Death before dismount? : mechanization, force employment, and counterinsurgency outcomes in Iraq
Recent research suggests that heavily mechanized armies perform worse in counterinsurgency campaigns than those that use fewer vehicles. The U.S. military’s 2007 operations in Iraq, however, present an empirical quandary for the mechanization hypothesis: a vehicle-heavy army proved able to suppress an insurgency, allowing Iraqi leaders to work towards a long-term political solution. This paper argues that force employment, not mechanization, drives counterinsurgency outcomes—what matters is not that armies have many vehicles or soldiers, but how they choose to use them. When heavily mechanized forces change their tactics and doctrine to line up with counterinsurgency principles, shifting from an enemy-centric to a population-centric approach, outcomes dramatically improve while military-wide mechanization levels remain constant. Using an original dataset, this paper conducts a large-n regression analysis of the impacts of mechanization at the provincial level in Iraq, and finds little support for the mechanization hypothesis. A subsequent comparative case study, of the heavily mechanized 3 Armored Cavalry Regiment’s operations in Tall Afar and the light infantry 82 Airborne Division’s operations in Fallujah, indicate that force employment rather than mechanization is a key indicator of counterinsurgency outcomes. The finding has important implications for force structure policy, as it indicates that mechanized forces can indeed conduct successful counterinsurgency campaigns. Thesis Advisor: Roger D. Petersen Title: Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science
The Anbar Awakening
The United States and it allies in Iraq have embraced a tribal strategy to provide security and fight al–Qaeda in Mesopotamia. This approach is not new. Saddam Hussein also sought to use tribal alliances to provide internal security. His experience, and that of the present–day Coalition, demonstrates the prospects and perils of using tribes to provide security. Tension exists between the United States’ two main strategic goals of defeating al–Qaeda in Mesopotamia and building a democratic, unified Iraq. There is also the danger that Iraqi tribes will defect from the Coalition in future.
Focal points
Is our current technical education meeting the changing requirements off industry? The recent seminar on the “Interrelationship of Engineering Education and Industrial Progress,” sponsored by The Cooper Union, may have represented a pioneering effort in airing at a round-table discussion many of the problems that exist between the requirements of engineering in industry and the fulfillment of these needs by our engineering schools.