By Beth Gardiner
The success of insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan is forcing Western military planners to reconsider long-term strategies and learn how to fight a new kind of war, a military think thank said Tuesday.
American technological superiority is hamstrung in battling insurgents who use suicide bombings and other forms of attack that cannot be beaten by traditional battlefield tactics, the International Institute for Strategic Studies said in its annual report on the world's military.
"The enemy has found operating terrains where the United States is unable to bring conventional superiority to bear," said institute director John Chipman.
"That is not to say that the precision technologies and networked communications ... do not have a role to play, but not necessarily in the way initially envisioned by planners," he added.
Chipman said strategists who maintained a Cold War mentality until the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks needed to update their thinking again. Wars between two clearly defined sides were being superseded by what the think tank called "conflict ecosystems."
In such situations, "a piece of territory is not the key objective but rather the whole environment, including the collective mind of a population requiring soldiers simultaneously to execute combat tasks alongside reconstruction and humanitarian efforts," Chipman said.
He said forces with experience in such irregular warfare, like the U.S. Marines and the British and Australian armies, were likely to have an easier time adjusting than the more conventional U.S. Army.
The IISS report said the U.S. was reconsidering its strategy for maintaining military strength because of the strains created by postwar troubles in Iraq and Afghanistan, which could last for years.
Patrick Cronin, director of studies at IISS, said continuing violence and instability in Iraq might mean U.S. troops will have to remain in the country until well after the presidential election in 2008.
"We're likely to see continued bloodshed and instability inside Iraq," Cronin said. "This is a long-term proposition, and I would expect the next U.S. administration to have forces inside Iraq at a fairly large number for some years to come."
Last week, the commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad said it will take up to two years for the Iraqi army to have the military leadership and supplies it needs to operate on its own. Maj. Gen. William G. Webster Jr. did not specify what impact his assessment would have on U.S. hopes for beginning a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.
Earlier this year, U.S. military officials said they thought they could begin troop withdrawals next spring. But amid ongoing questions about the Iraqi army's training, they have since scaled back that prediction, saying some troop reductions are possible in 2006 but that any withdrawal will be based on conditions in Iraq.
The Pentagon will have to take account of those struggles, and the huge U.S. budget shortfall, when it releases the Quadrennial Defense Review, a far-reaching military plan it presents to Congress early next year, the IISS claimed.
A forward by Christopher Langton, editor of the institute's annual" Military Balance " report on the world's militaries, did not specify what changes the U.S. might make. The full report was being released later Tuesday.
Langton wrote that fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, where swift wars were followed by protracted trouble with insurgents, demonstrated the limitations conventional forces face. The huge cost of such operations makes international cooperation increasingly important, he wrote.
