When properly applied, operational art compels operational leaders to consider strategic consequences of tactical actions. When not properly applied, we saw what went wrong in the Iraq War.

Introduction

The United States led a Coalition invasion of Iraq in March 2003. US President George W. Bush specified the national strategic objectives of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) as liberating the Iraqi people, eliminating terrorist infrastructure and weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), and beginning political and economic reconstruction.^[1] Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld translated these into military strategic objectives, and Central Command (CENTCOM) Commander General Tommy Franks further developed these into operational objectives.^[2] Despite President Bush’s declaration of ‘Mission Accomplished’ and an end to combat operations in May 2003, the war carried on until 2011 at a cost of 4,704 Coalition and 103,775 Iraqi lives.^[3] Between 2003 and 2009, Australia committed a Special Air Service squadron group, an FA-18 Hornet fighter jet squadron, and six rotations of a battalion-sized group employed in stability operations.^[4] Ultimately, the Iraq War was considered a failure and key national strategic and military strategic objectives remained incomplete. This contributed to the civil war between Shi’a and Sunni factions that was worsening even as Coalition forces departed.^[5] Former US Lieutenant General Daniel Bolger stated, ‘we—guys like me— demonstrated poor strategic and operational leadership’.^[6] The Iraq War is a valuable case study of the role of operational art and the operational level of war.

Operational art was selectively applied to the invasion of Iraq, rather than the holistic campaign, and CENTCOM was overly focused on the operational level of the war, to the detriment of its strategic responsibilities for eliciting and assisting interagency integration. These failures of operational leadership and command contributed to the failure to meet the war’s strategic objectives despite relative success in the pursuit of operational objectives.

The application of operational art and the operational level is explored in two parts. First, operational art was applied to the initial invasion of Iraq, as demonstrated by the success of Phase III decisive offensive operations. Operational art was not, however, applied to the war as a whole, as demonstrated by the incoherencies between Phase III and Phase IV post-hostilities. This was evident in the operational end state of Phase III, which was a poor start state for Phase IV due to a failure to consider risk, or orchestrate consecutive operations. Furthermore, the operational and strategic objectives to be achieved in Phase IV were hindered by poor interagency coordination and cooperation, as well as a lack of strategic clarity. Second, the operational level was significantly constrained by strategic level objectives and resource limitations. This created complexities for operational level planning that led to CENTCOM assuming increased operational level responsibilities, to the detriment of its theatre level strategic responsibilities. CENTCOM’s focus on the operational level of war, combined with the US Defense Department’s responsibility for the entirety of the war, was detrimental to the strategic integration of non-military capabilities. Ultimately, this high-level isolation of military planning exemplified the misconception of an operational level free from strategic interference.

Both Australian and US doctrine are referred to throughout this essay. According to Australian doctrine, operational art is the ‘skilful employment of military forces’, linking resources and actions, while considering risk, to achieve the strategic end state.^[7] Furthermore, the operational level of war ‘links the military strategic and tactical levels’ and is where military campaigns and operations are designed to ‘achieve strategic objectives and the strategic end state’.^[8] The operational level, therefore, is a military domain and is where operational art is principally applied. US doctrine is broadly similar, except where it applies operational art at the strategic level, in addition to the operational level, thereby implying the involvement of non-military agencies.^[9] Since both doctrines agree that operational planning requires interagency cooperation and coordination, the difference between Australian and US doctrine does not unduly affect this analysis. Both doctrines could be summarised in the words of Michael Evans, in that ‘operational art is cognitive and creative in character and is defined by the function that it performs in uniting strategy with tactics through the act of campaigning’ and the ‘operational level is defined by its connecting position between strategy and tactics’.^[10]

