abril 2008 – Conflictos Modernos

The urban guerrilla war in Iraq

Stalingrad (1942) and the Iraqis cities (2007). Are they two «parallel battles»?

In the description that follows, our intelligent reader will be able to see the similarities and the differences of these urban battles. And to extract his conclusions and possibilities. They are separated in the time by 65 years, but they are sensitively equal in the fighting forms. In they the defensive starts with a qualitative advantage. Only they are really separated by the different commands´ intentions and the capacities of both defenses.

Stalingrad.

In the summer of 1942, 6 º German army, advancing in the direction Volga, initiated the assault of the city of Stalingrad. The sweeping German advance through the wide Soviet steppes (of Russia, Byelorussia and Ukraine) during the good time, was stopping to take Stalingrad. Placed in the right bank of the low section of the Volga, near the river mouth but without controlling it, Stalingrad was lacking the strategic importance of the Caucasus, as crude oil production zone, or Moscow, as the most important railroad communications hub in the USSR, at the west of the Urales.

Promptly Hitler is going to concentrate obsessively on its occupation. Probably as result of his decisive leading role in the direction of the war, from his armchair general’s place, many hundreds of km from the running drama. From the Wehrmatch’s headquarters or from the wolf’s shelter or the Alpine fortress, the supreme command was not perceiving the differences of equipment, motivation and combative availability between the armies of the Axis deployed in the European USSR. In the maps of general situation, the units and big units of the different national armed forces, were only distinguished by the color of the representative figures or flags, that were indicating their geographical deployment. In certain occasion, the Spanish ambassador Agustín de Foxá, count of Foxá, was present at an invitation in Rome. During it, the count Ciano, son-in-law of the Duce and Italian Secretary of State, with the distorted intention of treading on ourselves and to laugh, asked him: «Certainly, Foxá, when does Spain think to finally join the international struggle against the Bolshevism, which we are supporting?» Don Agustín answered him: «Count Ciano, do you believe that the Reich can permit to have another military ally?» The following day Foxá was indicated that he should leave Italy.

As consequence of all this, 6 º German army, the major «great unit» of its class of the whole Wehrmatch or German armed forces, is going to waste its operational advantages of movement with flexibility and agility. Which were allowing it to keep the freedom of action and the initiative in its offensive actions, as strategic decisive principles. And it in exchange for using only tactically its fire and of combat in the close distances capacities, to reduce an enemy arranged already fiercely not to yielding any more land, to resisting up to the death in the defense of the city. An enemy whose chiefs and high commands were encouraged only by the hope that their Stavka or high central staff get time to assemble and deploy the enough reserves, to crush the insufficiently protected flanks of the German strategic deployment, around 6 º army, defended by the 3 º and 4 º Romanian armies. A hard and tough enemy, to support the tremendous efforts and hardships, by the fatalism, the sobriety and the conformity of his Slavic idiosyncrasy, represented in the motto chosen by his commands, «there is no land for us beyond the Volga».

At the end of August, 1942 the German forward guards began to operate against Stalingrad. Two months later the Soviet positions in the city were diminishing to a few isolated zones, full of debris and rubbles, of not more than 275 m. in depth, hugged to the right bank of the Volga. These resistance islands, purified in the oven of the privations and the resistance to numerous German assaults, turned in uncompromising. Two were their structural secrets: the Germans never managed to isolate the city from the left bank of the river and in the mentioned zones the rigid defense was anchored in buildings of metal framework, covered with metallic plates. The grains elevator close to the trains station (too narrow and isolated to resist indefinitely), and several factories Red October (of light infantry weapons), Barricade (of artillery tubes of great calibre) and Dzerzhinski (of tractors, reconverted to make the T-34 model 41), from south to north, are the examples. The 6 º army became exhausted. The campaign ended on February 2, 1943, with the surrender by Fieldmarshall von Paulus of the remains of his army, turned into an enormous mass of armed men without operational capacity.

The confronted rivals in the cities of Iraq.

In Baghdad, Samarra, Faluya and other Iraqi populations confront two very unequal and different enemies. The American troops are prepared to fight against a military regular enemy, endowed with a masses army or even more modern, with means technologically more elaborated and men better trained, to support the loneliness and tensions of the current battle fields. Definitively, its «environment», its performance space, is the direct and opened clash in presence of a great profusion of probable enemy targets. Its instrument is the attrition, the destruction of the targets that the enemy shows and that could be detected and acquired in all the depth of his march, assemble, defense or attack deployments. The last two enemy echelons, nowadays increasingly remote or deep, are reached by the long range tactical support aviation or with the ballistic or of free flight rocketry of medium range.

But, what does happen with a weaker in means and equipment rival, always evasive by need and method and with another cultural and social idiosyncrasy? That is not worry if he needs to move back or to hide in front of a superior enemy. Without for it feeling unworthy, loser or defeated. in these frustrated and incomplete combats. But he avoids the fighting that is unfavorable for him, waiting for a better opportunity to use his sparing and effective means with 40 years of design. Knowing that his enemy tomorrow will continue presenting numerous targets, more or less easy to scourge, irritating and hurting. Since the vehicles and the military patrols swarm everywhere, looking for a kind of «zone saturation», but generally measuring the used times, in labors of vigilance, escort, billeting and successive marches, almost routine, evident and too massive all. A rival who does not seek to win so much battles, but erode and spoil, to be a nuisance and to enervate finally. And that knows that the time is working in his favor in his own land. And that only has to resist and wait, keeping a critical volume of military annoying activity, which could confirm before all, native and foreign, inside and out of Iraq, his presence in force and his determination in the fighting struggle. Acting as a harmful, odorless and colorless gas, subtle and light by its physical nature, that everything it reaches, penetrates and damages.

The Iraqi society.

In Iraq, the Islam is a principal factor of social cohesion and national integrity, independently of the sunn’i or chií Islamic branch that people belong to. The Islam is, in its simpler and popular meaning, a simple faith provided with external and social definite well rites, that integrate the individuals in it, easy to follow and observe. An Islamic democracy, always based on the Umma or social religious community, the Koran or direct revelation from Allah, the sunna or the Prophet tradition and the Sharia or its derivative civil and penal laws, is not equal to the western democracies. Where scarcely resists and survive today in day some moral or social value, facing the all-powerful asymmetric avalanche of the individualized freedoms, dedicated as source of Law, without any juridical consideration of the duties.

The obedience is a personal and social quality very established in the Islamic societies. The sheik or chief of the families of the clan is obeyed in the attaining things to the social order. The familiar chief or father is obeyed within the family. And the God’s will is obeyed and respected as a vital rite in the Islam. This social obedience is wealth-producing and protective, not solvent or sickly by itself. In the madrasas, the Koran is learned by memory, with constant recitation throughout the years of education. Since it is the God’s Word got down from Allah, where it existed from always, there is neither slanted interpretation nor malicious acceptable critique, out of its literal. It is possible that the Muslim modern societies are envious of the economic western development. But also they despise sincerely the loss of real human values that the Christian and lay societies have unnecessarily suffered, in their way towards it.

Finally, we must not forget the structure of tribes, regional and local clans and families, which supports the Iraqi society. That one gives the real value and practical sense to the loyalties and the interests, always relative and still opportunists, of the Iraqis. Graphical, synthetic, paradoxical (for going abreast against the real Islam education) and always excessively, we might express it this way: «My tribe and I, against the world; my clan and I against the tribe; my family and I, against the clan; my brother and I, against the family; I, against my brother».

The different armed Iraqi insurgents types.

Depending on their religious ideology and their active membership in one or another armed rebel faction, the insurgents act of very different forms.

Across Syria they are infiltrating (since they avoid the controls or they disguise themselves) more than half of the suicidal muhaydines. These are very angry sunnis, persuaded for their short role, very little militarily trained and devious religiously fanatical. Soon they leave the struggle and do not look for the armed clash, but the individual and redeeming action. That assures them a passport to the «Houri’s garden», far already of this » tears’ valley», with the visa of «causing the major possible number of dead and mutilated enemies».

The smallest and worse organized bands, that are the great majority, though they are belonging to the big rebel groups, cannot aspire to face openly the soldiers. Their offensive actions consist of scourging, kidnapping, torturing and mutilating, putting bombs and detonate them from distance, to do sabotages, to damage the small enemy units and to hurt or to kill isolated authorities, military men and policemen. Deciding the timing moment to act on the weakness, the carelessness and the negligence of their enemy and having always a high probabilities of fleeing and vanishing. They protect themselves mixing with the civil submissive population, favorable or compelled. They defend themselves from the military unexpected or deliberate assaults, trying to elude them and slipping from the threatened zone, which, till now, is never occupied permanently by the troops. To shelter temporarily or to be established in the surroundings: another neighborhood, another small population in the region or province.

