Logistics and the Success or Failure of Major Campaigns

Introduction

The relationship between logistics and war fighting is complicated. In fact, unconventional warfare uses no conventional logistics system. This paper examines two major campaigns where military logistics led to success or failure. In Operation Barbarossa, the German logistics system failed; in Operation Overlord, Allied logisticians suffered from “analysis paralysis.” Why did Barbarossa fail despite having enough supplies? Why was Overlord successful even though logisticians were unable to identify appropriate invasion routes? These questions are answered by examining the factors that logistics planners and operations planners must consider.

Operation Barbarossa

The German invasion of Russia during World War II, called Operation Barbarossa, was initially successful: the use of Blitzkrieg tactics caught the Soviets unprepared. As the operation proceeded, however, the vast distances involved and the cold Russian winter were too much for the German’s supply lines, and the invading army experienced shortages of ammunition, fuel, and food. This slowed German progress and allowed the Soviets to regroup and counterattack.

German soldiers fighting in the Soviet Union as part of Operation Barbarossa, 1941.

Why exactly did Operation Barbarossa fail, and at what point should it have been clear to German military leaders that it was a lost cause? The answers to these two questions depend on the sources used.

Castano[1] notes that German generals were interviewed after the war, and that “these generals blamed everyone but themselves when stating why the invasion failed.” These generals blamed “Hitler, the War in the Balkans, the early onset of winter and the strategic debate between Hitler and the OKW [supreme military command] concerning there the primary thrust of the invasion should be directed.”[2]

Castano follows Van Creveld[3] in placing the blame squarely on the logistical planners. The German forces advanced faster than supply could be delivered to them, and ammunition and fuel were in short supply, even early on the invasion. German troops needed to obtain food from Russian and Ukrainian peasants, thus generating animosity. The resupply effort depended on the Soviet railroads, which were in poor repair. The roads turned to mud, leaving panzer and motorized infantry exposed. Finally, by “July 11, after just nineteen days, 25% of German supply vehicles permanently broke down.”[4], preventing ammunition and fuel from reaching where they were needed.

The ground froze in November, which allowed the tanks and other vehicles to resume movement, except that the Germans were lacking winter-weight oils and winter clothing. Castano notes that “troops started gasoline fires under their tanks to warm up the oil sufficiently so that the engines could turn over.”[5] On 4 December, the temperature fell to -25° F, and one regiment reported 300 frostbite casualties. The next day, the Soviet Army started a counter-offensive, and the German line fell apart.

Fenrick[6] analyzes the German defeat differently, using contemporary operational art and design. Hitler had identified Moscow as the operational center of gravity (COG) in that the four instruments of national power – diplomats, Stalin’s propaganda machine, military leaders, and industry – were all based there. Hitler also correctly identified the strategic COG – the Soviet military – but underestimated their strength. However, Hitler became distracted by Leningrad and Kiev, taking his eyes off the COG.

Fenrick notes that Hitler underestimated his own operational reach, the ability to project military capabilities to a specific time and place. Fenrick and Castano agree that German forces outran their logistical support due to the conditions of the roads and railways.

Finally, Fenrick faults Hitler with poor arrangement of operations. Hitler did not phase or sequence operations effectively. Instead of consolidating gains after initial successes, the Germans diluted their strength by engaging in simultaneous offences. For example, the encirclement of Kiev in September 1941 was a success, but it diverted resources from Moscow.

For Fenrick, the failure of Operation Barbarossa was due to multiple operational issues, of which logistics was only one part.

Operation Overlord

The Allied invasion of France, called Operation Overlord, involved 18 months of meticulous planning, with the central idea being to deliver troops and equipment into the theater faster than Germany. To this end, the planners developed a large model identifying all factors that would affect this rate of flow[7]. The four most crucial factors were:

1. Number of ships and landing crafts available on D-Day.
2. Size and number of beaches, their gradients, and the prevailing weather conditions.
3. Availability of deep-water ports close to the beaches, needed for ongoing troop and equipment delivery.
4. Feasibility of providing air support.

Examining maps of France, General Frederick Morgan soon discovered that no landing site matched those four factors, and in fact the factors are in some ways self-contradicting[8]. In the parlance of JP 3-0, the logistics planners narrowly focused on operational means (resources used to accomplish some goal). Morgan focused on ends (“the set of required conditions that defines achievement of the commander’s objectives”)[9]. In this situation, the end was to establish a presence on the continent from which the German forces could be evicted from western Europe. Morgan then realized that the real constraints were that:

1. The invasion must be launched from somewhere close to the Allies’ main base in Britain.
2. The landing sites had to be within range of the RAF’s Spitfires.

These two constraints instantly eliminated all but north-west France, namely Normandy and the Pas-de-Calais. From the standpoint of operational planning, the logisticians painted themselves into irrelevancy. The four factors the logisticians identified were sure to maximize the flow of troops, equipment, and supplies into the theater of operations – but that theater did not exist! Morgan was able to determine the theater and identify candidate landing zones without 18 months of analysis.

The Operation Overlord logisticians suffered from “analysis paralysis”: they provided schedules for delivering troops and materiel, but those schedules could not by themselves be implemented (operationalized). Their schedules and plans were useful to a certain extent, however.

Once the invasion got underway, the Allies received all the supplies they initially needed, but after the breakout from St. Lo, the U.S. Army spearheads were moving 75 miles per day and required 200 tons of supplies per day. Ensuring the ongoing delivery of fuel to maintain this rate was difficult. The initial plan was to capture Cherbourg and other ports along the British Channel for use for fuel resupply. Those ports were not captured.

According to Williams[10], 7 million long tons of POL (petrol, oil, and lubricants) were stored in the U.K. for use by the Allies, but there was no way of getting that to the forces. The initial plan was to use jerricans to move POL from fuel distribution points to where the POL was needed. Unfortunately, jerricans were in short supply[11]. To partially ameliorate this situation, pipelines were laid under the English Channel as part of Operation PLUTO (Pipeline Underwater Transportation of Oil). These pipelines were slow in coming online, so Normandy beaches continued to be used for offloading.

Williams notes that “Logisticians assured TUSAG [Twelfth U.S. Army Group] and SHAEF [Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force] that they could sustain the attacking armies with only the ports of Brest, Quiberon Bay and Cherbourg.”[12] Brest was captured on 19 September but was too badly damaged by the Germans for it to be usable. Quiberon Bay became irrelevant due to its distance from the Allied armies[13]. Cherbourg was captured six weeks behind schedule, and at the time of the breakout from St. Lo, the only operational harbors were Cherbourg and an artificial harbor called “Mulberry A.”[14]

Conclusions

In considering these two operations, it is clear that logistics alone does not determine the success or failure of a campaign. Poor logistics planning may result in the failure of an operation, but it is no guarantee (for example, the Campaign of 1870 of the Franco-Prussian War had logistical failures but was a success for Von Moltke[15]).

With Operation Barbarossa, logistics problems became apparent 19 days after the start and persisted throughout the campaign. The failure of this operation can be attributed in whole or in part to logistics.

The problems encountered in Operation Overlord were of a different nature. The meticulous planning of the logisticians failed to produce any candidate landing points. It took General Morgan thinking of the operation in a strategic and operational way to identify Normandy. Operation Overlord was certainly a success, but the contribution that the initial logistics plan played in that success is minimal.

A viable logistic plan must involve reliable supply chains, a reliable transportation network, schedules for delivering and allocating resources, and be adaptable to changing campaigns[16]. Both Barbarossa and Overlord lacked a reliable transportation network, but the logistics plan for Operation Overlord was too inflexible. The speed at which the Germans and the Allies moved were faster than the supply chains could deliver, leaving little to no possibility of delivering materiel.

From a planning perspective, operations must involve correct calculation of the enemy’s center of gravity (and the degree to which the enemy is willing to defend that COG). Operational reach is of course important. Operations must be phased, which means that victories must be consolidated. Operation Barbarossa failed to consider those aspects, whereas Overlord did make use of those factors.

Most importantly, logistics and operational planning must be synchronized with tactics and the commander’s strategy for achieving the desired goal[17]. Both Barbarossa and Overlord failed in this, but in different ways. The logistics planning done in preparation of Operation Overlord was detached from the desired end state and the tactics and strategy used to achieve that end state. Once the desired end state was determined (removing German forces from western Europe using an established presence in France), the strategy, operations, tactics, and logistics became aligned. Operation Barbarossa suffered from over-optimistic logistical planning as well as a lack of a clear end state. Hitler chose three targets, but with competing priorities: military and industrial control were both desired, but with no plan for how one would support the other. As such, the operation was detached from logistics and the end state was left unspecified.

Footnotes

[1] Castano, p. 17.
[2] Ibid, p. 23-24.
[3] Van Creveld, p. 148-154.
[4] Castano, p. 26.
[5] Ibid, p. 27.
[6] Fenrick, NCO Journal, 2 May 2022.
[7] Van Creveld, p. 207.
[8] Ibid, p. 207-208.
[9] JP 3-0, GL-9.
[10] Williams, p. 12.
[11] Williams, p. 12.
[12] Ibid, p. 19.
[13] Denny, p. 7-9.
[14] Williams, p. 17.
[15] Von Creveld, p. 103.
[16] JP 5-0, I-7.
[17] Ibid, I-3, I-5, I-6, etc.

