As the U.S. attack on Baghdad gets underway, the military strategy dubbed "Shock and Awe" by Pentagon war planners is emerging as a lightning rod for criticism in the international online media.
In the past 48 hours, foreign news outlets have made the U.S. plans for a psychologically devastating aerial bombardment of the Iraqi capital an epithet of overbearing American power. From London to Riyadh to Lahore to Manila, the phrase "shock and awe"—and the thinking behind it—are being invoked as reason to oppose the U.S.-led military campaign.
After resigning, former cabinet minister Robin Cook wrote in the leftist Guardian that "None of us can predict the death toll of civilians in the forthcoming bombardment of Iraq. But the US warning of a bombing campaign that will 'shock and awe' makes it likely that casualties will be numbered at the very least in the thousands.
In an editorial entitled "Peace," the editors of the independent Philippines Inquirer declared, "In the terrible face of 'Shock and Awe,' more than ever we must continue to say no."
In Australia, the Melbourne Herald Sun reports that "tight rules of engagement" for Australians troops "are expected to mean Australia will not take part in the massive 'shock and awe' bombing blitz that could kill thousands of civilians in the first few days of the war."
What are they talking about?
The "Shock and Awe" concept was originally articulated in 1996 in an obscure Pentagon publication by Harlan K. Ullman, a Naval veteran and prolific author, and James Wade, a former Pentagon planner. In consultation with a team of six former military officers, Ullman and Wade sought to develop ways for the U.S. armed forces to achieve "rapid dominance" over any battlefield foe.
Their idea was go beyond traditional doctrines of "decisive force" and find a way for the United States to prevail more quickly over enemies with inferior firepower while avoiding the civilian and military casualties that could undermine political support.
While "Shock and Awe" is out of print, it is available online at the Web site of the Pentagon's National Defense University.
In perhaps the most controversial passage of their 106-page text, Ullman and Wade wrote,
"Theoretically, the magnitude of Shock and Awe Rapid Dominance seeks to impose (in extreme cases) ... the non-nuclear equivalent of the impact that the atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had on the Japanese. The Japanese were prepared for suicidal resistance until both nuclear bombs were used. The impact of those weapons was sufficient to transform both the mindset of the average Japanese citizen and the outlook of the leadership through this condition of Shock and Awe. The Japanese simply could not comprehend the destructive power carried by a single airplane. This incomprehension produced a state of awe."The term first began to attract media attention in late January when CBS Evening News reported that the administration's battle plan for Iraq calling for massive aerial bombardment of Baghdad was based on Ullman's thinking.
"We want them to quit. We want them not to fight," Ullman was quoted as saying.
Other news organizations, both domestic and foreign, picked up on the story. As the possibility of military action has drawn closer, the term has proliferated, especially in overseas coverage.
Senior U.S. military officials have distanced themselves from the term, says Washington Post Pentagon correspondent Tom Ricks.
"Clearly there is an aspect of shock and awe in the U.S. plans," Ricks says. "But the chief of the Air Force said to me in an on-the record interview, 'I've never used the term.'"
Ullman does not shy from boasting of his influence at the Pentagon. An associate of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an influential Washington think tank, Ullman describes himself on the CSIS web site as "the principal author of the doctrine of 'shock and awe,' since adopted by the Pentagon."
In a March 17 interview with the Australian Broadcasting Company's Lateline show, Ullman said that he has "no access to the Pentagon war-planning" but did not hesitate to explain what he said was the thinking behind U.S. war plans.
"The idea is to create, in the mind of the adversary, a complete sense of vulnerability, impotence and the fact that he is so completely outgunned that his best option is to surrender."As in his original publication, Ullman cited the Japanese surrender after Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a precedent. "They were shocked and awed by those weapons into surrendering," he said. Without such an overwhelming display of U.S. force, "that war would have been hugely bloody and expensive," he said.
Such talk has resulted in a scathing, perhaps unfair, coverage in England where Channel 4 News, the independent British television station, did a story on "Shock and Awe, Hiroshima Style."
In the 1996 publication of "Shock and Awe," Ullman did not advocate the use of nuclear weapons—although he did not altogether rule it out either.
"In most or many cases," he wrote, "this Shock and Awe may not necessitate imposing the full destruction of either nuclear weapons or advanced conventional technologies but must be underwritten by the ability to do so."
On Australian TV earlier this week, Ullman stressed that he believe the U.S. would do all it could in Iraq to avoid civilians casualties saying, "I'm sure there will be very, very strong legal oversight to make sure that we are adhering to the rules of war."
The Bush administration's campaign to liberate Iraq, he said, "is a complex, very risky and very dangerous operation."
The view of the editors of the Arab News in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia was slightly darker. In an editorial entitled "The unfolding tragedy," the editors wrote,
"The 'shock-and-awe' strategy the Pentagon has threatened during the initial hours of the war on Iraq will rain down upon the country more than 3,000 satellite-guided bombs. It will be an assault of such awesome power that, in the words of an official who wisely withheld his name, 'they are not going to know what hit them.'"www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55823-2003Mar19.htmlE-mail this article