In Iraq the rebel bases are always in the cities and populations most favorable to the activity of the different rebel armed groups. And surrounded or mixed by the military local and foreign forces and allies. In January, 2004, the North American intelligence intercepted a memorandum of 17 pages written by Abu Musad al-Zarqawi (the previous regional chief of Al-Qaida) and directed to Osama bin Laden, in which he was expressing to Osama his worry for his survival: «In Iraq there are not mountains where we could shelter, nor forests in which thickness we could hide. There are spies eyes everywhere. Our backs are exposed and our movements are realized in view of all». For it, not all the populations are defensible of the powerful military means, not even the rebels have the intention of doing it. Here do not exist Numantine or die-hard ways of military fighting without hope.

The urban active defense of the insurgents positions in Iraq.

It is not easy to use and defend the urban zones of repulse. Its employment demands high requirements to the rebel combatants:

A sufficient motivation, which encourages them to follow the arms way and risking their lives for its cause, and appeases and rationalizes them the inevitable fear of the fighting in the nearby distances with a superior enemy, until the seniority offers to them new impulses.

A good training in the infantry fights, which gives them trade and confidence. A successful cooperation between the small units that garrison the zones, that guarantees them a cohesion without fissures in their tenuous and lean deployment and that allows and facilitates the command conduction and the accomplishment of his plans. To get iron nerves tempered by everything previous, that accustom them to fight in solitary or in small groups, refusing to flee in face of the implacable threat of the heavy military fire. For all this, among the few tens of thousands of armed rebels existing, not more than 15 % of them can in these moments use this kind of defensive fight.

These urban irregular enemies are protected extending their defensive positions beyond the necessary in a conventional defense, covering this way a major occupied surface. In the defense zone they establish delaying points, more or less reinforced. These protect the most critical positions of the zone, incorporate in the defense the buildings with steel structure , specially resistant, and form fire bags for the enemy that gets through. The resistance nests have here more importance, provided that the occupation of the zone of defense is more tenuous, they cannot strengthen the positions too much, the sights are more short and exist numerous approximation routes. They depend on the delaying points and to them they fall back if are invaded or destroyed. Numerous alternative or extras positions exist, more of the habitual in this kind of fight. This allows to deceive the military enemy about the forward limit of the defense position, its real extension, the limits of the sectors that form it, the intentions of the rebel command of the zone about its defense and to disperse the heavy fire of the attacker. In the edges of the urban zones they never establish these fixed positions. Those are occupied by combat advanced parties which mission is to receive the possible explorers or civil observers, to avoid surprises and to deceive about the tracing of the defensive zone. The occupants of combat advanced positions, distributed in pairs of sentries and some very small mobile patrol, fall back in their moment towards the more interiors delaying points.

These «fortresses» are diffuse, secret and imperceptible for the strangers. In a few hours the previous works are reinforced and occupied. It is necessary to enter the houses to detect perforated walls and to find alleys under a furniture or a carpet. Its communication routes need more working time to get done, but also are less evident. These positions are not complex. They need a few interlaced firing sectors, an immediate protection against the enemy irruption in mass or with commands, a few covers against the heavy normal fire and a sufficient concealment that conceals them from the sights of the enemy probable successive positions and his approximation avenues. The obstacles and the mines, even false in certain percentage and always distantly to not betray them, will serve to break the enemy assault and to offer to them more static targets, for example for the mortars, which will have registered its fires. The destruction that generates the wide heavy fire support without aiming a precise target, reinforces the rebel combat positions, surrounding them with debris that divide and impede the accesses of the military, except when they are reached by a ordnance direct impact. To operate this defensive structure the rebels have prepared numerous and narrow tunnels, dragging trenches and gaps in garden walls and interior walls of the buildings. In such a way that, away from the enemy sights, allow them to occupy the combat and observation positions at wish, to defend them more or less time or not, to move among them and to reinforce the most threatened or pressed.

Generally they try to shoot from the front, with isolated or couples snipers armed with the SVD sniper rifle, at individual and small groups of enemies. And to attack from the flank or the rear at the enemy units that penetrate in their defensive zone, which already are disintegrated in squads or platoons with one or two armored vehicles. Those prepared communications allow them to appear, always in small number, behind or at the flanks of the units, while these stop, regroup, ask or receive instructions, or decide where to advance, and to erode them, causing some casualties. For example, from a basement or a floor, through an irregular hollow in a yard or garden wall, under a parked or destroyed vehicle in the street, where it emerges a narrow tunnel with a covered and disguised mouth. From these positions the armed rebels throw some RPG-7V rockets or several short blasts, always aiming, of the RPK light machine gun or the obsolete RPD. The interior houses courts serve them to place the mortars, which constitute their the only «heavy fire» source, protected by an infantry position. They fired them with the maximum angles on the abundant, large and always excessive military concentrations. The usual mortar is the 82 mm. Russian modern M-1937 model. Here that the attacker presents three times more men (in means the proportion must be 20 to 1) neither favors nor facilitates their labor. But this offers the persecuted defender more targets to be able to use his exiguous fire power. Especially because, in a given moment, is small the attackers’ proportion that are putting in real distress the defenders.

Also they possess an effective and increasing anti-aircraft defense of short range. From other courts and roofs, always protected by a nearby infantry resistance nest, several teams of light anti-aircraft rocket shoulder launchers carriers are arranged. Their location in the deployment is done depending on the most probable and most dangerous aircraft approximation directions for the defense. If they are sufficient and shoot skilful, they could use two nearby, but not contiguous launchers, whom form a team, and that shoot successively and rapidly (the SAM-18 flies at 2 Mach) against an aircraft or towards an enemy air formation in immediate approximation to its target. A typical rocket would be the soul-air n º 7, called «grail» and «strela» (arrow) in not Cyrillic Russian. It had successive improvements and today is replaced in the military arsenals by the soul-air missile n º 18 former mentioned, that has a useful attack height of 3,5 km (the double), and guides, a fuel rocket, an explosive head and a bait detector improved. Its appearance among the Iraqi rebels would indicate, almost surely, that they were facilitated by Syria. The shoulder carrier limits himself to direct the launcher already loaded towards its target, wait until the missile confirms the target’s acquisition and then squeeze again the trigger. And going hide.

The crucial moment for the defense comes when the zone commander decides to evacuate it, after having stopped and delayed the enemy for some time. Trying to cause him losses as high as possible, but without been exposed excessively to a fighting in the close distances, or to be outflanked or to lose his freedom of action. This is inexorably tied to the transfer of space to the military enemies. For it the rebels avoid in opportune moment the direct assault of their enemy, not his extensive or vague bombardment. The rebels have sufficient exit tunnels directed to not very nearby buildings (often official and even respectable (mosques), offices, companies and some housings) or dry riverbeds (wadis) and not evident bushes in the open land. From there they could disperse through the outside in very small groups towards friends reception positions, in the first moments. The protection of the evacuation is therefore vital and both entrances or exits from these tunnels are always covered by resistance nests, which take to end their rigid defense.

THE BIOLOGICAL WARFARE

ITS REAL POSSIBILITIES AS TERRORISTS’ USABLE WEAPON AND IN THE MODERN WARFARE. ITS INSTRUMENTS AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT.

The biological warfare is the military use, as war weapon, of the living pathogenic, animal or plant organisms, and of the natural poisonous products, called toxins. Since the germs and the bacteria are used in it, it is also called germ warfare, though this term only incorporates a part of the biological agents capable of being used aggressively against the men.

The biological warfare is the military use, as war weapon, of the living pathogenic, animal or plant organisms, and of the natural poisonous products, called toxins. Since the germs and the bacteria are used in it, it is also called germ warfare, though this term only incorporates a part of the biological agents capable of being used aggressively against the men.

The biological warfare is the military use, as war weapon, of the living pathogenic, animal or plant organisms, and of the natural poisonous products, called toxins. Since the germs and the bacteria are used in it, it is also called germ warfare, though this term only incorporates a part of the biological agents capable of being used aggressively against the men.

The biological warfare is the military use, as war weapon, of the living pathogenic, animal or plant organisms, and of the natural poisonous products, called toxins. Since the germs and the bacteria are used in it, it is also called germ warfare, though this term only incorporates a part of the biological agents capable of being used aggressively against the men.

The military use of the pathogenic microbes.

The pathogenic organisms, which produce diseases in the man, can classify in 4 big categories or types: the fungi, the bacteria, the virus and the rickettsia, an intermediate entity between these 2 last ones, in its nature, size and characteristics.

