I Generally, Don’t Approve of Armchair Generals…

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But with all the inside Beltway pukes, (and yes, I do mean you, John Kerry) calling for aggressive air strikes in Libya under the fig leaf of a “no fly zone”, I think that I need to put on my incredibly incompetent tactician cap, and kick some metaphorical butt.

First, I think that a lot of people think that a “No Fly Zone” is where we wave some sort of magic wand, and fly planes over hostile territory to keep the other guy from flying his planes.

It’s a lot more involved.

In order to enforce a no fly zone, you have to be able to fly over hostile territory with impunity, which involves:

  • Thoroughly disabling every SAM site in the country.  (Bombing)
  • Thoroughly disabling every AAA site in the country.  (More bombing)
  • Crippling the command and control systems (yet more bombing, and likely boots on the ground to confirm this).
  • Bombing all the air fields, and pretty much anywhere that an attack helicopter might be based.

A no fly zone is invasion-lite.

OK, so, if you want to support the anti-Gaddafi forces, what do you do, if you don’t want to go Nixon’s secret bombing of Cambodia on his ass?

Well, here is where I put on my stupid hat, and make a military suggestion.

What you do, is that you give the insurgents some sort of aid that:

  • Has a low marginal cost.
  • Cannot be transferred to entities who are hostile to the US (see Stinger missiles given to the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan)
  • Is highly perishable, so that you can withdraw it and get them to stop when you want it to stop.

The thing is that there IS something that fulfills all this criteria:  Accurate real-time tactical intelligence.

Between satellites, long range radars on AWACS and E-2Cs, and signals intelligence (Sigint), we could be giving warnings of things like air-strikes, and the specific order of battle of Gaddafi’s forces.

Ironically, about a decade ago, the US Army thought that this sort of situational awareness would allow them to largely dispense with armor on their vehicles, which brought forth the abortive FCS, but the Army, as is the rest of the Pentagon, is constrained by a need to have zero casualties, while the rebels in Libya are under no such artificial constraint.

They just need to die less than their opponents.

Then again, my military experience would fit in a thimble with room to spare.

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