Operational Art: A Series of Incoherent Events

Operational art was applied to the invasion of Iraq, as demonstrated by the success of Phase III. The plan for OIF contained four phases: Phase I: Preparation, Phase II: Shape the Battlespace, Phase III: Decisive Offensive Operations, and Phase IV: Post-Hostilities.^[11] For Phase III, the invasion, General Franks and CENTCOM determined a list of operational objectives that would attain certain military strategic objectives set by Secretary Rumsfeld. These operational objectives included capturing Baghdad and key oil fields, airfields, and ports.^[12] They supported the military strategic objectives of removing Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s regime, securing national infrastructure, and delivering humanitarian assistance. ^[13] General Franks’ operational design also exploited the technological superiority of US forces, and maximised disruption of enemy forces by early targeting of command and control centres, including numerous Ba’ath Party headquarters buildings.^[14] These examples represented essential elements of operational art. In particular, the appropriate application of military resources enabled a ‘sequence of actions that lead to fulfillment of the operational objectives’. ^[15] Williamson Murray and Robert Scales considered the invasion of Iraq, starting on 19 March and declared complete on 1 May, a ‘combination of tactical and operational virtuosity that obliterated the Baathist regime”.^[16] It was also described as a “three-week blitzkrieg that tore through an opposing army of some 350,000” at a cost of 138 American lives.^[17] The invasion, however, was not the entirety of the war, and did not attain President Bush’s national strategic objectives.

Operational art was not applied to the war as a whole, as demonstrated by the inconsistencies between Phases III and IV. OIF may have been titled an operation, but it would be more accurately defined as a campaign because it consisted of a “set of military operations” that as a whole should have attained the strategic objectives and end state.^[18] The successful attainment of operational objectives in Phase III contributed to, but did not attain President Bush’s national strategic objectives. Iraq had been freed from Saddam’s dictatorial regime, and it could no longer support terrorist activities or threaten to use WMDs.^[19] The regime, however, had not been replaced and therefore political and economic reconstruction, and true liberation of the Iraqi people, had not yet been accomplished.^[20] The attempt to attain this strategic end state in Phase IV, after President Bush declared an end to combat operations on 1 May 2003, faced a number of challenges.  Principal amongst these challenges were the lack of coherence between Phases III and IV, and a lack of coherence between military and non-military activities. The correct application of operational art should have been at the heart of bringing coherence across the campaign as a whole. This is highlighted by US doctrine, which states, ‘without operational art, campaigns and operations could be sets of disconnected events’.^[21]

The operational end state of Phase III was a poor start state for Phase IV due to a failure to consider possible risk, or to orchestrate consecutive operations of the campaign. Operational art is the mechanism that considers possible risks when linking ends, ways, and means.^[22] CENTCOM’s plan, however, made a number of assumptions and failed to consider the risk of these assumptions being incorrect. CENTCOM assumed fighting would stop once the regular Iraqi forces were defeated, US forces would be viewed as liberators, and the Iraqi system of government would continue to operate after Saddam’s key officials were removed. None of these assumptions proved true.^[23] Operational art is also the mechanism which sequences operations within the campaign.^[24] By the time US forces had secured Baghdad and declared an end to combat, some advance forces had spent the entire duration in combat, and were running out of water, rations, and fuel.^[25] This exhausted force of just over 100,000 troops found itself occupying a country of 38 million people spread across an area of 400,000 square kilometres.^[26] Therefore, this failure to apply operational art to the campaign as a whole resulted in a lack of contingency plans to respond to realised risk events, and insufficient resources to counter the looting and violent reprisals that eventuated. Keith Shimko described the US as ‘woefully ill-equipped to deal with the mess that came after’ the invasion.^[27]

The operational and strategic objectives to be achieved in Phase IV were hindered by conflicting military and civilian leadership, resulting in poor interagency coordination and cooperation. Operational art is expected to promote unity of effort by integrating military operations with the activities of other agencies.^[28] The Department of Defense established the civilian-led Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA) just two months before the war. ORHA intended to ‘follow advancing US forces into Iraq’ and ‘work their way out of a job within 90 days’, but CENTCOM had planned for ORHA to enter Baghdad 120 days after the fighting had finished.^[29] In the absence of direction for post-combat activities, tactical commanders started well-meaning but disjointed reconstruction efforts that later became difficult to coordinate.^[30] This situation was exacerbated by the creation of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), and its replacement of ORHA just two months after the war started. Ambassador Jerry Bremer III, head of CPA, immediately dissolved the Ba’ath Party and the entire Iraqi military and security organisation against the advice of military operational planners. This removed tens of thousands of officials from the Iraqi administration, and left hundreds of thousands of trained and armed Iraqis ‘jobless and angry’.^[31] As Hew Strachan noted, ‘operational art needs direction; it requires of policy a degree of clarity and a consistency of purpose’.^[32] Therefore, while operational planning was complicated by inconsistent strategic decisions, operational leaders failed to seek and confirm the policy direction that would have allowed them to properly coordinate effects.

