Was Gulf I a huge strategic mistake for the US?

Started by bayonetbrant, October 09, 2015, 09:28:01 AM

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bayonetbrant

OK, so this is probably going to get worded badly, because I'm low on caffeine and crunched for time.  But here goes...


Was Gulf I the biggest strategic mistake of the last 100 years for the US?

1)  We half-assed the job.  We liberated a country that, while friendly, is hardly a paragon of virtue worthy of the level of support we offered it, unlike our post-WWII allies that we rebuilt at considerable expense with the Marshall Plan.  However, in liberating someone who was mainly cutting us a sweet deal on crude, we failed to eliminate the actual threat to the region when there was actually significant public support for doing so, as well as enough international backing to fill the security void that was going to inevitably follow.
Folks deconstructing the 'failure' of Gulf I that left Saddam in charge often come back to "our Arab allies wouldn't have supported his removal."  True.  But the French, Brits, Italians, Turks, Aussies, Canadians, Danes, Dutch, etc etc would have.  12 years later, none of them did.  Better to march on Baghdad with Western Europe on your side, or wondering if you've gone completely blotto in your post 9-11 stupor?  We treated a symptom instead of curing a disease.

2)  Half-assing the job left us with a perpetual presence that engendered significant resentment.  In many public statements following AQ attacks in the '90s - USS Cole, Khobar Towers, Nairobi, etc - the "occupation" of the Arabian peninsula was frequently cited as a justification / pretext for the attacks.  We were the infidels in their holy land.  And why were we even there?  Enforcing a no-fly zone to tamp down the ambitions of the dude we failed to remove in 1991.  "Paging Mr Second-order effects!  Your car is waiting."

3)  We altered the US public's perception of war, including (and especially) the casualty count, and difficulty of it.  We were fighting a JV team.  Seriously.  If we send Kentucky's basketball team out to play Central High, they're going to win by 50.  But the problem with that is that the expectation is now that you win every game by 50, and when you're playing Duke, winning by 50 isn't likely to happen.  You might win by 6, have 2 guys foul out and your coach ejected.  You still won, but it was ugly, and you've now lost public support for future games.  So when we wind up in Somalia, and suffer (ohmygawd!) double-digit casualties over 2 years, the public screams howls of protest over how deadly the mission is.  (Look, there were plenty of other problems with Somalia, but casualty-aversion was certainly one of them).

4)  We showed the world how overwhelmingly dominant we are in a straight-up stand-up conventional fight.  We kicked the ever-living shit out of the 4th- or 5th-largest army in the world, and it wasn't close.  Quite frankly, it could have been far, far worse if we hadn't called off the dogs after 5 days.  Imagine another 2 weeks of the Highway of Death.  Times 5.  That kind of bad.  The message was very, very clear: "don't fuck with the US and then give them a target to shoot back at". 
The US military might screw up a lot of things, but the one thing we have never failed to do, and do exceedingly well all the way back to 1775, is put massive volumes of fire on target with insane accuracy.  The desert is the last place you want to fight the US, and not just b/c NTC is all desert training.  It's because you're giving us wide open targets with wide open engagement areas, and wicked-long sight lines.  That is the absolute worst place to be when facing the US military.
Moreover, in demonstrating how overwhelming our conventional forces are, no one - not the Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians, the Martians, or Shadow Host of Middle Earth - is going to take a chance and face off with us that way.  It's stupid, and they're not stupid.  We had one good war we could fight with that level of dominance, and we wasted it on a two-bit dictator that had a hard time scaring water downhill.  What we're seeing now is an endless litany of developments designed to avoid our strengths (blowing the shit out of big conventional targets) and focus on our weaknesses (inability to morph between police/military tactics, casualty aversion, media sourcing, lack of local ethnic/cultural knowledge).  It's how the Russians are pushing around their actions on their periphery.  It's how the Chinese are developing their A2AD systems.  It's how the various Islamo-terrorists are confounding our actions all over the place.
We were playing short-sighted poker.  We showed our hand for a pot that was worth $38.46 and now we're at a table with a $1000 ante because we just wanted to win the pot that was in front of us, without thinking about all the pots to come.  To quote Rounders "you can shear a sheep many times, but you can only skin him once."  We skinned a lousy sheep because the tool we chose to use was a chansaw.

All of these things combine to inform our geo-strategic opposition in how to accurately develop a doctrine that allows them to effectively counter our capabilities and our national mindset. 
If you stick a massive target out there, we'll kill the fuck out of it.   So don't give us a big target that we can mass fires on.
Historic low casualties have altered public perception of the true toll of war.    So get the body count up and public support will erode quickly.
US political cycles are such that they focus only on short-term or immediate gains.    So frustrate them by preventing their goal attainment (even at the expense of attaining your own) and they will lose interest and leave even with an incomplete mission.


