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How Technology Failed in Iraq
synthespian writes "US troops in Iraq were supposed to have a clear superiority in the battlefield because of sensors and networking devices such as aircraft- and satellite-mounted motion sensors, heat detectors, as well as image and communications eavesdroppers. On April 3, 2003, the task to take over a key Euphrates River bridge about 30 kilometers southwest of Baghdad turned into a bloody hell as 'between 25 and 30 tanks, plus 70 to 80 armored personnel carriers, artillery, and between 5,000 and 10,000 Iraqi soldiers coming from three directions. This mass of firepower and soldiers attacked a U.S. force of 1,000 soldiers supported by just 30 tanks and 14 Bradley fighting vehicles. (...) "'We got nothing until they slammed into us"''(...). Read more about this story and the troubles and challenges the US military is experiencing in networking troops from Technology Review."
Once you become accustomed to what the technology is providing to you, you lose the skills that the technology was either enhancing or replacing. There's no reason, when satellites, sensors, and networks fail, that good old scouts and binocs, pieces of paper and pens can't get this information (Maybe not as readily, but at least some form of smart war-making).
We come back, again, to the difference between intelligence and wisdom. Intelligence is knowing how to fix your external camera feed, wisdom is knowing that you can look out the window.
"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
"US troops in Iraq were supposed to have a clear superiority in the battlefield..." I think the someone's forgetting that we rolled over the entire country in about a week.
It's a simple algorithmic problem. The more advanced warfare becomes, the faster and deadlier it is. Military technology will probably always end up trying to reach the speed it has itself dictated for the battlefield.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Is that when you're fighting guerilla warfare, adding more technology doesn't work. That's the entire point of guerilla warfare, is it makes traditional responses impotent.
I think the problem here isn't that the Technology failed. I think the problem is that the American administration is completely misuing it. The technology the American army is based around is designed for very specific things: long-range strikes and getting a specific job done quickly and completely. The War in Iraq really vindicated this-- the beginning of the war was masterful. The problem was what happened once the "war" ended and the "occupation" began. At this point America started using a bunch of technology designed for one purpose for a purpose it just wasn't any good for-- holding territory. Um, this doesn't work so well. The Bush administration should know this, many of the people in the administration are the same people who campaigned within the defense department for these technologies in the first place. When you start trying to take an army that's equipped and trained to do one thing and then send them to do something totally other, you get situations like the ones described in this article.
A war cannot be fought with nukes until everyone has one; otherwise, it won't be a war with two sides. And when everyone has one, no one side will attempt to use it in battle, because of mutual destruction, or the potential thereof. Thus, they would most likely resort to using conventional weapons.
You forgot the disclaimer: unless the leaders on one side are convinced that the second coming is near and that their faith will save them in the end. But of course, that's just a theory, no sane leader of the free world would be thinking along those lines...
Forget being able to spot 30 tanks and 70 APCs. I'm sure they were well hidden.. ..*cough*..
Amongst all that sand and stuff...
I'm sure many nations would just be happy if they got some Friend or Foe recognition technology. Then maybe they'd stop bombing allied troops.
Aswell.. a device that would show them the difference between the home of a family of 6 and a rebel/freedom-fighter safe house might be handy.
You might find this article interesting
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In the past a bigger bomb or a better gun had clear understandable benefits and results in a war. However in modern times, people seem to have this belief that better technology will result in better results. Aircraft and satellite motion sensors? Gee, wow like thats helpful in a dense urban area like Baghdad when you have to worry about ambushs, which means your opponents are staying still waiting. Heat detectors? Again, useless in a dense area (is that red blob holding 'something' a policeman or an insurgent preparing to launch an ambush?) Eavesdropping gear? Nice, but we're not talking about spying on the Soviet Union anymore, we're talking about trying to spy on Casual Muhammad while he talks to his next door neighbor.
Sometimes the most basic solution is the best one, having men on the ground handing these situations face to face. Having two or three extra billion dollars worth of aircraft in the air won't do you any good when you're too scare to open fire in fear of killing civilians.
Despite my faith in technology, I recognize cutting-edge tech does not operate well in uncontrolled environments. Technology did not fail these soldiers, thier leadership did. Clearly some buzzword spouting contractor dazzled the military leadership, and the military leaders failed to cut through the bullshit.