The bacteria are unicellular organisms of spherical (they take the suffix coco in the name), cylindrical (the bacilli) or spiral (the espirilium) forms. They reproduce by transverse repeated division and, often, the partial microbes remain united forming a chain. Many of them can move by means of their whips or eyelashes (shorter). According to Lauria, the virus is a genetic element constituted by ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid, suitably to move from cell to cell and capably of synthesizing with the available amino acids its particular proteins, which will form then the infective viral particles. It is not known neither its origin nor the date of its appearance, since the existence of fossils virus is ignored. Elford, in 1931, managed to measure its size, which varies between 10 and 300 microns. Also the virus classify in vegetables, animals and bacteriafhagous, every type with their specific characteristics. Their vital cycle has, among others, 5 important phases for us: fixation to the cellular surface, penetration inside the cell, multiplication of the virus at the cost of the components of that one, liberation of the new viral individuals and their dispersion in the environment.

The military employment of the pathogenic microbes is difficult, because they are living organisms. The military usual vectors, the conventional (explosive grenades) and the reactive artillery (rockets with ballistic path, without autonomous direction) and the air bombs, turn out to be too aggressive and destroy them before their dispersion in the target. To eliminate these serious limitations, bombs with ceramic cases have been developed, which has been tried satisfactorily with flies infected with the bacterium yessinia pestis, the cause of the bubonic pest. Also it has been tried its dispersion through the air, using dispensers means of several types. But its control and the estimation of the effect on the target are very difficult. During the 40s of last century, biological desiccated and freezing of the microbes technologies were improved. With them it was seeking to prolong their life and to increase their resistance, allowing them a major storage time, their dispersion using explosives and to achieve a longer exposure in the environmental conditions.

Their real employment by means of not military transmitters has been more common. In 1763, during the war in North America between Great Britain and France for the control of all the European colonies, the military British command decided to try to infect with smallpox the hostile Indians. With this motive 2 sheets and a handkerchief from the room of infected by smallpox in a British hospital, were delivered to 2 Indian chiefs. The disease spread soon among the tribes.

Soon after the suicidal air raids on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, in September, 2001, some packages and letters supposedly containing anthrax spores, active or in vitro, acquired or stolen in pharmacological investigation laboratories began to appear in the USA, in the post offices and the addresses. The collective paranoia of these tragic moments helped to increase the extension and the importance of these facts. And it constituted a multiplier of the propaganda perverse effect in any type of individual or collective terrorism aggression. Whose purpose is the terror extension, generally using violent indiscriminate actions and the threats of repeating them. That do that all the members of the attacked collectivity considering themselves to be possible or probable, according with the cases, goals of these future actions.

The toxins as a warfare weapon.

The toxins are poisons naturally produced by the plants or the animals, so much the big or visible as the microscopic ones or microbes.

The toxins have certain advantages for their employment as war weapon. They are natural, not more or less complicated, costly and unstable synthesis chemical products. This facilitates their production in pilot or manufacturer plant scale. Some of the biological toxins are among the most poisonous products that are known. Their effect is made without the presence of the producing agent. This one, as an alive organism, presents problems in its manipulation, as being more unstable or perishable than toxins. That is to say, they can be preserved and spread easier, by means of explosive special grenades or with aerosols or atomizers dispensers, boosted by inert or neutral gases.

The enterotoxin B of the golden estafilococo is the responsible of the majority of the food human poisonings. This bacterium can grow in multitude foods and on having done produces the toxin, which is consumed by the consumption. In general, the enterotoxin B is not lethal, but a dose of only 50 micrograms already causes vomits and diarrheas in the adults. The deliberate use of this toxin is possible. For example, during a siege by the irregular rebels, always relaxed and no hermetic, to military defensive positions, and trying to scourge and to debilitated the vital enemy resistance. The sharp sound effect produced by the operating toxin is called almost onomatopoeically «the whistling sound».

A more terrible toxin, which it is possible also to find in the food, is the butolinic A toxin, produced by the clostridium butolinic bacteria. It is the most powerful known poison, a microgram kills an adult. The normal appearance of the bacterium associates with the badly preserved food, as the expired or badly sterilized during its manufacture tinned vegetables. It is a neuroagent that causes that the nervous system accumulates in excess during its functioning the acetilcolin, in a similar way that do the of nervous type agents used in the chemical warfare.

The castor toxin exists in the seeds and the leaves of the common castor plant. Its use by the secret service Bulgarian agents known as the umbrellas’ assassins, was confirmed in the 70s. In the free ends of those were concealed a mechanical launcher, which was projecting a pellet impregnated with the castor toxin and capably in the short distance of going in the naked meat. Two Bulgarian dissidents fled from the communist regime in their country, were positively identified of having being murdered this way in London.

Its appearance in the History. Modern situation.

From very ancient the pathogenic agents and the toxins have been used with military purposes. The poisoning of the enemy water fountains or to throw the infectious patients corpses over the enemy defensive walls, are military methods used by Alexander the Great or the Mongolian. It is only in the modern times when the use of biological agents in the war has acquired a stigma character. This way, no modern nation has admitted its employment in combat against her enemies.

We have an extreme example of how the use of biological agents by profane persons can go away of control, in the siege of the Genoese city of Kaffa, today called Feodosiya, placed in the Ukrainian coast of the Black Sea. During in it the biological harmful effects were reasonably circumscribed inside the walls of this city. In the middle of the XIVth century the Mongolian were besieging the city. The Mongolian were throwing over her walls, using catapults, the dead men’s bodies by the bubonic pest. It is thought that some Genoese ships that departed from the city towards their metropolis, could carry the plague’s bacillus, which was habitually lodging in the rates. Hereby the bubonic pest could reach Italy, and begin the massive and fulminating epidemic known in the History as the Black Death, which almost depopulated the European continent in that century.

From the 80s of last century, the genetic engineering and the biotechnology have turned into technically industrial instruments destined to improve the life conditions of the humanity. One of its possible applications is the development of vaccines against the pathogenic agents, both the natural and the reinforced by genetic actions on the first ones. This can allow the most developed countries to acquire a certain more or less widespread immunity, which is never absolute, against these biological attacks. Whereas their potential enemies, less technologically developed and with fewer economic resources, except the crude oil producers during the expansion phase of the sales cycle, would be defenseless against the biological military agents.

Its military use is punctual and restricted.

The effective, precise in the time and controlled use of biological agents in the modern combat is difficult and its results are also too vague. For the majority of the biological agents, its own nature does that its controlled launch on a target is difficult. Between the effective action on the enemy and the beginning and the development of the disease, it exists an unavoidable delay, due to the inevitable incubation periods, that goes from the hours to days; which is never acceptable in a mobile military operation. Always exist the natural and the acquired immunities (by vaccination or more or less controlled exposure), that prevent from specifying the real probable results, the number of enemy casualties derived from a biological attack. The theoretical estimated effects are diminished by certain climatic conditions, the rain, the fog, the solar luminosity and the extreme temperatures, or altered by the winds, which drag them of the surface target.

For all this, nowadays the military use of biological agents has a restricted employment in the special operations and the more or less concealed harassment of the enemy, technique where the time is not a rigid and critical parameter. This way, the goal of debilitating the enemy, more than eliminate him totally, does that the calculations of the conflicting forces correlation have to be neither so exact nor so punctual in time. The dissemination of the biological agents becomes directly, without the employment of the heavy ammunitions used as vectors. And the time between the exposure and the development of the disease, betrayed by its symptoms, constitutes then a planning factor within the attacking plan.

Its difficult and improbable use by terrorists and madmen.

Attempts have been, as the already indicated about the anthrax spores and this that we report now. In 1980 the French police assaulted a home of the Red German Army Fraction in Paris, placed in n º 41 A, Chaillot street. Those which chiefs committed simultaneously suicide later in their isolation cells in Germany. There they found a simple but effective installation «washing-up basin» type for producing the butolinic A toxin.

A natural repugnance exists in the men to experiencing the diseases, specially the infectious, the disfigurement ones and the extreme debilitating. It is only enough to see the announcements about all kinds of health centers, which offer something like a youth elixir, similar to that Ponce of León looked for in The Florida in the 16th century. The age is inevitable and implacable, but it is sought to keep, almost by all the means, the use and enjoyment of the maturity, which deterioration is one of the most fearsome effects of the diseases. The infectious serious diseases are in the habit of passing with external catastrophic symptoms. The man s attacked from inside in his aspect, in his integrity and in his capacities, by a painful and even disgusting way, up to his infamous death. This is not the death more or less adorned by us, to make it glorious and less disgusting, which is waited for the soldiers in the battlefield.

The manipulation of the pathogenic microbes and their poisonous derivatives imply high pharmacological and chemical technology operations. Here any leak or impurity leads to the failure of the experiment or to an affection of the manipulators (the most nearby and exposed possible carriers). And already we know something of how these pathogenic dwarfs and their organic products operate over us.

