War by machine may be effective in the desert, but close to population centers this is an old-fashioned war of unpredictability and confusion, of ambushes, of plainclothes fighters and of luckless civilians hit by shrapnel. Military historians like Potsdam University’s Bernhard Kroener warned before the war began that it might be all but impossible for UK/US forces to take Baghdad if the populace was hostile or indifferent.

The online magazine Telepolis quoted him as saying the Iraqis might follow the ideas of Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong, who advised guerrillas to sustain themselves within the civilian population like fish in the sea.

Professor Kroener stressed in an interview this week that so-called partisan warfare, as seen in the Vietnam War, may well play a key role in Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s defense plans, but that German scholars do not make forecasts based on past wars.

“Elements in this war are familiar from other wars, but the elements always re-combine in new ways in each war,” said Kroener. “We say every military event arises from impulses of its own,” he explained.

Field Marshall Helmuth von Moltke, the 19th century theoretician, recognized that with the dictum: “No plan survives its first contact with the enemy.” “The Americans had a very technocratic vision of this war, but a war is a political and social conflict that is fought on the ground,” said an arms-control researcher who declined to be identified. “Unlike the First Gulf War, this one cannot be waged from the air, but can only be won in ground combat,” he added.

Analysts perceive the current fighting as “asymmetric”, a term for a war where the state that considers itself disadvantaged seeks alternative methods to make up for the imbalance.

One such way, Kroener noted, was to mount pinprick attacks on the invaders instead of confronting them directly.

By highlighting even a few US casualties, Saddam could present himself to potential sympathizers as a plucky David against a US Goliath, and encourage anti-war sentiment within the United States, another scholar commented.

Most German news commentators believe the US advantage is greatly reduced as the Americans advance into the Iraqi capital, because the Americans risk a world outcry if they bomb defending forces holed up in residential buildings. “The US technical superiority in the open is practically 100 percent,” said the arms specialist. “The cycle from aerial reconnaissance to action used to take about six hours. Talk of ‘real time’ information is exaggerated, but the delay is now very short.”