War is the harshest of all conditions, this has been known for thousands of years. Anything that can go wrong, will. Go back to Sun Tzu. Go back to Militaides. The basic principles of war will not change, regardless of your technology. I dont care it it is recurve bows, steel, cannons, or satellite imagery.
Don't blame technology, blame those who blindly relied on it.
Yes there were, and they failed. The general who was brought out of retirement to run the war game didn't play by the rules. He used guerrilla warfare tactics instead of just engaging with a superiorly armed enemy. He won the first round, after that they scripted the entire thing; giving emails, PowerPoint presentations, and memos daily to show what would happen. To save face the people in charge said it was a demonstration of what the technological effect was, not a real war game.
Loading people up with technology to fight guerrilla warfare is like using touch screens to fix voting problems. The current push in warfare before and after Sept. 11 is to make the Armed forces leaner and meaner. So they do things like load the shit out of the army with tech, make a missile defense system, etc. Hoping it will help them enough in battle they can do with less men.
What happened in Vietnam? What happened during the American Revolution? It was guerilla warfare! "Better" tech. failing to a leaner, meaner, smarter force. Now called "Terrorism."
Why did they rig the tests? Why do they keep pushing an incompetent missile defense system? Because there are no government contracts to be won for fighting real guerilla warfare.
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
Tiger I tank wiped the floor with everything. The Tiger II was heavier, more advanced, broke down even more and they couldn't build them fast enough. Eventually the massively inferior Shermans and T34s won due to sheer numbers, they were cheap and easy to make, as well as reliable.
Then there's the AK47. Just works, desert or jungle. M16?
War's rough on kit. Highly advanced stuff tends to be relatively fragile and takes a lot of manufacture. If I was buying kit for an army, I'd be putting words like robust, standardised/interchangable components, ease of manufacture at the very the top of the list of desirable features.
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Killing people, especially innocent civilians, SHOULD be difficult, if not because your conscience is stopping you, then maybe because the technology has problems, or it's not practical..
Where have you been? Improved technology has allowed a political climate to make killing civilians more difficult.
In ancient times, logistical issues meant armies could raze cities, rob food stores, etc., because they needed to survive. WWII the technology to only hit military targets didn't exist so carpet bombing killing tens of thousands of people was an accepted convention of war. Now a bomb goes awry and kills a half dozen people and the news jumps all over it.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
1. Troop levels. Most of the military observers belive that more troops would have done a better job. Estimates on the ideal number of troops range from 200.000-400.000.
2. Taking Bagdad fast.Yes I know that bypassing some of Saddams forces was intentional. But when they captured Bagdad they stood there with what? A couple thousand soldiers and some tanks/APCs/trucks? And without a plan.. People I have talked to say it took several weeks before troopl levels in Baghdad reached the level they needed to control the central ares in Baghdad.
3. Armor on the 5 ton truck. Non-existant. Say no more. Allready in 1995 Russia discovered that chechnyan "rebells" attacked their underarmed and unarmored supply vehicles with small arms fire and IEDs. This forced the Russians to use up to 60% of their forces for protection/guarding/convoys etc.
4. Armor on APC's and HUMMVEEs. How many of the humvees had some form of armor/extra splinter protection? 15? How long did it take before they started to improve this? 8 months? And what about the M-113; uppgrade program going on for the last ten year and still some without the scheduled armor upgrade?
5. Availability of "bullet-proof" vests. I don't know much about this one. But the litle that I have heard about old flak vests doesn't exactly put the upper managment in a very positive light.
6. Disbanding the Iraqi army. 250.000 young males without a job. Riots in Baghdad.
7. Lack of guarding the Iraqi barracks, storages and weapon sites/dumps. Yes Iraqis do have an extensive weapon culture with AK's, grenades and maybe an RPG stacked under the bed "just in case". But few people store 200 pound bombs in their homes for future IED-use so they must get it from somewhere!
8. Mass-arrests in autumn 2003. Probably prisoning a lot of innocent people. Alienating suporters.
9. Abu Graib torture scandal. A nice mix of contarctors and the CIA. Enough said.
10. Scaling down troop levels in February 2004 and strategy of moving out of many small cities/villages into larger camps.
