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USAWC STRATEGY RESEARCH PROJECT
EFFECTIVE TERMINATION OF CONFLICT: PERSPECTIVES FROM 1847 AND 2003
by
Colonel Michael J. Forsyth
United States Army
Dr. Christian Keller
Project Adviser
This SRP is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Strategic
Studies Degree. The U.S. Army War College is accredited by the Commission on
Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, 3624
Market Street, Philadelphia, PA 19104, (215) 662-5606. The Commission on Higher
Education is an institutional accrediting agency recognized by the U.S. Secretary of
Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation.
The views expressed in this student academic research paper are those of the author
and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army,
Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
U.S. Army War College
CARLISLE BARRACKS, PENNSYLVANIA 17013
ABSTRACT
AUTHOR: Colonel Michael J. Forsyth
TITLE: EFFECTIVE TERMINATION OF CONFLICT: PERSPECTIVES FROM
1847 AND 2003
SUBJECT KEY TERMS: Counter-Insurgency, Ending Conflict, Mexican-American War
This monograph examines the war with Mexico in 1846-48 and the insurgency that arose and
was quickly marginalized. American commander Winfield Scott implemented a strategy that
prevented the insurgency from exploding into a disaster, thus preserving the fruits of victory.
This paper reviews what he did in order to seal the achievements of the conventional campaigns
in Mexico by preventing a descent into the chaos of an insurgency. Based on this examination
there are many parallels American planners could have considered that may have prevented the
development of the insurgency in Iraq in 2003. Further, there are many salient points that
strategic leaders could use and consider to prevent insurgency from rising at the conclusion of a
successful conventional campaign.
EFFECTIVE TERMINATION OF CONFLICT: PERSPECTIVES FROM 1847 AND 2003
Introduction
The decision to write about Winfield Scott’s campaign to Mexico City in 1847-48 arose
from a term paper one of my young cadets at the United States Air Force Academy wrote for my
Introduction to Military Theory and Strategy class. In the paper Cadet Michael Schertz
presented a thorough overview of General Scott’s brilliant conventional operation and he asked
the question, how was Scott able to tamp down a substantial insurgency that threatened to spiral
out of control in Mexico? From this question grew a provocative thesis: had military planners in
2003 examined what Scott did to quell the nascent Mexican insurgency in 1847 then perhaps our
forces might have duplicated the feat in Iraq. I was stunned by the premise of his well-written
paper and wondered if there were some important considerations that could have saved our
forces some grief in 2003. Further, I did not realize that the Mexican War had spawned an
insurgency since the focus of historiography of the conflict hones in on the major battles and
campaigns. However, as I began to research the subject I discovered that indeed there was a
significant insurgency that threatened to spin out of control, thereby negating the earlier success
of the United States Army and Navy in conventional operations.1 This raised the question, what
1 There is a great deal of available literature that a historian can review in studying the events of the Mexican War.
Among the most popular secondary sources are John S.D. Eisenhower’s fine narrative So Far From God and
biography of Winfield Scott titled Agent of Destiny. In addition to these there is a number of other excellent
narratives of the war that I utilized including: Timothy D. Johnson’s, A Gallant Little Army: The Mexico City
Campaign; Irving Levinson’s Wars Within Wars: Mexican Guerrillas, Domestic Elites, and the United States of
America, 1846-1848; and The Mexican War, 1846-1848 by K. Jack Bauer and Robert W. Johannsen. There is also
an abundant waft of primary sources including some recently published journals. The main primary source that I
used – and it is absolutely indispensable – is the US Congress’ Executive Document Nos. 56, 59, and 60, which can
be found online. The executive documents contain the orders and official correspondence of both the army and
government in the Mexican War. President Polk’s Diary edited by Allan Nevins is also critical to gaining an
understanding of the political machinations at work in the decision to go to war in Mexico. The journals of Ralph
Kirkham, Richard Coulter, and Thomas Barclay provided an understanding of the views of the common soldier in
the Mexican War. These journals are of recent publication and easily accessible to even the most casual researcher.
A significant primary source from the Mexican point of view was found in Ramon Alcaraz’s The Other Side: Notes
for the History of the War Between Mexico and the United States. This work, translated by Albert C. Ramsey in
1850, was found online and provided a great perspective of popular sentiment as it pertained to the American
occupation force. There are also a number of articles and dissertations that are of excellent value including Thomas
did General Scott do to successfully terminate the war while achieving the strategic ends of the
United States?
The Mexican War was characterized by several widely separated conventional
operations. One took place in what is today California, New Mexico, and Arizona. The others
took place in northeastern and central Mexico. In at least two of the operational zones a virulent
insurgency germinated as United States troops passed through and occupied key areas of the
country. The insurgency was both a spontaneous rising in local areas and a sponsored insurgent
campaign carried out as an auxiliary operation of the regular Mexican army. The American
conventional campaigns were designed to extract territorial concessions from Mexico in order to
fulfill America’s ‘Manifest Destiny’ to become a continental nation. When the campaigns in
northern Mexico failed to coerce the expected concessions from the Mexican government, it
forced the administration of President James K. Polk to launch another operation into central
Mexico under General Scott directed at the political and cultural heart of the country, the capital
of Mexico City. As the war extended in time and space the insurgency began to grow, placing
the under-sized United States forces in a difficult situation.2 Yet within months of
accomplishing the major objectives the United States was able to conclude an agreement with the
W. Spahr’s PhD dissertation “Occupying for Peace: The US Army in Mexico, 1846-1848.”
For the research of the 2003 Iraq War I utilized a series of recent studies supplemented by some histories by popular
authors. The primary study is the well-written and pertinent Rand study titled After Saddam. I found this 2008
study indispensable in understanding the nature of the planning and preparation for the war. Former Minister of
Defense Ali Al Allawi’s The Occupation of Iraq provided a fine perspective of the Iraqi viewpoint of the war.
Popular recent histories, such as Thomas Ricks’ Fiasco and Michael R. Gordon’s Cobra II provided a critique of
operations conducted by the coalition focusing on US policy. However, the historian must examine these with
objectivity since each is tinged with emotional and biased perspectives. The viewpoint of the commander, Tommy
Franks, was critical to the analysis of the campaign and his readable, but notably one-sided, account in American
Soldier proved invaluable. The future will bring a great deal more writing about the war in Iraq and most certainly
there will be a wide disparity of opinions. I suspect that the further in time we move away from the event, the more
likely we will find dispassionate, objective assessments of the events of 2003.
2 Stephen W. Carney, The Occupation of Mexico: May 1846 – July 1848 (Washington, DC: United States
Government Printing Office, 2004), 7-9, 14-15, and 25. The strength of the United States Army in Mexico never
exceeded 30,000 troops.
2
Mexican government that successfully terminated the war with all goals secured. How did the
United States and General Scott succeed?
This paper will examine General Scott’s campaign in central Mexico focusing on his
counter-insurgency (COIN) operation. It will seek to determine the elements of his COIN
strategy that enabled the United States Army to quell the Mexican insurgency to facilitate
termination of the war in a manner favorable to the United States. In the process, it will discuss
what concepts the strategic planner might have considered in Iraq, and finally, if those items
have relevance for the future. Our review will begin with the strategic setting and then provide a
survey of Scott’s campaign. It will then analyze the Iraq campaign of 2003 before wrapping up
with the important elements of a full spectrum strategy that could facilitate future strategic
planning.
Why a War with Mexico?
The war with Mexico in 1846-48 had its roots in the dream of Manifest Destiny, which
was articulated – though not expressly named – early in the 19th century by various politicians.
President Thomas Jefferson generated the American quest for expansion across the continent
when he stated in his 1801 inaugural address that the United States should secure the lands to the
west in order “to provide room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and ten thousandth
generation.”3 Within two years Jefferson began to act upon the dream of expansion when he
concluded the Louisiana Purchase, thus more than doubling the territory of the United States.
His vision of a continental nation is clearly visible in his instructions to Captain Meriwether
3 Thomas Jefferson, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 33 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006) 148-
152. Online book from Princeton University, http://www.princeton.edu/~tjpapers/inaugural/infinal.html (Accessed
on 18 September 2001). A full discussion of the Manifest Destiny policy is not appropriate for this paper, but there
are several books on the subject including two recent additions. These include William Appleton Williams, From
Colony to Empire: Essays in the History of American Foreign Relations, (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.,
1937); R.W. Van Alstyne, The Rising American Empire, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960); Jay Sexton,
The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth Century America (New York: Hill and Wang, 2012); and
Amy S. Greenberg, Manifest Destiny and American Territorial Expansion (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2011).
3
Lewis before his explorations with partner Captain William Clark in 1803. In his letter Jefferson
tells Lewis that “the object of your mission is to explore the Missouri River . . . by its course and
communication with the water of the Pacific Ocean [as] may offer the most direct and
practicable water communication across the continent, for the purposes of commerce.”4 What
Jefferson envisioned was a United States that spanned the continent from Atlantic to Pacific in
order to propagate population growth and commercial expansion.
The restless population of the United States followed the lead of Jefferson over the course
of the next several decades as Americans pushed westward. This seemingly unstoppable desire
to spread across the continent and assume control of the land inevitably caused friction, first with
the native Americans and later with the Mexicans, as unruly, uncouth Americans began to
encroach on Mexican territory. Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821 and the
country had a vast territory of its own extending from Central America in the south to what is
today the American southwest – including Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, parts of Colorado,
Utah, Nevada, and California. Much of that land lay empty and devoid of human improvement
with hostile native tribes ranging freely over the area, a reality that prompted the Mexican
government to invite American settlers into some of its northern provinces, especially Texas.
Immigrants from the United States poured in during the third decade of the nineteenth century,
searching for cheap land and economic prosperity. But, the pressure exerted by the migration
west alarmed Mexican authorities because Americans had different conceptions of enterprise,
government, and culture.5
President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, with the support of Mexican conservatives,
dissolved the old constitution, assumed dictatorial power, and replaced the functioning local
4 Anthony Brandt, ed., The Journals of Lewis and Clark, (Washington, DC: National Geographic Adventure
Classics, 2002) xxviii. Thomas Jefferson’s letter to Lewis dated January 1803. Emphasis added.
5 Stephen L. Hardin, Texian Iliad: A Military History of the Texas Revolution, (Austin, Texas: University of Texas
Press, 1994) 6.
4
governments with appointees answerable only to him. As a result, unrest broke out in several
provinces and districts such as Zacatecas and Texas forcing Santa Anna to respond with force.
The rebellion in Texas drew special attention as Santa Anna took the extraordinary step of
immediately revoking the citizenship of the Texans of American descent. He ruled that no more
Americans were welcome to immigrate to Mexico. Then, fearful following the sack of an unruly
Mexican town in Zacatecas in May 1835 by Mexican troops, the Texans decided that
reconciliation was not possible and full-scale resistance was the only way to protect their
interests. The result was armed conflict between the American Texans and Santa Anna’s forces
and tension between Mexico and the United States. A little less than a year later the plucky
Americans in Texas captured Santa Anna in the culminating battle of San Jacinto and soon
declared independence from Mexico. But, this did not end the controversy. Texas was now an
independent “republic” controlled by former American citizens clamoring for admission to the
Union. The United States was more than willing to consider admission of Texas as a state but
had to think carefully about the diplomatic and domestic ramifications. Americans, especially in
the South, would continue to cast a covetous eye toward the Texas Republic and beyond. 6
By 1844 the United States and most European powers recognized Texas as an
independent state. However, the Mexican government refused to accept a new nation to the
north and when the United States sought to annex Texas with an offer to compensate, Mexico
broke off diplomatic relations. Compounding the dispute was Texas’ acceptance of the United
States offer for statehood through annexation in 1845. Tensions hit a fever pitch when new
President James K. Polk authorized an army under Major General Zachary Taylor to advance to
the Rio Grande River to establish that waterway as the boundary between Texas and Mexico.
6 Ibid., 5-7 and T.H. Fehrenbach, Lone Star, (New York: American Legacy Press, 1968) 184-185 and 205.
5
This action prompted a Mexican military response. 7 Although these events precipitated the war
they were not necessarily the underlying causes, which were more complicated.
The movement of Americans westward represented the physical manifestation of what
was now becoming known as Manifest Destiny. James K. Polk came to the presidency as a
Jacksonian Democrat and as such was steeped in the desire to expand United States territory
westward. As he assumed office he began to articulate a policy to acquire Mexico’s northwest
provinces. Polk stated in his inaugural address that “the world beholds the peaceful triumphs of
the industry of our emigrants [those Americans moving west]. To us belongs the duty of
protecting them adequately wherever they may be upon our soil.” This kind of rhetoric
emanating from the nation’s leaders encouraged more Americans to migrate west and make the
country contiguous from Atlantic and Pacific and from the Canadian border (along the 49th
parallel) through California. In addition to this clear objective Polk went further in laying out a
number of national security and economic goals, all designed to solidify any acquisitions. These
included protection of the southwest frontier, the safety of the port of New Orleans, gaining
control of the ports on the California coast, opening trade with Asia, and facilitating cross-
continental trade in goods not available between the east and west. To secure all of this without
bringing on a war Polk attempted to offer a substantial monetary package “of fifteen or twenty
millions, but . . . was ready to pay forty millions.” 8 However, the arrogant manner in which the
offer was made caused the insulted Mexican government to summarily reject it and hardened
7 United States Congress, Executive Document No. 60, (30th Congress, 1st Session, 1848) 79-81. GoogleBook
(accessed and downloaded 30 September 2011) Letter from Mr. Castillo y Lanzas to Mr. John Slidell dated 21
March 1846 and correspondence from Secretary of War William L. Marcy to Major General Zachary Taylor;
Eisenhower, So Far From God, xix-xx, 23-26, and 30.
8 James K. Polk, “Inaugural Address” delivered 4 March 1845. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/James_K._Polk
%27s_Inaugural_Address (accessed 28 September 2011) and Allan Nevins, ed., Polk: Diary of a President 1845-
1849, (New York: Capricorn Books, 1968) 9-10 and 106.
