Why Invading Iran Would Be a Military Disaster (Worse Than Vietnam)

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Why Invading Iran Would Be a Military Disaster (Worse Than Vietnam)
By: Reid Pauly & Daniel Khalessi - National Interest - 01-12-20
Re: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/mi...vietnam-113136

What would a war with Iran look like? In sum, it would be the gravest mistake in U.S. foreign policy since the Vietnam War. Yes, even worse than the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

In the wake of a rollercoaster week of escalatory and de-escalatory signaling between the United States and Iran, both sides appear to have taken a step back from the abyss. Iran’s retaliatory missile barrage did not kill any U.S. personnel and President Trump has not signaled any plans to escalate beyond the killing of General Qasem Suleimani. But the core political stakes of the contest have risen. In response to the killing, Iran sloughed off the remaining limits on its nuclear hedge. Trump reflexively tightened sanctions.

No new status quo has emerged from the latest episode that suggests the future will be more stable. Neither side may seek war, but both wish to demonstrate that they are willing to risk war over the stakes—and, most importantly, that they are willing to stomach more risk than the other. Under such circumstances, observers should brace for more of the same.

President Trump has indicated that he does not want another war in Middle East. But in the delicate dance underway of signaling intentions and resolve, neither side is in perfect control. Escalations can be miscalculated, misperceived, and accidental. The belligerents may even deliberately use such risk to communicate their resolve. In its latest attack especially, Iran embraced a certain degree of chance that its missile would kill Americans on Iraqi bases. Unless coordinated with the adversary, any attack runs some risk of casualties.

Under these circumstances, it is worth peering into the abyss. What would a war with Iran look like? In sum, it would be the gravest mistake in U.S. foreign policy since the Vietnam War. Yes, even worse than the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Envisioning the Battlefield

Operationally, a war for regime change in Tehran will be much more complicated than the Iraq War. In the 2003 march to Baghdad, the brunt of the ground campaign was carried by one armored division and one Marine division (the 3rd Infantry Division and 1st Marine Expeditionary Force). These are very low force-to-space ratios (a comparative measurement long used by military analysts), permitted by precision air power covering their flanks in the desert.

Iranian territory is, by comparison, two-thirds larger than Iraq and Afghanistan combined and covered in both deserts and mountains. The geography is likely to provide ample cover and concealment for dug-in local forces or dispersed insurgents.

Moreover, any president who thinks military operations in Iran “would go very quickly,” should remember April 1980. In an attempt to end the Iran hostage crisis, President Jimmy Carter ordered Delta Force to fly eight helicopters into Iran and rescue the hostages. As former CIA intelligence analyst Kenneth Pollack has observed: “The plan did not survive contact with the enemy’s weather.” As a result of a sand storm, three of the eight helicopters experienced mechanical issues and one helicopter crashed into a C-130 carrying fuel. The plan was aborted, eight American special operations members died, and Carter’s presidency collapsed.

Finally, for reasons that remain puzzling, Saddam Hussein prepared his forces in 2003 for a series of delaying actions, defending crossroads, strategic points; possibly believing that they could raise the costs of the invasion higher than Washington would stomach. (He also dispersed munitions around the country, a fact that would later fuel a formidable insurgency.) But Iraqi troops were outmatched in such open maneuver ground war tactics.

Iran is unlikely to make such a mistake. Its military doctrines embrace much more asymmetric warfare tactics. In an infamous military exercise, Millennium Challenge 2002, swarms of simulated Iranian speedboats overwhelmed American carrier surface radars in the Gulf and sent 19 U.S. ships to the bottom. As Sun Tzu warned, “If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.” Do not expect the adversary to fight by your rules.

What Comes After?

If Iraq can teach any lessons at all about foreign-impose regime change it is that war does not stop when the mission is accomplished. As the late British strategist Sir Basil Lidell Hart observed: “If you concentrate exclusively on victory, with no thought for the after-effect … it is almost certain that the peace will be a bad one, containing the germs of another war.” A brutal insurgency and stability operations in Iraq last years after the invasion.

Analysts use ratios of deployed forces per thousand population to compare stability operations across time and space. The approximately 169,000 coalition forces in Iraq before the 2007 surge amounted to a ratio of 6.3 per 1,000; increasing post-surge to 7.1 per 1,000 (and that is without local forces). At 81 million, Iran’s population is more than three times the population of Iraq in 2003; and a larger population than Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Though Trump has off-the-cuff explicitly ruled out sending “a million soldiers” to Iran, he is not so far from the mark.

