BY THE NUMBERS: STUPIDITY, ARROGANCE, CRIMINALITY

Ever hear of the “10-30-30″ plan? Probably not, if you don’t closely follow military affairs. But you’re doubtless familiar with the well-marketed phrase for a war strategy in Iraq that has already proved stupid, arrogant and criminal: “shock and awe.” Think of 10-30-30 as the shock-and-awe specifics, “the specs” so to speak. According to the Los Angeles Times:

As the Pentagon begins a comprehensive review that will map the future of America’s armed forces, many Defense Department officials are acknowledging that an intractable Iraqi insurgency they didn’t foresee has undermined the military strategy. …

The 10-30-30 construct said that the U.S. military should plan military actions to seize the initiative within 10 days of the start of an offensive, achieve limited military objectives within 30 days, and be prepared within another 30 days to shift military resources to another area of the world.

But reality intervened, and now “many Pentagon officials fear that the success Iraqi insurgents have had in preventing a U.S. troop reduction in Iraq could be the new rule, rather than the exception.”

As few enemies choose to fight the U.S. military head-on, they might opt instead to fight protracted rear-guard insurgencies.

“I think that the Pentagon realizes by now that 10-30-30 is largely outdated,” said Frank Hoffman of the Marine Corps’ Center for Emerging Threats and Opportunities, a contributor to the Defense Science Board study. “It presumes a model of warfare that we ourselves have made obsolete.”

The LAT piece is “a good article almost four years late,” notes a friend of mine who makes it his business to be militarily well informed. Read the whole thing and see how Dear Leader’s stupidity and Rummy Boy’s arrogance prevailed.