6
Mexican attitudes into a desire to reacquire Texas by force.9 With a substantial American force
on the Rio Grande, in territory claimed by Mexico, the stage was set for an explosion that would
result in war.
In mid-April 1846 matters came to a head when the commander of Mexican forces on the
south side of the Rio Grande demanded that American forces on the other side withdraw to north
of the Nueces River. General Taylor, who had positive orders to maintain his position, refused
in no uncertain terms stating that “[I] wish it understood that I shall by no means avoid such an
alternative” to fight.10 Taylor considered the ultimatum a virtual declaration of war and reported
such to the President who in turn sought a congressional declaration acknowledging a state of
war. Yet while Congress debated, the Mexican army took to the field on 1 May 1846, and within
a week actual hostilities took place at Palo Alto making war with Mexico a fact. On 11 May
1846 Congress handed the President a declaration of war authorizing him to take action to win
the conflict already underway in Mexico.
The Polk Administration originally envisioned a limited war with Mexico and through
the Secretary of War William Marcy established several concise military objectives. Once the
conflict commenced the Secretary initiated a multi-pronged strategy designed to attain specific
objectives and to limit the war to a certain magnitude in terms of resource and financial
expenditure. First, Marcy instructed Zachary Taylor with his army of 4,000 men to launch an
immediate offensive into northeast Mexico in order to secure a zone that would make all United
States claims to Texas beyond doubt and discourage attempts at reacquisition. This secure zone
could then be used as a bargaining chip in future conflict termination negotiations. Second,
9 US Congress, Executive Document No. 60, 79. A series of letters between the US plenipotentiary John Slidell and
Mexican government representative Mr. Lanzas culminating with this one, which illustrates the crude manner in
which the United States attempted to acquire the Mexican territory. Carney, The Occupation of Mexico, 8-9 and
Eisenhower, So Far From God, 45-46.
10 Ibid., 64.
7
Marcy ordered Colonel Stephen W. Kearny to take the offensive with his tiny force of a little
over 1,000 dragoons and Missouri volunteers to occupy the sparsely populated area of today’s
New Mexico, Arizona, and California. With an American force in control of this coveted area –
and the small Mexican population – it was hoped that the Mexicans would relinquish it in the
negotiating process. Further, the Polk Administration believed that once United States forces
had defeated the Mexican army in the field in these regions the Mexican government would
quickly lose the will to fight: “[A] peace must be conquered in the shortest space of time
practicable.”11 This would allow the Administration to limit military recruiting and the necessary
financial outlays to support an army. Thus, Polk hoped to economize the venture before it could
affect fickle American public opinion, especially in New England, where the conflict was largely
viewed as a war concocted to expand slavery and southern interests. Even with such careful
calculations, as in most wars, the will of the enemy dramatically changed the scope and nature of
the conflict.
11 Carney, The Occupation of Mexico, 9 and US Congress, Executive Document No. 60, 90-91, 153-154 and 323-
325. Marcy to Taylor dated 13 January 1846; Marcy to Kearny dated 3 June 1846; and Marcy to Taylor dated 8
June 1846.
8
Figure 1. The Mexican theater of war in 1846-1848. Source: Mexican-American War Overview
Map
http:// www.dean.usma.edu/history/web03/atlases/mexican%20war/mexican%20war
%20index.htm.
Within months of launching the offensive the United States Army had secured all of the
prescribed military objectives. Taylor defeated a Mexican army more than twice his size on
multiple occasions enroute to Monterrey and Kearny had conducted an arduous campaign that
did, in fact, secure the southwest. However, the twin operational successes did not provide the
desired strategic effect within the Mexican government. On the contrary, Mexican resolve
hardened in the desire to destroy the invader. As a result, the Mexican national authorities
developed a program of guerrilla warfare to support their regular forces in the field, which one
junior officer correctly noted was a way for the Mexicans to preserve their force while
weakening the Americans. In addition, there were some spontaneous uprisings that tended to
9
complement the organized effort while lacking centralized direction.12 The Mexicans were only
successful in bringing this to fruition in northeast Mexico against Taylor’s little army, but it was
enough to force the Polk Administration to widen the conflict and reconsider the strategic
context. On the 19 September 1846 Polk realized that he had to reenergize the stalled war effort
in order to win.13
Scott Enters the Scene
Major General Winfield Scott was the commanding general of the United States Army in
1847 and arguably its most prominent leader. Yet Scott came to the service in a rather
unorthodox manner. Born in Virginia in 1786, Scott was from a middle class family that lived in
the tidewater region. Scott’s widowed mother bestowed in him and his three siblings a sense of
strong will and determination to succeed. His mother died when Scott was only seventeen, but
left him with enough means to attend college – first in Richmond and later at William and Mary
– and gain a classical education. Scott chose to train as a lawyer, which he deemed the best
“road to political advancement.”14 In addition to his education in the law, Scott also took a liking
to philosophy, military history, and egalitarian political ideas. This is significant in that Scott
would apply much of what he learned through his civilian education to planning and preparation
of the campaign to Mexico City. Elements of his critical thinking emerge vividly in his general
orders and the foundation was established at the College of William and Mary.
Scott’s military career began when President Jefferson issued a call for militia and an
expansion of the regular army as a result of British encroachment on American sovereignty
12 Carney, The Occupation of Mexico, 25-26; Robert Ryal Miller, ed., The Mexican War Journal & Letters of Ralph
W. Kirkham, (College Station, Texas: Texas A & M University Press, 1991) 13; Irving Levinson, “A New Paradigm
for an Old Conflict: The Mexico-United States War,” Journal of Military History 73 (April 2009) 393-416; Irving
Levinson, “Occupation and Stability Dilemmas of the Mexican War,” in Armed Diplomacy: Two Centuries of
American Campaigning (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute, 2004) 1-3; and Irving Levinson,
Wars Within Wars: Mexican Guerrillas, Domestic Elites, and the United States of America, 1846-1848, (Fort Worth,
Texas: Texas Christian University Press, 2005) 32-35.
13 Nevins, Polk Diary, 149.
14 Winfield Scott, Memoirs, Vol. I (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1970) 24-25.
10
during the Napoleonic Wars. Fired by patriotism and the opportunity to obtain a commission,
Scott personally called on Jefferson. He was later commissioned a captain in the light artillery in
May 1808 and thus began a career that reached a pinnacle in Mexico City forty years later.15
His formal education combined with a myriad of experiences between 1808 and the war
with Mexico produced a leader of uncommon quality in Scott. His baptism by fire came during
the War of 1812 when he demonstrated a talent for training and motivating troops. In the
Niagara country in 1814 Scott’s opponents were astounded by the precision and élan of his
brigade under fire. One redcoat exclaimed that the British troops were not fighting militia, they
were in fact up against “Regulars, by God!”16 This great compliment was a testament to Scott’s
skill as a commander and, more importantly, the ability to impose discipline. This key element
of military excellence would prove essential to quelling the insurgency that would rise in Mexico
City some decades in the future.
After the war Scott embarked on a regimen of self-study that would serve him well in
Mexico. Military history titles were at the top of his list of books. He continued to study the
subject throughout his life and had a special affinity for Frederick the Great, Marshal de Saxe,
and Napoleon. In July 1815 Scott sailed for Europe as an official representative of the United
States and was able to conduct some firsthand studies of famous European campaigns including
some from the recently concluded Napoleonic Wars. As a result, he internalized much from his
travels and self-study that he would use in developing a series of tactical manuals for the United
States Army.17 This would become de facto doctrine for the army that would deploy to Mexico.
15 John S. D. Eisenhower, Agent of Destiny: The Life and Times of General Winfield Scott, (New York: The Free
Press, 1997) 3-10.
16 Ibid., 76-78 and 84.
17 Gerald A. Dolinish, General Winfield Scott: His Development and Application of Political/Civil-Military
Concepts During the Mexican War, Strategy Research Project (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College,
April 15, 2002) 2-4 and Scott, Memoirs, Vol. I, 156-159 and 205-206.
11
Significantly, Scott also paid close attention to the need for good civil-military policy by
an occupying army. Specifically, hints of Napoleon’s maxims 70 and 110 come through in his
policy for the occupation of Mexico. They state that “justice and leniency in suppressing or
preventing disturbances” is key to maintaining order in an occupied country. Further, the
occupying army should push to maintain “the responsibility of local governments and the
method of organization and administration” for the purpose of seamless, continuous rule of law.
Scott also owned a copy of the three volume History of the Peninsular War by Sir William
Napier where he noted Napoleon’s unmitigated failure to quell the insurgency in Spain in
contradiction of his own maxims.18 These texts helped inform Scott’s mind as he formulated
strategy for Mexico and constituted the professional development of a soldier’s intellect.
Another key factor in the development of Scott’s thinking as a strategist was his
background in the realm of politics. He had varied experiences across a wide spectrum of issues
as a general. First, he served as an emissary representing President Andrew Jackson during the
Nullification Crisis in South Carolina in 1832. Here he nimbly combined carrot and stick to both
soothe passions and cajole malcontents simultaneously. His role in defusing the fiery dispute
helped to delay the sectional crisis from reaching a fever pitch for many years. His participation
in the antebellum Indian Wars gave Scott an understanding of insurgency and his time in the
mid-1830s directing the war against the Seminoles in Florida proved invaluable in developing
his thinking about pacification. Although he made many mistakes, he came away with a firm
basis for dealing with insurgency through disciplined and “courteous” troop employment and
encouraging tribes to “oversee” their own affairs within U.S. law. Finally, in 1839 Scott was
appointed by President Van Buren to serve as his soldier-diplomat in the Canadian border crisis
18 Dolinish, General Winfield Scott, 4; T.R. Phillips, ed., “Military Maxims of Napoleon” in Roots of Strategy,
(Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1985) 428-429 and 438; and Carney, The Occupation of Mexico, 27.
12
in Michigan and the Niagara region. Here, Scott adeptly negotiated with the British government
of Canada for the prosecution of a group of criminals who had terrorized Americans along the
border while preventing those affected by the incursions from taking revenge that could have
sparked an all-out war. For this service he earned the sobriquet the “Great Pacificator”, but more
importantly his storehouse of knowledge was building to a level that would serve him well
later.19
With the war in Mexico stalled by the summer of 1846 Scott began to develop a plan that
would break the stalemate and achieve the political ends laid out by the President. It aimed to
“conquer a peace” by focusing on the political and military heart of the Mexican regime centered
on Mexico City. In a series of letters to Secretary of War Marcy, Scott outlined a new strategy to
win the war. First, Mexico City –representing the Mexican center of gravity – was the primary
objective. To achieve this, Scott called for an amphibious landing at Veracruz almost 200 miles
east of the capital followed by an overland march on the city. Second, this landing had to occur
in the early months of 1847 before the yellow fever season arrived – called the vomito by the
Mexicans – which would ravage an army moving through Mexico’s tropical zone. Third, a
landing could only take place at Veracruz because it offered the best port for logistical support
from the Navy and the most direct route to Mexico City, facilitating Scott’s imperative for speed.
Fourth, the cooperation of the Navy was essential for the landing on the coast and procurement
of special boats required for transport. Finally, Scott proposed to command this expedition
personally with an army of 10,000 men with another 10,000 designated to reinforce the initial
wave. To accomplish all this would require a great deal of autonomy granted to Scott by the
government and Secretary Marcy had a track record of allowing wide discretion to the
19 Dolinish, General Winfield Scott, 5 and Eisenhower, Agent of Destiny, 183.
13
commanders in the field. 20 Here was a bold plan that would cut directly to the vital center of the
Mexican government, but this was only half of Scott’s scheme.
Integral to Scott’s conventional strategy was his more obscure, but no less vital plan to
quell an insurgency before it could take root. This plan was embodied in General Order Number
20 dated 19 February 1847 along with several later addendums. Shortly before the amphibious
landing, Scott personally drew up the order that would set the tone for conduct of the army
moving through Mexico. In it he set strict standards for discipline of the army in order to
prevent depredations against Mexican civilians and their property. Included in a list of protected
places were “Churches, cemeteries . . . and religious buildings.” Additionally, President Polk
fortuitously assisted Scott when he anticipated that the Church might resist contact with Scott
and his soldiers. Therefore, he enlisted the assistance of Bishop John Hughes of New York to
obtain Spanish-speaking clergy “to visit Mexico in advance of the army for the purpose of giving
assurance to the Catholic clergy that . . . their religion and church property would be secure. . . .”
By noting the importance of religion and specifically the Catholic Church, this action
demonstrated a great understanding of the culture of Mexico. By paying personal respect to the
Church, Scott was recognizing the enormous power it wielded in Mexican society. If he could
leverage this institution it would go a long way toward maintaining the stability of the country,
thus preventing widespread insurgency. Further, his initial order mandated that any offenses
20 US Congress, House of Representatives Executive Document No. 59, (Washington, DC: 30th Congress, 1st
Session, 1848) Rice University online collection at
http://scholarship.rice.edu/jsp/xml/1911/22126/1/9900253.tei.html Winfield Scott to Secretary of War William L.
Marcy dated 27 October 1846 and 12 November 1846 (accessed on 29 September 2011); Executive Document No.
60 Secretary Marcy to Zachary Taylor (accessed on 29 September 2011); and Eisenhower, So Far From God, 253-
254 and 266. The term center of gravity was coined by Carl von Clausewitz in his treatise On War edited and
translated by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, index edition
reprint, 1989). Clausewitz tended to define it as a point where the greatest concentration of troops could be found or
where the center of a nation’s administrative capacity resided pp. 485-487 and 595-597. In modern military
parlance the Department of Defense defines center of gravity as “the source of power that provides moral or
physical strength, freedom of action, or will to act.” Joint Publication 5-0. Joint Operation Planning. (Washington,
DC: US Government Printing Office, 2011) III 22-25 and GL-6.
