The overwhelming successes and frustrating failures of the year-old war on terrorism are prompting the most sweeping changes in U.S. military policy since Vietnam. Without a single battle tank or armored troop carrier, the United States and a ragtag rebel army routed Afghanistan's Taliban to claim the first major battle of the 21st century. The Pentagon's most important weapons: elite commandos riding into battle on horseback and thousands of satellite- guided smart bombs. But any elation over America's sudden victory in Afghanistan was tempered by spotty intelligence, civilian casualties, training that isn't tailored to fighting terrorists and the vexing uncertainty over whether al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is alive or dead. Those successes and failures have prompted the military to re-examine many fundamental practices, from how it recruits special operations troops to how it trains to fight agile, shadowy foes. Some of the changes were under way before Sept. 11, 2001. But it's clear that the war on terrorism will lead to robust funding for defense, radically new weapons, unconventional battlefield tactics and closer ties between the uniformed military and U.S. intelligence agencies. New thinking will almost certainly shape the U.S. battle plan against Iraq. While ousting Saddam Hussein will likely require extensive bombing and a sizable ground force, experts say the United States will not need anything like the 500,000 troops and 2,000 aircraft it took to expel the Iraqi army from Kuwait in 1991. "The war on terrorism has shown the extraordinary reach of the United States," says Eliot Cohen, who heads the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. But in the same breath, he highlights nagging problems, including intelligence gathering. "It appears a lot of al-Qaeda got away," he says. Armed with those mixed results, the military services have pored over battlefield data to apply important lessons to future fights. What they've learned: *Smart bombs work. In some cases, "precision weapons" such as laser- and satellite-guided bombs have reduced the number of planes and troops needed to defeat an enemy. But they are so accurate that even minor errors in identifying the locations of targets can kill large numbers of civilians. U.S. forces need to attack targets quickly. Recently, a major military sweep in southern Afghanistan came up nearly empty, U.S. officials believe, because al- Qaeda loyalists tipped off terrorists. To defeat terrorist foot soldiers, the military will have to strike immediately, There are limits to relying on allied armies, such as Afghanistan's Northern Alliance. Military and intelligence analysts say that dozens, and perhaps hundreds, of al-Qaeda fighters escaped from the Tora Bora cave complex in December because the United States relied on Afghan troops to block escape routes. The U.S. military must change how it prepares soldiers and sailors for this new fight. The war on terrorism has no front or rear lines and will require U.S. troops to do everything from boarding civilian vessels to fighting pockets of guerillas in mountains 2 to 3 miles high. "We will have to train our people better, equip them better and look at every element of close combat," says Rear Adm. James Stavridis, who directed a Navy team that studied the war. B-52s and Commandos A few weeks into planning how to attack the Taliban last September, Pentagon officials recognized a big problem, They didn't have any bases near Afghanistan. So the Navy parked the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk off the coast of Pakistan. From its flight decks, normally packed with screaming fighter jets, the United States launched helicopter-borne commandos last fall. "If you had told me a year ago that we would sail a carrier loaded with commandos and attack a landlocked country 600 miles away, I'd have asked you what you were smoking," Stavridis says. In the shadow of Sept. 11, the unconventional idea has suddenly become conventional. The Navy said in July that it would propose creating a new commando ship by converting an existing aircraft carrier or a cargo ship for the job. The Air Force, meanwhile, modified its 40- year-old fleet of B-52 bombers to attack enemy troops with satellite-guided bombs while flying at 40,000 feet. Stavridis and others in the Defense Department have concluded that the combination of several hundred U.S. commandos on the ground and combat aircraft with computer-linked smart bombs has changed the formula for attacking small or large enemy forces. During the Cold War, it was an article of faith that U.S. land forces typically needed three times as many troops as a dug-in enemy to attack. Such debates have raised a larger question. Has the United States developed a leaner way to fight? Some say the methods can be used in other countries. Others argue that war in a central Asian backwater is a unique situation whose tactics won't work elsewhere. This much is clear: the United States has made quantum leaps in delivering firepower. During the Gulf War, one Navy aircraft carrier could attack 162 targets in a day. Today, that same carrier can strike nearly 700. The Air Force has experienced the same gains. A single B-52 or B-1 in Afghanistan using a dozen or more smart bombs could destroy as many targets as an entire squadron of 18 F-16s in the Gulf War. Bob Andrews, who until July headed the Pentagon's office