The fundamentalist Islamic fanatics do not find in the Noble Koran nor in the Prophet’s sunna any inducement, stimulus or excuse for their employment in the war. The microbes and their humors are in the category of the pork, the dog, the aquatic animals without fins, of the banned by Allah, all of them impure and detestable for the faithful Muslim. When the Book descended from Allah, the «ansars» or Islam’s devout could acceptably died by the sword, the mace, the axe, the lance and the arrows, in defense of the Umma or universal Islamic community and to extend its domains, applying the Jihad or sanctified war in many aleyas or verses of the Koran.

One also speaks about the possible utilization of the most attainable and known for the biological warfare means by the madmen. But a mad is not an demented. The demented has degraded his cognitive and volitional powers, by the physical deterioration of his cerebral tissues, due to the age or certain diseases (ictus, cerebral arteriosclerosis). The mad, for his part, has a portion of his feelings, ideas and concepts affected, upset and missed. But the madman is capable of reasoning specially in the topics that I will call «objectives», which are outside of his deliriums and mental affections. The madman can believe that his more or less individual terrorist actions, will be important to subvert the political regime of a country. But the mad can know how to mix sugar and potassium chlorate (the pills to disinfect the throat) to make a domestic explosive. Though the ETA (Basque revolutionary terrorists) adds sulfur to it, here it is not needed and only reduces the weight efficiency, since the chlorine takes charge connecting with the potassium and forming potassium chloride. In any case, the sulfur can be obtained, as component of the gunpowder, if there exist sensitive products restrictions, treating with commercial chlorhidric acid the sodium bisulphide, a photographic developer. Or how to concentrate the cars batteries liquid, to obtain sulfuric acid, base to obtain nitric acid (for the cotton powder or without smoke powder) and nitrates (the oxygen supplier in the smoke gunpowder, base of the pyrotechnic. And the madman also has very much, a lot of fear, probably more because a hypochondriac specific component, about the degrading diseases, stigmatized by the social group.

The Counterinsurgency War in Iraq

Possibilities and Faults of the Conflicting Rivals. Why can win the Iraqi authorities?
The whole virulence and force estimated in the Iraqi insurgency are ballasted by his divisions, his divergent or opposite interests, his scanty real combative capacity and his problems to join combative major effective units. The people is neutral in these moments and only a certain degree of constraint, at least suggested, inclines it punctually and temporarily in favor of one or other. The Iraqi army is lacking experience, spirit of body and combative interest; but it is native, not occupant, and does not depart from zero and with the skill and professionalism of his advisors and cadres, it can advance stages rapidly. The cost to pay for all is the time, prolonged in an internal painful and costly struggle.

The Iraqi insurgency and his political-military characteristics.

The Iraqi rebels constitute a strange and not miscible miscellany. Among other factions or groups, they are present: Al-Qaida groups of with nearly autonomous character, coordinated by Abu Ayyub al-Masri; this nickname wants to say, «father of Ayyub, alias The Egyptian», very slightly identifying, except in villages and places in the field. Loyal Baazists (the party had militias that were activated militarily very little before the assault on April, 2003) to Saddam Hussein and former members of his army and administration. Islamic volunteers of several countries. Members of the intelligence agencies of, at least, Syria and Iran. The Sunnis and Chiís social religious local and regional militias. The national resistance Sunni net, principally formed by previous members of the Iraqi administration and army, opposite to the ex-president, but dismissed with excessive wisdom and hurry by Paul Bremer, which are joined now by patriots and religious Iraqis and irritated young unemployed men, before the prolongation of the occupation and the good work of the Coalition forces. Not very much time ago, there were detected common criminals bands. Local groups of clans chiefs and masters of the war, making be worth his political and economic rights.
The Iraqi rebels do not have to win a war. Its principal strategic goal is to remain active with a sufficient wearing intensity. Its forces do not have to return to home. All those of the coalition, yes. Simply not retiring, not losing, they compel the Coalition forces to keep its onerous struggle for a vague, indefinite time or to withdraw and return to house.
Something similar happened in Cyprus. The National Organization of Cypriot Fight or Ethniki Organosis Kipriahou Agonos or E.O.K.A., commanded by general Georgios Grivas, alias «Dighemis», took to end a difficult guerrilla warfare, because the scanty of the field, the force of the enemy and the lack of good hiding places, for the independence of the island against the British domination. Finally, the Enosis or political union with Greece was not obtained, but the independence of the island. Grivas, in his «General Plan for the Revolutionary Action in Cyprus» was emphasizing, «it is not necessary to believe that we, by means of these form and procedures, will get a material and total defeat of the English forces in Cyprus. We rather look for his moral defeat, harassing and upsetting them in such a way that, ultimately, we obtain the goal of the struggle. That one was until the end our strategic goal. We owe the success to the fact of having stuck firmly to it».
The propaganda constitutes a strategic basic aim of all the Iraqi rebels, with which the agencies and the western communications means collaborate filled with enthusiasm. Any rebellious assault successfully and showy is immediately broadcast to the world. This always debilitates the will of permanency of the USA and his allies. His legions called by his families, want to return, to enjoy the varied and superfluous consumption goods and the exotic vacations. The Spartan mothers, something unthinkable nowadays, were saying to her children when they were going out in campaign, when the benign station came and they leave the winter barracks: «you shall return with the shield or on the shield». When they were fleeing, the big and heavy shield of the Greek hoplite, capable of resisting the tremendous blows of the Sarisas or long lances of 5 m., principal weapon of their phalanxes, was a hindrance and they were rejecting it.
The insurgents know that the fight will not finish simply with the returning home of the forces of the coalition. This makes that some Iraqi groups, more worried by the serious and always unforeseeable consequences of a social chaos that could be established then, could be attracted with political and civil arrangements to leaving the weapons. Also, a great majority of the Iraqis do not want the return to the power of the Baaz party and its exclusive repressive methods of government and permanency in power. On the other hand, it is necessary to explain and convince the Iraqi people that the best way, in order that the military foreign presence stops, is the disappearance of the armed general revolt. The constant improvements in trade, services, supply of energies are having positive effects and must be exhibited emphatically by the National administration. Reciprocally, its destruction or sabotage by the rebels must be capitalized always against them by the communications means and agents of the Iraqi state.
The existential and ideological dispersion of the armed rebels does that its military co-ordination is difficult and only temporal, partial and for convenience. This dispersion, in turn, makes very difficult the political fight of the Iraqi government and his foreign allies against an insurgency with multiple and yet opposite interests and political and social aims.

Its operative characteristics.

The armed rebels are elusive, defending themselves by the concealment and, in less measure, with a certain local mobility. Also they possess a higher availability or combative alert during the offensive actions that they tackle. Let’s remember that any military set, from the crew of a tank up to an army, spends most of his time not deployed or ready to fight. His time passes doing labors and operations that will allow him to fight in the chosen moment. So much if he is training, embarking, moving, being equipped, being supplied, being reorganized, waiting or resting, any unit is not in full combat availability.
An autonomous advanced Iraqi band, depending on a chief of sector, consists of ambush groups, execution and kidnapping groups and sabotage groups. His functions are evident. Every functional specialty has a coordinating chief, who depends on the former one. In the cities and related road ways, the components of each group are not numerous, as maximum a few teams. They try to support its communications across a communications point, functionally dependent on the headquarters, which acts as intermediary in them to avoid enemy detection. The “effective modern” electronic follow-up of the mobile phones is deceived with corridors and couriers. In this auxiliary group of the command (a primitive and without logistics S-4, which depends on a civil parallel organization of supply), a primary service of health joins, carry out by male nurses. The most serious cases go to hospitals or particular loyal doctors, if they exist in the zone.
The insurgents nets are secret or latent and operate aggressively only against the mobility of the army and the police, which they surprise, are a nuisance, cause damages, kill and mutilate. The assault from several directions creates bags of fire and enfilade zones on the enemy. This produces besides a synergetic and enervating effect in the attacked one. That is similar to the result of multi traumatism or to that of multiple nº 8 or 9 pellets in a minor hunt piece. They lack of enough punch to give decisive blows or to finish off an important enemy. They erode a military unit (not a small unit or isolated elements), but they do not annihilate it.
Against the prepared military positions established in depth they are not effective, though it exists afraid of the guerrillas and a lot of money is expended protecting them. Their bands lack important combat capacity and are also easily canalized towards approximation avenues with registered heavy fire and medium grazing fire. For the moment, they lack engineers’ training, which would allows them the punctual break of the static protector barriers. And of superior training, to use the crawling individual approximation, without time limitation, in their diverse missions out and inside the military and police camps and facilities.
The logistics is a great disadvantage, especially the supply of equipment and no handmade goods. They possess many small active rears or bases, many full surrounded by their enemies, which activities can be detected always. The supply of the bands is provided by the support organization.

