"Shock and Awe". What do you think about this strategy?

Question

It's difficult for me to understand that. "To move a great army, a massive military operation only to scare the enemy,.." for me, this tactic doesn't work.
I'm not a general, but i play karate and kick.boxing, and I know the secret of the fight is the study. To study the technics and upgrade them, and to study your enemy to create the good strategy to win against it.
The martial arts are study. And the war is a kind of "martial art".
I can't believe your military-brains really thought to scare the enemy to win a war. I can't believe that, cause this thing is impossible in the real life.
Nowadays, watching continuosly on TV your soldiers die, I saw a documentary on "Shock and Awe" strategy on History Channel. I couldn't believe that.. If you do a war, you first have to know every thing about your enemy and how it can react after your attack. A strategy who says "more soldiers your send, less the enemy will react", for me, it's inconceivable.
Am I wrong?

Thanks for the answers, but i have to ask something more to the person who believe "shock and awe" is the best strategy.
You said "...In the first 12-24 hours, you destroy as much of the enemies critical equipment as is possible. Communications, Command and Control, power, water, aircraft, ships, artillery, tanks and key unit positions..."
Okay, look now the recent (fifty years old) hiostory.
Nazists DESTROY completly Stalindgrad. Factories, bridge, bunkers.... If you read the pages of this battle, you'll find that the Stukas of the Lutwaffe and the artillery of the Wermact did the same action of your F-16, Cruise Missile or B1-B2 Stealth do now in Irak. The Russians couldn't send new troopers to Stalingrad, cause the warfront was too long and Russia was poor. But Nazists, with the TOTAL SUPREMACY OF THE SKIES, LOST STALINGRAD BATTLE.

Well, now get back to the nowadays.
I said "war is study", to study the enemy to find the best strategy as possible.
If you knew better the arabic people (Irak, Saudi Arabia, Siria, Dubai.. all the pepole who has grown in this lands have similar skills), you would find that they aren't like us. If a western man, for sample like an european or an american, see the distruption, the effect of a "shock and awe" strategy against hiself, sure he cries, he gonna be crazy and upset. "Shock and awe" works very well against the people of the West-side of the world. But, for the arabic isn't the same.
The error of "Shock and awe" is this: You create a strategy, only thinking everybody in this world lives,be scary, fights the war and reacts like the West-side of the world'people. This mistake it's quite easy to see. Infact you didn't know that if you destroy the most important buildings, you create a good landscape for the "guerrilia". And the arabic people, i know them, they don't lose easily

If a people like the arabic people who have a great pride,are in war against you, what do you expect to get back destroyng their most important buildings?
If the haterd against you is well grownth in the brain of the people, what will you get back destroying their barracks, military accademy or similars?
Obviously you'll get back only "guerilia", kamikaze, blood and fire. If you destroy the most important war buildings, the symbol of a regime, you'll obtain only the change of the kind of battle: from traditional modern war to "guerrilia", the war of the poors. And the active members of the regime became more angry, nasty against you.

I'm with the USA, but your generals made a big mistake with this strategy, and you payd the highest price in humans lifes.

And remind this: against the japanese in the second World Wide War, you use nuke only after 5 years of hard fighting. Not at the beginning.

Dear promethius,
Thanks for your answers.... but I'm still having doubt about "Shock and Awe".

Okay, i know that nazists didn't use Shock and Awe, infact the question is another. How can you take the control of a place, like a city or a land, if you destroy the simbol of the culture and the most important buildings of this area? Obviously in my opinion the villagers of this area won't be happy to see you, especially after 4 days of dropping bombs.. And, if you look at the target of the first days air and missiles attack, you'll see that Shock and Awe destroy only buildings, not the enemy. And this is dangerous cause you cut the head, the brain of the enemy, but the arms are still fighting against you. And the people can take part in this new.army.
You can answer me that after the first days you'll send trooper to conquer the land.. but in a land where important buildings are destroyed, which position will you take? With Shock and Awe you change the war in a bloody "ghost-battle".

Answer 1

If I could play devil's advocate with Shock and Awe; it can work, and it is a very demoralizing tactic in conventional war. The problem was that we didn't have a conventional enemy. We had an enemy with elaborate social networks and the ability to blend in with the population. Shock and Awe, which is really a blitzkrieg style tactic, worked great: their was minimal opposition. We charged right into the capital and took it. And over the course of the next several years suffered attrition losses in the form of suicide / car bombers. The key is we are their now, and we are dug in. We may suffer the occasional loss, but it is not happening at a rate that is going to wipe us out anytime soon. In the meantime, we made it possible for the government to get into power. Over time, the regular citizens will have a choice to rebel or accept the government. Being the sheeple that most people are, many will accept the new government if it does a decent job.

"If you do a war, you first have to know every thing about your enemy and how it can react after your attack."

Agreed, especially against insurgents or enemies that are based on a social network. The Iraqi citizens are culturally equipped with a mindset to sacrifice their lives to defend themselves if necessary.

