Too much the pessimist?

A Tactics Primer, by William S. Lind

Well...maybe "pessimist" isn't the right term. I would argue that the Americans showed flashes of 3GW in the first Gulf War (think 24th ID) and fought an aggressive campaign of maneuver vs. the Iraqis at the start of the the current conflict. The drawback to 3GW tactics is that they are often inconclusive if they do not completely incapacitate the regenerative powers of their opponent. The Germans used "3GW" from WWI on...and LOST both wars. Primarily because maneuver ended up being less important than mass, depth, and resources. All of their wonderful encirclements failed to knock Russia or Britain out of WWII. Once the Allies had developed their own style of "3GW," they stomped the Germans guts in because maneuver warfare, executed as the coup de grace after an attrition-based campaign, proved to be much more effective.

Looking again at Iraq, an aggressive maneuver campaign meant the Iraqi army was able to disintegrate. Because shedding a uniform did not mean ending hostilities, it turned out to be meaningless. In fact, by forcing the Iraqis out of OUR comfort zone (organized, hierarchical military formations that fit our targeting templates), we merely pushed them into their own comfort zone - one that is well outside of ours. We've been struggling ever since.

All that being said, the US could NOT have fought an attrition campaign prior to the ground war in 2003. With the stated objective(s) of the campaign, causing mass Iraqi casualties would not have helped. Of course, allowing euphoric looting and rioting to degenerate into lawlessness, chaos, crime, and insurgency didn't exactly help things either. But the bottom line truth is this: maneuver warfare tends to be much more effective at the tail end of a campaign of attrition (think of the air war prior to Gulf 1). Western Democracies cannot fight wars of attrition. A well-executed maneuver campaign CAN lead to early (and enduring) success...if the planning continues past the end of organized resistance by the enemy.