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Friday, September 26, 2008
Did the debate change your mind?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Did the debate change your mind?
Did it cause you to rethink your earlier support of John McCain or Barack Obama?
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Who do you think won Friday’s debate?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Who won Friday’s debate in your opinion? John McCain? Barack Obama?
Why do you think so?
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Do you plan to watch all the debates?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Friday’s 9 p.m. face-off was the first debate scheduled before the Nov. 4 election. Held at the University of Mississippi, it is moderated by Jim Lehrer, host of “The NewsHour” on PBS. Topics include national security and foreign policy.
Other debates scheduled:
Oct. 2: Vice presidential debate moderated by PBS correspondent Gwen Ifill at Washington University in St. Louis.
Oct. 7: Town hall debate moderated by NBC’s Tom Brokaw at Belmont University in Nashville.
Oct. 15: Debate on domestic and economic policy will be held at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. Moderator is Bob Schieffer of CBS.
The vice presidential debate will be and held Oct. 2 The debate formate won’t be resolved until the vice presidential nominees are chosen.
Do you plan to watch them all and which are most important for you?
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Who do you expect to win tonight’s debate?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
An Associated Press-Knowledge Networks poll out Friday just before John McCain’s announcement that he would participate in the debate in Oxford, Miss., showed the public overwhelmingly wanted the candidates to debate, 60 percent to 22 percent, with the rest undecided.
Now that Barack Obama and McCain will face off at 9 p.m., who do you expect to win tonight’s debate — Obama or McCain?
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Airpower is not the panacea to fighting insurgencies
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Comment on this entry and two other articles
Charlie Dunlap seems to be the 21stCentury doppelganger of Billy Mitchell and Curtis LeMay combined. His op-eds intone an unvarying paean to the supreme glories of airpower as being the solution to all of America’s military issues. Well, almost.
In his September 17, 2008 op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution he takes the Taliban to task for their efforts (understandable) to emasculate our vast air power capability by giving it a bad rap in the press. Many of our foes fear our arsenal, and rightly so, thus they will naturally do anything to mitigate its effect. The People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) called it “grasping the belt;” when engaged with US forces they tried to establish themselves as close as possible to our troops, knowing that any artillery or close air support called in would be “danger close.” According to Dunlap the Taliban has begun “frenzied efforts of their propaganda machine” to excoriate the US Air Force and its supposedly indiscriminate use of bombs to kill innocent women and children. He quips that “the Taliban’s depraved moral code helps. They shamelessly intermingle with civilians in order to use them as human shields. Their lack of morality also gives them license to falsely allege civilian casualties when they can’t orchestrate them.” Dunlap seems to miss the point that they must do that to mitigate our superiority in weaponry.
“Unfortunately, the media seems quick to report whatever claim is made.”
Unfortunately the media also reports real civilian casualties, which are often incurred during air strikes. Whether it is 1 or 100, civilian deaths in a COIN campaign only strengthen the insurgents.
While I agree with the point of his overall assessment, Dunlap then backs his argument by making a false analogy in which he equates the Taliban’s strategy to the sieges of Dien Bien Phu and Khe Sahn. An interesting metaphorical usage, considering these were two very conventional battles that albeit were in part lost or won due to airpower, they were also set piece battles in wars which both had strong counterinsurgency aspects and in which the counterinsurgents ultimately lost.
As Paul Harvey would say, here’s the rest of the story:
The genesis of DBP was a year earlier, November 1952, when the French had executed a similar operation at Na San, 150 air miles west-northwest of Hanoi. They established it as a ‘base aero-terrestre’ to support Operation Lorraine. Giap attacked the camp during two nights but the French were able to successfully defend the post, inflicting heavy casualties upon the Viet Minh battalions. Later the French withdrew the garrison, mostly by airlifting them out.
Giap learned that he needed heavier artillery (he employed mortars and 75mm recoilless rifles at Na San) and that unless he could seize high ground around the post (Na San was on a plateau) he should avoid attacking entrenched camps. The French believed they had found ‘la formule’ for enticing Giap to attack these type posts, whereupon French firepower would annihilate the Viet Minh units.
Operation Castor was Na San writ large. It was launched in November 1953 in the mountainous northwestern region of Tonkin to interdict the Viet Minh LOCs for their offensive in northeastern Laos. The French also were hopeful that they could bring about a battle on their terms, one in which they could bring the full power of their air and artillery against Giap’s main force.
On 20 November an airborne drop into the valley of Dien Bien Phu, the aim of which was the capture of an old Japanese airstrip. The French set up the DBP ‘base aero-terrestre’ to serve as an anchor for mobile strike operations against the Viet Minh sanctuary as well as a supply point for GCMA units operating in the mountains (GCMAs were French Special Forces units).
The French expected that Giap’s reaction to this incursion would be to attack the base, where upon, as at Na San, the French would crush him. They believed that the aerial lifeline between Hanoi and DBP would be sufficient to sustain the forces in place.
However, several factors doomed the French strategy at DBP. In the first place the distance between Hanoi and Na San was 150 air miles while the distance between Hanoi and DBP was 180 miles, which meant longer transit times for aircraft. Na San’s airfield was on a plateau with few high points nearby whereas DBP was in a valley, with several dominating high points. In 1952 Giap’s artillery consisted mostly of mortars, recoilless rifles and old Japanese 75mm howitzers. By 1954 the Viet Minh had received from China 105mm howitzers (also the primary artillery piece used by the French) and Soviet 12.7mm and 37mm anti-aircraft guns.