Answer 2

You are obviously totally uninformed as to what "shock and awe" is. It is not something we do as a demonstration for the enemy to watch. It is something we do TO the enemy. It is designed to totally devastate as much as possible in as short amount of time as possible. In the first 12-24 hours, you destroy as much of the enemies critical equipment as is possible. Communications, Command and Control, power, water, aircraft, ships, artillery, tanks and key unit positions. Even though the enemy may have know you are coming and has had months, if not years to prepare, you totally crush their defenses around these targets and obliterate them. Twenty four hours after the 1st bomb hits, they are in shock and awe over the damage they took, how ineffective they were at stopping it, and the total chaos that was once their well oiled, all powerful military.

For you watching on tv, you say "So what?". For the unit at the front 250 miles away, who's total communiction system has just gone silent, and is being carpet bombed by a heavy flight of B-52s, it is not so much of "So what?" as "OH SH*T!"

Answer 3

Starve the beast means that the conservatives belief that if they keep cutting taxes, it will have the impact of reducting government further and further as government needs revenues to operate. So by denying the government of tax revenues via constant tax cuts, you probably have extensive deficits at first, and then a cry to reduce government because obviously its overspending if its the red. But in fact the real reason government is in the red is due to the persistent cutting of taxes which is starving government of the revenues it needs to live. The shock doctrine is where conservatives believe that having policies that lead to a severe economic crisis and near meltdown of an economy is not necessarily a bad thing at all....they believe that by pursuing conservative policies, not only are there short term profits for the rich and the big corporations, but also later on as by having adverse economic crisis as a result of policies that they pursue, a state of emergency becomes a norm and that the country is down on its knees and the pitch can more easily be made for "austerity measures", which basically means tightening the belt and cutting expenses and cutting government spending. Both of the above have the goal of reducing government spending with the additional icing on the cake being that if government spending is small taxes on the rich will consequently be small as well.

Answer 4

Silvio, perhaps you're not aware that "shock and awe" is just a new name for a strategy that's more than 2,000 years old. You bomb your enemy at night, sustain small bombing through the day, you use loud noise, high visual effect weapons because it makes people believe the damage is all encompassing even at times when you're trying to preserve the infrastructure with as little damage as possible. Night attacks have a proven psychological effect as well, and that doesn't even begin to mention the decreased combat ability of a unit that hasn't slept in 4 days because of bombing during the night and combat during the day. Shock and awe, if you'd read your "art of war" is a perfect strategy, because it weakens the enemy without ever actually engaging them in direct contact.

Read your updates: for the first one, I think there's a general misunderstanding about what constitutes "shock and awe" vs. what constitutes high ops warfare. Shock and awe deals specifically with what TIME you bomb and what type of explosive you use... to create an effect. As to your second update, there is no physiological difference between an arab and a westerner that allows an arab to sleep through explosions pounding their streets or to somehow function as effectively after not being able to sleep for 4 days. Biologically the human body (ALL human bodies) begin to reach the disfunction phase at that point.

Answer 5

I think the real answer lies in "shock and awe" was part of the operation where mobilizing that many troops and equipment in that short of a period along with the might of said force was thought to demoralize the enemy into realizing that it was up against such a superior force that they had no way of winning. To that end less actual fighting would have to take place.
In a conventional war this strategy might work but in a more guerilla war which this one has taken on it really didnt do anything.

Answer 6

I dont think that you understand shock and awe. Its not just a tactic of scaring your opponent. Its a tactic of meeting your opponent with such overwhelming technology and force, that their initial lines of Defense are crushed. And because of how quickly and easily those initial lines of Defense are crushed, interior forces abandon the battle, knowing that they can be crushed just as easily. Its not just a matter of putting a bunch of guys out in the sand and having them scream real loud in the hopes that the enemy will get scared and run away. Its punching the enemy in the mouth so fast and hard that everyone that they have left knows that the end is coming quickly, right from the onset.

Answer 7

Just remember the very first Shock and AWE, when we dropped the bombs on Japan that was the very first shock and awe, and it put an abrupt end to ww2. Shock and Awe shows the enemy you mean business, trouble is where we are fighting now there is no army we are fighting, thet are just a regular old citizen willing to plant an IED on the side of the road, you can't win a war if you don't know who your enemy is

Answer 8

Yes you are wrong. You also left out "and I will never be a general".

The use of air power softens the target. Period. End of story.

This goes back to the 1800's when artillery became more effective. While it does not stop casualties it does reduce them.

There is "0" comparison between hand to hand and modern air/armored warfare tactics.

SSG US Army 73-82

Answer 9

You win not by taking out the enemy but by keeping him down. and making him break his guard.


Read the very old text of Sun Tzu and The Art of War.

Sun Tzu explains several times that you should make yourself well defended, but that victory comes from taking advantage of your opponents' actions.

Straightforward attacks are hard to win.

Having a conflict is bad.

Answer 10

The "shock and Awe" was very effective and was the best plan possible. Why give the enemy time to develop a counter attack.