It appears that the Iraqi Army is going to retake Mosul. It has been slow going, and they have had to use the US and other Air Forces (plus some ..um, irregulars) to finish the job. How, after so many years of training and arming the Iraqi Army, did this state of affairs come to pass?
First, a little background. The Iraqi Army at the beginning of 1979 was of respectable size, and it was fully equipped with Soviet export-grade equipment. Its doctrine and training were the usual crude aping of Soviet doctrine. Heavy reliance on numbers and artillery with tanks. Not very flexible and individual initiative was all but non-existent. The Iraqi Air Force was similarly Soviet armed and organized. The 8 year war with Iran 1980-1988 degraded this force significantly.
Then the Iraqis really got their arses kicked. An exhausted and broken army faced the peak Cold War ready forces of the US, UK, France, and others. The results, in retrospect, were what should have been expected (I chuckle remembering Edward Luttwak and other “experts” warning that the “battle hardened” Iraqi Army would be a tough fight). Cut to a dozen years later, and they were in even worse shape – while their enemies were fielding even more advanced forces. What was left of the Iraqi Army was clubbed down, faded away, and the country was occupied in 2003. Long story short – this was not a history of success, no tradition of excellence, or a force that could adapt, change, and improve. So that was the situation when we decided to put a hand to it (or a foot in it, your choice).
The new Iraqi government (2005 edition) started the rebuilding of the Army (and other branches) from scratch. With heavy US and Allied assistance, the Army started to build Infantry Divisions, and take over responsibility for more and more parts of the country. In 2008, the new Iraqi military faced its first major test – retaking Basra from the Jaish al Mahdi and various Iranian handlers and IRGC groups. The Iraqi Operation Charge of the Knights did not start off too well. One brigade, fresh from initial training and only partly equipped, was shoved into the fight too early and quietly saw 50% of its troops melt away. That is when it got personal…
Welcome to scenic Mahmud al Kasim!
I got sent from a semi-backwater, helping advise the Iraqi Army 10th Division, to advising the 14th Division (they were fighting in Basra). A handful of Brits, two Americans, and one Australian were going to give advice and do a little coordination with a company of US Apache helicopters and the British who were nearby.
We few, we happy few
The Iraqis brought in their best – the 1st IA Division (later renamed the 1st QRF – Quick Reaction Force) to join the 14th, some other bits and pieces, and a Brigade of freshly trained and equipped National Police (similar to European Gendarmerie). They also had the Prime Minister, Interior Minister, and various fixers show up to smooth over the sluggish supply situation (10 stamps and signatures to get ammo, 13 if it was 14.5 mm or higher). It worked. Some really long hours, one really loud artillery barrage, several 107 mm rockets seeming to have my name on them, and meeting some Iranian prisoners later – Basra was cleared. A triumph, right? Actually it was the peak and start of the decline of that iteration of the Iraqi Army.
With simultaneous operations going on in Baghdad (Hi there, Sadr City!) and Basra – the Iraqis had really put the boot to internal enemies. The necessity of having this combat force, needed to protect against existential threats, began to pale in comparison to the drive to crony up the Army. Before I left at the end of 2008, we were getting grumbling from authorities in the Kurdish area that the Iraqi Defense Ministry was replacing competent Kurdish commanders with crony Shias. The Sunni had a related beef that they were getting shut out of opportunities as part of score settling by the Shia dominated Government. Fuel, pay and supply pilferage, embezzlement, theft, and black marketeering had been a problem, even in 2008 (we used to watch the 10th Division get its fuel allotment and line up their own civilian vehicles, family members, and various connected or bribe bearing people to fill up in long line….then bitch they didn’t have enough fuel to conduct operations). Without nosy Americans asking where things were, looking at records, and checking inventories, it went to pot – and don’t expect a fix to be fast.
By the time we had (temporarily, as it worked out) left Iraq, the seeds of decline were starting to bloom. Once ISIS kicked their way into Iraq, the post-2003 Iraqi Army had become unable to hold a large chunk of its own country.
After all this, the US looks like it will be back in the business of training the Iraqi Army once more. NOTE: This isn’t a “partisan” issue, as both Obama and Trump Administrations have committed.
What is the libertarian take on this?
The first reaction = “none of our business, goodbye.” Why should American taxpayers pay for training a foreign army? Internal squabbles on the other side of the world are not our business, nor our duty to settle. A less hands-off reaction might be “better to train them than have US forces doing the fighting.” “ISIS is a threat to us, and they have made it clear they want to bring it everywhere – better to fight them over there, with locals, than wait for them to send the next truck to plow through a crowd, or some guys with nail-packed bomb vests take out a mall.”
Practically speaking, it appears that the Iraqis have not yet made the commitment to maintaining a capable force, even if we do rebuild it yet again. If they want to have us train them – fine, pay for it completely. See you at Fort Polk for training and humidity! Come on, guys NTC should be like home! Same goes for equipment… All you can buy! But going to the US Taxpayer well, once again, is not a very palatable option.