Bibliography

Castano, V. “The Failure of Operation Barbarossa: Truth versus Fiction.” University of North Carolina at Pembroke, 11 April 1997. https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncp/f/Castano,%20Vincent.pdf

Denny, N. “Seduction in Combat: Losing Sight of Logistics After D-Day.” U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. 2003. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA416387.pdf

Fenrick, P. “Operation Barbarossa: A Lesson in Hubris and Strategy.” NCO Journal, 2 May 2022. https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Journals/NCO-Journal/Archives/2022/May/Operation-Barbarrosa/

Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Operations (JP 3-0). 22 October 2018. https://irp.fas.org/doddir/dod/jp3_0.pdf

Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Planning (JP 5-0). 01 December 2020. https://irp.fas.org/doddir/dod/jp5_0.pdf

Van Creveld, M. Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton, 2nd Edition. Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Williams, P. “A Marine Corps Logistician Examines Logistics Planning and Execution During Operation Overlord: A Study in Effectiveness and Implications for Today.” Marine Corps University, 20 March 2013. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA601695.pdf

Analyzing the Russo-Georgian War of 2008

Introduction

The Russo-Georgian War of 2008 has the dubious honor of being the first instance where a kinetic attack (land-sea-air) was combined with cyber warfare. This paper starts with a recounting of the war, then describes two approaches to intelligence analysis: a purely academic approach, and a fact-based IT security approach. The intelligence generated by those approaches are then compared.

Map by Andrein at English Wikipedia – 26 August 2008

Background

Russia, along with South Ossetia and the Republic of Abkhazia, invaded parts of Georgia¹ starting on 1 August 2008. When the war "officially" ended on 16 August, the results included the loss of Georgian territory, displacement of Georgians from South Ossetia, the collapse of diplomatic relations, the establishment of Russian military bases in the captured territories, etc.

For purposes of this paper, the important part of the war was the fact that it involved a cyber attack coordinated with the kinetic attack. This was the first war where there was such coordination.

Based upon an after-action review performed by the Georgia Minister of Foreign Affairs², cyber attacks began on 20 July 2008, continued throughout the kinetic component of the war, and the last cyberattack occurred on 27 August. The following sites were targeted:

• Georgian Parliament
• Georgian Supreme Court
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Central Election Commission
• President Mikheil Saakashvili's official website
• US and UK Embassies in Tbilisi
• Various news agencies

The methods of attach included information exfiltration, website defacement, and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.

The Georgian response was to create temporary websites on the Google Blogger platform and in general to move them to US servers, knowing that US servers would be difficult for the hackers to target. In addition, the President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, offered to host Georgian websites.

Academic Analysis

In a 2010 paper³ published in the Small Wars Journal entitled "Cyberwar Case Study: Georgia 2008", David Hollis analyzes the cyber aspect of the Russo-Georgian War. He does this from a very academic standpoint, though, and as a result he is unable to answer crucial questions about the cyber attack. For example, he is unable to correctly identify the perpetrators!

Hollis attributes the cyber attack to hypothetical "cyber militias" or "hacker militias." He proposes these cyber militias exist, but he fails to not only answer but even raise some very fundamental questions about these militias, such as:

• What is this militia's name?
• How many people are in it?
• How long have they been operational?
• What is their physical location?
• Who coordinated the cyber and kinetic components?

Hollis makes the leap to "cyber militia" with no real evidence! From the perspective of philosophy, he's making an unwarranted ontological claim.

At first glance, this doesn't seem to be a major problem: Hollis is just calling hacker groups or cyber criminal organizations by a different name: "cyber militias." The issue is that "cyber militia" is a loaded term, which slants the information analysts' perspective, and forces him to go down the wrong rabbit holes. Terms such as "hacker militia" and "cyber militia" are prejudicial language for two reasons. First, militias have a very specific nature, most importantly their command-and-control structure (this will be expanded upon shortly). Second, there is a potential ambiguity - cyber militias are an active topic in cyberwarfare research – does Hollis mean the same thing?

Hollis is cognizant of the first item, and from this he derives some unusual "lessons learned."

Operational and Intelligence Lessons Learned

From a security analyst's perspective, Hollis committed the error of focusing on one type of information (academic research) to the exclusion of other sources of information. It is worth reviewing the lessons Hollis derived from this approach because they're facinating unto themselves, and it makes for a sharper contrast with the results learned from IT security experts.

Hollis derives four "lessons learned."

Lesson 1: Engage Cyber Militias First

The first lesson is that cyber militias must be engaged. This lesson is both extremely common-sensical as well as radically unusual, for Hollis is stating that a country must make use of ALL the resources available to it, and to do otherwise is to leave "money on the table."

Like all things, militias have a specific nature, and to use militias is to use them according to that nature. Or, like Francis Bacon said, "nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."

To engage a cyber militia for an operation, they must be SOLD on the concept. One of the characteristics of militias is their unusual style of command-and-control: they operate on persuasion instead of on orders. Another way of looking at this is that a military leader would find commanding a militia to be akin to "herding cats." This shows that Hollis is indeed somewhat aware of the "militia mindset."

Since members of a hacker militia would frequently be self-taught, they have their own ideas on how to proceed, so there must be discussions of tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs). They must be steered to desired targets ("centers of gravity"), and their actions should be coordinated with traditional operations.

In a cyber conflict, both sides will have their own hacker militias, and the defender's hackers can take steps to track and monitor the opposing county's cyber forces. This includes examining server and internet traffic logs for signs of probing operations. Of course, chat rooms and other forms of comms must be monitored.

Lesson 2: Target Choices

As Hollis described, Russia's hacker militias performed preparatory tasks such as identifying enemy assets, performing reconnaissance activities, as well as probing operations. These probing activities must be practiced "low and slow" – in other words below the enemy's threshold of concern. Hollis is caucious that hacker militias are "eager beavers," which will put their level of activity above the enemy's threshold of concern.

The defender's hacker militias must conduct their own recon operations in collaboration with their intel community. And of course, they must identify, monitor, and protect their valuable assets (key terrain).

Lesson 3: Geographic Targeting

Once their hacker militias were operational, Russia employed them to create a communications blackout of the areas of Georgia that will soon be attacked in real life (IRL). The desired consequences of this blackout are: federal and local govts were unable to contact those under attack; it generated panic; and it created doubts about the competence of the federal government of Georgia.

Notice that this technique of geographic targeting allows for feints and ruses.

For the defender, cyber targeting indicates the location of an upcoming ground or air assault. Again, this could be a feint or ruse!

Lesson 4: Possibility of Hacker vs Hacker Attacks

Since both attacker and defender (supposedly) have hacker militias, these militias will attack each other. The defender's militia will become an early target by aggressor to prevent retaliation. So, the government should monitor their internal hacker community.

This has application to other nations: neutral nations should monitor their own internal hacker community to prevent being pulled into the conflict.

Training Proposal

Hollis' paper concludes with one recommendation: that to best train cyber militias, cyberspace "ranges" should be developed and used for force-on-force activities. These must be air-gapped (computers not connected to each other, either wired or wireless), but somehow integrate with physical domain so as to investigate various attack/defend scenarios.

Concluding Remarks on Hollis' Analysis

Without proof of Russian cyber militias' existence, his lessons learned, and his training proposal, are really ideas for how a hypothetical militia should operate and train.

Notice the lack of actionable information relevant to the Russo-Georgian War: by taking a purely academic approach, Hollis is not able to identify the culprit of the cyber attacks against Georgia, and is unable to propose concrete methods to combat cyber militias above and beyond: get your own militia!

Factual Research by IT Security Analysts

We'll now look at the approach used by IT security firms to analyze the cyber component of the Russo-Georgian War. There are many, many IT security analysts in operation, and their research is frequently put behind pay walls – they are for-profit organizations after all! We'll look at the analysis of one of these security companies: Packet Clearing House. Their analysis⁴ was published in ACM Queue.

Packet Clearing House (PCH) is a well respected business and has been in operation since 1994, and have built major parts of internet infrastructure. They also have experience in state-on-state cyber attacks: they detected and analyzed a similar "cyber skirmish" in Estonia in 2007. Like all good IT security firms, their investigative approach is fact-based: they derived information from server logs and attack methods.

Before looking at the details of Packet Clearing House's analysis, the attack methods used gives information about the perpetrators' abilities.

Data exfiltration is not described in detail in any of the references used, but data scraping implies a fair level of programming ability, whereas system penetration implies a hacking background.

Website defacement definately involved a hacking component in order to break into server a server. The amount of defacement determines the level of programming ability by the perpetrator.

This is somewhat useful information, since the skill levels of the perpetrator limits the list of suspects.

The Culprit

The REAL information comes from the DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks. As background, DDoS uses botnets, which are collection of internet-connected computers. Each computer is infected with a virus. Said virus repeatedly sends requests to a targeted computer, and these requests overwhelm the targeted computer.

Based on the IP addresses of the bots in the botnets, PCH determined that the botnets were located in Russia, China, and United States, and the server that directed the botnet attack was located in the US.

The IP addresses were the smoking gun – they allowed security researchers to identify the culprit: the IP addresses of computers in the botnet match those used by the Russian Business Network (RBN). RBN is based in St. Petersburg and may be state-sponsored. They started as an internet service provider, then moved into website hosting, and have hosted CP, spam, mafia sites, and malware. They have built botnets and rents them for $600/month. At one point in time, they were linked to 60% of all Russian cybercrime.

PCH's Recommendations

Based on the their investigation, PCH made several concrete recommendations:

• Foster a robust physical infrastructure
• Diversify the number of international connections
• Create one of more internet exchange points (IXPs) within Georgia - IXPs permit internet connections between points within country, and no IXPs means that local connections must go outside country
• Ensure domestic availability of domain name servers (DNS) - without DNS, websites cannot be reached using the website's name
• Work with computer emergency response teams (CERTs) to coordinate defense against cyber attacks.