The Operational Level: Unwelcome Strategic Interference

The operational level was significantly constrained by strategic level objectives and resource limitations. In the US, the Secretary of Defense determines strategic military objectives.^[33] Secretary Rumsfeld did this by outlining eight objectives for OIF. These were to: end Saddam’s regime, eliminate WMDs, collect intelligence on illicit global WMD networks, capture or drive out terrorists, collect intelligence on terrorist networks, end sanctions and deliver humanitarian support, secure oil fields, and set the conditions for transition to a representative government.^[34] Secretary Rumsfeld also sought, however, to limit the resources available to the operational level based on advice from the Pentagon. It is believed he specified an invasion force of between 10,000 and 60,000 troops, whereas CENTCOM had initially estimated a requirement of 300,000 to 500,000 troops.^[35] While the operational level is responsible for developing the campaign within its allocated resource, this vast difference created tension between the uniformed and civilian Defense staff.^[36] This likely contributed to CENTCOM’s increased responsibility at the operational level, as General Franks fought to influence the strategic resource limitations while forming a workable military plan within its constraints.

CENTCOM assumed operational level planning responsibilities due to the complexities of the resource allocations and the military objectives determined by Secretary Rumsfeld. US Combatant Commands such as CENTCOM would normally focus on theatre level strategy, while Joint Force Commanders (JFCs) would be the most senior operational level of command.^[37] This is broadly similar to the relationship between Military Strategic Commitments and Commander Joint Operations in the Australian context.^[38] The severe limitations on troops, however, had dire implications for the ability of JFCs to achieve their operational objectives. Furthermore, the inclusion of non-military aspirations such as ending sanctions and creating the conditions for governmental transition created additional complexity for operational level planners and commanders.^[39] General James Mattis, writing after the Iraq War, highlighted the importance of operational design in providing ‘enough structure to an ill-structured problem so that planning can lead to effective action’.^[40] In this way, General Franks could be considered to be responding to his perception of an ‘ill-defined problem’ and trying to structure it appropriately for his subordinate echelons. His ‘lines and slices’ schematic, assigning Coalition capabilities against elements of the Iraqi regime, certainly assisted visualisation by his tactical forces.^[41] This operational focus, however, came at the expense of strategic integration of other national agencies.  

CENTCOM’s focus on the operational level of war, combined with the Defense Department’s responsibility for the entirety of the war, was detrimental to the strategic integration of non-military capabilities. The strategic level is responsible for coordinating the whole-of-government approach to achieving the strategic end state.^[42] Part of General Franks’ responsibilities for theatre strategy, therefore, should have been working with Secretary Rumsfeld at the strategic level to integrate non-military agencies in support of the strategic objectives. Instead, General Franks told the Pentagon, ‘Keep Washington focused on policy and strategy. Leave me the hell alone to run the war’.^[43] This situation was worsened when the Department of Defense was assigned as the lead agency for managing Iraq after the war.^[44] CENTCOM conducted some rudimentary analysis of humanitarian issues, and formed a planning team for Phase IV post-combat operations, but failed to involve ‘real-world people and information’ or develop a workable plan.^[45] According to a Rand Corporation study, the ‘Defense Department lacked the experience, expertise, funding authority, local knowledge, and established contacts with other potential organizations needed to establish, staff, support and oversee a large multiagency civilian mission’.^[46] Overall, this escalation of the operational level, and its prickly relationship with the strategic level, meant CENTCOM was purely coordinating military resources in pursuit of operational objectives. Whole-of-government resources were not well coordinated in pursuit of strategic objectives.

This high-level isolation of military planning exemplified the misconception of an operational level free from unwelcome strategic interference. Justin Kelly and Mike Brennan consider the US military to be founded on ‘an independent level of war served by its own level of command, operating free from unwelcome interference from strategy’. ^[47] Furthermore, responsibility for the full breadth of the war was essentially assigned to an echelon that considered itself to be at the operational level. This meant a periphery organisation became responsible for organising ‘the center from which the other instruments of national power receive their direction’.^[48] Australian doctrine also risks being applied in this manner. Tim McKenna and Tim McKay noted the ‘consensus within Defence (is) that the operational level is the domain of primacy for a joint approach; at the strategic level an integrated civilian-military approach is needed’.^[49] An operational commander should, however, understand the limit of military resources. General Mattis described this as part of the operational commander’s responsibility to ‘include other partners in the early design effort, and understand that the resulting operational approach may, of necessity, be a consensus-based product’.^[50]

Conclusion

This essay has used a combination of Australian and US doctrine to analyse the role of operational art and the operational level of war during the Iraq War in 2003. According to this shared understanding, operational art was selectively applied to the invasion of Iraq rather than to the holistic campaign. Furthermore, CENTCOM was overly focused on the operational level of war, to the detriment of its strategic responsibilities for eliciting and assisting the integration of interagency efforts. These failures of operational leadership and command contributed to the failure to meet the war’s strategic objectives despite relative success in the pursuit of operational objectives.