14
committed by soldiers or Mexican civilians would result in the composition of a military
commission that would conduct a court to try offenders publicly. The purpose of the
commissions was to demonstrate to the Mexican people that Americans had not come for the
purpose of plunder. The United States Army was accountable to the rule of law and this would
encourage the people to remain home rather than lashing out at unruly troops.21 After the landing
at Veracruz, Scott would issue the order along with several appendices to reinforce the base plan.
The orders covered a wide range of subjects to further diminish the possibility of an insurgency
breaking out. These covered such topics as clearing garbage from the streets, soldiers making
purchases on the local economy, and retaining local government officials and police in their
positions. Combined together, these measures formed the basis for a proactive program to quell
insurgency before it could get off the ground. These orders represented prescient thinking about
what could happen on the part of Scott. This would prove fortuitous in terminating the conflict
favorably for the United States.
The Campaign to Mexico City
The thrust to take Mexico City began on 9 March 1847 with the first-ever United States
Army amphibious landing at the coastal city of Veracruz. In consonance with Scott’s plan of
campaign the army executed a rapid advance inland after a short siege that witnessed the
surrender of the Mexican garrison of the city. Key to success in the campaign was moving past
the coastal lowlands before the vomito season, which would decimate the army. Veracruz fell on
27 March 1847 and within a week Scott’s army was on the march down Mexico’s National
Highway. The Mexican army, twice the size of the American force, was soundly defeated at
Cerro Gordo on 13 April 1847 and the next day Scott had the army pressing forward again. This
21 Winfield Scott, “General Order No. 20,” Rice University Online Collection,
http://scholarship.rice.edu/jsp/xml/1911/27562/3/aa00208tr.tei.html Written at Tampico, Mexico and issued shortly
after landing at Veracruz (accessed 26 September 2011); Scott, Memoirs, Vol. II, 580; Nevins, ed., Polk: Diary of a
President, 408-409; and Levinson, Wars Within Wars, 22.
15
successfully accomplished Scott’s imperative to clear the lowlands by the onset of the disease
season. By 15 May the army arrived at Puebla, which was less than sixty miles from Mexico
City. Within sixty days Scott’s little army of veteran regulars and enthusiastic volunteers had
penetrated 120 miles into the Mexican heartland, fought and won two tough battles, and was
poised to make the final stab on the capital.22 However, several problems arose at this point
forcing the Americans to take an operational pause.
The reason for the halt at Puebla was three-fold. First, the distance from the coast began
to stretch the tenuous American line of supply and communication to the breaking point. A 19th
century army generally had to operate within about one hundred miles of its supply base in order
to maintain an acceptable logistical situation. The army by May had plunged well over a
hundred miles from Veracruz and the Navy, which was supporting Scott’s force. Second,
Mexican guerrillas – described by American leaders as rancheros or banditos, literally
“ranchers” and “bandits”, plus those who rose up in revolt, and units sponsored by the regular
army like the Cuerpo Ligera – were beginning to raid Scott’s rickety supply line. Such terms as
ranchero and bandito were used derisively to deny the Mexican guerrillas legitimate combatant
status. If these persons were branded as bandits and murderers it would enable the US Army to
place them outside the law in the eyes of the general Mexican population, which frowned on
lawlessness.23 In order to subsist for the remainder of the campaign and eliminate the
opportunity for guerrillas to hit isolated targets, Scott had already made the decision to cut his
tether with the coast and live off the land. In so doing, the army would pay for their food which
would build credibility with the Mexican people; this would contrast favorably with the behavior
of the rancheros who generally stole their subsistence. Scott cut his logistic tether at Jalapa
22 Eisenhower, So Far From God, 297; Levinson, “A New Paradigm for an Old Conflict,” 393-416; and Levinson,
“Occupation and Stability Dilemmas of the Mexican War,” 4-6.
23 Scott, Memoirs, Vol. II., 580 and Levinson, Wars Within Wars, 33-35, 41-42, and 46-47.
16
anticipating that the abundant region around Puebla would therefore suffice to support his army
for the final thrust to the capital and build a trust with the people.24 Third, several volunteer
regiments’ enlistments were about to expire and replacements were not yet close to arriving.
This forced Scott to consider how to execute his next move in the campaign to Mexico City.25
His sojourn in Puebla would drag on for almost three months as he awaited promised
reinforcements, but during that time Scott was able to implement and enforce all the auspices of
G.O. #20 while adding a couple of addendums as necessary to fit the situation.
The message of G.O. #20 was intended not just for the troops, but also the Mexican
populace. Central in promulgating it was a demonstration that the United States Army was a
disciplined force that did not intend to destroy or subjugate Mexican society. Scott used the
order to make it known to all that Mexicans must manage Mexican affairs, and integral to this
was the maintenance of law and order.26 The ultimate purpose of the order was thus to prevent
an insurgency by leveraging the population on the side of the United States arresting any chance
that a revolt could gain any momentum. Indeed, an insurgency threatened to derail the campaign
soon after the army departed Veracruz. Sergeant Thomas Barclay of the 2nd Pennsylvania
Infantry reported in his journal that “Guerrillas were very troublesome, particularly at the
National Bridge,” a key chokepoint on the route to Mexico City.27 At each major town along the
way to the capital Scott reissued the order to the Mexican population. By the time the army
reached Puebla it had become standard operating procedure for the army commander to establish
G.O. #20 as the manner by which US troops and the Mexican populace would interact. This
24 Ibid., 460; Nevis, Polk Diary, 249; Timothy D. Johnson, A Gallant Little Army: The Mexico City Campaign,
(Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 2007) 139-140; and Winfield Scott, “General Order 128,” Rice
University Online Collection, http://scholarship.rice.edu/jsp/xml/1911/27562/3/aa00208tr.tei.html Written at Jalapa,
Mexico (accessed 21 July 2015) .
25 Scott, Memoirs, Vol. II, 452-453 and Eisenhower, So Far From God, 298 and 302-303.
26 Ibid., 266-267.
27 Allan Peskin, ed., Volunteers: The Mexican War Journals of Private Richard Coulter and Sergeant Thomas
Barclay, Company E, Second Pennsylvania Infantry, (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1991) 107.
17
simple three-page order served as the centerpiece of an insurgency prevention effort that
precluded an all-out insurgency from coming to fruition. Though the guerrillas were certainly an
irritant to the army, they were never able to divert Scott from his objective.28
The “Eight Steps”
In addition to G.O. #20 Scott adeptly implemented several other practical measures – that
I deem the eight steps – designed to maintain order. First, Scott declared martial law to ensure
that there was no breakdown of society. Second, Scott set the conditions for cooperation with
the Catholic Church by sending in the Spanish-speaking priests with a conciliatory message and
then he personally demonstrated respect for the Catholic Church by attending divine services at
Veracruz soon after its fall, which was central to Mexican society and a source of power.29 By
paying deference to the Church, Scott was able to enlist a powerful ally in preventing and
limiting an insurgency and eventually terminating the war, as the general Mexican population
was strongly deferential to its religious leaders. Third, Scott facilitated an information operation
whose main message was that the guerrilla activity represented lawlessness and therefore was a
threat to all Mexicans. Painting the guerrillas in a negative light combined with the support of
the Church served to place the rancheros and other insurgents outside the mainstream of society.
Next, Scott retained most Mexican government officials in their positions – as he did at Puebla –
so there was not a vacuum created by the toppling of the recognized leaders of Mexican civil
society. He even attended the funeral of a Mexican colonel who fell at Cerro Gordo “much to
the satisfaction of the people.” Thus, Scott formed a partnership with the political leaders to
allow the army to concentrate on the Mexican Army rather than worrying about controlling the
28 I purposely do not use the term counter-insurgency because this term denotes that an insurgency is already on-
going. Scott’s purpose in issuing G.O. #20 and subsequent orders was to prevent the onset of insurgency.
Therefore, this implies that an insurgency had not already started.
29 Scott, Memoirs, Vol. II, 545. G.O. #287, Clause 15, Scott to the Army. Eisenhower, So Far From God, 267 and
Edward Wallace, “The U.S. Army in Mexico City,” Military Affairs 13 (Fall 1949) 161.
18
populace.30 Together these elements formed the civil aspects of the insurgency prevention
strategy, but this was only part of what Scott implemented.
There is evidence that many in the ranks understood the criticality of Scott’s approach.
Sergeant Thomas Barclay of Company E, 2nd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry was a well-
educated lawyer from western Pennsylvania who enlisted to fight in Mexico in the exciting days
following the declaration of war. His journal is filled with incisive observations, including the
importance of a conciliatory tone while operating in enemy country. Barclay wrote that “every
man of common sense knows that we should conciliate as well as fight and prevent by every
possible means arousing the Mexican nation.”31 While there were certainly those in the ranks
who desired to and did attempt to come down hard on the Mexican population, soldiers like
Barclay represented a dependable core that would carry out Scott’s intent admirably.
A full strategy also required an aggressive military pillar. The first element here – and
fifth among the eight steps – was the development of an intelligence network. To make this
work Scott turned to his trusted subordinate and friend Lieutenant Colonel Ethan Allan
Hitchcock. The venerable Hitchcock was the grandson of the Revolutionary War hero Ethan
Allan, leader of the Green Mountain Boys. Hitchcock would prove a capable counter-insurgency
operator in Mexico. Upon receipt of Scott’s directive Hitchcock organized a “spy company”
recruited largely from the very insurgent elements – or “Rascals” as one young officer called
them – that were harassing the lines of communication. The army had captured many rancheros
over the course of the campaign and here was Hitchcock’s recruiting pool. To induce these men
to work for the American army Hitchcock was authorized to pay $20 a month to each man. This
amount being over twice what an American private earned was all that was necessary to
30 Peskin, Volunteers, 95; Scott, Memoirs, 296-297 and 302-303; and US Congress, Executive Document #60, 914.
G.O. #87, Scott to the Army.
31 Peskin, Volunteers, 110.
19
encourage them to join the company. The band not only provided a solid source of intelligence,
but it also disrupted the enemy while providing an additional form of force protection for the
army. This ingenious idea did not stop the harassment of the supply lines, but it did prove
instrumental in keeping guerrilla bands off-balance while securing the ability of the army to
operate effectively.32
The next element of Scott’s military plan was the designation of a hard-hitting counter-
guerrilla force to combat the rancheros and an irregular Mexican unit called the Cuerpo Ligera,
or Light Corps. For this mission Scott turned to the commander of the 3rd United States Infantry
Regiment, Lieutenant Colonel Charles F. Childs. The purpose of this mobile unit was to harass
rancheros and defeat the Cuerpo Ligera, keeping them from being able to attack at will, and
destroying isolated enemy detachments. Further, Scott used a convoy escort system for
movement of vulnerable wagon trains and even employed the Mexican spy company, the
‘Rascals’, as a command escort.33 Although the enemy guerrillas were able to annoy the army
from time to time, they were never effective enough to stop the advance toward Mexico City.
Finally, Scott developed a partnership with the Mexican police. A key to maintenance of
civil order is competent indigenous police. Scott fully recognized this from his self-study and
32 Ethan Allan Hitchcock, Fifty Years in Camp and Field, edited by W. A. Croffut, (New York: G.P. Putnam’s &
Sons, 1909) 259-265. GoogleBooks online http://books.google.com (accessed on 10 October 2011); Levinson,
“Occupation and Stability Dilemmas of the Mexican War,” 6-7; Levinson, Wars Within Wars, 59-64; and Miller,
Kirkham Journal, 39.
33 Scott, Memoirs, Vol. II, 453; Eisenhower, So Far From God, 296; Miller, Kirkham Journal, 39; Ramon Alcaraz,
et al., The Other Side: Notes for the History of the War Between Mexico and the United States. Translated by Albert
C. Ramsey (New York: John Wiley, Publisher, 1850) 437-438 GoogleBooks Online,
http://books.google.com/books/about/The_other_side_or_Notes_for_the_history.html?id=HUUIAAAAQAAJ
(accessed 1 October 2011). While the book author is listed as Ramon Alcaraz, this book was compiled by fifteen
Mexican editors – listed in the introduction to the book – who contributed to the finished product. Since Alcaraz
was the first editor listed in the text his name appears to have been conflated into primary author in bibliographical
sources. The chapters and essays were produced by the group, but none of them note who specifically authored that
particular treatment. Therefore, I have only listed Alcaraz as author in consonance with the common bibliographical
annotation. Executive Document No. 56 of the House of Representatives – Messages From the President of the
United States Transmitting Reports From the Secretary of State and the Secretary of War With Accompanying
Documents in Compliance With the Resolution of the 7th February 1848 (Washington DC: March 20, 1848) 136 and
216-217 (accessed online 30 April 2014).
20
previous experience and therefore established as standard procedure for the army to retain the
local police of all municipalities. Further, “for the ease and safety of both [Mexicans and
Americans] parties . . . the Mexican police shall be . . . duly harmonized with the military
police.”34 This policy further allowed the American army to concentrate its efforts on the
Mexican army instead of worrying about the Mexican population nipping at them from the rear.
The cumulative effect of Scott’s prescient eight step counter-insurgency strategy was to
maintain civil order, undermine Mexican military strategy, and enable the army to accomplish its
operational objectives. Most important, the strategy facilitated conflict termination because the
United States Army won the competition for support of the Mexican people – each element was
designed to demonstrate American competence and goodwill. This drew a stark contrast with
the ineptness of the Mexican senior leadership and haphazard guerrilla operations, which gave
the Americans an insurmountable advantage over their adversaries.35 The net result was winning
the war.
After a nearly three month sojourn in Puebla, which allowed Scott to gather strength, his
army began the final thrust to Mexico City. By mid-August the army was at the gates of the
Mexican capital. In a series of hard-fought battles, including Contreras and Churubusco, Scott
brilliantly outflanked the larger Mexican army by crossing the lava flow area known as the
Pedregal. The Mexican army under Santa Anna believed the region was impassable and
therefore arrayed its forces en masse at other locations. When the Americans debouched
southwest of Mexico City the Mexicans hastily shifted forces to meet the unexpected threat.
