Even assuming everything is left behind, it would be trivially easy for Iran to lob a few missiles at any convoy. And IEDs can be fantastically destructive - you don't just take out a truck or two, you block the escape route, which slows everything and everyone down, creates useful ambush opportunities, and generally plays hell with any concept of orderly evacuation.
Air cover is useless unless you try to eliminate all traffic on the roads and in a wide corridor around them, permanently, for the duration of the retreat.
There's also the small point that if there's a retreat Iraq will have been handed over, at least in part, to Iran - which might not be popular politically.
Also, unless you're planning to patrol the entire length of the convoy, which will be many, many miles long and unlikely to be practical, there will always be people wandering into your restricted area and leaving presents behind.
And if you're abandoing a whole load of ammunition and materiel to make a quick getaway, you've just armed your opponents with your own equipment.
There is no good here. However you look at it, any forced retreat is going to be a disaster of epic dimensions.
Ammunition or other things left behind is not handed over to the enemy - it is blown up. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
As for the desert route - with what trucks, exactly?
The big airports will be the first missile targets, and as soon as those are gone - and it's wonderfully easy to crater a runaway - the supply lines are cut and the clock is ticking.
Best of luck with a quick getaway after that.
That is, beyond the Very Bad Idea of bombing Iran in the first place. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
The bottom line is that after a serious attack on Iran, most of the US army ceases to exist as a viable fighting force. The best that can happen is some kind of semi-successful retreat - which would be a military fiasco and a political disaster, castrating forever the fond image that the US has of itself as a paragon of force projection machismo.
The worst is very much worse.
after all the Marine corps appears to already see the looming disaster and are maneuvering to find themselves somewhere else
Marines Press to Remove Their Forces From Iraq - New York Times
WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 -- The Marine Corps is pressing to remove its forces from Iraq and to send marines instead to Afghanistan, to take over the leading role in combat there, according to senior military and Pentagon officials. The idea by the Marine Corps commandant would effectively leave the Iraq war in the hands of the Army while giving the Marines a prominent new role in Afghanistan, under overall NATO command.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 -- The Marine Corps is pressing to remove its forces from Iraq and to send marines instead to Afghanistan, to take over the leading role in combat there, according to senior military and Pentagon officials.
The idea by the Marine Corps commandant would effectively leave the Iraq war in the hands of the Army while giving the Marines a prominent new role in Afghanistan, under overall NATO command.
Besides which, you underestimate the dangers posed by determined irregular resistance. Ask the Germans who fought Tito.
Finally, William Lind, a US conservative and military freak, is much less sanguine about the US position in Iraq than you are, and thinks that Iran could roll up US forces in short order. US supply lines are very exposed. But this has already been pointed out here.
Do not fall for Hollywood BS. The US military fights really well on the silver screen, but not in real life. Check out Stan Goff's report about the death of Pat Tillman. Goff is an ex-Ranger himself, and yet his account completely strips US 'elite' units of any combat mystique. These were people who got stressed over a broken-down vehicle and one rocket fired by a couple of teenagers that blew up 500 metres away ... so they shot one of their own three times in the face when he came back to investigate. That's the sort of fire discipline that came from an elite unit. Go crazy and shoot one of your own mates.
With talent like that, massive failure is assured as soon as determined resistance is met.
Middle class largely out of it, working class obviously the backbone, high bourgeoisie occupying officers roles, not a citizen army but in name only. Just waiting to get their asses kicked by a real citizen army. In this light, Iraq might be seen as a Sebastopol, a relatively long conflict with no real winners which served mostly to piss off France's most important ally, Russia.
We can only hope that when Sedan comes, the aftermath will be equally as bloodless. Though I can't imagine Bush (or his successor) in exile in England. Where oh where would such a man go?
Walk around the US a bit, take a look at bellies which recall images, at least for me, of the excesses of Rome, and ask yourself if the US could in fact field more than just a small force of elite citizen soldiers. No, without technology, there's no there there. All the rot of Rome, with none of the glory. Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
You're talking about the army that did the repression of the Paris Commune... Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
Initially, the republic was restored, but they made the mistake of fighting on. If they had sued for peace, things may have been different, but, being the type of men of a certain class that they were, they didn't. That's the logic of these things.
