Angry Robot

Shock and Awe

Tactics for Iraq war: “shock and awe”, nukes.

10 comments on "Shock and Awe"

  1. adampsyche says:

    All your base, indeed. Ugh.

  2. D says:

    Thinking about it a bit, it’s probably more rhetoric than actual plans – otherwise why pre-release strategy so the enemy knows what you’re going to do? That said, I don’t doubt that they’ll unleash a real missle barrage as quickly as possible, but I doubt they’ll resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack. We’ll probably see a fair amount of ECM weaponry deployed.

    More thought about pre-emption: one of the biggest problems with the new doctrine is that it actually encourages nuclear proliferation. As mentioned here previously, the message sent to various states is effectively: if you don’t have nukes, we can pre-emptively attack you (Iraq); if you do have them, we’ll use diplomacy (North Korea). Thus, it makes a lot of sense for any country to rush nuclear development right now to avoid a US attack.

  3. adampsyche says:

    You know, the whole mutually assured destruction deterrent is sounding better and better every day.

  4. D says:

    Yes, but the argument is that deterrence no longer works. A few problems with this article, for what it’s worth:

    1. it assumes “smuggling dirty nukes” was never possible before, er, when?

    2. Nothing is untraceable.

    3. It does not follow that since “we have entered an era of Fourth Generation Warfare”, we should be invading countries. Isn’t the point of all the Fourth Generation stuff that we are no longer fighting against countries? Decentralized terror networks, and all that?

    4. “Though [a pre-emptive attack] certainly carries large risks and consequences, I see no other way to stop the onset of a world full of nuclear-armed despots.” Motherfucker, one quick way would be to cease trade with non-democracies. That would get rid of the “despot” part. But besides that, who’s to say that invadin’ and pre-emptin’ can stop nuclear proliferation? Maybe the technology is getting cheaper and more accessible, and there’s no stopping it with force. But beyond that, as I mentioned above, pre-emption seems to lead to proliferation.

  5. I’ve stumbled across the book mentioned in that Common Dreams piece. Surprisingly, the full text appears to be online: Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance by Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade (NDU Press, December 1996).

    Of course, I can’t tell whether this really represents the main stream of Bush administration and DOD thinking, or the CommonDreams piece about Ullman is just an instance of the curious symbiosis among different positions on the political fringe (dove pundits needing hawk pundits and vice versa).

  6. D says:

    That’s a great find, Prentiss. The book is absolutely fascinating. I’m about half way through and I’ll probably have more to say when I’m done it.

    In the meantime, I’m of two minds: I’m starting to think all of these plans, or rather the ‘leak’ of the plans to media, are basically threat through PR and aren’t necessarily indicative of how the war will unfold — in fact, they’re making me think the whole troop buildup is partially a rhetorical exercise, the point of which is to “shock and awe” Saddam out of power without firing a gun. The book actually references Sun Tzu and acknowledges that the ultimate success in war is defeating your enemy without fighting. Then again, they may feel actual fighting is necessary as a demonstration of might to the rest of the world. It’s alarming how these dudes think Hiroshima was a beautiful fabulous thing.

  7. Paladin says:

    When you have the ability to destroy half of the entire Earth and no one can stop you, as the USA does, you make the threat so that you don’t have to rain down hell upon an enemy–needless killing is always avoided and done when needed, by moral men. Perhaps if some folks actually bothered to get their facts straight, they would understand that because the Japanese planned to put their population on the borders armed with scythes and shovels against an invasion; the Japanese had German jet propulsion technology and even a prototype combat helocopter etc, that dropping the first atom bomb on Japan saved lives. Then again, self-serving poltroons cowering behind the facade of love for humanity, have always been happy to ignore the suffering of the Iraqi people and those like them. The USA mothballed the “Blackbird” quite some time ago, and had stealth technology back in 1975… chew on that…

  8. Paladin says:

    When you have the ability to destroy half of the entire Earth and no one can stop you, as the USA does, you make the threat so that you don’t have to rain down hell upon an enemy–needless killing is always avoided and done when needed, by moral men. Perhaps if some folks actually bothered to get their facts straight, they would understand that because the Japanese planned to put their population on the borders armed with scythes and shovels against an invasion; the Japanese had German jet propulsion technology and even a prototype combat helocopter etc, that dropping the first atom bomb on Japan saved lives. Then again, self-serving poltroons cowering behind the facade of love for humanity, have always been happy to ignore the suffering of the Iraqi people and those like them. The USA mothballed the “Blackbird” quite some time ago, and had stealth technology back in 1975… chew on that…

  9. jay says:

    “Japanese planned to put their population on the borders armed with scythes and shovels against an invasion”…OK even if that is true, the point is that an invasion was never necessary. The Japanese had already negotiated the terms of surrender with the US. The only condition, if want to call it that, was that the emporer not be removed as the figurehead leader. This was rejected by the US and they dropped the bombs.

  10. Chaka Khan says:

    Chaka Khan, let me rock you
    Let me rock you, Chaka Khan

    Hum along with Wolf Blitzer!

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