for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict, believes a revolution is under way. "An American with a laser designator could kill 3,000 Tabban in an afternoon," Andrews says, describing how a small group of troops on the ground decimated Taliban forces near Bagram by calling in airstrikes last fall. "In an almost Biblical sense, one man could bring down a whole bunch of the enemy." Speed Kills In wars ranging from the 1989 invasion of Panama to the 1999 bombing campaign in Kosovo, the Pentagon could reliably predict when and where the enemy would choose to fight. But terrorists don't think and move the way armies do. At least in Afghanistan, they learned to hide when they suspected commandos and American bombers were targeting them. The Navy and Air Force have drawn the same conclusion: To defeat groups like al-Qaeda, you have to attack as soon as you find them. "The summary lesson is, with speed you can deny sanctuary to terrorists," says Col. Fred Wieners, who has studied the war on terrorism for the Air Force. In the future, Wieners says, U,S. forces will have to locate targets and drop bombs in the time it takes to watch a couple of TV commercials. In Afghanistan, the Pentagon was able to reduce that time difference to less than 10 minutes. But in the several minutes it takes to got approval from senior commanders for pilots to bomb the enemy, a determined foe can seek cover. At Tora Bora in December and during Operation Anaconda in March, al-Qaeda fighters were able to escape because U.S. troops hadn't sealed escape routes or aircraft were delayed in striking targets. But speed has to be balanced with reliable intelligence, as at least a half- dozen accidental attacks on Afghan civilians and U.S. troops showed. A single deadly raid in July killed at least 40 Afghan civilians. To demonstrate how aerial warfare is evolving, consider one statistic. In Desert Storm, 80% of the targets that were bombed were selected before U.S. fighters and bombers left their bases or aircraft carriers; most were stationary. In Afghanistan, the opposite was true: 80% of the targets were chosen by pilots circling the country while talking to ground troops pinpointing the enemy's location. Global Scouts Perhaps never before have the military's special operations troops 'played such a vital role. Though they make up only about 3% of the U.S. military, several hundred of these highly skilled SEALs and Green Berets were the main U.S. ground combat force in Afghanistan, the first time that has happened. That plan defied the practice of most conventional wars, in which special operations troops have played a complementary role. The Pentagon's Andrews says one conclusion from Afghanistan is clear: The United States needs more commandos and will have to use them in new ways. "We've got to have special ops forces operating on a continual basis around the world, like beat cops," Andrews says. Intelligence experts say Afghanistan highlighted a disturbing trend from the 1990s, when the CIA decreased the number of agents around the world, particularly in countries where terrorists now seek haven. Since Sept. 11, the CIA has recruited dozens of operatives to send to Central Asia, including former military officers familiar with dialects spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Intelligence shortcomings have brought another change: Army special operations forces have dramatically increased the number of commandos who will be trained in Middle Eastern languages, including Arabic, Farsi, Pashto and Dari. In the wake of Sept. 11, all the services are rethinking how they select and train conventional troops, too. Col. Michael Hiemstra, director of the Army Center for Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, KS., says the Army is reviewing long-standing rules on marksmanship training. "We will have to expand the rifle skills of infantry soldiers to all other soldiers," Hiemstra says, echoing the Marine Corps' motto: "Every Marine a rifleman." The Army is also rethinking how to train for fighting in mountainous areas. During Operation Anaconda in March, the 10th Mountain and 101st Airborne divisions fought al-Qaeda troops at altitudes over 11,000 feet in eastern Afghanistan. At such heights, a soldier's 80-pound backpack feels like 120 pounds, too heavy for extended periods. The Army is studying ways to lighten each soldier's pack. The Navy is revamping training for thousands of sailors who could be involved in boarding ships that harbor terrorists. Since the war began, U.S. and allied ships have questioned the crews of more than 16,000 ships and boarded 200. The Navy's Stavridis says such perilous missions, which the Navy hasn't performed regularly since the War of 1812, will require training a new generation of "sea warriors." That means revamping Navy training for young sailors who could be involved in hand-to- hand combat aboard ships or gun battles with terrorist stowaways overseas. In the future, Navy officials say, they will need to have 20 to 40 well- armed sailors aboard each frigate, destroyer and cruiser sailing in waters near terrorist havens, "We're looking for sea warriors who can board a tramp steamer, day or night," Stavridis says. "We need to be prepared for anything." Back to Dispatch December 2002 Table of Contents Back to Dispatch List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2002 by HMGS Mid-South This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com