To win the battle for the favor of the Iraqi people.
The rebels, by force or thanks to their popularity, are capable of being mixed and to be diluted in the civil population. And to hide safe in houses, stores, garages, buildings, caves, etc. Though a part of the population is with them, a degree of constraint exercised by armed rebels exists always. If the Iraqi army is capable of permanently protect a neighborhood or population from the assaults or the presence of hostile irregulars, it also can progressively demand the due national loyalty to its inhabitants. What is inadmissible is that the civil local populations are intermittently subject to the armed pressure of one and another rival. So demanding from them a loyalty that does not offer safety to them. The clearly hostile recalcitrant elements in the different places, can be temporarily re-located in zones assured by the government, to neutralize them. The collective punishments of the populations are never suitable. Probably these are only justified, at least largely, by the immediate safety of the military forces. In any case, it is necessary to explain well the reasons for its application.
The rebels are tactics and operatively semiautonomous. The communications between the bands are moderated and even scanty, both the explicit ones and, especially, the tacit ones. They win the combats fitting their advantages with the weaknesses of the enemy army. The techniques of feigning retreats and establishing ambushes are useful to they against non skilled forces and still not too much motivated. They can choose the place and the moment of their attacks and carry out the necessary training to dominate the skills to be used in those.

Command, control and communications of the bands.
Its high dispersion exercises a considerable tension in its command structure (principally in the middle and high commands), because of its extensive and flat flowchart.
At the same time, this spatial extension allows them to cut temporarily the lines of communications of the enemy, with a psychological important negative effect. The systems of command, communications and control are slightly primitive at the moment, which impedes the regional concentration of bands or groups for more important actions. Its effective real command is divided by the dispersion of the chiefs and groups and the disparity or the antagonism of interests.

The Iraqi Army and its allies.

The abuses against the civil population are always counter-productive in a counterinsurgency struggle and more in an internal revolt. Sometimes, the hurries to form new troops lead to a deficient or incomplete training of these. They are not vaccinated against the stress, specially here the mental one, nor against the frustration of the not fulfilled plans or of the ungrateful enemy surprises. This leads to discharge almost inevitably the anger and the enervating impotence in the civil population, intermingled voluntary or by force with the rebels.
The wars against the armed irregular are by its Nature long, painful and difficult. The prolong character originates from the need that a popular force, departing almost from nothing, develops and spreads. And managing to moral or militarily defeat a regular own or of occupation army. The difficulty and the cruel evil arise from the high civil component that takes part in them. They are wars located in the home courtyard, in the own or occupied rear.
It is necessary, therefore, to avoid the prolongation of the conflict, which is mining the conviction of the own forces and allowing that the enemy should spread, strengthen and prevail.
The basic problem of the new Iraqi army is its lack of democratic convictions in the western style, in order to defend the new regime. It operates, as much, as a civil Police, which is not forced to die in its trade and which normally acts in its operations with overwhelming means superiority. If they do not feel and assume some values, it is not possible to accept the commitment with them. And acquire this way the necessary availability to work actively for them or to die in its defense. Already there have entered in active service several hundred thousands of Iraqi military and police men formed by the North Americans. But they are fundamentally destined to surveillance, custody and garrison labors. Their frame of mind and combative disposition are low and unequal, according to their origin. This is now a mass army.

The American military doctrine. Has it effective application here?
The massive employment of the heavy fire capacity continues being the principal «argument» of the US Army. Its doctrine (Field Manual 100-5, Operations, last edition of 1986) does not emphasize the initiative and rests in reacting to the enemy action from covered positions in the whole operations zone. One of the operative principles that gets force in this renewed doctrine is that of the simultaneity. This one establishes to beat at the same time, with heavy fire of artillery and aviation, the first and the second enemy assault echelons and even its reserve, using then aviation and tactical rocketry. The infantry and tanks forces are designed, in a secondary employment, to counter-attack this beaten enemy in all its depth, to assure the decision.
Here the detection and the selective attack to the enemy weak points don’t exist. Nor the general saving of means (that the contributors pay to the industrial corporations) and human lives. Nor the skilful, risky and fruitful maneuvers of functional or positional dislocation of the enemy forces. The Marshall Von Hindenburg invented the adage: «A battle without Schwerpunkt (principal effort) is like a man without character». Acting the North American army evokes a heavy, forceful mace, hammering and excessive. The Afrika Korps, on the contrary, remembers us an elegant, agile, unforeseeable, sufficient and effective foil.
The pompously so called fourth generation wars are the counterinsurgency wars or guerrilla warfare or irregular wars or armed revolts or liberation wars or organized banditry, which always have existed, coexisting with the conventional variants of warfare. They are those that the USA has lost or not gained lately: Vietnam, The Lebanon (peace disembarkation of “marines”, then demolished in their barrack) and Somalia (the uncontrollable and unforeseeable wasp’s nest of «all against all» by the local lords of the war and the Islamic militias). They are uneven wars (they call them now «asymmetrical warfare») against an enemy of lower technological military level relative to the regular enemy forces, always rooted in the own or occupied civil population and slight militarily intense but very extensive in the space and the time.
With embarrassing frequency, when the human or technological North American «sensors» detect some probable rebellious Iraqi or from the foreign “muyaidin” activity, first they devastate the building, the «block», the zone. Then they go to sweep up and to do the corpses inventory, the «body count», because they are very scrupulous with their statistics. Sometimes among the rubbles they can meet the corpses of an Arabic innocent and numerous family. They abuses of the attrition, which is indiscriminate and perverse when the enemy fuses with the civil ones. They neglect the active, unexpected patrolling, which needs proportionally less material and human means, but more trade, moral courage, freedom of action and creativity in the low and intermediate commands and NCO and in the men.

Effective counter insurgents operations in Iraq.

A complex operation of search, location and combat and destruction of the bands will demand successively to the military forces: to locate them, to converge on the zone, to attack and to defeat them, to be reorganized and reequip and to be dispersed. These seemingly unconnected operations of numerous small units, coordinated by the intention and aims of the high command and by the responsibility in the execution way of the direct commands, they enjoy great initiative, rapidity and maximum flexibility. This allows to the national army to take the freedom of action and to keep the initiative and a high relative mobility with the enemy, during all the offensive decided operations. Technique, tactical and operatively, the Iraqi military men must be, by trade and capacities, more professionals, more actives, better equipped, more lethal, more effective, that the irregular forces to which they search and fight.
During long time yet the air and spatial North American means, as spy satellites, not crewed planes and planes of the system Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (JSTARS), will have serious limitations for the detection and monitoring of small ground forces, even regular ones, in the difficult crossing areas and with possibilities of concealment, as mountains, jungles and forests, marshes and urbanized zones (industrial, of storage and distribution and of housings). These not only offer concealment, but also covered from the heavy and light fire up to the close distances of combat.
An observation and of combat patrols’ net constitutes the fighting system adapted and advised for this type of irregular warfare. Carry out against an enemy trained (it has been given sufficient time for do it), with aroused fanaticism, re-grown by the successful or believed successes and improved by a natural selection (the most clumsy and worse are falling down first, and let’s not say the suicides of only one use, who immediately leave the fighting), but that still has not matured structurally nor operatively. They constitute the natural sensors to detect the operative rebellious activity previous or between offensive actions, so as that the civil Iraqi population accepts and supports moderately well its own army.
In January, 2004, the North American intelligence intercepted a memorandum of 17 pages written by Abu Musad al-Zarqawi (the former Al-Qaida local delegate chief, which has passed away to the Houris Garden) and directed to Osama bin Laden, in which he was expressing to him his worry for his survival: «In Iraq there are no mountains where we could shelter, nor forests in whose thickness we could hide. There are spies on eyes everywhere. Our backs are exposed and our movements, in view of all».

