Shock and Awe

[dragongirl]

I keep hearing that last night was not the attack that is supposed to bring Shock and Awe.

So, what is it going to be ?

I can imagine some of things that could bring shock and awe, but it’s all too scary for me to think about too much. I keep thinking that soon we’ll be seeing a nuke go off in Baghdad and all of those people suffering for things that they have no control over.

I don’t want to see anything that’s going to shock and awe.

[ShibbOleth]

I heard the folks on the news channel (not sure which, MSNBC, Fox, CNN Live, CNN Headline, they all sort of blur) this morning talking about last nights show as if it was a disappointment. “This definitely was not the ‘Shock and Awe’ portion”, etc. And it seemed like a parent explaining to their kids that the fireworks folks always fire off a few small rounds at first to test things, then the big stuff comes. It’s almost as if they are salivating waiting for this.

Maybe the military’s way of coercing the “liberal media” into some support of this war was via the ratings they might get with a good “Shock and Awe” program. Don’t mind me, I just get more cynical as I get older.

[Finagle]

They’ve actually been fairly forthcoming about what it’s going to be. Rather than your nightmare scenario, the official line is that the initial assault is going to be very precise smart weapons focused on military installations and leadership.

Whether this is accurate or not is anyone’s guess, but to speculate on the use of nukes is not only alarmist but actually irresponsible. Why on Earth would we terminally alienate everyone on the planet when we have overwhelming superiority in conventional forces?

[XJETGIRLX]

‘Shock and Awe’ is related to the PsyOps going into the campaign. As opposed to Gulf War 1.0 where we started out with concentrated air attacks, followed by strategic ground force movements the plan this time around is to coordinate air, ground and sea forces to coincide attacks.

The attack last night was not planned ahead of time. We had not planned to begin our attacks just yet, but there was (according to CIA intelligence) a unique and perishable window of opportunity to take out Hussein. The President decided to act upon this information and last night at 10:40 PM we sent some cruise missiles to a target where we had reason to believe Saddam would be.

Our official operations did not start last night, we just got a ‘lucky break’ so to speak, and acted on it.

[ShibbOleth]

Shock and Awe is that they are going to drop as many bombs at one time as they dropped in the ENTIRE last Gulf War. So it should be loud and intimidating. Add in the new MOAB bomb, which supposedly produces a big ass bang, and they expect a lot of surrenders, defections, pants soiled, what have you. But it should NOT be nukes.

I even heard one radio program in the past two days say that Saddam would “win” if he goaded us into using a tactical nuke on him in retaliation for Chem/Bio weapons usage.

[Umbriel]

“Shock and Awe” is officially supposed to involve thousands of precision missile and bomb attacks on command and communications, and possibly other targets of military significance, timed to arrive almost simultaneously. It will most certainly not be nuclear. Nor will it be indescriminate, though some collateral damage due to target proximity to civilian areas, or outright malfunctions and misses, seems likely with so many attacks going on.

Unfortunately, economic warfare has been ineffective at removing Saddam, and has arguably only deepened the suffering of the Iraqi people. Harsh language and half-hearted diplomatic pressure (owing to the varied political agendas of the so-called United Nations) have also been useless. It’s entirely reasonable to sympathize with the unfortunate lot of the Iraqi people, but I don’t think that justifies inaction.

The strategic bombing campaigns of World War II continue to resonate in the public imagination, such that it seems to be assumed that any war will involve indiscriminate bombing of civilian population centers with the intent of killing as many people as possible. It didn’t happen in 1991, and it won’t happen now. Bystanders will, unfortunately, die, but it will happen less frequently now than it ever has. Many, and I would expect most, of the Iraqi civilian casualties will die as a direct result of their government’s actions (such as placing military assets in densely populated areas), deliberately calculated to make those deaths and injuries more likely, in order to obtain political advantage.

I don’t believe that we can allow a government to use its own people as hostages. If we decide that freedom never justifies violence, then we might as well clamp the chains onto ourselves right now.

[UncleBeer]

Moderator’s Notes: I’m just stepping in to remind everyone that this thread currently resides in MPSIMS. Please consider your replies carefully. Thank you.

[Gozu_Tashoya]

*Originally posted by ShibbOleth *
**Shock and Awe is that they are going to drop as many bombs at one time as they dropped in the ENTIRE last Gulf War. **

OOC, about how many is this? I’ve heard the figure of 3,000 cruise missiles ( :eek: )tossed around in relation to S&A, but no bomb counts.