However, disharmony and over-centralization of the Mexican command hierarchy resulted in
34 Scott, Memoirs, Vol. II, 545; G.O. 287, Clause #14; and Levinson, “Occupation and Stability Dilemmas of the
Mexican War,” 6-7.
35 Eisenhower, So Far From God, 347-348. John Eisenhower noted that the Mexican guerrillas turned on the people
when they discovered that American patrols limited their ability to strike easy targets. Turning on the people
though, played into American hands by demonstrating that their efforts delivered security, undermining Mexican
attempts to win by introducing a widespread insurgency.
21
sharp defeats, forcing Santa Anna back to the gates of the capital. Then on 13 September 1847
Scott launched the final assault on the citadel of Chapultepec, which protected the western
approaches to Mexico City. Following a punishing engagement, the Americans entered the
castle and a demoralized Mexican army retreated leaving Mexico City to the victorious
Americans.36
While the US Army had won a great victory over the conventional army of Mexico, the
war was not yet won. In fact, this was the pivotal moment of the entire campaign. If the army
mishandled the occupation of Mexico City then the war could still be lost. Scott was in the heart
of a nation of seven million people with a mere 10,000 men. He quickly assessed that the
potential for a slide into chaos was far too great to rest on the laurels of his recent victories.
Therefore, on 17 September 1847 Scott published General Order No. 287, which was an updated
version of G.O. #20 with “important additions.”37 Scott’s ability to anticipate what could go
wrong proved prophetic, but more important was his competence at implementing sound policies
to tamp down any insurgency, thus sealing the conventional victory.
Shortly after occupying the city many Mexicans became unruly, goaded on by Santa
Anna and his leading sympathizers – who had eluded capture. First, the lower classes began
sacking unguarded locations around the city, including the presidential palace. Next, Santa Anna
ordered all the prisons emptied so that all the criminals of Mexico City freely plied the streets in
search of mischief. Third, the Mexican leader ordered his remaining loyal soldiers to conduct
harassing raids around the city and against scattered American detachments in combination with
conventional raiding and irregular warfare.38 However promising these measures initially
appeared, within a matter of days the efforts fell flat.
36 Ibid., 318-322 and 342. The Chapultepec castle housed the Mexican military academy in 1847.
37 Ibid., 540-546.
38 Eisenhower, So Far From God, 345-347; Wallace, “The U.S. Army in Mexico City,” 161; and Alcaraz, The Other
Side, 375-376. It is interesting to note that Saddam Hussein, like Santa Anna, did these same things in 2003.
22
Scott was ready for Santa Anna’s irregular tactics and by earlier issuing his G.O. #287
had fully anticipated the attempt to step up insurgent activity. To begin with, the army increased
the number of patrols to maintain security in partnership with the Mexican police, which
accomplished two objectives: it halted looting and helped to round up the released convicts.
Second, raiding had less than expected effects as the scattered attempts to harass the city only
irritated the people. The frustrated soldiers and irregulars, unable to achieve success against the
Americans, turned on the vulnerable among the people. This in turn angered the general
population in and around Mexico City, who then looked for help from the American army and
legitimate Mexican authorities, which Scott had left in place.39
Scott also promulgated a plan to reconcile Mexican prisoners captured on the battlefield.
In the 19th century it was traditional to parole prisoners because of the difficulty involved with
supporting them logistically in addition to the burdens of keeping the army supplied. However,
parolees frequently broke the terms by quickly rejoining the enemy army or irregular bands. To
prevent this from occurring, Scott came up with an ingenious idea. He decided to capitalize on
his understanding of the role of the Catholic clergy by inducing all Mexican parolees to promise
“before God our Lord on this Holy Cross” that the captured soldier would not take up arms
again.40 In so doing, Scott leveraged the faith of average Mexicans to prevent the army and
auxiliary bands from obtaining a ready source of manpower.
As the populace observed these efforts along with the American army working to restore
order, it had the effect of neutralizing support for the guerrillas while enabling Scott to move
forward toward accomplishing the mission. An eyewitness to the occupation, noted in his
history that the Mexican press, which Scott allowed to publish freely, editorialized in support of
39 Ibid; Eisenhower, So Far From God, 345-347; Alcaraz, The Other Side, 390; and Levinson, Wars Within Wars,
81-82.
40 US Congress, Executive Doc. #60, 1054-1057.
23
American security operations. The Mexican newspaper Eco del Comercio openly espoused
peace with the United States.41 By preventing a mass movement and leveraging the press in an
information operation, the army was able to implement a relatively orderly occupation that
facilitated peace negotiations with the interim Mexican central government.
Stability Operations Around Mexico City
Though an insurgency did simmer going into the fall of 1847, the US Army asserted
enough control over affairs to bring about an uneasy calm. This atmosphere provided the
backdrop for Mr. Nicholas Trist, the American diplomatic envoy, to begin peace talks with the
Mexicans. Mr. Trist had arrived to take up his post as President Polk’s peace negotiator when
the army was in Jalapa. Unfortunately, Trist’s arrival was not auspicious by any means. Scott
initially viewed Trist with derision and anger as he believed that his presence with the army as
the government’s emissary represented a slight to his authority. He fired off a series of acerbic
letters to Secretary Marcy defending his prerogatives as commanding general. Trist threatened
to derail the entire campaign according to Scott. Only the near death of Trist by yellow fever
repaired the relationship between the two men. In a commendable display of compassion Scott
supervised the provision of medical care that saved Trist’s life.42 From that point forward the
two established a warm relationship that proved an essential element to terminating the conflict
in a satisfactory manner. Establishing this partnership between the senior civilian and the
military commander was fortuitous for the achievement of American strategic objectives.
Meanwhile, thousands of reinforcements doubling the army’s strength began arriving in
central Mexico, thereby allowing Scott to better secure the region.43 Because the general had
established a satisfactory environment before Trist’s negotiations, nothing involving armed
41 Alcaraz, The Other Side, 415 and 422-423.
42 Scott, Memoirs, 575-580.
43 Alcaraz, The Other Side, 416.
24
violence would derail the ongoing talks. However, what if a serious insurgency had taken hold
following the fall of Mexico City? It is hard to imagine that the Americans could have
accomplished their war aims in this theoretical scenario. In fact, a low level insurgency did
continue for some time, but Scott was able to keep it from flaring and spreading through the
actions he took. With violence raging among an infuriated populace, without a police force, the
Church unleveraged, and the government dissolved it is highly doubtful that a satisfactory
outcome could have been possible. Therefore, Scott’s preventative insurgency plan proved
instrumental in securing the strategic goals of the conventional campaign. Without a proactive
approach to a potential insurgency, the hard-fought tactical victories along the road to Mexico
City would have been forfeited. The commanding general’s acumen in conventional and
irregular warfare enabled him to achieve both a brilliant operational and strategic victory that
achieved all stated war aims.
The resultant Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo sealed the military victories of the campaign.
In the agreement the border between Mexico and Texas was established on the Rio Grande
River. Mexico agreed to transfer its northwestern provinces – including the current states of
New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and California – to the United States in
exchange for a payment of fifteen million dollars. Further, the United States agreed to assume
the war debt of Mexico incurred during the fighting. The treaty also established conventions of
trade between the two countries, exchange of prisoners, rules of navigation, and delineated
formal respect for the Church reminiscent of Scott’s earlier policies.44 Altogether the treaty as
ratified represented a clear victory for the Polk Administration from a political standpoint. Using
the instrument of war, the president succeeded in achieving the stated political goals of the
44 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, University of Dayton online archive,
http://academic.udayton.edu/race/02rights/guadalu.htm (accessed on 14 September 2011).
25
United States. Scott, as the commander of the army, served as the executive agent in carrying
out the desires of the government.
Although Scott was able to achieve a great deal it must be noted that his political masters
placed some heavy constraints on his ability to operate. First, shortly after the war broke out,
Secretary of War Marcy instructed the army to prosecute the war vigorously and not waste time
in niceties with the Mexicans. “The war is only carried on to obtain justice, and the sooner that
can be obtained, and with the least expenditure of blood and money, the better,” stated Marcy in
a confidential memorandum to Zachary Taylor.45 At one point Marcy went so far as to instruct
General Taylor to hold Mexican towns that harbored guerrillas responsible through the levy of
fines and confiscation of personal property. The Administration knew that it had a limited time
to defeat Mexico before public support for the war would begin to wane.46 Therefore, by
executing a speedy campaign along the Rio Grande and in the northern provinces of Mexico the
Administration hoped to wrap up the war with a minimum expenditure of both political and
military resources. When this did not happen the Administration turned to Scott for an
alternative strategy to reenergize the war and win it quickly through offensive action. Observing
what was happening in northern Mexico, Scott drew on his previous experience and realized that
preventing insurgency had to be an integral part of any campaign plan directed toward Mexico
City. Thus, his plan encompassed a composite of conventional and preventative/counter-
insurgency operations. This strategy would prevent the campaign from bogging down in order to
meet Marcy’s imperative to end the war sooner rather than later.
The second barrier erected by the Administration involved limits placed on manpower.
Scott estimated in his initial proposal that to prosecute the campaign to Mexico City he would
45 US Congress, Executive Doc. #60, 333.
46 Carney, The Occupation of Mexico, 23-25.
26
need a minimum of 20,000 troops along with heavy guns and associated transport. Marcy
presented Scott’s memorandum to the president on 17 November 1846 and Polk summarily
rejected the need for a 20,000 man force. Scott embarked to Veracruz with a little over 10,000
men, just over half of what he assessed was the minimum requirement.47 When the army arrived
in Mexico City there were less than 8,000 men in the ranks due to attrition. Sergeant Barclay
noted this fact in his journal on 14 September 1847 with an undertone of foreboding. Yet he was
also justifiably proud of what the army had accomplished with such a small number.48 The
paucity of forces made a sound preventive and counter-insurgency strategy all the more critical
to the success of the overall campaign. It also forced Scott to prioritize the key geographic
points that he had to control during the occupation rather than attempting to hold ever square
mile the army passed through. In the end, Scott chose his strongpoints very well and never lost
momentum.
Finally, Scott did not enjoy a good personal relationship with the chief executive. This
was partly due to the fact that Scott was a known Whig by political affiliation. If Scott achieved
any success in the war he could challenge Polk, a Democrat, in the next presidential election.
This factor caused a great deal of friction between the general and his political master. At one
point Polk recorded in his diary that “[T]hese officers (including Scott) are all Whigs and violent
partisans, and not having the success of my administration at heart.”49 The second factor that
strained the relationship was Polk’s perception that Scott was not suited for command. Polk was
47 Nevins, Polk Diary, 168-169 and US Congress, Executive Document No. 59, in Rice University online collection
http://scholarship.rice.edu/jsp/xml/1911/22126/1/9900253.tei.html Scott to Marcy, 12 November 1846. Polk’s diary
mentions 14,000 as the number discussed in the meeting. The figure of 14,000 is also found in Scott’s memo in a
table at the end of the document. The higher number of 20,000 is mentioned in the text where Scott notes that “[T]o
reach that point [Mexico City] . . . an army of more than 20,000 men may be needed.” Polk, however seized on the
lower figure.
48 Peskin, Volunteers, 180.
49 Nevins, Polk Diary, 100 and Eisenhower, So Far From God, 90 and 160-165. Winfield Scott’s name had been
floated by such Whig leaders as John J. Crittenden as a potential opponent in the 1844 election that saw Polk rise to
the office. Any success that Scott enjoyed on the battlefield could have made him a formidable candidate for the
presidency in 1848 and the Democrats wanted to avoid such an eventuality.
27
piqued by the general’s refusal in early 1846 to assume command of Zachary Taylor’s army – at
that point in the war the only force in the field.50 Scott appears to have refused to move his
headquarters to Mexico at that time to avoid embarrassing his friend, Taylor. Further, as the
overall commanding general Scott needed to complete a great deal of administrative work in the
United States to expand the army and make it ready for combat. Yet in the end Polk threw his
support behind Scott as he prepared for action in the campaign to Mexico City. Why did Polk do
this? From Polk’s diary it is clear that the cabinet, including Secretary of War Marcy, and others
like Commandant of the Marine Corps Archibald Henderson convinced the president to allow
Scott to command the campaign since “as he [Scott] was the highest officer in the army, he
should be entrusted with the conduct of this important expedition.”51 It is to Polk’s credit that in
spite of his personal reservations about Scott he recognized that he was the premier officer of the
army. Regardless, Polk would keep a close eye on Scott throughout the campaign, putting
pressure on the general to produce a victory, and quickly.
With these formidable constraints Scott was forced to execute the campaign. Possessing
a bare minimum of personnel and knowing the need for speed, demand for offensive action, and
political and personal agendas on the part of the Administration, how did Scott respond? He
ingratiated the Administration with a bold and successful operation to Mexico City while
providing “a cordial reciprocation of my personal . . . regard” in his correspondence.52 Thus, he
executed a compound strategy of conventional operations and preventive/counter-insurgency
operations out of immediate reach of the Administration. He was able to do this partly because
of the time required for messages to travel back and forth to Washington – about a month –
which gave Scott the breathing space he needed to fully implement his strategy free from
50 Nevins, Polk Diary, 101-102 and Eisenhower, So Far From God, 92-93.
51 Nevins, Polk Diary, 169.
52 Scott, Memoirs, II, 399-400.
28
immediate political intervention. The entire campaign took about six months to execute, and
Scott was well on his way to accomplishing his objectives before anyone could redirect his
effort. In the end, however, the credit for Scott’s successful prosecution and conclusion of the
Mexican War must rest not with time or luck or Mexican inaction, but with the general himself.