What are your thoughts, Glibs? In for a penny, in for a pound? We broke it, we fix it? Fuck off slaver? No, fuck you, cut spending?
Thoughts? besides nuke it from orbit?
+1 world’s largest glass bowl
I originally thought Hot Shots! Part Deux was a documentary about the Iraqi army.
Valeria Golino, mmm, mmm, mmm.
The before and after pictures would be indistinguishable.
All the shit would have been dried out though,
You’re thinking of Detroit.
My initial reaction is “Your problem, not ours” but then I remember that is exactly what we did to the mujahideen in Afghanistan and that little endeavor didn’t fare so well in the long run. If we do it though we need to do it for real. No half measure bullshit. Full on war, make iraq a protectorate of the US for the foreseeable future, we stamp out ISIS like a roach, and we get the oil. Fair trade?
Thanks to fracking, we have oil. The Brits tried the Iraqi Protectorate thing – didn’t work.
I think we gave them a fair chance – they blew the first one, how many more do-overs do they get?
My feeling?
We broke it, we bought it.
We shouldn’t have gone there in 2003, but once we did, we signed up for the long haul. Shinseki was a generally terrible CSA and even worse in the VA, but he got fired for being right about the surge. When Bush was selling his Axis of Evil, he should have laid the bill out in much detail. I remember discussing it at that time, in CGSC, that this would take 20+ years to meet his stated goals, if it were done right.
The Surge secured the general peace in that country in 07, finally, but the problems with the Iraqi Army were going to take a whole generation to fix. We never should have gotten completely out of Iraq in 09 until their military could stand on their own. But we also should not be in the business of fighting their fight for them. Training and SF missions with a lot more state department control should be our mid-term goal. Short term? Bombing and advisory support for gutting ISIS. No trigger pulling.
Conversely, we never should have surged in Afghanistan. Iraqis have a general idea of what right should look like, but the Afghanis are 2 generations away from right.
We never should have gotten completely out of Iraq in 09 until their military could stand on their own.
I think the question is whether that was ever going to happen, if “stand on their own” has any definition other than “keep the current government in power by squashing dissent.”
The Surge in Iraq didn’t finish until some time in 2008 (I was there for the tail end). As I mentioned in the article – by late 2008, Iraq had control of its territory. We had “fixed it”, in my opinion. The Iraqis chose to let their Army get turned into a very much less capable force, and put officers in positions based on tribal affiliation, graft and political log rolling.
Do we owe it to the Iraqis to fix them from that?
“Do we owe it to the Iraqis to fix them from that?”
At this point, no, but had we left a cadre in Iraq in 09, it likely would have continued to improve instead of back-sliding.
As I said, 20+ years before Iraq can develop a professional backbone for their military.
We shouldn’t have gone there in 2003, but once we did, we signed up for the long haul.
We should have left once the mission was accomplished. I saw the sign, it was years and years ago.
People made fun of the sign, but I didn’t. I took it as a time to leave signal.
Clicked too soon:
I’m with Swiss – we gave them more than a fair chance. They blew it. Sucks to be them. Try not to piss off your new Iranian overlords, chumps.
“what we did to the mujahideen in Afghanistan”
They were better off under the Soviets than the head loppers and girl mutilators. We should have left the shit alone. Without our SAMs, that would have been Russia’s mess to deal with instead of ours. We never learn.
They were not really well off under the USSR. They were not well off under the Loppers.
The last time they had decent government and a civil society was the early 1970s.
They weren’t happy under the Soviets, except for the women who were definitely better off. But that wasn’t our problem and it isn’t now.
Women were not “happy” under the Soviets – there just happen to be different degrees of slavery, I guess.
We had to help the mujihadeen, after what the Russians did to Sylvester Stallone ….
*narrows gaze*
Contrast the Iraqis with the Assadite Syrians who have managed to provide the lion’s share of the effort against most of the rest of the world-it’s amazing what can be achieved if someone believes in a cause and what can be squandered if one doesn’t. If the Iraqis don’t care enough to maintain a viable force on their own then to hell with them.
To be fair, the Syrians have had enormous help from Iran – directly and through proxy forces, as well as Russian support.
So what are the Iranians doing right by comparison?
Iranians largely support their nation
Iraqis largely don’t. Iraqis largely are loyal to their tribes… full stop.
Saddam’s terror was dialed up to the degree needed to coerce an ersatz loyalty to the nation.
I think he meant in their effort in Syria.
Ah.
I think my original answer applies to the question of what are the Iranians doing right in Syria…
The Sunnis could easily have rolled over the Allawites if they would get their shit together.
The Iranians may be poor; they may have shitty equipment; but they are motivated in a way that the non-ISIS Sunnis just aren’t.
As for ISIS… they are motivated. But they are strategically inflexible, and in many ways their own worst enemy. Like the Nazis racial doctrine that turned Ukrainians from allies to enemies, the insistence of ISIS’ leadership of brutalizing people under their control is making living under the thumb of the corrupt tribal guys look better in comparison. Talk about failing to clear a low bar.
