Here's an interesting article:

The Most Careful of All Wars By Orson Scott Card

I belong to a military gaming list which has been kicking the subject of the Rumsfeld/Franks strategy around. One group refers to it as Operation Market-Garden 2. Others say they can't be compared because of the overwhelming technical advantage on the side of the US.

Personally I don't think we can gauge the war solely by the media. The media does not have a God's eye view on this war. (Neither do I btw) The media tends to exaggerate the fierceness of the fighting and over-report the war to get a story. The fact that there are so few Coalition casualties for so much ground covered is a pretty good gauge in my book.

In Germany the NATO doctrine during the cold war was to trade land for time as the overwhelming (in quanitiy) Russian force poured acroos the East german Border. The theory being that if they could keep a toe hold in europe for a certain amount of time than the US reinforcemnts could pour in and take on the fight with fresh troops.

I believe Saddam is trying something similar. (I believe I first read this though on E-Mail list, so I'm not taking credit for it) Saddam is trading land in southern Iraq for time. The difference is Saddam isn't waiting for Reinforcements to show up from outside his country, he is waiting for World opinion to turn against the United States. The United States is also in a race to defeat Saddam before that happens. In the mean time they are trying to win world opinion, by bing as careful as they can with the Iraqi civilians and captured Iraqi soldiers.

With this in mind, the Rumsfeld/Franks Doctrine seems to me to be exactly what the situation called for. We didn't have months and months to build up a force like the one in GW1. In fact we didn't have the time to bomb Baghdad for 6 weeks before commencing the ground war. Had we done that, World Opinion most likely IMO would have turned severely against us. Had we shut off the power and water in Baghdad, the screams of "oh the Humanity" would have been deafening. Instead Saddam is the one who looks like a tin pot dictator after shutting off the water and mining the harbor so humanitarian aid was slowed down.

A few days before the war started, I read somewhere that this war would look less like the Gulf war and more like Operation Just Cause in Panama. I think that is proving correct, only the area is much larger, hence the timeline is much longer. There are also many other differences but i think the premis is correct.

As to the claims that are supply line is left vulnerable and that this is becoming another Operation Market-Garden, I think its mostly smoke. The allied forces in Market Garden were facing regular SS troops in Belgium and could only be supplied by 1 very long raised "Hell's Highway". The tanks and truck could not maneuver off the highway due to swampy conditions. The case does not seem to be the same in Iraq. Supply lines are flexible and can be maneuvered around hotspots.

I do hope to see many more troops on the ground soon to rotate our tired troops off the line. That alone will help keep the coalition casualty rate down. An argument could be made that the reserve troops should have been closer. That argument likely has merit, but considering the timing issues at the start of the war, and the questionable stance of certain allies, I think it was handled satisfactorally. I don't think we will get any definitive answers until the dust has settled and the history books start getting written.

-Steve G.