11. Leaving some areas, effectivly handing them over to the insurgents and making them no go zones.
12. So far, failure to train enough Iraqi troops of high enough quality.
The strange thing is that;
a. To some extent I find it hard to blame the Army/Marines on some of the above mentioned points as no one told them about the need to fight the kind of war they know are fighting.
b. Many of the points are related to non-existant political planning.
c. All the issues are related to #1. Troop levels. With more troops many of them would not have been a problem. So Rumsfeld should resign IMHO.
Yes, I know I'm only some 5 Karma Star Armchair General in front of a PC and it's easy to critize but still...
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
You can't discuss technical failings without considering political and moral problems? You must have been a liberal arts student.
You are certainly welcome to discuss your political views, but it's ridiculous to say that they are inseparable from the technical issues. Here's a little example for you: Let's say that I believe that cars are the cause of moral decay, because they destroy the small-town communities of yesteryear. You don't have to agree -- it's just my personal opinion. Now let's have a discussion about steel.
Since I despise cars, I likewise despise steel; after all, it's the primary ingredient in cars. Next, suppose that steel quality was declining. Certainly this is welcome on the automobile front -- it makes cars more dangerous and expensive, and therefore less useful and common. Unfortunately it also kills people while they sit in their steel-framed office building, or while they ride their bicycle across a steel bridge. But hey, that would be an incomplete technical evaluation -- when you consider the big picture it's not so bad, because automobiles are in decline.
However you feel about the war in Iraq, those feelings would likely not be different if we were fighting them with muzzle-loaded rifles hard doughnuts -- IT'S NOT A TECHNOLOGICAL PROBLEM, AND YOU CAN'T FIX IT BY CHANGING THE TECHNOLOGY. It's been said a thousand times, about a thousand subjects. You can't fix social, moral, ethical, political, spiritual, or any other non-technical issue with technology, or by ignoring technology. Computers will not end world hunger, but they might be used to calculate an optimal planting pattern. Skies will not prevent hypothermia, but they might help you get in from the cold faster. Technology is only a tool; it does not start or end wars.
Maybe the war in Iraq was a terrible idea. You're welcome to feel that way, to tell other about it, and to try to fix it. Refusing to fix military technology seems like a bad plan though. What happens when China decides that they want the oil in Alaska, and they "don't need no stinkin' EPA approval"? When we've meet whatever standard you set for reasonable military action, you'll want the technical issues to be resolved.
Take a look at history, from major conflicts to minor ones. Name me a single conflict, that has had one country defeat and then occupy another for over a year, and taken just 1000 casualties?
Falkland Islands
Grenada
Panama
I study history and nothing comes to mind.
Well then.....
There are many people on Slashdot that just hate Bush, and Americans in general, those people are hopeless useful idiots and they will complete ignore the fact that American and British Planes(The French sent only one plane, that flew rarely if ever), were being shot at daily. That should have been enough to resume hostilities as it was.
We invade Iraqi airspace and you claim it is their fault?
Add to that Mass Graves, the support of terrorists (this is 100% true, you can't deny it), and you have a major wild card out their that you just can't have in a post Sept. 11 world.
Iraq has never supported anti-US terrorism.
Why couldn't we leave Iraq? The containment was working. Iraq wasn't a threat to anyone.
I could go on and on, about the UN oil for weapons... err... food program, but I really don't see the point.
RTFA. Those "weapons" you're talking about sure did a lot, didn't they?
They need to figure out how to better keep intact the lines of communication, but also how to operate more effictively in a disconnected mode
If you'd read page 5 of the article, you'd know that they fought pretty damn well in "disconnected mode". The battle mentioned as being a "bloody hell" in the original post was a bloody hell for the Iraqis, not the Americans. The Americans only had 8 wounded, and none seriously. This despite being almost totally isolated and without real-time information.
There is no substitute for good training and good equipment, and that's what won the battle that day. The danger, and this is how the article concludes, is that the plan is a total change of the structure and equipment of the army in order to take advantage of this new technology, and if the technology then fails, watch out. The Americans succeeded in the battle on that bridge because they had their M-1 tanks that were able to take out vehicle after vehicle while absorbing Iraqi fire - in the new networked army, heavy tanks will play little or no role and the army will really be little more than roving bands of lightly armed and lightly armored guys carrying PDA's.
