Lessons learned by the US military in Iraq applied to the PLA

fishhead said:

In 1960/70s, PLA was prepared to fight 4 large scale wars at the same time: Soviet in North, US from south east Asia, Taiwan from the East, India in Tibet.

Today they still have 3 large scale wars in mind, Taiwan, India and west central Asia(Nato force), all at the same time. An Expeditionary force is not enough.

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Well, I'd argue it would be enough. First off, there's Taiwan. There's a limit on how large land force is a) required b) possible to transfer to the island. (provided situation permits this to be done). Then there's India and Central Asia combo. Logistical situation in Western China more favours small, mobile and highly skilled force forming it's force on precision weapons rather than logistically heavy conventional large military.

utelore said:

King...there was nothing the Iraqi's could of done to win. and yes to some extent it did feel like a video game looking threw my site on "white hot" made it seem like a big video game. I once sat my "victor" on the up slope of a wadi and engaged a column of something like 12 MTLB. I started from the front to back using HEAT if the Infantry attempted to bail out of the MTLB we Coaxed the crap out of them so they just stayed in the MTLB and died.. the next morning I went down to inspect my handy work....each MTLB carried around 6-10 humans....you do the math.

So what I am saying is that if you are on the side with the best tech compounded with some OK training you will win every time within reason (not like Germans against whole world). I don't buy that switching equipment and the U.S would of still won....not true. and KING I could detect a AFV hull and turret down with my TIS. it does not matter. I think ya would have had to been there to understand. you dig a big berm in the middle of the desert and you think that was done by natural causes NO we could also see the heat radiating from the deck of the tank baking in the sun that sent up heat plumes. I would just put a DU APFSDS threw the berm and 3 times out of 10 a big ole turret would pop about 10 feet in the air....cheers ute.

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Sobering.

I'm sitting on the fence in this arguement. I mean the fact that you were actually there counts for a lot. But it still makes sense to me to think that even if the Iraqis had M-1s they still would have been held back by their medeval command structure. Although most Iraqi field commanders probably knew what they were doing, most Generals were too politically paralyzed. Besides Saddam was in command. The US Army was totally under the command of experienced professionals unencumbered by any political considerations and who didn't have to wait for Presidential approval to take action.

I don't know...its kind of a dumb question anyway.

Frankly I think th biggest lesson learned by the US military in Iraq is that the historical trend indicating that insurgencies ultimately prevail has not yet been broken, which is something China might want to consider when contemplating an invasion of Taiwan.

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I wold have to disagree with this. Historically, most insurgencies fail. The U.S. has won most of the guerilla wars it has fought in in modern times. The big exception is Vietnam. The US defeated insurgents in the Phillipines during the Phillipine Insurrection and the Moro Rebellion, they defeated Nazi insurgents following the German surrender, they defeated insurgents in two campaigns in Haiti and two in Nicaragua, and one in the Dominican Republic. They also fought irregulars in Mexico. The US has also prevented insurgencies from becoming large and from violence from spreading four times in Cuba before WWII. The US has also provided advisors to other countries where the counterinsurgency operations there were successful. The exceptions are Vietnam, and the fight against the Bolsheviks in Russia.

The biggest factor to American defeat in Vietnam was not the fact that our main opponents were guerillas waging that style of warfare. It was that the strategy and tactics used were more appropriate to conventional conflicts than to small wars, and in fact were entirely inappropriate to fighting guerillas. This was in no small part due to Westmoreland's background, as well as his ambitions. Proper strategies were used on a limited scale in certain parts of Vietnam, and they were highly successful (CAP comes to mind). They were limited, though, by Westmoreland. The US ignored experienced men who had fought insurgents as well as the USMC (which has a doctrine for fighting such conflicts borne out of the lessons of fighting and winning multiple such conflicts), as wellas other counterinsurgency experts such as Sir Robert Thompson. Our strategy, which was a conventional one, wore out our forces which in turn also wore down the people back home (although this took much longer than during the Iraq conflict, as the American people now seem to have an irrational intolerance for any casualties), and this ultimately caused a political defeat which resulted in withdrawal, and the goals of the conflict were not ultimately achieved. Unfortunately, the wrong lessons were drawn from this conflict. One camp believes that the lessons are that we should have gone in full force, unrestricted, and destroyed everything (this is actually very counterproductive), and the other drew the conclusion that such conflicts are unwinable and best avoided. Both camps are wrong, and history proves that using proper strategies and tactics, victory is very possible, although it is rarely instant.

