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War: What Can Technology Do For Us?
Both the first Bush and the Clinton administrations, from Desert Storm to Kosovo, advanced the idea of conflict with little civilian loss and few casualties of our own. But thousands of American civilians are already dead in this conflict, greater civilian losses than in any war in U.S. history. Still, the military analysts, network pundits and Pentagon officials are going to great lengths to point out that Taliban and fundamentalist fighters are skilled and determined, that this conflict will be long and difficult, that our expectations should be kept realistic. And bin Laden is a surprisingly agile enemy. He not only grasps America's most vulnerable points, he understands "spinning," using video-imagery and satellite transmission to get his side of the story out. This is something Saddam never began to grasp.
But are our expectations realistic? Are we once again overrating our own technology, and underestimating less sophisticated cultures and populations? Most Americans have been prepared for years to place enormous faith in a range of new technologies that are supposed to make us the most powerful military force in world history. Sophisticated technologies devastated the Iraqi military in Desert Storm. While their results were more controversial in the Kosovo action, there remained little American loss of life. The bloody action in Somolia showed us yet again that technology is not effective if it can't be used for political or military reasons. And Panama and Grenada resembled police actions more than military conflicts.
In this new war, though, it seems clear that American forces will be involved in some sort of ground fighting on Afghanistan's murderous terrain, and that would mean a battle more reminiscent of Vietnam than Kuwait.
What can technology do for us? Can GPS targeting systems really place bombs that accurately? Can intelligence analysts in the U.S. instantly track raw data without leaving their offices? Can civilian populations really be protected? Can thermal imaging and satellite surveillance see into caves or track small units in mountainous terrains? Can government computers follow money around the world? Will our soldiers' tech-equipped vehicles, equipment and weapons give them an edge over the the Russians, who were chewed to bits in their conflict with Afghanistan guerrillas, but whose equipment was comparatively primitive? Have we actually developed a new mix of tech-supported human and machine warfare that is deadly, flexible and effective?
From reading the papers and watching the generals on TV, we see confidence from the military that the answers to most of these questions is yes. But the people reading this have a much better than average grasp of these tech issues. Do you agree? What can tech do for us -- or not do -- in this supposedly new era?
This war will be neither. I'll wage that small teams of highly trained commando's will be used instead of large forces like in 'nam. America can and will not be trapped in another situation like that.
Besides.. this time they are after a terrorist and it's hosts not an entire country. And of course... it will not be the US alone. Don't forget that allmost half the entire world is standing behind the US. Off course.. if it takes too long support will weaken with the day...
In the end nothing will have changed though. Bin Laden will just be replaced by someone smarter. Smarter because he knows what he can expect. More intelligent because he will probably use more sophisticated means, not nescesarily technologically sophisticated but sophisticated nonetheless.
All our technology in spite we will never be able to root out all terrorism. Whatever kind of goggles we use...
Our mighty technological superiority over Iraq was useful until we beat them down till we had no more targets large enough to justify using half million dollar missles on. At that point, you send in the ground troops, and incur casualties. Afghanistan is already at the point where ground troops are necessary, so our tech doesn't give that big of a percentage advantage. Look for 20 to 1 kill ratios (U.S. to Osama) when the fighting gets up close and personal, rather than the zero casualties we are used to.
There are 01 kinds of cars in the world. The General Lee, and everything else.
Hahahahaha! I love seeing the naive getting called on their bullshit. While the death of UN aid workers is a tragedy, there is no such thing as a war without civilian casualties.
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Before you start criticizing individual acts within a war, look at the big picture first. What would cost more? Action or inaction?
And for those of you who believe that Osama is a reasonable man, please go over to FAS.org and read this:
http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/980223-f
...you just go ahead and try reasoning with this asshole. Those are his words, read them well. He is not a resonable man, and his ideals are not compatible with the existance of any other type of civilization.
I know, I know, it's just Katz rabble-rousing and I should lower my expectations, but what is the basis for this statement:
"Most Americans are convinced that technology -- GPS targeting systems, thermal imaging, new intelligence retrieval systems, pilotless drone reconnaisance aircraft, high-altitude bombers, special forces equipped with goggles than can see into caves -- will carry the day for us. Will it? What can technology really do for us in this new war?"
