Winning (and Losing) the First Wired War

Noah Shachtman writes "The Iraq war was launched on a theory: That, with the right networking gear, American armed forces could control a country with a fraction of the troops ordinarily needed. But that equipment never made it down to the front lines, David Axe (just back from his 6th trip to Iraq) and I note in this month's Popular Science. That's a problem, because the insurgents are using throwaway cellphones and anonymous e-mail accounts to stitch together a network of their own."

Comments

The US made the same mistake in Vietnam with the F

[Anonymous Coward]

The US made the same mistake in Vietnam when it deployed the F4 phantom aircraft. They decided that their Sparrow III missiles would dominate the skies and beyond visual range air combat would be the norm. Thus it was decided not to equip the F4 with primitive canons. The Russian MIGs decimated the F4's in dog fights because of this lack of a simple canon. It took 2 years for the F-4 to be equipped with a Canon.

This is what happens when decisions are made by people who never actually face combat.

Re:Polite value-free observation modded Flamebait?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

That's how the Republicans work. The only ones that will admit to being Republican nowadays are hardcore, the true believers. You can be sure that they have a weapon on them somewhere. Oh, and they molest children too.