Slate's Bizbox
chatterbox: Gossip, speculation, and scuttlebutt about politics.

Meet Mr. "Shock and Awe"Harlan Ullman says they're doing it wrong.

By Timothy Noah
Updated Tuesday, April 1, 2003, at 6:39 PM ET

It's a pretty heady experience for a Washington policy entrepreneur to see his pet reform translated into government action. But what do you do if your bold new paradigm flunks the field test? Simple: You say the idiots in the field didn't do it right. Quite often, that happens to be true. Government being a collaborative enterprise, the integrity of one person's vision is bound to get compromised somewhere down the line. Even if it isn't true, "It wasn't a fair test of my ideas" remains the prudent thing to say.

It would be premature to say that the Pentagon's Rapid Dominance strategy—popularly known as "Shock and Awe"—has failed in Iraq. The administration is quite right to point out that the war has barely started, and in many respects it has gone well. Obviously, though, the early reviews on "Shock and Awe" from U.S. ground troops, whose opinions on these matters are the most valuable, have been negative. "The enemy we're fighting is different from the one we'd war-gamed against," said Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, the Army's senior ground commander in Iraq, in the March 28 Washington Post. The Pentagon's response was not encouraging: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld took the occasion to name Gen. Tommy Franks as the author of the battle plan. That contradicts the testimony of an anonymous "senior war planner" quoted in a Seymour Hersh report in the April 7 New Yorker. According to this person, Rumsfeld vetoed proposed battle plans at least six times, demanding that the size of the ground force be smaller. (For an evaluation by Slate's Fred Kaplan of how "Shock and Awe" has worked so far, click here.)

Now Harlan Ullman, aka "Mr. Shock and Awe," is distancing himself from the battle plan as well. Ullman, a senior associate at Washington's Center for Strategic and International Studies, is the principal author of Shock and Awe: Achieving Rapid Dominance. Published in 1996, Ullman's book laid out a new approach to warfare tailored to that era's shrinking military budgets. Instead of overwhelming the enemy with troop strength—as called for in the Gulf War doctrine formulated by Colin Powell, whom Ullman taught at the National War College—Ullman proposed that the United States destroy enemy morale with a concentrated series of strikes at many different kinds of targets. Disoriented by the resulting havoc, the enemy would quickly be "shocked" and "awed" into surrender, and casualties would be kept to a minimum.

That certainly sounds like what Rumsfeld, Franks, and Co. are attempting. But in an op-ed in the April 1 Baltimore Sun headlined, " 'Shock and Awe' Lite," Ullman observes, "Shock and awe were promised, but the effects have not yet taken hold."

Ullman remains very much a part of the military establishment—he counts Rumsfeld and Powell among his friends—and is not, he says, out to second-guess the Pentagon. For that reason, he soft-pedals anything that might be construed as criticism. Still, he wants the world to know that what has unfolded in Iraq during the past two weeks does not conform (and, he adds, may not intend to conform) to his own theory. In a conversation with Chatterbox, Ullman suggested that Gulf War II differs from his own notion of Shock 'n' Awe mainly by being less shocking and less awesome. So far, he says, the Iraq war has mostly consisted of "strategic bombing around Baghdad" supplemented by "a rapid assault from the south." A true Shock 'n' Awe strategy would have many more components. In the present war, these would include, ideally, on Day 1:

  • Taking out at least half the Republican Guard;
  • Taking out the Baathist Party headquarters and the Baathist Party members;
  • Sending in a 5,000-man special forces unit "on steroids" to "wreak havoc";
  • Taking out police forces.

In addition, an ideal Ullman Shock 'n' Awe campaign would quickly seize the electronic spectrum. Computers would be inoperable. Video of a Saddam impersonator saying, "I quit" would be beamed onto Iraqi TV sets. (How about that guy from Hot Shots?)

The four foundations of Shock 'n' Awe are, Ullman says,

  • Total knowledge. Before an Ullmanite Iraqi invasion took place, we would know considerably more about what's going on inside Iraq than we appear to now.
  • Brilliance in execution. The ground campaign has been brilliantly executed, Ullman says, "but the targeting I think was wrong."
  • Rapidity. "The ability to administer shock and awe was not rapid enough." Again, Ullman excepts the quick ground advance to the outskirts of Baghdad.
  • Controlling the environment. That's where control of the electronic spectrum, computers, what's on television, etc., comes in.

Chatterbox asked Ullman whether the effectiveness of Shock 'n' Awe was undermined by the Pentagon's use of the term before the war even begun. Was it self-defeating to say, in effect, "Hey, Iraq, get ready to be shocked and awed"? "It didn't help," Ullman said. Indeed, he says, the phrase was intended to remain en famille. "We wanted this thing only in the Pentagon to spark a debate." Ullman is particularly troubled that many people find the phrase "Shock and Awe" to express barbarism and cruelty, when in fact the strategy is meant, in part, to save lives and prevent injuries by shortening the duration of a war.

Are Ullman's criticisms legitimate, or is he merely protecting his theory from a potentially devastating real-world test? We can't know. Certainly, there can't be anyone in the Pentagon who disagrees that achieving all these goals would be very helpful to the war effort. But even Ullman says he doesn't know whether they are achievable under the present circumstances. And it's anybody's guess as to whether they'd be sufficient.

Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.
E-mail Timothy Noah at .
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES

Remarks from the Fray:

I do think that the basic idea of shock and awe has merit, though it's obviously not a panacea for the dangers associated with boots on the ground, and I'm not entirely sure it's dissociable from traditional Clauswitzian theories of overwhelming force applied to the enemy's operational center of gravity. But Ullman has placed so many preconditions around his theory that it could never be tested in the real world -- and, if it were testable, it would never be needed.

--WatchfulBabbler

(To reply, click here)


Some of Harlan Ullman's criticisms of the allied strategy in Iraq make sense to me. For example, in a state organized along Soviet lines identifiable Baath Party structures ought to be among the first targets attacked, and in the daytime when they are more likely to be occupied, not in the middle of the night. The prewar talk about "shock and awe" by administration officials was…unhelpful..And I remain confused about why Iraqi television facilities were not struck until several days into the war…But Ullman…oversells the potential impact of air power, specifically against dispersed forces. Totalitarian states are called that for a reason; they impose control by having people everywhere. This also means that the "Total Information" Ullman calls for as an essential part of the "shock and awe" idea is least attainable against the enemies we are most likely to fight. Frankly, I doubt that we would be able to attain Ullman's vision of Total Information if we were invading British Columbia, let alone Iraq. Finally, while I have enormous respect for Special Forces in all the services as well as those of our British and Australian allies, Ullman seems to nurse a vision of SF soldiers flying around with capes and a big "S" printed on each of their chests. This isn't realistic, never has been, never will be.

--Zathras

(To reply, click here)

(4/2)

Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
That Was Fast
Krauthammer | Obama's change of heart on Iraq is stunningly cynical.
Dionne: He's Sincere About FaithGerson: And Savvy About It, Too
PLUS » Ann Telnaes: The Spirit of '76 (Updated)