by Tom Clancy
But so what?
Humankind needs expanding frontiers. We are a curious, questioning, outward-going (in every sense), contentious, competitive bunch. We don’t like confinement—even when the boundaries of our confinement are as wide as the world that gave us birth.
Man will not be contained.
So let him soar!
15
Building Coalitions
WHEN we talk about “Lessons Learned,” there is one that hasn’t been emphasized enough in the literature I’ve read about the Gulf War, and I want to underline it here, at the end of this book. Desert Storm was an international team effort. It couldn’t possibly have worked as well as it did—or maybe even worked at all—if all the nations hadn’t cooperated, paid respect to one another, and shouldered equal portions of the burden. This was not an American war. It was a Coalition war. And we’d better remember how we did it if we’re to be successful in the wars of the future.
The same thought occurred to Chuck Horner on a day in mid-February 1991, a time when the air war was on autopilot. The planes took off in the morning and sallied forth to bomb the Iraqi Army. They returned to bases in Saudi Arabia to load more bombs, then continued the pounding of Saddam’s helpless troops—now little more than an armed rabble, hunkering down anywhere that offered safety from the aerial onslaught.
Among Coalition airmen, everyone was tired, worn down, fatigued, for this was the hard part of war—the unnecessary part. The outcome of the war had been decided, yet the killing went on. Even after his losses of the first month of the war, and even after days upon days of mind-numbing bombing attacks, the contest of wills between the Coalition and the Iraqi leader continued. Saddam Hussein still held on to the notion that he could somehow win this conflict and keep his stolen treasure, Kuwait.
In mid-February, a new addition to the Coalition air force arrived, when Korea sent four C-130 transports to help move the armies to the west for the ground offensive. The day they landed at their new home at Al-Ain Air Base in the United Arab Emirates, Chuck Horner greeted the senior representative of the Republic of Korea Air Force, Major General Lee. Lee would go on to command the ROKAF, become the chairman of their military forces, and eventually become the Secretary of Defense of his country; but that day he was another member of the Coalition, an equal.
At their initial meeting, Horner was surprised at Lee’s quiet, humble, and somewhat abashed tone.
At that point, Horner was totally unaware that the ROKAF had never engaged in foreign deployed operations—operations the USAF takes for granted. Thus they were not equipped with the kits of aircraft spare parts, maps, radio navigation charts, tents, fuel bladders, and bags of individual equipment (such as helmets and chemical weapons protection gear) that are everyday life to an American C-130 squadron. They had simply loaded up their transports with maintenance personnel and whatever spare tires and maintenance equipment they could carry, and had flown off to the unknown. The possibility that they might get shot down and die was of little concern. The questions General Lee faced were far more troubling: How would he feed and house his men? Where would they get fuel and supplies to maintain their jets? Most of all—as newcomers to a war that was well into its fourth week—would they be accepted? The honor of an entire nation rested on his troubled shoulders.
He had no doubt that his men would work tirelessly to do whatever was asked of them. He knew that they would risk their lives to fly missions in support of the Coalition ground forces as they advanced into occupied Kuwait and Iraq. But he also knew that without a helping hand, he would fail, and his aircraft would sit on the ground, idle, even a burden, while others fought and died. Despite this profound unease, he was too proud to beg.
As they talked, Horner began to realize how truly worried and anxious the Korean was—even as he himself knew for certain that most of General Lee’s worries were groundless.
And at that moment, he had a small revelation. It hit Horner as it had never hit him before what the Coalition was all about. Let him tell you his ideas on that.
★ When I met General Lee, my first thoughts were Gee, another nation is joining us, and we can sure use their transports. Our airlifters are worn out moving the armies to the west. But when I met him, I was struck with his apologetic, almost embarrassed, manner. He was worried that he might not have the wherewithal to accomplish his mission. I quickly put those fears to rest with a warm handshake, and with assurances that whatever his people needed would be provided: housing and meals courtesy of the UAE Air Force hosts, spare parts and command and control from his USAF counterparts, and lots of productive work from everybody. We’re all partners in the war to free Kuwait, I concluded.
After my assurances, a huge wave of relief came over him, and in a moment, he and I became friends.
Up until that instant, I had almost taken the Coalition for granted.
It was then that I began to comprehend the nature of this Coalition, its uniqueness in history, and its importance as a defining aspect to future warfare. It was then that I began to treasure the—what was the right word? Brotherhood? Fellowship? The precise term didn’t come easy; we were in a new world here—which I had been too busy to comprehend since those early days of August.
For the first time I realized that this coalition was far different from the joining of forces that had occurred in World Wars I and II . . . that we were a team, not the augmented American force of the Korean War and our ill-fated attempt to fight as a coalition in Vietnam . . . that we Americans were in a position of leadership—yet were truly not in charge . . . that the other national leaders on the team were aware that we were big, had all the nicest equipment, and could be painfully self-assured and arrogant; yet that equality with us was their right and privilege—even though they could never ask for, much less demand, that status, because to do so would be an admission that we were in fact in charge.
