Christopher Bellamy: 'A war like none before' is turning out to be all too familiar

"A war like none before," we were told. But by yesterday, the tactics of the latest, 13-day-old Gulf War were looking pretty familiar. "Sieges". "Blockade". "Bite-and-hold" tactics. And that stubborn reality of war which has had such a bad press: "attrition".

The British forces around Basra have been tightening their grip on Iraq's second city of more than a million people like a constricting snake. They are using the time-honoured method of "bite and hold": seizing a small area of ground, ensuring the forward edge is secure, and clearing it.

Images likening combat to eating were popular during the First World War. In this way the British have been working in from the south-east and north-west. But this cautious tactic is being combined with daring raids into the centre of the city, to destroy or capture Baath party and militia headquarters.

The latter are as much psychological warfare as physical. First World War tacticians bit and held because no other way was open to them: you had to chew through the flesh of the enemy to reach whatever lay behind. With modern intelligence, surveillance, and target acquisition and air control you can simultaneously strike at enemy headquarters and senior people, and scare them rigid. The tactics being used in Basra are thus an intriguing hybrid of the old and the very new.

The British appear to be leaving the pro-Saddam elements in Basra a way out – an ancient device: the "golden bridge". An isolated enemy with no prospect of escape will fight until he runs out of ammunition, but leave him a way out and the temptation to run to fight another day can be overwhelming.

It is hard to avoid likening the strangulation of Basra to a siege or blockade. But the Allied commanders do not want it to become a full-scale siege, in which a surrounded enemy gives up because of starvation. The Iraqi strategy is clearly to draw US and British forces into costly fighting in their towns and cities. The US and British are sensibly trying to avoid this, and encouraging the Iraqis, as best they can, to move into open country where they can be dealt with more easily.

As US forces edge closer to Baghdad, the Iraqi Information Minister said yesterday his army was holding the Allied forces and inflicting attrition. Attrition has become a bit of a dirty word in Western staff colleges, where the "manoeuvrist approach" is now the mantra. Steady on, though. The race for Baghdad by the 3rd US Infantry Division (Mechanised), was indeed a classic piece of "manoeuvre", but not enough force was used to overwhelm, shock and awe the Iraqis. Now they are waiting for reinforcement. In the interim, attrition – inflicting casualties and inducing fear – comes to the fore again.

In terms of losses on each side, the US and British are clearly winning the battle of attrition. But in terms of what each side is prepared to put up with, they may not be. Manoeuvre is only of value when it enables you to inflict more -attrition – actually or potentially. Conversely, attrition may be needed to initiate or restart manoeuvre. And Iraq's use of suicide bombers has badly dislocated Allied plans to mix with the population and win hearts and minds. Attacking the heart of the Allied strategy in this way is "manoeuvrist". But it has been achieved by high-explosive attrition, and the constant threat of more.

In the north of Iraq the US strategy closely replicates that used in Afghanistan. Local forces – the Kurdish PUK – are stiffened by US special forces and paratroops, so far, and US air power. In the past 24 hours the forces in this new "northern alliance" have advanced about 10 miles towards Kirkuk. Here we see a combination of local forces and US high technology – the "direct" and "indirect" approaches combined.

In the south, the plan was for a classic, symmetric war – army on army, air force on air force. The Iraqis, sensibly, chose not to play, and introduced asymmetric elements: guerrillas and francs-tireurs popping up behind the forward Allied troops, attacks on communications, and the extreme tactic of suicide bombing.

The British, with their long experience of imperial policing and Northern Ireland, are used to dealing with local people, whereas the American forces rarely like mixing with their hosts and are paranoid about "force protection". Not so long ago, Condoleezza Rice sneered that the 82nd Airborne would not be escorting kids to high school, reflecting the still-prevalent view in the US that "peacekeeping is for wimps".

They are also, it must be said, less disciplined than their British allies. That may account for the seven women and children and the unarmed male civilian whose deaths at US hands have been reported.

In this conflict, "conventional" and "guerrilla", "fighting" and "peace support operations" are combining. It is indeed, "one hell of a war".

Christopher Bellamy is professor of military science and doctrine at Cranfield University