But the coup that removed the monarchy was itself almost entirely bloodless. Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
I'm afraid we won't get to see Dubya wandering in a Hummer, on the battlefield of the Najrah defeat, in desperation over his lost war and legacy... That's what helped the creation of the republic after the Sedan defeat. And don't forget that the third republic was initially monarchist... Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
It's a nice though to imagine such Bush wanderings, but I imagine him more somewhere in Uruguay, far away from horses though, he's afraid of them. They might bite.
Monarchy, empire, six of one, demi-dozen of the other by that point in French history. In fact, Nap III needed that war in order to ensure ascension of his descendance, which is why many refer to the period as the imperial monarchy. Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
Look, guerillas are fine. They win as long as they don't lose. That is, as long as they hang around, the enemy will leave and they will win.
But they can't beat conventional forces on the battlefield. That's just what the conventional forces want to, as the result is utter carnage.
They have to go conventional themselves at that point, like at Dien Bien Phu or the last offensive against South Vietnam.
This will obviously not happen in Iraq at this juncture. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
But Iran's is.
And if it isn't Iran, there will eventually be another. That's the logic of what the US has found itself in, and eventually it will play out, as it always has.
Hopefully not on a battlefield, but here again, it's hard to see how this is avoidable. Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
If the Iranians are mad enough to fight a conventional war against the Americans, they will be ground to dust. That's it.
If they fight unconventional (read Hizb Allah, and google Paul van Ripen and Millenium Challenge 2002) there will be huge problems for the Americans, but not huge enough to make retreat impossible. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
It's one thing to fight your neighbor who has the advantage of knowing the terrain as well as you, and whose supply lines are at the very least not exposed and primarily within controlled, sovereign territory.
It is quite another to fight an isolated and demoralized expeditionary force whose supply lines are very exposed and primarily passing through increasingly hostile territory.
I think if you are suggesting that US troops in Iraq and, importantly, allied civilian personel, will be anything but sitting ducks, you are sadly mistaken. I mean, I saw Rambo in Afghanistan also, but the reality is something different... Fai de bèn a Bertrand, te lou rendra en cagant
Stan Goff: The Fog of Fame
The first of three parts on the circumstances of Pat Tillman's death. In 1979, after a break in my Army service and having recouped my sergeant's stripes as a mechanized cavalry scout in Fort Carson, I volunteered for the Rangers. Off to Ranger School I went, and upon completion I was assigned to 3rd Platoon, Company A (Alpha Company), 2nd Ranger Battalion, 75th Infantry Regiment in Fort Lewis, Washington. Each of the three rifle platoons (organizations of around 40 light infantrymen) had nicknames, in this case, First to Fight, the Blacksheep, and Third Herd. A Company, known for its iron discipline, was called the Alpha-bots. When I left there in 1981 to become a tactics instructor at the Jungle Operations Training Center in Panama, I never had a notion that I might somehow be entangled with Alpha Company again ... two-and-a-half decades later. Brothers Pat and Kevin Tillman were Alpha-bots, assigned to the Blacksheep (2nd Platoon), when Pat was killed by friendly fire on April 22, 2004 near a tiny village called Manah in Paktia Province, Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border. When I was a member of the adjacent platoon in the same building, Pat was a baby.
The first of three parts on the circumstances of Pat Tillman's death.
In 1979, after a break in my Army service and having recouped my sergeant's stripes as a mechanized cavalry scout in Fort Carson, I volunteered for the Rangers. Off to Ranger School I went, and upon completion I was assigned to 3rd Platoon, Company A (Alpha Company), 2nd Ranger Battalion, 75th Infantry Regiment in Fort Lewis, Washington. Each of the three rifle platoons (organizations of around 40 light infantrymen) had nicknames, in this case, First to Fight, the Blacksheep, and Third Herd. A Company, known for its iron discipline, was called the Alpha-bots. When I left there in 1981 to become a tactics instructor at the Jungle Operations Training Center in Panama, I never had a notion that I might somehow be entangled with Alpha Company again ... two-and-a-half decades later.
Brothers Pat and Kevin Tillman were Alpha-bots, assigned to the Blacksheep (2nd Platoon), when Pat was killed by friendly fire on April 22, 2004 near a tiny village called Manah in Paktia Province, Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border. When I was a member of the adjacent platoon in the same building, Pat was a baby.
