Do you agree with LT. Gen. MacFarland that carpet bombing is not the answer?

SGT Ben Keen — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 09:43:51 -0500

Lt. Gen. MacFarland has gone on the record to say that we shouldn't look into carpet bombing the ISIS in fear of causing mass casualties among the civilian population.

Do you agree with him or should we look into this type of bombing as a way to end the ISIS?

Response by SSG Warren Swan made Feb 2 at 2016 10:05 AM

SSG Warren Swan — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 10:05:26 -0500

How did it work when we were looking for Bin Laden? Bombing will NOT destroy an ideal. Killing won't either (although it helps). Need a way to discredit them. They're MUCH better than we are in Cyber and media relations. And that's where we need to be to fight them.

Response by SPC David S. made Feb 2 at 2016 10:08 AM

SPC David S. — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 10:08:55 -0500

If they had entrenched troops or had factories pumping out arms and munitions sure - however I don't see it as the correct strategy in taking on ISIS. This is an asymmetric fight won by patience and persistence.

Response by MSG Brad Sand made Feb 2 at 2016 10:20 AM

MSG Brad Sand — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 10:20:40 -0500

I think people hear carpet bombing and have no idea what they are talking about. Saturation bombing does have it place and time but is not the desert or an insurgent army in a civilian population.

Response by COL Jason Smallfield, PMP, CFM, CM made Feb 2 at 2016 10:40 AM

COL Jason Smallfield, PMP, CFM, CM — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 10:40:06 -0500

A few thoughts:
- Carpet bombing is only the answer in a sterile combat environment with no non combatants in the kill zone.
- Carpet bombing is a tactic and not a strategy. Tactics win (or lose) battles while strategies win (or lose) wars.
- The defeat of ISIS will require a whole of government approach (more than just DoD) at all three levels of war (strategic, operational, tactical) and within all domains (sea, air, land, cyber, space, human) over a sustained period of time using kinetic and nonkinetic means.
- We have not had much success against ISIS because the current administration is doing little to nothing with the five points in the above bullet. The first problem is that the administration will not admit there is a problem or use the correct term (radical Islam) to define the problem. It is what it is.

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 2 at 2016 10:41 AM

MAJ Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 10:41:07 -0500

How does ISIS still have oil producing capability, just take out the refinery pump houses and cut their flow of cash, without funds ISIS will dry up.

Response by CW3 Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 2 at 2016 10:52 AM

CW3 Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 10:52:15 -0500

Carpet bombing is not the right strategy to defeat ISIS. There are places ISIS is entrenched and bombing certainly helps to defeat them in these areas. However, an extensive bombing campaign in heavily populated civilians areas will not have a positive effect on the long term trajectory of this conflict.

Response by PO3 Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 2 at 2016 11:18 AM

PO3 Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 11:18:04 -0500

bombing? yes. heavy bombing? yes, carpet bombing? for what??? killing all the civilian??? unless the majority of the civilians are supporting the enemy, which we know they are mostly scare the crap out of themselves to stand against ISIS. So No.

Carpet bombing is one of the tactic for conventional all out war, this ISIS war is not a conventional war, and lets hope it will never turn into one ....

Response by Maj Kevin "Mac" McLaughlin made Feb 2 at 2016 11:32 AM

Maj Kevin "Mac" McLaughlin — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 11:32:39 -0500

It's a figure of speech. I realize it means a whole different thing to those who are military inclined but he was obviously trying to say he's going to beat the crap out of ISIS.

Response by MSgt Michael Smith made Feb 2 at 2016 11:36 AM

MSgt Michael Smith — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 11:36:49 -0500

Carpet Bombing? This is one of those stupid suggestions that politicians love to throw out there to convince people that when they are in charge everything will be so much simpler. You want to know what carpet bombing would do do Isis? If we decided to level Raqqa, all we would do is drive the fighters into their bunkers or out of the city, meanwhile we would kill tens of thousands of civilians and create a huge humanitarian crisis. No doubt this action would turn every ally we have in the region against us and legitimize all of the hate and prejudice that countries in the Middle East have against us. It is a stupid and ludicrous idea designed to make a complex situation look really simple.

Response by 1SG Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 2 at 2016 11:39 AM

1SG Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 11:39:07 -0500

Carpet bombing hasn't been a viable answer since the Gulf War when the Iraqi Army was deployed out in the middle of the desert. Honestly, I think our ends would be best served with next to no bombs dropping from the air. Our answers lie in more subtle means to break their will and fracture their unity. I'd go after their revenue streams, specifically.

However, what the General was doing was a direct response to a statement by Senator Ted Cruz, where he was talking tough about taking on ISIS. It wasn't the smartest statement by Cruz, but it is unusual for a General Officer to weigh in that directly against a sitting Senator unprovoked.

Response by SGM David W. Carr LOM, DMSM MP SGT made Feb 2 at 2016 12:07 PM

SGM David W. Carr LOM, DMSM MP SGT — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 12:07:06 -0500

Totally agree

Response by Capt Seid Waddell made Feb 2 at 2016 12:13 PM

Capt Seid Waddell — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 12:13:10 -0500

That depends upon what is meant by carpet bombing. If you mean cells of B-52s dropping sticks of 105 500 lb. dumb bombs as we did in Viet Nam, the answer is no.

If you mean an aggressive bombing campaign like we used going into Iraq, the answer is that we certainly SHOULD have done it when we had them in open desert in convoys of captured US weapons.