No kidding – that happened in Anbar Province, twice. The AQI folks were so bad, the locals cooperated with the Iraqi government and the US in kicking them out. Then the Iraqi government was so shitty that they didn’t resist (or helped) when the next set of crap kickers came into ar-Ramadi.
You would think the lesson might sink in one or two of these days.
I don’t think the Iranians are doing right – they are beggaring their own country to intervene in Syria. They are just much less restrained than us – they will not set restrictive rules of engagement, don’t care about civilian casualties, etc.
In the long run, they are making a massive mistake.
… unless they’re the last man standing.
Why break yourself to control….nothing of value? Sure, Make Glorious Islamic Revolution Spread to All World and Kill Zionists and Yankees. But they have 50% unemployment in their young folks, they are running up debt they cannot handle and they are pissing off all their Sunni neighbors. For what gain? Controlling rubble and poor people?
So long as it is their rubble and the poor people adhere to the Ayatollah’s version of Islam, I think they’d call that a win.
Iran’s gameplan is to extort protection money from the regional actors, and you need to develop a “Crazy Ivan” image for that to work.
“Crazy Khomeni”
Well, he’s just one of many.
One thing I never got to the bottom of, although we might find out soon – and that’s how powerful the “dedicated” Twelvers are.
Their client state(like) actors are also more pliant, so when Iran says “march” Hezbollah marches in and adds their numbers and expertise to Iranian and Syrian ones.
Also, it really, really helps when all your allies and proxies are fighting your enemies, while enemies spend half the time fighting each other.
Basically it’s a replay of Spanish Civil War, with Assad as Franco.
How would you characterize the Russian and Iranian involvement? From what I’ve seen they typically provide support and bolster the Syrian army. Has this evolved to not be the case since the Russians came in? I used to be up on the conflict but I let my knowledge base slip once we narrowly avoided bombing them over the gassing incident.
The Russians have stretched their forces a bit thin (low level war with Ukraine, nibbling away at Georgia, now this Syria crap) so they have backed off to more of a supply effort and some air support. The Iranians are pouring billions into this.
See here.
That’s OK, we handed them $100 billion in mad money.
Yup, but they will burn that up in 2 years.
My understanding of the Syrian situation is that Assad’s backers, being mainly Alawites (the once-persecuted Shia religious sect to which Assad belongs) as well as a smattering of other minorities, have the added incentive of the fear of reprisal if they lose. If you are afraid your group will get genocided if you lose, you tend to fight fiercer and be less tolerant of corruption in your ranks (see also the case of the Kurds, who have also done much better than the Iraqis, despite little support).
More or less everything i think, nicely summarized
Why Arab
s Lose WarsArmies SuckShort answer = Culture.
That piece is one of the most interesting things i’ve ever read about the ME. And its remarkable for having been widely circulated at the beginning of the Iraq invasion, and apparently entirely ignored.
The short of it is that they are effectively “untrainable” because the armies exist as extensions of a patronage system and of tribal hierarchy. There is institutional resistance to ever developing competent non-coms because all real power is closely guarded by a cadre of family-connected officers who dole out money and gear based on tribal loyalties, not merit.
My endless joking about the vast proliferation of different uniforms which appeared on the mosul battlefield (*esp that blueberry camo Navy working uniform) was really just a backhanded way of observing that it seemed like an reflection of the inherent tribalism of their military; every tribal petit-Napoleon wanted his goons to look different than his rivals goons.
I simply can’t believe we still throw money at either the Iraqi or Afghan “armies” after nearly 20 years of flushing cash down the toilet. I’d love to see the cost-benefit analysis PowerPoint they use to justify the insanity of it all.
Inshallah
If God wills it, the truck will run, the radio will work, and this shot will hit an enemy. So why perform all that tiresome maintenance, hump extra batteries, or adjust windage and elevation and aim down the sights? Are you an unbeliever?
We had some Iraqi Special Republican Guard prisoners when Desert Storm ended. The thousands of regular prisoners were terrified of these dozen assholes dressed up like they were Waffen SS. It was weird to us – made me realize how their society functioned through brutal intimidation. The regular Iraqi prisoners gave us no trouble but the SRG officers bitched all the time about food, shelter, whatever. We would tell them to fuck off.
When the Kuwaitis showed up to take them away for a proper war-crimes trial and proper hanging, we pointed and laughed at them.
from the link above
This illuminates my speculative posting below concerning the importance of NCOs
That was a long time observation of the Soviet Army. The major difference was that their officers were generally competent and well trained but the enlisted were brutish, untrainable rabble and therefore, they were unable to develop an NCO Corps.
The Soviet system would make it worse by actually playing to racial and tribal splits in how units were manned, equipped, and trained.
again, from the above piece
NCO issue is systemic. The problem being that, initially, they didn’t want long-term NCOs due to their role and reputation in the Imperial Army. Twofold problem stemmed from that – first, your low-rank officers now have to take over some of NCO jobs, keeping them far busier than they need be. Second, the NCOs are promoted from ranks, but the rank hierarchy than runs straight into the “seniority” hierarchy – with term being two years, and drafts being done every six months, your time in service determines your standing. And that time counts for more than whether you got a corporal rank or not.