In the case of Iraq, improper strategies and tactics were used from the start, although not to the dgeree in Vietnam (thankfully), and this is why the insurgency has been so hard to fight. General Petraeus, who wrote the Army's first counterinsurgency manual (the USMC has had one since 1935, with a new edition recentloy published), has been rapidly implementing proper strategies and tactics (although not to the fullest extent), which will produce results, although it will not be instant in most parts of Iraq. These strategies and tactics should have been used from the beginning, but the Army, lacking counterinsurgency experience using proper strategies and tactics, is ill-suited for the task, and leaders were not trained to fight in such a manner, and are trained often to look down upon such a form of warfare. If the politicians can be prevented from causing defeat in Iraq, the ultimate lesson will be that they can be won (guerilla wars) by armies, provided they use the proper strategies and tactics.

In the case of the PLA, they have shown no inhibitions to being downright brutal and repressive, and this is the only other way they can win, although if not done harshly enough, it can backfire. That is something they should consider if they try to take Taiwan. They should already have a set doctrine (very brutal, or carrot and stick) before they go in, one that their men have been at least rudimently trained in and the officers extensively. Tere should also be an increased emphasis on small-unit tactics. I must admit that in this situation I'm biased, since I feel that the ROC government should be the ones in Peking, not the PRC, and I would hope that the PLA would be defeated in such a conflict, although this does not change what the PLA should do to win. Taking Taiwan would be a very tricky situation, especially if there is US assistance, even if it is only indirect (to include things like providing arms, advisers, equipment, etc. to insurgents). It is an interesting scenario to consider, though.

sunchips said:

upon hearing about how bad the iraqis sucked in the war, some chiense general laughed, saying that if the chinese had been left with the same low level of technology, they would have been able to inflict much much much more casualties on US.

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Because Chinese would have attacked while USA was building up.

Chinese would not try to defend a feature-less desert, either.

Iraq's strategic sense must have seemed juvenile even to a Chinese civil war soldier.

The lesson China learned from Iraq was the value of modern information systems. The need for better planes and tanks was always obvious, but modern methods of information was not. Traditionally PLA placed great emphasis on close reconnaisance, with men on the ground. From Iraq it learned the information can be obtained much more quickly and thoroughly from satellites, aircraft, and C4I systems.

sunchips said:

In regards to comparing China to Iraq, i jsut wanted to add that I had heard from a friend that:

upon hearing about how bad the iraqis sucked in the war, some chiense general laughed, saying that if the chinese had been left with the same low level of technology, they would have been able to inflict much much much more casualties on US.

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You heard from a friend say this and that. Well that doesn't mean anything. Poor statement most likely either not true or inaccurate. Even when you translate directly Chinese to English the meaning is usually incorrect.

Are you sure he wasn't laughing about how happy he was that China did not try to invade Iraq?

sunchips said:

In regards to comparing China to Iraq, i jsut wanted to add that I had heard from a friend that:

upon hearing about how bad the iraqis sucked in the war, some chiense general laughed, saying that if the chinese had been left with the same low level of technology, they would have been able to inflict much much much more casualties on US.

Also, I was jsut wondering how about the "rapid reaction" units in pla: I heard that.. firstly: they are pretty big (300 000 was it?), but I was wondering how they compare with us army mainstream?

thanks!

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Well I gonna tell you something It's not the same talk the talk than walk the walk... USA is not only about technology... Its also about well trained personel and skills. Lets compare that. by chinese fighterpilots train 140 to 150 hrs per years with very outdated tactics, USA Fighterpilots train 3oo hrs per year thats the double of what PLAAF fighterpilots get for trainning. The PLA infantry is far less trained than U.S. infantry chek globalsecurity.org... If Chinese say that they do better than USA if they were the same level of technology, they probably backed up those comments with pride instead of common scence... I recomend you to do further investigation and then please let me know your opinion again... Im eager to hear you ')

globalsecurity.org is just a civil website. Think about how was US army driven from Yalu river to 38 line, so called "common sence" could predict that in October 1950?

szbd said:

globalsecurity.org is just a civil website. Think about how was US army driven from Yalu river to 38 line, so called "common sence" could predict that in October 1950?

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When you are In battle nothing really guaranteed victory... surprises may happen but not expect them to be the standard... In the en U.S. Forces still won even lossing an entire divission (not taking credit out of china... I dind see no country in the world destroying an entire U.S. Army division only china, they have guts Ill give you that but they still lose in the end) as for globalsecurity.org it's a civil website... You are right but it's respected and cosidered thrusted... If you are not agree with that please enlithen us with a website than back up your point

bigstick61 said:

In the case of the PLA, they have shown no inhibitions to being downright brutal and repressive,

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Ok, so brutal all the insurgency in Korea was against UN, none against PLA (obviously too scared). Ask Koreans to count some USA atrocities, then ask them to count PLA ones.

So brutal all the Vietcong came back to life to fight off PLA in 1979...oops never happened, they only cared about fighting USA I guess.

So brutal every day in Tibet, Xinjiang bombs fall, soldiers rape, babies die. Oops wrong part of the world here.


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