colleges. Finally, the commander of US Joint Forces Command killed the concept
in August 2008, arguing, rightly, that it ran counter to the history of warfare. 89AFGHANISTAN AND THE SECOND GULF WARAmerican operational art was never closer to perfecting war’s first grammar than
during the initial operations in Afghanistan in 2001–2 and Iraq in 2003. The
quick collapse of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the dramatic successes in the
initial phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom, which featured the fall of Baghdad in
record time and with remarkably low casualties on both sides, seemed like the
realization of perfection. In short, results were fairly close to what was desired, at
least with respect to combat. It is evident now that the political aims were not
achieved in either of the initial campaigns.
Yet, from an operational perspective, it seemed evident that a number of
improvements had been made, such as overall coordination between the two
vital combat functions of fire and movement. Some analysts saw these results as
evidence of at least a partial success for NCW: ‘What we’re seeing is essentially
net-centric warfare for the joint task force commander. The next step is network-
centric warfare for the warfighter—reflecting increased “jointness” at the tactical
level of war’. 90 To be sure, the cooperation between ground and air forces,
between manoeuvre elements—whether small groups of special-operations forces
or larger mechanized formations—and elements capable of delivering direct and
indirect fires was never perfect. Yet, it was more exquisite than any level of
cooperation realized hitherto.
However, appearances were deceptive in a number of ways: the causes of
success were not always related to the principles of speed, knowledge, and
precision. 91 Moreover, as events revealed, American operational art had become
exquisite at winning battles; that is, at war’s first grammar; but it had not
prepared enough for the possibility that competence in a second grammar
would be needed. That is not to say that processes and protocols were not in
place for establishing peace or, more precisely, for transitioning from decisive
military operations to security operations and political and economic reconstruc-
tion, referred to in joint operational doctrine at the time as phase IV. 92 What is
clear is that not enough forces were in place to provide security in the event that a
civil war broke out, and that a great many hasty assumptions were made about
how the transition to a post-conflict environment would flow.
When the complex (or informal) insurgency began to emerge in the late spring
and early summer of 2003, the United States and its coalition partners were not
prepared. The insurgency itself—the term is not entirely adequate to describe the
phenomenon—evolved from a largely sporadic and inchoate resistance to a loose,
if violent and volatile, alignment of anti-American interests in the form of
sectarian militias, foreign jihadists, and Sunni-Arab insurgent groups. By late
158 The Evolution of Operational Art