Everything I have read, viewed or heard in the media, every poll I have seen, and every live human I have spoken with in the weeks since September 11 supports precisely the opposite proposition - the general public DOES NOT BELIEVE that technology gives the US/Allies the advantage in this war; it will be won, if at all, by traditional human intelligence, gritty casualty-producing ground combat, determination, and patience. And I don't hear anyone underestimating the low-tech Afghan mujahedeen.
Where are the "most Americans" who believe this is a magic tech silver bullet war? I don't see or hear them anywhere.
No, no, no. This is not a sig.
/.
When we built all these fancy weapons, I thought they'd be used in a reasonably fair fight - that is, we'd send the tomahawks against the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics when they delivered their promised global revolution.
I didn't write all that code so that we could use it to kick over some mud huts in a stone-age nation bent on recreating a 16th century theocracy.
Granted, our jingoistic, bloodthirsty, home-grown perpetrators of atrocities are going after people of similar moral virtue, so at least we aren't knocking off Lapps, Tuvans or Bushmen... but I'd still like to see a fair fight. Let Bush and all his hawk buddies go fight a ground war, like the one he dodged in Viet Nam. I'll be happier about funding that, especially if we can use all-volunteer armies and ban all weapons more sophisticated than a bow and arrow.
Why can't all these warmongering bastards sate their bloodlust without bringing my nice clean superweapons into their dirty little terrorist tit-for-tat?
--Charlie
In practiced Pentagonese, Rumsfeld deftly avoided answering the question of whether the use of tactical nuclear weapons could be ruled out.
Though large "theater" thermonuclear devices -- doomsday bombs -- don't fit the Bush administration's war on terrorism, smaller tactical nukes do not seem out of the question in the current mindset of the Defense Department.
The most likely candidate is a tactical micro-nuke called the B61-11, an earth-penetrating nuclear device known as the "bunker buster." The B61-11 was designed to destroy underground military facilities such as command bunkers, ballistic missile silos and facilities for producing and storing weapons. However, it could be used against the warren of tunnels and caves carved under the Afghan mountains that are often cited as a potential refuge for the U.S. government's prime suspect, Osama bin Laden. The B61-11's unique earth-penetrating characteristics and wide range of yields allow it to threaten deeply situated and otherwise indestructible underground targets from the air.
The 1,200-pound B61-11 replaces the 8,900-pound, nine-megaton B53 device, a bomb initially designated as an earth-penetrating weapon. The B53 is deliverable only by enormous and vulnerable B-52 bombers. By contrast, the relatively diminutive B61-11 can be delivered by the stealthier B-2 bomber, or even by conventional fighters such as the F-16.
The B61-11 is designed to burrow through layers of concrete by way of a "shock-coupling effect." The design directs the force of the B61-11's explosive energy downward, destroying everything buried beneath it to a depth of several hundred meters, according to a story in the March 2, 1997 issue of Defense News.
The B53, on the other hand, with a force equal to 9 million tons of TNT, penetrates the earth simply by creating a massive crater, rather than the more precise downward blow of the B61-11.
The B61-11 is the most recent nuclear device added to the U.S. nuclear arsenal since 1989. It was developed and deployed secretly, according to a story from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The U.S. military sneaked it past test and development treaties, as well as public and congressional debate, by defining the B61-11 as an adaptation of a pre-treaty technology rather than a new development. Depending on the yield of the bomb, the B61-11 can produce explosions ranging from 300 tons of TNT to more than 300,000 tons. This is significantly less than the B53, but still far larger than even the greatest conventional non-nuclear device in U.S. stockpiles. And it is several times more powerful than the atomic weapons dropped on Japan in 1945.
Studies by the Natural Resource Defense Council estimate that more than 150 B61-11s are currently in the U.S. arsenals, scattered among NATO aircraft carriers and planes on bases in Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Turkey, Belgium, Netherlands and Greece. Many B61-11s were withdrawn from Europe during the '90s and are now stored at Kirtland and Nellis Air Force bases in the United States.
According to a desk release from the U.S. Air Force's Public Affairs office, tests of the earth-penetrating capabilities of the B61-11 were completed on March 17, 1998, in frozen tundra at the Stuart Creek Impact Area, 35 miles southeast of Fairbanks, Alaska. Two unarmed B61-11s were dropped to test their ground-penetration capability. The tests were designed to measure the nuclear bomb casing's penetration into frozen soil and the survivability of the weapon's internal components.