Geopolitically, a war with Iran would be a disastrous war of choice. They may not be friends, and their visions of regional stability may differ, but Iran and the United States share some common interests. They have tacitly cooperated to confront the Islamic State. They both stand to benefit from the free flow of oil out of the Gulf. And they both fear any resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Overthrowing the Iranian regime is liable to instead build a ‘bridge of instability’ from the deserts of Iraq and Syria to the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. If, as Lidell Hart noted, “the object of war is to obtain a better peace,” this is a world Washington does not wish to see.

So long as Washington and Tehran are engaged in a contest of brinkmanship, both sides should be clear-eyed about what awaits on the cliffs below. As Trump likes to threaten, “If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran.” Maybe so, but he and the American people should know the costs.

About the writer(s): Reid Pauly is a fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. Daniel Khalessi is a law student at Stanford University and former research associate at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

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Personal note: Every war fought either in the US or around the world is never a good one.

Yet today we've built weapons of mass destruction (think about those words!) Mass Destruction - what makes any country not worry about that. The weapons today would destroy mankind "all around the world."

You can't possibly think that our enemies don't think about that. Today we have weapons that are planet killers. Limited survival at the very most. Slow death - there after. There will come a day - when these big boy toys will become obsolete for the most part. But not soon enough - because mankind can't live together it seems.

There isn't a person on this planet that knows a full blown nuclear attack would destroy ~ 70 - 100% of the human race on earth - with many others to die over time from after effects. Yet knowing what they do and the end results - doesn't stop mankind from wanting these weapons or making more of them.

To me this show's that we don't have the intelligence to think one could survive from an all our nuclear exchange. Living in caves and then what? Eat bat's & drink radiated water. Weather on the planet would be so terrible the atmosphere will be loaded with radiation that would fall to earth 24 hours a day contaminating everything thing on the ground.

I can't believe that in killing one another - that we will find a better afterlife. Ashes to Ashes - is all that will remain. We have but one life to live thanks to our parents - without our parents we have no life. Plain and simple and yet knowing what we know - we still WAR among-st ourselves - E-gads mankind's destiny is death by its own hands.

You don't have to be a superior thinker to know the inevitable end results. Humanity will cease to exist - except for a few bugs they may still survive - but they can't leave any notes about what it used to be - and the potential that we ignored and became planet killers.

End of Day's For All Mankind is our destiny - thanks go out to our world wide leadership.

Boats

[Boats]

This Picture Might Just Depict the Ultimate Military Weapon
By: Warfare - By - History Network 1-12-20
Re: This Picture Might Just Depict the Ultimate Military Weapon

Subject: Meet the MLRS
Photo: https://nationalinterest.org/sites/d...?itok=gJpQmCoE

From my prior post - we continue to note that we are constantly inventing more and more weapons which can only lead us closer to an all out destruction of mankind.

We talk about principles and deeds and honor. Yet each country is inevitably insecure and without weapons of destruction - they feel more powerful with them then without. These are the characteristics of the human race. All by insecurity of their leadership.

Do we as American's feel better knowing that all our monies are for protecting our National Interest? Like many said survival of the fittest and that's still going on today. It only procrastinates other's to counter these with bigger and better weapons to kill us before we kill them.

Any we call ourselves "Human's" - wow!

Man has fought man since they walked on this earth. Natural born killers we are - survival of the fittest. Is this the future we all hoped for?

Many of us have been in wars and many of our friends and family were killed in wars.
Our history of our planet is that of a warring society of people. Is this how we should be designated.

World Peace will never happen - It's the Have's and Have Not's that will always interact.

Note: We fight to protect our way of life - so do other's. The worlds ideology factor's in and interferes with the end results. Once again insecurity sets in causing lifestyle changes and also brings with it a new set of rules. Adhering to those new rules creates discomfort and loss of prior values or lifestyles. Adjusting to new thinking patterns forced upon them those who can - disrupt the mental state of people - who retaliate to preserve their prior lifestyles. - If you can't see this then its because they are true but you don't want to believe it based on your current way of life style.

God Help Us All - The Future is a Big Question - if there is to be one. Peace On Earth and Good Will Towards Men - is open for discussion based on your providers at that time.

Boats