The idea is if everybody knows where everybody is all the time, there's no need to travel in these long armored columns, there's no need for heavy armor to spearhead a major battle and there's no need for lengthy and vulnerable supply lines. When massive numbers are needed to counteract an enemy force, these smaller units can quickly swarm from all directions to surprise, surround and kill that force, coordinated with air support that's got the same info as the ground units. The problem is, if everybody in such an army doesn't know where everybody else is, then you're back to simply being completely outnumbered by an enemy who's no worse off for real-time info than you are.
This new, networked army is one of those ideas that sounds good on paper (and it's the idea the Republicans have latched onto), but will probably never really work in practice - every war is different, and every layer of technology you add is simply one more thing with the potential to break. Technology will continue to play a major role in the future, and new weapons will continue to be developed - time marches forward, not backward. But in the end, when you're talking killing somebody or destroying a vehicle in a straight fight, the guy with the bigger gun, the thicker armor and the better training is the guy who's going to win. And the advantages of networking are really limited when you're talking about insurgencies, when you've got basically civilians just leaving explosive devices on the side of the road to get run over by the next passing Humvee, or guys who open fire from an otherwise nondescript house or building.
I think the Iraq war will temper some of the rush in transforming the army, because the only thing that saved us in Iraq was the fact that we were fighting such a poorly trained and poorly equipped force. If we start downgrading our reliable weapons and armor in favor of unreliable technology, we're going to be in a heap of trouble. I think the way things are going now with the insurgency basically prove that we need more guys than we have at the moment, not less, and this article basically proves that we won the war initially despite the technology, not because of it.
Yeah. What if all those kids just walked into town, let their beards grow a little, took their weapons off, and just hung out with the locals, instead of treating them like "The Enemy" (tm)?
.. yet.
I'll tell you: the war would be over. Iraqi's would get to know Americans. Americans would get to know Iraqi's.
Right now, the war is perpetuated by the thin layer that exists between Iraqi and America (uniform, weapon, ammo, base camp). Get rid of that layer, and you'll have no more war.
Human contact is highly effective at finishing war. Imagine if those cruise missiles were delivering water pump parts to Darfur, instead?
And, before the hard-ass warmongers come down on me as a 'non-realist', and try to remind me that if you throw away your weapons, you're setting yourself up for a headshot, let me just say that its a damned good thing that your type haven't figured out how to weaponize human relationships
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
For example: it has been estimated that several thousand civilians died in the first few days of the war (http://www.iraqbodycount.net/). You would think that this was a major tragedy and worth talking about. What was reported? Little. Where were the pictures of the effects of the war, the analysis?
Both NBCs Dan Rather http://www.guardian.co.uk/bush/story/0,7369,717097 ,00.html
and NPR's Morning Edition host Bob Edwards http://www.mrc.org/cyberalerts/2003/cyb20030423.as p#3
have questioned the propaganda
that they (the media) delivered to us. Dan Rather called it "patriotism run amok" and said that it was in danger of trampling freedom of the press.
Another example: why did the woman who photographed soldier's coffins returning lose her job? Because the war news is being controlled by spin doctors, not being reported in the sense that you and I think of reporting.
and in a democracy citizens are supposed to judge how how well run the country is (which includes how well run its military actions are) and vote accordingly.
Name me a single conflict, that has had one country defeat and then occupy another for over a year, and taken just 1000 casualties?
Occupation of Uganda by Tanzania in the 1970's comes instantly to mind. Also German occupation of Denmark in WWII, (and possibly Norway if you ignore outside raids). British occupation of Egypt. Numerious other examples.
I study history and nothing comes to mind.
This would be the Janet and John Children's History of America?
There are many people on Slashdot that just hate Bush, and Americans in general,
Seems to be an awful lot of Americans that hate Bush too. Generally the intelligent and non-xenophopic ones.
Add to that Mass Graves, the support of terrorists (this is 100% true, you can't deny it)
Which support for terrorists? There was NO connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Quite the reverse as Ba'athism and Islamic Fundementalism don't mix - as you'd know if you'd ever read any Islamic history.
and you have a major wild card out
Iraq was quite nicely contained. Now you're just cutting heads off the Hydra
You Europeans just keep on electing your little Socialist "take care of me cradle to grave" governments
At least we have a civilized attitude to public health (see previous slashdot article) as opposed to the positively barbaric american system. A civilization should be viewed by how it treats it's most vunerable members, on which basis America is a complete and utter failure.
point to the US and complain how we are the cause of every problem in history of the world and we will sit over here on the other side of the pond and kindly ignore you.