[ShibbOleth]

Most I find also toss out 3,000 “smart bombs” as a rough number. I’ll keep looking but this article from the The Straits Times is an interesting summary of the concept, and explores some of the weapons that will be/are being used.

While the US wants to dismantle Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime, it is all too aware that wrecking essential infrastructure such as power and water supplies will complicate the process of nation-building after the war.

An overwhelming advantage in tanks, weaponry and dominance in the air has given the Pentagon’s war planners a chance to experiment, and precision-guided arms will be decisive.

In 1991, ‘smart’ bombs provided impressive television footage and equally spectacular claims about their accuracy by the Pentagon, but the US actually used few of these because they had few in their arsenal.

‘The most important difference this time is actually something most people don’t know, it’s quantity,’ said Mr George Friedman, founder of respected commercial intelligence company Stratfor.

‘We had much fewer numbers of air-launched cruise missiles and sea-launched cruise missiles and other precision-guided munitions than we have today.’

Smart bombs made up just 8 per cent of the bombs used in the more than 36,000 strikes over the 43-day air war. In the second Gulf War, the number is expected to be as high as 90 per cent.

This time, they are more accurate as well.

[ShibbOleth]

I found a better source, in a Philadelphia Daily News article

US Plan for Saddam: Shock and Awe

…
By the end of 48 hours, as many as 800 Tomahawks will have fallen on Baghdad - more than during the entire 1991 Gulf War. At the same time, Stealth bombers will strike as many as 3,000 military targets across Iraq.

The Pentagon calls the proposed pyrotechnic display “Shock and Awe” - a new kind of psychological warfare technique aimed at forcing a confused and shellshocked Iraqi military to collapse within two days, thus achieving quick victory.
…

So, 800 cruise missiles = same as entire Gulf War, plus 3000 more targets to be (smart?) bombed by Stealth bombers. That should raise a bit of dust.

[Smeghead]

I find it interesting that the media seems to be speculating on why it hasn’t happened yet, wondering if something “went wrong”.

Hmmm. The government states publicly for weeks or months that we’re going to do one thing, then does something else, and no one in the media seems to think this might be deliberate?

[World_Eater]

*Originally posted by KKBattousai *
**OOC, about how many is this? I’ve heard the figure of 3,000 cruise missiles ( :eek: )tossed around in relation to S&A, but no bomb counts. **

I hope not, that would be 3 Billion dollars right there.

:eek:

[Gozu_Tashoya]

*Originally posted by World Eater *
**I hope not, that would be 3 Billion dollars right there.

:eek: **

And that is another one for the “things the media has gotten wrong” file.

[RTFirefly]

Here’s a snip from the Washington Post story on “Shock and Awe”:

The “Shock and Awe” concept was originally articulated in 1996 in an obscure Pentagon publication by Harlan K. Ullman, a Naval veteran and prolific author, and James Wade, a former Pentagon planner. In consultation with a team of six former military officers, Ullman and Wade sought to develop ways for the U.S. armed forces to achieve “rapid dominance” over any battlefield foe.

Their idea was go beyond traditional doctrines of “decisive force” and find a way for the United States to prevail more quickly over enemies with inferior firepower while avoiding the civilian and military casualties that could undermine political support.

This is supposed to be the most controversial passage from the book:

Theoretically, the magnitude of Shock and Awe Rapid Dominance seeks to impose (in extreme cases) … the non-nuclear equivalent of the impact that the atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had on the Japanese. The Japanese were prepared for suicidal resistance until both nuclear bombs were used. The impact of those weapons was sufficient to transform both the mindset of the average Japanese citizen and the outlook of the leadership through this condition of Shock and Awe. The Japanese simply could not comprehend the destructive power carried by a single airplane. This incomprehension produced a state of awe.

The entire book is online [here](http://www.ndu.edu/inss/books/books - 1996/Shock and Awe - Dec 96/index.html), on the National Defense University website.

[ShibbOleth]

Whether or not these types of weapons are more moral than nuclear weapons is probably a GD topic. But I would think that the debate would hinge on whether nuclear weapons shouldn’t be used because of the capacity for massive destruction and loss of life, or because of the ripple effects caused by the radioactive fallout, eg, babies later born with birth defects, contaminated earth, etc. If anyone wants to discuss that then they should start it in GD.

What seems to be forgotten is that wars have always killed people. Often many of them. And sadly there are almost always civilian casualties.