The French were aware of these massive increases in Viet Minh fire power but were confident that their counter battery efforts and air support would quickly neutralize any Viet Minh artillery, which they believed would be easily spotted in their reverse slope positions. This was not to be. At DBP Giap had defied convention by placing his artillery in positions on the forward slopes of the overlooking hills. Plus, he had them placed in positions dug into the slopes from the rear, so only the barrel protruded from the aperture. By not disturbing the foliage the Viet Minh artillery was perfectly hidden from French observation.
The actual “siege” commenced on 13 March 1954 with a massive bombardment of the French positions (the French artillery chief, Col. Piroth, who had assured his leadership that his guns would silence the enemy’s, committed suicide shortly thereafter). In the ensuing weeks the Viet Minh tightened the noose by systematically capturing French hilltop positions. 26 March proved the last day French aircraft could use the airfield, from then on re-supply would be by parachute drops. Viet Minh anti-aircraft fire forced the French transports to drop from higher altitudes (around 600 to 900 feet was most accurate, the new altitude was set at 8,000), thus decreasing the accuracy of the drops. As the perimeter shrank more and more supplies dropped into Viet Minh hands. French attempts at aerial interdiction of the Viet Minh supply lines were no more effective than similar US efforts to interdict the Ho Chi Minh trail a decade later. On 7 May, after 54 days of grueling combat, the garrison was over run.
The defeat broke the French government’s will to continue the Indo-China War and peace accords were signed dividing Vietnam into a communist dominated north and a democratic south. The two countries were separated by a “Demilitarized Zone.” Thirteen years later, in the fall/winter of 1967, the PAVN, under Giap’s command, began a series of assaults against US Marine positions near the DMZ. By mid-January 1968 the PAVN had several division sized units in the vicinity of the Marine’s airfield at Khe Sanh, located in northwestern South Vietnam, near the DMZ. This was viewed by Gen Westmoreland and others as an attempt to repeat DBP. However, there were those, in particular Marine Corps Gen Krulak, who viewed the operation as an elaborate feint to draw US military attention and resources away from the Tet Offensive, which commenced 1 February.
Unlike DBP, at Khe Sanh the PAVN were successfully repulsed in their attempts to capture the high ground located north and northwest of the main base. Westmorland committed a huge amount of air power to relieve pressure on the Marines, and kept forces ready in I Corps for relief of the post. Giap broke off his attacks after 77 days of combat. Again, while it was an American tactical victory, the strategic result has come under considerable debate.
Yet at Khe Sanh several factors were significantly different from the siege of DBP. Khe Sanh was much closer to supply bases (45 miles versus 180 miles at Dien Bien Phu). At Khe Sanh the Marines held onto the high ground, and their artillery and air support forced the PAVN to position their own artillery at a much greater distance, decreasing their accuracy. At Dien Bien Phu the French artillery (six 105mm howitzer batteries and one battery of four 155mm howitzers plus mortars) were only sporadically effective while the Viet Minh had the advantage of providing nearly direct fire into the French encampment.
What was airpower’s ultimate contribution to these battles? At Dien Bien Phu primarily it was logistical. The Viet Minh were careful not to attack the French in broad daylight, choosing instead to attack at dusk and fighting through the night, thus mitigating the effects of French close air support. By employing their anti-aircraft assets closer and closer to the airfield, the Viet Minh shut it down, forcing the French garrison to rely on airdrops. With a shrinking perimeter and drops from higher altitudes fewer supplies reached the French troops, although Giap’s forces certainly benefited from many miss-drops.
At Khe Sahn tactical air was certainly a force multiplier, as was the strategic employment of air strikes against the PAVN supply routes (which the French employed too little effort to at DBP), but the “air bridge” of supplies was also key, and the PAVN were never able to completely shut down the airfield. Regardless, in both cases, the combat was predominantly infantry fighting hand-to-hand on hilltops around the posts.
So what do the air power lessons of Dien Bien Phu and Khe Sanh have to do with our present COIN operations in Afghanistan (and Iraq): In my opinion pretty much nothing. Dunlap does correctly discern that the Taliban’s tactics are so designed that “they will achieve a tremendous victory on the battlefield of public opinion.” Exactly, this is why COIN operations are as much political as they are military. John Paul Vann in Vietnam observed: “This is a political war and it calls for discrimination in killing. The best weapon for killing would be a knife, but I’m afraid we can’t do it that way. The worst is an airplane. The next worse is artillery. Barring a knife, the best is a rifle — you know who you’re killing.”
The Air Force’s contribution to COIN is predominantly in the ISR realm (and logistical) and is certainly invaluable. Tactical air has its use as well, but must be employed very judiciously in order to avoid any non-combatant injuries. Ultimately, by using examples of set piece battles in arguing his case for airpower’s use in COIN, Dunlap is metaphorically comparing apples to oranges. Web Bridges is at the Directorate for Organizational & Management Planning in the Office of the Secretary of Defense
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Spirited debate on military tactics
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Recent opinion articles in the AJC have sparked a spirited debate on military tactics in Afghanistan.
On Sept. 17, the Air Force’s second ranking attorney, Major Gen. Charles Dunlap Jr. argued that strong airpower will keep the Taliban at bay.
His comments drew an angry rebuttal from John Robinson, an Army targeteer who has done three tours in Afghanistan. Citing the risk of Afghan civilian casualties, Robinson argued for a beefed up ground presence in Afghanistan.
The latest opinion comes from Web Bridges, a senior official in the office of Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Read up on their arguments, and weigh in with your own.
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