Georgia followed at least one of PCH's recommendations - they now have 3 IXPs

Comparison of Results

Using only an academic research approach, the culprit is something unknown (at the time): cyber militias. The actions were symptoms without known causes, and particular actors were not identified. Finally, only general remedial actions were recommended.

In contrast, by using all available information, PCH determined that the culprit is a known actor type: cybercrime organization. By tracing this organization's actions back to an actor, PCH was able to specify that actor: RBN. Finally, PCH was able to recommend extremely specific remedial actions.

Weaknesses of Georgia's network infrastructure were identified by PCH:

• No domestic internet exchange points
• No domestic domain name servers
• Some reliance on servers located outside Georgia (Turkey and Russia in particular)
• Overall result was to leave Georgia open to cyber attack

Finally, the strengths of Russian hackers were inferred by PCH:

• Russian Business Network are talented hackers with years of experience
• They exploited weaknesses in Georgian internet infrastructure
• RBN began probing attacks prior to launching the DDoS attacks
• Russians coordinated RBN attacks with military action
• RBN continued internet attacks after kinetic component began

Conclusion

David Hollis' analysis of the Russo-Georgian War is extremely academic: it proposed the existence of hypothertical "cyber militias" on both sides of the conflict; it was unable to identify the actual perpetrators; and it provided no concrete remediation plans.

Meanwhile, the PCH used available data (both server logs as well as the histories of known Russian hacker groups) and were able to derive useful information: they identified the specific Russian cyber crime organization responsible for the attack; the devised a concrete plan to solidify Georgia's cyber defenses; and the Georgian government followed some of those recommendations.

The difference can be summarized as follows: what Hollis did not know, he invented. What the PCH did not know, they researched.

This is not to say that the academic approach has no value: Hollis' "cyber militia" concept my have future uses – for example, a research paper⁵ was published in 2023 supporting the idea that Ukraine should get its own cyber militia.

Footnotes

1. Details on the kinetic aspects of the war can be found in Kofman, "Russian Performance in the Russo-Georgisn War Revisited."
2. Georgia Minister of Foreign Affairs, Russian Cyberwar on Georgia.
3. Hollis, "Cyberwar Case Study: Georgia 2008."
4. Stapleton-Gray & Woodcock, "National Internet Defense – Small States on the Skirmish Line."
5. Svantesson, "Regulating a “Cyber Militia” – Some Lessons from Ukraine, and Thoughts about the Future."

Bibliography

Georgia Minister of Foreign Affairs. Russian Cyberwar on Georgia. 10 November 2008. Retrieved 26 July 2024 from https://web.archive.org/web/20111117042929/http://www.mfa.gov.ge/files/556_10535_798405_Annex87_CyberAttacks.pdf

Hollis, D. "Cyberwar Case Study: Georgia 2008." Small Wars Journal, 2010. Retrieved 18 July 2024 from https://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/639-hollis.pdf

Kofman, M. "Russian Performance in the Russo-Georgisn War Revisited." War on the Rocks, 4 September 2018. Retrieved 3 August 2024 from https://warontherocks.com/2018/09/russian-performance-in-the-russo-georgian-war-revisited/

Stapleton-Gray, R. & Woodcock, B. "National Internet Defense – Small States on the Skirmish Line." ACM Queue 9 (Issue 1), 19 January 2011. https://doi.org/10.1145/1922539.1929325

Svantesson, D. "Regulating a “Cyber Militia” – Some Lessons from Ukraine, and Thoughts about the Future." Scandinavian Journal of Military Studies 6 (No. 1) 11 July 2023. Retrieved 25 July 2024 from https://sjms.nu/articles/10.31374/sjms.195

The Berlin Airlift: An Example of a Whole-of-Society Operation

Introduction

Whole-of-society operations are ones where not only the militaries of multiple nations jointly act, but also where civilian government agencies as well as individual civilians act in a coordinated manner to achieve some common objective. The goal of these types of operations can involve mutual defense but can also include humanitarian operations.

This paper discusses the Berlin Airlift, the largest humanitarian airlift in history. This airlift countered the starvation that would result from the Soviet Union’s blockade of all ground and waterway goods meant for West Berlin. The Airlift, conducted by the US Air Force and the Royal Air Force along with other nations and several civilian agencies, demonstrated the West’s ability to successfully respond to Soviet expansionism. It was also a proving ground for the capabilities of the USAF, which was established as a separate agency only nine months prior.

We begin with the events that led to the Berlin Blockade, then continue with the history of the Berlin Airlift. The quantitative accomplishments of the Combined Air Lift Task Force are examined. The role that federal agencies and civilians played in this whole-of-society operation are discussed. Finally, the consequences of the Berlin Airlift, which includes the establishment of NATO and the start of the Cold War, are described.

History

At the end of World War II, the Nazi government was replaced by the Allied Control Council, also called the Four Powers Council due to the membership of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union. The Council partitioned Germany into four occupied zones: the US, British, French, and Soviet Zones.

The city of Berlin was also divided into four zones¹. However, Berlin was located 100 miles inside Soviet territory. This was a problem for the Soviets: they did not want an island of capitalism within their communist utopia. During this time, food and fuel was delivered from the west by rail, road, and canals, in part funded by the Marshall Plan.

To get West Berlin to acquiesce to the Soviets, the Soviets destabilized the German economy by printing large amounts of Reichsmarks, thereby debasing the currency which led to inflation. This continued for two years and resulted in the average food intake of West Berliners being reduced to 900 calories per day.

The Soviets knew that France, the US, and the UK intended to unify their occupied zones into a single state. To counter this, the Soviet’s intentions were to convert East Germany into a puppet state that would also serve as a buffer between Russia and West Germany. In addition, the Soviets had been stripping natural resources and material wealth, including whole factories, from East Germany in an effort to “control the means of production,” and West Berlin was a great concentration of wealth the Soviets wanted to loot.

The West finally responded by introducing the Deutsche Mark, a stable form of currency that would eventually lead to the “Wirtschaftswunder”, the period of rapid economic development in West Germany that began in the 1950s.

Realizing that the Deutsche Mark was undermining their efforts to force West Berlin into submission, the Soviets left the Allied Control Council. Further, the Soviets implemented the Berlin Blockade - they cut-off every railway, roadway, and canal into the city on 24 June 1948, preventing economic aid from arriving. This was an effort to starve the city into joining the Soviets. In addition, the power stations that supplied West Berlin were shut down. It was estimated that the 2 million residents had only 30 days of food and 45 days of coal.

This left President Harry Truman three options: kinetic warfare with the Soviets, abandoning West Berlin, or delivering food and supplies by air. Truman said to his advisors: “we stay in Berlin, period.” The third option was thus pursued.

At the time, the United States had little experience in calculating the amount of food or supplies the West Berliners would require, so we approached the United Kingdom, which had decades of rationing experience. They responded that to get 1700 calories to each resident of Berlin, 1500 tons of food must be delivered daily. In addition, 2500 tons of coal and fuel would be needed per day. Thus, West Berlin would need 4000 tons of food and supplies per day.

On 26 June 1948, two days after the Berlin Blockade started, we started Operation Vittles². Two days later, the Royal Air Force, began Operation Plane Fare which, in addition to British pilots, included pilots from Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The combined operations became known as the Berlin Airlift.

Air Corridors into Berlin (Illustration by Leerlaufprozess)

Initially the operation was haphazard. During its first week, only 90 tons per day were delivered, and by the second week 1000 tons per day arrived.

To improve the operations, Major General William H. Tunner was placed in command by General Lucius D. Clay, the Military Governor of the US Zone. Tunner’s primary experience prior to the Berlin Airlift was the reorganization of “the Hump,” the operation that resupplied the Chinese war effort. His reorganization resulted in doubling the amount of material supplied and the number of hours flown ³.

Tunner’s plan for the Berlin Airlift began with establishing the Combined Air Lift Task Force to control both the American and RAF operations⁴. Tunner also increased the number of cargo planes and required one airplane to arrive every three minutes. Air traffic controllers had been stacking the aircraft at five different altitudes.

As a result of three aircraft crashes on 13 August (called “Black Friday”), Tanner introduced several changes⁵: first, instrument flight rules were to be used at all times, regardless of visibility conditions. Second, the altitude stacking plan was modified. Third, airplanes would have only one chance to land in Berlin – if they missed that opportunity they were to return to their air base. Fourth, he implemented rigorous airplane inspection and maintenance schedules. He also replaced the C-47 airplanes, which could carry 3.5 tons of cargo, with C-54s, which could carry 10 tons of cargo.

On 12 August, the airlift exceeded its goal, delivering with 1500 daily flights delivering 4500 tons of supply. Operations would continue to improve.

The Soviets attempted to interfere with the Berlin Airlift in several ways. Early in the operation, they flew fighter aircraft to harass the cargo planes by air-to-air fire and buzzing. During the night, Soviet forces on the ground shined bright lights at the pilots to obscure their vision⁶.

On 6 September, the Soviet Unity Party of Germany (SED) attempted a coup d’état to control all of Berlin. Elections that December resulted in a West-Berlin-only city government which included no members of the SED.