One of the reforms Russian army of today is really trying to push through is creation of a cadre of professional, long-term NCOs.
The Saudi Army seemed the best of the Arabs we saw. Their officers did act like royalty (maybe they were for all I know) but their NCOs seemed competent and able to supervise without an officer looking over their shoulders.
They seemed well-fed and in decent condition too – something you just assume about Western forces, but over there you see some shit.
In he 70’s and 80’s, Saudi military personnel were often trained by British trainers in-country.
In the mid-80’s at least, every one of the Royal Saudi Air Force undertook at least some training in the UK at Brize Norton or Yeovilton. Army Staff – lots of them at Sandhurst, and most of them were petty princes/nobles.
The stereotype of the Saudi Tanker was that they’d have exceptional individual tank crews, but they’d be terrible at maneuver/teamwork because it was more about individual glory rather than mission achievement.
ZARDOZ SPEAKS TO YOU, HIS CHOSEN ONES. YES, BRUTAL ENFORCERS DO MAKE SOCIETY FUNCTION. GO FORTH AND KILL!
Interesting read GIL thanks for sharing
A more detailed and (to me) interesting thesis is presented in Arabs at War.
It presents a detailed study of various Arab countries in conflict (Israel is present, but there’s Iran-Iraq war, as well as more obscure stuff like Syrian invasion of Jordan and Lybian wars in Chad and Uganda).
Maybe if you gave them all proper equipment, they’d do a better job of locating ISIS.
Not. Our. Business.
ISIS is near zero threat to us. Get the fuck out- and get the fuck out of the other 6 countries Obama inserted us into after getting his Nobel. If the new government there starts harboring actual threats to us, knock them over and go home, let them try again. If not, stay the fuck away. And agreed on training and weapons- here and cash on the barrelhead.
Did I mention that this is Not. Our. Business?
But dem terries gonna kill us all unless we kill them all first, don’t ya know?
Maybe we shoud’ve done what the Brits used to do: identify a small picked on minority and effectively put them in charge. That kind of situation tends to make them highly motivated to be ready to fight but it’s a bit late to do that now though.
That’s what got us the Iranians, really.
Far better to build Thunderdome and let then figure out the details themselves.
Saddam tried that – bzzzzt!
We could still do that with the Kurds. In fact I am genuinely surprised we haven’t done that with the Kurds.
Turkey. Although the current trajectory of Turkey’s international diplomacy makes a separate Kurdistan more likely with every passing day.
The Kurds just want their own patch – they have no interest in running non-Kurd areas. I wish they would go independent, but too many in the neighborhood would fall on them right away, seeing as they would think parts of their countries would be at risk of splitting away.
So what exactly is stopping us from making an independent Kurdistan and turning it into Israel 2.0? It’s not like the arabs could possibly hate us anymore than they already do and the Kurds have taken a lot of bullets on our behalf. Seems like a no brainer.
WE should make an independent Kurdistan? WE should? Whaaaaaa….?
In the same way we ‘made’ Israel. We took a homogenous, hardworking, and loyal minority, gave them the foundation and a little help, and let them build a city on a hill. We can do that again.
WE did not make Israel. It was a British colony, and before that Ottoman. WE did not send in soldiers and arms.
Well, you *made it* in the sense that you forced the Brits to let it become Israel. America’s diplomatic influence was pivotal in ensuring that the Royal Navy really would let the refugee boats thru’.
Of course, it wasn’t to be the last time that Uncle Sam strong-armed the British Bulldog in the levant.
Well, we did. I mean, our Jewish masters who control everything did.
(dammit, I’m going to be in trouble at the next Bankers Cabal meeting, aren’t I)
We should have allowed an independent Kurdistan, during/after the Surge.
The reason we didn’t as 6 pointed at, was Turkey.
Turkey has been suppressing Kurdish independence in their own country forever. Allowing an independent Kurdistan on their border would have been destabilizing.
Remember that Turkey has been our best ally in the region for decades.
Our friend and official NATO ally Turkey.
That reminds me. I gotta get me a Canik TP9 while I still can ….
The US has certainly supported ethic groups with far poorer claims to independence than the Kurds in the past.
And look how well that’s all worked out.
See my posting above, about US interference in Israel and Suez 🙂
That’s kind of what the Belgians did in Rwanda. Belgium’s general practice of putting the Hutsu tribes in power and looking the other way at the subjugation of the Tutsi tribes kind of came back to haunt everyone in the 90s.
That’s a slightly different situation, though, as the Hutus were always the majority, and before the Belgian interference (i.e. instituting elections) it was the minority Tutsi’s who ruled over and subjugated the majority.
That is just the time you remember. That is a cyclical conflict that has been going on since…ever. There is nowhere to dig a mass grave over there where hyou wont be digging another one up. It happens every couple of generations. Look back at the one in ’71. Then the previous one, etc. etc.
GTFO and STFO. This will never be over. Iran’s eventually going to take care of it. The only reason they haven’t so far is that they enjoy seeing our soldiers turned into parapalegics by ieds and car bombs. Let the region sort it out. The only thing we should be involved in over there is intelligence gathering on potential terrorist activity.