Locating, deceiving and penetrating them.
A necessary complement of the regular net are the false rebels bands. These would be destined to operate in zones inclined to the insurgency, from where some of their members come from. Their activity and concealment would be favored by the decentralized character of the rebels groups. Their missions would be to obtain information, to prove the loyalty of the civil ones and to annihilate small enemy groups or lone suicidal terrorists. They should not be bigger than a reinforced squad or section, except in combat special occasions.
The false rebels bands were used by enough success in the fighting against the kikuyos of the Mau-Mau in Kenya, against the Soviet guerrillas by the Germans during the World War II and against the Hukbalahap communists of Luis Taruk, the Supreme, in The Philippines by the Philippine army. In Spain the so called «counterparts» were used between 1946 and 1949. Their operative scope was minor. It was a question of «neutralizing» the rural population of the zones where the forces of the hostile «groups” were operating, by means of visits of the simulated guerrillas to the villagers. There came a moment that in the villages all were distrusting of the not habitual bands, that were coming in search of food and other helps, since it was not known if it was a counterpart.
The patrols’ and small military positions net has three operative purpose: to deny the initiative and the mobility to the guerrillas; to cut their communications with their bases, with their collaborators’ net and between the groups; and to frighten away them, like to the hunt, from their protective civil bases and their isolated redoubts.
The official net operatively covers a wide extension and so is capable of receiving the sensitive information. The knowledge of the rebels of its neighborhood and of its zone can be one of its major assets. Their refuges and depots would end located. The present impunity conviction of the rebels would disappear. With the advantage of being a native army, its initial weapons must be the discretion, the silence, using more the knives and hand grenades than its assault guns, the relative mobility with the enemy, with the night as collaborator and shelter in its operations.

The necessary ideal supply system.

The difficulties of supply in a great extension area, «empty» of enemies and without «hard» targets, can be overcome with: an anticipating logistics (a good calculation of the foreseen necessary supplies, with the commitment of the commands users); endowed with smaller and nearby pre located depots; using heavy fire pre located bases for support covering the operations zone; using all the possible common parts in equipment, food (caring of religions influence), etc.; and using small mobile armored units (minimum the reinforced interarm platoon provided with light vehicles, which could rapidly reinforce the normal military patrols). The utilization of gun and transport helicopters centralized directed, allows to rapidly create, once clarified the situation, a gravity center of the counterinsurgency effort and to supply rapidly and provisionally the most committed small units.

Lightness, mobility and relative speed in operations.
The necessary mobility of the regular forces in the fighting against the hostile irregulars of all kind prefers light combat vehicles. The Abrams tanks and the VCI Bradley need re supply every 8 hours in constant actions and are not silent, but very evident in their operations. They are designed to act massively by the fire, maneuver and shock in a gravity center of the effort against enemy regular modern forces. Also they can serve to crush a civil enemy population, as the Israelis did in Gaza, during the operation of rescue of their captured soldier.
But here we are trying to eliminate diverse guerrillas, intermingled with the Iraqi people. The armored light vehicles type Mowag 25 Piranha (14 Tm.) of Swiss design and with several manufacturing plants and the new American armored Humvee (4 Tm.) might mark the superior and low limits for the military armored vehicles to be employed in this counterinsurgency struggle.

To surround, to disperse the enemy rejection, to disturb its command and its plans and to destroy them.

Also they (the net) can react to the rebel detected activity, establishing rapidly way controls, and sufficiently sealing a more or less extensive zone. While the hermetic ring is closed next with other nearby troops or with heliborne forces. This simultaneity of initial actions has a synergetic effect that protects the small isolated military units, with exposed vulnerable flanks, in their initiative.
The surprise, besides, is a fundamental principle of this war. The relative rapidity neutralizes the alert notices that their civil Iraqi friends can pass to the bands. In Cyprus, the scanty British helicopters (it were the 50s in last century) were turning irrelevant the communication efforts of the collaborators’ net of the E.O.K.A. about the movements of the British troops.
The best effect on the detected boxed band is achieved here by the concentric and inconsiderate attack (maximum impulse or quantity of used movement) with limited aims, by some advance spears with enough combat capacity (minimum, the reinforced platoon with heavy infantry weapons) over the interior of the siege. Since the sweep of the siege area from one or two directions is more laborious and gives the enemy, specially individual or by teams, a slip away chance. The static military forces can then be contracting by successive jumps the internal or both perimeters, according to the cases, established of the siege.
To gain the struggle through the time.
The patience must be a characteristic of all the implied ones in this war. Also it is necessary for to be effective, to reach a minimum of trade and seniority. In the zones most favorable to the bands, it is very easy that the operations of search and siege are initially closed in emptiness. It is necessary to go gaining and selecting their zone population, as we have said before, in order that the military trade and the people loyalty combined should produce its military and social incomes. The successive victories of the Iraqi army will be gaining to it the favor of the people, because all they want to be emotionally with the winning side. And because the interests of the Iraqis are volatile, unlike and yet contradictory, based on the loyalty to the family, to the clan and to the tribe.
In this type of war the armed forces cannot defend from the enemy all its possible targets. Besides, never there would be enough remaining troops to keep the initiative and to carry out a multiple, flexible and mobile offensive action against the armed rebels. Here there are no fronts to establishing and cozy, protective and supplying operative rears. What exists are armed enemies groups, their logistic support and information groups and many groups of sympathizers with them. That are integrated all according to the different personal courage of their different members. And all of them widespread and established through a big territory without limits or classic rears.
To liberate sufficient forces, the Iraqi army has to defend only its strategic objectives and its operative communications. The defense of towns and minor objectives, specially out of the Sunni zone (in the center and south center of the country), must fall in local units of police and of loyal civil self defense. These supported by military mobile units of its sector. With help of the heavy fire and the airborne mobility of the North Americans, even with the support of some of its elite units (rangers, marines, armored), the Iraqis can be trying to carry out major actions of siege and annihilation of bands and groups of them. To increasing the confidence and the respect of the own population and its experience in the resolution of its challenge of pacification of the country.

Publicado el 20 de abril de 200824 de febrero de 2013Categorías Al-Qaida, Central Asia, Counterinsurgency Operations, Crisis and Conflicts, Iraq, Military History, Military Theory, Modern Warfare, Strategy, Urban Guerrilla Warfare1 comentario en The Counterinsurgency War in Iraq

Austerlitz. La Batalla de los Tres Emperadores.

Austerlitz es la Coronación de la Brillante Campaña Francesa de 1805 contra la Tercera Coalición

Introducción

La primera serie de las guerras que surgen a raíz de la Revolución Francesa terminó con las paces de Loeben (en 1801) y de Amiens (de 1802). Pero entre Francia e Inglaterra los intervalos de paz eran entonces sólo respiros, para poder proseguir su lucha inevitable por la supremacía y la supervivencia en Europa.

En mayo de 1805 estalló la guerra entre Francia y la llamada Tercera Coalición, creada el mes anterior, formada por Rusia, Austria e Inglaterra, su promotora. Un ilusionado William Pitt envió generosamente el oro inglés a sus aliados continentales.

El grueso del ejército francés se encontraba entonces estacionado a lo largo de la costa del Canal de la Mancha, preparándose para invadir Inglaterra. Pero la amenaza para el ejército en campaña, que era el verdadero objetivo estratégico de las guerras napoleónicas (recordemos que las ocupaciones de Madrid, Viena, Moscú, no fueron decisivas), surgía al este, de los ejércitos de los imperios ruso y austríaco.

En septiembre de 1805 Napoleón trasladó su «Ejército de Inglaterra» al Rin, desplegando sus 208.000 hombres entre Maguncia y Estrasburgo y rebautizándolo el «Gran Ejército». El Grande Armée estaba formado por 145.000 infantes y 38.000 jinetes, integrados en 7 cuerpos de ejército, cada uno a las órdenes de un mariscal francés, una gran reserva de caballería a las órdenes del mariscal Príncipe Murat y la Guardia Imperial, directamente bajo Napoleón; a ellos se les añadían 25.000 bávaros aliados.

Tomando como era habitual en él la iniciativa, Napoleón decide dar un primer golpe estratégico contra el ejército de 72.000 austríacos que, a las órdenes del general Mack y el archiduque Fernando, hijo del emperador Francisco II, avanzaba hacia Ulm, sin esperar la llegada de la prometida ayuda rusa.

Napoleón va a utilizar contra los austríacos lo que podemos llamar un esfuerzo operativo de centro de gravedad.

Las características del proceso de establecimiento y funcionamiento de aquél son la originalidad, la flexibilidad del despliegue, la consistencia, la no predictibilidad por el enemigo y la eficacia. El centro de gravedad supone la acción centrípeta de todos los medios y sus líneas de actuación, de la actividad «ramificada» de todas las unidades y los servicios, no necesariamente coincidentes, pero sí convergentes y resultantes en su sinergia, en su eficacia y en su resultado. Mediante las líneas de avance o de acción diferentes y coordinadas inducimos incertidumbre e inseguridad en el enemigo, dispersamos su capacidad de rechazo y perturbamos su plan de defensa y su conducción sistemática.

En un amplio avance de sus cuerpos de ejército independientes, el Grande Armée cruzó rapidísimamente el centro de Alemania, desde el Rin al Danubio, entre los días 25 de septiembre y 6 de octubre. Con esto se interpuso operativamente entre los austríacos y las fuerzas rusas aliadas, aún lejanas. Los austríacos no entendieron la necesidad de la rapidez de los movimientos, pensando sólo en la batalla, como único instrumento de la decisión.