Winfield Scott brilliantly fulfilled his mission and facilitated achieving the strategic ends
of the United States. He led an outnumbered army over 150 miles deep into the territory of a
hostile country opposed by its regular army and a burgeoning insurgency. Yet through a strategy
of competent conventional operations married to a well-thought out preventive and counter-
insurgency campaign, he was able to defeat both threats in about six months. This allowed the
formal peace negotiations to proceed unfettered and brought about a termination of the conflict
on the most favorable strategic terms for the United States. Approximately 160 years later a
similar conventional campaign was undertaken by another American army but with different
strategic results.
Iraq 2003, Winning a War, Losing a Peace?
53
The results of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), which began in March 2003, stands in
stark contrast to the campaign to take Mexico City in spite of a startling number of parallels
between the two conflicts. The campaign that toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein was a
headlong march to the Iraqi capital, the political, social, and economic heart of the country. Like
Winfield Scott’s march to Mexico City, the United States forces that invaded Iraq were relatively
undersized for the mission. Yet just like their predecessors in Mexico, these forces executed a
brilliant conventional campaign. However, shortly after expelling Saddam and his Ba’ath Party
from power chaos ensued and a nasty insurgency took root. How did this happen? The second
53 From the title of Ali A. Allawi’s book used as a reference in the coming section of this Strategy Research Paper.
Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace, (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale
University Press, 2007).
29
half of this paper focuses in broad terms on answering this question. It will examine the
planning, preparation, and execution of OIF and the lack of interagency cooperation that led to
the descent into chaos, while offering examples from Scott’s campaign, that if carefully studied
and adapted, might have prevented some of the problems of 2003-2011. The paper will conclude
with salient concepts that Scott considered which could help the United States avoid a strategic
debacle, like OIF, in the future.
Planning and Preparation for OIF
Shortly after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan the Bush Administration shifted its
sights toward Iraq. Planning for OIF began when the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld,
issued an order on 27 November 2001 to the Commander of Central Command (CENTCOM),
General Tommy Franks. Rumsfeld instructed Franks to begin development of courses of action
for an invasion of Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein from power. The stated purpose of an attack
was two-fold. First, the United States wanted President Saddam Hussein removed from power in
Iraq, along with the Ba’ath Party. Second, the United States believed that Hussein was
attempting to revitalize his nuclear program and the US wanted to prevent this from coming to
pass. Hussein had a long history of antagonism with the United States dating back to the Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait in August of 1990. A large coalition led by the United States operating under
United Nation resolutions expelled Iraq from Kuwait in the First Gulf War. This confrontation
destroyed much of the Iraqi army, but left Hussein in charge of Iraq, albeit under heavy
restrictions. Throughout the rest of the 1990s Hussein continued to agitate his neighbors, while
severely oppressing ethnic and religious groups within his country. Further, he was suspected of
having rejuvenated his weapons of mass destruction programs. By 2001 it was assessed by some
30
experts that the only course of action left to the United States to bring stability to the Gulf region
was regime change.54
As the Bush Administration took the reins of government it immediately faced the
challenge of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. Within a month the United States
launched Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in Afghanistan and with the indigenous Northern
Alliance and special operations forces drove the Taliban from power in a neat and relatively low
cost campaign. Even before Taliban was being swept away leaders within the administration
were already looking west toward Iraq as the next logical step in what was dubbed the Global
War on Terror (GWOT). When Secretary Rumsfeld gave the order to begin planning,
CENTCOM already had an operation plan (OPLAN) on the shelf. OPLAN 1003 was developed
in 1998 as a contingency for an offensive into Iraq.55 General Franks immediately reviewed the
plan with his staff and assessed it as obsolete, mainly because it did not take into account current
force dispositions and advances in precision weapon technology. Within a couple of weeks his
staff would refine the standing plan and present it to the national command authority for
consideration.56
Planning began in earnest as soon as Franks briefed his staff. By 28 December 2001
Franks was ready to brief his commander’s concept to President Bush at his Texas ranch.57
Franks had commanded CENTCOM for about eighteen months when he was summoned to
Crawford, Texas for this briefing. In 36 years of service he had fought in combat in Vietnam and
commanded field artillery units at every level before promotion to flag rank and service in the
First Gulf War. Most recently, forces under his command launched OEF in Afghanistan,
54 Kenneth Pollack, “Next Stop Baghdad,” Foreign Affairs (March-April 2002),
www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/57805/kenneth-m-pollack/next-stop-baghdad. (Accessed 5 November 2011).
55 Nora Bensahel, et al., After Saddam: Pre-war Planning and the Occupation of Iraq, (Santa Monica, California:
Rand Corporation, 2008) 6.
56 Tommy Franks, American Soldier (New York: Regan Books, 2004) 315.
57 Ibid., 345-346.
31
toppling the Taliban in a spectacular campaign in the fall of 2001. On this day in late December,
the experienced and battle-hardened Franks would lay out the basic concept that would plunge
the United States into combat in a second theater while operations in Afghanistan were still on-
going.
At the 28 December meeting General Franks laid out his ‘commander’s concept.’ The
updated plan – now dubbed OPLAN 1003V – contained four major phases for an operation into
Iraq to change the regime and remove weapons of mass destruction. The phases included: Phase
I Preparation; Phase II Shaping the Battlespace; Phase III Decisive Operations; and Phase IV
Post-Hostility Operations. Phase I was designed to garner support from the international
community while simultaneously building what Franks called an “air bridge” to transport and
support forces in the proposed theater. Phase II’s purpose was to “shape” the battlespace by
placing the enemy at a disadvantage before launch of the next phase. In Phase III the coalition
would decisively defeat the Iraqi army while simultaneously removing the ruling regime from
power. Specifically, this meant that the Hussein “regime leaders [were] dead, apprehended, or
marginalized” paving the way for a new government. Finally, Phase IV was intended to
establish a new, representative government without weapons of mass destruction and capable of
defending itself. This phase also encompassed a reconstruction effort designed to quickly back
the new government with a functioning economy.58 Franks states in his memoirs that he believed
that this final phase would last an unknown length of time and could “prove more challenging
than major combat operations.”59 Herein lay the major controversy after the insurgency began in
late 2003 following the end of major combat.
58 Ibid., 349-352.
59 Ibid., 352.
32
Shortly after operations went awry in late summer-early fall 2003, recriminations began
to surface that the reason that a nasty insurgency was germinating in Iraq was due to a failure to
anticipate and plan for such an eventuality. One author – among several – asserts that the plan’s
“incompleteness helped create the conditions for the difficult occupation that followed.”60 This
assertion is patently false. In fact, a great deal of thought and planning was undertaken to
anticipate and quell an insurgency.61 Since this is the case, the question arises, why did the US
fail to prevent or quell the insurgency in Iraq in its early stages? The answer is found by
examining what the agencies of government – the Department of Defense (DoD), the National
Security Council (NSC), and the Department of State (DoS) – believed was the realm of their
responsibilities and follow-up actions after the conclusion of Phase III Decisive Operations.
The individual agencies planning for OIF appear to have done an admirable job capturing
the details and possibilities inherent in a campaign to liberate Iraq. For example, CENTCOM
fully anticipated the requirement to maintain civil order, reconstruct infrastructure, and rebuild
Iraq’s government capacity. Further, General Franks clearly understood that force levels would
necessarily have to rise to perform stability operations.62 In fact, the future planning staff of
CENTCOM drew up an OPLAN called IRAQI RECONSTRUCTION. In many ways this plan
and what it hoped to achieve is reminiscent of Winfield Scott’s G.O. #20. It anticipated seven
critical tasks to achieve a successful outcome to the war. The tasks included: maintenance of the
rule of law, security, support to civil administration, assisting the Iraqi government, enlarging the
coalition, emergency humanitarian assistance, and ensuring the operability of critical
infrastructure.63
60 Thomas E. Ricks, Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, (New York: The Penguin Press, 2006) 115.
61 Bensahel, After Saddam, xvii-xviii.
62 Ibid., 7-8 and Franks, American Soldier, 351-352 and 366.
63 Bensahel, After Saddam, 9.
33
Subordinate elements of CENTCOM also lay the foundation for Phase IV in completing
thorough plans. The Combined Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC) headquarters
constituted by Third Army started planning in October 2002. The CFLCC attempted to identify
flaws in the Phase IV outline through a series of wargames and did develop several possible
eventualities that the force would have to deal with. For example, the intelligence section
cautioned that a rapid regime change could lead to the “risk of an influx of terrorists to Iraq, the
rise of criminal activity, [and] actions of former regime members” to upset attempts to stabilize
the country. Based on these potential risks CFLCC determined that the ground forces available
for Phase IV were probably insufficient to maintain civil order.64
In October of 2002 the Department of the Army instituted a study of the challenges of a
post-conflict Iraq through the Strategic Studies Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. The
resulting report presciently anticipated every major factor that the military had to consider in
order to realize strategic success. The conclusions included structuring the force appropriately;
religious, ethnic, and tribal differences; the difficulty of stabilizing the fragmented Iraqi society
politically; and the critical requirement for security to enable civil institutions to function. The
survey examined historical cases in occupations by US military forces in past conflicts like the
Philippine Insurrection and Korea and then offered a series of relevant considerations for the
transition to stability operations. Prominent among these was the role of interagency planning,
the roles of each agency, and how/when to handover civil responsibilities from US agencies to
Iraqi institutions.65 The monograph was very relevant in light of what occurred. However, its
late publication date – February 2003 – made it less than timely since the elements identified
came to fruition within 60 days.
64 Ibid., 12-13.
65 Conrad C. Crane and W. Andrew Terrill, Reconstructing Iraq: Insights, Challenges, and Missions for Military
Forces in a Post-Conflict Scenario, (Carlisle, Pennsylvania: Strategic Studies Institute, 2003) iii, 17-18, and 42-54.
34
The National Security Council (NSC) conducted its own effort to anticipate what could
go wrong in Iraq. Secretary Rumsfeld presented what he dubbed a “parade of horribles” to
President Bush in October 2002. It is striking that the memorandum fully anticipated what
actually did go wrong in Iraq. For instance, item #19 states that “[R]ather than having the post-
Saddam effort require two to four years, it could take eight to ten years, thereby absorbing US
leadership, military, and financial resources.”66 The Department of State also engaged in its own
planning project termed “The Future of Iraq.” Secretary of State Colin Powell commissioned a
series of working groups to identify and plan for the challenges that could arise in the post-
Saddam era. The resultant 2,000 page collection of documents included information on the
development of a new Iraqi government and reconstruction efforts. Assessments of the DoS
effort deemed it as a comprehensive, insightful look at the problem of a post-Saddam Iraq.67 Yet
in spite of the planning efforts of the DoD, NCS, and DoS the stabilization phase of OIF was an
abysmal failure resulting in an eight year slog to “success” – as predicted in Rumsfeld’s ‘Parade
of Horribles’. If the various agencies did such an admirable job of anticipating and planning the
operation, then what went wrong in execution?
The problem with the planning effort is found in the stovepiping of the agencies involved
and adopting the most optimistic estimates of success rather than accepting the negatives, such as
Rumsfeld’s ‘Parade’. Within military circles there was a great deal of “collaborative, iterative,
and continuous planning . . . at all levels of command.” However, the major military
organizations, such as CENTCOM and CFLCC, never engaged the civilian agencies that would
prove critical to success in the transition to and execution of Phase IV Stabilization. “The
planning was shoddy,” notes one author and further, “there was no one really in charge of it, and
66 Keeper File, “Rumsfeld’s ‘Parade of Horribles’,” Air Force Magazine (April 2011), 71.
67 Bensahel, After Saddam, 30-37.
35
there was little coordination between the various groups.”68 Therefore, it appears that the several
departments of the government developed their own individual plans in a vacuum.
Contributing to the problem of collaboration and integration in the planning process was
the issue of inter-agency rivalry “below the level of the principals.” In a recent interview, former
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard B. Myers stated that parochialism played a
large role in the failure of planning. Specifically, the DoS – DoD relationship was anything but
cooperative. “[A]nything coming out of Defense, we don’t want to hear about” he intoned about
the State Department, while the same attitude reigned at the DoD with reference to DoS. Thus,
General Myers concluded that “we couldn’t harness these [elements of national power] in a way
to focus more effectively in Iraq.”69 With two powerful agencies of government failing to
communicate and coordinate effectively regarding the same strategic problem the inevitable
result was the paralysis of the effort to stabilize Iraq in Phase IV. The reader will remember that
Winfield Scott initially had issues with Nicholas Trist as they came to grips with ending the
Mexican War. However, for the greater good they managed to put their differences behind them
in order to resolve the issue at hand, which was terminating the war in a manner that would
facilitate securing the strategic ends. While times were much simpler in the 19th century and the
complexity of working within and through bureaucracies was far less daunting, leaders should
still note that the spirit of cooperation and coordination are critical components of successful
planning in the modern age as they were in Scott’s time.
In light of this it is easy to see why confusion set in during Phase IV of OIF. With the
various agencies effectively working in a vacuum there was no way to properly coordinate who
would do what in the inevitable transition to Phase IV. When decisive operations ended the
68 Ibid., 15 and Ricks, Fiasco, 78-81.
69 Richard B. Myers, “An Interview with Richard B. Myers,” Prism (Volume 2, Number 4, September 2011) 152.
36
forces on the ground – which were too small – could not secure the country because they were
inappropriate to the changing mission. Small numbers of armor and mechanized forces are
certainly appropriate for operations against a conventional army; however, as an army transitions
from major combat to stability operations larger number of light forces are necessary for
security, as noted by several military professionals during the planning phase. Yet others in the
government did not accept their assessment.70 This is because officials in the Office of the
Secretary of Defense along with the Secretary himself believed the rosy assumption that our
arrival on the scene would be hailed by the Iraqis, thus obviating the need for a large number of
troops. This was contrary to the view developed by the military planners. Additionally, the
chaos unleashed with the collapse of the Saddam regime pushed the military forces to the
breaking point; they were incapable of providing governance and implementing reconstruction
tasks and the lack of collaboration between agencies guaranteed that no one was ready to take
full responsibility. With the dissolution of the Saddam regime and implementation of the de-
Ba’athification policy, there was no civil government ready or capable of assuming
responsibility for governing at the end of major combat operations. Various United States
government agencies that the military expected to fill the resultant civil vacuum and perform
reconstruction were not readily available to execute these tasks.71 This stability gap created the
opportunity for an insurgency to take root. By contrast, Winfield Scott issued G.O. #20 with its
provisions for the rule of law and retention of certain government officials to prevent such a gap
from forming in Mexico, thereby quelling the burgeoning insurgency before it could take hold.
