Fallujah 2014

--Media's misunderstanding of the Fallujah violence

 Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear --
 kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor  --
with the cry of grave national emergency.
Always there has been some terrible evil at home
or some monstrous foreign power
that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it
--Gen. Douglas MacArthur 
 _______________________

A follow-on to the recent post on Fallujah's "fall" (Fallujah Fallacy) is necessary for the civilian reader to understand the doctrinal thought behind military operations in urban terrain (MOUT).

"Haul Ass and Bypass" has been the pragmatic standard approach when fighting in a mobile theatre Army scenarios with comparative opposing forces. Most Armies decline to fight in cities to avoid civilian casualties and because it is a vicious experience that grinds down a mobile offensive war into a brute slugfest (examples are Stalingrad, Aachen, Nancy and Metz, St. Lo and Hue.)

Armor should not be used in built-up areas as it restricts their shock action and long range fires, and because tanks are designed to fight tanks. Using tanks to support close combat in cities is a waste of an asset. (Some would question even using mechanized Infantry in urban terrain, but since most of our Infantry are mechanized, that is what we use.)

The only reason to fight MOUT is to gain maneuver space to swing free and continue fighting for deep objectives to destroy the enemy's will and ability to fight. Killing is not the objective of warfare and needless killing is not a civilized military objective.

So why was so much combat power both then and now applied to Fallujah? It was not because we had the assets to squander, but something less logical. The effort was not military in nature, but something which could be compared to the German effort in the Jewish Ghetto of  World War II Warsaw (understanding that the latter was not arrayed as a military battle at all, though it devolved into the semblance of one.)

Neither Fallujah nor Warsaw enhanced any commander's  mobile operations. Both were punitive, vindictive and unjustified side tracks per the principles of war. The rebels in Fallujah and the Jews in Warsaw could be contained without hammering them into the ground. Simple containment efforts morphed into "cauldron battles", diverting invading forces from the main objective.

NEXT: Humanitarian failures in Fallujah