War With Iran Could Be Sharp & Short With Fifth Gen Aircraft
23rd January 2020
There must be clarity about the character of possible conflict with Iran. The flawed strategies applied over the last 19 years in Afghanistan and Iraq are not the answer to waging war with Iran. Those strategies involved deploying hundreds of thousands of ground forces in the region to conduct prolonged occupation, nation building, and counterinsurgency operations—none of which would be applicable to Iran. Rather, any action against Iran should be modeled after the decisive take-down of Iraq applied in Operation Desert Storm in 1991, when aerospace power was used for 43 days. Only four days of that operation used ground forces to reoccupy Kuwait, and that will not be required in an Iranian effort. We have to stop equating strategy with the number of U.S. boots on the ground. Large numbers of U.S. ground forces in the Mideast plays into Iran’s hands and could lead to unnecessary and unwanted “endless wars.” Rapid accomplishment of desired effects should be the goal.