Los franceses iniciaron el cruce del Danubio el día 7 y, durante toda la semana siguiente, Napoleón hizo converger en una enorme espiral constrictora a la mayoría de sus fuerzas sobre Ulm, mientras un cuerpo de ejército vigilaba la posible llegada del general Kutuzov por el este.

El general Mack realizó en vano varios intentos de ruptura, con los mayores esfuerzos en Haslach y Elchingen. Los dos comandantes austríacos se pelearon y el archiduque Fernando se separó del grueso con sus 6.000 jinetes e intentó escapar en dirección noreste, pero, ya cerca de Trochtelfingen, sus fuerzas fueron rodeadas y vencidas por el cuerpo de caballería de Murat. Otros 12.000 austríacos se rindieron en Neustadt.

El general Mack y el resto de sus hombres (unos 27.000, tras los combates e incidentes citados), con Napoleón en escandalosa mayoría a las puertas de la ciudad de Ulm desde el 14 de octubre, salieron afuera para rendir sus armas a los pies de los montes Michelsberg. El general Mack firmó la capitulación del ejército el día 20.

La campaña, sin batallas propiamente dichas, le costó a Austria más de 50.000 hombres, casi el 70% de sus tropas iniciales.

La campaña de 1.805, tras la victoria estratégica sobre el general Mack en Ulm, se remató en Austerlitz.

Los rusos, al mando del general Kutuzov, que acudían como dijimos en socorro de Mack, no se dejaron atrapar y volvieron sobre sus pasos, primero hacia el este y luego hacia el norte del Danubio, alejando más y más a Napoleón de sus bases. La toma de Viena por Napoleón el 12 de noviembre resultó inútil, pues Kutusov seguía rehusando la lucha, evitando incluso dos trampas francesas tendidas por el cuerpo de caballería de Murat. Lo que buscaba Kutuzov era reunirse con las fuerzas del general Buxhowden y del Zar, cerca de Olmutz, antes de volverse contra los franceses. El 20 de noviembre se efectuó la concentración de unos 85.000 soldados austro-rusos, estando presentes el emperador Francisco y el zar Alejandro I.

Napoleón, que había iniciado la campaña contra Mack desde sus posiciones en el Rin con unos 210.000 hombres, se encontraba ahora a 720 Km. de ellas. Las pérdidas derivadas de las marchas incesantes, de los combates y de la necesidad de custodiar su línea de comunicaciones habían reducido su ejército operativo a 55.000 hombres, bajo su mando directo.

Pero Napoleón, descuidado y confiado muchas veces, demostraba sus mejores momentos en las crisis y ahora, con 36 años, un año después de su coronación, estaba en el cenit de su carrera militar. Y decidió elegir un terreno y, sobre todo, preparar a su enemigo durante los días siguientes.

El plan de Napoleón, analizado.

El desequilibrio del enemigo busca convertir en vulnerable su despliegue, ante la inminencia de un combate, para optimizar nuestros resultados y minimizar las pérdidas en él. El desequilibrio del enemigo, junto con su incapacitación funcional, deben permitirnos la actuación sobre sus vulnerabilidades críticas, buscando su desorganización y desintegración, con la menor atrición (en capacidad de combate) y el menor desgaste (en capacidad de movimiento operativo) posibles para nosotros. También exige la actuación decidida, flexible e imaginativa. Los medios intelectuales del ejército, a través del mando, se ponen aquí en prueba y en tensión.

Los factores eficaces del desequilibrio del contrario son la sorpresa, el engaño y la fantasía o apariencias, siempre percibidas como reales y evidentes por aquél. A través de ellos se crea en el enemigo una falsa impresión, bien de oportunidad, bien de temor, bien de desatención, que pretende inducirle a actuar errónea y perjudicialmente para él, sin proponérselo o saberlo. Al buscar y orientarse hacia un ensueño, sus capacidades de combate adoptan y se distraen en un despliegue erróneo, inconveniente y, sobre todo, vulnerable frente a nosotros.

Cuando para el desequilibrio empleamos la oportunidad, buscamos la exaltación del enemigo.

La oportunidad debe ser algo apreciado por el enemigo, una ventaja táctica, que surge de improviso como consecuencia del devenir de la situación planteada o al inicio de ella. No puede aparecer como ofrecida por nosotros, porque entonces no intervendrían los factores citados de la sorpresa y el engaño, aunque sí puede presentarse como algo desatendido o desaprovechado por nosotros. Estas son las cualidades que debe poseer la oportunidad, para que el enemigo perciba en ella no una trampa, sino el beneficio apetecible e/o importante.

La debilidad es un buen cebo para el arrogante. La ganancia lo es para el avaricioso y/o minucioso. Una combinación de estos aspectos de la oportunidad es lo que utilizó Napoleón para desequilibrar a los aliados austro-rusos, preparándolos para vencerlos más fácilmente.

El Emperador ensambla su despliegue.

Las vanguardias de caballería francesa retrocedieron al contacto con las patrullas cosacas, cerca de Olmutz. Seguidamente Napoleón evacuó la villa de Austerlitz y, aún más demostrativamente, evacuó las alturas de Pratzen. Incluso llegó a ser especialmente cortés con el pedante enviado ruso conde Dolgorouki, escoltándolo personalmente hasta las avanzadillas francesas. Los aliados, tentativamente, le ofrecieron un armisticio, a la espera de dar tiempo a que se les unieran los archiduques Carlos y Juan, que se acercaban desde el sur con otros 122.000 austríacos.

El 1 de diciembre los aliados avanzaron desde Olmutz y ocuparon el Pratzen. Por su parte, Napoleón recibía el refuerzo de los cuerpos de ejército I y III, de los mariscales Bernadotte y Davout, que acudían desde las guarniciones de la línea de comunicaciones de Iglau y Viena, incrementando hasta los 73.000 hombres sus efectivos disponibles.

Napoleón iba ahora a ofrecer el cebo de un debilitado flanco derecho a los aliados, ya ansiosos por llegar a conseguir una victoria sobre el odiado joven emperador, que habían vislumbrado como posible. Además, la victoria y la penetración aliada en esa zona, tras sus líneas, cortarían a Napoleón la retirada hacia Viena. Y le dejarían aislado, en terreno hostil, rodeado de enemigos, sin refuerzos a mano, que ya habían acudido, y en enorme inferioridad numérica (sería un triunfo estratégico). Aquello era demasiado para el zar Alejandro (su presencia se inmiscuía necesariamente en la autoridad de un general en jefe en campaña) y para muchos jóvenes generales, que desoyeron los consejos de prudencia de Kutuzov. Asimismo, las dudas del emperador Francisco también podían ser ignoradas, porque ¾ partes del ejército aliado eran rusos.

A la derecha del despliegue francés, que se extendía unos 6 Km., el general Le Grand recibió sólo el esqueleto de una fuerza con el que mantener la línea del arroyo Goldbach y el pueblo de Zokolnitz, en la dirección de Viena, y se le prometió la ayuda de la división de Friand, del cuerpo de ejército de Davout. En el área de Santon, que fue fortificada, al norte, descansaba el flanco izquierdo francés, que estaba confiado al V cuerpo del mariscal Lannes, a parte de las tropas de Bernadotte y a una parte de la reserva de caballería, a las órdenes directas de Murat. Ambos flancos tenían una función defensiva. En el arroyo de Bosenitz, el pueblo de Puntowitz y la colina Zurland, de sur a norte, se concentraban el grueso de los cuerpos de ejército I y IV, éste a las órdenes del mariscal Soult, el resto de la caballería de Murat, la división de Oudinot, la reserva de artillería del Grande Armée y la Guardia Imperial.

El despliegue aliado se extendía más oblicuamente, a lo largo de unos 10 Km., desde el pueblo de Aujest Markt a las alturas de Goldbach. Era fuerte en su flanco izquierdo, muy reforzado en el centro y débil y alejado en el derecho. Éste último estaba cubierto de norte a sur por las fuerzas de Bragation, la caballería de Lichtenstein, concentrada junto a Austerlitz y el cuerpo de Constantine, como reserva central (la Guardia Imperial rusa, con 8.500 hombres de élite), al noreste de Krenowitz, que engranaba con el cuerpo de reserva de Kollowrath, al oeste de ese pueblo.

El plan de Napoleón preveía que, cuando los aliados se hubiesen lanzado sobre el flanco derecho francés, debilitando al máximo su centro al noreste y sudeste del pueblo de Pratzen, en persecución de la apariencia creada, el cuerpo de Soult avanzaría sobre la meseta donde se asentaba aquél, rompiendo el gozne del dispositivo aliado. El resto de las fuerzas que quedasen aún como reservas, penetrarían por la ruptura y envolverían hacia el norte o hacia el sur los flancos derecho o izquierdo aliados.

