Military-Strategic Dimensions
of
IRAQ WAR

Most wars are different from other wars in most ways. But the Iraq War stands out for its uniqueness. The military outcome of the war was never in doubt. What remained of interest were the strategic dimensions of the use of military power and the war as a political act. And the war failed the test of legitimacy from the very beginning.

True to trends in warfare for over a century, further advances in military technology expanded the technological gap between the Iraqi military and the Anglo-American forces. Iraq, on the other hand, did adopt some unorthodox tactics by using its fidayeen forces for irregular warfare. But it does not appear to have pursued this strategy in any cohesive and sustained manner, thus, frittering away its only viable option to offer significant resistance to the invading forces. On the other hand, the United States exploited its space resources, originally created for nuclear war strategies, in a conventional war scenario in maximising the effect of its fighting capabilities in the air and on the ground. The classical lesson of 20th century warfare, that dominance in the air remains crucial to freedom of action in the air, on land and at sea, was emphasised once again. But what was perhaps even more significant was that air-to-ground warfare, limited as it was for nearly a century to.line-of-sight operations, broke free with a combi­nation of space capabilities and sensor tech­nologies to strike beyond visual range with unprecedented accuracy and effect.

The history of wars is replete with intelligence failures. But what we see here is not so much the failure of intelligence in the classical sense, but a failure of strategic policy making.

The roots of this failure lie in abandoning the well-established principle of insulating intelli­gence assessment from policy making. It is from this complex situation-specific war that we need to draw the right conclusions and de­construct lessons that we should learn. This volume, written by some of the leading experts in the field explores just that.

Contents
 

About the Editor

Air Commodore (Retd) Jasjit Singh is a distinguished former fighter pilot of the Indian Air Force decorated for gallantry in war and distinguished service. Author and editor of three dozen books, he headed India's premier think-tank, the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses for fourteen years. He is a visit­ing lecturer at defence and war colleges in India and abroad and currently, the Director, Centre for Air Power Studies, New Delhi.