-Caveat Lector- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7837-2003Mar21.html washingtonpost.com
'Shock and Awe' Author Uneasy With New Fame Ullman Fears Thesis May Be Misconstrued By David Von Drehle Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, March 22, 2003; Page Z01 Two months ago, "shock and awe" was just a complex and slightly vague notion from the abstruse world of military eggheads. Now, the phrase is on tongues and TV screens around the world, serving as a virtual marquee for boom and blast in Baghdad. Along the way, a lot was lost in the translation -- to the chagrin of many American generals who say the phrase gives the wrong impression of what they are trying to do. Even Harlan Ullman, one of the principal authors of "Shock and Awe," a dense tome written in 1996, said Friday he is sorry to see what has become of his catchy phrase. True, he is all over television and the Internet, but not without reservations. "It will be bad public relations for the United States," he said. "Clearly, there will be people who want to take it out of context and say we are trying to terrorize the Iraqi people. That we are threatening to do to them what we did to the people of Hiroshima." If some people say that, it is because Ullman himself has made the comparison. "Theoretically," he and co-author James P. Wade wrote, "the magnitude of Shock and Awe . . . seeks to impose (in extreme cases) is the non-nuclear equivalent of the impact that atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had on the Japanese." In another passage, the authors conjured up the image of glassy-eyed veterans of the World War I trenches. For this, Ullman is identified by some antiwar groups as the "Dr. Strangelove" of the Iraq war. The authors could not have known that they were coining a name for history's first made- for-TV war. The theory of "shock and awe" began as an attempt to answer a question that dominated defense intellectuals in the 1990s: how to maintain U.S. military strength in the post-Cold War era of declining military budgets? Working with a small grant from the National Defense University, Ullman and Wade gathered commanders from the 1991 Persian Gulf War to talk about how they might have achieved the same victory in less time and with fewer forces. Wade was a former undersecretary of defense. Ullman was a Naval Academy graduate and Vietnam War veteran whose students at the National War College had included a young Army colonel named Colin L. Powell. "Ullman," Powell once wrote, "was that rarity, a scholar in uniform . . . possessed of one of the best, most provocative minds I have ever encountered." As it turned out, the military principle dominating U.S. strategy in the mid-'90s was "the Powell Doctrine," which held that the United States should go to war only with overwhelming force. As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1990, Ullman's former student put his doctrine into practice in the Gulf War, marshalling a half-million troops to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. Ullman, Wade and their panelists envisioned a now-familiar world in which rogue states threatened U.S. security with weapons of mass destruction, and wondered if there might be a way to defeat them without the slow and expensive build-up of forces that Powell had applied in the Gulf War. What they came up with was "shock and awe" to achieve "rapid dominance." "The idea," Ullman said Friday from the back of a sedan on the way to his next interview, "is to crack the enemy's will as quickly as possible." This can be achieved in many ways -- in fact, it is probably best achieved by a blitz of activity. Some of the tactics are purely psychological, such as campaigns of deception, propaganda and disinformation. Some of the tactics work on the mind more violently. To borrow a phrase from the 1996 book: "very selective, utterly brutal and ruthless and rapid application of force to intimidate." In this sense, the strike against Hussein's bunker Thursday morning, Baghdad time, was "a classic example of shock and awe if it worked," Ullman said. The theory also contemplated overwhelming strikes to knock out electricity, water supplies and other necessities in an effort to break the will of civilians to resist. So far, U.S. planners have not taken such steps in Iraq. Successfully applied, Ullman said, shock and awe can save lives: "You get them to quit before they die." The phrase entered the consciousness of America's television news producers late in January, after CBS quoted an unnamed Pentagon source using "shock and awe" to describe the emerging plan for Iraq. One database of news reports from around the world reveals a few dozen uses of the phrase in January, a couple of hundred in February and early March, and more than 600 in the past week. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. John P. Jumper recently dismissed the phrase in an interview, saying it had not been used in formulating the air campaign for Iraq. Some military analysts in Washington said that it may have been dangled before the press as part of the months-long campaign to demoralize Iraqi troops and citizens before the war. But whether the stern and chilling phrase shaped American strategy or is just superpower trash talk, there is no erasing it from the world's heated debate over U.S. actions. "I'm a piñata for the antiwar forces," Ullman complained, as he prepared for his next interview. © 2003 The Washington Post Company Forwarded for your information. The text and intent of the article have to stand on their own merits. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many genera- tions. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of teachers, elders or wise men. Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all. Then accept it and live up to it." The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sutra <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
