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... Iraq and Afghanistan. Lieutenant General David H. Petraeus Commander, Combined Arms Center Fort Leavenworth, Kansas Military Review, Volume LXXXVI January-February 2006, No.
Events during the last two decades demonstrate that insurgency and terrorism are the most likely and most dangerous threats our country will face for the foreseeable future. Like the rest of the Army, the Field Artillery must continue to adapt to become more capable in counterinsurgency (COIN) operations that will mark the 21st century.
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Precision fires play an important role in countering these threats, and it is essential that the King of Battle remain capable of providing such fires. However, both the Army and the FA would benefit were the King of Battle to take responsibility for what is, perhaps, the most vital task in counterinsurgency--developing host-nation security forces.
The Threats of the Long War. Our thinking enemies have studied our strengths and weaknesses and adapted their tactics to inflict maximum harm on our society. Those who have faced the US in conventional, interstate combat (Grenada, Panama, Afghanistan under the Taliban and Iraq under Saddam Hussein) have suffered defeat in days or weeks. However, those who fight the US using insurgent tactics (Vietnam, Lebanon, Somalia and the insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq) have fared far better.
The stark contrast between the 1991 Gulf War and the current war in Iraq clearly demonstrates this dichotomy. In 1991, we destroyed the world's fourth largest Army in 100 hours of ground combat. In 2006, we have spent three years, thousands of lives and billions of dollars to stabilize Iraq, yet our insurgent enemies remain a dangerous and capable force.
A thinking enemy has a better chance of exhausting our political will through a protracted insurgency than to defeat our military through conventional combat. Insurgent tactics negate our asymmetric advantages in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and precision fires by using innocent civilians as cover and concealment and the media as strategic "fires." By hiding "in plain sight" among innocent civilians, insurgents maintain their freedom to maneuver. Insurgents rarely mass or defend terrain. Instead, they seek to discredit and demoralize free societies and societies who aspire to freedom by terrorizing innocent civilians. (1)
For the foreseeable future, the least likely form of combat our forces will face is conventional interstate combat with a major military power. China, Russia, India and Pakistan all have nuclear weapons, and North Korea and Iran are determined to acquire them at any cost. A small but secure nuclear arsenal is capable of deterring an attack by even the most capable conventional force. Simply put, nuclear weapons make their possessors virtually invulnerable to invasion and regime change. (2)
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Were the US to invade a state with a secure nuclear capability, we could neither...
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