A team excavated the two unexploded dummy bombs and took careful measurements of their angles and depth of penetration into the soil, which were 6 and 10 feet, according to the Air Force. The shells were sent back to Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico for full analysis of how the simulated internal components fared in the impact. The B6-11's casing didn't rupture in any of the tests, including drops through concrete from 40,000 feet. All bomb casings were recovered 100 percent intact, according to the release.
Any debate inside the corridors of power about using tactical nukes will be heightened by the intelligence buzz surrounding bin Laden's possible ownership of Russian nuclear "suitcase" bombs purchased from Chechen mafia. Those weapons are said to be hidden in deep caves and fortified tunnels in remote regions of Afghanistan. Following the Sept. 11 attacks, the discussion of ways to eradicate this potential nuclear threat -- while simultaneously destroying bin Laden and his teams --- may have led to talk about tactical weapons that can destroy even heavily fortified underground shelters.
Probably the closest comparisons to prior conflicts can be made with the Indian Wars. During these conflicts between the US settlers and the Native Americans it is difficult to separate out the civilian casualties since much of the fighting was done by militias, etc. It should be possible to estimate civilians casualties for both sides in the Indian Wars by only counting women and children, and I would guess that the totals would be more than 6,000.
Of course the fact still remains that the number of civilian casualties that we've inflicted were much higher than those inflicted on us in the major wars of the 20th century. This is mostly a result of the fact that those wars weren't fought on American soil, but it bears consideration when trying to put the current conflict into historical context.
And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.
Berke Breathed
You know, If I were US intelligence I'd be watching the Kabul Al Jazeera office, personel, and visitors with everything we've got. It seems to me the easiest way to find bin Laden is to wait for him to send a message and then follow the courier(s)/mail trail/evidence analysis straight back to him.
The thing no one seems to mention is that every system has strengths and weaknesses, including the shadowy al quaeda. They may go to great lengths to keep their actions secret, but by the same token their communications are slow, infrequent, physical in nature, and (most importantly) difficult to authenticate, and even more difficult to organize. An opening in the network, restrained tracking and mapping of the network, and a tightly coordinated disinformation campaign could tear it completely apart. And that's just for starters.
One thing I noticed from the bin Laden video - he's just like Saddam Hussein or any other would-be dictator, using war to expand and consolidate his influence with himself on top. He's doing a credible job, although I think the media is overly-surprised at his control of spin - this is a man whose main purpose is recruitment. But the bigger he gets, the harder he'll fall, and his inaccessibility will ultimately be his undoing because he'll have no way to defend himself. He can easily be trapped and caught and/or badly discredited, with no way to defend himself, and in the process all the followers he's developed can be humiliated and shamed.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Thanks for saying this. Half the time I watch the news, my roommate wonders why the hell I blurt out a "Shut the fuck UP!" every hour or so. (Side note - not all reporters are idiots; mad props to one reporter who, when questioned as to his whereabouts by his anchorman, replied with "Y'know, I think they said it was OK to tell you where I am, but I'm going to err on the side of caution for now. I'll tell you tomorrow.")
To Slashdotters reading this - you can help.
Do not post reports of military activity in your area. If you see lots of planes taking off from an airbase, or lots of planes landing, or lots of trucks moving about, or anything that might indicate our future plans, keep your mouth shut about it for a day or so before telling folks what you saw. Don't post names of people you know are on duty or being called up. Don't post unit numbers.
Exceptions can be made for breaking news, such as yesterday's intercept over Chicago, where our forces wouldn't be jeopardized. But I'm sure that anyone, with a moment's thought, can see the difference between "Holy shit, sonic booms over Chicago!" and "I wonder where all those planes and ships are going?"
Loose lips sink ships.
Please begin thinking for yourself. I am tired of sophmoric pseudo-intellects regurgitating silly rhetoric heard by callers on NPR.
Why does Bin Laden have the right to tell America to leave the Islamic holy lands? Does he own all of it? Is he the elected representative of ALL the people? Does he even have the best interest of all the people in mind?
