McClatchy: Iraq war has transformed tech-savvy U.S. military

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Iraq war has transformed tech-savvy U.S. military
By Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers

* Posted on Tuesday, March 18, 2008



WASHINGTON — When U.S. forces crossed the Kuwaiti border into Iraq in the pre-dawn hours of March 20, 2003, the military set out to shock and awe the Middle East with the swiftest transformation the region had ever seen.

Five years and hundreds of billions of dollars later, it's the U.S. military that's been transformed. The efficient, tech-savvy Army, built, armed and trained to fight conventional wars against aggressor states, is now making deals with tribal sheiks and building its power on friendly conversations with civilians.

Instead of planning for quick, decisive battles against other nations, as it was five years ago, today's American military is planning for protracted, nuanced conflicts with terrorist groups, insurgents, guerrillas, militias and other shadowy forces that seldom stand and fight.

The staples of American military doctrine that have developed since the Civil War — artillery, armor, air power, speed and overwhelming force — are of limited use against enemies who blend into civilian populations.

Five years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the military is being reconfigured to fight insurgencies, but its evolution has been an unplanned, improvised affair, a series of course corrections in the midst of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some changes have been simply last-ditch efforts to stop the violence against Iraqis and U.S. troops, and some say the changes impair the military's ability to fight a conventional war against a "peer competitor."

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