Iran is going to break themselves, the Gulf States are going to counter by bankrupting themselves too. It is a War of Derp over there. We did the right thing and gave the Iraqis a chance – they chose to crony up and steal from and hollow out their forces. Sorry, no Mulligans.
I agree with all the non-intervention, not our business stuff. BUT, didn’t the USA make this problem by invading in 2003? Shouldn’t they at least see it through? Or is it a case of the United States did its best and now are saying, ‘not our problem anymore’?
It’s 2017. I mean…
Regardless of the merits of intervention because of suspected WMD, it ceased to be the US’s problem once the Hussein government was knocked over. Which was… a few weeks after the war started.
Rufus, We did see it through. At least to the point they were standing on their own two feet. By the time I left at the end of 2008 – it was eeire quiet. But once the threat faded, so did the Iraqi restraint. The Army got politicized and cronyed up and everyone started wetting their beaks above the usual background corruption.
We help whatever group is being tortured and massacred, then they get in charge and start with the revenge torture and mass killing. Meet the fucking new boss. We have no business involved in this Sunni/Shia shitshow.
I’d be interested in someone doing a think-piece on why some cultures can’t seem to get out of the crony, bribing, hooking up friends with official supplies of fuel type bullshit.
I know that crap goes on everywhere, including here. But it’s massively worse in some places than others (as pointed out in the article). Why is that? Does nobody have any sense of right or wrong (you’re being paid to guard this shit, so DON’T FUCKING SELL IT TO THAT DUDE ON THE CORNER YOU FUCKING RETARD!!!)? Or is their sense of right and wrong simply so divorced from our norms that it’s a fools errand to try and impose a Westphalian nation-state structure on these people from the top down?
I’m reminded of the Beiyang Fleet in the run-up to the first Sino-Japanese War. Internationally, the Chinese were expected to win – they’d spent tremendous sums of money buying modern equipment over the previous decade. But while the Japanese commanders studied in military academies, and their sailors trained, the enlisted men of the Beiyang Fleet used the cannon barrels to store garbage, and commanders sold their powder allotments. Why did one group of people exhibit professional competency, and the other group basically take a big shit on the very concept? Of course, when the war came, the Japanese fleet annihilated the Chinese. Did the short-sighted Chinese sailors and officers not realize that they were punching their own ticket to the bottom of the sea by refusing to take their duties seriously? WTF is wrong with people?
If you haven’t already, read Pryce-Jones’s “The Closed Circle.” This is exactly what he deals with.
Thank you, never heard of it, but now I’ll check it out.
pretty much the same summary as that link i mentioned above, although it has more (humorous) examples of how that closed-circle culture interacts w/ the military.
OT
Nick Kristof is truly the best.
Donald Odoacer Trump? Has a nice ring to it.
I was there in ’90-91. Wow was that a beat down. We were kind of nervous at first, then we (infantry in the First Marine Division) saw the 18th Airborne Corps driving west behind us. Holy crap was that the wrong time to mess with the U.S. and UK. “Peak” was a good way to describe us.
But… the Iraqis were about the worst soldiers I ever imagined. We used to debate amongst ourselves this scenario. What if we traded all of our equipment (including planes and tanks) with the Iraqis – who would win that fight? Consensus was that it would be a blood-bath (like CNN was predicting) but we would eventually win. We had been trained hard and had a 220 year tradition of ass-kicking.
My advice is to not issue them any white t-shirts or underwear – they tend to attach them to sticks.
So really, they’re French.
Hull down in straight lines is no way to run a tank battle in open country, least of all if you don’t have air superiority and the opposition have good CAS.
I really think the problem is they have no national pride or stake in their country. My guess is that the vast majority of their soldiers joined up cause they couldn’t find a job anywhere else and they needed a government teat to suck on, but when shit actually hit the fan and the bill came due they said ‘fuck it I didn’t sign up for this!’ I don’t really blame them either. Being a soldier is more than carrying a gun and marching in a line. If you aren’t invested in your government, or at least in your country as a sovereign nation, you sure as fuck aren’t going to take a bullet for it.
The Iraqi army of 91 had a cadre and some tradition, but it was highly politicized and very insular. And also, very small. The grunts were all conscripts, and while the Iran-Iraq war had been ‘done’ for some time, they hadn’t been brought to any genuine level of readiness, so to the xtent that military units had a tradition, there hadn’t been much in the way of continuity.
I have no idea what their NCO roles were like, but if they were poor, the rest of the military would be severely weakened. It’s the NCOs that really unify and create the ‘right stuff’ in troops, and if you lack good NCOs, you’re going to have “bad luck” in action.
Some of the ones I talked to claimed they were conscripted the old-fashioned way. Paramilitary police showed up at their families’ homes and dragged men of military age off for training. They truly didn’t give a fuck who won that war.
There’s your answer. Slaves rarely make good soldiers.
And when they do make good soldiers, they tend to become the masters (such as the Mamluks and to a lesser extent the Janissaries).
