PAUL VAN RIPER is not exactly a household name in the Middle East, or, for that matter, anywhere else. And yet this retired Marine general caused a furore in the Pentagon by sinking 16 US navy ships in the Gulf, killing nearly 20,000 sailors, soldiers and marines in August, 2002.

OK, this American debacle took place in virtual reality during the war game called Millennium Challenge preceding the second Gulf War. But had Saddam Hussein learned from it, his forces might have done much better than they did in real life. In fact, according to Iraqi secret military traffic released by the Pentagon after the war, the crazed dictator insisted on keeping his best forces on alert against internal uprisings, rather than deploying them to block the Americans along their expected routes to Baghdad.

It is a bad habit among generals to fight the previous war rather than plan for the next one. Basing his tactics, such as they were, on his experience of the first Gulf War, Saddam did not expect the Americans to enter the capital. Rather, he was sure they would incite local revolts among the Shias around Basra, and among the Kurds in the north. Despite all the evidence, he was confident that just as they had the last time, the Americans would not risk heavy losses by entering Baghdad, and if he could suppress internal uprisings, he could hang on to power. Fatally, he planned his military dispositions on these deeply flawed premises, and the rest, as they say, is history.

So what did Van Riper do that Saddam Hussein lacked the imagination and the nerve to accomplish? First, a word about the war game. Millennium Challenge had been planned over two years, and cost $250 million to conduct. Apart from a vast array of computers, scores of participants and 13,000 troops on the ground, the game pulled together some of the best minds in the US military. Traditionally in such exercises, the US is represented by the Blue Force, while the Red Force is the enemy.

In this case, Red Force was led by General Van Riper. A veteran of the Vietnam War, he is famous in military circles for his unorthodox tactics. As the build-up to the simulated conflict began, and US naval units began arriving in the Gulf, Van Riper deployed a large fleet of fishing boats, pleasure craft, dhows and basically anything that could float out into the water. These small boats were full of explosives, and some of them carried concealed missiles. As all ‘Red’ telephone calls and radio signals were being monitored by the Blue Force, Van Riper used motorcycles and coded messages contained in calls to prayer broadcast from mosques. Expecting a breakdown in communication during the virtual war, he had given his field commanders almost total freedom to act and react to the situation that developed in their areas of command.

When the Blue Force presented an ultimatum, Van Riper’s irregular fleet fired their missiles, and rammed American ships in suicide attacks in a devastating wave that overwhelmed their enemy’s defences. The Blue Force planners had simply not expected such an unconventional strike, and lost most of its fleet with thousands of casualties. And how did the Blue Force respond to this defeat? They simply changed the rules, ‘refloating’ their lost fleet, and imposing a set of restrictions on Van Riper that made it impossible for him to defend his notional country. In disgust, the maverick general sidelined himself, while the Blue Force, playing with a new “life”, proceeded along the desired trajectory, and duly defeated the Red Force.

Every military campaign in the past has been fought under what generals refer to as the “fog of war”. Messages go astray, entire units are lost, the enemy’s intentions are unclear, and there is inevitably a huge gap between planning and reality. Current American military doctrine aims at dispersing this fog, relying heavily on electronics and computers. The Operational Net Assessment (ONA) is supposed to allow generals to ‘see all, and know all’. Drones, spy planes, AWACS and satellites tap into the enemy communication system, while all movement is closely monitored. This real-time information is available to field commanders while their own units are connected to headquarters through a secure system.

So used are American officers to ONA that they are confident they have finally dispelled the ‘fog of war’. But as Van Riper reminded them, human initiative and innovation remain major factors in warfare, as they do in every sphere of life.

At the time of the war itself, the world was astonished at the ease with which American forces overcame the Iraqis. And where there was significant resistance, it came from irregular forces. Despite their entreaties, Saddam would not allow his generals to deploy their forces rationally, insisting until the very end that the Americans would not advance on Baghdad. Thus, much to their surprise, the invading forces found all bridges conveniently intact in their drive to the Iraqi capital.

Clearly, there are lessons here to learn. The first is that by and large, the military has a rigid mind-set formed in military academies, and by studying past campaigns. Muslim armies, in particular, have suffered from a lack of initiative in recent years. For years, Arabs have allowed the Israelis to dictate terms in war after war. And it is pointless to use American support to Israel as an excuse: this was always a given factor, and should have been taken into military calculations. Even in the 1973 war, when the Egyptians and the Syrians had the initiative, they hesitated when they had the Israelis on the ropes, allowing them to re-group and launch a successful counterattack. Pakistan waged three unimaginative campaigns against India, and the fourth in Kargil had no clear strategic aims, and was doomed to fail.

One reason for this plodding approach is the reluctance to delegate decision-making to subordinates. Another is the inability to integrate economic and diplomatic factors into the purely military aspects of warfare. In most Muslim countries, authoritarian rulers do not permit questions and criticism from subordinates. Planning therefore tends to reflect an individual’s or a small group’s thinking, and is thus correspondingly limited. Fourthly, unconventional tactics carry risks, and in rigid hierarchies, the tendency is to play safe. Finally, field commanders are reluctant to take the initiative, often wasting precious time as they wait for orders from the GHQ.

The result of this mindset is that in recent times, apart from Mustafa Kemal Pasha’s success in expelling Greek and allied armies from Turkey in the aftermath of the First World War, fortune has seldom smiled on Muslim generals. And the Turkish victory was nearly 90 years ago.