Prime Minister Tony Blair has been widely praised for articulating a more persuasive and comprehensive rationale for war against Saddam Hussein than the Bush administration put forward. Now Blair's defense secretary, Geoffrey Hoon, has released a report on Operation Iraqi Freedom, which--in conjunction with Britain's defense white paper--suggests that London may be ahead of Washington in identifying some of the toughest lessons for the war on terrorism.
The difficulties in securing "postwar" Iraq are beginning to make it seem as though "major combat operations"--the euphemism employed by President Bush--belong to a previous geological era. And to be sure, in a sense, stability operations in Iraq are the hard part; indeed, it was always going to be so. But just as it would be wrong to underestimate the scope of the remaining task yet to accomplish in Iraq, it would be equally wrong to forget the momentousness of what happened in the three-week campaign that began March 20.
Sometime soon the Defense Department will release its initial study of Operation Iraqi Freedom, conducted under the purview of U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM). But that will prove just the first--and perhaps the most limited--report on the war. Although Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is said to approve of the JFCOM study, others who have been briefed on it suggest it is very narrowly focused, omitting not only broader strategic questions but operational and tactical issues that might raise awkward questions about the Bush administration's planned defense program. The war may be over, but the war to interpret the war--the war of the after-action reports--is about to begin.
Interestingly, the first shot in this battle was fired not by Americans, but by the British. In July, the UK Ministry of Defense released "Operations in Iraq: First Reflections," which sets a very high standard for JFCOM and others to meet. Although these reports are inevitably self-justifying exercises by those in power, "First Reflections" represents one of those rare occasions when a government grades itself with some rigor.
A degree of that rigor is itself a reflection of a previous British defense white paper. In July 2002, Defense Secretary Geoffrey Hoon released an update of basic British defense strategy, entitled "A New Chapter," for the post-9/11 world--something that the Rumsfeld Pentagon has yet to do. Taken together, "A New Chapter" and "First Reflections" arguably present a clearer picture of today's strategic realities than the Bush administration itself has publicly articulated. Perhaps Tony Blair and his lieutenants see things more clearly, or can explain them better, or simply are prepared to be frank where the Bush administration (or an America still struggling to accept the facts and implications of its own global power and responsibilities) is not.
This is remarkable not only in itself, but because the reports reflect a profound change in the attitudes and strategic assumptions of Britain's Ministry of Defense--albeit a change that is not yet widely accepted among the general public, especially Blair's own Labour Party. The two defense papers make it clear that the British no longer have much interest in a common European defense policy, something that Blair had previously touted and indeed done much to foster--as at the St. Malo summit of 1998, which was described at the time as a "convergence in Anglo-French thinking" that would boost the European Union into "a position to play its full role on the international stage." Blair and Hoon may now be far out in front of the rest of their party, but they do grasp that a common European Union security and defense policy, still rightly understood to imply a French agenda, is a dead end for Britain.
Return of the Special Relationship
In fact, it is not too great a stretch to read the two British defense papers as an acknowledgement--and indeed, an embrace--of U.S. global leadership and an argument for solidifying the traditional "special relationship" between the United States and Great Britain as the bulwark of a new coalition to prosecute the global war on terrorism. As Secretary Hoon explains in the introduction to the defense white paper, "September 11 and its aftermath underlined the importance of the transatlantic relationship. From the outset, we demonstrated by our actions our wish to work closely with our most important ally, the United States. Our ability to operate alongside the United States (and with other partners, particularly in Europe but also elsewhere) will be key to future success."
The Iraq report makes clear that the "other partners" proviso in the white paper is mostly political correctness. It concludes:
[T]he overwhelming success of rapid, decisive [combat] operations in Iraq reflects the deployment of fast-moving light forces, highly mobile armored capabilities and close air support, which made use of near real-time situational awareness by day and night. The U.S. ability to combine land and air operations and support them from the sea and from friendly bases at very high tempo enabled the mix and impact of joint assets to be adjusted to operational need or events across the whole theatre of operations. This is likely to shape U.S. doctrinal development and impact on potential partners. The implications of maintaining congruence with an accelerating U.S. technological and doctrinal dominance need to be assessed and taken into account in future policy and planning assumptions.
In plain English, this translates as: U.S. armed forces, having achieved an unprecedented ability to fight conventionally, are only getting better, and we British understand that this is a central fact of international politics. As the report puts it, "[Operation Iraqi Freedom] was overwhelmingly a U.S.-shaped and -led operation. . . . Most of what UK forces achieved took place under the umbrella of U.S dominance of every warfare environment." The experience in Iraq thus fulfills a key prediction of the "New Chapter" white paper, which argues that British military involvement in the war on terrorism will "generally be [undertaken] alongside coalition partners, with the U.S. often in the lead."
The Iraq report elaborates the need for Britain to maintain and build upon its traditionally close strategic partnership with the United States. A brief section on coalition warfare is remarkably mature both in its acknowledgement of American strengths and in the recognition that a successful wartime alliance is premised on an equitable sharing of the burdens of real combat (and, in the case of the struggle to reform the greater Middle East, on a commitment to continue to contribute in what promises to be a long struggle). Tony Blair's government clearly understands the risks of second-class status that must inevitably be the lot of coalition members that are not prepared to operate at the level of American forces:
The importance of the UK's contribution to the [Operation Iraqi Freedom] coalition lay in the military capability we provided to the front line both in the core coalition disciplines and in unique specialist areas. At the operational and tactical levels, the planning and conduct of the operation was facilitated by the close professional relationship that has grown up between the UK and the U.S., not only as leading members of NATO, but also through numerous bilateral institutional and personal contacts at every level. Equally important were the benefits of training and operating together over many years, especially in the Gulf, Afghanistan and the No-Fly Zones over Iraq. Given U.S. technological and military dominance, we should continue to track, align with and integrate U.S. developments in areas where our force balance and resources allow. . . . We should also ensure that our command structures can engage and influence key U.S. decision-makers.
