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Originally Posted by Dean Yes and no. The German Blitzkreig remains used by many armies, and in fact it is the Blitzkrieg that the Soviet Army modified and adopted as its doctrine. Since that time, other armies, including the US Army, have modified the tactic to fit their force structures. The major change is in numbers. Nobody today can afford a frontal war as occurred during WW II. The Eastern Front went all the way from the Arctic Ocean to Sebastopol, and no army existing today can attack on or defend that kind of a front. So, today's tactics are more objective based, which is to say that an army will mount a high speed armoured thrust incorporating air and artillery assets (a blitzkreig) with the goal of taking one or more objectives in a far more limited area. An example are the two gulf wars. The objective of Gulf War 1 was the destruction of Iraqi Army units inside Kuwait along with certain units that were just inside the Iraqi border. For Gulf War 2, the objective was Baghdad. There was no front in either war.
Hope this helps.
Dean. |
Yes and no. It's possible, but there are societal and political limiting factors to it. Otherwise (the following is for illustrative purposes only) reinstate the draft, start building Higgins boats, and let's gear up for WWIII!
All kidding aside, Iraq is essentially now fought in and around "hotspots" e.g. roads, major cities, ethnic trouble spots, and it's possible to say that those are in and of themselves fronts. However, a less concrete front would be, for example, the aforementioned societal and political limiting factors to total war I just discussed. Take it all metaphorically.