As Winter 1948 approached, it was clear that the Berlin Airlift would last longer than expected. While the amount of needed food would remain the same (1500 tons per day), the needed amount of coal and fuel would increase to 4500 tons per day, raising the total from 4000 to 6000 tons per day. In anticipation of this, the airport runways were improved as were the radar systems. On 31 December 1948, the goal of 6000 tons per day was met.

For Easter 1949, Tunner wanted to set a new record, and 13000 tons of coal was delivered. As a result of this “stretch goal,” daily tonnage increased⁷.

Following these successes, the Soviets realized that their blockade was futile, and the blockade was ended on 12 May 1949, and cargo trains resumed shipping goods into the city the same day. This marks the official end of the Berlin Airlift, but flights continued until 30 September 1949 in order to build up a surplus of goods should the Soviets go back on their word.

Tunner summarizes the accomplishments of the Combined Airlift Task Force as follows⁸: “A total of 2,231,600 tons of supplies were flown into Berlin between 26 June 1948 and 1 August 1949. This represents an average if 5,579 tons daily throughout the blockade.” These supplies were delivered by over 278,000 flights. The end result was that West Belin remained under control of the Western allies.

German children in West Berlin waving to incoming USAF cargo plane (USAF - Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

Jan Brueghel the Elder's Assault on a Convoy, 1620 - 1625

Joint Operations

The Berlin Airlift began as two separate operations, Operation Vittles of the US and Operation Plane Fare of the UK. Operation Plane Fare included not only RAF pilots, but also service members from Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. The two operations were combined when Tunner established the Combined Air Lift Task Force. This would lead to coordinated flights, aircraft inspections and maintenance, as well as combined logistic functions. As will be discussed in the “Civil Society Participation” section, the civilians of West Germany and West Berlin were also involved.

The intention of the Berlin Blockade was to starve the residents of West Berlin into submission. As this became obvious, Western attitudes against the Soviets hardened. The use of starvation as a means of control and warfare was nothing new for Soviet Russia, as demonstrated by their history of famine among their own people as well as the Holodomor, the man-made famine that led to the death of approximately 5 million Ukrainians in 1932-1933. Both these events were sugared-over by the New Your Times, but they could not hide the effects of (and the allied response to) the Berlin Blockade.

Thus, it was during the Blockade and the Airlift that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization⁹ was created on 4 April 1949 to contain and provide collective security against the Soviet Union. The Berlin Blockade proved just how evil the Soviets could be, and the Berlin Airlift proved that western nations could defeat this evil.

Involvement of Intelligence Agencies

In addition to the Department of Defense, several federal agencies were involved in intelligence operations that preceded the Berlin Airlift.

The CIA warned President Truman¹⁰, in a 22 December 1947 Intelligence Memorandum, that the Soviets would force the Western Allies to exit Berlin through “obstructionism and harassment.” Similar reports dated 26 and 30 December from the State Department confirmed the CIA’s report. The CIA also supplied information about the successful overthrow by Czech Communist Party of the coalition government in Prague in February, and the failed 19 March Communist takeover in Helsinki.

Role of the US Treasury

The Nazi Party left Germany’s economy in ruins, and World War II itself did nothing to improve the situation. To destabilize what would later be called West Germany (as well as West Berlin), the Soviets devalued the German Reichsmark. After two years of this, the Germans were resorting to barter. Further, JCS 1067 directed the US military occupation government to “take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany.” Starvation and disease were to be prevented least civil unrest would endanger occupation forces¹¹. The US Treasury supplied officials (who would be called “Morgenthau Boys” after Henry Morgenthau Jr., the Secretary of the Treasury under the Roosevelt Administration) to the occupation government to enforce JCS 1067 as strictly as possible.

The Western Allies were concerned about this (as well as the looting of East Germany), fearing that this would be a repeat of the inflation and other conditions that led to World War I. This led to the Currency Reform of June 1948, where the Reichsmark was replaced by the Deutsche Mark. This prevented the hyperinflation caused by the printing of the Reichsmark, and the Soviets responded with the Berlin Blockade.

Civil Society Participation

Survivors of the German blitzkrieg of London donated care packages to the Airlift, but civil society participated in the Berlin Airlift in other ways.

During the Airlift, a pilot by the name of Gail Halvorsen parachuted a small package of candy to the children watching his aircraft before landing. This continued for three weeks, one drop per week. When Tunner learned of this, he ordered this expanded into “Operation Little Vittles,” officially beginning on 22 September 1948. News of this reached the United States, and children and candymakers began collecting and donating candy for the operation. Halvorsen became a public face for the Berlin Airlift and earned him the name “the Candy Bomber.” Operation Little Vittles continued until the Berlin Blockade was lifted. Over 23 tons of candy were dropped.

Maintenance and inspection of the aircraft were major undertakings, and former RAF and Luftwaffe¹² engineers volunteered to work on airplanes while they were in West Germany or in West Berlin. The airports were improved using civilian volunteers, and their labor resulted in the runways’ Marsden Mats (pierced steel planking) being maintained by dumping sand on them between landings. At one airport, civilian labor constructed an airport runway.

Finally, the unloading of the aircraft was performed by civilians, the record being the unloading of 10 tons of coal by a twelve-man team in 5 minutes and 45 seconds.

Role of the Entertainment Industry

Selling the Berlin Airlift to the American public fell to the US Air Force¹³. They were not only involved Halvorsen’s actions, but also produced an Oscar-nominated documentary about the operation. Later, in 1950, the USAF supported the production of the 20tth Century Fox movie entitled “The Big Lift.”

Conclusion

The Berlin Airlift was a whole-of-society operation in that the armed forces of multiple nations, multiple civilian agencies, and individual citizens cooperated to achieve a common goal: to prevent the starvation of West Berlin as a result of the Soviet blockade.

The consequences of the Berlin Airlift were numerous: the Berlin Blockade demonstrated to the West the steps the Soviets would take to oppress whole nations; it was an early event in the Cold War; and it led to the creation of NATO. The whole affair proved to communist sympathizers just how evil the Soviet Union was, and just how effective the West can be in countering the Soviets.

Whole-of-Society operations leads one to think of the steps taken by the federal government during World War I and World War II, which resulted in the creation of a garrison state. The Berlin Airlift proved that this wasn’t necessarily the case: whole-of-society operations could be effective without curtailing individual freedom.

Footnotes

1. Miller, R. To Save a City.
2. Ibid.
3. Tunner, Over the Hump.
4. Tunner, “A Report on the Airlift Berlin Mission.”
5. Ibid.
6. Air Force Historical Support Division, “1949 – The Berlin Airlift.”
7. Tunner, W. “A Report on the Airlift Berlin Mission.”
8. Ibid.
9. NATO. “The Berlin Airlift” Especially the transcript of the 1962 NATO Documentary titled “Background to Berlin.”
10. CIA History Staff, On the Front Lines of the Cold War. Chapter II directly available from https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/static/b25274f2d807c2a6e7aef7579a022335/On-the-Front-Lines-of-the-Cold-War-2-Part2-web.pdf
11. JCS 1067, section 5.
12. Miller, R. “Tunner and the Luftwaffe Connection with the Berlin Airlift.”
13. O’Connell, K. “The Berlin Airlift’s Lesson for Today’s Humanitarian Crisis.”

 

Bibliography

Air Force Historical Support Division. “1949 – The Berlin Airlift.” N/D. Retrieved 8 July 2024 from https://www.afhistory.af.mil/FAQs/Fact-Sheets/Article/458961/1949-the-berlin-airlift/

CIA History Staff, On the Front Lines of the Cold War: Documents on the Intelligence War in Berlin, 1946 to 1961. Retrieved 8 July 2024 from https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/books-monographs/on-the-front-lines-of-the-cold-war-documents-on-the-intelligence-war-in-berlin-1946-to-1961/

Goldstein, E. “Remembering the epic triumph of the Berlin Airlift: Secretary Kendall, Airlift participants recognize 75th anniversary of greatest humanitarian airlift in history.” Air Force Public Affairs. 26 June 2023. Retrieved 8 July 2024 from https://www.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/3439311/remembering-the-epic-triumph-of-the-berlin-airlift-secretary-kendall-airlift-pa/

Joint Chiefs of Staff, JCS 1067: US Directive to General Eisenhower on the Military Rule of Germany. 17 October 1945. Retrieved 8 July 2024 from https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/JCS_1067

Miller, R. “Tunner and the Luftwaffe Connection with the Berlin Airlift.” Air Power History 56 (No. 4), Winter 2009. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26275813

Miller, R. To Save a City: The Berlin Airlift 1948-1949. Air Force History and Museums Program. 2000. Retrieved 8 July 2024 from https://media.defense.gov/2010/Oct/01/2001329741/-1/-1/0/ToSaveCityBerlin.pdf

NATO. “The Berlin Airlift.” N/D. Retrieved 8 July 2024 from https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_156163.htm

O’Connell, K. “The Berlin Airlift’s Lesson for Today’s Humanitarian Crisis.” Time Magazine, 22 May 2024. Retrieved 8 July 2024 from https://time.com/6980488/american-humanitarian-aid-history/

Tunner, W. Over the Hump. US Government Printing Office, 1964. Retrieved 8 July 2024 from https://media.defense.gov/2010/Sep/28/2001329799/-1/-1/0/over_the_hump.pdf

Tunner, W. “A Report on the Airlift Berlin Mission.” Department of the Air Force. 27 June 1975. Retrieved 8 July 2024 from https://media.defense.gov/2012/Jun/27/2001330007/-1/-1/0/Report%20on%20the%20Airlift.pdf

The Mexican War and World War I on the Conflict Continuum

Introduction

Joint Publications 3-0 Joint Operations includes a framework¹ for understanding both the varieties of miliary and military/civil operations as well as the phases of such operations. The foundation of this framework is the “conflict continuum”, the realization that peace and war aren’t the only two possible relations that can exist between nation-states, that other relations are possible, such as crisis response, security cooperation, etc. The purpose of this paper is to look at the Mexican-American War and World War I through this framework.