And as it is today, we should still have an aggressive bombing campaign against them (not the P.R. bombing campaign this administration is conducting).

If a war is worth fighting it is worth fighting to win. Hard and fast.

Response by PV2 Scott Goodpasture made Feb 2 at 2016 12:21 PM

PV2 Scott Goodpasture — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 12:21:42 -0500

No carpet bombing has worked to force civilians into quelling the antagonists since the beginning

Response by LTC Stephen F. made Feb 2 at 2016 12:21 PM

LTC Stephen F. — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 12:21:52 -0500

Carpet bombing made limited sense during the bombing of Dresden and Tokyo and other axis cities in WWII when we did not have sophisticated or accurate targeting systems or munitions SGT Ben Keen. We have had "smart" munitions since the late 1980s at least and each decade has brought advancements in delivery systems. Targeted strategic bombing and targeted tactical bombing guided by ground-based assets makes much more sense than carpet bombing. Air campaigns make sense when included as part of joint operations with operational goals.

Response by COL Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 2 at 2016 1:59 PM

COL Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 13:59:36 -0500

I can't answer yes or no based on your question. Two questions which contradict each other. Do you agree? Should we look into carpet bombing? I think people have laid out that the phrase "carpet bombing" is loaded and misused, especially in political circles. I assume we are talking about the tactical use of "dumb munitions" dropped in mass on a target in order to cause the most casualties and damage possible regardless of collateral damage. In fact, in this sort of action collateral damage is preferred. The idea held sway in WWII when we attacked industrial and commercial centers of gravity in order to reduce the capacity of an enemy nation to wage war. We were unconcerned with civilian casualties because they were seen as a portion of the enemy war machine. That is not the case today. If you want to defeat ISIS, it will take a whole of government approach as COL Jason Smallfield, PMP, CFM, CM states. That is if you want to DEFEAT ISIS. If you want to NEUTRALIZE them (take away their ability to achieve their intended purpose), then it might be a feasible option. Even though it is feasible, it will never be acceptable or suitable. We simply cannot do the sorts of things that we used to do in WWII. There may come a time where the use of mass amounts of high explosives can solve our problems without concern for civilian casualties, but that time is not now against this enemy.

Response by MAJ Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 2 at 2016 9:15 PM

MAJ Private RallyPoint Member — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 21:15:48 -0500

LTG MacFarland is completely correct in asserting that carpet bombing is not a viable option against ISIS. ISIS is not a government, they don't have defined boarders, nor do they care about the civilian population the hide behind. Carpet bombing would do nothing but make feed their propaganda

Response by SrA Matthew Knight made Feb 3 at 2016 1:56 AM

SrA Matthew Knight — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 01:56:14 -0500

I agree to some extent though I'm not sure it's completely for the same reasons.

My reasoning for thinking carpet bombing isn't the route to take is 1: as others have said there could and likely would be a high amount of civilian casualties and 2: it would overall just be a pointless waste of resources. Sending a bunch of bombers in to drop tens to hundreds of unguided bombs that only a few of which if any would actually hit a valid military target. We are better off sticking with coordinated and guided munitions so that we know what we are actually hitting.

Response by MAJ Ken Landgren made Feb 3 at 2016 3:26 PM

MAJ Ken Landgren — Wed, 03 Feb 2016 15:26:26 -0500

I don't think we need to eliminate weapons against ISIS.

Response by Capt Private RallyPoint Member made Feb 4 at 2016 12:39 PM

Capt Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 04 Feb 2016 12:39:02 -0500

There are a bunch of great responses on here about why carpet bombing wouldn't be effective. I don't want to waste reiterating on what people have already said so, instead I would like to introduce different reason why it wouldn't be effective. Daesh (the name for ISIS CENTCOM uses and ISIS hates) has drawn the attention of the global community. There are so many key global powers getting involved in Iraq and Syria. Most countries have somewhat similar goals but some have ulterior motives. You have countries like Russia and Iran operating in the same battle space as the U.S. and our allies. These countries don't always play nice with the other countries that are operating there, as can be seen in the Russian fighter that flew into Turkish airspace. In Syria there is a lot more going on than just Daesh killing people, you have civil war going on at the same time. There are many different sides to the conflict there. If we went in and carpet bombed Iraq and Syria we could end up killing people other than Daesh, who might be involved in fighting Daesh. This could include Russia or Iran, who are fighting there but aren't really our allies. Since they aren't really our allies they aren't going to tell us about any secret operations that they are conducting which could lead to them being in an area that we are carpet bombing. This could then be considered a declaration of war by the United States and we are in WWIII fighting terrorist as well as other nuclear powers. Also if U.S. carpet bombing operations were successful, and the success was publicized, some of the other countries could be jealous that the U.S. is getting the spotlight for the success. This could cause Russia or Iran to do things to hinder our operations, such as target our aircraft with their air defense systems. This could allow them to do something that promotes themselves in the media, or at least down play the effectiveness of U.S. operations. Although the situation may seem black and white to politicians trying to win votes, but the actual environment in the Levant right now is very delicate. The politicians as well as many of their constituents think that we just need to kill a bunch of bad guys. That is only a small piece of what needs to be done, while at the same time preventing WWIII from starting up with Russian and Iran. As is stated in other responses, there needs to be a whole of government approach to defeat radicalized Islamic terrorist to include Daesh, al-Qaeda, and the affiliates of these global terrorist franchises.