According to Arabs at War I linked above, the troops right in front of Coalition forces were second-rate, infantry units. The better, more mobile forces were kept away from the front in order to set up a counterattack, and to keep them from the hard hit of the first attack.
Things they didn’t count on were sustained air campaign, failure of their AA system, and the thrust around their main defensive line. And the author does give them credit for cold-blooded but correct decision to sacrifice RG units in order to pull at least some of their mechanized forces out (infantry was basically fucked, no wonder they gave up quickly).
Republican Guard supposedly fought with tenacity and courage, despite being completely ineffective against the US armor. Probably too much courage, as many of them got killed for little to no benefit to anyone rather than surrender…
As I understand it, most of the mechanized units that got away were light armor and support vehicles.
Most of the Iraqui armor was hull down behind berms; easy targets for A-10s and Paveways.
Oh yes, after getting reamed for weeks on end by the air attacks, author says that once “evacuate” order came through, troops were basically “Well, get the fuck out before they change their minds and have us do a last stand” so anything that couldn’t pick up speed (cannons, heavy weapons) or took too much fuel (e.g. a tank) was left behind in the mad scrabble to cross to Basra.
Oh and of course, destruction of Republican Guard was a nasty blow to the army – there went all the most competent (by Iraqi standard), highest morale, true believer troops. Teleport couple of divisions from 1990 into Mosul and they’d probably take it in couple months (learning city combat on the job is a nasty, long-term process).
A wee bit deflected from the original topic, I remember a very good friend of mine – Sandhurst alumnus – who was watching the initial news items on BBC as the story broke, while over at my house with some other guys.
It was clear right from the start what the Iraqi Army’s defense would be (he’d wargamed it 3 years before at Sandhurst) and it played out like clockwork. He just sat back on the sofa, took a slug of gin and tonic and said “They’re toast”.
And so they were.
Offthread: Paul gives it back to McCain.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/03/16/rand_paul_john_mccain_unhinged_and_past_his_prime.html#disqus_thread
Check out the comments, there’s hope yet.
Offthread? Off topic-must have stroked out for a sec there.
This shit is better than Remy Ma vs Nicki Minaj.
Practically speaking, it appears that the Iraqis have not yet made the commitment to maintaining a capable force, even if we do rebuild it yet again. If they want to have us train them – fine, pay for it completely.
Is what you have (or what you wish you had) worth fighting for, or not, Iraqis?
I take a completely mercenary view. If they want to use our army, they should pay a hefty rent. Where’s my .40/gal gasoline?
That was my take although slightly different. Make Iraq the new Puerto Rico. We own it, we run it, we get your oil. Classic protection racket.
Do we get to bail it out when it defaults on its bonds too?
Unlike PR, Iraq actually has something of value.
I always laughed when people said “No blood for oil” and they got into arguments with Neocons who were “We wanna spread freedom”.
Duh. We have to get *something* for our blood and treasure, other than great fighting experience.
You just reminded me. I bought “Arabs at War” and haven’t read it yet.
Romania can contribute 1 plane to the war effort, but it is an old mig 21 that doesn’t really fly.
I never understood that. How do you people make some of the best AKs outside of Russia, and nothing else?
NOTHING? we make the Dacia sanderos the finest vehicle known to man. Which can be used in combat to devastating effect. Send 10 dacias and the war is over.
James May approves.
Hah, I also watched “Cars of the People.”
The Romanian Army was running security around the first base I was at, in Talill. Naturally, they operated out of…
It was never not broke. The Iraqi army has always been a very typical army: intended for internal repression and rewarding cronies. When tasked with an actual military objective, they are nest to useless. If we broke the Iraqi army as an effective military force, that happened when we kicked the shit out of them in Kuwait, not when we took Baghdad.
Had an Iraqi officer prisoner complain bitterly that we didn’t fight fair by attacking at night. Apparently the Iran-Iraq war was a 9-5 job – then they knocked off for dinner and a good night’s sleep.
An Arab bitching about dishonorable tactics… that’s fucking rich.
He wasn’t getting a lot of sympathy from the Marines or our Kuwaiti interpreters.
If I remember correctly, the Iranians used to send their children over the minefields at dawn, so the Iraqi army had to get a good night’s sleep since they had to be up early in order to watch the fun.
To be fair, if the US just stayed out of world war one and pursued a non-interventionist policy from then on, things would be different. Maybe even better.
Well, there probably would have been no WW2 but I think German would be taught a little more heavily in schools.
I’m sure there’s been some interesting speculation about what would have happened if the Americans hadn’t shown up. My general impression is that the Germans would have taken Paris. They’d already won on the Eastern Front, after all.
You might still have gotten a WWII, only it would have been more Russia v. German Europe, and Japan v. the US and England. The commies would have still taken over in Russia, I think, and eventually they were going to get all handsy with Eastern Europe, which Germany wouldn’t have tolerated, I don’t think. The Japanese were always going to go for an empire, and eventually gotten crossways with the Brits and Americans. It might have gone down as two separate wars, though.
