Shock and Awe

The men who planned the war in Iraq relied on a theory of warmaking suited to the god-like role the Bush Administration intended to play. It was outlined in an essay entitled ‘Shock and Awe’ by Harlan Ullman and James Wade, from the National Defense University. With its heavy dependence on sophisticated weapons and communications systems, this doctrine appealed to Pentagon officials who wished to serve the interests of defense industries that produce such devices.

But ‘Shock and Awe’ had a religious appeal as well, since it describes military action approximating that of an angry god, ‘achieving rapid dominance’ through soul-crushing assault. The objective is ‘so to overload an adversary's perceptions and understanding of events that the enemy would be…rendered totally impotent.’ It is not enough to destroy military capabilities until the enemy perceives that resistance is futile; he must be thunderstruck. ‘The goal,’ say the writers, ‘is to use our power with such compellance that even the strongest wills will be awed.’

Fantasies of omnipresence amplify this vision of omnipotence. The assault must gain the ‘control and management of everything that is significant to the operations bearing on the particular Area of Interest (AOI). And we mean everything! Control of the environment is far broader than only the objective of achieving dominant battlefield awareness’.