The Iraq War : Strategy Tactics and Military Lessons

Contents: 1. Introduction. 2. The limits of analysis: what we dont yet know. 3. The forces engaged. 4. The course of the war and the interaction of joint forces. 5. Three debates: war plan and transformation Powell doctrine versus Rumsfeld doctrine and the new way of war. 6. Lessons about the interaction between Military fundamentals and new tactics and technology. 7. Lessons affecting the overall conduct of the war and joint forces. 8. Air missile and land based air defense forces. 9. Lessons affecting Army land forces. 10. Lessons affecting marine corps land forces. 11. Lessons affecting naval forces. 12. Lessons relating to intelligence and weapons of mass destruction. 13. Other lessons. 14. Lessons from Iraqi problems and short coming. 15. Lessons regarding the value of allies and build up time. 16. Military lessons relating to conflict termination peacemaking and nation building. 17. Grand strategy: the civilian aspects of nation building and the challenge of winning the peace. 18. Grand strategy: the outcome of the Iraq War and the new old middle east.

In the spring of 2003 a stunned world watched the armed forces of the United States and Britain conduct a military campaign against Iraq. As a result the Iraqi regime was dismantled and much of the conventional wisdom about modern war was irrevocably altered. Yet as U.S. and British forces occupy Basra, Tikrit, and Mosul the Iraqi nation has slipped into anarchy and the phrase shock and awe has begun to sound more appropriate as a description of the war's aftermath rather than its opening. Such has been the twisted trail of the Iraq War's dramatic events. But like so many other conflicts the war ultimately seems to pose more questions than it solved. This book is the first in depth analysis of the second war against Saddam Hussein's regime.

What are the repercussions of the pre war political fights in Washington Paris and the UN? Was meeting initial Military goals really due to Anglo American arms or had Saddam's regime simply been too degraded to fight? Why didn't Baghdad become a second Stalingrad? Why werent the occupying forces prepared to impose order? And then there is the significant question: where are Iraq's weapons of mass destruction? Respected military analyst Anthony Cordesman incisively examines the key issues swirling around the most significant U.S. war since Vietnam. Beginning the search for answers is essential to understanding America's awesome power and its place in a new age of international terror. (jacket)