This is the second in a three-part series on the death of Pat Tillman. Click here to read the first installment: Pat Tillman Everyone's Political Football. This is where there are conflicting stories, partly because of the "fog of war," but more importantly to evade possible prosecutions... and the Pandora's box of counter-accusation a recrimination that might be opened by prosecutions. I won't belabor the minutiae.
This is the second in a three-part series on the death of Pat Tillman. Click here to read the first installment: Pat Tillman Everyone's Political Football.
This is where there are conflicting stories, partly because of the "fog of war," but more importantly to evade possible prosecutions... and the Pandora's box of counter-accusation a recrimination that might be opened by prosecutions.
I won't belabor the minutiae.
Part 3 (concluding) of The Fog of Fame: the Death of Pat Tillman. There is the cover-up (of the fratricide). There is the original lie (that Pat was killed in an intense combat engagement). There is the layering of plausible denial in case the stories unravel. The motives of the spin-meisters were to pin a recruiting poster to Pat's coffin. The motive of the cover-up (at least one of them) was to preserve the mystique of the US Army Rangers -- the elite of the infantry -- as flawless, disciplined, steely-eyed commandos.
Part 3 (concluding) of The Fog of Fame: the Death of Pat Tillman.
There is the cover-up (of the fratricide). There is the original lie (that Pat was killed in an intense combat engagement). There is the layering of plausible denial in case the stories unravel.
The motives of the spin-meisters were to pin a recruiting poster to Pat's coffin. The motive of the cover-up (at least one of them) was to preserve the mystique of the US Army Rangers -- the elite of the infantry -- as flawless, disciplined, steely-eyed commandos.
Operation Anabasis
Still, the Americans defeated them on the western front, due to the American superior numbers and superior firepower.
If the US Army of '44 could beat the Wehrmacht, the US Army of '07 can beat some ragtag Iraqis. I have no doubt whatsoever about that.
Sure, the US Armed forces are still stuck in the French second generation mentality (infantry advance, artillery conquers!), but that won't matter much here as they are not up against, well, the Wehrmacht (or the Bundesmacht, as an op-ed in the IHT which demanded a more aggressive role for the Bundesheer in Afghanistan called it).
The individual courage and skill of American soldiers and Marines should not be underestimated. Reports I've read for example from the second battle of Fallujah shows that. The Americans are great at urban warfare, as long as they are allowed to leave only ruins behind.
Anyway, it will boil down to supply. And no one does supply better than the Americans.
By the way, I'm a great fan of William Lind. And I think he has a very good point. The US force in Iraq could indeed be lost if they are not given free hands, which will mean lots of civilian death and destruction. Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
Witness the fact that the American expeditionary force took fewer casualties on their trip to Berlin than the French army did during the German trip to Paris four years earlier. This does not speak to me of a smash-until-something-gives approach. It speaks to me of a pushover.
- Jake If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.
Relevant quote:
But America certainly could do it--and has given the idea some serious thought. "The U.S. capability to make a mess of Iran's nuclear infrastructure is formidable," says veteran Mideast analyst Geoffrey Kemp. "The question is, what then?" NEWSWEEK has learned that the CIA and DIA have war-gamed the likely consequences of a U.S. pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities. No one liked the outcome. As an Air Force source tells it, "The war games were unsuccessful at preventing the conflict from escalating.
And if the conflict escalates, it can quickly become possible that the US will use tactical nukes, if they don't do it on first strike already.
"The war games were unsuccessful at preventing the conflict from escalating.
Hmmm there's several meanings in that phrase. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
A spat between Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman over Mrs. Clinton's inquiries about Pentagon plans for the future withdrawal of troops in Iraq -- and whether talk of such plans was emboldening the enemy -- drew a response from Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. In a letter to Mrs. Clinton sent yesterday, Mr. Gates offered his assurance that contingency planning "is indeed taking place with my active involvement as well as that of senior military and civilian officials and our commanders in the field." Mr. Gates added that he considers such planning "to be a priority for this Department."
In a letter to Mrs. Clinton sent yesterday, Mr. Gates offered his assurance that contingency planning "is indeed taking place with my active involvement as well as that of senior military and civilian officials and our commanders in the field." Mr. Gates added that he considers such planning "to be a priority for this Department."