Another factor in the failure to integrate agency planning was the disconnect between the
agencies regarding which department was responsible for what. General Franks noted in a
70 Ricks, Fiasco, 79 and 96-97; Franks, American Soldier, 366; and Bensahel, After Saddam, 17.
71 Ricks, Fiasco, 78-81; Bensahel, After Saddam, 36; and Ali A. Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War,
Losing the Peace, (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2007), 98.
37
planning update at the White House in August 2002 that the possibility of a rapid collapse of the
Saddam regime would require an equally rapid American response to ensure that stability among
the populace could be guaranteed. Franks further stated that “well-designed and well-funded
reconstruction projects . . . will be the keys to our success.” But he appears to have believed that
the responsibility for implementing stabilizing measures rested with the civilian agencies rather
than the military.72 Consequently, when the regime did collapse, as Franks suspected it might,
the military stood by expecting the civilians to quickly fill the vacuum. As a result, it was not a
failure to plan but “the ineffectiveness of the planning process” that led to the conditions
whereby the insurgency arose.73
A critical decision that contributed to the ultimate failure to transition smoothly to Phase
IV was the paucity of forces available to secure the country. Also, the forces that were available
consisted mostly of armor and mechanized troops ill-suited to constabulary duties critical to
stabilization. The heavily armored and mechanized troops that invaded Iraq were well-trained in
combat tasks involving battle on the open plain utilizing tanks and armored personnel carriers.
However, such troops lacked training in counter-insurgency tasks, making them ill-suited to what
would happen upon transition to Phase IV. Every plan developed by the military called for at
least 250,000 soldiers as the minimum adequate force required to secure the gains.74 Some
estimates of the forces required for transition to stabilization were on the order of 500,000.75 In
testimony before the Congress on 17 February 2003 General Eric Shinseki, Army Chief of Staff,
asserted that at least 400,000 troops would be needed to secure Iraq and enable capacity building
to start and progress.76 Yet, at no time in Iraq did force levels ever approach the lower 250,000
72 Bensahel, After Saddam, 17 and 28-30 and Franks, American Soldier, 392-393.
73 Bensahel, After Saddam, 16.
74 Franks, American Soldier, 366. Franks briefed this figure to Secretary Rumsfeld on 1 February 2003.
75 Bensahel, After Saddam, 17.
76 Eric Schmitt, “Threats and Responses: Military Spending; Pentagon Contradicts General on Occupation Forces’
Size,” New York Times 27 February 2003. http://nytimes.com/2003/02/28/us/threats-threatsandresponses.html
38
number. In fact, when decisive operations came to a close in Iraq there were less than 170,000
troops in Iraq and the deployment order for the desperately needed 1st Cavalry Division was
cancelled. This decision nullified the planning that had taken place in CENTCOM and ensured
that the conditions were set for an ugly insurgency to rise unabated. A CFLCC planner believed
“that the decision not to send additional troops was the tipping point that led to the subsequent
insurgency.”77 In contrast to the failures in Iraq, General Scott – also operating under tight force
restrictions – took actions to maximize the utility of his inferior numbers to prevent and
effectively squelch a burgeoning insurgency in Mexico in 1847-48. The differences between
how he planned for the unconventional aspects of his campaign and how the American
leadership planned for Phase IV in Iraq are startling. Yet in a conventional sense his march on
Mexico City was eerily similar to OIF in 2003.
While the Army of 1847 operated under similar force restrictions as that of the force sent
to Iraq in 2003, there is another stark difference that sheds light on the success of Scott’s army in
Mexico. It should be recalled that Secretary Marcy gave wide latitude to his field commanders
in Mexico.78 This allowed commanders such as Zachary Taylor in northern Mexico and Scott
moving on Mexico City to make decisions focused on achieving the stated objectives without
having to look over their shoulders for approval from the political masters. By contrast,
commanders in Iraq in 2003 would have their hands tied by civilian leaders who dictated
battlefield requirements thousands of miles removed from the scene of action. This lack of
discretion at the point of decision would prove problematic for military leaders in the 21st
century.
(accessed 13 November 2011) and John Althouse, “Force to Occupy Iraq Massive,” USA Today 25 February 2003.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-02-25-iraq-us_x.htm (accessed 13 November 2011).
77 Ricks, Fiasco, 122. Quote from the CFLCC Chief of Plans.
78 Executive Document No. 60, Secretary Marcy to Zachary Taylor.
39
The OIF Campaign
OIF in 2003 was much like Scott’s campaign in 1847. Both campaigns consisted of a
thrust toward the capital city of the enemy, known to encompass the political heart and soul of
the respective nations. Taking these cities, it was believed, would result in a decisive military
victory and achieve the ends set forth by the presidential administrations because Baghdad and
Mexico City were the political, military, and social centers of gravity. To reach their respective
objectives each army had to pass through hundreds of miles of hostile country. In both cases the
force structure was far too small to secure the area overrun by the advancing army and the
American commanders anticipated the possibility of insurgency. In both campaigns ethnic and
religious considerations affected the conduct and course of the operations. Both American
commanders also anticipated that stabilizing the invaded countries would be a difficult task.
Finally, there was an expectation by their political masters that the commanders would conduct
the campaigns in a rapid manner to bring the wars to a speedy and politically palatable
conclusion. The purpose in both cases was to maintain popular support of the people of the
United States, which would wane should the wars become too bloody and protracted. These nine
parallels were shared by both American armies and yet the strategic outcome of the conflicts was
drastically different.
The primary reason for this is not rooted in contextual or technological discrepancies
between 1847 and 2003; admittedly, Scott had some measure of greater freedom to plan,
execute, and adapt his preventive/counterinsurgent strategy than Tommy Franks did.
Additionally, the bureaucratic changes between the mid-nineteenth and the early twenty-first
century were also profound and mitigated against Franks’ ability to effectively plan his strategy
and adapt it. Additionally, technology has intervened in modern times to limit the range of
action of field commanders in contrast to the mid-19th century. Instant communications has
40
made it possible for civilian and military leaders thousands of miles from the battlefield to
discuss events with on-scene leaders as events unfold. This leads to a degree of over-
centralization that limits freedom of decision-making by front line leaders. Winfield Scott did
not have to operate under these conditions because when he was deployed he was effectively out
of communication with his civilian masters for months. When Secretary Marcy vested him with
the ability to decide his course as it unfolded, Scott seized the opportunity. Another difference
between the two campaigns is that in 2003 the United States did have coalition partners whose
interests the US had to consider when planning the invasion of Iraq. Scott did not have to deal
with partner nations in carrying out his campaign. Further, there were other matters that
complicated operations in 2003 such as religious divisions in Iraq, which Scott did not have to
confront since the Catholic Church was nearly monolithic in Mexico. Ultimately though, the
major difference between 1847 and 2003 was this: General Scott dealt with the circumstances as
he found them and adapted military planning and execution to deal with the situation. Further,
Winfield Scott and his cohort actually implemented a plan encompassing conventional
operations and insurgency preventing measures that would arrest the spiral into chaos before it
could take root and permeate the entire Mexican society. The generation of American leaders
156 years later did not actually implement a plan that accounted for a blossoming insurgency
even though the possibility was fully anticipated by all players.
OIF began on 19 March 2003 as elements of the 3rd Infantry Division led the assault into
Iraq. Preceding the ground forces was an aerial assault of missiles and aircraft striking targets
deep inside Iraq. The purpose of the air campaign was to paralyze Iraqi command and control,
prevent effective response to the assault by Iraqi forces, and strike Iraqi forces directly to weaken
morale. Over the course of the next three weeks the combined forces of the United States and
41
coalition partners rapidly overcame all resistance. The British secured Basra – Iraq’s only port –
within seven days and the spearhead of the US force moved inexorably up Highway 8, the main
artery to Baghdad.79 It was during this rapid advance that the first of the planning assumptions
proved false.
Coalion
Ground
Forces
Ground
Forces and
SOF
Ground
Forces and
SOF
Figure 2. The theater of war for the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Source: US Army War
College, Department of Military Strategy and Operational Planning, Lesson 17 Presentation.
All operational plans expected that the Iraqi army would suffer a rapid defeat and
subsequently surrender in large numbers, much as they had during the First Gulf War in 1991.
This, however, did not happen. Instead, Iraqi forces – including the Republican Guard – “simply
melted away” for two reasons. First, their will was broken by incessant bombing from coalition
airpower and second, many were under orders to operate as irregulars to slow the advance of the
coalition on Baghdad. Many of these individuals would later become recruiting fodder for
79 Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, 89.
42
insurgent leaders who gained strength as civil order broke down.80 Also, as the vanguard rolled
up to Baghdad, the Iraqi high command unleashed the Saddam Fedayeen militia to conduct
irregular warfare against the Americans. The Fedayeen was strikingly similar to the Mexican
Cuerpo Ligera that Scott’s men encountered in Mexico. These fanatical regime loyalists began
to effectively harass the long lines of communication back to Kuwait, portending troubles to
come.81
On 9 April 2003 US forces were on the outskirts of Baghdad. The mechanized forces
had moved nearly 300 miles in three weeks, pausing only during blinding sandstorms that
periodically swept across the desert. They had defeated Saddam Hussein’s army in every
engagement and as the 3rd Infantry Division rolled up on the capital organized resistance
collapsed. As the Americans approached, the Iraqi army simply walked away, leaving their guns
and heavy equipment behind, but these forces were not the only ones to walk off the job. The
police and government officials at all levels followed suit. They apparently left their jobs
because they were “fearful of citizens’ vengeance” and possible arrest by the coalition for
suspicion of being members of the Ba’ath Party. The United States military could have used its
considerable public affairs and information operations capability to communicate to the Iraqi
security forces and public that they would receive support by US troops in maintaining order, but
this did not happen.82 Thus, as the US military stood poised on the doorstep of Baghdad the civil
government was in a state of collapse and the stage was set for lawlessness to ensue due to
miscalculation and lack of communication with the people the US was liberating. The paucity of
American numbers, the mismatch of forces readily available versus those trained specifically for
stability operations and counterinsurgency, and the confusion over which US entity would take
80 Ibid. and Ricks, Fiasco, 119 and 125.
81 Franks, American Soldier, 486.
82 Ibid., 525.
43
the lead in Phase IV exacerbated this sorry state of affairs.83 In spite of a brilliantly executed
conventional campaign, American military and interagency unpreparedness opened the door to
disaster.
This reality stands in great contrast to the three important successes achieved in Phase III
of the war, Decisive Operations. First, the conventional operation to destroy and disarm the Iraqi
regular army was executed in a brilliant manner. Second, United States forces did an
outstanding job protecting Iraqi infrastructure. The oil industry remained fully operational,
which was critical for revenue generation for both the government and the people, and the power
grid was mainly intact facilitating the delivery of most basic services to the people. Finally, the
Ranger Regiment conducted a parachute assault to secure the Haditha Dam and in so doing
protected the water supply from contamination.84 With most public services operational it was
fully possible to jump start Phase IV stabilization tasks, but the prerequisite of establishing
security was necessary first to allow a return to normalcy. That prerequisite was never achieved.
By 10 April 2003 every major city in Iraq had already witnessed a serious outbreak of
lawlessness. “Mobs attacked government buildings across the country, carting off not just
valuables but everything that could be pried off walls and floors.”85 Worse than this, looters also
began to destroy the very infrastructure that the US military had worked so hard to protect. The
reason for this was two-fold. First, the absence of native police provided a permissive
environment for crime when they left their jobs as American forces approached. Second, the
plethora of critical nodes requiring protection and the inability of overstretched US forces to
backfill the absent Iraqi police meant that these locations immediately became targets for
83 Ricks, Fiasco, 116-118; Bensahel, After Saddam, 82-84; Jonathan Weisman, “Iraq Chaos No Surprise, but Too
Few Troops to Quell It,” Washington Post 13 April 2003. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19587-
2003-Apr-13?language=printer (accessed 13 November 2011).
84 Bensahel, After Saddam, 83-84.
85 Ricks, Fiasco, 135.
44
opportunistic Iraqis.86 The commanders on the ground quickly realized what was happening and
clamored for the needed – and inbound – forces to stem the tide of chaos. But, their calls were
obstinately resisted by the civilian masters through a “fundamental misunderstanding” of what
the looting meant.87 One officer reported that “[A] finite supply of goodwill toward the
Americans evaporated with the passing of each anarchic day.”88 Thus, the initial strategic
decision to hold down troop levels later forfeited the tenuous support of the Iraqi people as chaos
closed in around them, portending protraction of the conflict – exactly what American planners
feared and fulfilling the worst estimates of those who had been ignored earlier.
In an attempt to reintroduce civil authority, the US brought in an interim government
consisting of an obscure collection of retired officers and exiled Iraqis to help calm the populace.
During the planning process before the war the DoD stood up the Office of Reconstruction and
Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA). The purpose of the organization was to provide post-war
administration – under the auspices of the DoD – as a part of Phase IV. The office was headed
by personnel from the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) that would populate the
departments of the interim government. Subordinate to the department heads were officials from
other government agencies – especially the State Department – who were the true experts in the
respective branches, such as civil administration and management of basic services. This
hierarchical arrangement caused a great deal of needless friction between DoS and DoD.89 The
obvious issue with the organization was that while the DoD expected the DoS to step up in Phase
IV Stability operations, it still wanted to retain control. Yet the military, as previously noted, had
done little to integrate its planning with the other Federal agencies prior to the invasion, thereby
86 Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, 169 and Bensahel, After Saddam, 88-89.