We begin with an explanation of manifest destiny, and how this policy drove the United States and Mexico into conflict. For purposes of evaluating the Mexican-American War along the conflict continuum, a history of that war is supplied.

A similar approach is taken with World War I: the history of WWI prior to our declaration of war is given, the reasons for our involvement are explained, and a brief description of the way we worked with the Allies is explained.

Next, the conflict continuum itself is described, including the phases a military operation moves through from beginning to end, and some of the examples of not-strictly combat operations are given. The Mexican-American War and World War I are then evaluated using this knowledge of the conflict continuum to classify the two wars and the phases they went through.

The concluding section recaps how these two wars demonstrate some of the finer points of JP 3-0, as well as a certain “slipperiness” in the shaping phase.

The Mexican-American War

In the mid 19^th century, a belief called “manifest destiny” became an informal American foreign policy². Advocated by various journalists and newspaper editors and adopted by certain politicians, manifest destiny called for the spread of freedom and American ideals westward through various means, including territorial acquisition. This is the context underlying US-Mexican diplomatic relations at the time and in part lead to the Mexican-American War.

Mexican territorial claims relinquished in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the Gadsden Purchase

The Mexican War started³ over a dispute about the location of Texas’s border, and by extension the southern American border. The Republic of Texas declared its independence from Mexico in 1836 and joined the United States on 29 December 1845, becoming the 28^th state. Mexico did not recognize Texas’ succession, and so when it became a member of the Union, we inherited the ongoing border dispute.

Again, where was Texas’ southern border? Mexico claimed the border should be the Nueces River, whereas America believed the border should be south of that, at the Rio Grande.

President James Polk offered to purchase⁴ the land north of the Rio Grande and west of Texas all the way to the Pacific Ocean for $25 million, but Mexico refused – Mexico was undergoing internal rebellions at the time, so it may not have been possible to accept payment.

To pressure Mexico to accept the purchase, Polk dispatched Pacific Squadron ships to blockade Mexico along the California coast and the Home Squadron to blockade Mexico’s Gulf coast. He also sent troops into the disputed Texas territory under the command of General Zachary Taylor.

On 25 April 1846, Mexican cavalry attacked Taylor’s troops. The Mexicans then attacked American forts on the Rio Grande. Taylor called for reinforcements and were able to defeat the Mexicans in the Battle of Palo Alto and the Battle of Resaca de la Palma. Polk lost all patience with Mexico at that point, and on 13 May of that year, Congress declared war.

While Taylor worked south, General Stephen Watts Kearny entered what would later be called New Mexico and captured Santa Fe without encountering any Mexican military forces. On 25 September 1846, Kearny left New Mexico under civilian government (with military support) and set out for California.

As this was happening, the Pacific Squadron received orders to blockade San Francisco Bay. Command of the squadron was transferred to Commodore Robert F. Stockton, and continuing south, his land forces entered Los Angeles without encountering opposing forces.

Kearny’s march continued. He crossed the Colorado River and engaged Mexican forces at the Battle of San Pasqual in modern-day California on 6 December 1846. He was trapped in a defensive position until American relief forces arrived. Kearny was then able to complete his march to Los Angeles.

On 8 January 1847, Kearny’s and Stockton’s forces engaged the Mexicans at the Battle of Rio San Gabriel. The Mexicans retreated and the next day they fought again at the Battle of La Mesa. The Mexicans were defeated, and this led to the Treaty of Cahuenga. This treaty ended the conflict in California but fighting continued south of Texas.

Zachary Taylor’s army continued into Mexico which led to Battle of Rio Monterrey on 21-24 September 1846. This was an urban battle (our first urban warfare experience since the Revolutionary War⁵), and we were defeated. An armistice was declared, but under orders from Washington, Taylor broke the armistice and continued marching south. He encountered General Antonio López de Santa Anna at Puerto de la Angostura. The resulting battle, the Battle of Buena Vista, lasted for two days, from 22-23 February 1847. Santa Anna retreated to Mexico City to put down an insurrection in Mexico City.

By this time, President Polk realized that occupying northern Mexico was insufficient to get Mexico agree to the purchase. An invasion of the Mexican interior was necessary. To this end, General Winfield Scott arrived off Veracruz by sea to begin the invasion on 9 March 1847. Scott performs first major amphibious landing in US history⁶ as part of the Siege of Veracruz. Mexican forces surrendered.

Scott then marched westward towards Mexico City. Santa Anna set up a defensive line close to Veracruz, but Scott sent cavalry ahead. The two forces met on 18 April 1847, and the Battle of Cerro Gordo ensued. Santa Anna again retreated to Mexico City with Scott laying chase.

Scott arrived at Mexico City and after defeating Mexican forces at the Battle of Contreras and the Battle of Churubusco (both ending on 20 August 1847), peace negotiations began. Negotiations broke down on 6 September 1947, however. In response, Scott fought additional battles (the Battle of Molino del Rey and Battle of Chapultepec) which led to the storming of the city gates and the capture of Mexico City.

The war ended on 2 February 1848 with the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This treaty gave us control not only over Texas to the Rio Grande, most of New Mexico, and all of California and Utah, but also parts of Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming. In return, Mexico received $15 million, approximately half of Polk’s original offer⁷.

The remainder of Arizona and New Mexico were purchased in 1854 from Mexico for $10 million. With this purchase, called the Gadsden Purchase, the current position of the US southern border was established.

World War I

Nothing as grandiose as manifest destiny drove us into World War I. Rather our involvement was the result of an accumulation of events that included threats to maritime traffic, possible collusion between Mexico and the Central Powers, as well as ensuring the repayment of loans made to France, Britain, and Italy⁸.

The “Great War” was preceded by the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his wife on 28 June 1914 by a Serbian political activist while they were in Sarajevo. This led to the July Crisis, a series of military escalations and diplomatic incidents among the major European powers, which led to Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia on 28 July 1914, marking the start of World War I. By August of that year, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Serbia, Great Britain, France, and Russia as well as Japan were at war. The Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers on 31 October 1914, and Italy joined the Allied Powers on 23 May 1915.

Before Italy joined, war spread to European colonies, with Britain invading German East Africa on 3-5 November 1914. This battle, The Battle of Tanga (also called “The Battle of the Bees”) marked the beginning of Lieutenant Colonel Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck’s African campaign⁹.

The United States attempted to stay militarily neutral while continuing economic trade with France, Britain, and Italy. In addition, American bankers made loans those nations. Early events in the war, especially the sinking of the RMS Lusitania by a German U-boat on 7 May 1915 resulting in the loss of 128 American lives, foretold that the United States would not be able to maintain neutrality¹⁰.

There were three events that lead America to enter the war on the side of the Entente: Germany’s breaking of the Sussex Pledge, the increasing likelihood that the Central Powers would be victorious, and the Zimmerman Telegram.

Following the sinking of several civilian vessels by German naval vessels early in the war, Germany issued the Sussex Pledge to the US on 4 May 1916. In this pledge, Germany made the following changes to its rules of naval engagement: passenger ships would not be targeted; merchant vessels would not be attacked unless inspection showed the presence of weapons; and merchant vessels would not be targeted unless those aboard could be rescued.

Eight months later, over the objections of the German Chancellor, the German navy convinced military leaders and Kaiser Wilhelm II that unrestricted submarine warfare could be used to defeat the Entente before the US entered the war¹¹. The Pledge was thus rescinded in January 1917.

The February 1917 Revolution in Russia indicated that due to political instability, Russia’s continued participation in the war could not be guaranteed. Russia was wavering, and the odds of the Central Powers winning increased. If they won, then the European Allies would (presumably) be unable to repay the loans that American bankers made to them.

Indeed, the October 1917 Revolution and the subsequent Civil War led to the Bolsheviks obtaining power. Vladimir Lenin signed a peace treaty with the Central Powers, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, on 3 March 1918. With Russia no longer involved, Germany turned its attention to France and Great Britian.

In January 1917, Britain intercepted and decoded a telegram sent from the German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Minister to Mexico, offering US territory to Mexico should the enter war on the side of the Central Powers. The British then sent the telegram to the United States on 24 February. It was made available to the American public on 1 March¹².

On 6 April 1917, two years and eight months following the outbreak of war, the United States entered World War I on the side of the Allies. The first parts of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) arrived in June 1917 and continued to arrive over the next four months.

At this point in the war, the Allies and Central Powers were at a stalemate: 430 miles of trenches were dug between France and Germany, running from the North Sea and the Swiss border, and those trenches mostly remained fixed for over two years. This was well illustrated by the Battle of Verdun, lasting from 21 February to 18 December 1916, making it the longest battle of the war, and by the end there was little change in positions of the lines. Despite the use of chemical weapons, tanks, and aerial bombings, the Western Front remained in a deadlock, with neither side able to gain and hold territory.

The question then became how the US military would break this stalemate.

French and British military leaders initially wanted American forces to supplement the Allied ranks in a policy called “amalgamation”, essentially turning them into cannon fodder. General John J. Pershing, commander of the AEF, objected, refusing to allow his troops to be under the command of non-Americans¹³. Further, he rejected trench warfare and insisted on using “open warfare” which would capitalize on American mobility, aggressiveness, and marksmanship. Pershing did permit AEF troops to train with the French, however, before going into combat.

