The new lessons of experimental wars for senators and experts

Andrei Kislyakov, Political Analyst, RIA Novosti, Moscow

The Senate armed services committee has recently launched multi-stage hearings dealing with the lessons of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. It looks like most conclusions will remain top-secret. However, one can perceive the gist of such lessons for Senators and military experts clearly enough.

First of all, one should comprehend the reasons for fighting the Iraqi war, all the more so as this campaign's results will influence subsequent U.S. military-political moves on the international scene.

The U.S. has been preparing for future conflicts, i.e. long- range non-contact wars, as well as the minimal use of army element and the use of precision weapons for the last 12 years. Starting with operation Desert Storm in 1991, the U.S. has been waging experimental wars, whose list includes the war in Iraq, as well as wars against Yugoslavia and Afghanistan.

The U.S. military-industrial sector, which is developing precision weapons systems all the time, continues to demand that the President of the U.S. enable the country's Armed Forces to fight experimental wars for the sake of testing these new- generation weapons en masse and in order to streamline the interaction of relatively small military formations, i.e. army units and elements.

Russian military analyst Gen. Vladimir Slipchenko believes that this factor mostly explains Washington's decision to fight the latest Iraqi war. Indeed, one can't take official U.S. accusations to the effect that Iraq supported international terrorism, and that its mass-destruction weapons threatened the U.S. seriously.

Oil and Iraq's nuclear program are less important, Slipchenko noted. The U.S. mostly wanted to test new weaponry; however, the public at large overlooked this nuance. The U.S. intends to buy US$50-$60 billion worth of precision weapons per year until 2010 in line with the national rearmament program. The U.S. will be able to launch long-range strikes against any country of the world for 30 days by that time, using at least 1,000 smart weapons every 24 hours, the general added.

The U.S. perceived Iraq as a highly convenient testing range in every respect. First of all, new weapons systems were tested there on a grand scale; second, the U.S. military victory made it possible to establish complete control over Iraqi oil resources.

True, the second aspect necessitated the limited use of large U.S. Army formations, which overthrew Saddam Hussein's regime quickly enough, also ensuring a virtually painless transfer of power to the U.S. military-civilian administration.

The U.S. Administration and the country's top brass think that they have accomplished their objectives; well, this seems to be the war's main lesson. State-of-the-art and satellite-guided smart weapons were tested rather successfully and with minimal losses, too.

Substantial battle-field data were collected, and experts are now processing this information. Among other things, these data will make it possible to simplify troop control. Lt. Gen. Richard Sanchez, who commands the coalition's land forces, admits that casualties were usually caused by the malfunctioning combat- control system, because the U.S. still lacked sufficient experience in conducting contact and non-contact operations.

Some other negative lessons should also be mentioned here. For instance, the Iraqi war's results should induce the U.S. leadership to expand its "testing range." First of all, this must be done in order to monitor the situation in every potential war zone, i.e. the Middle East, Afghanistan and North Africa, round the clock. Most importantly, such efforts will enable the U.S. Armed Forces to rely on authentic information about the situation in any theater-of-war sector, if a war does break out.

The thing is that the coalition's high command in camp Doha almost got killed because it lacked real-life data about the ability of Iraqi forces to launch Chinese-made cruise missiles against coalition forces and installations in Kuwait.

When talking to a New York Times analyst in mid-June, Col. Clark Andersen in charge of the 32-nd U.S. Army air-defense and ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) command admitted that the allies simply could not imagine that Iraq would use these naval missiles against ground-based facilities.

Consequently, Patriot surface-to-air missile (SAM) and ABM complexes were not positioned accordingly. Coalition forces only managed to destroy a cruise missile, which was fired against an allied headquarters, at the last moment. However, Col. Andersen is convinced that this launch reflects future risks.

It seems that the U.S. will apparently prevent similar blunders in the future.

The U.S. and several African countries, including Algeria, agreed in principle in late June to the deployment of U.S. military bases on the territory of those countries. These bases will be set up to ensure intelligence preparation of future battlefields, in the first place. In its July 4 issue, The New York Times wrote that, starting this fall, intelligence operations would be conducted on the territory of four North African countries. With this in mind, a satellite cluster will be re-targeted on the U.S. Armed Forces' African zone of responsibility, assisting 3,000-5,000 U.S. soldiers in each particular case. Special reconnaissance planes will also be set aside for this purpose.

Naturally enough, all U.S. efforts to expand its worldwide military presence as the main component of entirely new wars should have a clear-cut political substantiation. The permanent struggle against international terrorism, which is the present- day global scourge, is seen as such a failsafe substantiation.

Indeed, President George Bush addressed a 25,000-strong audience at the Wright-Patterson air-force base on Independence Day July 4, openly saying that America was still in a state of war, and its enemies were plotting against it. Powerful U.S. military presence abroad is the only way to ensure security back home, the U.S. leader noted.

The lesson has been learned. Still one should keep in mind that terrorism threatens the entire international community. However, it would be quite ineffective to fight international terrorism with the help of such military bases shielded by satellite clusters. Terrorism is quite powerful because of its top-level organization, which mostly hinges on money. Well- executed special operations alone, including control over terrorist-cell financial flows, will make save the world from new troubles. Smart weapons can play no role in this.