Según el plan aliado, más de la mitad de las fuerzas aliadas, al mando del general Buxhowden, romperían el frente del arroyo Goldbach, bloquearían la carretera de Viena y avanzarían hacia el norte, despejando todas las posiciones francesas. Poco después de la ruptura, la reserva del general Kollowrath, unos 15.000 hombres, descendería de las alturas de Pratzen para apoderarse de Puntowitz, rompiendo el gozne de la línea francesa. Una tercera fuerza, de menos de 18.000 hombres, a las órdenes del general Bragation y del príncipe de Lichtenstein, se acercaría a Santon y fijaría allí las fuerzas francesas.

Desarrollo de la batalla.

Hacia las 4 de la mañana del 2 de diciembre, primer aniversario de la coronación de Napoleón, los dos ejércitos comenzaron sus movimientos. Hacia las 9, con las tropas de Buxhowden totalmente empeñadas y habiendo descendido detrás de ellas una parte de la reserva de Kollowrath, situada en su centro, Napoleón ordenó el asalto de las alturas de Pratzen. Las dos divisiones del mariscal Soult ocuparon rápidamente la zona, sorprendiendo y condenando al ejército aliado.

A partir de ahora se trataba de atender, sin llegar a agotar las reservas, a las distintas crisis locales que emergerían sin dudar.

Los granaderos de Oudinot fueron enviados desde la colina Zurland a apoyar el flanco sur, donde se estaba librando la batalla principal. Bernadotte avanzó hasta el pueblo de Blaswitz, para cubrir el flanco norte de Soult. La caballería de Murat en la colina Santon tuvo que empeñarse contra la caballería de Lichtenstein, para apoyar a los novatos del cuerpo de Lannes, que vacilaban. Hacia las 10:30 Kutusov consiguió traer hacia Pratzen a parte de las fuerzas de su ala izquierda y Soult, atacado por tres lados, tuvo que empeñar a parte de la reserva de artillería para contener al enemigo con su fuego de atrición. Napoleón avanzó su cuartel general y la Guardia Imperial, la reserva aún no empeñada, hasta Putowitz, en las faldas de Pratzen.

Hacia la 1 de la tarde Constantine y su Guardia Imperial rusa atacaron a los cansados franceses en Pratzen. La primera línea francesa cedió. La caballería de la Guardia Imperial francesa, al mando del mariscal Béssiers y del general Rapp, atacó a los rusos y los pusieron en fuga. Y Bernadotte, desde Blauswitz, envió una división en apoyo del centro.

Las crisis tácticas habían sido superadas. Napoleón podía ahora rematar su triunfo y miró hacia el sur.

Las fuerzas restantes de Soult, de Le Grand y de Davout y la Guardia Imperial francesa atacaron concéntricamente a los dispersos hombres de Buxhowden. Hacia las 15:30 todo había terminado. Por su parte, el general Bagration se retiraba de Santon y Kutusov y los dos emperadores y sus séquitos huían desde Krenowtz y Austerlitz, protegidos por la Guardia Imperial rusa.

Resultados y Consecuencias.

Los franceses habían perdido el 11,4% de sus hombres, unos 1.300 muertos y 7.000 heridos y desaparecidos. Las bajas aliadas fueron de 16.000 muertos y heridos y 11.000 prisioneros ilesos, que suponían el 32% de sus fuerzas. Además, se les tomaron 180 cañones y 45 banderas.

La Tercera Coalición había desaparecido en una brillante campaña con dos batallas. En la lejana Inglaterra, las noticias del desastre hicieron que William Pitt, perdidas sus esperanzas, dijese: «Guardad el mapa de Europa». Al cabo de pocos meses, murió.

Napoleón distribuyó amplias recompensas entre su Grande Armée: fueron concedidas pensiones para todas las viudas; los huérfanos fueron adoptados por él, que les permitió añadir Napoleón a sus nombres y, además, serían educados por el Estado; todos los mariscales y generales recibieron dos millones de francos en oro.





Publicado el 20 de abril de 20089 de abril de 2009Categorías Conflictos y Crisis, Estrategia Operativa, Guerra de Maniobras, Historia Militar, Teoría MilitarDeja un comentario en Austerlitz. La Batalla de los Tres Emperadores.

Suggested reading for professional armed forces.

I offer a books´list on military theory, which reading will be very useful to you. And that I consider to be fundamental to know better the military topics and not simply to read a more or less repeated history.

I am including one of my book, fruit of my years of dedication to this topic, which content you can examine in www.amazon.com.

“Maneuver Warfare Handbook” by William Lind.

The classical on modern maneuver warfare. Used by the Marines Corps. It is based on the German experience in the World War II. That in turn is an extrapolation to the mechanized war, of the experiences developed by the Stormtroops (infantry assault forces) in the I World War.

“The Art of War” by Sun Tzu. Samuel Griffith’s translation is the best of all.

The permanent and global chinese military theory from a classical author. Its style and content characteristics support the idea of one unique author. With each useful reading, more shades and perspectives are caught. That come to fruition in major richness, agility and depth of thought.

Other «Chinese» books give you a number of strategies (the 33, the 36, the 100, etc.). Its utilization is based on its constant memorization or on iits permanent application. I consider them to be slight practical, for the profuse, diffuse and still confused character of many ancient authors of the Han etnia. What does happen if a different case arises? It seems as if they wanted to conceal their supposed wisdom from the not initiated ones.

“The Soviet Conduct of Tactical Maneuver” by David Glantz.

The Soviet military doctrine that won the War, fully explained. With them they won the II World War. And imposed their economic social system in half Europe, supposed «liberated» from the Germans.

“Forward into Battle” by Paddy Griffith.

Excelent book about last two centuries’ military tactics, extensively presented. It has detractors for its sometimes breaking vision.

«On War» by Clausewitz.

It is an extensive work, since it fits with the epoch, in which writing little was a sign of inconsistency, little importance and scanty reflection. The books or parts that compose it were finished in variable degree by the author, whose premature death did not allow its conclusion. We are interested in the first chapters on the theory and the philosophy of the war. Other books treat on the tactics of a period in which the enemy deployment was staying at the sights of the enemy command and his HHQQ and auxiliary, placed in a nearby height. He praises Liddell Hart’s opposite: a decisive battle using the maximum own concentration and power on the enemy army. In an age of masses armies, inaugurated by Napoleon, soon was clear that it was not possible to win a war between full armed nations, in an alone great battle. It was necessary a campaign with successive victorious operations, looking for the achievement of the military goals of the campaign (theatre of operations, Europe, Pacific Ocean, Africa) or the strategy. In addition, already there did not exist a genius advanced to his epoch as Napoleon.

“Maneuver Warfare: An Anthology”, compiled by Richard D. Hooker.

Short articles of some of the best modern military writers on that topic. It has works from Rommel, Leonhard, John Antal, etc.

“The Art of Maneuver” by Robert Leonhard.

One of the first full theory about maneuver warfare. And he stands out strongly, expanding the ideas torrent of this theory in development those moments.

“Race to the Swift” by Richard Simpkin.

On maneuver warfare. The best book of this British military thinker. Its reading is some difficult, for its language erudition.

“Manual de Táctica”, dos tomos, by Eike Middeldorf.

It is the most complete and current manual on modern tactics that I have found. It has chapters about land warfare using atomic tactical bombs and on the particular conditions of fight: by night, in forests, with extreme cold, etc.

“Strategy” by Basil Liddell Hart.

Best military theory by B. L. Hart. Easy to read.

“The Foundations of the Science of War” by John Frederick Charles Fuller.

The best book about military principles. Hard to read sometimes. Almost 65 years after its first edition, it was reprinted by the Marines Corps. I got a first edition copy from an American university library (Lancaster, Pa.). It had many critiques and later the author went back on the underlying ideas in the book. The critiques, in turn, had as bottom that he had an eccentric personality, in a group (the military men) tremendously conservative and established by protocol. He had mystical streakes (Hindu philosophy, yoga) and flirted with the Nazi, being got by Hitler.

“On the Nature of War” by Enrique Alonso.

The “how to do” in war. Recent, full and unusual military theory. It is based in 10 “operational systems”.

“Understanding War” by Trevor N. Dupuy.

It is a combat theory, based on History, military factors and its figures. I find that his «friction» concept development, took from Clausewitz, is deviant. And he exposes another concept different from Clausewitz.

Publicado el 4 de abril de 200826 de septiembre de 2016Categorías Education, Guerrilla Warfare, Maneuver Warfare, Military History, Military Theory, Modern Warfare, Strategy