Winning the War in Libya

The United States and its NATO allies have the military capability to defeat Qaddafi's forces, set up a new government and proclaim victory. As a matter of fact, they could accomplish this in a couple of days. This has never happened and the war continues to drag on with no clear end in sight. The war turned out the way it did for one simple reason: the United States and its allies have violated most of the major principles of war. This paper will apply the principles of war to the war effort to explain what has gone wrong and suggest where we go from here to achieve victory. The following principles of war have clearly been violated.

Objective

The war effort must have a clearly defined, practical and obtainable objective. In Libya, the exact opposite is true, as the objective has never been clearly defined. President Obama, contradicted himself on this issue. First he said regime change was not our objective, then he said Qaddafi would have to go. The situation is complicated for several reasons.

The most logical objective would be to defeat Qaddafi's forces, set up a new government and establish a pro-Western democracy. There are some obvious lessons of history that prevent this from being established as the objective. This is essentially what the United States tried to do in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it is difficult if not impossible to achieve these objectives in the Middle East. To be sure the United States and NATO can defeat the second rate armies in the area. The problem is that the political culture in this area is extremely fragile, and once an existing government is overthrown it is extremely difficult to achieve stability, establish a decent government and then leave the country. The United States wound up bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq. No Western power wants to get bogged down in Libya.

Secondly, The West does not know enough about the rebels. At this point we do not know what they believe in and what kind of government would they establish. It is difficult to determine if things would get better or worse if the rebels came to power, so the Western powers do not want to make an unlimited investment in them.

Use Superior Force

Once the objective is determined, use superior, overwhelming force to annihilate the enemy as soon as possible. Win the war as quickly and decisively as possible and limit your casualties. Never let the war linger on and on, so your casualties mount and your country loses the will to fight and win. This is exactly what the United States did in Vietnam.

In the end, superior ground forces will be required to win this war. The allies are not using ground forces to overthrow Qaddafi as they want the rebels to achieve the victory themselves. The allies want the rebels to demonstrate that they have the military and political power to achieve victory and hold the country together. This way the Western powers will not wind up bogged down in Libya.

Unity of Command

There should be optimal cooperation within the chain of command. All the commanders in the field should receive their orders from only one source, the supreme commander. This was a problem in Libya as the United States took responsibility for the operation in the beginning and acted as supreme commander. The United States was only willing to play this role for a limited time, and then passed the responsibility on to its NATO allies. The allies reluctantly agreed but preferred that the U.S. remain in command. Major changes were made before the commanders even got to know one another. So from the beginning there was major changes that were reluctantly agreed to and this hindered cooperation and communications within the chain of command.

Cooperation

Different military forces, especially from different countries and military branches of service should fully cooperate with one another. This is especially true when artillery and air support are required to support ground forces. The whole Libyan effort is based on this operation. NATO is using its vast air power to support the rebels on the ground. As we would expect, there have been problems in this area, and the situation got worse when the United States turned command of the operation over to NATO. The rebels have complained that NATO air power is not always available when they need it, and that it sometimes arrives too late. Qaddafi's forces complicate the situation by disguising themselves as rebel soldiers.

Turning It Around

Despite making so many errors from the beginning and violating some of the most important principles of war, the United States and its NATO allies can still change things around. Moreover, other principles of war can still be the basis of victory.

Flexibility

This principle challenges us to use our brains and adapt to the situation. The United States and its NATO allies still have overwhelming military superiority and can defeat the government's forces and establish a new government. They have not done so as they do not want to use ground forces and get bogged down there as the United States did in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The rebels must demonstrate that they have the military power and political support to govern the country by themselves once victory is achieved. The best way to achieve this is for the rebels to demonstrate that they are the real thing, true reformers who are offering the Libyan people human freedom, and guaranteed rights such as freedom of the press and freedom of religion. They must assure the people that a viable democracy will be formed. Once the rebels achieve this objective, their popular support and political and military power should skyrocket. Then they can demonstrate that they can govern the country without the assistance of foreign ground forces.

Morale

The soldiers should fight enthusiastically and not allow anything to get in the way of their final victory. To achieve high moral the war objective should be reasonable, achievable and one that the soldiers can accept and believe in. We saw the rebels morale skyrocket when Senator John McCain went to visit them. That was the basis of a winning partnership, as the rebels know they need American and NATO military and political support, and they probably realize the best way to obtain it is to put together an attractive platform based on human freedom.

Source:

http://www.wpi.edu/academics/Depts/MilSci/Resources/prinwar.html

http://www.civilwarhome.com/principlesofwar.htm

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc-thry.htm

http://www.2worldwar2.com/principles-of-war.htm