Gulf I starkly illustrated every one of these problems, and gained us virtually nothing of medium- or long-term strategic value in any geo-political context.  We really fucked up.
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mirth

Interesting reasoning. I need to mull it over, but you make a lot of sense.
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Sir Slash

No, I disagree. Gulf I was one of our nation's finest hours, maybe it's last. It was Gulf War 2 that was screwed-up. This will sound really racist but Arab nations controlled by secular dictators are far more stable, and less of a threat than the radical Muslim states like Iran or the nonexistent Arab Democracies. Hussein could be dealt with and controlled to some degree but ISIS cannot. Anyway, after Hussein died I wanted to see the blood bath fight between the two sons as to who would rule.
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bboyer66

 1 and 2.  Could not agree more.

3. Agree again. Let me add though, that we thought we were going to take much higher casualties. This might have been a way of making us train harder. Remember my Drill SGT saying "How many of you joined for the College money?" Being a smart ass, me and a few others raised our hands. "Well you are all fucked!! You're all going to probably die in the desert" This was in the middle of Basic when we has no access to the media. Once at my regular unit, we were fed a constant stream of propaganda telling us how bad ass the Iraqi Republican Guards were, and how our casualties would be very high.  Being on the lead tank of my tank company with a mine plow, I was pretty sure I was done for.

4.  Another problem from our domination was the overconfidence that infected the top leadership of the Armed Forces. It is one thing to dominate and win every battle you fight, but invading Iraq with less than half the forces you used in Desert Storm, and having to actually occupy the country afterwards, was a huge military blunder. After the military victory, we cut the troop strength even further, which boggles the mind. This overconfidence resulted in a prolonged occupation which not only resulted in a large number of Iraqi and American deaths, but created a breeding ground for much of the turmoil we see now in the Middle East.

Your conclusion is 100% spot on, YES we really fucked up.  However, for the cost of gaining nothing, the price in manpower and dollars was not a significant blow to the US. The Second Gulf War however led to a much bigger moneypit (Private Contractors with open check books, and doing the jobs our soldiers should be doing. A whole other box of worms to debate)  and much larger casualties. With the end result being an entire Middle East in turmoil, and Iran without anyone to keep them in check.  So no, in my opinion the 2nd Gulf War was the bigger strategic mistake, not the 1st. 

Mr. Bigglesworth

I'm with Boyer, Gulf war 2 was the mistake. Bush Senior did a good job, he had no good answer for a Saddam replacement, so he left him there.

So points 1,2 disagree, 3,4 agree. However, do not think Russian optics are bad. They have always had good science and gear in optics and rockets. Their 4 dud cruise missiles may even be a ruse to hide capability.
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besilarius

Okay, taking this a little further (and Brant if this derails your thread my apologies), would it have been better if Al Gore was elected President instead of Dubya?
From all I've read, and been told by people who had inside information, this war was his baby from 9/11. 
All the neo cons jumped on board right away, but Bush "knew" it was the answer, and that the Iraqis would take to democracy like pigs on shit.
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bayonetbrant

The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

bayonetbrant

The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

mirth

"45 minutes of pooping Tribbles being juggled by a drunken Horta would be better than Season 1 of TNG." - SirAndrewD

"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

"Can't 'un' until you 'pre', son." - Gus

Staggerwing

Quote from: bayonetbrant on January 17, 2016, 08:05:00 AM
http://www.moaa.org/Content/Publications-and-Media/Features-and-Columns/MOAA-Features/Colin-Powell-Remembers-Desert-Storm.aspx

From the interview:
"For more than 10 years, I had people asking me, "Why didn't you go to Baghdad?" I explained why, as did the president and Mr. Cheney. Then, in 2003, we went to Baghdad, and nobody asked me again." -Powell
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besilarius

Somewhere in the Arabian Gulf 25 years ago aboard the USS Mobile Bay:-
TAO: "Captain, the BBC is reporting that the Iraqi's are expecting an attack sometime after midnight."
Captain: "Well, they certainly won't be disappointed."
"Most gods throw dice, but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out until too late that he's been playing with two queens all along".  Terry Pratchett.

During filming of Airplane, Leslie Nielsen used a whoopee cushion to keep the cast off-balance. Hays said that Nielsen "played that thing like a maestro"

Tallulah Bankhead: "I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late, start without me."

"When all other trusts fail, turn to Flashman." — Abraham Lincoln.

"I have enjoyed very warm relations with my two husbands."
"With your eyes closed?"
"That helped."  Lauren Bacall

Master Chiefs are sneaky, dastardly, and snarky miscreants who thrive on the tears of Ensigns and belly dancers.   Admiral Gerry Bogan.

eyebiter

#11
Was Gulf I the biggest strategic mistake of the last 100 years for the US?
No, that would be the Vietnam War.