General John J. Pershing

Pershing’s requirement that American warriors operate under a completely American chain of command became a staple of future joint operations: Americans would fight alongside foreign troops, not under them.

As the AEF continued to arrive, larger and larger military operations were executed, culminating in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. This was the largest operation of the war, the goal of which was to evict German troops from France by attacking them along the entire Western Front. The battle began on 26 September 1918 and continued for 47 days. Pershing rotated his troops not only to maintain their strength but also so they could train incoming troops. In November, Americans advanced as fast as logistics allowed, at one point even advancing off the AEF headquarters’ maps.

The Meuse-Argonne Offensive ended when news of the Armistice arrived on 11 November 1918. This marked the end of World War I.

Fitting Those Wars into the Conflict Continuum

JP 3-0 explains that military conflict occurs on a “spectrum” or “continuum” with peace at one side and war at the other. This is of fundamental importance, as the authors of JP 3-0 are rejecting the idea that peace and war are the only two conditions that can exist between nations and other actors¹⁴. This idea is expanded in two ways: first, a joint operations model - an analysis of the progression of events as nations move about this continuum; second, a listing of some types of military operations that can include conflict but can also include military operations other than war (MOOTW).

The joint operation model¹⁵ describes how the United States and Partner Nations (PN) can prepare for conflict, conduct conflict, then end a conflict. There are six phases in the model:

Shape – activities to set the conditions for successful in-theater operations; shaping activities are primarily political (e.g. coalition building, securing overfly and navigation rights) but can also include multinational training exercises, intelligence sharing, etc.

Deter - Prevents adversaries (traditional, non-state actors, etc.) from either creating or capitalizing on a crisis.

Seize Initiative - Utilize all capabilities as early as possible to delay, impede, or halt enemy's initial aggression and prevent him from achieving his initial objectives. Ideas is to expand freedom of action of friendly forces (by, e.g. accessing and controlling infrastructure in theater) as well as degrading enemy's capabilities with the goal of resolving the crisis as soon as possible.

Dominate - Break enemy's will to resist by overmatching enemy's capabilities at critical times and places.

Stabilize - (Re)establish a secure environment, which can include (re)building infrastructure.

Enable Civil Authority - Support legitimate governance following conflict.

This six-stage model can be applied to other types of operations, including humanitarian assistance operations. Additional phases may be added depending on the type of operation, and it is the JFC that sets criteria for the transition between phases¹⁶.

The conflict continuum can also include MOOTW, and JP 3-0 provides examples of these types, including noncombatant evacuation, foreign internal defense, counterdrug operations, and so on¹⁷. It is possible for an operation to move between these types: for example, the Afghanistan War began as a military engagement, then transformed to a combination of counterinsurgency and defense support of civil authorities.

Of the examples of military operations and activities listed in JP 3-0, the Mexican-American War would count as a military engagement. The shaping phase included Polk’s initial offer to purchase the territory is described above. The blockade established along Mexico’s Gulf and California coasts as well as the placement of troops south of the Nueces River constituted the deter phase. Seizing initiative and domination phases are the parts where Taylor moved south of the Nueces River, Kearny’s march into California, and Winfield Scott’s amphibious landing and march to Mexico City.

Kearny’s activities in New Mexico demonstrate both stabilization (his initial establishment of a military government in Santa Fa) and the enabling of civil authority (leaving a civilian government in place along with military support).

With the capture of Mexico City, Scott “imposed martial law, maintaining order through an even-handed policy that treated U.S. troops and the Mexican populace equally.¹⁸” This would count as stabilization. It isn’t clear how the Unites States enabled civilian authority, though perhaps the final payment of $15 million helped in that regard.

World War I was different in that we were not involved in the conflict until 32 months after it started. Although for us it was certainly a large-scale combat operation, we initially played a supporting role until AEF arrived in full and found its stride. So, while we were not present at the beginning, the Allies (PNs) were. Thus, the shape and deter phases were performed (or, rather, not performed) by the Allies. Our entrance was at the dominate phase. Following the end of hostilities, our participation became one of foreign humanitarian assistance, with the American Relief Administration¹⁹ providing massive amounts of relief supplies to Europe.

Conclusion

The two wars examined in this paper help to illuminate both the breadth and some of the subtilities of the conflict continuum framework given in JP 3-0.

Unlike WWI, the Mexican-American War was not a joint operation. JP 3-0 is still applicable though; the war was a joint operation where there were no partner nations – it was a coalition of one.

WWI demonstrated that in a joint operation, the United States need not be an active participant of every phase of conflict – it is sufficient that at least one PN engages in a given phase and passes the results on to the other members of the coalition. We entered that war over two years after it started, and we had to build upon the work the other partner nations either completed or were in process of completing.

As WWI ended, what was a large-scale combat operation became a humanitarian operation, showing that it is possible for a military operation or activity to change type as events unfold.

WWI also demonstrated the need for establishing a clear chain of command among partner nations, and that this chain of command must not result in an American service member being under command of a non-American coalition member. Pershing was adamant in this, and this prevented American troops from being used to prolong the stalemate instead of acting decisively to bring the war to a conclusion.

Finally, a certain ambiguity in the conflict continuum must be identified. According to JP 3-0, “shaping activities help set conditions for successful theater operations,” and that in the best case, “shaping activities may avert or diminish conflict.” The preparations President Polk made prior to the start of the Mexican-American war can technically be called shaping activities, but instead of either preventing war or helping ensure that operations are successful, Polk’s shaping operations became a threat²⁰, and the price of ignoring that threat was war. 

Footnotes

1. Joint Publication 3-0, Joint Operations, V-1 to V-20 and VI-1 to VI-4.
2. Millett, et. al., For the Common Defense.
3. Snow & Drew, From Lexington to Baghdad and Beyond.
4. Stenberg, “The Failure of Polk's Mexican War Intrigue of 1845.”
5. Carney, “Gateway South: the Campaign for Monterrey.”
6. Snow & Drew, From Lexington to Baghdad and Beyond.
7. Stenberg, “The Failure of Polk's Mexican War Intrigue of 1845.”
8. Snow & Drew, From Lexington to Baghdad and Beyond.
9. Gaudi, African Kaiser.
10. Snow & Drew, From Lexington to Baghdad and Beyond includes a discussion of why neutrality is not in general possible. This warrants a one-word response: Switzerland.
11. Bridgeland, Outrage at Sea.
12. Millett, et. al., For the Common Defense.
13. Ibid.
14. It is not clear whether “grey zone” activities could be included in the continuum. See Robinson, “The Missing, Irregular Half of Great Power Competition.”
15. Joint Publication 3-0, Joint Operations, V-7 to V-11.
16. Ibid, V-12 to V-14.
17. Ibid, V-2 to V-4 and V-4 to V-5.
18. UTA Libraries, “Winfield Scott.”
19. Patenaude, "A Race against Anarchy.”
20. Stenberg, “The Failure of Polk's Mexican War Intrigue of 1845.”

Bibliography

Bridgeland, T. Outrage at Sea: Naval Atrocities in the First World War. Pen and Sword Books, 2002.

Carney, S. “Gateway South: the Campaign for Monterrey.” U.S. Army Campaigns of the Mexican War. Retrieved 25 June 2024 from https://history.army.mil/brochures/the%20campaign%20for%20monterrey/the%20campaign%20for%20monterrey.htm

Gaudi, R. African Kaiser: General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck and the Great War in Africa, 1914-1918. Dutton Caliber, 2017.

Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Publication 3-0, Joint Operations, 22 October 2018.

Millett, A. R., Maslowski, P., & Feis, W. B. For the Common Defense: A Military History of the Unites States from 1607 to 2012. 3rd ed. Free Press, 2012.

Patenaude, B. "A Race against Anarchy: Even after the Great War ended, famine and chaos threatened Europe. Herbert Hoover rescued the continent, reviving trade, rebuilding infrastructure, and restoring economic order, holding a budding Bolshevism in check." Hoover Digest 2, 2020, pp. 183-200. Retrieved 25 June 2024 from https://www.hoover.org/research/race-against-anarchy

Robinson, E. “The Missing, Irregular Half of Great Power Competition.” Modern War Institute at West Point, 8 September 2020. Retrieved 25 June 2024 from https://mwi.westpoint.edu/the-missing-irregular-half-of-great-power-competition/

Snow, D. & Drew, D. From Lexington to Baghdad and Beyond: War and Politics in the American Experience. 3rd ed. Routledge, 2009.

Stenberg, R. “The Failure of Polk's Mexican War Intrigue of 1845.” Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 4, No. 1, March 1935, pp. 39-68. https://doi.org/10.2307/3633243

UTA Libraries. “Winfield Scott.” A Continent Divided: The U.S. – Mexico War. N/D. Retrieved 25 June 2024 from https://libraries.uta.edu/usmexicowar/node/4877

Interagency/Intergovernmental Operations: WWII vs Vietnam

Introduction

In comparing World War II and the Vietnam War as presented in Snow & Drew[1] and Guttieri, Franke, & Civic[2], one is struck by differences between the way government agencies and whole governments interacted in those two wars. The primary difference was that in WWII, major friction took place between the Allied governments, whereas in the Vietnam War the friction was between US military and civilian agencies. The histories of these rivalries is explained and some theories for their origins are proposed.