We have been asked to stay in the Holy Land by the governments of those areas. Granted, not all of these governments are democratically elected, but Bin Laden is not even "unfairly elected". He is nothing. He has no more right to tell the Saudis that they must ask the US to leave their land than he has to tell you to wipe your ass with a cactus.
We are protecting Kuwait. Iraq invaded them once, and would do it again if possible. We are assisting the Saudis (they're next after Kuwait, look at a map). Iraq still has a war machine hell bent on owning the entire peninsula.
Bin Laden does not care about the people of the Islamic world any more than Hitler cared about the Gypsies and Jews.
If he did, he would have worked to stop the war in Afghanistan - he has been living there for the past 8 years!
Bin Laden is a murderer. He defiles a beautiful religion. He wants to own the Arab world, and remake it in his image. He will murder whoever he can in order to accomplish this. He must be stopped. Our world does not need another (and another, and another) holocaust. There are already too many.
The secret masonic mind-control satellites are now controlled by the Boy Sprouts, which in turn are controlled by the Fred Birch Society which in turn are controlled by the Fnord Motor Company.
Don't forget your aluminum foil hat.
On a more serious note, suicidal fanaticism is not new in the world. No doubt technology has increased the potential damage such a person could do, but what happened on 11 September could have happened last year, or 1980 or even 1950 (with a different target, natch), but it didn't.
I guess the question I don't have an answer to is why now? The attack on September 11 was ostensibly in retaliation for U.S. support for Israel. Well, the U.S. has supported Israel since its inception.
No doubt the attack was planned for years, but why now? Is it because of George Dubya? It is because they finally _could_ pull it off, and would have done it years ago if they could?
There have been wackos in the Middle East spouting against the U.S. for years. Saddam promised us the "Mother of All Wars" and delivered a turkey shoot where his forces were surrendering to camera crews. Kaddafy got spanked by Reagan and we don't hear too much about him anymore.
Is there something fundamentally different or better (i.e., more effective) about bin Laden and his bunch or will they fade into obscurity once they get the good ol' Yankee smackdown. I mean how many people really want to throw their lives away just to make an irrational point, that they know won't change anything for them, just make a lot of other people miserable.
I guess we will find out.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Brainwashing is nothing new and can be really effective in the current war...
In fact, the US is already doing this in the name of "humanitarian aid" and "food dropping".
What I don't understand, is why they haven't dropped booklets in ARABICS as well.
Printing in English on the food packs is as stupid a move as you can make. With their literacy level how are they going to understand English?
One thing it looks like many people forget about is technology's role in the new world of Predictive Intelligence, something that only exists in it's infancy now, but has vast potential for this new kind of war.
A few years ago, I was working at a dot-com on some really fascinating "intelligent" software. It would pull out abstract information from unrelated data and form n-dimensional "clouds" where related entities would become grouped toegther. It would then proceede to "find faces" in the clouds. In other words, it would try to extrapolate out new information based on what information it was given, no matter how much or how little.
It was a simply amazing tool for data analysis, for pulling out the relevant information from a sea of data, for making educated guesses that actually give you results... But like all dot-coms, we frittered our money away and now I don't know if more than three people in the world even have copies of this once multi-million dollar software.
My point is, if we as a no-nothing dot-com can come up with a really fantastic data mining/information extrapolation engine (of course, we used it solely for short-sighted evil-marketing purposes, thus our demise), then the government could certianly be able to build a system fifty times as complex, and use it for vastly more important purposes than correlating CDs with clothing purchases.
The next step for military technology isn't going to be the next biggest bomb or the pair of night-vision goggles that will let you do macramé in a cave during a new moon. Instead the next advance will be predictive and learning software that can make "good guesses" as to when and where the enemy will strike next. It will be able to profile everyone in the world based on thier credit-card purchases corelated with thier taste in web-sites, thier shoe size, and how many hours of bowling they watch a year, and be able to spot the "sleeper" terrorists with a 99.982% degree of accuracy. It will be able to analyse battlefield data and predict troop movement, ambushes, and caculate the plan of action that would lead to the biggest victory with the smallest loss of life.
Don't get me wrong, though, high-tech gadgetry will play a role in the war, of course, but to delude ourselves into thinking that all we need is Rambo and night vision will just lead us straight back into Vietnam, or if you're a Russian, Afganistan...
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"