavourable terms in November 1918 because they were losing very badly. The allied offensives were breaking right through the German defences (which weren’t linear trenches by this time – see above about defence in depth) and capturing their artillery. The German army was outnumbered and outclassed, and couldn’t hold territory effectively. The German economy was collapsing, civilians were starving and there was a revolution. If this is a good analogy for the current situation in Iraq, which side is supposed to represent the US?
Finally mud wasn’t “a fundamental condition of the battlefield” on the Western Front. Even at Third Ypres it wasn’t muddy all the time.
Mr Robinson:
Right, but when did the artillery finally stop? Not until both sides agreed politically to end the war. Of course there were tactical successes at getting at the other side’s artillery, just like we have tactical success daily in Iraq against IEDs, but to make it stop both sides had to agree politically to end the war.
Too, in a 650 word oped piece there is only so much one can do in getting at the historical nuance of battlefield conditions in World War I. However, i still think the analogy is sound and more importantly it allowed me to get at greater point in my oped, especially with all of the victory-speak on Iraq emanating from the AEI command posts, that continued operations in Iraq comes at a price in blood and treasure.
Mud wasn’t always there, but i bet if you asked any veteran of the western front to describe conditions of the battlefield mud would have come up often in their remarks. Sort of like garbage on the streets of Baghdad
thanks for your comments and thoughts.
gian
I basically agree with the Colonel’s analogy.
However, it must be pointed out that until the economics of war directly effect the US economy, with obvious adversity, the war in Iraq will continue to ebb and flow, much as it has during the past four years plus. For it is the economics of war that will ultimately bring about a termination to this conflict.
The point, LTC, was that to use the term “politics” in this sense was banal. I guess I simply question why you would write an op-ed that boils down to, “IEDs stop when war stops.”
First, because as a tactical commander you understand the importance of IEDs as a form of weapon. With the IED, the insurgent surmounts the lethality self-limit. It allows the militant to use bombs without nearly as much risk to himself as would be necessary for insurgents armed with rifles or RPGs, artillery or aircraft.
What would have been interesting for your readers would have been to explore why IEDs are the ubiquitous weapon of the insurgency. The way to start is with the lethality self-limit.
But then one gets into discussions of who uses IEDs, and for what reasons. While it’s true that insurgent groups stating a political cause use them, so it’s also valid to point to criminal syndicates; mercenaries hired by cells and crime networks to sow confusion and exact retribution (not just against Coalition forces); foreign fighters who find them to be nice focal points in videotaped propaganda pieces; organizations such as JAM that combine theology, caste and criminal support links to perpetuate violence; and those on the battlefield in OIF who have approached a nearly endemic state of war that makes killing in and of itself it’s own goal.
This is a battlescape devoid of “political” discussions, or at least discussions that could be informed by a nebulous allusion to a Wesphalian conflict such as WWI.
Not only that, but it reeks of Clausewitz.
As a colleague of mine recently mentioned in another forum, van Creveld, Enzensberger, et al can better inform us here:
“Nothing remains of the guerrilla’s heroic halo. Once
ideologically armed to the teeth and exploited by their
shadowy backers, today’s guerrillas and anti-guerrillas
have become self-employed. What remains is the armed
mob. All the self-proclaiming armies of liberation,
people’s movements and fronts degenerate into marauding
bands, indistinguishable from their opponents…What
gives today’s civil wars a new and terrifying slant is
the fact that they are waged without stakes on either
side, that they are wars about nothing at all.”
“Right, but when did the artillery finally stop? ”
Either the point is so broad as to be meaningless–”fighting will only stop when there is peace”–or it’s wrong. Both the Germans and the Entente forces *did* figure out how to break through to the artillery and onward, and thus break the stalemate of the trenches. The Germans couldn’t sustain it in spring 1918, while the Entente forces in the fall of that year could.
Of course, we have found SOME technological mitigations for the IED threat. See this article in the Washington Post.