87 Ricks, Fiasco, 136.
88 Ibid. Quote of Lieutenant Nathaniel Fick, United States Marine Corps.
89 Bensahel, After Saddam, 54-55; Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, 98; and Kenneth Katzman, Iraq: United States
Regime Change Efforts and Post-Saddam Governance, (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, Library
of Congress, 2004) 19-21.
45
leading to a divergent perception among them regarding how to execute the transition to Phase
IV.
Further exacerbating the problems with ORHA was the fact that CENTCOM and CFLCC
did not know what to do with the organization once it was created. The OSD organized the
office separate from the combatant command and it was supposed to report to General Franks.
However, the OSD retained a direct line of authority to ORHA. This fact alienated the ORHA
from CENTCOM and CFLCC, both of whom “had very little to do” with ORHA and its director
Lieutenant General (Retired) Jay Garner.90 The ORHA began serious planning for OIF in
January 2003, long after the military organizations had begun their effort. This lack of
synchronization made later execution of stability operations disjointed and ineffectual. For
example, during ORHAs planning phase it held a wargame in February at the National Defense
University. This wargame revealed “tons of problems” within the civilian-military interagency
effort, particularly regarding the timing of the transition to stability operations and who was in
charge at each stage.91 As predicted, this became a major issue in April 2003 as coalition forces
took control of the country with few ways to tackle the myriad of problems they faced.
Another factor that made the transition to civil authority difficult was the decision to
populate the Iraqi ministries with exiles. Official US policy for the government was to ‘de-
Ba’athify’ the ministries of Saddam loyalists. The process of de-Ba’athification was not
supposed to remove every civil servant in Iraq in order that the ministries could retain some
competence and continuity. However, the process placed “the burden of proof . . . on the
individual to demonstrate why he should retain his position.” This policy effectively eliminated
the government as a viable entity until the coalition could properly screen all employees.92 As
90 Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, 98.
91 Bensahel, After Saddam, 59-60.
92 Ibid., 36.
46
Douglas Feith points out “[T]he disestablishment question was separate from the issue of de-
Baathification,” which is to say that not all civil servants were ineligible for future service in the
Iraqi government. But, with the rapid pace of events after the military defeat of the Iraqi army,
nearly all government officials vanished. So, rather than seeking to retain competent civil
servants without connections to the Ba’ath party, the US allowed them to walk off because the
workers believed they would not be welcome due to their connection to the regime. The
president at the time would recall that “I should have insisted on more debate . . . especially on
what message disbanding the army would send and how many Sunnis the de-Baathification
program would affect.”93 This mistake was compounded by the ORHA plan to temporarily
replace them and fill the permanent vacancies by installing many Iraqis from the diaspora in the
United States. This plan failed because many of those recruited for the positions did not have
appropriate qualifications or lacked credibility in the eyes of the Iraqi people.94 The resultant
Iraq Governing Council was “widely condemned as unrepresentative” and viewed as a “stooge
of the occupying powers.”95 Thus, even when the interim government was finally stood up it
was mainly ineffective, further weakening the United States’ ability to terminate the conflict. It
should be noted that Winfield Scott did not seek to cleanse the vestiges of Santa Anna’s
administration and this was a key element of maintaining order in Mexico City in 1847.
An avenue that may have helped to facilitate the maintenance of order received only a
cursory effort by the coalition. This was leveraging the cooperation of the religious authorities in
Iraq. There were two reasons for this lack of contact between the US and Iraqi religious leaders.
First, the US used the United Nations as a “bridge” for messaging rather than direct contact.
93 Douglas A. Feith, War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism, (New York:
Harper Collins Publishers, 2008) 419 and George W. Bush, Decision Points, (New York: Broadway Publishers,
2010) 259-260.
94 Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, 100.
95 Ibid., 165.
47
Because there were no international institutions in 1847, General Scott had no go-between
organization to speak for him. Second, the most important Iraqi Shiite religious leader, Grand
Ayatollah Ali Sistani, likewise would not meet in direct talks with the Americans.96 Thus, both
parties were wary of making contact with each other, creating yet another factor in the
deterioration of civil stability. The failure by either side to establish a dialogue worked to the
detriment of Iraq. This factor is a great contrast to what Winfield Scott was able to achieve with
the Catholic Church in Mexico. In this case, both Scott and the Church willingly met and
dialogued in order to prevent problems that would have aided an insurgency in 1847. It is
important to note here that both sides were willing to sit down together, unlike the situation in
Iraq.
As conditions deteriorated and civil stability in Phase IV appeared unobtainable, US
military forces began to assume a heavy-handed and culturally insensitive attitude. The 4th
Infantry Division arrived in Tikrit on 19 April 2003 and purportedly assumed a “very aggressive
posture” in Saddam’s hometown. Apparently, soldiers from the division pointed their weapons
at civilians, humiliated males and females alike during surprise home searches, and did not foster
good relationships with local tribal elders. The media began to report these excesses with
scrutiny, painting an unflattering picture of the proverbial ‘ugly American.’97 This had the effect
of convincing the local people to close up their shops and to avoid cooperating with the division
leadership in providing needed intelligence. In other units across the country, night raids and
home searches became common, further alienating the people from the Americans. The US
military was beginning to be perceived as occupiers rather than liberators. A poignant example
of this perception coming to fruition is the mishandling of a patrol in Baghdad due to cultural
96 Ricks, Fiasco, 216.
97 Major Douglas A. Pryer, “Controlling the Beast Within: The Key to Success on the 21st Century Battlefield,”
Military Review (Special Edition, September 2011) 82-83.
48
ignorance. In this instance a platoon was sent to visit the Rami Institute for Autistic and Slow
Learners. As the platoon left the Institute the local people attacked the American unit because
they believed that the soldiers were there to have sex with the female staff. The all-male unit
was insensitive to the Arab cultural norm that strange men do not visit unattended women. This
lit another powder keg in the capital that fueled the insurgency.98
In a similarly much publicized case in Fallujah in April 2003, US troops were provoked
to fire upon the crowd by a few insurgents who blended into a demonstration. This incident,
along with a series of other miscues, drove the citizens into “outright rebellion.”99 The lack of
light – or dismounted – infantry exacerbated the problem of security. The mechanized forces
prevalent in Iraq at that time conducted mounted – vehicular – patrols that sped, sometimes
recklessly, through the towns and villages. This angered the populace and without light
infantry units walking the streets the Americans could not get to know the people and build
bonds of trust needed to prevent/counter an insurgency. “The lack of Army dismounts is
creating a void in personal contact and public perception,” noted Marine Major General James
Mattis.100
A final factor that contributed to the deterioration of security is that United States forces
went into Iraq with a deficit of human intelligence that hampered the effort to secure the capital,
lines of communication, and outlying areas. Accepting the assessments of Iraqi exiles led US
civilian and military leaders to believe that Iraq would welcome US forces and quickly embrace
a democratic form of government. Also, it was assumed, based on intelligence estimates, that
the former Iraqi army, police, and government would transform into a force for reform. All of
these assumptions proved bogus. Further, after US forces had defeated Iraqi forces and occupied
98 Ricks, Fiasco, 178.
99 Ibid., 169 and Ricks, Fiasco, 138-139.
100 Ibid., 144 and Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, 169.
49
the country, a lack of human intelligence, due to an inability to build and exploit relationships
with the locals, handicapped forces attempting to establish security.101 All of this cumulatively
led to poor decision-making regarding strategic objectives and an inability to effectively utilize
the means available in a strategy designed to best achieve strategic ends. Thus, a war projected
to last several months dragged on for over eight years.
In sum, a combination of factors were responsible for the poor transition to Phase IV:
disjointed and shortsighted planning among the DoD and other Federal agencies; failure to retain
key Iraqi officials; lack of cooperation between the coalition and Iraqi religious authorities;
absence of civil authority and American light infantry; a lack of human intelligence networks;
and heavy-handed tactics by occupying troops in certain districts. The loss of trust between the
American military and the Iraqi people – the key issue that pushed thousands of Iraqis into the
orbit of the budding insurgency – was not foreordained. Ultimately, the failure of Phase IV
represents the inability of strategic planners to factor in all of the conditions that existed in Iraq –
such as Sunni-Shia antagonism – before the war started. None of the leaders were then able to
build the plan to mitigate what would happen when the tensions of three decades of rule under
Saddam were released. While the separate agency planners did anticipate what could go wrong,
factors such as parochialism, stovepiping, and muddled authorities prevented integration of the
individual agency plans that could deal with the possibilities. The war then spiraled into an
intractable insurgency and with it the support of the American people plunged as the war
protracted.
All of these factors are diametrically opposed to the judicious steps that Winfield Scott
took to stabilize Mexico City following his conventional campaign. Whereas United States
forces in 1847 looked realistically at potential challenges and implemented a series of measures
101 Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, 7-8 and 80-81.
50
to incorporate the existing government and build trust with the people in stride with the
conventional operation, Americans in 2003 seemed to accept the most optimistic assumptions
about the campaign and thus deluded themselves as to the true possibility that an insurgency
could take hold. This optimism facilitated ignorance regarding the need to implement policies
that would prevent an insurgency. Though the Polk Administration had an initially rosy
intelligence estimate, Scott imagined a worst case and anticipated that an insurgency could rise.
So, he took steps to prevent giving Mexican insurgents an opportunity to gel as a movement in
1847 through a proactive counter-insurgency program while the campaign was in progress. In
2003 no measures to prevent insurgency were taken during the course of decisive operations and
this allowed a gap to open between Phase III Decisive Operations and Phase IV Stabilization.
Iraqi opportunists quickly filled the security and power vacuum and within a short six weeks a
stubborn insurgency blossomed that would take another eight years to quell. If the Americans in
Iraq had, like Scott, adopted an “in stride” approach to preventing insurgency from spinning out
of control in a compound conventional/counter-insurgency campaign plan, it might have
facilitated a favorable termination of the Iraq conflict years earlier. The United States in the
future cannot and will not accept another Iraq-type war. What might the strategic planner learn
from the combined examples of Scott in Mexico and the US occupation of Iraq?
Salient Points to Consider
Based on the experience of the US military in 1847 and 2003 there are a number of
factors that political leaders, commanders, and strategic planners – both civilian and military –
should consider in deliberations over future conflicts. This spectrum ranges from the need to
develop relationships across the inter-agency landscape to ensuring unity of effort among the
departments, to keeping in mind cultural sensitivities and host nation politics. While military
professionals cannot use history as a template for future planning, they must certainly build
51
vicarious experience from history and utilize its lessons when developing plans for future
conflicts. Thus, through the “reading of history . . . as a mode of inquiry, a framework for
thinking about problems” of the future emerges that can assist in navigating difficult waters.102
In 1847 Winfield Scott implemented plans delineated in G.O. #s 20, 87, and 287 that
proactively contended with the anticipated worst case scenarios to set the conditions for a
favorable termination of the Mexican War. Further, following some initial difficulties with
parochialism and collaboration, Winfield Scott and Nicholas Trist developed a mutually
beneficial working relationship to achieve an outstanding resolution in the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo. Although the situation in 2003 was certainly more complex than that of 1847 from a
planning and bureaucratic standpoint, strategic planners must realize that thinking about
contingencies and good inter-agency relationships are essential to managing the complex
problem of insurgency and conflict termination. Planning against the worst case scenario and
managing relationships can go a long way toward facilitating unity of effort and ending a war
without sliding into an unwanted complication of insurgency.
The next salient consideration is the critical need to maintain security of the occupied
civil society. It is unlikely in any future conflict that the United States will encounter a situation
wherein civilians are not a major factor in the conflict. In 2003, in spite of doctrine that made
civilian considerations central to any plan, the problem of how to secure Iraq after regime
collapse was assumed away. Too few troops – and troops of the incorrect type – were available
to provide security after the police melted away. As a result, Iraq quickly slid into chaos and
insurgency while tentative popular support for United States forces vanished. Thus, contrary to
102 Eliot A. Cohen, “The Historical Mind and Military Strategy,” ORBIS: A Journal of World Affairs (Fall, 2005),
575.
52
assumptions at the time, favorable conditions for conflict termination flow directly from the civil
society’s perception of their physical security.103
In Mexico, despite a paucity of troops, Winfield Scott implemented a plan to prevent
such a slide into the abyss of insurgency. Elements of his plan included; retention of middling
government officials and police, open support of the Catholic Church, local police partnering
with his troops, and intelligence networking. These proactive policies marginalized the
rancheros, the Cuerpo Ligera, and criminals and enabled Scott to stabilize the capital and
surrounding countryside. Again, while the problems of 2003 are certainly more complex, the
essence of the issue is the same. The safety of the civil populace directly correlates to the
possibility of the development of an insurgency. If an army can secure the civil society, it has a
much greater chance of stabilizing the situation to bring about a favorable set of conditions to
facilitate conflict termination in accordance with stated ends.
Related to the concept of providing strong and immediate security is the underlying
assumption that the armed forces on the scene understand the occupied society from a cultural
standpoint. Cultural sensitivity is critical to the implementation of security measures. The
population of an occupied country that views the occupier as insensitive to their societal values
will quickly gravitate into the orbit of the opposition. The opposition, as in the case of Saddam’s
Fedayeen and Islamist militias, will then galvanize this discontent into armed resistance. The
resultant violence feeds upon itself, like a vicious circle, to make the security situation
uncontrollable. This is what happened in Iraq in 2003. The combination of a lack of physical
security with cultural insensitivity or ignorance – as the cases with crowd control in Fallujah and
103 Bensahel, After Saddam, 9 and Franks, American Soldier, 422. General Franks in his book states that “security
would not be possible in Iraq without immediate reconstruction and civic action.” In my opinion, this is reverse of
what is true. ‘Reconstruction and civic action’ can only occur in a secure environment. Therefore, an army must
establish security first and everything else flows from this essential condition. FM 3-0, Operations (Washington,
DC: United States Government Printing Office, 2001), 5-5. This was the current doctrinal manual in use at the start
of OIF.