Great Britain eventually contributed 46,000 troops, almost exactly 10 percent of the total Iraqi Freedom force. Most importantly, the land force built around the UK 1st Armored Division--actually a composite of heavy, light, marine, and special operations forces--carried out the crucial mission to seize and secure Basra. Like much of the ground campaign, this turned out to be a very different kind of operation than anticipated, but the British adapted swiftly and effectively. Conversely, had the British failed in the Basra mission, the entire campaign might have faltered. Avoiding the dreaded "quagmire" in Iraq depended on British success in this key assignment.
British forces also made other important contributions. First, they deployed themselves in a timely way. Because Great Britain lacks the fast sealift vessels possessed by U.S. armed forces, much of the deployment was accomplished by chartered shipping, made hugely successful by thorough planning. In all, the British deployment made use of 670 aircraft flights and sixty-two ships--but was accomplished in half the time required to deploy the same size force in the 1991 Gulf War.
In marked contrast to other major European nations, Britain also takes seriously the need to deploy large-scale and effective forces "out of area," particularly to the Middle East. As the "New Chapter" white paper acknowledges, "It is likely that, if anything, the trend towards expeditionary operations . . . will become more pronounced." Moreover, the white paper accepts that it is "increasingly clear that a coherent and effective campaign against terrorism . . . may require engagement further afield more often than perhaps we had previously anticipated." Generally, the European definition of "expeditionary operations" has meant the Balkans or small-scale stability operations in Africa. The British, however, have begun to purchase C-17 strategic lift aircraft, rather than waiting for the pan-European A400 (a modified Airbus) program to get off the ground; by contrast, the Germans have so reduced their planned A400 buy that the entire project may be in jeopardy.
Finally, once British forces got themselves to the Iraq war, they proved themselves quite able to fight alongside U.S. forces. Not only did British ground forces accomplish their Basra mission (and engage in a number of large tank battles, destroying bypassed Iraqi forces north of Basra), but British aircraft were integrated into the air campaign, particularly for air support missions. Importantly, 85 percent of the bombs and other ordnance dropped by British aircraft were precision-guided weapons, compared to 25 percent in the 1999 Kosovo air campaign. The British have started to field their own family of GPS-guided munitions, including the "Storm Shadow" air-launched cruise missile, which has a range of 230 kilometers. Perhaps even more importantly, the Royal Air Force has a significant number of tankers. They pumped 19 million gallons of fuel, according to the Iraq report--40 percent of which went into U.S. Navy and Marine Corps strike planes.
Lessons for Americans?
The two British defense reports also provide a marked contrast to the Bush administration's statements in their willingness to acknowledge the mismatch between strategic aims and military means. The Blair government admits that, at current levels, Britain's armed forces will have trouble meeting the demands of these new expeditionary missions; Secretary Rumsfeld, however, has yet to admit that the growing commitment of U.S. forces across the greater Middle East requires any expansion of American armed services. Prior to the "New Chapter" white paper, British armed forces were sized--like U.S. forces--to meet a variety of one-and-a-half war scenarios. Nor did the British expect more than one of these contingencies to be a major combat operation or to have them last longer than six months. Now the British are quite frank about the probability that multiple campaigns--involving both "find-and-strike" combat and simultaneous stability operations in "widely geographically separated locations"--are "becoming the pattern."
Indeed, at the peak of Operation Iraqi Freedom, 62 percent of the British Army was committed. As in the United States, expeditionary operations place a big burden on reservists. During the war, about 5,000 British reservists were mobilized, and nearly 3,000 have been called to duty since. The Iraq war report admits that "we will need to examine the balance between regular and reserve forces, particularly for such key roles [as medical services and psychological operations] and for the [rotation] of personnel for enduring operations."
Of course, Britain has a venerable military tradition of selfless service on constabulary missions on the imperial frontier-the tradition of Tommy-this-and-Tommy-that sacrifices immortalized in the poetry of Rudyard Kipling. But the "New Chapter" white paper frankly states "that many of our servicemen and women have been working at or near, and in some cases beyond, the boundaries of what was planned. . . . Over the long term, getting the balance right between time at home and time away on operations is critical to ensuring that life in the Services is sufficiently attractive to encourage our people to stay with us for as long as we can employ them."
The British reports also provide important strategic insights into the war on terrorism. The British concept of "find-and-strike" military operations is a particularly apt description of combat both in Afghanistan and Iraq and, almost surely, in future campaigns in the region. The "New Chapter" white paper correctly defines these as requiring "high-intensity and integrated war fighting capacity, and the intelligence and politico-military decision-making capacity to act with speed and decisiveness." It also observes, pointedly, that "only a few countries have this capacity at present."
In sum, a close reading of the Iraq report and white paper suggests that the British Ministry of Defense has undertaken a more thorough, objective, and public appraisal of the demands of the wars against Middle Eastern terrorists and terror states than even the Bush administration has done, as of yet. In July testimony before Congress, Secretary Rumsfeld boasted that the Joint Forces analysis team "did more than take notes to improve our performance for the next war--they provided immediate feedback, allowing [the U.S. Central Command] leadership to apply 'lessons learned' in real time and improve coalition performance in this war." It is hard to denigrate any effort that may have contributed to the swift victory of major combat operations in Iraq, but there may be a price to be paid in objectivity now; JFCOM is, even more than the British Ministry of Defense, grading its own work. It remains to be seen whether the Bush administration is really ready to inaugurate a new chapter in U.S. military strategy and planning.
Thomas Donnelly is a resident fellow at AEI.
