Public Safety During Combat: A Positive Lesson From Vietnam. Volume S03- 02

摘要

The incredible success of General Tommy Franks' push to Baghdad in Operation Iraqi Freedom will be studied for years as the quintessential example of modern warfare. The Combined and Joint Forces of the Allied Coalition executed a strategy designed to be everywhere at once in order to render the Iraqi defender totally unable to establish a coherent defense. Even given the limitation of only one route of ground ingress (from Kuwait), the speed and agility of the ground forces, combined with the deep ISR and targeting assets of the Air Force and Army Aviation, and the economy of force efforts of the Special Operations elements, simply overwhelmed the ability of the Iraqi Army to defend. This was intentional, but at least one unintentional result of this unprecedented speed of maneuver must be addressed in all future planning: as enemy forces or individual combatants are bypassed and allowed to mix with noncombatants, the Decisive Phase of Campaign Operations will overlap with the Post-Conflict Phase. This dynamic must be planned for with a robust public safety capability that itself can overlap in time and space with combat operations.