53
the Baghdad Rami Institute poignantly illustrate – drove the populace into the arms of the
insurgency.
In contrast, Winfield Scott realized that troop discipline and sensitivity to local culture
was vital to his ability to stabilize the country. His orders reflected this as he imposed heavy
penalties on those in his command who violated Mexican cultural norms. Most importantly,
Scott personally demonstrated his grasp of the significance of cultural issues when he publically
paid deference to the prerogatives of the Catholic Church. He set the example for the army at
large by attending services and meeting with Church officials to build consensus for his policies.
As a direct result, Scott was able to develop an informal alliance with the Church to maintain
security so that he could stabilize Mexico for peace talks to proceed. Cultural sensitivity is
another element that planners at the strategic level must seriously consider before entering into
conflict on foreign soil. The programs to train soldiers at training centers and educate leaders
about cultural considerations through professional military education are excellent and military
education institutions must sustain these to ensure readiness in complex environments.
Essential to maintaining security and ensuring good cross-cultural relations is the
retention of certain departments of local civil government and the police. In Iraq, all semblance
of governance, including the police force, vanished. During planning for OIF the US planners
identified the possibility that “catastrophic success” could create a situation in which local
government and its accompanying security apparatus’ would collapse. This, some lone voices
reasoned, could allow a vacuum to develop in which criminality would flourish and open the
door to an insurgency. Yet even after this possibility was identified the more optimistic
assumptions were accepted and nothing was done to plan against it. No effort appears to have
been mounted with the United States significant communication enterprise capability to convince
54
middling Iraqi officials and police to remain on the job until it was too late because of the
optimistic assumption that these leaders would simply begin working under a new regime when
it arrived.104 When this did not happen reliance was placed on the ORHAs mix of exiles and
military retirees, which comprised the coalition provisional authority, to reestablish civil control.
Instead, the remaining security apparatus and civilian officials melted away, beginning the slide
into chaos. The late arrival of the ORHA along with the use of exiles with no credibility among
common Iraqis, failed to bridge the gap in civil order that resulted. In another stark contrast,
Winfield Scott’s orders specifically addressed the retention of local authorities and police. The
steps taken were designed to maintain security and stabilize the civil society at the earliest
possible point. With these conditions in place, Mr. Trist was able to move forward with peace
negotiations unfettered and the US achieved its strategic ends in a timely manner.
There was no single American culprit behind the string of failures in 2003. In fact, the
entire inter-agency is open to blame. As noted, none of the agencies – in particular DoS and
DoD – collaborated or integrated their planning effectively. Worse, there was confusion
between the agencies as to who was responsible for what and at what time. Too many people at
DoD and DoS assumed that the other agency was responsible for certain tasks.105 This was a
direct result of the lack of collaboration and integration and the spirit of parochialism of the
various departmental planners. Planning processes in the 19th century were obviously less
complex and sometimes haphazard. Therefore, it is not reasonable to compare what happened in
1847 to 2003 in terms of bureaucratic processes. Nevertheless, Winfield Scott’s actions should
give a strategist pause. Scott assumed nothing away and established his leadership and that of
the army across the spectrum of civil-military problems. And where there was a question of
104 Ibid., 110; Franks, American Soldier, 392-393; and Bensahel, After Saddam, 8-9 and 26-28.
105 Ibid., 16-17 and Ricks, Fiasco, 111.
55
authorities, he consulted with Mr. Marcy and Mr. Trist to ensure unity of effort.106 What
strategic planners must incorporate into modern processes is early collaborative planning,
relationship-building across the inter-agency, and establishing clear roles, responsibilities, and
tasks among the key stakeholders long before the first troops engage in decisive operations. To
do anything less than this opens the door to disunity of effort in execution of operations, which
can lead to strategic and operational failure.
Another point to consider involves intelligence. The United States invaded Iraq without a
human intelligence network and faulty intelligence-gathering before the war led to the belief that
Iraq was hiding an extensive WMD program. American leaders uncritically accepted
information from Iraqi exiles that the people would welcome US forces and quickly embrace a
democratic form of government. Perhaps the worst and fatal assumption was the belief that the
former Iraqi army, police, and government would quickly become a force for reform. All of this
intelligence proved incorrect. Then, after US forces had defeated Iraqi forces and were
transitioning to Phase IV Stabilization there was no means to build a network quickly.
Exacerbating these problems was the fact that American forces did not build and exploit
relationships with the locals, handicapping them as they attempted to establish security.107 Thus,
poor intelligence and lack of human networks to gather needed information led to poor planning
before the war and inept decisions after it started. This prevented the securing of strategic
objectives rapidly with no means to recover once in place.
Faulty intelligence combined with cultural ignorance by the Polk Administration also led
to protraction in 1846. Polk and Secretary Marcy had expected the Mexicans to capitulate once
the territory desired for annexation was occupied by US forces. The Administration was taken
106 Eisenhower, So Far From God, 304-306.
107 Allawi, The Occupation of Iraq, 7-8 and 80-81.
56
aback when the Mexicans continued to resist. To break the stalemate President Polk unleashed
General Scott in a dagger thrust at the Mexican capital. This proved decisive, but only because
Scott was able to gain civil control during and following the conventional campaign. He was
aided enormously by his intelligence network established and supervised by Ethan Allan
Hitchcock.108 The point for a military planner is that intelligence estimates and assumptions
should be comprehensively wargamed with some entity playing the ‘devil’s advocate’ just as US
doctrine states. The purpose is to prevent stumbling into a war based on a rosy intelligence
estimate of the situation, which occurred both in 1846 and 2003. Also, the strategist must place
great value in human intelligence to temper information gathered from other sources, such as
signals and other electronic means.109 Both campaigns were initially flawed by faulty estimates,
but the difference was that Scott resuscitated American fortunes in 1847 by fully anticipating the
possibility that a complex insurgency could arise and then establishing a credible human
intelligence network that helped quell the insurgency before it could gain traction.
A further parallel between 1846 and 2003 is that Administration officials disregarded key
elements of military advice offered by their senior military advisers. In late 1846 as Scott
prepared for operations in Mexico he recommended a troop strength of 20,000 for the thrust to
the capital. The Polk Administration rejected this number, fearing the American public would
turn against the war and that maintaining that size of a force was too costly. This reality forced
Scott to adopt creative measures to ensure security.110 In the end, the Polk Administration
delivered with 10,000 reinforcements shortly after Scott occupied Mexico City, making Scott’s
job of securing the capital easier as peace negotiations proceeded. The situation in Iraq unfolded
in an eerily similar manner. In 2002 General Eric Shinseki forthrightly testified before Congress
108 Eisenhower, So Far From God, 303.
109 Joint Publication 5-0, Joint Operation Planning, (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 11 August
2011) IV-33 – IV-34.
110 US Congress, Executive Doc. #59, Scott to Marcy on 12 November 1846. Rice University Online Archive.
57
that several hundred thousand troops were required to stabilize Iraq during and immediately
following conventional operations aimed at Baghdad, the capital. General Franks and Lieutenant
General Dave McKiernan echoed this in their estimates of force structure required for the
campaign.111 Nevertheless, the Secretary of Defense and his deputy rejected these suggestions
out of hand because they believed the rosy assumptions that the Iraqis would welcome the
American forces and that the army and police would remain relatively intact to assist with
stabilization in Phase IV. Thus, the force that deployed was nearly 100,000 troops below the
lowest estimate provided by military planners.
One unfortunate footnote to this poor decision by Secretary Rumsfeld was the fact that
General Shinseki was forced into early retirement. His treatment at the hands of his civilian
masters is thoroughly unjust because of the fact that he provided his best military advice to his
bosses as he is required to do under the law. When the answer he gave was not what the civil
leaders wanted to hear, Shinseki paid the price with the end of his distinguished career. General
Shinseki’s testimony before the Congress in the run up to the war demonstrates moral courage
and the values that embody the leaders of the US military.
Another factor that led to failure in 2003 was the ‘ten-thousand mile screwdriver’ that
soldiers euphemistically refer to when feeling the effect of over-centralized decision making
processes. In 1847 Winfield Scott had a relatively free hand with respect to the execution of
military operations at the point of decision. Part of the reason for this was the limited ability to
communicate with deployed forces in the 19th century before the advent of telegraph and
telephone technology. In 2003 civilian leaders in Washington had the ability to dictate events in
the field because of instantaneous communications. The ability to reach out and touch deployed
111 Eric Schmitt, “Threats and Responses: Military Spending; Pentagon Contradicts General on Occupation Forces’
Size,” New York Times 27 February 2003. http://nytimes.com/2003/02/28/us/threats-threatsandresponses.html
(accessed 13 November 2011) and Bensahel, After Saddam, 17.
58
commanders immediately to discuss the situation on the ground has a tendency to lead to highly
centralized decision making by civilian political leaders. An example of this is the decision to
halt the deployment of the 1st Cavalry Division because it was thought conditions forward would
not warrant the need for these troops.112 This was a fatal decision made by leaders thousands of
miles from the front and illustrates how over-centralization inhibits initiative in the field and
unnecessarily consolidates power at a level that is in appropriate for the fluid situations present
on the modern battlefield.
Before entering any conflict civilian leaders should engage in a serious dialogue with
their military experts rather than rejecting advice out of obstinacy. Also, strategic military
leaders have to communicate effectively and convincingly when airing their views. Failure on
either account can multiply the cost of a campaign in both blood and treasure while protracting a
war, jeopardizing the outcome.
Finally, strategic leaders, civilian and military, should invest in educating inter-agency
leaders in civil-military relations, strategic and operational art, and employment of the military
element of national power. Winfield Scott was a leader of rare talent, having a combination of
tactical, operational, and strategic brilliance in the same person. He attained this high level of
competence by long experience, training, and a program of self-study. There was no formal
institutional methodology to prepare an officer for the range of possibilities in warfare in the 19th
century. Yet Scott demonstrated an intellectual cognition without peer in the American military
at that time. The United States in the 21st century has many institutions that provide a formal
education for leaders across the spectrum of war, from the tactical to strategic levels. Scott had
many broadening experiences as an officer, becoming involved in political-military relations
during the Nullification Crisis and the border disputes along the Niagara and Maine frontiers.
112 Ricks, Fiasco, 122.
59
The military must likewise offer leaders a wide range of broadening opportunities beyond
tactical experience – to include joint and inter-agency assignments – to ensure they are ready for
a future with seemingly volatile, ambiguous, and intractable challenges. While the US had an
outstanding corps of leaders in 2003, many had a decidedly one-dimensional experience as they
embarked on OIF.113 Therefore, military personnel management practices should seek to provide
leaders as many broadening experiences as possible to develop the critical thinkers the United
States will need to solve complex operational and strategic problems.
Conclusion
History cannot be used as a template for the planning of future conflicts. To use history
in such a manner ignores context and opens up the possibility of failure through clinging to
dogma rather than critical thought. One must consider history in breadth, depth, and context in
order to inform thought in future situations. History provides vicarious experience that can help
strategic leaders work through complex problems because they understand the nuances of the
environment of war. Considering history in this manner, it is clear that our civilian and military
leaders could have gleaned much from the Mexican War – and other conflicts like the Philippine
Insurrection – when developing the plan for OIF. This could have saved the United States much
in time, lost lives, and untold billions of dollars.
General Scott developed a comprehensive plan based on the circumstances that
accounted for conventional and unconventional aspects of war while providing the mechanism to
terminate the war on favorable terms to the United States. In developing a plan for compound
warfare he fully anticipated what could happen and proactively implemented measures that
113 Henry A. Leonard, Something Old, Something New: Army Leader Development in a Dynamic Environment
(Santa Monica, California: Rand Corporation, 2006) 99-100;XLieutenant General Michael A. Vane, “New Norms for
the 21st Century Soldier,” Military Review (July-August 2011), 16-17; and Ellen Van Velsor, et al., Key
Development Events and Lessons from Senior Officers, (Greensboro, North Carolina: Center for Creative
Leadership, 2011) 4.
60
prevented a full-blown insurgency, thereby allowing peace negotiations to proceed. Had Scott
thought of the campaign in a single dimension of conventional operations only, he would have
left the door open for a wide-ranging insurgency that could have bogged down the momentum of
the operation. General Scott – through his experience, education, and training – developed a
plan that covered an array of considerations beyond conventional operations. These included
Mexican culture, religion, security of the populace, information operations, building intelligence
networks, and civil-military relationships. Thinking critically about these issues facilitated the
stabilization of Mexican civil society following the conventional defeat of the Mexican Army.
This allowed peace negotiations to advance apace in a manner that terminated the conflict
favorably for the United States while achieving the stated strategic ends.
In summary, comparing the campaign to Mexico City in 1847 with OIF in 2003 offers
many illuminating considerations for strategic leaders. The campaign in 1847 was not a clean
conventional operation as we have come to believe. In many ways it was a distant mirror that
provides a glimpse of the future operating environment. This environment will challenge the US
conventionally and unconventionally simultaneously. An examination of the campaign of 1847
against the experience of OIF in 2003 there is much to inform the leaders of the future who will
have to plan and operate in this hybrid environment. Military campaigns must seek to achieve
operational and strategic ends by setting conditions to terminate the conflict favorably. The
Mexico City campaign illustrates how Scott did this by anticipating almost every possibility and
planning operations across the spectrum of war. This prevented the insurgency following
successful conventional operations from gaining any traction and allowed for a decisive peace
settlement. The United States achieved its strategic ends as a result. Unfortunately, our leaders
failed to plan in this fashion for OIF, resulting in a protracted war. It will behoove future
61
strategic leaders to examine our rich history – and these campaigns – so that they can build
vicarious experience to inform their thinking when considering tomorrow’s problems.
62