General Lee had hit me right between the eyes. He’d made me awaken to the sacrifice it must have been for the other members—especially those from outside NATO—to trust the Americans. And suddenly I began to actually identify with my fellow airmen from this rainbow of nations, joined under a common command in a common purpose.
★ Later that week, I ran into Colonel Mohammed Al-Ayeesh in the Black Hole. This Saudi fighter pilot and Major Turki bin Bandar (called Little Turki) had been the first foreign officers to join the Black Hole planning group in September.73
In September, we had had no foreign officers assisting our planning for offensive air operations, and that had troubled me. Yet I knew that if I asked permission from Schwarzkopf, he would be concerned about security leaks and deny my request. Still, in the belief that it was better to seek forgiveness than to live a life of indecision, I’d gone to General Behery.
“Ahmed,” I said, “you must know we are planning offensive operations against the Iraqis.”
With a smile, he assured me he was well aware that all those Americans shuttling to and from the large conference room next to both our offices must have been involved in something beyond the defense of Saudi Arabia.
I then explained that I did not want to commit his nation to a war in Iraq, but we both knew that such a thing would be required if Saddam did not terminate the occupation of Kuwait.
He agreed.
Then I took a deep breath, prayed that Schwarzkopf would not kill me when he found out, and asked if General Behery had a couple of bright young officers who could participate in our planning efforts. If we were to be a true coalition, we needed representation from the other nations that would join in the fight to free Kuwait. I assured him that this did not constitute a formal agreement by his government, and added that, though I fully expected them to keep him informed, anyone he gave me would be sworn to secrecy.
He nodded. Then we turned our conversation to other matters.
Later that day, Ayeesh and Little Turki reported to my office, and I took them to the Black Hole to meet their new boss, Buster Glosson.
Breaking into a huge smile, his eyes sparkling, he asked me, “You really want to know?” When I nodded, yes, he bluntly told me, “They treated me like a dumb officer. The moment I walked in, they shunted me to the side.
“General Glosson was a great boss,” he went on to explain, “and he treated us with respect; but we didn’t work with him. We had to work with our counterparts in your air force; and with them I was reluctant to speak, and they were not interested in what some Arab who had never been to war had to offer.”
By February, of course, the two Saudis had become full partners in the Black Hole team, but I realized what a high hill they’d had to climb to overcome the inherent prejudices of the Americans.
I thought back then to the beginning of the war, when Sheikh Mohammed from the United Arab Emirates had flown to Riyadh with his two planners in order to ensure that the largely American staff accepted them. I recalled the first time I had met Colonels Khalid and Faris as they and the Sheikh had nervously ridden down the elevator with me to go meet Buster.74 Because their Chief of Staff had trusted them to ensure that their fledgling air force was well represented in our councils of power, they were proud, almost arrogant; yet they were also afraid. You could see it in their eyes as they entered this den of Americans—violent, self-assured people who liked to call Arabs “ragheads” behind their backs, and whose movies about terrorism always seemed to feature bad guys who looked very much like they did.
It was Ayeesh who made me ponder the importance of this coalition and how hard it was to form it and sustain it.
★ What set this coalition apart from other military associations of states was not the nobility of their cause. Certainly the mission of the Allies who liberated occupied nations in World War II was measurably more important on that scale. What set this coalition apart was the attitude of the Americans.
It all started with the President. George Bush instinctively knew the role he had to play, and it was far from the interventionist role that had characterized the attitude of his predecessors in Vietnam. It was not his role to dictate the contribution of others, to tell them how they would fit into an American war. Rather, George Bush’s experience as head of the CIA and Ambassador to China and the United Nations had taught him that Americans did not have all the answers and that others could contribute more than just the lives of their fighting men. For that reason, he had sent Dick Cheney to Jeddah in August to ask King Fahd what he thought we should do after the invasion of Kuwait. And as the days dragged on, the Coalition grew stronger, not weaker, despite the difficulties that countries of such diverse cultures and interests experienced working side by side. In large measure, that was because the American President did not throw his weight around. He listened and sought counsel from the others.
As a result, the men and women from other Coalition states did not receive secret phone calls from their capitals warning them to watch the Americans, telling them to be careful lest the United States military lead them down the path taken in Vietnam.
The Americans needed this Coalition as much as those fighting to defend their countries in the Gulf needed us.
At the end of the Cold War, there remained a single superpower, the United States. How long she will remain so, only God knows, but for now we are it. This is a very dangerous thing. Our economy dominates the economies of other nations. Or as the Saudis (whose riyal is tied to the dollar) say, “When America gets a cold, we get pneumonia.” If the President of the United States decides to bomb another nation, who can stop him? Sure, other nations can condemn our actions, and Russia retains the means to rain thousands of nuclear weapons on North America. But the size, economic strength, and military power of the United States is without equal.
Therefore, it is incumbent on the American president to walk carefully and to think before acting, as unintended consequences of military action—no matter how noble the cause—can have far-reaching effect.
This is why the Gulf Coalition and the way it was formed and maintained is so important. The cause was noble—to free Kuwait. The Americans were needed, because of their military power and leadership roles in organizations such as the United Nations. But the Americans needed the other Coalition partners: to provide bases and ports for access; to provide soldiers, sailors, and airmen to confront a huge Iraqi military machine fighting on their own soil; but most of all, to provide counsel and legitimacy for a superpower that, left to its own devices, could fall into a pit of quicksand like Vietnam.
Because of the divergent cultures, self-interests, and experiences of its partners, the Coalition was hugely difficult to form and maintain. The biggest divergence was between Americans and Arabs.
The four-decade-plus existence of NATO provided common experience for American, Canadian, French, Italian, and English members of the Coalition. And for airmen, integration was further eased because they all spoke English and (as noted earlier) flight operations are task-organized. Thus, they could fight in the same piece of sky and work as one, using the common Air Tasking Order as guidance while retaining prerogatives appropriate to their national identities.
By way of contrast, the Gulf Cooperation Council nations did not share an experience like those from NATO. More important, they did not have the combat experience of Korea, Vietnam, and the Cold War. Thus, they entered the fight as an equal partner who did not feel equal. More important still, their air forces were young. If it was troubling to a young USAF pilot to wonder how he would do his first time in combat, consider how troubling it must have been to an Arab fighter pilot to wonder how he would do his first time in combat.
In fact, the Arabs had nothing to worry about on that score.
Let’s look at the record.
In their brief combat in a life-or-death losing cause, the Kuwaiti Air Force did very well. When the Iraqis came across the border that night long ago in August, the air force of Kuwait rose to meet them.
A key ingredient of the Iraqi plan had been to capture the emir of Kuwait and his family, so the invaders could establish a puppet government and legitimize their theft of the nation and its people. In advance of the attacking tanks, Iraqi special forces, some of Saddam’s best-trained, best-equipped, and most loyal troops, were flying in helicopters to Kuwait City to surround the royal palace, overwhelm the royal guard, and capture the emir.
It didn’t happen. KAF fighter aircraft and surface-to-air missiles shot down thirty-three of the Iraqi vanguard.
Though the fight was over quickly, and Kuwaiti air bases were overrun by tanks early the next morning, the KAF had bought the time the emir needed to flee to Saudi Arabia. Having saved their emir, the KAF fighters had to turn themselves and flee to Saudi Arabia. While they were bitterly ashamed of their defeat, they had fought well and now only wanted another chance to avenge the unholy occupation of their land and to liberate their wives and children in occupied Kuwait. Men like Lieutenant Colonel Al-Samdan, who represented his nation in the TACC, had only one fear—that the Coalition would not go to war, that Kuwait would not be freed, and that they could never go home to their families.
For the other GCC nations, the choices were less clear.
The year before, Bahrain had received brand-new F-16s, the world’s premium multirole aircraft, after its pilots and ground crews had operated F-5 fighters for years. Though F-16s are easy jets to fly and maintain, it is difficult to maximize the full capabilities of this amazing aircraft’s avionics suite. In the USAF, years of training are required before pilots are capable of using the F-16 to its fullest. The Bahrainis didn’t have a year, and they didn’t have homegrown leaders who had fought in Vietnam to guide them.
But they did have “Saint”—the call sign used by an American who had left the USAF and taken a job in Bahrain as an
instructor pilot. I cannot use his real name. A typical fighter pilot, Saint loved flying more than anything else. So when the chance came to fly with the Bahrainis—to fly daily, with no paperwork other than filling out grade sheets—he jumped at it.
When Iraq invaded Kuwait, the emir offered his nation’s squadrons of F-5s and F-16s to the task of aiding Kuwait, and he asked Saint to help.
This request meant problems for Saint. As an American citizen and not a member of our military forces, it was legally forbidden for him to take part in another nation’s combat operations. So when the Iraqis threatened Bahrain, he should have joined those who fled the region. Instead, he stayed on where he was needed, training pilots.
After the war began, Major Hamad, the commander of the Bahraini Air Force, was faced with a dilemma: His air force was eager to enter the war; his pilots were well trained; he had some of the best-maintained jets in the world; but he had no one with combat experience—no one with the self-confidence that combat instills. He didn’t have to look far for a solution.
He went to Saint and asked him to help get them started, and Saint was not only delighted to help, he was overjoyed at the chance to return to combat, and honored that Hamad had asked him.
Saint flew the first Bahraini combat mission as leader. He flew the next one as number three. Then, as the Bahrainis gained combat experience, he flew as number four.
He did this fully aware that flying combat for Bahrain was putting him into a legal no-man’s-land. At worst, if he was shot down, he had no status as a prisoner of war and could be executed as a spy. He could also lose his citizenship, as our State Department takes a very dim view of Americans running around the world fighting for other people. But he was a fighter pilot, and such insignificant details couldn’t keep him from strapping on his G suit.
Saint flew as many missions as he could, but reckoning had to come, and finally, friends in the American embassy warned him that the State Department had heard rumors about his activities and were preparing to investigate.