The role of operational art in the Iraq War was not exploited to its full potential. During the invasion of Iraq, operational art was applied to one particular operation, but did not consider the campaign as a whole. This caused incoherencies in objectives, resourcing, and force posture between the invasion of Phase III and the occupation of Phase IV. It also caused incoherencies between the military and civilian plans for the management of post-invasion Iraq. Operational art, correctly applied across the whole campaign, should have balanced the competing priorities across phases and organisations. This highlights the value of operational art and its role in encouraging cooperation, coordination, and unity of effort. While operational art is primarily conducted at the operational level, and is therefore a military activity, it is the function that forces operational leaders and commanders to consider the strategic consequences of tactical actions. Operational leadership can therefore be improved by employing operational art to alter or limit operational objectives in order to best suit the strategic operations.

The role of the operational level in the Iraq War detracted from the ability to integrate strategic effects. General Franks and CENTCOM responded to resource limitations, and broad responsibility for non-military objectives, by focusing on planning at the operational level. CENTCOM’s operational design provided enough structure to the problem for tactical commanders to visualise their role in the plan, but it also distanced itself from policy and strategy. This resulted in military staff planning in isolation from other agencies that could have provided valuable input. Furthermore, other national agencies were denied an understanding of the military plan. This highlights the value of the operational level and its role in framing a strategic problem in a way that allows military forces to contribute to its solution. It also, however, demonstrates the risk inherent in thinking of the operational level as an entirely military echelon. Operational leadership can be improved by seeking and embracing opportunities to improve military planning with the help of other agencies.

Ultimately, the Iraq War was a poor exemplar of the employment of operational art and the role of the operational level of war. Used too rigidly, or used as an excuse to ignore inconvenient distractions, operational art and the operational level become a barrier to the achievement of strategic objectives. Operational leaders would be better to embrace the opportunities that these doctrinal concepts provide for structured interaction with the strategic level, as well as non-military agencies. In the absence of this type of positive engagement, strategic leadership is likely to impose even further into operational level military affairs, or bypass the military planners entirely. This would, in turn, make the concepts of operational art and the operational level of war redundant, thereby denying operational leaders the relative autonomy they originally sought.

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Footnotes

^[1] Michael Ong, “Iraq: Issues on the Eve of War,” Current Issues Brief No. 19 2002–03, March 18, 2003, 6.

^[2] Anthony H. Cordesman, The Lessons of the Iraq War: Main Report (Washington: Center for Strategic and International Studies, 2003), 72, 58.

^[3] Nora Bensahel, “Mission Not Accomplished: What Went Wrong with Iraqi Reconstruction,” Journal of Strategic Studies 29, no. 3 (2006): 453; Cathal J. Nolan, The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost (Oxford University Press, 2017), 581; Daniel Bolger, Why We Lost: A General’s Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014), eBook chapter 12.

^[4] John Blaxland, Marcus Fielding, and Thea Gellerfy, eds., Niche Wars: Australia in Afghanistan and Iraq, 2001-2014 (Australian National University Press, 2020), 5, 92.

^[5] Nolan, The Allure of Battle: A History of How Wars Have Been Won and Lost, 581.

^[6] Bolger, Why We Lost: A General’s Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, eBook, Author’s Note.

^[7] Commonwealth of Australia, “ADDP 3.0: Campaigns and Operations,” 2012, Para 1.47; Commonwealth of Australia, “ADDP 5.0: Joint Planning, ” 2018, Para 2.9.

^[8] Commonwealth of Australia, “ADDP 3.0: Campaigns and Operations,” Para 1.21; Commonwealth of Australia, “ADDP 5.0: Joint Planning”, Para 1.5.

^[9] United States Department of Defense, “Joint Publication 1: Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States,” 2013, I-7.