Oh, if only you would sit on your side of the pond and ignore everyone else, instead of sticking your big fat uneducated noses into every world situation and making it worse becuase you don't understand history or diplomacy. Vietnam, Chile, Columbia, San-Salvador - the list is endless.
is that Bush had a plan to get out of Viet Nam.
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
"To say that someone who is anti-war is not supporting the troops is like saying people who are anti-crime aren't supporting the work of prision guards. People do recognize the necessity of their work, but you also hope for a world where their services aren't needed, and when they are needed, you certainly don't send them out to die because of some preconceived notion that it's their job to die."
Sending solders to war and your quote are different. Think it as following. There are hostages in a warehouse filled many thugs and such. So, the police send in the SWAT team to remove the bad guys, but while doing so people are yelling that that it was wrong to send in the SWAT team in the first place.
What your quote is about is having a military force to begin with. You may be anti-war, but agree to needing a military while hoping it is never needed. Having a military and using it is a different concept.
Also, it is not the "preconceived notion" that solders can be sent of to die. But being in the military, I know it is my job to fight war. Also, you must understand that while people are protesting the war, that gives the people we are fighting hope to stick it out longer. The longer they stick out, the more of my buddies they blow holes into.
It may seem that there is no problem with openly having angst to an armed conflict, but the people who are in Iraq at this moment, bad comments, although indirect to you, affect then directly.
If America was really pro-war, the troops would get more equipment, and our enemy's moral would break sooner. I am not saying that you should not be able to talk against the war, but the sad truth is when an insurgent reads on the internet that half of America hates the war and political parties want to just "up and leave", well that gives him the hope to shoot another few people in camouflage, and abduct a few more reporters because if it lasts long enough, America might just "up and leave" just like Vietnam.
This is not a clear cut world, and this is certainty not a clear cut issue. What everyone says effects this conflict as a whole, and the people in Iraq (the troops, and the people who want the insurgents to give up) are the ones who feel it the most.
Where have you been? Improved technology has allowed a political climate to make killing civilians more difficult.
You might need to ask yourself the same question.
About 50% of those who died in WW2 were civilian, up from 10% in WW1. In the US invasion of Panama in 1989 about 13 civilians were killed for every military death.
Iraq's ratio of civilian to miltary fatalities is currently running at about 33 to 1, and there is no reason to think that trend will not continue.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
""Can you say that the world is better with Saddam in power?""
Objectively speaking you can definately say that the world was a better place with Saddam in power. Just in the last month there have been bombings in France, Egypt, indonesia, israel, palestine, and of course all over Iraq. That's just in one month. Since the start of the war (when saddam left power) there have been devestating bombings all over the world. remember Bali, Spain, and the hotel bombing in kenya.
The world is much worse off since Saddam has been removed from power no matter how you measure it.
evil is as evil does
Also, you must understand that while people are protesting the war, that gives the people we are fighting hope to stick it out longer. The longer they stick out, the more of my buddies they blow holes into. [...] but the sad truth is when an insurgent reads on the internet that half of America hates the war and political parties want to just "up and leave", well that gives him the hope to shoot another few people in camouflage"
To the resistance in Iraq, does it really matter if they know that the American in public in general is "pro-war", "anti-war" or undecided? A U.S.-led force invaded their country, occupied it, killed many of their buddies and family, broke normality and turned their reality into chaos. It doesn't matter whether the resitance has some kind of "right" to fight back or not, or if they were or are "pro-Saddam" or "pro-dictatorship" or muslim or christians or agnostics or whatever. If we think about it, wouldn't they fight back with whatever means necessary for as long as they can, just as you would? It is simply not possible to 'break' the moral of resistance like that psychologically, which has been proved over and over again. The Romans did not succed anywhere. The crusades did not succeed in Jerusalem. Israel has not succeded doing just this in Gaza. Germany did not succeed anywhere in World War II. We might ask ourselves this a retorical question: If the situation would be reversed; if a technologically superior force invaded and occupied the country we live in and enforced the same type of government that exist in Iraq today, wouldn't you try to fight back until the enemy was gone, no matter what?