World War II

With WWII, the interactions between the Allies were represented by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin. FDR and Churchill had frequent clashes over operations in the European theater. The location and timing of the invasion of the European continent was a serious point of contention between them: Churchill wanted to retake France early in the war, FDR wanted to knock Italy out of the war first. After that, the question of how the retaking of France was to be organized[3].

Running in parallel with this was the uneven trust between FDR, Churchill, and Stalin. Winston Churchill deeply mistrusted Stalin[4], fearing that once Germany was conquered, the Soviets would continue unchecked into Europe[5]. Meanwhile, FDR was much more trusting of Stalin, which can be attributed to FDR’s very strong socialist leanings. In the end, the Soviets indeed did control European nations, not through conquest but through negotiations: as part of the Yalta Conference, Soviets were given control of Eastern Germany, Poland, and other countries behind the “iron curtain.”

FDR, Churchill, and Stalin at the Yalta Conference, February 1945.

Vietnam War

In Vietnam, the Americans originally acted in support of the French military in their colonies in French Indochina. French presence was being reduced following France’s defeat in the First Indochina War (1946 – 1954), and while this was happening, communists were consolidating control in the north of Vietnam. The 1954 Geneva Conference used the 17th Parallel to separate North Vietnam from South Vietnam.

America’s role in South Vietnam changed over the years[6], ranging from participating as advisors to full blown combat. One of the early goals was to rebuild the (South) Vietnamese Army, as implemented by the National Security Division of the Training Relations and Instruction Mission. Civilian agencies were not seriously involved in this.

Civilian agencies began playing a serious role in 1955, with the United States Operations Mission (USOM) insisting that the industrial areas of South Vietnam receive aid and that the rural areas be ignored. The rural areas were thus abandoned militarily and economically, and they were alienated by the corrupt and authoritarian Ngô Đình Diệm government. From 1957 to 1960, the Vietcong insurgency began to organize in the rural areas. Diệm did not respond to this, and neither did the American military and civilian agencies, which were acting in an uncoordinated manner.

The Kennedy Administration took notice of the growing presence of the Vietcong and began a process called “pacification.” There was disagreement on the meaning of that term: Secretary of Defense McNamara and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) interpreted pacification to mean the use of conventional military force against the Vietcong. Meanwhile, the CIA and US Army Special Forces understood pacification to mean the standing-up of irregular forces among the rural Vietnamese[7], akin to modern counterinsurgency tactics[8].

McNamara’s interpretation resulted in Vietnamese Army units conducting attrition (“search and destroy”) operations, akin to World War II tactics. This had the effect of alienating many Vietnamese civilians against the Americans.

In 1962, the Kennedy Administration shifted to involve civilian aid programs in counterinsurgency. Tri-partite committees were established in each province, consisting of a Vietnamese province chief, a representative of the USOM, and an advisor from MAAG. These committees monitored the distribution and usage of funds and were involved in hamlet construction as well as training of hamlet militia.

Operations at the hamlet level were not coordinated with top levels of the Military Assistance Command Vietnam (MACV), which meant the Vietnamese Army and US air support frequently operated at odds with the hamlets, endangering the safety and security of the population.

Two military coups (November 1963 and January 1964) resulted in an interruption in the strategic hamlet program until June 1964, when the program resumed.

The tripartite provincial committees were officially abandoned in the fall of 1964, and Americans began working with the central government in Vietnam, insisting that aid be ran through Saigon instead of directly to the hamlets, The tripartite committees eventually all dissolved.

American troops were deployed to Vietnam in 1965, placing pacification operations under the military. The American civilian agencies (USAID, State Department, CIA, etc.) objected to the Defense Department being placed in control, and the Defense Department refused to have any advisor operations under civilian command.

The Pentagon prevailed, and pacification operations were placed under MACV. A new agency, the Office of Civil Operations and Rural Support (CORDS), was created in May 1967, and MACV was placed under CORDS. The result was that two chain of command ran through MACV (one civilian and one military).

Somehow, almost all rural areas of South Vietnam were pacificated by 1971, but the North Vietnamese added conventional military forces to the Vietcong, crossing the 17th Parallel in the 1972 Easter Offensive. The North Vietnamese were defeated by the Vietnamese army and US air support. Later, as American forces were withdrawing in 1975, the North Vietnamese overran the South.

Conclusion

In comparing the interagency and intergovernmental operations of those two wars, operations between the American, British, and Soviet governments were not nearly as fractious as were the operations between U.S. civil and military agencies.

The conflicts between FDR, Churchill, and Stalin can be explained through the two reasons addressed above: they had different strategies for defeating the enemy, and Churchill and Stalin had diametrically opposed political beliefs.

There are several explanations for all the conflict during the Vietnam War: first, the United States went through five presidential administrations (Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, and Ford) during that conflict. Second, the civilian agencies were seen as co-equal to the military agencies and that lead to interagency rivalry. Third, both civilian and military agencies had competing strategies for defeating the communists: US Army Special Forces and the CIA wanted to take a “bottom up” approach, establishing counterinsurgent guerrillas and hamlet militias, whereas JCS and the other civilian agencies used a “top down” approach, carrying out attrition-style  “pacification” operations, taking responsibility for defeating the Vietcong with the idea of handing the country over to the Vietnamese people once the communists were eliminated.

Footnotes

[1] Snow & Drew, From Lexington to Baghdad and Beyond.

[2] Guttieri, Franke, & Civic (Eds), Understanding Complex Military Operations

[3] Snow & Drew, From Lexington to Baghdad and Beyond, Ch. 5.

[4] Daniels, “’Favourable Reference to the Devil’: Why Churchill Allied with Stalin.”

[5] Folly, Roberts, & Rzheshevsky, Churchill and Stalin.

[6] Outline of the history is based upon Phillips, R. “CORDS campaign of pacification” found in Guttieri, Franke & Civic (Eds). Understanding Complex Military Operations

[7] Kelly, Vietnam Studies: U.S. Army Special Forces 1961-1971.

[8] Seals, “MACV-SOG History.”

Bibliography

Daniels, C. “’Favourable Reference to the Devil’: Why Churchill Allied with Stalin.” Churchill Project of Hillsdale College, 26 June 2021. Retrieved 13 June 2024 from https://winstonchurchill.hillsdale.edu/alliance-stalin/

Folly, M., Roberts, G., & Rzheshevsky, O. Churchill and Stalin: Comrades-in-Arms during the Second World War. Pen and Sword Military, 8 February 2020.

Guttieri, K., Franke, V., & Civic, M. (Eds). Understanding Complex Military Operations: A Case Study Approach. Routledge, 2014.

Kelly, F. Vietnam Studies: U.S. Army Special Forces 1961-1971. Department of the Army, 2004. Retrieved 13 June 2024 from https://history.army.mil/html/books/090/90-23-1/CMH_Pub_90-23-1.pdf

Seals, R. “MACV-SOG History.” USASOC History Office, 25 January 2019. Retrieved 13 June 2024 from https://www.army.mil/article/216498/macv_sog_history

Snow, D. & Drew, D. From Lexington to Baghdad and Beyond: War and Politics in the American Experience. 3rd ed. Routledge, 2009.

Coalition Building in the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars

Introduction

Wars are frequently multinational operations, extremely complex operations involving standardizing communication systems, hiring translators, establishing both national and international chains of commands¹, and so on. Fundamental to this is the diplomatic work to build coalitions. The coalition President George H. W. Bush assembled to liberate Kuwait came together relatively easy during the buildup to the Gulf War. President George W. Bush was able to rapidly assemble a multinational operation for prosecution of the Afghanistan War, but he encountered difficulties in forming what would be called the Multi-National Force - Iraq (MNF-I), popularly called the "Coalition of the Willing." This paper compares the assembly of the coalitions for both the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars and attempts to identify the ways the younger Bush was able to overcome the difficulties in forming the MNF-I.

The history of our involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq are extremely relevant to explaining the difference in effort needed to build the two MNFs, perhaps as important as the jus ad bellum (reasons for declaring war) for both conflicts. For this reason, the historical context for both wars is provided. Following this, the usual factors that a potential member of an MNF must consider before committing are examined. Finally, the ways that the Bush Administration used to grow MNF-I are described, along with the embarrassments they generated.

Colin Powell at the UN.

Historical Background of the Afghanistan War

During Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (24 December 1979 - 15 February 1989), the United States via the Central Intelligence Agency supported the Afghan Mujahideen resistance fighters, as did Pakistan, Iran, the UK, and the Arab Gulf States. The Soviets withdrew following the signing of the US-brokered 1988 Geneva Accords, but they left in place a Soviet-backed regime led by Mohammad Najibullah. Thus, the war to rid Afghanistan of communism continued, but now it was a civil war.

Najibullah was ousted in 1992 and was replaced by the Mujahideen. This lasted until September 1996 when the Mujahideen were in turn replaced by the Taliban, an Islamic group primarily composed of Pashtun Afghans, the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan.

A new civil war then started between the Pashtun (represented by the Taliban) and the other ethnic groups (represented by the Northern Alliance). While this war raged, foreign fighters entered the country, most importantly Al Qaida led by Osama Bin Laden, and they began using Afghanistan as a base of operations.

Al Qaeda bombed two US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on 7 April 1998, and on 12 October 2000 they attacked the USS Cole while docked in a Yemeni port. Bin Laden was now considered an international terrorist threat, and the US demands his extradition. The Taliban refused, and the UN imposed economic sanctions in response.

Shortly following the September 11^th terrorist attacks, Bin Laden was determined to be the culprit and again America demand extradition. The Taliban again refused to hand him over. This meant that Afghanistan was not only harboring known terrorists, but the Taliban became an impediment to the capture or destruction of Al Qaeda members.

The political objectives of the US-led forces were the capture or destruction of Al Qaeda and the destruction of the Taliban. While the latter was not necessary to achieve the former, it was felt that ousting the Taliban from power would allow US-led forces to gain support of the Northern Alliance, prevent Al Qaeda from reconstituting itself, and serve as an object lesson to other nations of the price of harboring or supporting terrorists.

The ultimate strategy for the War in Afghanistan was to use high tech weapons (UAVs and guided missiles) together with Special Forces to defeat the Taliban², and to use a small number of conventional forces to search for Al Qaeda. This plan overcame two problems with the location and geography of Afghanistan: the "tyranny of political geography" and the "tyranny of topography," which made Afghanistan into "a logistics nightmare."³

On 7 October 2001, the US and the UK begin bombing operations, less than one month after the 9/11 attacks. Because of this short time interval, insufficient post-combat planning was performed.

Historical Context of the Iraq War

Prior to the start of the Afghanistan War, the US had little interaction with Afghanistan beyond support of the Mujahideen during the Soviet Occupation. In contrast, there was considerable history between the US and Iraq: the Gulf War.

While the Gulf War saw the eviction of Iraqi forces from Kuwait, Saddam Hussein remained in power. When George W. Bush became president, he brought along policy experts who believed that leaving Saddam in power was a mistake. This was the first reason that war with Iraq was seen as inevitable.

The second reason that war seemed inevitable was the Bush Administration's overall policy in response to 9/11. Bush not only declared war against Afghanistan, but he also declared a Global War on Terror (GWOT). Few people at the time wondered just how it was possible to declare war on a tactic (terrorism).

The connection between Iraq and the GWOT was tenuous: Saddam was not known to harbor terrorists, nor was he a sponsor of terrorism (or at least international terrorists). What tipped the scale was Saddam's unwillingness to allow UN Weapons Inspectors to examine certain weapon facilities. This led to suspicions that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMD), the means to deliver said WMD, and that he had used WMD against the Iraqi Kurds. The political objectives of the US-led forces were to eliminate Saddam and the Ba'athist regime, locate and destroy the WMDs and the facilities to manufacture them, as well as to protect the Kurds.

Just like in Afghanistan, there was little post-combat planning, but the difference was that Iraq shared a 994-mile-long border with a hostile enemy: Iran.

Joining a Multinational Operation

The countries involved in multinational operations share a common desired political outcome from the military operations, that much is clear. Assembling a coalition is thus an act of diplomacy, and the decision for a country to become a partner nation (PN) in a multinational task force (MNTF) depends on the purpose of the MNTF, the lead nation, as well as domestic concerns.

There are numerous domestic concerns a potential PN must consider: domestic politics, national interest, the defense budget, and threats from other nations that may seek to use the diversion of the PN's military to the MNTF to their advantage⁴.

Once the PN decides to join, there is the question of the range of support (the type and level of commitment) the PN would provide to the MNTF. According to JP 3-16, the range of support is a spectrum⁵. On one end of this spectrum is combat support in the form of troops, aircraft, ships, equipment, etc. At the other end there are commitments that do not require troops or equipment, such as financial assistance, overflight and basing rights, and use of existing facilities. In the middle, noncombatant forces can be committed to provide forms of support such as logistics, infrastructure, air and sea lift, intra-theater lift, etc.

There is also the question of when the PN's forces engage: combat, post-combat, or both. During the Iraq war, several nations agreed to become involved only after combat operations ended, at which point humanitarian assistance and reconstruction came to the fore.⁶

How the Iraq War Differed from the Afghanistan War

There were two differences between the Iraq War and Afghanistan War that were of importance to potential PNs. First, there was the fresh and raw memory of the 9/11 attacks and the very real possibility that Al Qaeda would attack them (whether they became a PN or not). Second was the differing expected post-combat outcomes.

With the shock of the 9/11 attacks, not much consideration was given to how Afghanistan would look after the completion of military operations. The elimination of Al Qaida was seen as doable, and preventing the return of the Taliban was an important goal, but what form would the new Afghan government take? America promised a representative democracy, but Afghanistan is composed of a number of ethnic and tribal groups and would require a strong central government in order to keep them those groups at peace. The inherent contradiction was lost on the military planners. Add to this was the fact that the Taliban were primarily Pashtun, which were 40% of the population. If the Pashtun were excluded, then the new Afghan government wouldn't be representative; if they were included then a strong central government would be needed to keep them from taking control, so the new Afghan government wouldn't be democratic. The participants in Operation Enduring Freedom would have to prop-up the new Afghan government instead.

In comparison, the reasons for invading Iraq were suspect from the start: there was no evidence for the existence of Saddam's WMDs⁷. Further, the Bush Administration provided a plethora of reasons for going into Iraq, and if WMDs turned out to be a wash, the US could always fall back on Saddam's history of human rights violations.

Further, the goal of eliminating the Ba'athist government did not come with a plan to replace it. The need for a replacement was immediately obvious due to the presence of Iran: if no de-Ba'athized government was formed, Iraq would invade, and so an extended foreign presence would be required. The realpolitik Pottery Barn Rule would apply: "If you break it, you bought it."

So, both wars would require an extended presence in both countries, but the problems for post-combat Iraq were much more obvious.

Building a multinational force was considerably more difficult for Iraq than for Afghanistan for all these reasons⁸. In addition, the US was unable to get UN agreement on invading Iraq. To compensate for all this, the Bush Administration had to get... creative.

Getting to ‘Yes’: Persuading Potential PNs to Join MNF-I

For whatever reason, the primary metric that the Bush Administration used for determining the robustness of the Multi-National Force - Iraq (MNF-I) was the number of partner nations. This quickly led to issues.

The Bush Administration initially released only the number of PNs, not the names of the PNs. When the list of names was released⁹, several problems became clear: first, several listed countries (the Solomon Islands, Palau, Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands) not only lacked name recognition, they also lacked standing armies. Second, two of the counties on the list (Eritrea and Ethiopia) had recently completed a major war against each other (the Badme War, 6 May 1998 - 18 June 2000). Third, at least one country on the list (Costa Rica, also a nation without a standing army) denied agreeing to be a PN.

To pad these numbers, the State Department claimed that 15 nations were "covert" PNs. The existence of at least one covert nation (Canada) was proven in the WikiLeaks US diplomatic cable leak¹⁰.

The Bush Administration also used financial pressure to grow the number of PNs. Several of the countries were already receiving US aid. Georgia was believed to have become a PN and commit 2,000 soldiers to Iraq as repayment for American training of Georgian forces that could be used to stabilize break-away regions. In 2003, Turkey was offered $8.5 billion in loans for sending 10,000 troops. They refused the loans but did allow medical airlifts into and out of the country.

Thus the Coalition of the Willing came into being.

Conclusion

Prior to the Iraq War, participation of states in a multinational operation depended on domestic consent, decisions about the range of support, as well as decisions about the stage of the operation (conflict-phase, post-conflict, or both). The Bush Administration added two additional factors: whether to participate publicly, and the amount of quid pro quo necessary.

Regardless, the MNF-I was established. As combat operations concluded, the existence of WMD came into serious doubt and the Iraq War became more and more a quagmire, PNs began leaving the Coalition of the Willing.

Footnotes

1. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Publication 3-16, Multinational Operations, II-1 to II-19.
2. Howard, C. “To Baghdad and Beyond: ARSOF in Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
3. Snow, D. & Drew, D. From Lexington to Baghdad and Beyond.
4. Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Publication 3-16, Multinational Operations. III-1 to III-4
5. Ibid. III-3 to III-5.
6. Rayburn, J. & Sobchak, F. The U.S. Army in the Iraq War – Volume 1
7. Younge, G., Norton-Taylor, R. & Wintour, P. “Blix attacks ‘shaky’ intelligence on weapons.”
8. NATO, “NATO and Afghanistan.”
9. Schifferes, S. “US names ‘coalition of the willing’”.
10. Weston, G. “Canada offered to aid Iraq invasion: WikiLeaks”

Bibliography

Howard, C. “To Baghdad and Beyond: ARSOF in Operation Iraqi Freedom.” USASOC History Office, 20 March 2023. Retrieved 10 June 2024 from https://www.army.mil/article/264978/to_baghdad_and_beyond_arsof_in_operation_iraqi_freedom

Joint Chiefs of Staff. Joint Publication 3-16, Multinational Operations, 12 February 2021.

NATO. “NATO and Afghanistan.” North Atlantic Treaty Organization. 31 August 2022. Retrieved 9 June 2024 from https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_8189.htm

Rayburn, J. & Sobchak, F. The U.S. Army in the Iraq War – Volume 1: Invasion – Insurgency – Civil War, 2003-2006. USAWC Press, 17 January 2019. Retrieved 9 June 2024 from https://press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1385&context=monographs

Schifferes, S. “US names ‘coalition of the willing’” BBC News, 18 March 2003. Retrieved 9 June 2024 from https://web.archive.org/web/20080226195556/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2862343.stm

Snow, D. & Drew, D. From Lexington to Baghdad and Beyond: War and Politics in the American Experience. Routledge, 2009.

Younge, G., Norton-Taylor, R. & Wintour, P. “Blix attacks ‘shaky’ intelligence on weapons.” The Guardian, 23 April 2003. Retrieved 10 June 2024 from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/apr/23/iraq.iraq