Harlan Ullman
The United States has a unique way of waging war. Simply put, it relies on a combined joint force operating across the sea, air, land, undersea, cyber and space domains, which it will dominate, achieving superiority over possible adversaries. This requires fielding the most technically advanced weapons and sensor systems, integrated and coordinated with its naval, air, land and space forces.
Furthermore, the U.S. has often tried to impose its way of war on friends and partners that did not possess these levels of technology. The U.S. tried this in Vietnam. While that was a counter-insurgency war, the North Vietnamese finally won using conventional land, and not guerrilla, forces.
The U.S. repeated this in Afghanistan, despite the cultural divides that were centuries apart. I recall visiting the grand opening of the training academy in Kabul for junior and non-commissioned officers. The first requirement was to use indoor plumbing, which was foreign to most. When the U.S. withdrew in 2021, that included contractors.
Contractors were responsible for keeping the Afghan military functioning. They ran training, maintenance for weapons systems such as helicopters and armored vehicles, and all communications and most logistics. With their removal, the Afghan military had no chance of remaining a functioning or fighting force.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the U.S. and NATO allies, with others, provided huge amounts of military and financial support amounting to $200 billion. The U.S. also offered advice and recommendations — not only advice on how to use and maintain this equipment but also strategic and tactical advice to follow on official and unofficial levels.
Two major disconnects became obvious. First, U.S. doctrine depended on all-domain dominance. But Ukraine lacked airpower remotely capable of challenging the Russian air force or shifting the balance on the battlefield. Unfortunately, the U.S. was also slow to authorize training for Ukrainian pilots, should modern aircraft be made available.
Second, Ukraine could not absorb the U.S. way of war. Originally indoctrinated in the Soviet way of war, after 2014, Ukraine began developing its own doctrine that better understood both the strengths and limitations of its armed forces. Ukraine responded brilliantly to the invasion with innovation, ingenuity and the ability to field seemingly low-technology and yet highly-effective weaponry largely based on drones, satellites, and driving command and control to the lowest possible levels.
This delegation of authority, often to squads and non-commissioned officers, has yielded exceptional battlefield effects. But now, as the war persists, a stalemate seems to be occurring. That said, Ukraine has badly bloodied the Russian military. The United Kingdom’s chief of defense, Adm. Sir Tony Radakin, has estimated Russia may have lost about half its capability.
During the summer, as Ukraine’s vaunted counteroffensive failed to drive Russia from the battlefield, critical comments were attributed to both serving and retired senior American officers. Ukrainian military and political leaders clearly were not pleased by this criticism and statements that the U.S. would not conduct the war in this manner. But the U.S. all-domain military is not Ukraine’s — and Ukraine will choose a strategy in keeping with its capabilities.
President Joe Biden joins Israel's prime minister for the start of the Israeli war cabinet meeting in Tel Aviv on Oct. 18, 2023.
Now, as the war in Israel and Gaza is in its second week, some in the U.S. are offering advice and criticism that may conform to American doctrine and experience but not to that of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The offensive to destroy Hamas has not yet truly begun. Still, some U.S. observers have suggested ways to conduct these operations with precision to minimize collateral damage and still target the enemy.
These experts might be advised to hold fire. How immaculate war is to be conducted has no manual. The sieges of Leningrad, Warsaw, Hue City in South Vietnam, and most recently Fallujah during the second Iraq War, are instructive. City and urban warfare is incredibly bloody, lengthy and exhausting. Worse, those Americans arguing for Israel to cut Gaza in half, deploying forces to do that and then selectively targeting Hamas, likely misunderstand how difficult a mission that would be..
The most perplexing and taxing of all operations will be the occupation of Gaza. That will be a nightmare, as the U.S. and coalition partners experienced in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was overthrown and his army dissolved. Where is the handbook for that?
I have called this “the war from hell.” Despite good intentions, almost certainly, this war will only get worse. How Israel wages this war remains to be seen. But too much outside advice on waging this war is likely to prove gratuitous.
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