I think that things would have been more stable. The Germans most likely would have taken Paris, but it would have been a broken, exhausted Germany that emerged from the war. The British blockade already had food riots going down in major German cities. They wouldn’t have been in any position to push anybody around for quite awhile.
The real question is, would they have provided material support for the White Russian armies against the Red. I think there’s a good chance they would have, considering what the junker ruling caste thought of communism. If so, history gets *very* interesting with a ramshackle Russian Empire hanging on as the new Sick Man of Europe, possibly causing another war later (as the Japs seize the Russian Far East?), like Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian weakness tended to invite.
And with no Soviet support for the ChiComs, China probably unifies under the quasi-fascist KMT and gets their shit somewhat in order a lot faster than happened in real life.
Yes, our good friends the KMT.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-German_cooperation_1926–1941
Big possibility of the US siding with Germany sometime after end-of-conflict in WWI. The British would have to eventually sue for some kind of peace once Germany controlled Europe.
No, Ludendorf offensive petered out before US was a major presence. At that point, the main contribution of US army was mostly for morale purposes, no one expected them to do much good (they were inexperienced and the army had to absorb a huge number of men in a short time).
Once that offensive was shot through, it was over. They could have held out in the West a bit longer, but there just weren’t enough Germans left to fight a three-front war. Once the Salonika front was broken, that was that – by Nov 11, French were in Budapest and there was literally no force to stop them riding all the way to Berlin.
But for some reason, Libertarians think that recreation of Poland was the source of all evil in the world in 20th and 21st century ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My WWI history is woefully inadequate.
Not following on Poland, though.
Usual whine is “If only GEEERMANZ WON, we would have glorious present without Hitler”.
German win also means “Poland should have remained enslaved by Germany, also fuck Czechs and Baltic States, learn to live under boot of civilized empires, shitstain barbarians!”
For some reason, that argument doesn’t apply to Finns.
I’d take it over a second world war and half the 21st century’s other foreign policy problems. Nothing personal to the Slavs and Baltic kids.
Poland has been a chew-toy for centuries. Poor bastards,
I completely forgot about the Allied “Army of the Orient” on the Salonika front.
I do believe that American units were engaged, if not in large numbers, in stopping the Spring 1918 offensives, plugging gaps Allied lines, etc.
But with the Balkan army, you’re right – the Allies were going to win no matter what. Totally skipped my mind.
Indeed, but the offensive would have been stopped without US involvement. It was a desperate gamble, and in the end it hurt the Germans hard – as usual, taking best men out of your army and putting them into special units is great for those units, but it weakens your army overall. Especially when then those men are sent in first – once the Allies figured out what the hell Germans were doing, their subsequent attacks were far less effective, until the offensive was cancelled.
There was also the Italian army – once they were able to get out of the goddamn mountains, they had a third, though much more uncomfortable route into Germany. That’s the “third front” I mentioned above.
I figured, but were they really capable of effective operational maneuvers outside of Italy after Caporetto?
But for some reason, Libertarians think that recreation of Poland was the source of all evil in the world in 20th and 21st century
Give me a break Pan, that’s not the position, your Pan-Slavic nationalism is showing. The problem is all the other garbage worldwide that certain politicians thought were a good idea. Poland had a history as an independent nation, forking over Turkish land to the Greeks, not so much.
*shrug*
Unless you are expecting German victory in 1914, which is a separate issue, mass slaughter of 1914-1917 happens, as does the Arab Revolt, so you still have that mess and horror whichever way it turns out.
Of course it’s easier to wish for best with country that didn’t actually know what the fuck it wanted in the war. Seriously, only thing even close to the end-game was the September manifesto, which is one Anschluss short of Hitler’s goals, and wasn’t the official policy. Give them a victory and who the fuck knows what happens – probably WW2 again. The best you can hope for is that they don’t export Communists to Russia, and merely come out as a state that is the appendage to the military (particularly if they win when Ludendorf is in charge).
Oh and pls call it “Polonophilia” or something, as “Pan-Slavism” has a very specific meaning, and I’m a fan of Russian Empire even less than of the Austro-Hungarian or even German one. It combined brutality of Germans with the general incompetence of Habsburgs, and then puts a layer of Orthodox mysticism on top – uggghg
Yes to all.
Now, the more pressing question is, which is Swiss?
Mr. 14th Div pointing it’sthata-way?
One of the dudes getting off the Merlin?
Or I bet he had us all fooled and is actually the gal in the middle there.
Hes the photographer of course. OPSEC.
My only reluctance to just saying “hell no” is the fact that they are right next to Iran. It would be nice if we could reach the point where they can self-govern without descending into a terrorist state and effectively resist Iran.
Some kind of miserable REMF, of course. :p
I am not in the Merlin one…I was photographing and getting ready to get sandblasted when that RAF jackass threw it into full blast takeoff.
Off-topic: New York’s Teachers No Longer Have to Be Literate
The New York State Board of Regents, which supervises public education, has decided it will no longer be necessary for would-be teachers to pass an Academic Literacy Skills Test. The reason? The test was producing racially disparate results: Only 41 percent of black candidates and 46 percent of Hispanic candidates had passed the exam on their first attempt, compared to 64 percent of white candidates.