1)  We half-assed the job in Iraq.
What were US goals were during the first Gulf War?  Defending Saudi Arabia and Liberating Kuwait?  Enforcing UN Security Council resolutions?  Destroying the Iraqi Armies ability to wage war on it's neighbors?  In the context of those goals, the US build up during Desert Shield and conflict during Desert Storm was a success.

By 1991 there was a perception that the Iraqi people either overthrow Saddam, or the Shia in the South would continue to resist Baghdad's control.  Either way it was an internal Iraqi security problem.  Long as the Republican Guard were crushed life was good.  Perhaps the US was caught up in "tie a yellow ribbon round the old oak tree" nostalgia.  We just wanted our troops to return from the sandbox.

2)  Half-assing the job left us with a perpetual presence that engendered significant resentment.
True we had an Arab coalition during the first gulf war.  Then again, how useful were those allies in terms of number of troops?  Was it a true international alliance under the auspices of the United Nations showing the effectiveness of Peacekeeping, or just a loose alliance of convenience?

When it comes to the middle east, it doesn't take much to **** someone off.  OBL hated America because of American bases in Saudi Arabia.  Iran was upset about the 1953 coup, and US support of the Shah.  Everyone was mad about American support of Israel.  Europe seemed to resent the US becoming the only superpower in the Middle East after the end of the first Gulf War.  The former Soviet Union longed for the good old days of the Cold War. 

One way or another, there were and still are no shortage of pretexts for other nations to disagree with the number one superpower in the world.  Tallest tree in the forest.


3)  We altered the US public's perception of war, including (and especially) the casualty count, and difficulty of it.


Desert Storm was preceded by a one year build up of tanks, men, and ships.  With great operational planning and overwhelming air supremacy, of course the US coalition won.  Finally after 45 years of Cold War build up, America showed the world what we could do.

Did we really change the anti-war attitude of the US people?  During the late 1980s the "lessons of the Vietnam war" were part of the national dialog.  This might have changed for a year or two after the first gulf war.  Thanksgiving 1992 the "intervene in the third world to save starving children" propaganda was thick.  Of course the fiasco in Somalia in 1993 ended the new world order of peacemaking. 

As for our view of warfare, with the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the modern view is that open war between nation states won't happen.  The threat of escalation into regional conflict or even nuclear war was reduced with overwhelming American military supremacy.  While there might still be small scale brushfire incidents, this encourages nations to either use diplomacy or small scale irregular forces to resolve most problems. 

4)  We showed the world how overwhelmingly dominant we are in a straight-up stand-up conventional fight.
Absolutely.  And it reshaped power balances in the post-Cold War world.  The days of the USA as a paper tiger after Vietnam were over.  Demonstrating the US ability to wage war is the main reason the post Cold War environment remained so peaceful.  It wasn't until American foreign policy went TILT after 9/11 that this balance was disrupted.

5) All of these things combine to inform our geo-strategic opposition in how to accurately develop a doctrine that allows them to effectively counter our capabilities and our national mindset.

This doctrine was already established after the US left Saigon hanging during the Nixon administration.  Even a rich superpower eventually tires of endless conflict with no solution in sight.

JasonPratt

#12
I'm not personally convinced the "coalition" would have supported a removal of Saddam in GW1. Kicking a dictative invader's ass and scrubbing his ability to make war (for a while) is one thing; sovereign-state destruction is another.

As evidence in favor of my doubt, I present the UN Resolution to Make Saddam Confess He's Messing With Mass Destruction Weapons And Then Clean Up His Act Voluntarily Or Else. Resolved immediately after GW1. Essentially meaning we only put the war on pause, because of the UN and our allies, to give Saddam a chance to play nice or else.

When the US decided to enforce that Or Else at last (which was on the docket before 9/11, which was used as a convenient way to sell the action to prevent Saddam from doing something in the future like that), Western Europe wasn't behind Bush, even though up until nearly the last moment he was planning action based on their own intelligence reports of attempts at WMDing in flat defiance of the UN Resolution.
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W8taminute

Quote from: Sir Slash on October 09, 2015, 10:03:38 AM
No, I disagree. Gulf I was one of our nation's finest hours, maybe it's last. It was Gulf War 2 that was screwed-up. This will sound really racist but Arab nations controlled by secular dictators are far more stable, and less of a threat than the radical Muslim states like Iran or the nonexistent Arab Democracies. Hussein could be dealt with and controlled to some degree but ISIS cannot...

I agree with Sir Slash's assessment. 
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bayonetbrant

The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers