August 30, 2002

CONFRONTATION WITH IRAQ WILL INVOLVE
TECHNOLOGICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL PITFALLS

Philadelphia, Pa. - An offensive against Saddam Hussein would entail two dangerous pitfalls for U.S. and allied forces, one technological, the other psychological, according to a Penn State political scientist.

First, the enormous edge Americans enjoy in conventional military arsenals may make Saddam Hussein all the more inclined to fall back on weapons of mass destruction, even nuclear missiles, says Dr. Stephen J. Cimbala, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Penn State's Delaware County Campus, near Philadelphia, in his new book, "The Dead Volcano: The Background and Effects of Nuclear War Complacency" (Praeger).

Second, Hussein, as already demonstrated by his war with Iran in the 1980s, represents a culture where brutal losses in war are an accepted fact of life. During that eight-year conflict, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Iranians perished in grueling ground campaigns, Cimbala says. In a confrontation with the United States, Saddam will bank on the fact that Americans are nervous about military ventures involving heavy casualties. This could tend to make him even more of a risk-taker, especially if the Americans close in on Baghdad, according to the book.

"Since the Gulf War of 1991, the weapons of first choice for the United States and others who want to be major league political players have been the high-technology, information-based conventional weapons for long-range, precision strike," Cimbala notes. "This so-called `revolution in military affairs' is thought by some to have established a dividing line between those states that can afford to play in this high-tech military world of `smart' or future `brilliant' weapons and those such as Iraq who cannot afford the price of entry."

The Penn State political scientist warns that the American fascination with technology, which views hardware and software as the solution to every foreign policy challenge, may actually be a hindrance in dealing with rogue states or terrorist groups with access to even the least sophisticated nuclear weapons.

"Because the United States has established an apparent military supremacy in high-technology, conventional warfare, its enemies, such as Saddam Hussein, will be more tempted to employ means of mass destruction now thought to be passé by American planners and pundits," Cimbala says. "This overlap, between American expectations of military predominance by means of knowledge-based warfare and the crude mass destruction threatened by America's potential enemies, could lead to serious policy and strategy misjudgments."

Americans may also have a different definition of winning than Saddam Hussein, the Penn State researcher adds. The Gulf War, for instance, might appear to have been a smashing victory for the United States from a tactical and regional perspective. Saddam's troops were driven out of Kuwait and pushed back into Iraq, all the time being pummeled by "smart" firepower and forced to sustain horrendous losses in the field. Furthermore, the resulting peace forced Saddam to dismantle many of his weapons of mass destruction, accept no-fly zones in his Kurdish north and Shiite Arab south and submit to sanctions that straight jacketed the Iraq economy, Cimbala notes.

"From Saddam Hussein's perspective and that of some others in the Middle East, Iraq had successfully stood off a coalition of 30 states headed by the world's sole superpower and survived with its regime and much of its modern army intact," he adds.

Saddam's regime was left unshaken by numerous air attacks by the Clinton administration and a supposedly clandestine CIA effort to topple Hussein by stirring up a Kurdish revolt in northern Iraq. This failure raises even more doubt about who really won the Gulf War, notes the Penn State researcher.

"In the 21st century, those states or revolutionary movements fighting against the international top dogs may calculate `winning' or `losing' with a calculator powered by the batteries of religious faith, nationalism or simple warrior mentalities," Cimbala says. “To the surprise and chagrin of Western audiences, they may be quite willing both to inflict and endure horrific casualties, as well as dispense with legal niceties governing the conduct of war.”

***pab***