With a Department of Education study putting the number of white public school teachers at over 80 percent with a student body hovering around 50 percent white, advocating for a diverse teaching staff is understandable. If rectifying this imbalance is a priority for the Board of Regents, its members should ensure their methods do not diminish the quality of their educators. They are doing the opposite.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/politics-ideas/new-york-city-teachers-no-longer-literate/
We covered this a few days ago, but this needs to be repeated:
No, no it isn’t. What difference does it make what color skin my math teacher has, you fucking racist shitbags? There are only 2 abilities a teacher requires: 1 speaking the same language as the student, and literacy. So take your fucking identity politics, shove them up your racist asses, and jump off a bridge.
You do realize that kids must now get good grades in both white AND black math, don’t you?
That reminds me very much of an old onion article.
http://www.theonion.com/article/metric-system-thriving-in-nations-inner-cities-458
How else do you reach those keeeds?
The funniest/saddest aspect is that it’s all about “optics.” What matters isn’t actual diversity, like say, having a “racially white” teacher who is foreign born. What matters is having a teacher who LOOKS DIVERSE IN PICTURES. This is going to become more hilarious/depressing with each passing year as America becomes more and more mixed “race.”
There’s an…interesting…belief that kids can only achieve if they believe others of “their kind” have done so. So if their math teacher is white, the thinking goes, the kids will dismiss math as something only white people do.
You saw this all the time with fluff pieces after Obama was first elected. I read quite a few articles full of young black people stating that they actually believed they could become president for the first time ever, and the insidious part, that it didn’t matter if anything actually got better or not; the only thing that matters is the self confidence inspired by having somebody who looks like them get to the top of the mountain. Collective identity is a hell of a thing.
I see you’ve read Multiplication Is for White People too.
That having been said, while you know that collectivism is bullshit, and I know that collectivism is bullshit, a lot of people still identify collectively. So the premise isn’t 100 percent wrong; however the solution they propose is terrible. Instead of promoting a sense of worth through individual achievement, they advocate placating these feelings through tokenism.
I have heard it, and at least on a superficial level I understand it, but rather than reinforce and condone this ideal we need to counter it. Rather than say “Oh a white person did it, so I can’t” we need to be saying “A person did it so I can too”. This complete lack of empathy from a racial standpoint is going to destroy a country like ours if left unchecked.
As we know, all Asians are world-class violinists. It’s why I never even bothered to pick one up.
A violin, that is.
I’m more of a cello man, myself.
I say they get one more chance but what’s going to happen is they’re going to watch the Mad Max movies and they’ll be trained to that standard.
individualized leather-boy uniforms, one-off vehicles, and multi colored mohawks for everyone.
… go on …
Outstanding article, but who’s the ugmo in the picture?
*narrows gaze through Wiley X’s*
My thoughts:
The US government’s job, any and all parts of it, are to serve the American people. What have the American people gotten out of any of the wars going on in the ME?
I havent spoken about it before and I wont now other than to say my personal experience is going in, fucking up a lot of stuff, a lot of people getting hurt, and then when we leave everything is either just like it was or worse and none of it has any effect on the American people.
Pack up our shit and bring our people home.
Don’t bother training them, just declare that a certain thing has to happen or stop happening and let various groups bid on it.
Have clear objectives and conditions (no slaughtering of rival religious folks and so forth).
Take the lowest bidder and hold them to the conditions.
If they want the money, they have to win and not violate the other terms. So they’ll train and equip themselves to do this. And if they lose and get massacred do you really care? No, because there’s another group who wants a chance.
No. There is zero point in tossing good money after bad in the pursuit of failed Bush-era policy that has had no proven effects on terrorism one way or another.
We should not be exporting taxpayer funds, any more than we should be importing Iraqis or anyone else from the ME who is involved in that bloody sectarian conflict. They can kill each other just fine without our help.
Budget press conference:
BUT WON’T SOMEBODY THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN???
If they want to have us train them – fine, pay for it completely. See you at Fort Polk for training and humidity!
What are your thoughts, Glibs?
My thoughts?…
Have fun chasing the CLF, guys! And practicing Battle Drill 1FUBAR Movement to Movement.
Since I’m out and I’ve still got makeup safety stand down days from there, I’ll see y’all at the endex AAR and BBQ. Not eating the pork ribs? More for me. And I’ll take the beer too.
I say get out and stay out.
That said, though I’m agin chicks in combat, I wonder how the ISIS fighters would fare against an all female infantry division.
They certainly don’t like being shot by Kurdish teenage chicks, if rumors are to be believed.
I’ve watched that anime.
+1 girls und panzer?
Movie had a one-shot showing in Vancouver, and I couldn’t make it :'( (ironically because it was WW2 miniatures game night).
I was thinking more Gall Force.
Bubblegum Crisis works too.
If you really want psyops against ISIS an all or majority female front line force would be on my short list.
Yeah, and make them West African Christians while you’re at it.