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October 20, 2004
Doing the Math
Set us set 1F as equal to the force projection of 1 WWI American infantryman (Doughboys, as they were known). I choose this as it is basically the last time the infantryman was (almost) the whole at the sharp end of the stick. Tanks were just coming on-line at the end of the war. Airplanes were used mainly as a source of reconnaissance, not war-fighting, even communication was done either face to face, or over easily-broken wire (radio sets hadn’t become small yet). Chemical warfare was in it’s infancy, and artillery was probably in its golden-age. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention machine guns (which were too heavy to be carried by each soldier) and barbed wire...
But all in all, the doughboys were as “basic” as a soldier can get in an industrialized society. As far as I understand things, Saddam was reduced to something very much like them when we invaded the second time (sans the chemical weapons). What we had was-- amazing...
Our troops are the best equipped, trained, and quite possibly lead troops in the world. We have bombs capable of hitting any target anywhere, within a few feet. Hell, we can choose any playload on those bombs, from pure kinetic energy to a city-busting nuclear weapon. We have airplanes capable of flying from Florida to Bosnia, dropping a bomb, and having its pilot in Disneyland latter that day. We have communications devices which allow anyone to talk to anyone anywhere at any time. We have guns that can shoot around corners. It would probably take 1 aircraft carrier and 1 division of army troops to demolish the armies of _all_ the combatant nations of WWI...
This is because of something called a “force multiplier”. All the advantages that a modern solider has over his Great-granddad multiply the amount of power a single soldier has. So, if 1F is a doughboy, a modern soldier is (say) 000F. Probably more...
This is the heart of the “transformed” military Rumsfeld was so keen to create pre-9/11. It’s not a bad idea: re-envision the military to factor in as many modern force multipliers as possible. It is many of these concepts that lead to our stunning victories in Iraq and Afghanistan...
The problem is that once the war ended and the occupation began, our force multipliers decrease dramatically. Efficiently slaughtering insurgents is a step _backwards_ for our us. So, what does multiply force in an occupation?
Communications, for one. Money helps (it usually does...) speaking the language of the people we’re occupying, probably other factors I’m not thinking of. Our soldiers today are probably 10F at occupation duty...
The problem is that we went in quite literally Without an Occupation plan, which is the source of many of our problems today. So we went in with a combat force which had few numbers but lots of combat capability. Unfortunately as soon as the shooting stopped (or at least slowed down a lot), we were left without enough boots on the ground. And our policies made it unlikely that we were going to get enough allies to commit enough troops to do the job properly...
Posted by Andrew at October 20, 2004 09:25 PM
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