^[10] Michael Evans, “The Closing of the Australian Military Mind: The ADF and Operational Art,' Security Challenges 4, no. 2 (2008): 108.

^[11] Walter L. Perry, “Planning the War and the Transition to Peace,” in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM: Decisive War, Elusive Peace, ed. Walter L. Perry et al. (RAND Corporation, 2015), 39.

^[12] Cordesman, The Lessons of the Iraq War: Main Report, 72.

^[13] Cordesman, 58.

^[14] David H. Ucko and Thomas A. Marks, “Violence in Context: Mapping the Strategies and Operational Art of Irregular Warfare,” Contemporary Security Policy 39, no. 2 (2018): 205; US Joint Chiefs of Staff, “Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) History Brief,” 2003, 9-11.

^[15] Commonwealth of Australia, “ADDP 5.0: Joint Planning,” 2-3.

^[16]   Williamson Murray and Robert H. Scales Jr, The Iraq War: A Military History, vol. 59 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 13; Bensahel, “Mission Not Accomplished: What Went Wrong with Iraqi Reconstruction,” 453.

^[17] Bolger, Why We Lost: A General’s Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, eBook: chapter 6; Keith L. Shimko, The Iraq Wars and America’s Military Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2010), 158.

^[18] Commonwealth of Australia, “ADDP 5.0: Joint Planning,” 1-3.

^[19] Bolger, Why We Lost: A General’s Inside Account of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, eBook: Chapter 6.

^[20] Shimko, The Iraq Wars and America’s Military Revolution, 161.

^[21] United States Department of Defense, “Joint Publication 3-0: Joint Operations,” 2017, II-3.

^[22] Commonwealth of Australia, “ADDP 5.0: Joint Planning,” Para 2.9.

^[23] Bensahel, “Mission Not Accomplished: What Went Wrong with Iraqi Reconstruction,” Jack D. Kem, “Campaign Planning: Tools of the Trade,” 2009.

^[24] Commonwealth of Australia, “ADDP 3.0: Campaigns and Operations,” Para 1.47.

^[25] Shimko, The Iraq Wars and America’s Military Revolution, 153.

^[26] Shimko, 174.

^[27] Shimko, 159.

^[28] United States Department of Defense, “Joint Publication 3-0: Joint Operations,” II-3.

^[29] Bensahel, “Mission Not Accomplished: What Went Wrong with Iraqi Reconstruction,” 460-461.

^[30] Bensahel, 465.

^[31] Shimko, The Iraq Wars and America’s Military Revolution, 173.

^[32] Hew Strachan, “Strategy and the Operational Level of War,” in The Direction of War (Cambridge University Press, 2014), 210.

^[33] United States Department of Defense, “Joint Publication 1: Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States,” I-7.

^[34] Cordesman, The Lessons of the Iraq War: Main Report, 58.

^[35] Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: The Penguin Press, 2006), 37; Shimko, The Iraq Wars and America’s Military Revolution, 143-144.

^[36] Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 33.

^[37] United States Department of Defense, “Joint Publication 1: Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States,” I-7.

^[38] Commonwealth of Australia, “ADDP 5.0: Joint Planning,” Para 1.33.

^[39] Cordesman, The Lessons of the Iraq War: Main Report, 58-59.

^[40] James N. Mattis, “Memorandum for U.S. Joint Forces Command: Vision for a Joint Approach to Operational Design,” 2009, Attachment 1 Page 8.

^[41] Kem, “Campaign Planning: Tools of the Trade,” 56-58.

^[42] Commonwealth of Australia, “ADDP 00.9: Multiagency Coordination,” 2013, Para 1.4.

^[43] Strachan, “Strategy and the Operational Level of War,” 217.

^[44] Bensahel, “Mission Not Accomplished: What Went Wrong with Iraqi Reconstruction,” 458.

^[45] Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 78-80.

^[46] Rand Corporation, quoted in: Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 78-79.

^[47] Justin Kelly and Mike Brennan, “Alien: How Operational Art Devoured Strategy,” (Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2009), 67.

^[48] Kelly and Brennan, 4.

^[49] Tim Mckenna and Tim Mckay, “Australia’s Joint Approach: Past, Present and Future,” Joint Studies Paper Series No. 1, 2017, 9.

^[50] Mattis, “Memorandum for U.S. Joint Forces Command: Vision for a Joint Approach to Operational Design,” 2.