Defeating the Blitzkrieg

In 1939 Germany introduced the blitzkrieg to the world in her dramatic though predictable conquest of Poland. Afterwards during the invasion of France, and later in North Africa, and Russia, her swift armies coupled with fast infantry and supported by precision bomber aircraft easily defeated more numerical foes again and again. The blitzkrieg was finally stopped only when it failed to produce a quick victory. Infantry became bogged down, tanks wore out, and bombers were shot out of the sky.

Later the Israelis effectively adopted such tactics against more numerous but poorly led Arab armies, in 3 wars from the late 40’s to the mid 60’s.Only when the Egyptians implemented old fashioned defense in depth in 1973, learned from the Russians, did the over confident Israelis suffer a setback..

Faced with declining defense budgets in the 1970’s, the Americans employed German and Israeli lessons on how to win a war quickly and planned to “fight outnumbered and win” against the Soviets. This strategy culminated in the brilliant “Hail Mary” maneuver in 1991 which defeated the apathetic Iraqi military, but we see today the war is far from over.

The failure to gain complete control of Iraq in 2003 proved once again the limitations of blitzkrieg. As highly desirable as swift campaigns and low casualties are, history proves they might win battles, but rarely bring victory.